"It's time to turn that tape around you know," Lucifer said as he let go of hand and stood up from the chair. "Your apartment hasn't changed much."

"No it hasn't. I didn't really see the need to change it," I answered. Actually it was a lie. I just wanted it to remain the way he had seen it last. I wanted everything to remind me of him.

"You didn't see any need to live?" Lucifer asked, a skeptical look running over his face.

"What do you mean?"

"The only constant thing in life is change. Thus, if there is no change, there is no life," he answered, still looking around my apartment.

I knew that what he was saying was true, but I was nowhere near telling Lucifer that because of my longing for him my life really had stood still for a decade. I even still had the same bedding that he was in with me one night long ago.

"Should we continue? I really want you to tell me the whole story. Waiting for another ten years for the last part might kill me," I said as I switched the tape and pushed the record button, ready for Lucifer to tell me all that had happened.

"I woke up in hell. The red of the loving fire was beside me, holding me warm and keeping me from feeling the cold of the other realm. I wasn't scared when I woke up, but I was furious. What I felt was something that had not been felt on earth for many centuries, and something that was not supposed to be felt ever again. It was a feeling that told me that the peace that had been created on earth was ready to be shattered once again, and this time I feared for all humanity. The only reason why there was relative peace was because there was no immortals on earth to influence the humans. Every time that you set an immortal being on earth, everything shatters. We are creatures who get bored and then we tend to play with the lives of others, and not in a good way. With all I have been taught the immortals was not on the earth anymore. Except for Cain who was sulking somewhere in a cave, and maybe if Lilith was out there somewhere. Still, it was not their power that had awaken me. It was an older power. The power of one of my kind. An original heavenly being had descended upon earth, and I was determined to find out who it was. Who would want to come back to earth when my brother would not even want to come?"

"Why would something like that wake you if you put yourself into a permanent sleep?" I asked, just a bit curious.

"Because it was a force stronger than me. Older than me. It disturbed the curse I placed on myself."

"So you waked up and then went searching for this new power you are describing?"

"Without a doubt I did. It could have been anyone. Remember how Lilith's power evolved and how she got stronger and stronger. What if she was biding her time? Making herself stronger so that she could return with a greater force. I was very sure that she still was not over the death of Enoch, and her demons was with me now, so she had no idea where they were. Thus I had to go and see, before she started some kind of war, or tried to take revenge on God again. This time he would not go easy on her. So yes, I went to search for whatever it was out there. Maybe if I was lucky I would be able to rest my eyes on the one woman I truly loved once more. Now do you understand? I know you think that I was just addicted, but it was more. She was a force to be reckoned with."

"Yes, I guess I understand," I said as Lucifer finally took his seat in front of me again. I knew I was impatient and a little bit jealous of the love that Lucifer felt for Lilith, but I could not help it. I did not want to hear her name anymore. I wanted him to stay here with me forever, telling me all the stories in the world.

"You do not understand, but once again that does not matter. All you need to understand is that I went out to find this new force. I flew up into the starry night above me, and opened myself up to the immortal power that had woken me up from the deep sleep of peace I had been in. I was flooded again with memories, regrets and guilt, but I needed to make sure. I needed to be awake for this. I had to know what had happened to Lilith if I was to truly find peace in my heart. And so I picked up on this new found power very fast and it led me over the ocean to a place called Nazareth. The place that the people spoke of that housed the house of God. It didn't surprise me. I knew that if Lilith was alive and heard the stories she would do the same as me, draw the same conclusion and go and search for him there. What did surprise me is that the power did not take me just to Nazareth, but to the infamous temple that housed the ancient knowledge. It was there that I felt the pull the strongest I have felt it for millenniums. Although ever single bone in my body was screaming for me to go inside, I did not do it. I did not want to enter a house that was built in the honor of my brother. Some part of me felt that it was just too sacred to go into. I don't know why actually. Up to this very day I stay away from places of worship, not wanting to anger my brother more than I have angered him before. I prefer to keep a low profile. So near the entrance to the temple I found a tree. Beautiful and high, as if it had stood there for a century or more. An ancient oak tree that drew me near, giving me the best view and also the best protection for the surrounding eyes. There I sat waiting for the power on the inside to emerge and be touched by the light of the morning so that I would also be able to see who I really was."

"So you just sat there? I would have gotten impatient and stormed in," I said with a gasp, knowing that my curiosity would be way too much.

"See, that is one of the problems with you humans. You are always without any patience. That is why you screw things up most of the time. Being patient is something that becomes a necessity when you have lived for as long as I have. When you take your time you learn a lot more than you usually would."

"I get that..." I answered, feeling a bit ashamed that I brought up yet another flaw of the human race.

"So I sat in the tree for two moons. The power did not leave the temple, and I did not leave my post. Many people walked in and out, one after the other, but the source of the power did not emerge once, until the third morning. I could not believe my eyes. I felt as if I had gone numb all over and I actually struggled to stay in the tree. There they were. It was not one woman but two. The two most unlikely people I ever believed that I would find on the face of the earth. There she was, with her fair hair and blue eyes. Looking innocent as always was Eve, and next to her standing proud with her raven-like hair was Lilith. Together, laughing and giggling like they were old friends. I believed that my eyes were deceiving me. There was no way that Eve could still be alive, or was it all a secret that Lilith had kept from me all along. That Eve had been alive all this time? It was at that moment where I could not believe my eyes that I swooped down out of the tree and approached the women. As they saw me I could not help calling Lilith's name, opening my arms for her, but to my shock she looked at me with utter confusion as if she did not recognize me. I spoke her name again, this time adding the name of Eve, but both women looked at me without any recognition at all on their faces. It was really as if they had never seen me before, and that was when I truly understood what was going on before me. It wasn't Lilith and Eve, although it looked like them in every single way. These two women were completely mortal, not a hint of immortality in them. It was as if God was playing a cruel joke on me, leading me to these mortal beings, to mess with me and make me go insane. Then only did I realize that the power was still there. It was not one of the woman, but the unborn child inside the woman that looked just like Lilith. By this time they had tried to explain to me that they were both named Mary and I must have been confusing them with somebody else. I understood this by that point, and still I sensed something of Lilith and Eve. I needed to get away from there. I needed to think. I wanted to understand what was going on before I could look Mary in the eyes again and try and figure out why she was still radiating the power if she was not an immortal being at all. So I turned my back on them although I vowed to myself that I would return. I needed to return to figure it all out, but I needed space first, so I left the two women, the temple and Nazareth and searched for solace in a desert not far from there. There I stayed for many moons, until my head was clear and I finally figured out what was going on."

"What was going on?" I could not keep myself in. I needed to know right away what was going on. Again like a human I showed that I had no patience at all, and this time I did not feel ashamed about it. Who would have been able to wait to hear this story?

"I called upon Gabriel himself, believing he would come to me, but he did not. Instead Zadkiel, one of my favorite brothers made his appearance. At first I did not believe that God would let any of them come, but in the end I was pleasantly surprise by the visit that I got. I had missed my family, and even though Zadkiel and I had never been that close I was glad to see him. He did not come out of his own accord unfortunately, I found out minutes after he arrived and he watched me weep tears of joy. He had come on the orders of God himself to give me a warning. The warning was that God was basically starting to recycle the old souls and that I was not to take any more of them to hell. He needed them to enter bodies and be reborn again. I was in outrage because of this. These souls already had to go through so much in one lifetime, how could God make them go through a second, or maybe even multiple lives over and over again. Always experiencing the same pain that they had already lived through. This was not a curse, this was an undying cycle of life, dead, and rebirth in pain, suffering and misery. I did not agree with it but there was nothing I could do. As soon as Zadkiel gave his message he left me alone with my thoughts, and somehow I understood why Lilith had once hated my brother so much. It was like there was no end to the cruelty that he allowed to let rain down on everybody on earth. But finally I understood what I had seen back at the temple. My eyes were not deceiving me. I really did see both Lilith and Eve, which finally brought me to the end that Lilith had died. Then again I also knew that she was now alive again, and maybe for her it was a good thing that she had the chance to come back and live her life all over again. That she could finally feel love, passion, and peace. I wanted that for her, and I vowed that as soon as I could figure out why she was radiating the power of an immortal while still being mortal I would leave her alone forever. I just needed to know if the Lilith I knew was still somewhere inside of her."

"Okay, you are now opening the field for a whole lot of questions from me," I stopped Lucifer before he could go on with his tale.

"Ask away," he answered, looking a bit bored as if he did not like this part of the story at all.

"Reincarnation is real? There is no heaven where we go to when we die?" I asked.

"That is quite difficult to explain. Let me make an example now. At the time I am referring to now God wanted to have only his most loyal beings come to him and join him in his realm. He wanted to call them angels, with my brothers being the Arch Angels, the rulers of them all, so God constructed a perfect plan. He would allow access into his heaven, only and if only a soul could go through several lifetimes and prove themselves worthy by learning certain lessons on which he would judge them. Thus, when you die you are again reborn. Yet another series of tests that awaken you. Almost every time when a soul has to be judged they are cast from God's realm back to earth to wander around like the souls of old used to do. I then rescue these souls and take them with me. I was warned not to take souls that God was still busy with, but those he truly discarded I took with me each and every time. After that much pain and suffering they do deserve some peace."

"So when you look at the human concept. Your hell is what we are taught heaven is like, and the earth itself is what we know to be the hell with the pain and the suffering?"

"Yes and no. My hell is a place of peace. It does not make you happy instantly, but at least you do not have to go through any more pain. The earth is as they would depict the hell to be. It is a place of sorrow and pain, never-ending as long as you are here. That I call hell on earth. As for heaven I could not answer you. I do not know what my brother's realm looks like. I think people imagine it to be like the Garden of Eden, but I can assure you that God would have created something far bigger and greater, but your chance for ever getting in is almost zero. In the past two-thousand years only three souls has been allowed to enter his realm and stay there," Lucifer tried his very best to explain.

I knew I would not fully be able to understand. My head was spinning, but I tried to see the picture as clear as I possibly could.

"I think I understand the concept," I said after a while, still trying to piece it all together although I knew I would never be able too.

"You know what, I think you do understand. You finally understand that you cannot understand. Therefore you now do understand it in a certain way," Lucifer said confusing me even more, but at the same time making perfect sense.

"Then let's get on with the story. I want to know what happened to Lilith or Mary, or whatever her name is at this point," I said, now eager to hear the rest, feeling younger than I did in many years.

"So then I left the desert and went back to Nazareth and again I waited for Lilith who was now named Mary. I waited for many moons before she finally appeared completely alone. In this time I had figured out why she was radiating the power, and to tell her, I needed her to be completely alone. So I waited and waited, but when she finally came out all alone and I was ready to go and talk to her, something I could not understand happened. I did not see it coming and I wasn't prepared, but in front of me Mary was basked in light of such a clear blue that it could have been made by the tears of innocent babies. Then out of the light Gabriel walked out and closed the space that was between him and Mary. I overheard the entire conversation, wishing that I hadn't. I knew it all, but seeing Gabriel tell her and giving her sweet words and hope to hold on to made me want to scream aloud, for I knew that for Mary, or Lilith, or whatever she was called, nothing but pain and sorrow was waiting in the near future. All God's plans worked out the same when he tempted fate. They all fell through, one big failure after the other, and this was without a doubt no different as I listened how God had impregnated this virgin girl and that she was to give birth to the son of God. Then, just as suddenly as Gabriel had come, he was gone again. I was furious. Did they have any idea what they were sentencing this girl too? The times had changed. God had rules on earth now that had to be obeyed and one of them called that if an unmarried girl were to fall pregnant she would die by the hands of the temple. I sat in that tree quite a few days. I had learned a lot about the temple's workings, and I could not allow this. I could not see how Mary would get stoned for yet another mistake that God had made. I would not allow it, so without any further a due I jumped from the tree and rushed myself over to her before she could disappear into the temple once again. I knew in the back of my mind that I should not interfere with God's plan, but I could not just leave this girl to not know who she really was. So I grabbed her and before she could scream I flew away with her into the desert where we could be completely alone, without anybody that could interfere with us while I told her the story just like I have told it to you. We sat there for a full day and a full night where I told her everything I knew. I shared the entire tale and told her to get rid of the baby the moment it was born, because that baby I knew would be the death of many to come after it. This was just a new plan for God to kill the people who did not believe in him and I told her so. She cried a lot, but by the time I took her back she was convinced and she promised me that she would leave the city, have the baby on her own and kill it as soon as it was born, so to save the lives of many to come."

"You told her to kill the baby?" I could not believe my ears. The Lucifer that I knew would not hurt a fly, let alone kill a baby. He was the one who wept with every baby that Lilith had that died, and here he was urging Mary to take the life of her child as soon as it was born.

"Yes, I told her to kill it. I knew it could not mean anything good. I felt the power radiating from her. It was just as cursed as Lilith and Cain was." Lucifer sounded cold as he spoke the words, showing no remorse for wanting a baby to die.

"What about free will? Could the baby not be taught with the right story? Could it not one day choose its own path?" I asked, still not liking the idea of killing a baby.

"No. If God had set his mind on the child being part of one of his plans there would be no salvation for it. What would you have done if you knew a girl who was pregnant and you knew for a fact that it would be the next Hitler. Killing it would save millions of lives. Would you do it?"

"Yes, but that's a bit different don't you think?" I asked.

"No, I think it is exactly the same. I knew for a fact this baby would mean the death of millions and millions to come over many centuries. I could feel it. No, it wasn't evil, but it was part of a plan. There was something God needed doing and this baby was the core of the entire plan," Lucifer said, still not showing that he had any intention of changing his mind.

"That is a bit much to put on the shoulders of a baby," I answered.

"Don't be so sure about that, but don't worry about it. You will understand soon enough."

"Okay," I mumbled, looking at this Lucifer which I have never met before. This person that would take the life of an innocent, but not the life of somebody who had actually killed.

"I left Mary there at the temple and went away. I needed to find Cain again and tell him the news about Lilith. That she truly was dead. He needed to know, so that he too could find peace. It took me a few days but I found him in a cave not far away from the one he was in last. There I told him that Lilith had died back in Sodom. He wept and screamed. He was a broken man. I saw what a heart looked like when it ripped apart that day. It is a face of a man losing all hope for living and wanting to believe in something more than that the sun would come up again in the morning. I left him after he calmed down and told me to go away. I did not tell him about Mary. I could not allow him to come near her. Not yet. He had lost his true love as well as his son. If he found her he would've made sure that the child survived and I could not allow that to happen. I needed the child to die as soon as it could possibly be. I decided to go back to Mary and talk to her again, insuring that my plan would work and that I would be able to keep God at bay for at least another few hundred years. I did not care if he would kill me for what I was about to do. I had been ready to leave the earth for many centuries by then. Death would've been more of a mercy on my soul by that point."

"So you were willing to die just to kill one child?" I felt disgust build up inside me. I never believed that I would look up towards the person I believed was my savior with eyes of disgust.

"You shouldn't look at me in that way. If you knew what happens next you would understand completely why I tried to do what I did," Lucifer said as he stood up from the table and moved over to the window, drawing the curtains to look toward the shining city lights of the city that never slept, just like both Lucifer and me for the second time.

"I went in search of Mary, but by the time I got there she was turned. When I tried to gesture her to talk to me, she just gave me a look of disgust, very much like the one you are giving me now, and further she ignored me. It was then that I heard the term of "devil" for the first time. My name had changed and she was warned about me. Everybody in the temple kept her safe and she made it very clear that she was to have the baby. She even got herself a suitor. A short little guy named Joseph. He was a carpenter, barely worth anything, and still she chose him. But then again, maybe it wasn't as much choosing him as it was choosing to stay alive. She needed a husband by her side if she wanted to survive as a pregnant woman. I could understand that. Survival has always been the most primal of human emotions. She had no choice and just like Lilith she was stubborn and did as she saw fit. I, on the other hand was left shattered. I had shared my story for the very first time with a person. They vowed that they believed my story, and then as soon as I turned my back they believed the opposite once again. The Devil, always leading them into temptation, when I only tried to share with somebody the demons I had in my past. I was hurt. You cannot think how it feels when you tell the truth, open your soul for a person to see, and then get told that you lied. Being rejected just by hearing a different version from someone else. Yes, I had to admit I was far from perfect. I'm still not perfect and I will never be, but one thing I do not do is lie. I tell the truth as far as I can and when I can, expecting to be believed just as I would've believed you if I was told your truth."

"She decided to keep the baby?" I asked.

"Yes, and by being truthful I had branded myself forever as a liar who wanted to destroy the plan of God," Lucifer said bitter, dropped the blinds and walked back toward the table, but not sitting down.

"But that part they have correct. You did try to destroy God's plan," I answered.

"Yes, but I did so with very good reason, and if I had succeeded I would have saved the lives of millions, that I promise you. It would have been a different world. There would be much more peace than there is now. In the past thousand years the entire world has been at war. If it's not the one it is always the other, and I tried to kill the cause of that. Knowing what it would amount too. I actually flew out to the desert to work on another new plan. It took me many moons to convince myself that my new plan was justified, knowing I would feel guilty forever, but also knowing there was no other way. So I snuck back one night toward the temple. I had a plan. I would set the entire temple ablaze with Mary inside, burning her and the child to death, making sure it would never be born. I knew very well that there were others inside, but to me they were collateral damage. I needed to do this. For me, for Lilith, and for all humanity that was still to come. But I heard a voice behind me before I could light the temple on fire. A voice so sweet that asked me if I was looking for Mary. There behind me stood the other girl. The one that looked just like Eve. She was smiling and not afraid of me at all. She told me that her name was actually Mary Magdalene and that she had heard of my story form Mary and that she believed me. It was that night that I found a little bit of myself again. I told her my plan on killing the unborn child and she told me that Mary was not in the temple anymore. That she left with Joseph to the place of his birth days ago and would probably not be back until the birth of the child since they expected Mary too be pregnant to far along to make the journey back. I could not hide the disappointment in my voice, but I also could not hide the relief. I did not want to kill all the people in the temple. They were all innocent and I thanked Mary Magdalene for stopping me in committing a terrible act. She then took a lot of responsibility from my shoulders. Mary Magdalene the temple prostitute offered to do what I was planning to do. She offered to kill the child that Mary would give birth to. She saw what I wanted to prevent and she believed me without asking any questions. She was after all a prostitute, someone God had turned his back to a long time ago. She did not want him to succeed in hurting any more people than he had already hurt. She did not want others to go through what she had gone through, and she offered up her own conscious to save all of humanity. I believed with all of my heart that she was a good woman and I promised her that someday I would reward her and pay back the favor if she succeeded. I told her I would be back in exactly one year from that day to make sure that she had kept her word. I then left to hell, to wait away the time until I could come back and see that my plan had succeeded."

"I still do not see the heroic action in killing a baby," I said, still not being able to get rid of the disgust. Not even when Lucifer took off his shirt and sat across from me. He was now a monster to me and not the sexy guy who I loved with every fiber of my soul. For ten years I had held on to his preaching of love, passion, peace, but as I sit here I cannot see any of that. All I saw was a coldhearted murderer.

"I promise that before I leave you will understand why I did what I did. I swear that I would not take a life if I was not sure that it would save many others, and even then I would think twice. Believe me, I am not the vicious monster who kills babies that you think I am," Lucifer said with an apologetic voice, smiling to me, trying to make me soft to his charm once more.

I however knew that would never happen again.