Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles 5)

'You disappoint me,' He said softly and gently. 'You wound me, Memnoch, you wound my human heart. ' He reached out and put His roughened hands against my face, hands of a man who had worked in this world, labored as I had never labored in my brief visit.

"I shut my eyes. I didn't speak. But something had come to me! A revelation, an insight, a sudden grasping of everything here that was in error, but could I reason it out? Could I speak?

"I opened my eyes again, letting him hold me, feeling the callouses on his fingers, looking into his gaunt face. How he had starved himself; how he had suffered in this desert, and how he had labored these thirty years! Oh, no, this was wrong!

"What, my Archangel, what is wrong!' He demanded of me with infinite patience and human consternation.

"Lord, they chose these rituals which involve suffering because they cannot avoid suffering in the Natural World. The natural world is what must be overcome! Why must anyone suffer what humans suffer? Lord, their souls come to Sheol distorted, twisted by pain, black as cinders from the heat of loss and misery and violence which they have witnessed. Suffering is evil in this world. Suffering is decay and death. It's terrible. Lord, You can't believe that to suffer like this would do any good to anyone. This suffering, this unspeakable capacity to bleed and to know pain and to know annihilation, is what has to be overcome in this world if anyone is to reach God!'

"He didn't answer. He lowered his hands.

"My angel,' He said, 'you draw from me even more affection now that I have a human heart. How simple you are! How alien you are to the vast Material Creation. '

"But it was I who urged you to come down! How am I alien? I am the Watcher! I see what other angels don't dare to look at for fear they'll weep, and it will make you angry with them. '

"Memnoch, you simply don't know the flesh. The concept is too complex for you. What do you think taught your souls in Sheol their perfection? Was it not suffering? Yes, they enter perhaps twisted and burnt if they have failed to see beyond suffering on Earth, and some may despair and disappear. But in Sheol, over the centuries of suffering and longing, others are purged and purified.

"Memnoch, Life and Death are part of the cycle, and suffering is its by-product. And the human capacity to know it exempts no one! Memnoch, that the illuminated souls you brought from Sheol knew it, that they had learnt to accept its beauty, is what made them worthy to come through the heavenly gates!'

"No, Lord, that's not true!' I said. 'You've gotten it wrong. Utterly. Oh, I see what's happened. '

"You do? What are you trying to say to me? That I the Lord God, having spent thirty years in this human body, have not struck the truth?'

"But that's just it! You've known all along you were God. You mentioned times when you thought you were mad or almost forgot, but those were brief! Too brief! And now as you plot your death, you know Who you are and You won't forget it, will you?'

"No, I won't. I must be the Son of God Incarnate to fulfill my ministry, to work my miracles, of course. That's the whole point. '

"Then, Lord, you don't know what it means to be flesh!'

"How dare you assume that you do, Memnoch. '

"When you left me in that fleshly body, when you cast me down for the Daughters of Men to heal and care for, in the early centuries of this very land, I had no promise you would take me back to Heaven. Lord, you're not playing fair in this experiment. You've known all along you're going back, you're going back to be God!'

"And who better than I can understand what this flesh feels!' He demanded.

"Somebody who doesn't fully rest assured that He is the immortal Creator of the Universe,' I said. 'Any mortal man hanging on a cross now on Golgotha outside Jerusalem would know better than you!'

"His eyes grew wide as He stared at me. But He didn't challenge me. His silence unnerved me. And once, again, the power of His expression, the radiance of God in man dazzled me, and drew upon the angel in me to simply shut up and fall at His feet. But I wouldn't do it!

"Lord, even when I went to Sheol,' I said, 'I didn't know whether or not I'd ever come back to Heaven. Don't you see? I don't claim to have your understanding of anything. We wouldn't be talking here if I did. But I didn't have any promise I would be allowed back into Heaven, don't you see? So the suffering and the darkness spoke to me and taught me, because I took the risk that I might never overcome it. Don't you see?'

"He considered this a long time and then He shook His head sadly. 'Memnoch, you are the one who has failed to understand. When is Humankind closest to God than when they suffer for the love of another, when they die so that another might live, when they plunge towards certain death for the protection of those they leave behind or those truths about Life which Creation has taught them?'

"But the world doesn't need all that, Lord! No, no, no. It doesn't need the blood, the suffering, the war. That wasn't what taught Humans to love! Animals already did all that bloody, horrible catastrophe to one another. What taught Humans was the warmth and affection of another, the love for a child, the love in a mate's arms, the capacity to understand another's suffering and want to protect that other, to rise above savagery into the formation of family and clan and tribe that would mean peace and security for all!'

"There came a long silence. And then very tenderly He laughed. 'Memnoch, my angel. What you learnt of life you learnt in bed. '

"I didn't answer for a moment. The comment was charged with contempt and humour, of course. Then I spoke:

"That's true, Lord. And suffering is so terrible for humans, injustice is so terrible for the balance of their minds that it can destroy those lessons learnt in bed, magnificent as they are!'

"Oh, but when love is reached through suffering, Memnoch, it has a power it can never gain through innocence. '

"Why do you say that? I don't believe it! I don't think you grasp it. Lord, listen to me. There's one chance for this to be proven my way. One chance. '

"If you think for one moment you will interfere with my ministry and my sacrifice, if you think you can turn the tide of the vast forces already moving towards this event, then you are no more an angel, but a demon!' He said.

"I don't ask that,' I said. 'Go through with it. Minister, outrage them; be arrested, tried, and executed on the cross, yes, do all of it. But do it as a man!'