Penance

I had just experienced the worst day of my life...of course, I suppose everyone says that until a worse day comes along.1

I decided to go up to Cliffside and collect my thoughts...and maybe jump if things got to depressing.2

At this point, there seemed like there was nothing here for me.3

I sat on the edge of the cliff with my feet dangling over and looked down at the city where I had spent my life.  The lights flickered in their rhythmic pattern as each of the drones went about their nightly business as if nothing would ever change.  4

How little they knew.  How easily it could all come crashing down around them.  They were just as oblivious as I had been.5

And yet, I had no pity for them.6

As I hugged the railing, my eyes focused on the blur of moving lights on the highway, I felt someone with me.  It was an ominous feeling.  My mind began to spin into images of murderers and rapists who stalked these hills for someone as stupid as I realized I had been for coming up here alone.  7

Fitting end to a miserable day, I suppose...8

Then I heard a chuckle; low and feminine.  I turned around to see who was there.  The shadows were deep, and what little light came from the street lamps and the city below was hardly enough to illuminate the spot where I sat, much-less the deeper shadows beyond the trees where it seemed my watcher was hovering.9

"Hello?"  I stuttered, trying desperately to make out the forms within the darkness.10

And then the voice was next to me: "It never ceases to amaze me how much you take safety for granted," it laughed.11

I spun around to look at who had spoken to me, and came nose to nose with a woman of startling beauty.  Her burgundy lips formed a perfect bow as she smiled at me.  I marveled at the perfection of her skin; it had a flawlessness and a softness that I had seen only in children.  She was also very pale, which was in stark contrast to hair which seemed so black that it blended into the darkness.  Yet even as beautiful as she was, something about her eyes made me question her humanity. They were a color like I had never seen; almost ultraviolet though they shifted in hue.  As hard as I tried, I could not look away until she closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, almost as if she were allowing it.12

"Who are you?" I asked, choking on the cliche' greeting.  "I didn't hear you when you came up here..."13

"You seemed rather lost in your thoughts." She replied, taking a seat next to me.  "It's a wonder that you heard anything at all. You are lucky that I wasn't someone who meant to harm you."14

I laughed a little.  "I guess I wasn't thinking about it when I came up here...I just wanted to be alone."15

She nodded a bit, her hair falling over her shoulders.  She did not look at me, but instead stayed focused on the city below.  "So many of you are alone already, and don't even know it.  Do you really think that coming up here would allow you to be any less so?"16

I tried to study her expression from her profile, but it seemed she did not have one.  Her lips moved, but there was no outward display of emotion.  Her hands remained folded and placed on the rail, her legs folded under her.  She looked like a statue there in the night, lit only by the dim light from the lamp post but otherwise one with the shadows.  "I'm not really sure what you mean," I finally answered, though I wasn't sure that she had been looking for a response.17

She laughed then and looked at me.  "You are right in thinking that I'm not like you.  I abhor humanity in all it's pompous frivolity.  You run around like ants day in and day out and never question anything that you're told...and those that do question become just as wrapped up in the disbelief as the believers are in their blind fellowship."  She scoffed at the comment.  "It sickens me."  There was a pause as she rose from her spot.  "You were no more alone in your home than you were here...or any place else you might have decided to go.  Drones...all of them...soul-less automatons awaiting word from a master that doesn't exist."18

I watched her pace the clearing.  She folded her hands behind her as she went.  There was a gracefulness in the way she moved that mimicked the beauty of her face.  The outline of her body in the glow from the lamps was slender and well toned. She noticed me watching her and stopped under the street lamp so that I could take a good look. She was dressed in black from head to toe; tight pants with high boots, a shirt with flowing sleeves that sparkled like silk and laced up the front with what seemed to be an endless golden cord that also wrapped around her upper arms and neck. 19

"What are you?" I asked.20

To this she smiled openly, baring her teeth.  I could not see from the space where I sat what she had meant to show me..yet in the instant the thought escaped my mind, she was sitting on my chest, pinning me to dirt and grinning at me with grotesquely pointed canines. Her eyes wide and blood red, focusing on mine. I was frozen in terror.  This beautiful creature had proved to be something horrifying.  21

Fitting end to a miserable day...22

As I laid there, pinned under an iron grip, her expression melted back to that of the beautiful woman.  She reached out with her other hand, touching my cheek gently and leaned in toward me. "If I wanted to kill you, you never would have seen me." She whispered in my ear.  That said, she slowly pushed herself off of me and stood up, extending a hand.  I stared at her a long moment before realizing that she was right: had she wanted to kill me, I'd be dead. 23

She helped me off the grass, taking a deep breath.  "Did I answer your question?"24

I laughed sarcastically in reply.25

"Fair enough," she said.  "Now and then I am forced to come here and watch you humans...Penance, I suppose..." Her expression became sour.  "I must spend time with those I most despise in order to better understand what I am and what I am capable of."26

"So you're a vampire then?"  I asked, thinking it the logical choice.27

With this, she threw back her head and laughed out loud.  The sound echoed through the trees and down into the valley.  It seemed as though everything else became as silent as death until the repeating chorus of her voice subsided.  When all was quiet again, she looked at me and whispered "Child...I am so much more than that."28

I stopped, a bit confused, and looked at her again in an attempt to put two and two together.  In response to my pondering, she laughed and waved a hand.  "Yes, yes. Teeth, pale skin, speed, strength, beauty...I have all these..."  She again came dangerously close to me, smiling as I took a few steps back.  "But that is only be beginning...and anyone can have those things.  I am what all vampires aspire to be.  Blood is no more than wine to me...for I have tasted far finer things."  She reached out a hand and touched my face, directing me to look toward the sky as she pointed slender hand toward the moon.  "Forget what you were told as a child.  Forget what is written in the pages of old books. They are not as strong as they pretend.  In fact, they are more affected by beauty than any human I have ever met."29

"You mean to tell me that you have seduced angels?"  I laughed. "I thought that they were immune to..."30

"To what? To evil?"  She scoffed at the thought.  "There is no such thing.  Am I evil simply because my beliefs are different than yours?  Or because I dine on finer cuisine?  Perhaps because I am more beautiful?  Or because I can make your heart pound in your chest with desire such as you have never known?"  With each word she drew closer to me.  I tried to move away, but this time I was frozen in place by her gaze.  I was afraid of what she was yet it seemed as though her words were full of reassurance that she meant me no harm. And as she pressed herself against me, I was overcome with desire for her as she had said.  She closed her eyes, leaning in toward me as if in advance of a passionate kiss.  "Now...does this make me evil?"  She asked.  I felt the feathery soft touch of her lips against mine...31

And as quickly she had pinned me to the ground earlier, she moved away, letting me fall face first into the dirt.32

"I am no more evil than any woman who dresses herself each day to attract others to herself, or any businessman who dresses to look his part. I simply am what I am.  And to my kind, it is they who are evil.  Those who would seek to see us destroyed because we are different.  Because we refuse to bow down before their master as blindly as they do.  Because we follow one whom they rejected for refusing to see humanity as perfect in it's stupidity.  Blind and gluttonous and willing to follow any idiot to their deaths for the promise of peace that he or she has no way of providing."  33

I righted myself and sat there in the grass, listening to her.  Part of me was insulted that she spoke about the human race in such a way as to make me feel ashamed of being part of it, and yet part of me understood whole-heartedly that she was right.  34

"Evil," she continued, "is the conception of those who would see anyone that is different from themselves as an abomination.  There is no such thing.  There is only difference of opinion."  She turned to me, frowning.  "This is what was forbidden to Eve.  The knowledge that there is no evil.  That there is no good.  That there is no right or wrong.  There is only balance;  male and female, black and white.  We exist because we must.  And it makes no difference which side you are on...to each, the other is evil...because we all see ourselves as good...and who has the right to say that someone else is not, if they do not also have that right?"35

I nodded to her. "You're right," I replied.  36

"Then you, human, are more wise than three-quarters of your race."  She looked again up at the moon, and gave a heavy sigh.  "I fail to understand why wars are waged in the name of God, and hundreds or thousands killed as a result...when it was God that said 'Thou shalt not kill'. Kill to eat...kill to live...kill to survive...all of this, yes.  But to kill because they do not hold your same beliefs, or because they will not conform to your desires, or because they will not deny their own sense of safety to indulge yours...no."  She paused a moment, turning her gaze toward the city.  "And I fail to see how any man can bow down to a leader who lies and manipulates in order to drive the whole...yet when they are shown the fallacy, they refuse to see that they could be wrong...that they could have been duped so easily..."  Slowly she shook her head.  "Ignorant, all..."37

"Then, if you don't mind me asking," I began, trying to judge her reaction, "...what is the point of existence if not this struggle between right and wrong?"38

She smiled and turned to me.  "There is no point."  She replied.  "We simply exist to maintain the balance.  Two sides of the same coin.  And each time the balance tips between heaven and hell, so too must it change on earth in order to maintain the balance.  And yet, I can see no resolution.  I cannot fathom a time where heaven and hell will agree upon the truth of how we became.  That our father was cast out because he served God better...and sought to judge humanities wrong-doings...while they made of him a mockery and bore his name to that of what it is to you today."  She almost seemed to weep as a sad tone overtook her voice.  "He was sent to try men's souls...to prove their faith in God...and because man could not admit their own shortcomings...because they refuse to believe that they are capable of weakness...they make him into a monster and blame him for their every downfall."  39

I watched as she lowered herself to sit in the grass, and this time it was I who moved to be closer.  She looked at me in silent confirmation of her sadness but did not move.  "You almost sound as though you love him."  I said softly as I took my position next to her.  40

"Does this surprise you?" She asked, eyebrows furrowing.  "Do you think that because I am a demon, that I am incapable of love?"  Her expression was a mixture of disgust and misery. "Let it not be said that there is no honor among demons; for we too know loyalty, and we too know friendship.  So too do we know grief, as well as we know loss."  She took my hand and squeezed it.  "And let it not be said that we cannot see beauty.  We simply do not like it's taste, nor do we take pleasure in it's presence. We are not without souls. We are simply angels who have chosen to fall, just as humans may choose to murder their own kind.  For we also know free will, where others do not.  And it is both a blessing and a curse."41

I was speechless then, looking at this beautiful monster.  She made so much sense, and yet everything she said seemed to disagree with the fibers of my being.  She was so delicate, and yet her aura was incredibly powerful.  Everything about her seemed to be a paradox.  42

The only thing I could even think to say was, "I'm sorry".43

She smiled then, and laughed a it.  "Do not martyr yourself for a race of ignorants.  You believe me because you have see something that you could not otherwise disbelieve. The very fact that I am here makes you question everything you ever knew.  You thought we were a myth.  As all of humanity questions their existence deep down in the pits of their souls.  Belief is impossible unless you have something tangible.  Even those who claim to be the most faithful would have their faith shaken if they were shown the truth, though many would never admit it.  But I have proved to you the existence of the super-natural...and therefore opened the doorways of your mind to allow you to believe anything you are shown. There is no difference between magic and miracles.  They are all just words placed upon the fantastic by the believers.  And there is little more difference between angels and devils save the way we are seen by humanity...for we are all just doing whatever it is we were meant to do...on whichever side of the coin we were placed...or whichever side of the mirror we decided to stand on."  She opened her hand to reveal a shard of what looked to be glass.  It was roughly shaped like a teardrop, but the length of a finger.  It shimmered with a light all it's own and changed slowly from red to gold and back again. "This, is your proof." She said quite pointedly.  "So long as you have this, you will know without a doubt that this night occurred...and you will know that I spoke true."  She placed the shard in my palm and closed my fingers around it.  I felt it pulse within my hand.  "It also carries a burden, which I have passed on to you."44

My eyes widened, but I could not say that I was surprised that there had been a catch.  "What's that?"45

"Break it, and you will reveal to the world all of the truths and lies that face existence.  It's magic holds the key to every question humanity has no answer to.  And yet, in doing so, you doom humanity to it's immortal fate...for in revealing the truth, how many would fall?  How many would be broken under the weight of the lies?  How many would fight against the knowledge of the truth?  How many would kill to see that things returned to the way it was before?"46

There was a scuttling noise behind us, and I turned to look in it's direction.  The sun was beginning to rise, and in the golden glow of the morning, I could see a small man dressed in rags, beckoning to the woman beside me to follow him.  She nodded and waved him on, and as he turned, I could see that he had a ridge of small spines extending the length of his back, and down into a long tail that slithered behind him as he made his way back into the trees.47

She stood and again extended a hand to help me up.  "It is fortunate for you that it does not break easily. But that this 'gift' is yours for hearing me and being my company for this evening...my penance.  But should you ever wish to know the truths...without revealing them to humanity...It will allow me to hear you.  Though I cannot promise that you will survive our next encounter."  She turned and began to walk the way the little man had gone.  48

"Do you have a name?"  I asked, watching her illusion melt away. A long pointed tail began began to take shape behind her.  Two bat-like wings protruded from her shoulders.  The golden cord that had laced her shirt began to twist and writhe around her.  And somehow, with all of this madness, I was unfazed.49

She turned and looked over her shoulder with a coy smile. "I am the dark flower of the underworld.  An Orchid among the weeds." 50

And with that, she was gone.  I looked down at the pulsing shard in my hand, knowing that it was more of a curse than any man or woman would ever carry.  I now held in my hands the power to unmake every belief carried by humanity. Suddenly, all of the troubles I had faced earlier seemed mundane.  51

A fitting start to another miserable day...52