"Gillian, what is this to you?"
At a loss, I remained silent,
"Is it just a game? It started out that way,
Back when Miradra and the others presented you to me so long ago,"
He paused, closing his eyes and tilting his head slightly,
I'd never seen him like this,
"It no longer feels like a game, it feels like something else,
I can't put my finger on what though, all my life I've had nothing else,
Just evil, commanding, and games..."
There was a dismal anguish on his face,
"I shouldn't be telling you this, you've already too much power...
But Gillian, I'm lost. I do a lot of reading, looking for an answer,
It doesn't help me figure this out though,
I feel as though I'm losing my mind..."
He turned away, arms folded,
Without eye contact I felt braver, "Azrael,
You come to me with this knowing my sanity has been...
Less than present for quite some time?"
He came back towards me but stared at the wall next to me, hands on his back,
Azrael sighed, "Something about the blind leading the blind?"
I smiled a little, "I don't know what has been just my imagination and what has
Truly passed between us Azrael," I admitted,
He glanced at me obliquely, then half grinned,
Closing his eyes and otherwise acting as though he were
About to make a large leap, "There has been much contact between us in your dreams,
If that is what you mean,"
My head swiveled towards him, it's one thing to hope and suspect,
I never expected to have it confirmed, let alone by him, "For how long?"
He still wouldn't make eye contact, "Since your first night in the Lake of Fire,"
My mouth hung open, "But that means it's been going on for...."
He looked at me then, "152 years..."
I was beyond floored, "And you're just now asking what this is!?"
"Gillian, please, I, uh, I couldn't stop...
Look I'm immortal, born and raised in Hell, my father was the Master of all Evil,
And he was good at it okay, how am I supposed to know how to deal with...
Whatever in the crap this is between us,
Because I'll tell you I've never seen anything like it!
I'm freaking 2,000 something years old,
I've dallied in the dreams of girls, and in my more experimental youth guys too,
Thrown in the Lake before, but always I mean always the game grew boring
After a year or less, and I'd never bothered to stick to one dreamer at a time,
But one taste of you and no other held my interest long enough to dream project,
I've been messed up for a long time over this but didn't know what to do,
Until a few months ago the dream sharing was all we had,
All I thought there'd ever be, I couldn't swoop in and what have you released,
Brought in as what a mistress? Something you'd never allow me to get away with.
So what then, a wife? As royalty I'm seriously obligated to produce an heir
Within a darkly sanctioned unholy union. You were dead!
Just a non-corporeal soul! In-fucking-tangible, Gillian!"
I let out a strangled noise, he smiled slightly,
"You see my dilemma, the only way I could corporealize you was to make you a demon,
But there'd be no point because the demonity would have eradicated most of who you were,
That also would have been too unpredictable,
I know I'm the fucking devil but even I want some stability in my home life,
And now you're undead, the undead cannot procreate, they cannot produce offspring,
In all my years you're the closest I've ever come to consider marrying,
I can't stand anybody else, in all this time you’re the only creature I've ever met
Who I can tolerate to be around for more than an hour at a time,"
He fell silent, dropping his head into his hands,
"Fuck I hate you," he practically yelled,
"Azrael, I don't know what you want me to say..."
He turned his pain glazed eyes to me again, "I don't know either,
I just know something has to change or my brain may just explode,
152 years may be a drop in the bucket for someone with my life span, and
Christ my old man didn't produce an heir until he was well over 5,000, but
After these couple of months, I know I can't go back to the way it was,
And as much as I've loved our little games here in this pit,
I can't continue to ignore that if you don't feed soon,
You may never be you again, I wanted you to tell me yourself what happened,
I don't know why...and I don't know where we go after this but...
The hunger is eating away at you, you're mostly insane,
The guards tell me that you've been throwing tantrums and
Raving on about no one knows what, you've been having total psychotic episodes,
Which for Hell that's a frequent and welcome occurrence, normally, but
For some twisted reason the idea of you stepping all the way over that edge,
Wakes me in a cold sweat, Gillian I need to know what happened to you,
You're running out of time,"
I started to say his name, but he cut me off,
"You're still not going to tell me what happened!?"
Shaking my head, I stared at the floor, what could I tell him?
I couldn't breathe a word about the Elohim or the Elim or my quest,
I wallowed in defeat, my mission would end here, me as a failure,
And I started to crave oblivion, my situation with Azrael was worse than I'd thought
If all that we went through in my dreams was really him and me,
If he really was there then that meant I was in love with him,
And not the idea of what he could have been,
That knowledge did nothing to improve the circumstances,
He was the friggin Prince of Darkness, and he had no heirs,
He was stuck with that gig until he sired an heir and the heir came of age,
The thought of him being with someone else to produce that heir
Was a knife to the gut, and something I couldn't handle,
He'd been faithful to me in the dreaming for 152 years,
Yet I didn't know if the same held true for in the waking world,
Despite his claim to find everyone else less than tolerable,
I was too terrified to ask, right now I couldn't handle an answer either way,
And oh that was a beauty too, he let me fall in love with his unattainable royal ass
Because he can tolerate me!!?! Men...
On top of all those insurmountable obstacles,
I had been given a quest to give everybody an epic "spanking", and
Well that included him, one doesn't make a pact with gods and then not go through with it,
And a pact is just what it was, I was basically indentured to them for eternity,
Despite the very vague terms of my servitude,
I'm pretty sure that when they agreed to me honoring myself first that did not
Mean that I could let the Prince of Darkness, ruler of all demonkind, off with a warning,
Azrael watched me as all that processed through my brain,
He tried again to reason with me, "Not even if it means I'll be able to feed you?
End your descent into madness? As an undead once you cross a certain threshold,
You're just gone, not you anymore, and there is no coming back from it,
I've seen it enough times to know you've got barely a week left, if that,
And Gillian it's not the same as oblivion,
A small part of you will always suffer for what you once were,
You'll be aware but a monstrosity version of yourself,
The kind of creature who eats children out of boredom,
Is that what you want to become?"
He had my full attention with that, he'd yanked me out of the wallowing,
I started to say something but he moved closer suddenly,
Looking deep into my eyes, he swore under his breath and then,
"There's something beyond simple undead hunger at work here isn't there?!"
It was time to vocalize the fear that had been building in me,
I choked out "Poison,"
Azrael had the balls to look relieved,
"Is that all? Sweetheart you're undead, poison can only do so much to you,
It's not like it can make you any deader, no species of undead can be killed by poison.
I guess maybe it could fuck you up some but -"
Then I began coughing relentlessly,
Until I hacked up what could only be described as a bloody lung chunk,
Azrael dodged then brushed aside a lock of my hair, his face looked unsure now
As he whispered, "That's an unusual thing for a member of the undead to do...."
All the comfort he'd given me on the poison issue a moment ago was now erased,
I glared at the lung chunk ominously,
He pulled my chin up to look me in the eye, "Start talking Gillian, I'm serious,"
So I told him without revealing anything,
There are ways to tell someone a great deal without betraying a secret, I supposed,
"I believe I was poisoned during that big ruckus the Lake workers reported,
I don't really know anything about the poison except that
That was when I felt it enter my blood stream"
He kept silent waiting for me to say more,
I sighed, I still didn't know what to tell him,
Even though I was sure there was something I could tell him,
So I settled for "Azrael, I really don't know what species I am ok, it's not like I had
Some guidebook to the undead filled with all sorts of useful answers,
And I wasn't told what species or what I can eat,
Try a friggin psychic or something!"
I ended in exasperation,
Azrael looked thrown, "Gillian, I've had dozens of seers, psychics, and oracles,
In and out of here since you've been in this pit, they're getting nothing,"
He must have kept me unconscious for those visits, I had no memory of them,
And he seemed to expect that,
I'm sure the Elohim and the Elim were what shielded my circumstances from their vision,
Then he also said, "I've had the whole matter thoroughly investigated,
And miraculously, and suspiciously none of the lake workers
Remember anything unusual other than some vague large disturbance
Of an equally vague nature, I will find out what happened in its entirety someday,
But I can see you're in no position to help us figure out what to feed you,
So I'm taking this out of our hands, so you know, this is my last resort play,
I did NOT want to have to call in the big guns with this,
Witches are after all, colossal wild cards, no matter how loyal they may be..."
...to be continued...
Aha! So Azrael was really there with Gillian in them daydreams! I knew it, I so knew it (the fact that I was the writer makes no difference when I feel like doing a little silly gloat-y dance of sweet victory)
[Original post from 8/08/08 in Drenched in Eternity] Only 2 more episodes until we get to the completely new episode 12. 2.
How did you like this installment? What questions do you have about the series so far? Who else was totally onto Azrael projecting himself into Gillian’s fantasies? What do you think the witch will bring to this sack of nuts? She will be a recurring character, I’ve got many plans for her.
~ Christina Nabity
Decadent Angels is under my copyright. Contact me for licensing info.
Time to order custom art with full backgrounds in time for Father’s Day
runs out at the end of 6/3/10
Up Next - 11: Enter the Witch
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