A Heavenly Visit Muriel surveyed mankind from far beyond the mortal plane, in heaven. Many had been influenced unconsciously by her in their lifetimes. Her unconditional love provoked good deeds and care to their fellow humans which earned them a place of joy in the eternal hereafter. She smiled at the happiness surrounding her and absently stroked the crown of flowers on her head. This happiness was short-lived, however. Muriel’s beauty was matched only by her empathy, and a subtle frown line now creased her forehead. She was thinking of those that couldn’t share her kindness. Absent from paradise, they couldn’t connect with her strong intuition or hear her words. Neither were they alive on earth, where she invisibly visited on occasion, the subtle smell of petals being the only acknowledgment of her presence. Muriel’s concerns were of those in hell. A single tear slowly crept down her cheek as she thought of the endless torture inflicted upon the damned. She felt that redemption for all was available. Murderers, adulterers, thieves, molesters and abusers all had some love in their hearts, even if just an inkling, and surely she could invoke it! Standing with resolution, Muriel spread her glowing wings wide and vowed redemption for those afflicted in the underworld. She would aid those who could no longer help themselves and free them from torment! With this grand undertaking set in her mind, Muriel flew from the vale of holiness, radiating with righteousness. * Lilith was bored. The dark beauty of her face pouted as her demons tore at the flesh of the ignorant humans before her. Their screams used to feel melodic to her, but now she had nothing but contempt for their idiocy. All the opportunities to lead good lives on Earth, thrown away for gluttony, selfishness, lust and frivolity. There was no sympathy from Lilith for the avoidable torment they had to endure. Bodies torn to pieces, only to be reconfigured so that fresh pain could be inflicted. Centuries of barbarism had excited her in the past. The pleading of the damned had aroused her to such heights that even her most well-endowed djinn, Asiq, could not match. Now the wails and shudders of the eviscerated were just background noise. Lilith had ruptured every organ, tantalised every nerve ending in all possible ways. Minds had succumbed to insanity rather than accept the suffering she gave. She registered for the millionth time that this was her station and sighed. Lilith conjured more demons to delegate the torture to, saving herself the effort. As she mused on her dark eternity from a throne of flesh and bone (being reconfigured didn’t necessarily mean with all the parts you came with!) a lizard-faced sycophant with the thorax of a scorpion and legs and horns of a goat approached. “Why do you bother me, Ayim?” she rasped, crossing a leg seductively. “There is a visitor, my love.” Today she had no time for this twisted thing’s pathetic devotion to her, which it deemed to be love. “Address me as your Queen, acolyte!” “Apologies, my Queen!” Ayim sunk to his furry knees, coating them in the blood of millennia. “Now, why am I suffering your presence? Speak true and efficiently, beast!” “There is a visitor, Your Lowness. One who seeks to free those clasped in your chains!” A visitor? No being entered here with any hope of return. She searched his reptilian eyes for falsehood and found none. Ayim bowed his head, fearing Lilith’s gaze. “Up, Ayim!” Lilith laughed and fluttered her dark wings as she rose from the throne. “Take me to this intruder that you and your minions are too pathetic to deal with yourselves!” * Muriel’s tears hissed in the flames as she swept them from her eyes. She wrenched open chains and smashed devices of hook, barb and nail. Those freed cowered naked on their knees before her. They prayed for their removal from this dark place of smoke and fire but knew that surely any hope of reprieve for their sins had long since disappeared. She looked down at them quaking before her and wanted to hug each of them. “Do not quail before me! Confess your sins, tell me of your desire to be redeemed and I shall grant your forgiveness!” The naked looked among themselves, incredulous. Could this angel truly deliver them from this place or was this another trick in their eternal persecution? One man raised his head, he had nothing to lose, after all. “Angel, I beg your forgiveness. I lived a life without God, I hurt those close to me and ignored the poor and others that I could have helped.” “How sweet,” Lilith approached, grinning. “The damned have a saviour!” “Lilith!” Muriel recognised the archangel from the old times, before heaven and hell were created upon man’s mortality. She was still as physically gorgeous as back then, but evil shone in her eyes. “This is your domain?” “Well, it’s certainly not yours! And who are you to offer forgiveness to these sinners?” “In the name of Almighty God, if they seek redemption, I shall give it!” Lilith threw back her head in hysterics. Ayim quickly dodged her fluttering wing and grunted in amusement too. Once she had her laughter under control, Lilith fixed Muriel in her gaze. “We both know there’s no room for God here! You’re here on your own merit, not on behalf of Him.” “That may be. I will still take those who would be forgiven with me.” “Really? These thieves and fornicators, will they be welcome in His loving embrace?” “Do not mock the Eternal Love!” “These people are here because they deserve to be. No action of yours can change this.” Lilith stepped over to the nearest one, who screamed as she wrenched his arm up at an impossible angle, cracking bone and tearing skin. “Stop!” Muriel begged. “Stop?” Lilith cackled as she snapped the limb off and threw it to Ayim. His ragged fangs made short work of it. “This agony is commonplace. You do know where you are?” “The suffering of a single person is as a multitude's pain to me.” “The millennia of a thousand congregation’s agony is but an annoying whimper to me!” She stepped towards Muriel as Ayim grunted in good humour behind her. Blood from the sinner’s severed arm spattered across the backs of the crouched damned as he shook his head in glee. Muriel stormed over to confront Lilith. “I will fight for them!” “Maybe”, Lilith raised an arm to the black, red-tinged clouds that hovered below hell’s cavernous ceilings in a twisted approximation of a sky. “But will you die for them?” Lightning flashed between her arm and the clouds. Her fist trembled as she willed the evil electricity to gather around her hand. Sparks flashed as a lightning ball grew in size. Just as she felt that she could not contain the energy any longer, Lilith threw her arm towards Muriel, launching it at her. Singed feathers flew from Muriel’s wings as the lightning exploded into her, sending her cascading into a cliff face of dark jagged rock. She screamed at the impact and crashed back-first onto the ragged floor. Muriel chided herself for not preparing for an attack. Lilith cackled as Muriel struggled to regain her composure. Lilith leaped into the air and launched herself on dark wings towards the fallen angel. As soon as she was within reach, she seized Muriel’s wings in an effort to wrench them apart. Muriel held her gaze and sneered at her nemesis. She allowed her wings to slacken, and Muriel tore them to either side. It was a ruse, and the second they were swept apart, Muriel swung a mighty uppercut, connecting solidly with Lilith’s chin. Such was the force, the hell-dweller ended up pulling Muriel to her feet as she flew backwards, still grasping Muriel’s wings. Muriel followed through with a kick to the chest, forcing Lilith to release her. She was about to crash onto the stony ground herself, but it was no major exertion to summon the dark energy from her home, casting herself upright and aloft at the last second. Lilith sneered down at Muriel, wiping blood from her teeth. Her wings chopped the air to maintain her height, causing smoke to swirl about her. Despite momentarily besting her with her blows, Muriel shivered at the sight above her. Lilith was magnificent in her rage. “How dare you strike me!” she screamed. Although intimidated, Muriel still believed in herself and bellowed back, “I dare! I have the strength bestowed in me by God Himself!” “His Will has no power down here compared to me! Every damned soul feeds my legions and I drain the energy at a whim!” Lilith threw her head back and roared at the dark, rolling clouds beneath the smoky cave ceiling. “MY HORDE! COME TO ME!” The ground began to shake with the reverberation of hundreds of demon feet. Muriel kept her eyes on a now grinning Lilith as the thunder of hooves, boots and all manner of distorted foot approached from all around her. As the demonic beasts grew closer, the thunder of footfalls gave way to slurpy mutterings, erratic yelps and guttural shouts of devotion and loyalty to their Queen. Whips and obscenely large knuckles cracked, chains tinkled. Droplets of ooze and blood dripped from lizard and goat faces. Muriel broke her stare at Lilith to look around. She was surrounded. Studying the hideous faces around her, she lost some of her resolve. Could any hope be had in this vale of ugliness? She closed her eyes, opened them and took another look. Further examination of Lilith’s beasts revealed a flaw that she could take advantage of. Although some had traces of wings, they were scraps of flesh that would do little to lift their owners. She smiled at Lilith, who was not amused. “RIP HER TO SHREDS!” The demons rushed en masse, trampling over the damned and their slower, weaker brethren in their hurry to do Lilith’s bidding. As they arrived within feet of her, Muriel flapped her wings and soared above them. Her head flowers glowed as the giant feathers regenerated with divine energy. Claws and gnarled hands snatched at the air in her wake. Even clambering over each other and leaping at their highest, none could reach her. The horde hissed in frustration. Some gave furtive glances to Lilith, fearful of her reaction to their incompetence. No sooner had Muriel congratulated herself on her cunning, Lilith was upon her. She curled her wings into an encasing black ball and crashed into the white angel’s face. Again, Muriel hurtled into the ground, her enthusiasm smashed out of her while black and white feathers slowly see-sawed down from above. There was no time to gather her wits before the horde was upon her. With cries of “Lilith!”, “for my Queen!” and simply “Die!” they immediately took the opportunity to tear into the angel. Fistfuls of feathers were scattered over the mob and filthy nails raked Muriel’s limbs. In a beat she leaped upright and grabbed the nearest to her, seizing a rubbery wet snout in her nails. She whirled around and knocked the demons nearest to her back into their cohorts with her attacker’s body. After one spin, she hurled the beast away from her. It crashed into more of Lilith’s horde, sending them flying. The filthy demons were no match for Muriel’s angelic strength. She had no pity for these soulless creations of Lilith and gave them no mercy. Slimy, scarred limbs were torn from scaly bodies, nightmarish heads decapitated, and black, oily innards were ripped out of torsos. Still, they kept coming. The fallen were crushed underfoot as others maniacally threw themselves at her. For every form Muriel dispatched, another three launched themselves at her. Howling in fury, Muriel tightened her fists and span in a dervish. Lilith scowled as her opponent’s glowing blonde hair and white wings flew in all directions. She had to enter a slower mind-state to keep track of Muriel’s increased speed. Maimed demons broke and tumbled in slow motion, still in mid-air while others were rushed into and torn apart by Muriel’s black-stained nails, moving at dizzying speeds. Soon there was nothing but a circle of bodies surrounding Muriel in a rough circle of some hundred-feet radius. Heaven’s angel was not unscathed, however. She panted heavily after her exertions and wiped her own blood from cut arms and wings. More denizens of hell surrounded her, but now at a distance, unwilling to suffer their comrades’ fate unless directly ordered by their Queen. One taloned brute stormed over to the damned man that had begged for forgiveness earlier. Its amphibious face approximated a grin while it met eyes with Muriel from a safe distance and pulled it’s claw back, ready to strike the human’s face. The distance was not safe enough. The petals in her hair glowed and Muriel sped over to the victim in a white blaze. She tore off the would-be attacker’s arm and instead smashed the dismembered claw into the demon’s own face with such ferocity that the frog-like face exploded into mush. Muriel dropped the limb to the floor and addressed the hesitant horde that were keeping well away from her. “These people are not your playthings! They are children of God, no matter how sinful their lives were before they came here! You foul demons will leave them-“ She didn’t register the air-snapping whoosh in time and screamed as Lilith seized handfuls of her hair from behind. “Is this where your power lies?” snarled Lilith and tore a handful of flowers and hair from Muriel’s head. The pain was like nothing she had ever experienced. The bruises from a hundred demons were like the hand clap of infants compared to this. Lilith roared as she continued. “You feel THIS, don’t you?!” The crown of flowers was woven through Muriel’s hair and head, not just resting upon it. Lilith’s hand wrenched another fistful of petals and golden hair from her foe’s head, taking scalp-flesh with it. Blood dripped into Muriel’s eyes, and she battered blindly at Lilith’s hands futilely. Lilith grinned and whipped her legs up and around the shuddering body. As her own black wings carried them both above the carnage below, she tore at the white ones in her grasp. The feathers tore easily now that Muriel’s regenerating crown was damaged. Muriel tried to flap her appendages, but she was encased too tightly in Lilith’s embrace. The struggle between her thighs summoned feelings of arousal that Lilith had not experienced in many decades. She ripped another handful of drooping petals from Muriel’s scalp, causing her lithe body to shudder in the Archangel’s embrace. Muriel was in too much agony to scream anymore. Pain shot out from her torn head throughout her body as if demon fire had infected every cell in her bloodstream. Had she known such pain could exist she would never have undertaken this over-confident mission. Dark, choking clouds swept around them as Lilith flew them both inches below the rocky ceilings. Her powerful thighs tightened around Muriel’s struggling, defeated body. The bloody-headed angel could barely register any feeling apart from agony and the realisation was slow of being twisted around in Lilith’s coital grip. She vaguely felt dark feathers being brushed across her eyes, wiping blood from her face. Muriel’s eyes opened and she flinched at Lilith’s face that was now directly in front of her own. Her head sizzled in agony from within. She was so defeated that she couldn’t even effect frustration at Lilith’s grinning, blood-spattered face. The dark beauty distorted in stained victory and… lust? Incredulous, Muriel saw Lilith turn her head to the side to nuzzle beneath her battered ear. She thought that nothing else in this infernal domain could shock her but Lilith’s tongue lapping at blood on her neck as her legs rhythmically squeezed around her waist was enough to push her briefly out of her suffering. How could any being, let alone an angel, be excited at the torn, bloody thing in her clutches? “It’s been so long,” Lilith whispered in Muriel’s ear, “since I’ve felt anything in this place.” “You, truly are, a demon.” Muriel said and summoned one last effort to move. Lilith groaned in arousal and wrapped her arms around Muriel’s torn scraps of wing, loosening her legs. She gasped in pleasure as Muriel’s lips drew forward and holy air breathed against her neck. Ecstasy turned to excruciation as Muriel’s immaculate teeth bit down into Lilith’s neck. Her hands whipped up to the pain, intensifying when Muriel intensified her grip and then tore a chunk of flesh out with her teeth. A gentle push at Lilith’s chest was all Muriel was able to give, but it was enough. She slipped from the archangel’s grasp and plummeted to the hell-ground. Lilith howled in pain and sexual frustration, once again gathering energy from the sky around her with outstretched hands, this time for healing. Lightning flashed across her throat and the torn skin healed instantaneously. Looking down, she was in time to see Muriel’s body thud into the floor. Dark wings swept her down to the angel’s unmoving form. Muriel’s face was now lifeless. Lilith stroked its broken beauty with a bloodied hand, mourning the possibilities of pleasure. Death and sexuality were as one here, as much as their inevitable interconnectedness were denied on pious Earth. She stood up, looking down upon Muriel’s inert form. Unsatiated, undeniable sensation pulsed within her, exaggerated by the sight of the dead angel rather than being repulsed by it. Her head was thrown back and she screamed in a sexual delirium for her djinn. “ASIQ!!!” There was a murmur of excitement throughout the distant crowd. Lilith’s demons had traditionally enjoyed watching their Queen satisfying herself, which had always been public but had not been exercised for so very long. The gawping monsters felt a gust of cancerous wind through them and hacked out coughs. The wind pulled smoke from the atmosphere towards Lilith and formed the shape of a large naked man. He solidified before her, naked and sweaty in expectation. His dark lips spoke as if recalling speech from another’s memory. “My Mistressssss”, he lisped. “It hass been ssso long!” Lilith looked down at the barbed heaviness between his legs and sighed. “And indeed, it is, but that is not what I want, shapeshifter.” His glossy muscles rippled as he turned to the angel’s corpse. “What a beauty. I can become thisss, for you.” She stroked his firm chest. “For me?” “For you, anything.” Asiq’s physical form disintegrated into smoke and re-formed as Muriel, almost as perfect and wound-free as she’d been in heaven. Lilith drew the angel-image to her, barely restraining the urge to kiss but somehow managing to hold back, wanting to increase her anticipation. Before their lips could touch, the ground began to shake. The two staggered and fell apart. The upheaval was not reserved to where they stood. An earthquake shuddered throughout the landscape, increasing in intensity until dark, distant mountains began to tear. Chasms of lava were revealed as rifts opened in the ground. Damned and demon alike screamed as they were crushed by falling debris and as they too fell into freshly formed dark and fiery pits. “What is this?” Lilith cried. There was silence and the world became still the moment the words left her lips. There was a pause. Distant stones pattered down steep rock. Then The Voice reverberated in the air: “HOW DARE YOU DESECRATE MY ANGEL’S IMAGE.” Lilith fell on her backside in shock and terror. Asiq crept round her and crouched in terror, too terrified to change her shape, despite all evidence plainly stating that it would be a good idea to not be Muriel anymore. Lilith trembled. She had thought that she would never hear His voice again since being torn from her lover Adam. But how could He be here? This was her Lord Satan’s domain! She looked at the air and attempted to shriek at it defiantly, failing miserably. The very essence of holiness stifled her confidence completely. “You, you…” Lilith stammered, “you can’t BE here! My Lord created this… this place!” A mild tremor echoed across the world. Lilith thought it could be construed as a godly chuckle in the air, if, that was, God could approximate anything close to a human emotion or humour. “THE SNAKE MAY HAVE FORGED WHAT EXISTS IN THIS PLANE, BUT I WAS THE ONE WHO CALLED IT INTO EXISTENCE. I AM THE CREATOR OF ALL.” Lilith kept her tongue still. She felt herself diminishing as dozens of her horde tore their own throats open, unwilling for their pathetic lives to exist in the presence of The One. There was a glow from the ground. Muriel’s blood was evaporating, filth on her was dissipating into the atmosphere and her hair and flowers were knitting back into being on her head from out of thin air. The holy glow accompanying this revival remained as Muriel’s eyes opened and sparkled in recognition of her Lord. “COME, MY ANGEL. RETURN WITH ME TO YOUR RIGHTFUL ETERNAL BLISS.” Smiling at not being forsaken, Muriel stood and examined herself. The approximation of her that squatted behind Lilith was overwhelmed at her beauty and refused to attempt to clone it any longer. The pansexual’s copy of the divine being collapsed into sexless smoke. Lilith flinched as it attempted an ephemeral intimacy across her body in its passing, then all trace of Asiq as man or woman was gone. “Father,” Muriel spoke to the air. She was smug in her rebirth and smirked down at Lilith. “May I take the repentant with me?” Some of the damned rose out of the dirt and clasped their hands together, praising God and Muriel. Their bleats lacked conviction, having barely acknowledged divinity in their lifetimes and all but forgotten it during their torment and torture. “NO!” The air shuddered and hopeful faces were smashed into the ground simultaneously, as if an army of invisible hands had grasped the damned’s heads and shoved them downwards all at the same time. Muriel knew better than to argue. Lilith took some respite from the angel’s remorse. “I told you that you could do nothing for them!” Not to be outdone, Muriel plucked a single flower from her rejuvenated crown. She gently flew over to a group of the damned and removed petals from the flower, passing them one each. They all held the glowing pieces with reverence. “You may have to remain here,” she told them. “But as long as you hold mine and God’s Love close to you, these demons may torment you no longer.” Lilith snorted. She had been able to remove them from Muriel’s head easily enough! She stared at the few remaining demons that were not dead until her gaze fell upon Ayim. She might have known that he would hide in the crowd as soon as the fighting began! She nodded her intentions to him, and he begrudgingly crawled towards the petal-blessed damned. Muriel stepped away from the group and watched as the wretched creature slid across the floor, his claws and hooves scraping a trail through the dirt. Lilith did not need to speak to command him. As soon as he was within reach Ayim leapt upon one of the petal-holders and smashed a scaly hand across her face. The woman barely flinched, so little had the blow affected her. She retaliated with a slap that took off the foul servant’s head. The remaining crowd of demons gasped and hacked in horror as their brethren’s body hit the ground. Lilith raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Maybe they will not remove them so easily,” she mused. Despite God’s essence still being in the air, she could feel no further ill will from Him towards her and got to her feet. Lilith approached Muriel, who sensed mere affection from the archangel towards her instead of the crazed lust from earlier. Lilith stroked her healed, glowing cheek and gestured towards the blessed, who now looked over at their former tormentors with more confidence. “That should make things more… interesting.” Muriel smiled as Lilith continued. “It was getting soooooo boring!” She pulled the angel’s face towards hers, opening her mouth slightly, expectantly. Muriel waited until she could taste Lilith’s breath in her mouth before placing her finger against the dark angel’s glistening lips. “Not that interesting!” Lilith chuckled, a dead tinkling sound of diamonds skittering down a mineshaft. She whispered in Muriel’s ear, “remember, pride is a sin too!” Muriel blushed and bowed her head in shame. She would not be assuming she know better than God again. Lilith grinned at Muriel’s obeisance and watched the angel soar upwards, flapping away to the entrance that she had flown down so eagerly before. The Creator’s overbearing presence about her vanished as soon as Muriel was out of sight. The absence of Godliness meant Lilith could finally relax. She couldn’t help but shiver as the sensations in her body reminded her of its needs. “Asiq! Get back here!”
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