LJ Idol Season 11 Week 17: Negative Reverse
The demon sat at the bar, her long, black-stocking clad legs crossed seductively. Her pursed lips painted red and inviting. She flipped her raven hair over her shoulder with a flick of her wrist, turning her dark eyes on a group of poor, unsuspecting men over by the broken jukebox.
That was until I took a seat next to her.
Her eyes darted over to me, and one thin, perfectly arched eyebrow raised upward.
“What are you doing here? Aren’t you too good for a place like this?”
I waved the bartender down. “Martini please.”
“You don’t drink?” she asked me again.
“Well, things have changed, Luna,” I muttered. “A lot has changed actually.”
She gave me a once over, her black eyes widening as the realization hit her.
“Celeste, you haven’t been-- have you?” Her lips pulled back into a smirk.
“I have been cast down from heaven, yes,” I said. “Well, at least temporarily. I’m going to find my way back up there, just wait and see.”
Luna cackled and people around us froze and stared. She had that sort of power over mortals - she could pierce their hearts with fear or bring them to their knees with just a sound. It all depended on what her intentions were. The bar became eerily quiet as everyone waited for their instructions from Luna. Even the bartender froze in front of me, as if unsure what to do with the bottle of gin in front of him.
Luna waved her hand. “Oh come on, pour the poor lady a drink already. She’s had a very rough day.”
The bartender continued mixing my cocktail and placed it in front of me. I brought it to my nose, cringing at how terrible it smelled. I put it back down in front of me instead of taking a drink. Gradually, people began chatting around us again. The volume of the bar returned to normal.
“Not for long, huh?” Luna asked.
“Yeah, not for long. I was unfairly cast out,” I said, kicking my chin out and holding my head high. “It was all Gabriel’s doing, he hasn’t been treating me the same way since… well, you know.”
“Since the two of you hooked up?”
“We did NOT hook up!” I snarled. “We were together. In a Biblical sense, yes, but what we had was real. It was pure. It was--”
“Not allowed?”
My eyes narrowed on Luna. There was so much I wanted to say to her, to tell her how wrong she was.
But I couldn’t.
The demon was right. I had broken a rule. I had done the unthinkable. I let my desires get the best of me.
“But if it’s so wrong, why is Gabe still up there, sitting by God’s side?”
“Because face it, dear, God is a misogynist,” she said. “And the world is full of double standards. You can’t even escape them in heaven.”
“God is not a misogynist. He’s perfect and fair and just and--” My voice trailed off as I realized I was preaching to the choir - myself. I was trying to convince myself of those things, not Luna.
Luna’s smirk grew wider. Luna finished whatever was in her glass in one, long fluid movement. She waved the bartender down and pointed to her glass.
“Well, even if he’s not all of those things, he’s better than your leader,” I said.
Luna chuckled, and for a second time, everyone in the bar froze. Including the bartender.
“For Satan’s sake,” she cried out. “It’s just a laugh, not a spell.”
She waved her hand again.
Everyone slowly returned back to normal. When Luna had been an angel, like me, she was one of the more powerful ones. Also, like me. When she fell from grace, I had felt sorry for her, thinking she might lose some of her powers. We were often told that our powers were tied to the divine, to God himself, but I was already beginning to suspect that wasn’t true.
I had felt sorry for Luna. We used to be friends, even if she was a bit rebellious.
Luna turned back to me with a fresh glass in front of her. “The fact that you think Lucifer is so bad, while still standing up and defending God, is hilarious to me, I’m sorry.”
“Well, he is bad. Lucifer is the epitome of all that’s bad.”
“Is he? Who was it that decided to flood the world and kill all the innocent creatures here?”
“Well, yes, God has made a few rash choices in his lifetime, I will give you that, but look at everything Lucifer was responsible for. Like the plague, for instance.”
Luna shrugged. “It was merely a measure to protect the world from getting overcrowded and God going on a massive killing spree again. I don’t agree with his methods, but-- it likely saved many other people in the process.”
“I don’t believe that. What about war, famine, all the other atrocities he’s responsible for?”
“Let me ask you one question - why didn’t God ever stop him?”
“Because-- because--” I didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t feed into Luna’s ego. Either God wasn’t powerful enough to stop them, which would mean Lucifer was more powerful than God, or God simply didn’t both to stop him which would mean-- no, I wasn’t about to go there. I couldn’t.
“Face it, Celeste, your side is responsible for just as many deaths and tragedies as ours. If not more,” Luna said, finishing off her second drink. “And unlike your master, mine would never turn his back on you for indulging in some carnal pleasures. He also hates everyone equally so, yeah, if he’s going to punish anyone - he’d punish both parties. Not just the woman for being naughty.”
“I-- I don’t know what to say right now, but you’re wrong, Luna. About everything.” I crossed my arms in front of me and turned away from her.
“Oh yeah? Everything, huh? What about pineapple on pizza? What in the world was God thinking when he came up with that combination.”
I slowly turned back toward her, studying her face to make sure she was serious. “You think God was behind that? Oh no, that’s purely a work of the devil himself.”
Luna shook her head. “Nope. We had no part in it. Lucifer thinks it’s an abomination.”
“So does God,” I muttered. “Does this mean--”
Luna scanned the room, scowling in disgust at all the people around us as she finished my sentence. “It’s a human invention?”
“It has to be.”
Luna snorted, doubled over in laughter. I tried to hold it together. After all, this was no laughing matter. But Luna’s laughter was contagious, and before long, I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing so hard.
“Well, at least we can agree on something,” Luna said. “Humans are the worst.”
“They really are.” I wiped away the tears in my eyes, still chuckling at the irony of all this.
It took us a moment to catch our breaths. And even then, I’d catch sight of Luna’s familiar smirk and burst out laughing all over again. As soon as my laughter died down, she would start up again. All while exclaiming out loud about the horrible humans and their evil, despicable tastes.
“Stop, stop,” I said, holding up a hand. “I can’t breathe. Give me a second.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes to center myself. Luna had stopped laughing. The room had gone silent.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
My eyes popped open just as Luna said, “Shit.”
I was almost afraid to look, but I had to. I turned in my barstool, staring at the carnage around us.
Everyone from the bartender to the men over by the jukebox were frozen. But not like before. Their bodies had turned to stone, their chests no longer rose and fell with breath. Their eyes no longer blinked.
Luna slipped down from her bar stool and patted one of the stone people on the head. “Huh. Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this before,” she said nonchalantly. “Have you?”
“Never,” I said, leaning over the bar to check out the bartender. I ran a hand over the cold, smooth stone of his skin. “I think our combined powers were too much for them.”
“Yep, looks like it,” Luna said. “Guess it’s time to find a new bar.”
She headed for the door.
“Wait for me.” I hopped down from the stool and hurried to catch up with Luna.
Luna raised an eyebrow in surprise, but waited by the door for me.
“Decided to join the Darkside after all?”
“No,” I said defiantly. “But not like there’s much else for a fallen angel to do in this place. We gotta stick together.”
“Sure, you say that now,” Luna said with a playful wink. “But you’ll see things my way sooner or later. They always do.”
“How many others have you converted?” I asked. But before she could answer, I held up a hand. “Don’t tell me, I really don’t want to know.”
Luna shot me her signature smirk as she held open the door for me.