The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2)

by M. H. Hawkins

  She took a knee in the sand next to him. He stunk of sweat and urine, and the smell of the cheap liquor oozed from his pours. Yes, he smelt something awful, most certainly something wretched. His beard was ratty and scraggly, his hair as well. A splash of vomit hung off the side of his crusted lips and on his dirt-splattered shirt.

  She whispered to him, “You deserve death, the final gift. Then, your pain would be all over.” She thought about it and ran her fingers through the dirt-filled rats’ nest that he called hair. “Instead, I grant you mercy. The gods are cruel, but we can also be merciful. Sometimes.” She whispered to him, even closer to his ear. “But do not forget, for my mercy is sweet, but my vengeance is ten-fold more bitter. Remember, everyone stands, sits, or knees. Women stand, and queens will sit on their thrones. But men, they only know how to kneel, to women, to money, to power… to beauty—it matters not. They all want to knee, and they all do, whether they realize it or not.”

  She stood up and looked around. “The girl,” voices whispered inside her head. “Oh yeah,” she said grinning.

  Fading in to the ocean breeze, the woman reappeared next to Denise, Denise who was flat on her back and dead to the world. “Poor excuse for a witness.” Poor excuse for a woman, she thought. She noticed Denise’s clenched fist of dollar bills. “And an unimpressive thief, as well.” She tssted, “Denise, Denise, Denise; what are we going to do with you?” Denise didn’t answer and instead continued staring up at the sky with her lifeless eyes.

  “Well, what shall we do with Denise?” The woman seemed to be speaking to herself but… The wind stirred and whipped back her golden mane—bleach blond, it was three shades lighter than her eyebrows. “Well?”

  The winds stirred, and then the ghosts stirred. And now, thin streaks of cigarette smoke danced around her head and whispered into her ears. Kill her… Yes, give her the gift… No, she is not worthy. She only deserves death… The betrayer of women… Abandoner of children… She has no love for men… no respect for women… Husband stealer… Temptress and thief, she is…

  “Well, Denise, looks like the jury has spoken. And it looks like your children, Brad and Sarah, will be orphans, not that they aren’t already. Return the money and take her life.” Her hand spun out two golden coins that weren’t there before. “For her children.” It’s more than you ever gave them, Denise.

  She flipped the coins into the air, and two bellows of smoke whipped out from behind her and snatched them up before whisking away. Another whiff of smoke pried Denise’s hand open, while another washed over it and carried the money away. More whispers came. Your judgement is righteous… You are our queen.

  “I know. Now, be quick with it. And make it hurt.”

  Denise remained lifeless in her tattered brown skirt and overly faded turquoise t-shirt. Too much drinking made her belly too big for the shirt, and her pale belly peeked out like the belly of a snake.

  She may have once been beautiful. At least her legs were. Just below her tattered brown skirt, her legs were thin and silky. Aside from some nicks, scars, and a tattoo that was too old, neglected, and faded; they were very nice legs. Given her life and the amount of self-inflicted abuse, they had actually held up quite nicely. The ghosts thought so, as well. Tiny red dots dotted her thighs. More appeared. Others dotted her calves and arms. The dots grew larger, and her legs deflated. Red dots sprinkled across her shirt, and then her belly deflated.

  The dots grew larger and redder while Denise deflated and thinned. Her plump cheeks disappeared until they barely covered her cheekbones. Her dead eyes finally came alive. With a gasp, her pindot pupils grew into pools of black.

  Her lips crept into a smile for a half-second. “It’s beautiful.”

  Her smile was fleeting before it completely melted, and her lips began to tremble. “It… It hurts.” Seconds felt like hours. “Oh god. Oh… god. Make it stop. Make it…” Tears, salty as the nearby ocean, trickled out of the corners of her unflinching eyes. “I didn’t… I didn’t know.”

  The woman disappeared, but the ghosts kept going. Denise thinned and shed until she was nothing but skin and bones, almost literally. Then, she was literally nothing but skin and bones. Then she was just nothing. Blending in with the beach, Denise became dust, indecipherable from the sandy beach itself. Aside from leaving behind a ratty shirt sprinkled with red droplets of blood and an old brown skirt, nothing was left.

  As day broke, the crashing waves stirred Maurice from his sleep. And as the night came and went, the scuzzy man had changed dramatically. His scraggly hair had filled out and the dirt that covered him was gone. The cracks that covered his weathered face were filled in, and he looked ten years younger. His liver had refreshed itself as well and plumped to a healthy size and color. Refurbished and invigorated, it was already flushing out the toxins that were swimming in the blood.

  His mental illness—the whispers of regret, anxiety, and war—were finally gone. Gone were the voices that plagued him and the darting shadows that weren’t really there. Gone was the paranoia and anxiety that had tormented him for so many years. When he was younger, he told himself that they weren’t real. But as he aged and the voices stayed, they got louder and more insistent. And soon, some days, they were louder and more convincing than his own was. Sometimes the alcohol helped; sometimes it made it worse; and sometimes… Sometimes it made the voices angry. Now, none of that mattered. When he woke, they were all gone, and he only felt the warmth of calmness.

  It felt strange but nice. It’s quiet, he thought. He smiled. I’m free—I’m finally free. He squeezed the sand in his palm and let the gritty grains slide between his fingers.

  Still groggy, he realized that something else was in his hand, his money. Then, something slipped down his chest. Lighter than it looked, it was a large golden coin. Slightly hypnotized, he smiled through his scattered teeth.

  The gold coin was nice, but he was smiling about something else, the estranged daughter that he hadn’t seen for over a decade. The voices had scared him away and threatened her. Five, six… nine years ago? he tried to remember but didn’t know for sure. Too long, that much he remembered.

  The voices told him what they wanted him to do, and he was scared of what he might do. Back then, his thoughts raced until they overheated. The war, the one in the desert—the first one in the desert; what he did, what he did to those people, what he knew he could do, what he was capable of doing. What scared him the most was that he knew he could do it again. And the voices were loud back then—loud, angry, and persistent. So, he stayed away from her—Melissa, Melissa was her name. Such a cute kid, always dancing. But now, the voices were gone, and so was his fear. Salty tears dripped out of the corners of his eyes.

  He stood up and dusted the sand off of him. He looked at the golden coin and shook his head. Unbelievable. Stuffing the coin and his cash into his pocket, he stepped off, away from the beach.

  Stepping over a gross turquoise shirt with red dots and a disgusting brown skirt, and barely missing a beat, he was off and searching for a phone.

  Last night was a good night, he thought. It was. Then he thought, today is the first day of the rest of my life. And again he was right, and it was a good day. What he didn’t know was: there weren’t going to be many left—for him or anyone else.

  CH 4: Stone Tower

  Blackwell stepped in front of Azazel’s prison cell and saw him levitating a tiny green flame in his palm and watched as the emerald streams flickered, swayed, and flashed over the curved stone bricks of his cell.

  “Your wings look better,” said Blackwell. Azazel’s wings had grown over the past few days and were steadily getting healthier. Getting better or not, right now, they still looked half-dead.

  Azazel crushed the flame in his hand and turned towards his visitor. “Yeah, I’ll be soaring around this lovely birdcage in no time.”

  “Of course you will.” Blackwell brushed off the jab and instead pulled the golden coin from his pocket. He flipped it with his thumb
and sent it tumbling through the air and between the prison bars. “What do you know about this?”

  Snatching it out of the air, Azazel gave it a look. His green flames simmered into dim emeralds. “This? You know what this is.”

  Blackwell’s face was blank.

  Azazel flipped the coin back at him and shook his head in disappointment. “Oh boy. You too? Has everyone forgotten everything about the past? Spent too much time down here and forgotten the old ways, have we?”

  “Shame on you,” said Azazel, wagging his finger at Blackwell. “Did you know that the ancient Egyptians believed that a person’s name influenced the length of their afterlife? So, if somebody never spoke your name again, you’d be forgotten. For the gods… Well, I guess that it just makes you forget… Set.” Set, the Egyptian god of chaos, Blackwell’s old name—one of many.

  “You had a name, as well. Before you—”

  “—I remember my name, my first name,” Azazel snapped back. “I don’t need you to remind me… Enki.” Blackwell’s other old name, older than Set. Enki, the ancient Sumerian god of mischief and creation, the Lord of the Earth.

  Blackwell thought about it. Saying his old names did jog his memory, just barely though. Seven coins of gold. “It’s true then. So, it means that it has really begun and…” Seven coins golden, for seven souls chosen. Seven coins each for seven judges to decide, for seven signs will rise. Judgement is coming.

  “The golden coins are a pass. No apocalypse. No fire and brimstone. The gold coin is… a free pass upstairs?”

  “Bingo.” Azazel twisted his hand around and was suddenly holding a gold coin of his own. “Here’s mine.” He displayed it. Front and back, it was similar to the one Blackwell had, but there were some exceptions, the engraving was different. The woman on the golden coin was gone and replaced by a set of axes resting in front of a set of large wings. Azazel twisted his hand around again, and the coin disappeared.

  He moved further back into his cell until the darkness swallowed him again and before flopping down on the stone ground again. “Here.” Something spun across the floor before skidding into the side of Blackwell’s shoe. It was a bible—old and leather bound, it had to be at least a few hundred years old, in its original Greek. Azazel continued, “The Wolf had seven heads and ten horns, not the great red dragon. Seven horns, Seven heads, ten kings… It’s like they weren’t even listening. Oh, and the translations are just…”

  Blackwell’s mind was somewhere else and he slid his back down the bars of the prison cell until he was resting on the floor with his back resting against the iron bars and towards Azazel. Either ignoring his earlier attack or just not caring, Blackwell rubbed the temples on the side of his head with his fingers and closed his eyes.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Blackwell huffed then said, “Do you remember the old times? Back—“

  “—Before my wings were ripped out of my back? Yes, I remember.”

  Blackwell lingered before answering, deciding not to take the bait. “When things were simpler. Before machines, before wars, before…”

  “Before man? You remember that, but you don’t remember the signs of the End of Days?”

  “I remember the good things.”

  Azazel slid down on his side of the prison bars as Blackwell had done, and he was now sitting caddy corner from him on the opposite side of freedom. “Yes, I remember. Things were easier, less complex. Me, you, Mea.” That’s what she calls herself now, Mea.

  “And now… Now things are more… complex.”

  “Yeah, no, maybe.” Azazel thought about it. “Yeah, they are. Mea ripping off my wings. Then, her… taking the flesh. You locking me up.”

  Blackwell scrunched up his eyebrows and wrinkled his forehead. Seriously? Can you blame me? “You tried to kill her… With three hundred of your followers.”

  “I admit, that may have been a bit brash.”

  “You blew up an abandoned factory—with her in it… and you killed her best friend… and threatened her family.”

  Azazel shrugged. “Yeah. Like I said, a bit brash.”

  Sharing serious looks momentarily, neither one could hold it, and both started chuckling.

  Blackwell shook his head. “Sometimes I think I’d be easier to just let them do it—the humans, the gods. Just let them destroy it all, let the chips fall where they may, and just… And then we could just go back to sleep until next time.”

  “You may not have a choice.” Azazel reminisced about the previous exterminations. The Cleansing, that what the gods called it. “Do you remember the last one? The great flood?”

  Blackwell nodded. “Yes, I remember.” Corrupt and savage, mankind was still primal, ignorant, and uncivilized… They had to be punished. “Yes, the last time. It was easier.”

  “And the time before?” asked Azazel.

  “…Some of it. But last time, after the great flood…” Blackwell deflated. “Afterwards, she wasn’t the same. She still isn’t.”

  Azazel sat up. “That’s it, isn’t it?” Connecting the dots, he realized that that was why he was sulking. It was about Mea, more so than usual. This time, he was scared. After the last one, Mea changed—became sympathetic to the mortals. Then she became a mortal. After this one, the Cleansing… what would she become? “You’re scared. After last time—you don’t know what will happen to her. Will she become like me? Like them?” Once gods, now monsters.

  “Yeah.” Seeing the softer side of Azazel, Blackwell paused and reflected on the good old days. “You know that she’s…”

  “I know what she is!” snapped Azazel as he scurried to his feet. Blackwell had apparently hit a sore spot, an open wound. “I know what she is, and I remember what she did.” Azazel slammed a green fire ball against the stone wall of his cell. As it splattered against the wall, green flames coated the gray stones and danced over them, momentarily illuminating the dull stone prison cell.

  Overly calm, Blackwell crept his head to the side and lazily looked at the flames and noticed that the stone bricks were covered in charred letters, too far to read, he was still able to surmise that they were a product of Azazel.

  “I know.” Azazel slammed another fireball at the wall, exploding another bucket of green flames against the stone, brighter and wilder than the one before. This time, Blackwell looked towards the far wall and saw a picture sketched in stone, a crystal city shaded in with black ash. It was Heaven, and at one time, Azazel’s home.

  Blackwell stood up and dusted himself off. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? Eternity, life, death, rebirth, extermination—the constant cycle. And… we live, we die, we sleep… Then we wake, we fight, we kill—rinse and repeat. Over and over and over again.”

  Three more books slid across the floor, all covered in frayed brown leather and religious in nature. “I give them gold, and they turn my words into lead.”

  Blackwell smirked. “Apparently your words didn’t resonate as well as you thought they did. I’ll get you some newer ones.” He took a step away then turned back towards Azazel’s cell. “The Wolf, the Queen of Sorrows. Where are they?”

  Azazel moved closer to the Blackwell and squeezed the iron bars. “The Queen? Rising from the sea and out of the new land of milk and honey… She’s in California, but I wouldn’t worry about her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’ll come to you. She wants to speak to Mea. And as for you, she wants what you owe her… and probably everything else you have.”

  “And what about the Wolf?”

  “Don’t know.” Azazel shrugged. “But he’s loud. He’ll make himself known soon enough.”

  “And can we kill them?”

  “Kill them?” Azazel laughed. “You want to kill an immortal? One of us?” The First Seven. “It’ll be hard. It’s… It’s a long shot. They were born before us, even more so before Mea, as she is now. They’re older and stronger.” The First Seven. “As for killing them, if that’s even possible, it’s more likely t
hat they’ll kill you.”

  CH 5: Making Friends over Monsters

  The sun was out, and the weather was mild. The city was busy and filled with the sounds of the modern world. Yet, off in the distance, the beach was calm. The crashing waves of the ocean provided a subtle lullaby to those willing to listen.

  Nested between towering skyscrapers of steel guarded by streets covered with smoking metal beasts of all colors, there was a park. A dog park. A few benches, a few people, a few dogs. It was nothing special.

  “Whore!” shouted someone from one of the metal beasts. A passing convertible with two men and two women. Cocky and ignorant laughs followed and felt like knives in her ears. Laughing through perfectly straight and polished teeth and feeling safe within their shiny metal beast; they were young, rich, and felt invincible. Two out of three ain’t bad. But they weren’t invincible; that much she knew. But, as much as she hated to admit it, they were ridiculously good looking and had the smugness of wealth.

  Whore. She always hated that word. Over the eons, she had heard it many times, too many times. More often than not, it came from jealous whispers behind her back or from faces hidden in crowds. They felt invincible too, she thought. She found it strange how people seemed to find courage when they hid behind others.

  The car, a pretty white convertible—something new and Italian. Expensive. It was pretty, as well.

  The clacking of her stilettos stopped and she pivoted towards her spectators on the balls of her spiked heels. Should I let that slide? she wondered. They’re young; they don’t know any better. Just let it go, she decided and continued walking.

  “Whore,” they shouted before again erupting in laughter.

  The woman wrapped her lips around the straw antenna of her iced coffee and took a sensual sip as she continued walking. Her peroxide blond hair bounced like rivers of gold off her shoulders. Behind oversized blackout sunglasses… her eyes became red-hot coals. A smile curled up from her thin, blood-red-painted lips. Let them go? No, not now. She flicked her left hand into the air then flicked her thumbprint with each of her other polished fingernails. Flicking her hand again, she then began buffing her shiny, sharp fingernails against the hip of her black dress.