IX. The Apple Fell Very Far From The Tree

IX. The Apple Fell Very Far From The Tree

Lilith stood over Samael with one hand on her hip and the other twirling a long strand of her auburn hair while the rest was tossed wildly in the wind. She watched as Samael scooted himself away quickly across the pavement and further into the street, his face revealing his disbelief and horror.

Lilith laughed deeply in her sultry voice, My my….look what the cat dragged in.”

Lilith turned to look at her daughter standing and glowing brightly in the dark with a less than friendly posture. She took her attention away from Samael and looked her daughter over then gave another hearty laugh.

“My dear…Ina….or what is it you’re going by these days? Rhayna Mae Hemm? Lord. What are you, some dead head emo wanna be now?” Lilith spoke over her shoulder towards Samael. “A mother’s love can only do so much. I mean, you do your best to raise them and look what happens.”

Lilith raised her hand in a gesture towards her daughter then slapped the side of her thigh shaking her head no, “They go off, get religion, and shack up with the first long haired hippie they come across.”

She stalked slowly towards Russ, her hips swaying in her shiny skin tight red pants, as he remained kneeling on the ground covering his ears with his hands. Lilith whispered to the half-naked man mumbling to himself, shivering under the strength of the wind, and the disembodied voices moving around him.

“Hey…” She whispered over his shoulder. “Hey kid…you know…talking to yourself is bad but answering to the voices, well now that’s just certifiable.”

“Make it stop!” Russ screamed.

Inanna moved in a blur across the street to stand in front of Russ, warding off her mother with her posture.

“Really sweet pea, you could do a lot better. He’s still a baby for Pete’s sake and we all know Peter don’t give a shit.”

“Be damned Lilith and go back to your husband’s house!” Inanna yelled at her mother.

“You would talk to your own mother like that? You weak little clone!”

Russ sat on his knees bending over gripping his head, screaming as the voices swam in the air around him. He opened his eyes to see dark shapes moving in and out of his field of vision – some big, some small but all dark. They smelled wrong and even the outlines of their globule mass shaped bodies seemed off and surreal. A million voices whispered Russ’ name and beckoned him to look, to see, to feel, and to come with them. He shook his head back and forth forcefully to keep the closest voices away from the proximity of his ears. It was almost as if he could feel their cold and putrid breath at the nape of his neck and inner ear.

Russ looked into the darkest dark of the mass of shadows. Something was there. A pale figure in what appeared to Russ was wearing a white tailored suit. The figure was blinking in and out of view. He focused his sight on the figure within the cyclone of shadows. The pale gentleman stood with his left arm across the mid-section of his body and right hand loosely cupping his chin in thought. His long black wavy hair was pulled back off his shoulders and draped down his back. The pristine white leather of his tasseled loafers gleamed against the dark pavement. His green eyes set in his softened and angelic face bore into Russ’ soul. His face gave the appearance of innocence and contemplation but the darkened flesh surrounding his bright eyes spoke of malevolence and too much time lived.

They regarded each other silently. Russ found himself concentrating more on this strange figure of a man than the chaos swirling around him. He noticed the figure looking over his shoulder towards the woman he knew as Rhayna then back at him. The man dressed in white took one step closer and looked down on Russ’ hunched over body. Russ opened his eyes a little wider while staring at him then closed them quickly. The angelic face, in a brief flash, became something monstrous, full of spikes, and scaly flesh with too many teeth. The image of a skull flashed quickly after that of the monster, then went back to the angel’s face. The man in white quickly stepped back with his mouth slightly agape in shock then disappeared into the swirling black mass of Lilith’s children.

Russ turned to look at Samael lying on the ground with Lilith standing over him. He then looked over at the woman he knew as Rhayna standing and peering into the swirling dark. He wondered if she could see what he was seeing. His eyes trailed up and down the beautiful creature’s body. He could now see what was hidden within her. He could see the same great tree that had been stamped on to the surface of his eyes inside of her with its golden leaves falling to the ground within an autumnal garden. He looked at Lilith and saw a great wet black monstrous beast with tentacles covered with teeth and spikes, like something he’d read of before in one of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. He shook as goose bumps overtook his skin but he forced him-self to keep looking. Beyond the nightmare that she appeared to be in his eyes, he saw a place smoke filled and in the grip of a dust storm with fire raining from the sky onto a burned out landscape with the ruins of a great tower in the distance within her. He allowed his mind to process what he had seen before focusing himself to look on The Angel of Death.

He turned his head and gazed at Samael, his eyes were led away to his overcoat that lay in the street. He saw small points of light floating inside the lining of the trench coat. When the small points of light made it to the surface of the dark fabric he could see the faces of the Departed with clarity. He looked back to Samael and saw the angel’s body incomplete of body parts, crushed and marred as if he’d been chewed on. Russ blinked quickly, shook his head then took another look at Samael. He was once again the full and whole representation of a man with large wings tucked beneath him.

Russ dropped is head. A voice like the one he’d heard in the ditch filled his mind. The voice was telling him to do something…say something. He felt his lips moving as he mouthed a series of words that flooded his mind. He whispered quietly to himself then aloud. Vade in pace. The voices swirling around him in the dark subsided and the stench that filled the air ceased to be. He lifted himself off the pavement then went to stand by Inanna’s side. Inanna gave a look all around – it had become less noisy to her ears and she had noticed the apparition that she saw amassed in the black cloud was also gone. She looked at Russ with a tiredness she felt throughout her entire being then returned her attention to Lilith. Russ stretched and lifted his shoulders to straighten his back as he stood glaring at Lilith. He spoke with a voice free of pain, confusion and torment.

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself and take him with you.”

Lilith gave a fake gasp. “Now, now. Junior, you know how Big Daddy feels about things of that nature. Respect your elders. Masturbate and an angel loses his wings, puppies die, and kittens go blind…yadda, yadda, yadda. Respect me and I may not kill you today.”

“Touch him and I’ll rip your head off.” Inanna snarled as she arched her fingers baring her long nails. Lilith looked to Samael, who watched the whole exchange quietly and awaited the opportunity to take one or all three of them out.

“See what happens when they’re out in the world without any parental guidance – they grow up with mommy issues.”

“You’ve no right to address me demon. I will smite you in the name of Our Father and rid the world of your wretched presence, Whore of Babylon!”

Lilith mocked his tone, slinging her full head of hair back and forth. “I’m gonna smite you…” She moved closer to Samael and made her way to close the gap between them. “I welcome you to try, you worthless sack of…”

“Why are you here Lilith?” Inanna yelled cutting off the issuance of her threat. Her patience for the moment and her mother had grown as thin as the air moving around them.

“Divine intervention? Family Reunion…or how about the PTA had a meeting and I was the keynote speaker? I’m so Harper Valley.”

“Why!” Inanna demanded. She knew her mother’s presence there was wrong and didn’t fit. Every fiber of her being told her that Lilith was up to no good.

“Well sweetheart the way I see it…” Lilith said as she removed her red leather jacket and tossed it to the ground. She stood with her back to Inanna and trained her eyes on Samael’s form, raising her finger and thumb to make a gun pointing at The Angel of Death. “This fucker is behind on child support. You know Death you are one dead beat son of a bitch and I’ve come to collect in any way I can.”

Russ gave Inanna a look of pity, as if apologizing with his eyes for the hell she must have experienced as a child then gave his attention back to Lilith.

“You are one sick and twisted motherfucker aren’t you, lady?

“Oh haven’t you heard? I am the mother of all, little one. I’ll eat him, you, and your father too.”

“Bite your tongue beast!” Samael rose to his feet and screamed as he took a step forward ready to square off with his ex-wife.

“Nope…nope. I’ve got a better idea, lover.” Lilith smiled evilly at Samael. “How’s about I bite yours instead? You know, as an appetizer before the main course?”

Samael’s eyes bulged and he backed away from her. Her words brought back a flood of images from his past dealings with Lilith, particularly the day that she ate him. A terrifying chill washed over his body and he found himself speechless as he searched the faces of Inanna and Russ, almost pleading for help. When his eyes locked with Russ’ he knew that Russ understood what was happening to him. He read it in his face and his thoughts.

“Sammie, I don’t recall you ever being so skittish.” Lilith said laughing as she advanced toward him.

“Having had your wife chew you up and shit you out tends to leave a fucking mark lady. The fuck did’ya expect? Leave him be.” Russ spoke with an irritation to his voice, as if he’d experienced Samael’s pain first hand and in a way – he did.

“Leave him be? Are you aware, you poor excuse for a HUMAN, that he means to kill you both?” Lilith spoke the word human as if she meant it to be a profanity while she stared Samael down.

“Perfectly.” Russ said with no amount of surprise or shock in his voice.

Lilith hadn’t been paying any attention to Russ until then. A very big detail slipped by her. While she was busy passing quips back and forth and making her presence known to the world she failed to realize one pressing detail. The storm. She’d been brewing that storm up since Inanna set foot in Chicago and now it was gone along with the shadows of her children. All that remained of it was the wind that ushered Lilith in from the Abyss. She spun around quickly as she turned these thoughts over in her mind and placed a black painted fingernail to her lips to tap lightly at the full glossed meat of them. She paced quietly in front of Russ.

With her free hand, she reached two fingers down the front of her the black lace camisole she had been wearing beneath the red leather jacket that lay on the street, and pulled free of her ample bosom a gleaming silver butterfly knife. Lilith stopped so that she was able to stand face to face with Russ, though he towered over her a few feet. Russ turned his head to look at Inanna, not allowing Lilith to meet his eyes. A familiarity of this action washed over Russ as he remembered Rhayna having done the same with him to conceal her eyes what seemed like a lifetime ago now – when it had only been the matter of a couple of hours. Lilith gave a smooth flick of her wrist to open the blade, a quick spin to close the ends together in her hand and brought the erected blade to Russ’ neck.

“Understand, little one. I don’t need to use this. This is my dinner knife, because we are civilized beings that don’t eat with our hands and lunge our faces into our plates. Right Inanna?”

Inanna rolled her eyes at her mother and was immediately cut off from speaking as Lilith addressed Russ. Lilith waved the sharp blade back and forth beneath Russ’ chin and trailed the flat cold steel surface down the bare skin of his neck and chest, tracing the fresh brandings. She raised an eyebrow and shuddered with sudden excitement.

“Now…tell mama how you did that just now and how you got these.”

“Did what?” Russ asked letting the annoyance in his voice be heard.

“The storm, the tats – how?” Lilith asked. “How?” she spoke loudly into his ear.

Russ looked at Inanna, then at Samael debating whether or not to tell her anything at all. Inanna shook her head no and Samael stood staring at him blankly, as if awaiting the answer as well. Russ felt the sharp point of the knife pierce his skin and watched a trail of blood run in a thin line from a small puncture just over his heart. He winced for a split second and relaxed his face as the small hole Lilith made in his skin began to heal itself.

Her eyes roamed over his face to watch for signs of pain and found them. She liked it, but while she relished in his pain- she failed to see how quickly he healed. She made another puncture, this time right beneath his right pectoral muscle, at his lung with a quick stabbing motion. Russ fell to his knees and wheezed and gasped for air until the wound began to heal itself. Lilith stood back and laughed briefly then leaned over his back while he fought for air.

“Tell me how you did it…what are you, huh?” She made short stabs into the bare flesh of his back while badgering.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about …you psycho bitch!” Russ raised himself to one knee.

Inanna headed towards Lilith and was caught by Samael around the waist. Inanna burst free from his grip and took a run at her mother. Lilith side stepped Inanna and sent her flying past her.

“Ah …ah…do that again my dear and your boyfriend gets it.”

Inanna stopped where she stood. “Leave him alone, he has nothing you want or need.”

“Maybe I’ll have Sam later in a doggy bag. But no my dear girl… he does.” Lilith said panting and hanging over Russ as he lay on the ground, already healed from the wounds she had inflicted upon him. “I need to know how he made my storm stop and my children leave.”

“Tough shit bitch!” Russ gave Lilith a quick punch in the face and sent her hurdling backward towards Inanna causing her to be caught in her daughter’s arms.

Samael produced the sword from the dark of his trench coat that he had on the street and ran screaming towards the center of Lilith’s body. Lilith spun away quickly, freeing herself just in time to see Samael run Inanna through with his sword. He looked Inanna in the face with a mixture of horror and satisfaction, then over to Lilith. He froze as lightening filled the night and flashed brightly throughout the sky. Inanna let loose a scream that broke through the harsh tornado-like winds and reverberated off the nearby buildings. The lightning flashed once more and a thousand wings could be seen in a brief glimpse followed by the sound of their flapping overhead as angels presented themselves in legions, hovering amongst the clouds. Samael gazed upward with his hand still gripping the handle of his sword tightly. Their glowing eyes stared down on The Angel of Death.

Inanna fought to pull away from Samael. She could hear Lilith screaming her fury behind her. Inanna pushed with all the force she could muster away from him. He fell away but the sword did not.

“What’s this? Why have you all come?” Samael yelled up to them and watched as their eyes shone down like the twinkling of stars in the night sky.

Russ rushed towards Samael delivering a barrage of punches to his face and upper body. Lilith went to Inanna and attempted to remove the sword. She pulled but the blade would not budge. She pushed at the blade from Inanna’s back with bloody hands and still the blade would not move. Lilith looked up towards the hosts of angels – she screamed out to them.

“Would you leave her to die unjustly? You’re really going to let her die? What good are you?” Lilith lashed out in frustration. She watched as Inanna’s light at the center of her body began to dim. She looked around desperately for anything – something to prevent her from perishing in the street. They both collapsed to the ground under Inanna’s weight. Inanna fell still with her eyes focused on her mother. She saw a sight she hadn’t ever seen in all the lives she’d lived, grief on Lilith’s face. She looked beyond her mother and up into the sky. She took in the rows of angels hovering and crying – wishing to intervene but unable to.

Inanna reached out to them.

Russ turned back to see his Rhayna fading. He gazed upon her and watched as the life began to leave her body and peered further into her to see an impossible vision. The Tree of Life had been damaged with a wound matching Inanna’s own at the center of its trunk. The tree had begun to shed its leaves and fruit more rapidly than it had before. A long shadow cast itself over the great tree. Russ looked away and up into the sky at the millions of weeping angels and now he knew why they cried. He turned back to Samael, a mess of emotion welling up inside of him and his heart heavy with grief for he saw the truth of her condition. He kicked Samael as hard as he could in his ribs. He returned to his Rhayna and tugged on the hilt of the sword, surprised to see that he could move it. He pulled the sword from her body and watched as her body prepared to draw its final breaths. A silvery liquid poured from her wound and onto the pavement beneath her.

Tears pricked at Russ’ eyes. He raised the sword in his hand, turned on his heels and stalked towards the unconscious Angel of Death. Russ’ arms trembled as he held the heavy sword over his head and brought the blade down heavily – driving its weight with his momentum.

A finger snap rang through the night over the howling winds, weeping angels, and grieving mother. Audible enough for Russ to hear with his ears as it sounded through the air.

One minute he was about to take The Angel of Death’s head off with his own sword and the next he was standing in what appeared to be the extravagant and opulent interior living spaces of a well-lit mansion with his empty hands bringing down nothing but air, with so much force that he lunged forward and had to catch himself to keep from falling on his face.

“You really didn’t want to do that. Trust me. That is one job that sucks the ass it smells like. I did you a favor Russell. Thank me.”

Russ looked around dazed and bewildered. He stood still to gather himself and regain his bearings. He looked around and found himself nauseated and light-headed.

“Oh shoot. Just hold on a minute.”

The man in the white tailored suit rushed to grab a small trash can from behind the cream colored marble and glass bar at the end of the cavernous room and was back at Russ’ side within the split of a split second, shoving the empty waste basket into his chest.

Russ’ eyes saw the blur of movement and felt the push on his ribs as the waste bucket was pressed firmly into his stomach. He closed them tightly as he began to heave harshly into the can.

“You are just a man after all, my dear Russell. But still – we’ll need to have a talk. One heavenly abomination to another. When you’re done of course.”

Lucifer lit his rose flavored cigar and sat himself on the red velvet cushioned piano bench in front of the red lacquer grand piano. He closed his eyes as his fingers ran over the keys to the tune of “My Favorite Things” with startling accuracy and pristine sound, pausing every once in a while to allow for Russ’ heaves.

“Yes, yes Russell. Better out than in. It has been my mantra for centuries on end.”

Russ vomited into the trash can. He felt a chill rush through his body and a heat rise to his skin automatically producing small beads of sweat on his face and neck. He looked at the man in white playing the piano with his eyes closed, then vomited again. He felt as though he may pass out but did his best to stay with it and alert. Russ turned his head slowly around the room taking in the sights and saw the large marble fireplace adorned with cherubs sporting tiny horns suddenly blaze to life with a fire that glowed red at its tips as it roared.

Russ vomited and sat himself in the nearby white leather club chair. The man in white removed his cigar from his lips and placed it in a glass dish on top of the piano all while playing.

He began to sing:

“When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don’t feel soooo bad.”

Russ’ vision blurred and then went black. Moments later he found himself standing right in front of the Tree of Life, watching as the tree bled from the large slit in the center of its trunk. He watched the leaves flutter to the ground in a steady rain and its fruit fall rotten to the ground, melting into puddles of black blood beneath it. He perked up his ears and listened for the strange sound he heard whistling through the air. It sounded to him like a soft weeping. Russ looked around to see where the sound was coming from then realized that there was no one else there but him. There was just him and the tree.

The Tree of Life was weeping.