The Department of Hate - A Love Story (29 page)

Chapter 25 – Conquest of Paradise

It felt like a very vivid dawn – bright, raw, and fraught with promise. They had gone through the portal and were now assembling in a large valley that opened out onto the Plains of Anticipation. They were assembled in between vast unscalable peaks - behind them the portal gateway back to Hell, ahead of them, across the plains, Heaven, Paradise. Lucifer himself lifted the battle horn and blew on it. Its mighty sound echoed over the valley, signalling the advance. Five hundred thousand demon warriors began to move forward and out onto the plains. In the far distance they could see the tips of the golden spires of Paradise, shining brightly, beckoning - a lingering dream, all but forgotten. Their lost and weary souls ached to be reunited with that which they could not understand but only long for - or failing that to take their revenge viciously and bloodily, without quarter. There was now no other sound to be heard except for the slow rumbling thunder of their steady motion across the plains.  They were determined and resolute, their faces cold and hard – expecting at any moment to be confronted by the wrath and fury of God’s angels. Expecting to die the real death quickly and violently or to emerge victorious and then storm the walls of Paradise itself, from which they had been cast so many aeons ago. Jarrod could barely comprehend what he was seeing.

Jarrod was at the centre of the charging mass riding on a large black stallion.  Lucifer was riding beside him. He couldn’t stop thinking about Cassandra. He was full of fury and hatred towards Belial. From time to time he’d had the strangest of feelings – almost of being turned inside out. He recognised this to be the initial stage of a reversion to demonic form and fought against it. He desperately wanted to stay the way he was. It would surely give him the power to destroy Belial but then he would have lost Cassandra anyway. He turned to Lucifer and spoke to him

“I saw Belial go back through the portal with some of his legions, not long after we arrived.”
Lucifer spoke with scorn

“So did I.
The cowardly fuck thinks we’re all going to be destroyed, leaving him in control. We’ll deal with him when we return. And you can have your bitch back too.” Jarrod chose not to respond to that. But he was also puzzled by the absence of Asmodeous. He asked

“And w
hat of Asmodeous?” Lucifer laughed derisively

“That slimy
little shit was never going to come with us. He thinks he’ll spend the rest of time locked away in his brothel playing with his toys. We’ll deal with him too. I am thoroughly sick of the both of them.” Jarrod was pleased to hear this. He was angry with Belial but he despised and hated Asmodoeus beyond all reason and he knew that that anger stretched back to the earliest of times. Looking out over the multitudes he could see Paimon and Marbas and even Gaap. Each of them had clearly decided not to defy Lucifer. But they seemed less than enthusiastic about it.

They all continued the advance – neither Lucifer nor Jarrod said anything more.  Jarrod was again thinking of Cassandra. Lucifer had the same bleak look as when he had described the presence and then the absence of God. Around them five hundred thousand warriors marched, each of them glaring ahead, saying nothing – preparing themselves for the final battle. They marched on and on. Finally, after many more hours their front line was within a mile of the gates of Paradise. The gates were closed, the golden walls high and forbidding, but apparently completely unmanned. Jarrod looked at Heaven and couldn’t believe what he was seeing - the city of God, vast and glorious and now standing there not much more than a mile in front of him.  The front line troops were preparing battering rams and grappling hooks. Jarrod watched all of it with growing amazement. Why these archaic weapons? These ancient forms? But there was no time left for questions or idle speculation. Lucifer blew the great horn again, this time signalling the charge. Everyone surged forward. The front lines broke out into a mighty roar and started running for the walls.

Suddenly there was an impossibly loud shrieking, piercing sound and a wide beam of bright burning light stabbed down out of the sky smashing into the ground right in front of the main gates. It expanded almost instantly into a twenty five mile wide wall of fire, white hot, screaming, separating the invading forces from the city of God and then, slowly at first but with increasing speed, moving towards them. The front line troops turned and fled but it caught up with them and vaporized them instantly. Jarrod watched it happen, somehow not feeling anything yet. He knew it was the real death – nonexistence, permanent extinction. He recalled the ancient monograph in his study and the lines carefully underlined. So this was God’s fist!  Somehow this was what it was all about.

All around him the troops were trying to flee – but he knew that they were all doomed. Lucifer charged forward, screaming at them to follow him but none did. The wall of fire surged forwards obliterating everything it touched – slaughtering them by the thousands.  Finally it reached Lucifer – too proud to turn and run. He looked back briefly at Jarrod with hatred and disgust and then turned back towards the oncoming maelstrom, staring straight into it. It looked like he was trying to see through the flames into the unknown face of God. As the flames reached him he screamed out

“Fuck you, asshole
.” And then he was gone. Jarrod watched with growing satisfaction. Somehow he’d won, even if not for long. Not only that but Lucifer, the Satan himself – the Lord of Darkness, scourge of mankind, personification of evil, as Hitler alone, responsible for fifty million deaths and untold suffering - had been destroyed. Jarrod cried out

“Sieg Heil Motherfucker.”
And for just a moment he enjoyed his triumph.

But now the wall of fire was closing in on him. He could think only of Cassandra - meeting her at Waterloo station, talking to her on the train, being asked out on a date, their brief moments of intimacy. He remembered fleeing together across the plains of desolation, outwitting madmen and conversing with gods. He remembered her smiling face, her bright shining eyes and her irrepressible spirit. He called out to her

“Oh Cassandra, I love you with all of my heart and all of my soul. I would do anything for you. I wish, I yearn, for one more day with you. And then I could face oblivion with some small measure of happiness – but only knowing that you would continue on forever.”
The wall of fire was approaching rapidly now. He could feel the heat of it starting to burn off his flesh. He also found himself trying to stare through it, to make out the face of the unknown unknowable God. He called out to him

“You claim to be a God of justice. What possible justice is there in leaving her in that accursed and wretched place? Destroy me if you must. I deserve it. I am nothing. But you cannot leave her there. You just cannot.”
  The flame reached him. He braced for it. Then ... nothing happened. It passed through him and continued on. He looked around, astonished that he still existed. Behind him the wall of fire moved on, fast and furious. He could not see through it. Around him and in front of him there was nothing but charred and broken terrain, still smouldering in places, everyone else gone. He was slightly burnt but basically unharmed. Ahead of him he could see the gates of Heaven. As he watched the main gate slowly opened. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

Having no idea what to expect he entered the City of God and found himself walking along a wide straight promenade. There were large stately mansions on each side. They all had sweeping lawns and lush gardens but these had not been maintained and were growing wildly.  He continued walking along the promenade and after some time come out onto a large square with a fountain in the middle of it. The whole place had a great sense of elegance about it but it was completely empty and devoid of all life. He noticed some kind of plaque at the base of the fountain and walked towards it. He had to get quite close in order to read it. It read

“On this day - August Sixth, 1945 - Almighty God has decreed that Heaven is to be vacated. He has lost all hope for mankind and from this day forth they are to be abandoned. If you are reading this do not despair, wait patiently, someone will come for you.”

Jarrod blinked. That was something of a surprise. Though it did explain the last seventy years! He heard someone or something behind him and turned. It was an angel, an archangel, dressed in white. Somehow he recognized him – Gabriel! Gabriel and Beelzebub had been the closest of friends before the Fall. Gabriel looked at him steadily, trying to size him up, and then spoke

“Beelzebub! You are the last one I ever expected to see here.”
Jarrod shrugged, he motioned towards the plaque.

“Hiroshima?”
  Gabriel nodded.

“The middle ages, the witch trials, the Inquisition, the Nazis, the Holocaust, Stalin’s and Lenin’s mass purges were almost enough. But when they dropped an atomic bomb on three hundred thousand people we all knew immediately that it would be the first of many. It was the last straw. God wept
quite openly.  Any society that can do that or plan and prepare to do that – whatever their vain and hypocritical excuses –has instantly and permanently cut itself off from God’s grace and begun a rapid, rabid and irreversible descent into loud bombastic self righteous insanity. You’ve seen what’s just been happening. Satan himself had to intervene to stop them, the world is his now.”

Jarrod found Gabriel’s tone itself more than just a bit pompously self righteous. He objected

“But Satan started it, engineered it.” Gabriel replied unctuously

“They have free will.”
Jarrod was furious at this reply but he wasn’t going to get drawn into that old and ridiculous argument. Instead, he pointed out

“And anyway Satan is dead now, gone.”
Gabriel looked at him carefully

“Lucifer is dead. The next Satan.”

Jarrod stared back at him.

Gabriel was revealing nothing further. He stared back impassively. After some time he spoke again.

“You have a unique opportunity now, one that I would never have thought possible.”
Jarrod had no idea what he was talking about, he asked, not without some suspicion

“And what’s that?”
Gabriel continued

“You passed through the
wall of fire. Being pure of heart, having put love for another before your self, you can come back with me now and be reunited with God.” He said this in a very condescending way. Jarrod was finding him increasingly unpleasant. He asked simply

“What about Cassandra?”
Gabriel spoke

“She has been judged. You must not think of her again.”
Jarrod was outraged

“What sort of justice is that? What sort of compassion? What, they fall out of the boat and it’s a case of fuck them; forget them, I’m OK. And while I’m on the subject how can he abandon billions of people into that accursed pit anyway– most of them for that matter not guilty of much, just stupidity - deluded and defrauded by a small minority of lying, thieving, power mongering assholes.”
Gabriel continued to stare at him, looking stern

”God’s justice, God’s ways - are not to be questioned.”
Jarrod was furious.

“Well, I’m questioning them. Widespread disease, plague, famine, poverty, ignorance, stupidity - earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, floods. The depravations of old age for the few who even make it that far. And he claims to love us! What would it be like if he didn’t? Everyone who anyone ever loves torn away from them by death. Suffering and pain the common lot of all and the capacity to gain just some glimpse of an understanding denied to anyone. Though there is no shortage of pompous priests of all persuasions pumping crap into people’s heads as fast as they are able. Is he up there just laughing at all of this? Consider a new born baby with a genetic disease, guilty of nothing, dying in its mothers arms, clinging to life, trying to scream as it gasps for its last breathe. Your God is either malevolent or i
ncompetent and either way I spit on him.” Gabriel said nothing, he simply vanished. Jarrod called out after him

“Yeah, well, fuck you too.”

Without saying another word he turned around and set off on his return journey - back across the now shattered Plains of Anticipation and back down into the depths of Hell itself – to find and rescue his one true love. But even as he did so, a small doubt was beginning to form and a slowly growing fear that there was not going to be a happy ending – and never could have been.

Chapter 26 – Sudden Violent Death

Cassandra was walking home to her apartment in Walker Street. She was coming back after a shift at the House of Pain. She had been working there now for almost a year and was thoroughly sick of it. Most of the clients were harmless but every now and then ...
And as for tonight! Well! That disgusting little pervert should be locked up. And someone should throw away the key. She was definitely going to quit. No amount of money was worth having to put up with nasty little shitheads like him. She crossed the bridge and made her way through the streets of North Sydney. It was after midnight but there were still a few people around. It was unusually quiet for a Saturday night. She looked about nervously – she’d caught several glimpses of the gnome earlier, watching her, following her. She hadn’t seen him for months and now for no apparent reason he was back. She knew instinctively that he represented a level of evil far beyond anything else she would ever encounter – at least in this life. She shuddered to recall how they had played together when she was a child. He had been her best friend, and now, what? Once again she found she couldn’t even remember his name. She tried harder but nothing came. She could never remember it and this in itself seemed very strange. It seemed to her to be desperately important – if she could just remember then she would be making a huge step towards finding out who he was and why he was following her.

Adrienne would be waiting at home. She’d taken the night off.  Cassandra was unsure about her as well.  She had become so pushy and so demanding. Nothing was the same since Marianne had been killed. Cassandra loved her and loved being with her up to a point, but maybe they should take a break for a while – live separately. She had a pretty good idea how Adrienne would react to that suggestion.  Maybe just break up and be done with it. Do something, anything. She had to make some fundamental changes somehow. She missed being with a man. There was that extra something – it was hard to explain. Sure, almost all of them were assholes. But there had to be a decent one out there somewhere. She was flying to London in a week. She had a cousin in Brighton – one of her few surviving relatives. She had wanted to visit her for ages and now was a good time. She hadn’t visited her last year when they all went to Europe. She should have done it then. And now she would, she would get away from it all here – yes and from Adrienne too – and maybe she’d meet a good man in London. Stranger things had happened.

She heard a voice coming from straight in front of her – loud, obnoxious and very threatening.

“Well, well, look who we have here?”
Looking up, she saw the same three men who had attacked her and Adrienne six months previously. They obviously recognized her. Once again they were drunk - drunk enough to be truly dangerous. Cassandra looked around. She’d turned into Walker Street. She couldn’t see anyone else. She cursed herself for walking home alone. This could be a real problem. Another one of the men, the tall stupid looking one, snarled at her

“Where’s your cunt girlfriend
, cunt?”  Cassandra didn’t answer and took a step back. They moved on her, quickly surrounding her. They grabbed her by the arms, one each side, then started walking – taking her along with them. She struggled but they were much stronger than her. One of them covered her mouth with his hand stopping her from screaming out. She tried to bite it but couldn’t quite manage. 

They took her around the corner and then across the street to a small park – just a half block in size. There was no lighting in the park itself and it was quite dark with several large trees providing lots of cover. She thought

‘Oh no
.’ She
continued to struggle – but with no effect. They took her into the park and behind the first large tree. They pushed her onto the ground. The tall stupid looking one took off his coat and stood over her. He spoke loudly to the other two

“Right, strip the bitch.”
  He started to take off his own clothes. The other two reached for Cassandra. She tried to scream out for help. One of them dropped down beside her and covered her mouth again. He held her tightly. She continued to struggle.

They all felt it. Something was there with them - something immensely evil. The men slowly turned towards it. Cassandra turned her head as best she could.  There was a very large, very savage dog standing there, staring at them. It was a Doberman. It was growling at them. They could see its sleek jet black fur, its snarling face, razor sharp teeth and burning red, blood shot eyes - malevolence it its purest form. It looked like it had come straight up out of hell – and of course, it had.  It was obviously intending to kill them and there was nothing they could do about it.

It jumped at the tall man standing over Cassandra, wrapping its jaws around his neck and tearing his throat out before he even hit the ground. The other two men screamed and tried to back away. They begged for mercy

“No, No, please, No
, Don’t.” It advanced on them slowly and then jumped at them. There was a blur of movement, guttural roaring from the dog and shrieks of pain from the men which ended abruptly. It was all over in seconds.

Cassandra had managed to get to her feet. The dog walked back towards her and then sat down in front of her. For a moment she thought it was going to attack her too. Then she realized that it was there to protect her. She looked at it uncertainly. But she felt no fear. She was certain now, beyond all doubt, that she was involved in some dark plot and always had been. She looked up and sure enough there was the gnome standing only ten metres away, staring across at her. The doberman obviously belonged to him. Ignoring the fact that he had probably just saved her life, she was suddenly full of fire and fury. She rushed towards him and for the first time since childhood was standing directly in front of him. He watched her without expression. She screamed at him

“Why are you watching me? What do you want from me? You bastard! You fucking little bastard!”
She reached for him – trying to grab his neck. But he simply vanished. She turned – the Doberman was gone also. She was left just standing there.