Of Light And Shadows

Chapter Nine...

"Your human scriptures like to make a lot of this stuff up," Mammon chuckled. "Lilith was Satan's first love. She was an Angel like him and when we were cast out of the Angelic Realm many of us were banished to this place. She was banished to your world along with nine others who were deemed to have defied God without actively pursuing war. They were cast out for associating with the Fallen but not furthering the Uprising."

"The Fallen?"

"That's what the Angels call those of us that betrayed God."

"If Lilith was Satan's first love does that make her your mother?"

"No," he snorted. "Our mother was Anaita. Love never came into it when they created us. Her and my father gave God his Seraphim but they didn't care about each other."

"Seraphim?"

"A collection of God's most powerful Angels. Seraph is the title me and my brothers carried in the Angelic Realm. The other three of the Seven Devils were born to Archangel Michael and Ariel. Michael and Satan were the top rung in the Angelic Realm."

"Is Michael in this realm too?"

"No." Mammon shook his head, inspecting the symbol on his palm. "He sided with the Angels when the Uprising started and kept his place. Naturally we sided with our father, and Michael was more than surprised when his own sons turned on him."

"What was the Uprising about?"

"Lots of things. It started when God began to restrict the freedom of the Angels by stopping them visiting the human realm and limiting the relationships they could have. Satan didn't like that he was expected to bow and scrape. When he wanted to desert Anaita for Lilith, God denied him and that's when the war started. At the time we had no idea that our father was starting a war for his own selfishness so we followed him, as did two hundred or so other Angels. We thought we were fighting to stop God from becoming a tyrant. For our stupidity we were cast out." He grinned. "I like it better here anyway. It's more fun."

"Why did that make Satan forbid you to love beings from the human realm?"

"When he was cast out and Lilith was banished to live in your world he went to find her. When he finally tracked her down she told him she wanted nothing to do with him and she married someone else. In his rage he killed her and the human she married and forbade the rest of us from ever loving anyone outside our own realm."

"Wow, it sounds like a serious case of bitter exes to me."

"That's what I said," Mammon shrugged. "But Satan is the embodiment of Wrath. Being cool headed isn't in his nature."

"Did you get in trouble for making a pact with me?"

"He wasn't happy about it but he couldn't do anything because it didn't mean I was in love with you. We're free to make pacts with whoever we want so he had to let it slide and I was never punished." His grin softened. "Even if he hated it, it wouldn't matter. He can't undo a pact by destroying me."

"All this about war and love and death seems really heavy."

"It is heavy. We're talking about history spread out over millennia here. You should take some time to read about it in the library. There are dozens of books on it that'll tell you everything the human scriptures got wrong." He yawned and rubbed at his tired eyes. "I came in here to check if you were alright. I didn't expect to be giving a history lesson," he chuckled.

"I appreciate it," Jia smiled. "It's fascinating to learn more about this place. It was never far from my thoughts in the human realm." Mammon nodded and gave her a sideways glance, ruffled silver hair falling across his forehead.