Cameron Haley - Mob rules

"You could bring me a Hershey bar once a month."

"Once a year, duration proportional to the number of questions."

"Done," said Mr. Clean, crossing his arms. "Ask your questions."

On the surface, this looked pretty cut-and-dried. Unfortunately I hadn't just agreed literally to bring Mr. Clean a candy bar once a year. I'd agreed to do some similar service, a favor of like magnitude. It was like throwing in a player to be named later in a baseball trade. Of course, there's absolutely no way for me to keep a precise record of these transactions. I figure I'll just try to weasel out of anything unpleasant if and when the time comes.

"I need to know how to protect a victim of possession."

"What kind?" asked Mr. Clean.

"A guy. He's young, gorgeous, he has these little dimples when he-"

"No, monkey brain, I mean what kind of possession."

"There's different kinds?"

"Demonic, ghostly, spiritual-benevolent and malign, to name just the most common instances."

"My bad guy channels juice from the Beyond and rolls with a spooky mummy jar, so I'm thinking ghostly possession." I described the ritual murders.

"If the entity is channeling juice from the Beyond, it is not a ghost. A ghost is juice from the Beyond, but it has no power to manipulate that medium. In other words, based on the evidence you have presented, you are precisely wrong. The entity is not a ghost, but it could be a demon or spirit."

I ignored the insult. "A demon-like a fallen angel?"

"A demon is not a fallen angel. The Fallen do not possess people. They are angels. They can manifest in the earthly realm and smite cities. Don't you read?"

"So if a demon isn't a fallen angel, what is it? Because I'm pretty sure I've always heard-"

"A demon is one of the Firstborn."

I just waited. Sometimes I can't bring myself to give him the satisfaction of vocalizing my ignorance. Plus, by baiting me into asking stupid questions, he was angling for more candy bars.

Mr. Clean sighed-again with the wheezing. "The Firstborn were the pre-Adamic race created and given dominion over the earth. The one created before humans."

I tried to let it sink in and basically came up empty. "Sounds like heresy to me, baldy." Sometimes I throw in an insulting nickname, just because. "You're lucky-back in the day, they'd have your chestnuts roasting on an open fire for that."

Mr. Clean's laughter crackled from the set's tiny speaker. "I am an immortal spirit of earth and air. I believe I will take my chances. Besides, it is in your Book, and once again, you have demonstrated that you are incapable of reading anything more challenging than Cosmo."

That was a dirty lie, and yet I knew I would never win a scriptural debate with Mr. Clean. Gangsters, as a rule, are never the ones sitting in the front pew on Sunday.

"Okay," I said, "forget the religious angle for a minute. You said pre-Adamic, as in before Adam. This is the twenty-first century. We know now the whole Adam and Eve thing was just an analogy."

"Metaphor," said Mr. Clean.

"I'm pretty sure it's an analogy," I said.

"Nope."

"You sure?"

"Very."

"Okay, just a metaphor then. Anyway, we evolved. There were lots of species that had dominion over the earth before us, like dinosaurs." A sudden, terrible inspiration struck me. "Dinosaurs didn't get bitch-slapped into extinction by a meteor? They turned into demons?"

Mr. Clean was rubbing his temples. "The physical evolves. The spiritual, I assure you, was created. Your Genesis story is a metaphorical description of the spiritual creation of your race."

"So you're saying humans weren't the first race given souls?"

"Just so."

"And you're saying these Firstborn guys turned into demons?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because they were given free will."

"So were we. Don't you read?"

"But you were given something else."

"Like what?"

"Conscience. Empathy. The knowledge of good and evil."

"Heresy!" I cried. "Right there, that's big-time heresy, I'm sure of it. Satan, the apple, that's when everything went to shit."

"It all went exactly according to plan. The Morning Star was the fall guy."

I crossed myself and eased away from the TV set. I'm a gangster and a sorcerer, but I was also raised Roman Catholic.

"Satan is evil," I said. "I know that's in my Book."

Mr. Clean shrugged his massive shoulders. "Yes, Lucifer rebelled, and he Fell for it. Hard. He tainted the soul of humanity with the knowledge of good and evil. But only because he-and a few others, the rest of the Fallen-recognized that someone had to do it."

"Yeah, pride. See, that's it right there. He thought he knew better than God. That's why he Fell." I noticed that I was shaking my finger at the TV, I suppose in righteous indignation. "Anyway…why? Why did someone have to do it?"

"Because the Firstborn were a disaster. They were created as they had to be created, creatures of pure will. Without conscience. Without empathy. Without that little voice in their heads to whisper to them the difference between good and evil. And so they were ruled utterly by their passions-they literally did whatever they wanted, when they wanted, without regard for the pain and suffering it might cause others. They didn't know any better. It was inevitable."

"So then, why didn't God just give us a conscience?" I asked. "I mean, assuming for a moment I believe this heretical bullshit that He didn't." I was starting to understand why my religion generally warns people off trafficking with spirits. I felt my soul getting a little overheated just having this conversation.

"The whole point of creating both you and the Firstborn was that you would have free will. You would be made in the image of the Creator. That is what distinguished you from all the other beings that had been created before, including the angelic host. This in itself is evidence that the Rebellion was part of the Plan. Lucifer, being an angel, had no free will. Ergo, he could not have chosen to rebel. Likewise, only beings with free will could be given dominion and bring the Divine Plan to fruition in the earthly realm."

"Okay, but version one-point-oh didn't go so well, so God had to try again."

"Yes. But the Eternal does not make mistakes. There is only one way it can do a thing. It is bound by its own perfection, by its own Plan."

"So, then…version two-point-oh, us, was going to end up the same as the Firstborn, created without knowledge of good and evil."

"Yes."

"But God's hands were tied, so to speak, and He would just have to keep trying, the exact same way, every time."

"Correct. And everyone knew it. The Infinite could not directly constrain the free will of humanity-"

"So Lucifer did it for him," I finished.

"Yes. Just as the Creator knew he would. As I said, it was all according to the Plan. This is why there had to be a War in Heaven. This is why the Morning Star had to Fall. It was his destiny."

"Wait, God knew Lucifer would betray Him?"

"Of course the Omniscient knew it. Duh." Mr. Clean didn't usually go in for slang. He must have been especially frustrated with my sluggish cogitating. "All that unfolds does so in accordance with the Will."

"But," I said, flailing desperately for Sunday school lessons, "something isn't right, here. Before Adam and Eve ate the metaphorical apple, everything was perfect. It was paradise."

Mr. Clean shrugged. "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Things started out okay with the Firstborn, too, but they went downhill fast. Humans took the apple. They had but one rule, and they broke it. Free will without constraint-it always leads to the same place."

"But they only took the apple because Lucifer interfered!"

Mr. Clean nodded. "Indeed."