Tempting Christ

The Faith of Demons

The Abominations called on me, as I knew they would. They gathered me at the Lake of Fire, the place that is the second death--the fate foretold for all our kind.

As merciful as Jesus claimed to be, we all knew what he intended to do with us when the end came.

The Abominations hovered over the lake, allowing its fumes to sting them. They writhed in discomfort. As they did, hands and feet reached out of them, beings entombed inside their horrible flesh struggling to come free. Their many eyes were bloodshot and watery.

"Do you think we were cruel, Warlord of the Dark and Deep, in what we did to the one you love, Cassia?"

"Most cruel," I said, bowing.

"Do you know why we have brought you here? Why we torment ourselves with these fires?"

I stared at the lake. It could not be to throw me in. Even they did not have the power and authority to do that. They could not even throw themselves in. That power was reserved to the Most High.

Whatever answer they wanted, I had no idea. So I sought to be political.

"The ways of the Abominations are mysterious," I said.

"Is God less cruel than us?"

"No," I answered. This question was easy. It was part of our lessons, our catechism of darkness. "He who permits all torment and pain must indeed have the fullness of all cruelty. All evil comes, ultimately, from him."

The abominations floated to the shore and landed. They writhed and came apart, like a cicada shedding its exoskeleton. From inside each eye covered being, emerged three gaunt and broken souls, as badly tormented as Cassia. Unlike the shell they occupied, they had no eyes.

I shook at the sight. As bad as my ever-present vision of Cassia was, this perverse vision was even more visceral.

They spoke in unison.

"We show you our true natures, Warlord, that you may know the price we pay for our dark cause. We inflict no less on ourselves what have done to Cassia. Indeed, we do this in preparation to elevating her to our rank."

Our kind does not easily feel the sensation of cold when in our spiritual form, but on hearing this, I felt as if I sat naked on the shore of an ice-covered lake.

What should I say? That I hoped more than anything that Cassia would be found unworthy of such an "honor?" Fortunately, my trembling was such that I could not speak.

"In answer to our first question, why we brought you here, it is to remind you and ourselves of the fate that is coming. Ultimately, we do not believe that God will yield to our defiant plea. He is too proud to admit he is wrong in what he does."

With a struggle, I found my voice. "But you don't know him in his fleshly form as I do. He really feels the wrongness of the world, it pains him. I think--I think despite all we've done, he actually cares what happens to us."

"Do you still believe, Warlord, in our cause? Are you willing to pay the ultimate price to prove to God that he is wrong? Gaze upon the Lake of Fire, and give us your answer."

I did as they asked.

The lake was filled with magma, or what appeared to be magma. Flames danced across its surface with a violence that rivaled the eruptions of plasma on the surface of the sun. But it was no merely physical thing. In it, I saw my end, and the end of all my kind as we disappeared, screaming, beneath the infinite and restless heat.

In that undoing, however, I saw a kind of glory. We were rebels still, willing to pay the ultimate price for our ideals.

Almost, it uplifted me--but in that fire I also saw my Mikal, consigned to darkness and suffering for all eternity, cast out from the light. Was this vision a threat or a foretelling? Did the Abominations see it, too, or was this somehow the interpretation of my spirit of the terror that awaited us all?

But if God could allow such a fate for her, then he was indeed cruel--beyond even my previous estimations. For until I'd fallen in love with Mikal, I'd not understood the cost of damning even one soul for all eternity.

Darkness, fire, and strength filled me. I boiled to my feet to the clash of lightning. "I believe!" I screamed.

God might crush me, but I would scream against his unjustice until I perished.

"Very good, Warlord," the Abominations said.

Slowly, they crawled back inside themselves. "We release Cassia back into your care. This will be her final test of worthiness for the fate we have chosen for her."

A sound escaped me, a bark of laughter or a sob--maybe it was some combination. My whole essence shuddered with it.

The darkness around me receded and I found myself back on Earth, back in the place I'd left Jesus to pray, the broken spirit of Cassia spread out before me.

On seeing her dismembered ghostly essence spread out before me, I found myself weeping. I struggled to put her together, but our kind does not have the innate power to heal. Still, I fumbled with the pieces of her, unable to think straight.

Jesus walked over to us and stretched out his hand over her. At once, her many pieces knit themselves together into a coherent whole.

She rose and embraced me. Still I wept.

"Why?" I asked him. "Why do you permit the Dark Stair to exist?"

He shook his head. "I don't--I don't know. It's not one of the things that is necessary for my mission."

"Admit that it is wrong, Son of God," I begged. "Admit that the Dark Stair should never have been allowed to exist."

I knew it was a pointless thing to ask of him. If he did, he'd have to give sheol the victory it had fought so long and hard for.

Only then did I see that he wept, too.

"It is wrong, Darius," he said. "I'll get rid of it. I promise you."

And with that he turned and started walking away. For several long seconds, I was too stunned by his admission to speak.

"When, Son of God? Will it be before you destroy us in the Lake of Fire?"

This, however, he did not answer. I smiled, though. Maybe the Abominations were wrong. Maybe God would admit and correct his error in the end. Part of me believed in this Jesus, that he would really prove to be as merciful as the words he preached--and that gave me hope.

I released Cassia. "Come, I said. We have work to do. Tomorrow, Jesus enters Jerusalem."

She smiled vacantly in response.

In the darkness of her eyes, I saw no enthusiasm for the work ahead, only echoes of torment and the place she'd been.

"Cassia?" I asked. "Are you in there?"

Almost imperceptibly, she nodded. We fallen are not like humans. We don't have long-lasting trauma from suffering. That was a basic truth we relied upon for disciplining our kind.

Yet as I stood there, looking at the once wild, mischievous demon that Cassia had been, I questioned that foundational belief.