The High Order

14. The prodigal son returns

14. The prodigal son returns

1. The Oneida lake retirement village was a luxurious retreat for the elderly straddling Oneida lake in upstate New York. Pine trees covered the roads and highways leading north from the city of Syracuse, giving way to the sounds of roaming deer, woodpeckers, and waving treetops in autumn moulting. The village comprised several large buildings like something out of a Swiss ski resort, multifaceted wooden and glass immersed within the trees and nature paths surrounding the community. On the other side of the lake, past several geezers fishing by a small dock, a flash of light flickered in the treeline. Passing it off as cataracts or hunters, the fishers went about their day. 

From the undergrowth, Dan emerged among the falling leaves and moss ridden trunks. He had returned to this place in the human world for a special reason. This retirement village was now the home of his parents, William and Anne Stokes. Both born in 1935, Anne was a trainee nurse during World War Two in New Jersey, while William was working with his father at a shoe shop in uptown Manhattan. They met each other in Central Park after William returned from fighting two tours in Vietnam in 1970 by chance. They dated for the next two years until tying the knot in 1972. 

They never thought about having kids so soon, against the wishes of their parents. Anne gave birth to Dan in 1973, and surprisingly, Anne had been married to William for nearly forty years up until now. There were multiple approaches to the main complex of the village along beaten trails, and the residents were not too astonished to see Dan in his suit and mask. They thought he was a performer of a sort as he made his way towards the front desk in the main building. Dan still did not why his form changed to this when he arrived back in the human world, but he went with the flow. It was probably to keep his identity a secret from those who would still want to see him dead in this life or the next. The main building looked like an oversized wooden hut, loaded with tables of residents playing cards or reading beside the wide-open windows looking out onto the wilderness.

"Anne and William Stokes" the masked Dan asked the receptionist.

"okay, party animal. Room 84" the receptionist quizzed over Dan's costume, with only the slightest suspicion that he may be a nutjob or assassin as Dan made his way through the corridors and elevators to find room 84.

2. To the northeast of Satan's citadel, between Charon drive and Persephone place, stood the district of Beelzebub, with its iconic monument, a fifty-foot high statue of shining blue copper. At its pedestal was an inscription commemorating the horned humanoid demon and everything he stood for as a national hero in Hell. he had been a very close associate of Satan in the early years of the creation through to the great feud. Then he was rumoured to have died a terrible death at the hands of an angelic assassin in league with extremists in Hell. As Satan's best friend, the head honcho of Hell had come to miss Beelzebub almost as much as he did Beatrice. Staring onto the monument in despair, Satan lay a stalk of strong lavender on the bottom of the pedestal then left the scene. Few knew that this was part of a ploy. 

Across the River Dis, the smell of the lavender stalk wafted through the streets, through every window and into every nook and cranny in sight. Lucifer's nose caught onto the scent quickly. As a demon, Lucifer's senses were all heightened to well beyond the standard of mortals in the human world, and the smell of lavender reminded him of a certain innocence he felt within his soul, a crying call to a possible redemption. It could have been his heavenly heritage talking, but in any case, Lucifer took it upon himself to sniff out the source of the smell, leading himself out of the palace walls and floating across the city like children lifted by the scent of a freshly baked pie cooling on a windowsill. He eventually found his source at the Beelzebub monument, and the aroma of the lavender stalk grew to its strongest yet.