IN> Lilith in Peacetime

[Daniel Childers]

It was a few years after the War had been lost.

She guessed she could consider herself the Regina Mundi, the
secret queen of the world. Though that was a stretch. More like
the concubine to the Rex Mundi. Better than being a
nothing-at-all. Maybe even better than being Demon Princess
of Freedom; she no longer had to deal with Lucifer. That had
been...bad, even with the Lightbringer's Balseraph resonance to
gloss over it.

She sat quietly on the opulent sofa, sipping her expensive
champagne and watching the enormous television, while her
first husband sat next to her, yelling at people  over two cell
phones simultaneously.

He barked his orders, and hung up both phones, grinning
furiously. She knew he didn't really have to give those orders
in person--he was the First Man; God had granted him dominion
over the Corporeal and everything in it. Things would happen the
way he wanted without him directly ordering supposedly powerful
men to do them. But he made the phone calls anyway.

He scowled at the TV. "Buncha uplifting crap," he muttered
in a language that had been old when the Sphinx was being built.
"Liked the Media better when he was working for the other
side. Damn it, their stupid War is over, they're
supposed to be off my plane!" He lunged for the remote.
Then he looked at her. "Oh--I guess you were watching that,"
he grumbled, and busied himself with his laptop instead. She
allowed herself to relax a liitle. He certainly had mellowed since
she'd left him.

He hadn't seemed to be paying any attention at all to the
TV, but he soon sneered, "A movie about a woman who makes
bad decisions about which men to be with? Wonder why you'd
be so interested at that." She tensed again.

"I made my choice, Adam. I asked for your protection,"
she said meekly.

"Well, you didn't have to come back to me, darling. If you want,
you can still go. Hide on your own. Or take your chances with the
angels, maybe." he smiled. And part of the smile even reached
his eyes.

A knot in her stomach, that had been there since she first
came to Adam, untied itself. He wasn't a nice man by any
means, but he wasn't as bad as she had remembered. And
was nowhere near as bad as Lucifer had been for all those
long eons. She had made the right choice after all.

And he was still the only being that could protect her
from Heaven.

But he probably didn't realize how meaningless his offer
was. No longer a Demon Princess, just a mortal woman
(though still a very old and powerful one), she belonged
to him, just like everything else Corporeal. She couldn't
have left him, without him ordering her to, even if she
had made the wrong choice.

Just like with Lucifer.

She smiled sadly. "Can't help loving that Man
of mine."

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