THE FIRST SIN
BY LISA BETH DARLING
2017-ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CHAPTER FIVE
CHRONICLES
***AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a work in progress and as such something has changed earlier in the story. Ares has been introduced and revealed to be Eve’s lover. I have re-uploaded those earlier chapters to reflect this change. If you’ve already read the earlier chapters there’s no true need to go back and read them again unless you’re curious about this fact.***
I must admit that the next week was one of, if not thee, strangest of my long life. I thought I knew nearly everything about Mortals. Turned out I knew nearly nothing of their world aside from their bad behavior. Eve, as always, was kind and very patient with me as I learned how to use eating utensils. She taught me the everyday variety of the simple knife, fork, and spoon. When I got that down she added more forks and more spoons of varying sizes to the setting explaining that she believed, given my penchants, I would eventually be in what she called ‘high company’. There I would have to know and completely mind my manners and hold to good etiquette lest my cover be blown. I learned the difference between a dinner fork, desert fork, salad fork, shrimp fork and others along with the uses for a soupspoon, teaspoon, and tablespoon. It wasn’t easy to remember all of that and I found it downright silly that someone should have to become accustomed to so many utensils so one could properly put food in their mouths.
She also rigidly instructed me not to speak with food in my mouth and to chew with my mouth closed wiping my lips after every third bite so as not to offend anyone around me should an errant piece of macaroni cling to my whiskers. After I learned all of that and had it down pat she went on to tell me that it was perfectly acceptable to eat some foods with my fingers!
It was all very annoying.
Eve taught me how to properly affix a necktie around my neck and I found the stupid thing abhorrent. Why would any man volunteer to be lightly choked all day long? Don’t get me wrong, a little rough and tumble can be quite fun, but this was just bothersome. However, when paired with the right shirt and suit jacket it was very becoming look, one I ended up liking much more than the blue jeans and boots Eve seemed to want to me wear as every day attire. That didn’t surprise Eve, she just stared me and sighed as she told me I’d always had ‘expensive tastes’. I thought that odd since neither in Heaven or in Hell is there anything remotely like currency.
She schooled me in what she called Pop Culture, she made me memorize lists of movie stars, movies, songs, bands, video games, slang words that didn’t seem to want me to use even as she told me their meanings in the correct context to use them. She told me all about gadgets of days gone by; Beta Max, VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, 45s, LPs, CDs, digital downloads, and phones that hung on walls and used a rotary dial mechanism. All very strange things but she showed me pictures of each and described their use in detail. She stacked my bedroom with books, everything from Shakespeare to Shelly to Vonnegut to Byron to King and Hemmingway. Eve insisted this Pop Culture would initially come in handier than knowledge of actual History as, at first, Mortals got to know each other by their tastes in entertainment. They referenced these things often with each other including lines from movies and songs. Later in their relationships they might discuss something Historical such as the American Revolutionary War.
With her kind patience I learned about computers, e-mail, cellphones, and the Internet whose Lord was The Almighty Google. With these tools I literally had the entire world at my fingertips. It was amazing and confounding at first but since it all appealed to my curious nature I was a quick study. I mastered email, Facebook, Twitter, the contacts list in my new cell phone, and several games which came under the heading of Pop Culture. My contacts list, however, consisted of only two people; Eve and Raphael. She told me they had my cellphone number and would be calling me from time to time and she didn’t expect they would get voice mail.
When my Brother finally returned to Eve’s house with the paperwork he insisted I needed I discovered the importance of Facebook and Twitter. Eve helped me set up accounts on both under the name of Lou Samuels. I thought it was just fun until Raph handed me my new birth certificate and other identity papers and realized that was to be my name in the Mortal World. “Lou?” I cried. “Lou? Do I look like a Lou to you? It sounds like some fat drunken bartender.” Shaking the papers in Raph’s face I demanded he change them. “My name is Lucifer.”
“No one names their child Lucifer,” Raphael insisted. “You’ll throw red flags all over the place.”
“And Samuels? Is that support to be code for Samael?”
“It’s not code but the similarity didn’t escape me.”
Before I could interject Eve spoke up, “Look, in order to get you the best backstory possible, we had to give you the identity of a baby that died shortly after birth. We had to base you on a real person, get it? When you’re out there your identity has to be beyond reproach. I know you, you’ll get arrested before you hit Nevada.” Eve grabbed a hold of my hand clutching the small stack of papers. “Lou Samuels has a real birth certificate and a real Social Security number. He lived and died before the world went digital. A world you look about the right age to have grown up in.”
“So that’s it then? I’m just supposed to step into a dead man’s life?”
“Yes.”
I shirked her off me and gave in, “Alright, fine. Lou,” I huffed in disgust. “They couldn’t even name him Louis what kind of slobs were they?”
“Lou was the boy’s mother’s maiden name,” Eve said softly, “Now it’s time you started learning a little bit about the Samuels family so…”
“I look legitimate, I get it.” I did understand. They were right, of course they were. I couldn’t very well go around telling everyone I was Lucifer, Fallen Angel, and Lord of Hell. But I couldn’t lie either. If anyone out there asked me directly about my family I would have no choice but to tell them the truth. I would just have to avoid any conversation like that and let my ‘web footprint’ speak for me. “Let’s get on with it.”
I received a crash course in the short life of one Lou Samuels born October 10, 1976 in Gary, Indiana to Todd Samuels, a factory worker, and Melinda Lou, a schoolteacher. The boy lived just under a year when he succumbed to tuberculosis. The marriage of Todd and Melinda didn’t survive the death of their only child they divorced less than two years later. Todd fell into a bottle of booze and never came out. Melinda ran off and joined a convent where she lived out the rest of her days. Neither of them had any living family. It was the perfect cover, as I sat there listening to the sad tale, I wondered about the great lengths Eve and Raph had gone to in searching out the perfect hollow man. They’d done so right down to the first name; Lou. It was something I could quickly become accustomed to answering to and using without it being an outright lie but a mere shortened version of my given name.
“You got it?” Eve said to me. “You’re just an Average Joe, a regular guy from Gary, Indiana. You can reinvent yourself from there from your humble beginnings.”
“Got it,” I agreed. “Anything else?”
Raphael stood up with a long face, “Yes, tomorrow I teach you how to drive.”
“Oooo,” I perked up at the prospect, “Shouldn’t be too hard and it looks like fun.”
“Get some sleep, Luce,” Raphael looked to Eve, “Pray for me tonight, huh?”
Eve laughed as she saw him to the door. She came back to my side still grinning, “At least your shoulder is mostly healed, learning to drive will be easier with two hands.” Resuming her seat on the couch she remarked, “You’ve healed up remarkably well and fast. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
I knew what she meant and wished I could say yes, “No, my Powers haven’t returned yet but I guess my healing ability is still somewhat intact.” My hip was completely healed as was every bruise and open wound I sustained when she hit me with her truck. The shoulder was the last to repair itself it seemed the damage had been rather extensive. While it still ached a bit to move it about I’d stopped using the sling a day or two before and started using the arm again without too much trouble. “Still, it won’t be long before I leave. I imagine you’ll be glad to be rid of me.”
“It’s getting late,” Eve said as she rose and glanced toward the large picture windows to see it was past sundown, “Your dinner’s in the refrigerator.”
“My dinner? No one can sidestep me the way you can, did you know that?”
“I know when you’re fishing,” she smiled sadly. “I’m going to take a hot bath. I’ll see you in the morning.”
As I watched her walk away a question rose to my lips, “Aren’t you ever going to eat with me? Every day you make me three scrumptious meals and every day you don’t eat any of it.” She kept walking until I heard the bathroom close and the water begin to run into the tub. “Strange woman,” I muttered as I went to the refrigerator to find a heaping plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy. As I kept looked at it I just kept wondering why she never ate anything. Why she wouldn’t be anywhere near me when I ate. She always had my meal on the table before I arrived in the room or it was waiting in the fridge just as it was tonight. The TV and something called Yahoo! Beauty on the Internet taught me women didn’t like to eat in front of men. It seemed Thin was In and just as Eve had confessed so many thousands of years ago; a man didn’t want a fat woman. I imagined this was a womanly quirk I would have to deal with many times when I got Out There. Perhaps for Eve there was a deeper level of shame and uncertainty to the act. The last time she ate anything in front of me she ended up cursed for all eternity.
Sitting on the stool at the breakfast counter I ate my dinner listening to the water run as the air began filling with the inviting scents of jasmine, amber, and sea salt. Resisting the urge to interrupt her bath, I finished my meal, washed and dried my dishes and then I went to my own room to complete my homework assignment. Keeping in line with her Pop Culture thing, Eve assigned me a movie or a TV to watch every night after which I was continue reading whatever book I was on for at least the next hour. After breakfast she would ask me about them and we would discuss their significance. On all counts, during my stay with her, Eve kept me on my toes. She kept me learning and preparing me for the day of my egress. She did so with all of the patience, kindness, and caring that I had once shown to her and Adam when they were new to the Garden of Eden.
The irony was not lost on me. I couldn’t decide if I should simply consider it funny or if I should probe deeper and see it as yet another of my Father’s little wicked jokes.
If that wasn’t a joke the next day surely was when Raphael arrived bright and early in his own pickup truck.
“Good luck!” Eve called from the back doorway. “Take him down there. You know, way, way, way, down there.” She waved off toward the left and some faraway place there.
“She has no faith in me,” I grumbled climbing into the passenger seat.
“Yep,” Raphael agreed, “That’s why this task fell to me. She didn’t want to crash with you.” He turned the key and took off out of the driveway turning left into the desert.
“I’m not going to crash,” I scoffed. “I’ve done lots of research in the Internet; you know, Don’t Drink and Drive.”
“That is good advice, Luce, did you learn anything about the mechanics of driving?”
“I watched videos on YouTube,” I crowed and proudly pointed out all of the things I already knew, “Look, that’s the gas pedal, that’s the brake, that pedal is the…” for a second I was stumped but then I got it, “the clutch. That makes this the shifter and that’s the steering wheel.”
Taking on hand off the wheel, Raphael scratched the side of his graying head, “Good, that’s good, Luce.” Taking another left he drove to a sand covered road that looked as though it hadn’t been used in years. Killing the engine he opened the door and climbed out. “Your turn, slide over.”
I felt a rush of exhilaration, “Now we’re talking. Buckle up Brother we’re going for a ride.” As soon as his butt met the seat I turned the key and revved the engine. I held back the laugh when Raph jumped the rest of the way into the cab and slammed the door shut even as he scrambled for the seatbelt making the Sign of the Cross over his body. “Are you done?” I didn’t wait for him to answer as I tried to copy the things I’d seen on YouTube. I slammed down the clutch and the gas pedal, threw the stick into what I thought was first gear, the big truck roared, it lurched forward, and promptly stalled out. “What happened? Your truck doesn’t work.”
“My truck works just fine. Do you want to listen to me now? It’s all about timing and finesse.”
Well, I knew a few things about timing and finesse already, “Let me try again.” Putting my foot on the gas, I cranked the key. Unexpectedly the car lurched forward once more this time it kept rolling. Not understanding what was happening, I shifted into what I thought was second gear. There was a terrible grinding sound just before the truck stalled out again. “Now see, look, I told you, this truck doesn’t work.”
“First off, you started it in first gear, try putting it neutral. Secondly you tried to shift too soon without the clutch fully depressed and ground the gears, I’m sure you heard that, Luce, that’s a bad sound, we never want to hear that sound.”
Raph’s face was nearly pressed to mine as his eyes narrowed and I felt the warmth of his breath blowing into my eyes, “Right,” I agreed backing away until my head rested on the side window. “Ok, why don’t you give me some instructions?”
His face still gnarled, Raph snarled, “Yeah, why don’t I do that?” He eased back in his own seat. “Put the clutch in.”
I did as he asked and felt his hand land over mind on the shifter. “What are you doing?”
He moved the stick to the center, “Feel that? That’s neutral. Let the clutch out. Now let it back in.”
It went that way for the next ten minutes or so as he showed me each gear position and how to feel if the transmission was fully engaged or not. When he was satisfied that I had that much down he allowed me start the truck again. Soon we were bumbling down the dusty road in fits and starts as I tried very hard not to grind the gears again. It happened a few times anyway and this did not my Brother happy. Each time he threatened to run me over with the truck and finish the job Eve inadvertently started.
By midday I was fairly skilled at driving up and down that old road in the middle of nowhere. Raph had me go forward and in reverse. Reverse was different and it was tricky but I caught on quickly. I did U-turns in the middle of the road and came to sudden stops on his command. By dinnertime I was pulling into Eve’s driveway to find her waiting on her front porch. She smiled when she came to greet us.
“Well I see you’re both alive and you, you’re driving.” She looked to Raphael. “Well, how did he do? I don’t see any dents.”
“It’s not ready for the highway but maybe tomorrow we’ll drive over to Tunstown and he can get familiar with some light traffic.”
“Good. Excellent,” Eve proclaimed. “How did you like it?”
I admitted the truth, “It was harder than I thought but it is a lot of fun.” As we walked into the house, Raph drove off. Inside the front door I noticed the change immediately. The very intoxicating scent of Amber filled my sense but it was the underlying hints of sweat, passion, and heated sex that made my body tingle. I looked down at her and at what I initially thought was excitement for me and my first time driving but that wasn’t it. I couldn’t help but smile, “Ahhh, look at you, you’re all glowing, you’ve had sex.” Eve shook her head as tried to brush me off but I wouldn’t let her. I grabbed her upper arm gently, moved in closer, and took in a long breath. “I smell him all over you and I do mean all over you.”
“Jealous?”
The titter in her voice made me grin, “Maybe. So tell me, when do I get to meet your lover? Is he jealous of me staying here alone with you?”
“You two are never going to meet,” Eve shook her head with a smile as she wagged a finger in the air, “Never.”
“Until you send him to kill me, is that it?”
“Yes, that’s an excellent idea,” she grinned wider, “but he is anxious for you to leave, I guess you should know that much.”
“I would be too if I were him. I’d be out of my mind by now.”
Eve reached out to pat my chest, “No worries, Lucifer, his mind and body are very relaxed at his moment. All’s well in that department. Your dinner is–”
“In the fridge,” I finished for her understanding the cue it was leading up to, “I know. Good night.”
“Sleep well, I believe I will.” She wandered off and out of my sight.
As I watched her go I wished I’d been the one who was with her this afternoon wished I had been driving her instead of that truck. All I could do was stand there breathing in the erotic scents letting the lingering energy soak into me where it sparked envy to life in my gut. With tendrils of scalding ice it reached upward toward my heart. “Long ago and very far away,” I muttered to myself. That path was past. The new one before me promised thrills, chills, spills, and a ton of hot, young, gorgeous willing women to fuck along with barrels of alcohol to drink. Surely that was better than clinging to one slightly aged woman whose only vice seemed to be taking a few of those Vicodins and weed, Eve liked to smoke marijuana and had a few nice bushes of it growing in her lush garden.
I made a determination. I set my course. I did not stray from it.
Two days later I was zipping up and down the highway at speeds of seventy miles an hour or more and merging with traffic behind the wheel of my very first car. Buying it was quite the experience I liked the thing the Mortals called ‘haggling’. I was always good at barters and deals. By the end of the second day I was the proud owner of a 2009 Camaro Z/28. A silver T-top with all the bells and whistles. Raph and Eve tried to talk me out of buying it they said it was too expensive, too flashy, and completely impractical. Yet, it just seemed to have me written all over it. The freedom the car gave me wasn’t quite as my wings but flying down the road with the wind in my hair was very satisfying just the same.
Returning to Eve’s house that night I did something that I had yet to do; I drove through Grey Village and discovered it didn’t even amount to the tiniest dot on a map. The whole town consisted of four dusty streets that made an ‘H’. The well-worn yet neatly kept storefronts housed a single gas station/garage, two bars, a theatre, a small grocer, the All-In-One Eve spoke of days ago which turned out to be a General Store, the thrift shop she’d also spoken of, a barber, and small restaurant. Everything one could ever need—if their needs were small—crammed into less than a square half mile of desert. It seemed to me that those who owned businesses lived above them as I saw people wandering around on the second stories. Those that did not own a business, like Eve, lived on the outskirts of town.
Since the town was so miniscule and the inhabitants so old, it appeared that the preferred method of getting around was to walk. Everywhere I looked something from the Ancient World stared back at me. Some of them were like me they could walk around the largest city and no one would be any the wiser with regard to their true natures. Intermingled with them was the sight of Faeries flitting around in the air their iridescent wings catching the fading light to sparkle in the dusk. There were Elves with their long cloaks appearing to float just over the ground met my eyes. At first I felt a strange and powerful sense of wonder as I saw more creatures; Dwarves with stout hairy bodies were juxtaposed by the few Nymphs in the long lanky forms nearly danced down the street. They all had one thing in common, no matter who or what they were or what they had been doing as they made their way about town, as I drove past they soundlessly glared at me with open disgust before turning their heads completely away and spitting upon the ground. It was a most unnerving feeling it so distracted me that I stopped watching the road altogether until I heard a voice shout out: “Stop!”
I slammed on the brakes and looked up just in time to see none other than Ares himself standing in the headlights. Mere inches away from him the tires squealed to a halt and he leaned that massive frame over to plant his palms on the hood of my new car so hard he left two perfect impressions behind. My heart couldn’t decide if it was going to speed up or slow to a crawl as he slowly pulled his powerful body over the hood until his face was nearly pressed up against the windshield. His black eyes sprang to life with pure flames as his upper lip pulled back in a wolf-life snarl. The God of War wasn’t just intimidating he was downright terrifying.
Scanning my surroundings from the corners of my eyes I noticed all the pedestrians stopped in their tracks to take in the events that were about to play out. I’m not a coward by any means but I’ve always been good at assessing the odds and these were not in my favor. “Sorry,” I called out and raised my hands to show I meant no ill will, “My fault entirely.”
With his big mitts pawing at the hood until the metal creaked and the dents grew deeper, Ares growled in a deep commanding voice, “You got that right.”
All I wanted to do was floor the gas, peel out of there, and keep driving but showing that much weakness in front of all of these beings who were essentially my actual peers would not have been a good call. I settled on a bit of tact and diplomacy as I extended my hand out of the open window and around the hood. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Lucifer, Lucifer,” my eyes rolled, “well I don’t really have a surname. I take you don’t either. Ares, is it?” Still holding out my hand but never knowing when to hold my silver tongue I smiled, “It’s about time we met, don’t you think, Cousin? I mean after all I am staying in your house.”
Even in his advancing age the God of War was not one for politics, “Yes but you’re not staying much longer, are you, Cousin?” Rather than shake hands Ares slid off the hood, folded his gigantic arms across his even bigger chest and took one step back from the car.
It was more of a statement than a question actually it was a very meaningful threat really. I withdrew my hand and cleared my throat knowing I was treading on thin ice, “No, I’m not. I can’t wait to go and see the world.”
“Neither can I,” With his eyes still flaring with fire and his shoulders now covered in a wisp of smoke emanating from his own brawny body, Ares stepped back to the sidewalk. “You’ve been here too long already.”
“Well, don’t worry, Cousin, nothing has happened between Eve and me. That’s all in the past. The very distant past.”
With a sigh so heavy that even from that distance it blew the strands of hair away from my face, he cocked his head to one side and snickered, “I know. If I couldn’t trust her she wouldn’t be my woman.” Flicking his own long dark locks away from his neck to cascade past his shoulder he grinned and added, “Besides, who wants that,” he gestured to me as though I were nothing more than a bratty child, “when they can have this?” Proudly he stood ramrod straight with his broad chest pushed out and smiled with perfect teeth. “Now get out of here.”
Slowly I drove past but I didn’t take my eyes off of him not even when I meandered by, I kept looking at him the mirrors as I went forward. He kept his flaming eyes fixed on me until I was out of sight.
Considering myself duly warned with full understanding that I had worn out my welcome, when I returned to Eve’s home I began packing for my trip. She tried to convince me that I wasn’t ready just yet but I wasn’t in the mood to listen to her.
In the morning, with five thousand dollars and two credit cards along my driver’s license tucked away in a new wallet in my back pocket, I left Grey Village. I had two suitcases full of clothes, a new laptop computer, my cellphone, and a picnic basket stacked full of food for the road provided by Eve. She and Raphael stood by the side of the road to see me off, up until the very last minute she tried to talk me into staying at least another day.
Ready to take on the world I hit the open road. Just as I hit the village limits a figure grew on the horizon. I recognized it instantly. What else could block out the rising sun? Ares was standing by the roadside on the outskirts of town and he was there to make sure that I left. I waved to him as I drove by without stopping and he raised a hand in return. That time when I looked back in the rearview mirror I saw relief on his ruggedly handsome face. I imagined Eve and the others must be feeling it as well.
Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish.
THE END of THE FIRST SIN CHAPTER FIVE BY LISA BETH DARLING. COPYRIGHT 2017-ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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