#event 009

SCENE ONE:

Raziel, Gabriel, Cassiel, Shibah, Donato, Lazarus, Zoe, Zack, Adele, Naomi, Noah, Grace, Isaiah, Maria, Joshua, Magda—

You show up to Absolution because that’s where you’ve been told to go. It seems odd, given you know you’re going to an Ascension—but what’s odd when you have no idea what an Ascension even entails? So you go in, humans filing past angels, heading not up the stairs to the Angel-only meeting room that only angels know how to open, but instead down a set of dark stairs into Absolution’s cellar. You can’t see how the door opens, but it does, so you step into the darkness, unsure if you should be expecting wine casks or caskets. In contrast, you see nothing—or maybe it’s something like synaesthesia, where you feel the colour blue and see the sound of humming—and there, in the back on a wall not bordering the outside, is an ornate, white-framed ceiling-height mirror. Gabriel is the first through, a harp in hand, her face stoic.

Following are Raziel and Shibah, side by side, though not touching. Everyone else follows suit. Stepping through the mirror feels like the texture of water—it feels like rain, if rain didn’t have a weight or a temperature. Once on the other side, behind you isn’t a mirror: it’s the pearly gates. This is the first time in history that alive humans have been on this side. There is another set of gates, further on, if they could be called such: they’re made from boughs of what seems to be tall trees and everything around you reminds you of the lushness of Eden, though that garden differed from this one. There is an eerie sensation to being in Heaven: there’s the sense that birds are singing, and then you can’t find any birds, but the moment you realize you can’t find any birds—there’s a bird, solving the dissonance for you. You can’t see the sun, but you can feel it all around you, and everything feels pleasantly hazy.

The gathering of trees form a circle around you, as if mimicking a foyer or antechamber but of nature; to the right of the second gates, Gabriel sits her harp and waits. Raziel and Shibah stand in front of those gates. It feels like an eternity before something happens—but then it feels like an instant, more angels than you can count materialize into a more corporal form, and you realize it wasn’t the sun you were feeling, but maybe was the energy of angels?—and there is no way to see them all. One by one, which is an illogically faster process than you’d think, each angel begins to stamp their feet. You realize there are two rhythms happening, distinct and competing, and the tapping becomes a dull roar becomes a cacophony. An angel you don’t know leans over to you, the mouth doesn’t move but you hear, “This pattern for Raziel—this for Shibah.” You stamp your feet to match your vote.

Gabriel’s head is cocked to the side, listening, trying to pick out something you sincerely can’t: a melody out of the chaos. The stamping continues and all eyes fall to the pair of competing angels at the gates; then, very faintly, very faintly, around the edges and almost out of the corner of your eye, Raziel begins to glow, as if that same sun-energy-feeling from earlier is concentrating around him. The people have spoken: it was very close—almost too close for comfort. The vote was very nearly perfectly split: 55% voted for Raziel. Over time, the beats sound less cacophonous: people have changed their sound to support Raziel, or make no sound at all and stand aside. Anyone not standing aside moves to complete the circle as Raziel steps into the center. Then, one by one and then all at once, the angels began to dance.

There were defined movements you can’t quite pick apart at first—a swooping here, a kicking there, a tossing of one’s head, an arching of the back—and you try to join in, but clumsily. But even if you lacked the ability or the body, something more helps you. It gets easier the more go-arounds you do it: you don’t even feel like you’re doing steps, but that something is guiding your body as your energy lends its support, and you are spinning around the center like spokes on a wheel, around and around, faster and faster until you’re nearly breathless and giddy—and then you hear song, the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard, and then you realize you’re helping make the song, and the feeling in your chest is one of harmonic euphoria. In the center, Raziel looks larger than life, not physically, but something about him.

The entire garden has reached its energetic height, and like the crest of a wave, it breaks, and there’s a sound like thunder if clouds were made of silk, and then it’s done. Everyone is laughing and it’s a party, refreshments appear as if from thin air, and the sounds of the high harp move to a lull. Those who don’t support go their own way as the rest remain. It was not the strongest Ascension—not as strong as Adon’s—but it worked, and God was no longer dead. Long live God. When all the merriment this side of Heaven winds down, the angels lead the humans back through the Gates, through the mirror-feeling, and back into the cellar of Absolution.

Only after that does only Gabriel seem to realize: the mirror is solid. The Gates of Heaven have closed.

SCENE TWO:

Belial, Leviathan, Abaddon, Babylon, Crowley, Renee, Dominic, Isadora, Elijah, Olivia, Kezia, Ethan—

An Ascension is short notice, but you’re not invited anyway. But what’s the fun in that? You can’t get near it, even if you wanted to—so instead, the Church of Sinners invites their brethren to their own little shindig down on the piers. Satan was invited, but declines attending, and Kiara is notably missing altogether. Nevertheless, the rest of the usual suspects and congregation gather for boardwalk festivities, some riding some rides, others hijacking busker materials and doing poor caricatures for passers-by or painting one another’s faces. For awhile, everyone seems contented to their sunny, pre-Memorial Day afternoon. Belial is making balloon animals and popping them at children.

Then, there’s an unmistakable feeling—a shifting. Like, quite suddenly, nothing around you seems for certain, or solid. You feel a sharp jolt under your feet, but don’t see anything there. Then, in succession, a few stronger sharp shakes that pass quickly. The buildings around you make a strange noise, but nothing seems off except maybe you feel like something’s tilted? Like you just got off the spinning cup ride and you’re just waiting for your ears to catch up to gravity. More strong shaking followers, lasting about a second, and it feels violent—rebellious—and you have trouble standing. People around you are screaming, but they don’t seem to be heading toward safety—they just seem to be running away. 

When you are steady enough to look up, the ground is still shaking but you can see where it’s split, like someone pierced the earth clean through at a point, like all the cracks had a center; up from the cracks rises a dark mist not unlike what Pestilence had subsumed from Dr. Drobot in the Escape Room. It moved as if on an air current toward that same center, swirling—as above, so below—and right in the center of the mist and the cracks is a cross-legged, absolutely diabolical-looking Warmonger... who has now integrated into a demon. He has a sword in his hand and his energy engulfs the piers, as anyone who is left is unable to tear their eyes away. The beach becomes colder because War is drawing all of the heat toward him like the earth’s crater: he is glowing and fire unfurls from his back shaped like wings. The ground is scorched where they touch.

There is an audible snap louder than a gunshot in the air and Renee falls to the ground, re-experiencing mortality for the first time in hundreds of years. Belial didn’t die, so she doesn’t hollow, but he is no longer a demon—so she is no longer his ligatus. Far from her, Belial’s wing shapes slowly crackle down, becoming more like a sparking forcefield of energy around his body, like a visible aura. When Belial steps away from the summit of the earthquake, little reverbs tremble from his step, and then stop. Now, he looks just like himself, but a faint red glow permanently lines his skin. The Horsemen of War has been fully integrated and laughter echoes even though there are no walls; the laughter is not kind. A good quarter of the pier is decimated and two rides barely have their skeletons left—but you’ve survived.

With a dark, menacing glint in his eye, Belial turns not to Renee—an afterthought, barely a memory at the moment—and instead focuses on Babylon. You can stand now... but tread carefully.

SCENE THREE:

Somewhere in Las Vegas, courtesy of @whatroughbeast—

Morning dawns to an empty room in Sunset Tower, while the workers of the Paradise Hotel let out a collective breath of relief the moment their employer leaves the premises – the door to the manager’s office is left open and while the vault is closed once more, the remains of Belial’s investigation are still scattered on the floor, untouched. There’s a fresh pressed suit hanging over the back of a chair and a cellphone and ring of master keys tossed haphazardly on the desk. The message is clear: Satan doesn’t intend to return to this place again. His time is Los Angeles was born only from orders and leaving the City of Angels behind inspires no heartache. After all, Satan is going back to the closest to home above the earth a demon can find.

The Strip is baking in the midday sun when the once-Devil arrives in Las Vegas and it's the vault there he immediately returns to, even larger than the one in Paradise and laden with gruesome mementos that stretch back over the bulk of human memory and beyond. He leaves with only one thing: a weapon thousands of years old, stained dark with the lifeblood of creatures both mortal and divine, and he carries the wickedly curved blade like a natural extension of his own flesh. There is no pause for reflection, no moment wasted on further brooding or strategy, not after so much time already gone and the threat of the Rapture ever-looming on the horizon.