I had to stop myself from staring and bring myself back to the reason I was here with Shaddal. "Okay, first I'd like to get some clarification on the good-bad thing." I clicked on my recorder and whispered into it, "Begin interview with Shaddal."
With a graceful flip of his human hand, Shaddal gestured for me to proceed. He adjusted his animal posterior in the seat.
"I want to be sure I understand the central point of Kasyade's story. He said that I and all my people were engineered, designed, from a mixture of two sets of genes, one from Satan's clan, and the other from another family of gods. One good, one bad? Am I being overly simplistic?"
"Indeed. There's much more to this story, Angelo." There was that wince again as Shaddal said my name. "First of all, the genetic characteristics can hardly be, as you term them, 'good' and 'bad.' This is dangerous over-simplification. Intellectual and competitive, possibly. But not good and bad. Be that as it may, there are actually three strains of genes. The first and primary set of characteristics comes from your natural forebearers here on Earth."
"The apes?"
"Homo Erectus, as your science calls him. These creatures had evolved on their own in a completely natural way," Shaddal confirmed. "They were walking upright and had developed a crude society. They were strong and when the Anunnaki discovered them they were found to be smarter than any other creature native to your planet. Which is why Anunnaki scientists selected them as the best chance for success.
"They captured one of your ape men and modified the genes of the creature's offspring using material from two different Houses... two different families if you will, of their world."
"Why two?"
Shaddal laughed and crooked his fuzzy neck a bit, making a gesture with his heavy eyebrows that indicated uncertainty to me. "I can understand why you might think all we Satanists are experts in genetics. But I assure you I am a simple satyr. I know much about my area of activity but I know little about this technical business. It's safe to suppose for what the scientists were trying to accomplish, they needed certain characteristics not all available in any one strain of genes, okay? So they were forced to combine two."
"And this is why things went wrong?"
"Not in my opinion!" Shaddal laughed. "The resulting creature was strong, learned quickly, and was as handsome as Satan's race. And perhaps best of all, he was easily corruptible."
"Adam?" I assumed.
"The adamu, as he was called," Shaddal corrected me. "It's not a proper name exactly. More like the name of a thing."
"Ah, I see. But why does our Bible say that God made man?"
"Well, think about it, Angelo. The Cosmic God made the apes, and He made Satan's people. All the Anunnaki scientists did was combine the two to make the adamu. You see? Besides, your Bible says the adamu was made in the image and likeness of God, does it not? As I hope you will see, God has no physical form. When you meet Lord Satan you will see that you look more or less like him. Not nearly as handsome of course, but the look is basically similar."
Shaddal's explanation seemed logical. I was forced to nod in agreement. So I asked, "They also made Eve then?"
"I'm afraid your Biblical Eve is even more of an allegory. In the beginning the geneticists were only able to create one human at a time. They were away from home, with little equipment available to them. They had to, as you people say, 'wing it.' The first hybrids they made were all males who could not reproduce on their own. It took decades to create a small community. Of course, to the Anunnaki and to most of us demons, a decade is the mere wink of an eye. But Anunnaki workers insisted they needed more human helpers and needed them fast. So their scientists figured out a way to modify your Adam so he could reproduce himself. Which meant they needed to create a female genetically compatible to him. This is when they created Lilith."
"Not Eve?"
"Lilith was the first mate of Adam. But she was quarrelsome and rebellious and she would not submit to the more docile Adam. Lord Enki's scientists engineered another, less aggressive mate for him."
"Ah, I see." Lilith was the first women's libber. "What happened to Lilith?"
"She was cast out, naturally."
"Destroyed?"
"No, not at all. She still lives today. In this very city as a matter of fact."
"Really?" I was impressed. "What does she, you know... do?"
"Do? Why, she causes chaos," Shaddal bleated, "Like the rest of us."
"She's a demon?"
"One of our brightest. I taught her much of what she knows myself," Shaddal bragged, "I am quite sure you will be spending some quality time with Lilith. She has special tests for you." As interesting as that prospect sounded, I was sure I'd regret it.
"What were Anunnaki scientists engineering these adamus for?"
"Why, to do all the heavy lifting," Shaddal bleated, "The lords are not a race of workers, my boy. Earth is an outpost. With few amenities. Hard work. Stronger gravity than they are accustomed to. They missed their heavy machines. To be blunt, they were accustomed to using their brains but saw no glory in using their brawn."
"So they created slaves," I rued.
Shaddal scrunched up his nose, his ears flicked several times and his tail thump-thump-thump'd against his seatback. He tsk-tsk'd, "Slaves? This word has such negative connotations in your culture."
"A skunk by any other name..."
"I'm afraid I don't follow," Shaddal looked puzzled.
"So Satan liked the new Earthmen?" I got back to the story.
"Indeed," Shaddal continued, "Early man was capable of enormous... shall we say... mischief? There was no way the scientists could have predicted this, but House Enki, and especially Lord Satan, were pleased beyond words. Predictably, that party poop House Enlil was horrified. They had hoped for a docile creature who would do their bidding and worship them, and stay out of trouble. But Lord Satan was titillated by their great potential for creating chaos."
"Chaos?"
"To my Lord Satan, to us, his minions, chaos, mischief is more potent than an aphrodisiac. Indeed to some, chaos is an aphrodisiac. We feed on it. It is our energy source."
"I see." I was pretty sure I was about to get into trouble with my next question. My hand involuntarily searched my body and found a pocket. Ah, I was dressed. I found my crucifix and held it tight. "I get the feeling that Satan and you fellows found the new human women appealing as well?"
"And why not!?"
"Why not?" I parroted Shaddal sarcastically. "They were strong and fine of form. Not to mention easily corrupted."
"Indeed," Shaddal leaned forward, his ears twitched, and he winked, "And they rather liked us, too."
"And this is why Satan's people were ordered to destroy them all?"
"Because of fornication?" Shaddal waved his hand in dismissal, "It was far more ambitious than fornication. The geneticists began creating all kinds of 'special' creatures for their amusement. Like me! They mixed humans with animals in every which way. Half horse, half man. Even the gone-wrong experiments were interesting. The sort of creatures Kassy showed you. We thought they were wonderful!"
"But House Enlil didn't think it was so wonderful?"
"They thought the experiments were out of control. Would you care to see some of the more unfortunate creatures?" Shaddal asked. I wasn't at all certain I wanted to see, but it was a rhetorical question. There was some kind of flashing in the atmosphere all around us, and then... ohmigod, we were on the river of blood again, the River Hades.
The river flowed here through a narrow gorge, with flat but narrow rocky banks on each side which quickly ended at those same tall vertical rock walls. The narrow band of sky which was visible between the cliffs was dark but not like a night sky. It had a greenish, almost neon or radioactive quality which lit up the canyon just enough for me to see what was happening on the banks. From high above, I could hear the alien cries of pterodactyls, their dark silhouettes obscuring the moon and stars as they soared through the canyon tops in search of prey.
The surroundings were generally similar to those I witnessed in my first visit, but this landscape harbored much more horribly deformed creatures. To say they were human would be a stretch. Some had human features; heads, faces, arms, legs, but not at all arranged in the normal way. Some were bizarre crossings of animals with humans. Most of these poor creatures could only have been living by the sadistic grace of some demon overseer. Some had the tops of their skulls sawn open, the convolutions of their brains bulging out, exposed and drying out in the chilled air. It was difficult to imagine how they survived at all.
As we passed near each group of creatures, they began crawling, hopping, slithering toward the riverbanks, making ungodly screeching and barking sounds. They seemed excited to see Shaddal. Those who could jump up and down, did so. Those who had arms waved.
The cliff walls were laced with dark caves from which emerged more of the abominations as they heard the sounds of excitement rising from the riverbanks. Some of these creatures were as large as horses. The creatures were naked. Most were pale and fleshy, but some had fur and hair covering parts of their twisted anatomy.
The creatures seemed to be trying to call out to Shaddal. The horrible noises they made echoed off the dark cliffs and, truth be told, scared the hell out of me. Shaddal seemed oblivious to their entreaties. He simply stared at them, his eyes glowing red in the weird dull green light of the canyon.
One of the creatures slithered quietly into the river. It looked like a huge alligator with human arms, legs and feet. It's snout was long but it had a huge human mouth and eyes. It was grotesque beyond words. It paddled toward us. Shaddal reached down into the blood red water, and with one of his powerful hands pulled the six-foot-long creature up by its thick neck. Shaddal stared straight into the creatures eyes and shouted angrily, some words I didn't understand. The creature attempted to snap at Shaddal with its terrible human mouth and teeth. Shaddal squeezed tighter. The creature's tail tried to lash out at him. Suddenly Shaddal roared louder than all the creatures in the canyon. So loud that the canyon walls rumbled, whereupon all the monsters fell silent.
Shaddal may have been "a simple satyr" but when needs be he could manipulate the facets of his being to become other creatures. Faster than my eyes could follow, Shaddal changed. He became bestial, growing a large snout which snapped and bit into the head of the creature Shaddal held in his iron grip. He reached into the head with his other hand and tore out the creature's brain. To my shock, the monsters on the riverbanks loved Shaddal more than their own lives. They cheered wildly. He threw the quivering brain onto one of the riverbanks where a stampede of creatures fought for the tender, bloody morsel. The brainless creature thrashed about blindly in Shaddal's grip. He threw it into the river where it splashed and foamed in the red waters.
I watched the creatures on the bank tear at one another to get at the brain pieces. Shaddal, too, watched. His face became human again.
"Have you seen enough, my boy?" Shaddal asked. The expression I wore must certainly have been enough of an answer as we immediately were back in the big glassy conference room high above Manhattan.
In the understatement of the day, I said "I can see why Enlil wasn't pleased with all that."
Shaddal shrugged, "Enlil traveled to Nibiru where he received an audience with his father, Anu and the Divine Council. In that meeting, he demanded the Council, the Elohim, declare an immediate end to these experiments and that we all be punished. Anu and the Elohim were shocked. Anu ordered an immediate halt to this practice. The Elohim ordered the experiments to be destroyed."
"Even the 'normal' humans?"
"All of them," Shaddal shook his head slowly, angrily, "Including my kind."
"That's terrible!"
"Ahhh... now you see, Angelo. Your 'good' House, and the Elohim itself can be just as evil as you think we Satanists are." Shaddal had a point.
"This must be when the Great Flood happened?"
"Yes. But as Kasyade must have told you, Lord Satan was more merciful. He took pity on some of your kind and he and Lord Enki secretly instructed a fellow named Noah to create an ark and save a handful of your people to start anew."
"You're saying that Satan is the one who saved Noah!?" Now this was an interesting revelation.
"Lord Satan and his uncle, Enki. When House Enlil realized this, they became furious, but Lord Satan is a silver-tongued devil and he convinced Enlil's people that you humans had great potential and were worth saving. Enlil saw the wisdom in Lord Satan's presentation and agreed. Although I must say, reluctantly."
"And for that we are grateful," I said sarcastically. "What about the experimental creatures... the abominations... did they perish as well?"
"Most were destroyed. But some, such as yours truly, and those lovable creatures you just witnessed, were spared."
"Why?"
"They please us, my boy. In a gesture of his great kindness, Lord Satan... as your people say... looks the other way... and allows us to keep them."
"Like monstrous pets," I shook my head.
"They please us, my boy." Those were Shaddal's final words on the subject, he would say no more.
~
I tried another tack. "Shaddal, tell me about heaven and hell."
Shaddal let out a loud bleat that was part howl. "This is hell, my boy, this is hell."
"Earth?" I felt sort of insulted.
"Earth. Lord Satan and his followers were exiled from their home planet to live on this, as Lord Satan calls it, godforsaken planet. Angelo, they tell me compared to the Anunnaki home planet, Earth is hell. No insult intended."
"None taken," I lied. "Where exactly is Satan's home planet? Is it in the Solar System?"
Shaddal got up from the table, his hooves clopped on the carpeted floor as he walked to the window. I noticed he glanced at a wall clock. He stared out past the hazy Manhattan skyline as if he was searching for his home world somewhere in our sky. "The home planet of Lords Satan, Enlil, Enki and all the Anunnaki Lords is, shall we say, a loose member of your Solar System. It passes through your system in a very eccentric orbit. Do you understand this? It passes close to your sun once every several thousand years, give or take."
"So their year is thousands of our years?"
"Give or take."
"How can life exist on a planet so far from the heat of the sun?"
"Excellent question, my boy! If you keep your nose to the grindstone, perhaps Lord Satan will see to it that you are taken there, so you can see for yourself, just as Ezekial did."
"He can do that?"
"Lord Satan can do almost anything, my boy. He is a very important Anunnaki."
"This is all so mind-blowing," I said and I wasn't kidding, "Nibiru has a year that lasts several thousand of our Earth years. This must account for the Anunnaki's very long life span, correct?"
"They do live very long, Angelo."
"How long?"
"Hundreds of thousands of your years; rarely less. Often five hundred thousand, even more."
"But you ordinary demons die?"
"Ordinary?" Now it was Shaddal who seemed insulted.
"Sorry. I meant to say extraordinary."
"We demons can die, of course. But our youth can be restored by drinking the blood of young humans. Children preferably."
"What?" I was horrified, "You mean like vampires?"
Shaddal mused "Perhaps this is where your vampire legends come from."
"So," I asked, "How do you obtain your 'young' blood?" Shaddal shook his head slowly and looked at me as if to say how naive can you be? "Are you telling me you guys go around sucking the blood of children to stay young? What do you do, sneak into their bedrooms at night when they are sleeping?" I'm not sure if I was trying to make a joke or had just plain gone nuts.
Shaddal laughed a bit and replied, "Our ways are a bit more sophisticated than that, my boy. Though from your point of view even more horrible I should think."
"This just can't be real," I said, looking down at the floor in disbelief.
"I told you," Shaddal insisted, "The Anunnaki are very advanced in the sciences. They discovered that our aging process can be halted and even reversed if we have periodic infusions of young blood. Along with white gold powder, of course. Something to do with how Earth affects our cytoplasm or ectoplasm, or some plasm, I am not sure. What I can say is, it works. But for some of my fellow demons, believe me, death is a blessed relief."
"Is that how you feel?"
"Heavens, no! I'm in the prime of my life, surrounded by your delightful Earth women. And men. They are among the most amazing creatures we have ever engineered, you know."
I wasn't going to take his bait. "If Earth is hell, is the Anunnaki home planet heaven?"
"Nibiru? Though I have never myself been there... at least not yet... I am told it is indeed Paradise. Perhaps you will see for yourself one day soon."
"I know, I know, 'nose to the grindstone.' But I have to admit that would be something to see. Is that where our idea of heaven and hell came from?"
"Like so many things in your culture, it is a misinterpretation of your own ancient records."
"So what are you saying? When we Earthlings die, we don't go to heaven or hell?"
"I didn't say that, now, did I?"
"I know what you said. I don't know what you meant."
"The simplest way I can explain it for your limited understanding is to draw an analogy." I paid no mind to Shaddal's bit of condescension, I was sure satyrs can't help themselves. "On your planet, you use capacitors in many of your electronic devices. What happens when you turn off an electric circuit which has a capacitor in it, like one of your infernal television sets? Do you know?"
"I thought you weren't a tech guy?" I laughed. "Well, I believe that the capacitor stores electrical charges, and when the power is turned off, the capacitor gradually drains off its charge. That's why the old type tv picture tubes seemed to shrink to a point and gradually fade out."
"Very good, my boy. You get a gold star. And this is what happens to the human brain when you die. The electrical power slowly drains out of the circuit. But because the whole apparatus is neither a true electrical device, nor does consciousness exist in your Newtonian sense, the brief moment when the brain circuitry drains to zero, seems to your conscious mind to last, well an eternity."
"This sense of eternity is our heaven and hell?"
"It is for the personality," Shaddal shook his head as he continued to stare out the window. "You see, if a dying brain generates a 'good' dream, the dying personality experiences this as happiness for ever and ever. I a relative way."
"But if a dying brain generates bad thoughts," I picked up the thread and Shaddal jumped on my next line.
"...Hell." Shaddal relished the word.
"But what would keep a good person from having bad thoughts at the very end of his life?" I asked, "After all, he may be in pain, or hallucinating, or in terrible fear."
"No. It just doesn't work that way, my boy. Would that it could be that way. God, not Anu or Elohim, but the real Cosmic God, constructed the Universe so it doesn't allow what you are suggesting. No. Lucky for you, heh-heh, He reserves this right for Himself. When you die, you become with God."
"I don't understand." Why were the most important things so difficult to understand? I suppose all subtleties are difficult to communicate clearly, especially across the wide gaps between races. I'm sure this is why they chose an Earthling to communicate their story to mankind.
"You will come to understand this before long, my boy. Have patience."
"This happens to your race in the same way?"
"Essentially. We have our own heaven and hell."
"It just takes you a little longer to get there...?"
Shaddal bleated with delight. "Exactly! You have a fine wit, my boy. I knew there was a reason Kasyade, that old task master, gave you a passing grade."
"Does that mean I'll get to interview Satan soon?"
"Soon. As I said, we still have a few tests to put you through." Shaddal looked at the wall clock one last time. I noticed it was about a quarter to nine. He turned to me with some finality blazing in his eyes, "But for now, I'm afraid our session has come to an end..." He turned to look at something. I followed his gaze across the room and out through the window. My knees turned to Jell-o.
The airliner was far too low in the sky, heading directly toward our building. I mean right at us. Shaddal smiled and I could see red in his goat eyes. He pointed at the calendar on the conference table. It was September 11, 2001. In that instant I realized we were in one of the World Trade Towers, in the center of Satan's New Babylon. And I knew why we were here in this conference room, and Shaddal knew that I knew. This was my test.
"Why?" I cried to Shaddal. "These people are all doing your work!"
"Don't be concerned for my people, they will simply disappear. As for your people...well..." Shaddal bleated and his tail wagged.
I tried to scream out to the other humans in the room but they could not hear me. I ran to them, attempting to get their attention. One of them must have been a demon because he simply disappeared, as I imagined the demons in the other conference rooms did. As far as those remaining in the room, nothing I did seemed to make any difference. I was invisible to them.
Shaddal, on the other hand, did not disappear. On the contrary, he spread his arms as if to welcome the psychic energy of the impact. One instant the plane was some distance away - the next instant it exploded into the room. For me, that instant happened in slow motion. It was blast furnace fire, pulsating wind, weird low frequency ear-splitting roar, then blistering heat, glass and metal exploding in my face like a galaxy of pain. But I was Satan's guest and no harm would come to me. Though I could feel some heat, the rest passed right through me as if I were not a physical being. Body parts came spinning through the air like slow fleshy propellers. I heard the eerie sound of Arabic prayers. Screeching, rending walls of metal came towards me, a giant airline logo flashed by, blistering and peeling.
The souls of a dying multitude flashed through me like a wailing stream of anguish. People from the room and from the airliner, which was now nothing more than a can of beans torn open, were sucked right through one of the once-solid outer walls into the morning sky. I saw a huge ball of hellish red flame laced with black soot erupt from the floors where the plane punctured the building. I found myself falling side by side in a shower of glass and detritus with other screaming people. The giant ball of flame billowed and roiled and for a good long moment a perfect three-dimensional image of Shaddal's demon face, with his pointed horns grown longer, became visible, huge and glaring, in the flames.
The ground came toward us fast and hard. Below me, the woman who had been giving the business presentation hit the ground face first. There was a horrible thud and I fully expected her to explode on impact, but she didn't. Incredibly, she got up, straightened her navy blue skirt and tugged at her jacket. Huge chunks of building material fell all about her but miraculously, except for the dust spray, she was not hit. She slapped at her clothes to shake off the powdered concrete and ash. Her white blouse glowed in the sun and dust. Suddenly her eyeballs turned upward toward me, she appeared to be disoriented and began to slowly collapse backward. As she went down, white steam or vapor began streaming from her mouth leaving and arc that traced her path downward. I was suspended in the air, and I couldn't take my eyes off her. When she was about halfway down to the ground, the white stream turned red. I felt the terror of this poor woman whom I didn't even know. She reminded me of somebody I had seen in the news but I couldn't say who.
Charred body parts fell from the sky, thudding on automobile roofs and rough concrete. The vision was too horrible for my brain to process. Then it was my turn to hit the pavement. I shut my eyes and screamed for God to help us all. The scene stopped as if I had hit the "pause" button on a video player.