The Megidda: First Daughter of Heaven

Chapter 1

In The Void, between Heaven and Hell, the True Name of Violence was spoken into the darkness. His ears twitching, straining to hear a voice he hadn't heard in thousands of years, a voice he adored, a voice he could not ignore. He awoke from his twelve thousand years of slumber with an agonizing hunger gnawing and tearing at the essence of his being. The desperate need for slaughter vibrated within his bones. The chains of brimstone-forged steel that had imprisoned him for echoing eons fell away, disintegrating into nothing.

He shuddered, brushing the dust of imprisonment from his shoulders. He gripped his wrists, reveling in the freedom from the restraints The Betrayer placed upon him, so long ago. It touched the iron bolt bisecting its mouth, the thick leather straps from each end long ago melding with the flesh of its face. He grasped the protruding ends of the bolts along the bristly line of its bony jaw with its long, sharp fingers and pulled, groaning against the tearing and pain. When the bolt gave way, ripping the scaly flesh from his lips, he let out a screech, a scream no other creature in existence could duplicate—because no other creature had been cobbled together as he had, had endured what it had. He blinked his large eyes, snapped his once immobile jaws, and let out another screech.

Once he'd rid himself of the urge to scream, he stretched his limbs, this muscles and bones popping in a chorus of crick-crick-snap. The pain was welcome after so many years of paralyzing sleep.

Sleep that had been forced upon him by Elohim, his Creator, his once beloved Father.

Azazel raised his lip in a sneer. "Beetrayeeer." His voice, long silent, growled the name as a curse into the void around him.

His slumber was over. Finally. The time for Violence had come.

Shaking the stench of The Void from his large, misshapen form, he rose from where he'd once huddled in the dark, and marched to the very edge of the craggy outcropping, the only remaining piece of the first firmament, and glanced into the void.

The Void.

The darkest, emptiest, most despised of all places.

It was what came before. It was the world before... Elohim. The Betrayer.

Just the name on his lips, in his mind, made the scaly skin along his limbs crawl.

Hate was too tame a word for what he felt about... He'd rather not think about Him.

In the beginning, there was The Void. Then Elohim spoke His True Name into The Void and created.

Everything.

Heaven. Hell. The World of Men.

The demon of Violence turned from the edge and looked upon the remnants of the first firmament, the original dwelling place of Elohim's Hosts. Once a glittering city of huge halls, stunning marble pillars, golden bricked walkways, and stars made of shining, glimmering gems, the ruins were dull, brown, ancient, and still stank of Holy Fire.

The favorite of the Hosts weapons.

The Heavenly Host. Angels.

He sneered, his thick nostrils widening.

He'd been an angel once. Millenia ago. Before the Betrayal; when Elohim turned His back on His first son and threw him from the heavens.

Those loyal to Abaddon rebelled alongside him, rising up in the streets of the Firmament to fight against the pretty winged legions loyal to their Creator.

What had their loyalty gotten them?

His sneer returned. He could feel a lopsided grin spread across his face.