The Falling Star: Chapter 3, Part 2

Posted 07-08-17

Revised 02-07-21

 

An Angel from Hell story 

 
By Christopher Leeson

Chapter 1, Part 1

The Cabal, Jezebel knew, had emerged from amid the oldest of Asian secret societies, going back as far as the days of Nimrod.  Under changing names, the cult had been the moving force behind many of the most blood-thirsty oriental thrones prior to the Crusades.  The arrival of Christians into the Holy Land didn't upset its plans; instead, the Cabal sized up the intrusion as a new opportunity.  Converts were made, and many Crusaders, the Knights Templar, especially, fell in with Cabalistic mysticism.  

With ease, the Templars cast off the faith of their ancestors in exchange for promises of wealth and power, commencing the secret worship of  the dark demon that they chose to call Baphomet.  A ritual to Baphomet revealed to them a vast hidden treasure, and cultists taught them oriental banking processes to help maximize the value of their loot.  They were good students, and in fact improved upon the old system of legal thefts and swindles.

The new Satanists, returning to Europe, took their Cabalistic doctrines home with them, and also the ancient Babylonian banking system, thereby becoming the debt-masters of the entire Mediterranean world.  The Templars, being scions of the great noble and royal houses, quickly drew many of their friends and kin into the Cabalistic cult.  When the spreading danger of this new apostasy became too obvious to ignore, the European old guard struck back, denouncing the Templars for what they were and using troops to suppress them.  The blow was strategically backed by Pope Clement V and it fell most heavily in France, but the reprisals were ultimately ineffective.  Most of the knights, along with nearly all their wealth, eluded the dragnet.

It was the Templars themselves who spread stories about their own "total destruction," but, in fact, the majority of the knights had gone to countries where they would be protected, including Scotland and Portugal.  With a truly Satanic lust for vengeance, they quickly struck back against their enemies, using poison, assassins, and curses.  Their most formidable opponents among the anti-Templar backlash died untimely deaths, usually under suspicious circumstances.  

The Templars then infiltrated back into their own strongholds, having set up secret societies under a myriad of names.  The cultists created new banks, by which they came to dominate Europe's kingdoms through debt and bribery.  Their vile religious documents were eventually codified into books of rites and rituals that no insider could reveal on pain of death.  The Stone Builders' Order, one of the most successful of the Baphometic cults, used elaborate ritual to seduce the high-born and spread itself like a plague across the entire Western world.  

A portion of the Cabalistic cult, calling themselves the Illuminati, dared to come out in the open in the latter 18th Century, and make its goals known.  That was too much, even for a corrupt European society, and the Illuminati were quickly driven back into the shadows.  But the Cabalist movement as a whole was never seriously affected by the disruption and it continued his subversive work, but with renewed caution.

Some of the older Cabalistic bloodlines came to be revered as Cabalist royalty, such as the Rothweiler  family, which managed, through countless swindles, to take over the Bank of England in late Victorian times.  They milked the wealth of Europe for all it was worth and then moved on to the next stage of their centuried plan – to provoke of a series of world wars intended to leave the international banks and their allied corporations as the last power-mongers still standing.  
 
The dupes who had bled and died to win those wars never knew who they were really fighting for. Every death in either of those wars was an explicit blood-sacrifice to Satan. Before every great battle, before every incendiary bombing attack, leaders and famous military men would dance naked in secret and drank blood, howling invocations to invite the Demon to come and feast. The "Good War" was actually the dirtiest war and most pointless war ever fought.  There were no good guys. There  never is.
 
At that point, Jezebel dragged her thoughts back to the present.  She glanced over to her companion.  “How did you connect with that deputy this afternoon?” she suddenly asked Holly.  “I've been warning you; phones are dangerous.”

“I didn't phone,” the young woman protested.  “When that Dodge was going after your car, I started praying for you.  The officer drove up just minutes later.  I ran out and flagged him down.”

The blonde frowned.  “You were praying for me?  Why not for yourself?”

“I thought they'd get you before they got me.”

The Watcher regarded her skeptically.  “How's all that praying been working out for you?”

The brunette betrayed a quick smile.  “Well, here we are.”

Jezebel sniffed.  “Lucky us.”

The fallen angel was just then distracted by the condition of her clothing.  Her jeans were covered with dry mud.  She unsnapped the waistband and worked her way out of them.

“Oh, my God!” Holly exclaimed.

Jezebel saw what Holly was seeing.  Her ripped briefs were held up by one leg only, and there was dried blood between her thighs.

“I'm...I'm so, so sorry,” the waitress stammered.

The Watcher snorted.  “Don't make an apocalypse out of it.  It's only sex.”

Holly shook her head.  “Sex of the worst kind.”

Jezebel didn't want to talk about it.  “I'm  going to take a shower.”

#

The fallen angel soon returned, towel-dried but naked.  Digging into her bag, she found an undershirt and another pair of nylon briefs.  Holly sat quietly, observing.  The Watcher noted her expression out of the corner of her eye.  Being pitied by a  mere human made her feel like doing something violent.  

“I've been wanting to ask you...,” the waitress began.

“What?!”

“What should I call you?  Is your identity some kind of secret?”

The angel frowned.  She despised the name of Jezebel, and Delilah was no better.  “Jill,” she finally said.

Holly nodded.  “Jill.  Somehow I wasn't expecting anything so – simple.  But having a name to use makes you seem a little more real.”

The Watcher looked askance.  “ I don't seem real?”

“You're too mysterious to seem real.  Like, where do you come from?  What do you do for a living?”

Jezebel finished dressing.  “I could lie, but why waste the energy?”

“Why not just tell the truth?”

“You couldn't handle the truth.  But come to think of it, if you got afraid enough to hang yourself, I'd be rid of you.”

Holly looked pained.  “That's mean.  I don't know you and I didn't ask you or anybody else for any help. But I can see that you've gone through a lot of trouble for me anyway.  If you want me to be grateful, well, I am. But if this is only a job for you, what exactly is your job?”

“My job is doing what I'm told.  If you were smarter, you'd be doing the same.”

“Why can't you ever be nice, Jill?”

"I'm being nice now. You wouldn't want to be anywhere around me when I'm not being nice."

“You must be getting paid by someone.  But who pays people to help people they don't even know?”

“That's not what's happening here,” the angel replied, not looking at the girl.

Holly paused, expecting that Jill to say more.  When she didn't, she said, “You talk tough, and you must be tough to stand down those men all alone.  So, are you some sort of military contractor, or a professional bodyguard?”

“What I am is tired of talking,” Jezebel said and flopped down on the bed.  She hated feeling tired; it reminded her of her human limitations.

“Okay,” Holly said resignedly.  As the girl stood up to clear the bags of groceries from her bed, she noticed a Gideon Bible on the lower shelf of the nightstand.  Picking it up, she flipped through the leaves.

“You read the Bible?” the other woman asked.

“I thought you didn't want to talk.”

Jezebel scowled.  “Okay, don't talk.”

The waitress smiled wanly.  “There were no Bibles in the school I went to; the teachers treated Bibles like  porn.  And Mother never took me to church.  But after what happened at the ritual, and on the bus, I've decided that if angels are real, a lot of other things might be real, too. I mean.  It isn't an easy read; it's sort of like reading Shakespeare.  But a Bible was just about the only book in the house where I was renting my room, except for sales catalogues."

When the blonde said nothing and turned away, she continued.

“I had no car and no money, and nothing to do; the landlady didn't even let me watch her TV.  It was weeks before I could spare a few dollars to buy a fashion magazine.”   

She wrinkled her nose.  “But, you know, I found out that I wasn't interested in fashion anymore.  I don't even feel like the person I'd used to be.  All the articles clothes and accessories were silly and pointless.  What did they have to do with the world as it really was?" She shrugged.  "If I'm going to stay a fugitive, the fashionable part of my life is over.”

The Watcher looked back at her.  “Why don't just you go home and tell your producers that you're sorry?”

“I can't.  I won't do what they want me to do.”

“That's about the first intelligent thing you've said today,” Jezebel responded indifferently.

“Is there anybody that you actually like, Jill?” Holly asked suddenly.  “I bet that if you ever started to care about a person, you'd be really be good at it.”

“Don't count on it.”

The waitress sighed and resumed paging through the Bible.  “Hey, there's a note in this book.”

“So what?”

“Nothing.  It's just an address.  But it says, 'To Jill.'  Isn't that mind-blowing.  It has to be a coincidence.”

Jezebel glanced across at her.  “What's the address?”

“Holiday Inn, 6939 N 102nd Cir, Omaha, NE, Room 632.  January 21.”  That's three days from now. Funny thing; we've been going in the direction of Omaha.  Say, do you think that that angel of mine could have left this note card for us to find? She found me on the bus, after all.”

Jezebel snorted.  “It's probably been inside that book for years.” Then she added, “Let me see if I can pick you up off the bed,” the angel said.

“Are you kidding?”

“I'm serious.  I have to see how strong I am.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jezebel turned away.  “Forget it.  I already know my strength is gone.  If either of us are going to get out of this mess alive, I have to get it back.”

“I don't understand.”

“So, what else is new?”

Jezebel stood in place for a moment, thinking, her expression grim and determined.  Then she abruptly pivoted and went to her luggage, lifting out the red mini-dress and started rummaging around for the rest of the outfit.

“You're sure full of surprises,” the ex-singer remarked.

“We passed a bar up the street.  I'll be over there for a little while.”

Holly looked doubtfully at the skimpy pile of garments.  “A little while? It looks like you're gearing up for a weekend expedition.”

“Don't overthink it.”

The brunette shook her head.  “Okay, then. Have fun.  I'll snack on whatever we have left; I'm almost afraid to step outside.  Anyway, I want to get some sleep.”

Jezebel had found a small makeup kit, which told her that Shekinah had thought of everything -- damn her.  “It's a good thing I've painted women's faces before,” she muttered.

Holly raised one eyebrow.  “You were like a cosmetician?”

#

After their first foray into sin, the two hundred Watchers had gone into full rebellion.  It was like every resentment that they had nursed about their servitude suddenly came to the surface.  They came up with an idea to show the Father now easily his human creatures could be corrupted, so that he could see that that they were unworthy of his love.  

To drive home that point, they had taught men how to make and use weapons of war.  They instructed women in sorcery and seduction.  The accouterments of the latter -- eyeliner, shadow, paint, blush and powder -- had all existed in Heaven, though they had never been used in the seductive way that the Watchers wanted to use them.  The rebels didn't have to be creative; they had only had to pervert what they already knew and make it all fit into their plans.

Jezebel placed the makeup kit before the mirror of the bureau.  Thousands of years had passed since she had handled cosmetic paint, and even then had never applied the foolery to her own face. But she had worked on the faces of many beautiful women. The blonde's first experiment, though not unartful, made her look somewhat Egyptian. Holly stepped in at that point and, with the angel's surly consent, made Jezebel up like a Twenty-First Century party girl, and for good measure arranged her hair.

“Your walk needs work,” Holly advised.  “You tramp around like a soldier.”  The waitress demonstrated how a showgirl should strolled so as to attract admiring glances.  “Keep your head up, shoulders back, and lead with your boobs.  With your arms swinging loose, like this, make your hips swivel.  Got it?  Try to keep your weight on your heels. And, yeah, keep this mantra in mind while you're walking: 'Shoulders, hips, heels.…'"

The Watcher watched, but refrained from practicing the moves until she was alone outdoors. As Jethrel, she had already seen many thousands of women plying their skills. If there was one thing that the In-Between Place was good for, it was girl-watching. But tonight Jezebel had an ulterior motive in trying to emulate them.  Being a quick learner, it took the angel only a minute to get her stride right, even while wearing the unfamiliar stiletto heels.  In fact, it was coming to her so easily that she had to wonder whether she was doing it by second nature. This would certainly be something that Jill Arendel's body was familiar with.

She looked at herself in a darkened window. "What a slut," the Watcher thought with a glower.  Shekinah  had, after all, said that Jill had been carrying a Jezebel spirit for some while.
 

The angel's fists clenched.  The Father had seemingly made human beings inferior to the host of Heaven in every way.  So why did he treasure the fragile creatures so much -- even to the point of making his earlier and better creations fetch and carry for them?

Jezebel decided not to make a hike to the Sandhillers Saloon. The wind was too cold on her barely-clad legs. Instead, she drove the short distance in her car.  After parking, she went in and sized up the small weekday crowd.  Fortunately, she did not require a large audience.

The angel next approached the bar, doing the sashaying step that Holly had demonstrated. To her satisfaction, people were looking her way. When she sat down on a stool, she tried to increase the interest of the onlookers by posing her legs languidly. The barkeeper hailed her with more than casual interest and took her order attentively.  He was giving out the radiation of lust and Jezebel was feeling an agreeable tingle.

Her drink came and she began so sip.  When an attractive girl passed nearby, Jezebel sent her a smile.  She wanted to know if Lesbian lust could be as potent as men's.  The fallen angel would actually have preferred to be with a girl that night, since old habits died hard.

The girl smiled back, but continued by.  Fortunately, other people were still staring.  Whatever the chemistry of the dark energy they projected, she was progressively feeling stronger and more vital.  A giddiness came on her, in stark contrast to her recent rape experience and her teeth spontaneously gritted.   

The attackers had been a species of Nephilim, and one of the most odious variety.

In the old days, the class to which they belonged had been called the emmim, “the terrible ones,” for the horror that they instilled in mankind.  That name had perished with the ages, but they still existed.  Today, they were commonly referred to as wesen, a German term that simply meant “beings.”  Across history, men had destroyed the hybrids wherever they could be found.  Only the emmim species that were shape-shifters able to hide in the midst of human society had escaped extinction.  The gang that had abused Jezebel had been a wesen type called ghūls.  They were descended from a ravenous Middle Eastern carrion eater, one of a species that had died off in the wild during ancient days.

“Can I buy you another drink, pretty woman?” a baritone voice from behind asked.  Jezebel looked over her shoulder.  A reasonably presentable male was standing there, grinning confidently.  Jezebel decided not to wait for a better selection; she didn't feel good about leaving Holly alone for too long.  The Watcher needed to take advantage of any opportunity and, besides, the energy she had drawn in so far was having an intoxicating effect.  She was eager for more of it.

The blonde shifted, forced a smile to her lips, and motioned for the man to take the stool beside her.

To be continued in Chapter 4, Part 1...