December Days; Story
Dec. 30th, 2014 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI got carried away by this, and spent two days worth getting it written. I've always been fascinated by mentions of stories about demons who repented and joined the church, but rarely actually read any. I didn't have any time to edit it, comments welcome, but especially about the overall story, or anything particular you liked or I got wrong, I know there are still some spelling and grammar errors.
When the assistant called her name, Hashara wobbled nervously to her feet, balanced on awkward mythological hooves. Nowhere in London was designed for hooves, or curving horns, and every day she shied away from the glares and suspicious looks and hate and pity and polite glances deliberately skating off her. People's surface thoughts echoing in her head, stopping drifting on dinner and TV and sex, long enough to reject her. Even on halloween, everyone else dressed up as sanitised demons, a human with a mask. Not a body covered with long hair, and gnarled, twisted horns. She showered daily, and rubbed wax into her horns and skin cream into her skin, but she still felt like a dirty, matted, horror. She'd resisted the idea of getting her hooves shod.
The assistant glanced up from her clipboard, and with an iron grip on perfectionism, hesitated no more than a second in calling "Hashara [embarrassed, shocked pause], devourer of souls? Hashara, the Bishop will see you now."
Hashara had tried all the normal jobs. She'd acquired degrees and applied for white-collar jobs. She'd gone to night school (appropriately enough). No-one ever believed her qualifications. She'd applied to fast-food, construction, any job where she thought they might not be picky and would value her dedication and strength. But they always made the safe choice. She'd taught herself web-design, and tried to find work online, but she hated typing, hated the impersonal contact, and her graphics always made humans feel funny.
So she'd returned to the religion which had condemned her. Maybe she would have better luck with people who hated her but took her seriously, than people who didn't care about her.
--
When I sat in front of the Bishop, she was a plump, harried-looking woman, in slightly rumpled professional clothes, with a dog-collar, but any other signs of her office squirrelled away on a back table somewhere. The assistant sat at the side of the table between us. I glanced at her briefly, and didn't hear her thinking anything other than waiting to take notes, but I read the unintended message clearly anyway: have notes ready for any legal proceedings which might come about when they inevitably rejected me.
I turned my attention back to the bishop, and waited for her to speak. She took a moment to compose her opening words, and I heard them rehearsed in her head before she spoke. "Ms. Hashara. You have applied for a place in the candidacy track into the priesthood. We don't interview all candidates at this stage, but we interview as many as possible." The words "and especially anyone potentially controversial" drifted across her mind, but she clamped down on them before they reached her lips, and thence the potentially critical set of subpoena-able minutes.
"As you must know, it is rare for supernatural beings to apply directly through the central church. Usually they are already closely associated with a particular parish, and are found an official role as genius loci or patron saint, serving as vicar-equivalent with a human curate handling the day-to-day material aspects of the parish, or as curate-equivalent, serving under a natural vicar."
She dropped out of the standard spiel. "But we evaluate all candidates fairly, of course." Her thoughts said, the equalities act said the established church didn't have any choice, if they wanted to avoid scandal. "No demons" was not technically a forbidden job requirement, but open discrimination was frowned on, even when everyone agreed with it. And even if it wasn't explicitly forbidden, the church was scared of test cases based on indirect descrimination on religion, or age. Of course, female bishops had had their own recent squabbles to be accepted, but that tolerance probably didn't extend as far as demons. At any rate, she wasn't thinking about the comparison right then.
I ached to apologise for my appearance and background, or to echo her thoughts back to her, and threaten her with nebulous evocations of the equalities act. But Lizzie had coached me on this repeatedly, start with a normal pitch of my strengths, let them bring up my problems. My drawbacks were obvious, apologising for them just weakened my position and entrenched their opposition. And the threat was best left unspoken, an open threat provoked a fighting response, an unspoken threat left them scrambling to justify it to themselves. I had known the tricks of manipulation for thousands of years, but that didn't make it easy to apply them when I was genuinely risking myself as a supplicant, not toying with mortals as I had once pleased... I hated how craven I had had to become, but I had not learned to beg gracefully or, despite much effort, gratefully.
I leaned forward slightly. "Bishop." Straightforward, polite, but not too formal. "I have a theology degree." I became a fixture at the university, bringing notoriety and funding, nearly two decades ago, and managed to sit the exams several times before they tired of me. But I learned which things pleased them, and my final grades looked good on paper. I summarised the formal qualifications, with passing mention of my final marks.
"I have extensive experience leading religious communities." I mentioned some of my recent abortive attempts at charity work, and vaguer references to similar experiments in northern Germany a few decades ago. My original experience, devouring blood sacrifices in my temples in the hills around ancient Israel, hung unspoken in the air between us. The bishop imagined me, surrounded by chanting, praying bodies, and I felt a surge of affection for her. All the details were wrong, but she could imagine what it had been like to be worshipped.
I talked round some of my other qualifications and skills. But I heard the bishop thinking, she wasn't surprised. I'd not been sure if I'd have to sell myself here, but it seemed like the bishop was willing to believe I could do the routine work, and too honest to assume I couldn't. She was just nerving herself to reject me for being a demon.
I hesitated for a second, but Lizzie had drummed it into me, to keep the initiative, force them into the back foot. "And, of course, to anyone who sees me, I'm incontrovertible proof of the existence and forgiveness of God. How many other curates have spoken to God face to face."
"But, don't you think that might be... inappropriate." There was no hellfire denunciation, but her polite CoE acceptance warred with her sense of good taste, and came out with this limp denunciation.
I leaned forward again. Lizzie had told me to go for broke. "Do you believe that Jesus' sacrifice mean that anyone can repent and accept Jesus and gain salvation?"
Now there was silence, except for the traditional sound of the assistant's pen scratching out an abbreviated form of my sentence. The bishop's thoughts roiled, her scripted "avoid embarrassment" conversation giving way to the thoughts she'd not let herself think about demons. What did it mean that I existed? Had I met Jesus? Had I met God? Had I really been in heaven and rebelled and been cast out? She lived her theology every day, but she only intermittently realised the full depth of what it meant, human brains can't hold that much truth continually.
I didn't interrupt, just waited. I couldn't push, just had to see if I'd broken the resistance enough she was tempted by the bait of who I was. She wasn't someone who thought I was evil incarnate, she thought demons surviving in the world were weak and lost, often sinful, but still a creation of God. But she didn't want to be known as the person who pushed for demons to be included in the church. I don't think a demon had ever even been given communion before... there was some question about the theological status of our bodies, but really, no-one had been quite brave enough...
But the assistant broke the silence first. "Did you know Our Lord?" She really wanted to know. She'd always believed in Jesus, but now the feeling of greatness, of something to hope for in the world, was resurging through her full strength.
And I knew, now they were starting to talk to me as a person, was my chance to draw them in, if I just talked naturally. "I was alive then, but I'd been cast down a century or two earlier. God sent the Israelites to attack my temple, and my followers were broken, and my temple thrown down and defiled. I was imprisoned in a cave, and the entrance closed with a giant boulder carved with prayers and sealed with temple rites. I started to lose myself, floating in the dark. The priests travelled to my cave every six months to renew the rites, and I called out to them but couldn't ever tempt them."
"When the priests were conquered and carried away to Babylon, the seals weakened and I eventually broke free, but I wasn't really a god any more. I wandered the hillsides, hiding from people, not myself. I was still hunted in the wilderness when Jesus came, and for long after."
"But eventually I heard of Jesus' message. And, well... it applies to everyone, doesn't it? When I was still in heaven I was fooled by Lucifer, in my pride and fear. I thought we could make a better world, and I didn't trust God's plan to work out well. But when Lucifer's plan failed, not all of us followed him down to hell, we'd left God, but were disillusioned by the lightbringer. We stayed in the world, clothing ourselves in flesh as the Nephilim in the early world, and trying to help the new humans as best we could."
"Some of us were worshipped, and became the gods of the old world, before He sent Jesus. We tried to do what God wanted, but some of us did better than others. The god of the Israelites heard God's message clearly, and dispensed tough justice to me, when I was cast down. Others were consumed by our own sins. Few survived past the coming of Jesus. Lucifer's plan failed, and most of us failed, but world writ by the humans since Jesus came is, well..." I gestured around me at the living world, billions of souls working and artificing and flying and loving and living and dying, and struggled to put it into words. I knew, but could I convince them?
"Since I was cast down, I tried to do what God would want, though I don't always hear Him clearly. I don't think I'm redeemed yet..." I shouldn't have said that, don't dwell on it. "But none of us" I continued, there, "us" is good, cast me as another soul, not a non-human. "None of us are redeemed by our own actions, only our hope and trust, by Jesus' and God's mercy..."
I trailed off. Those were all the things I'd intended to say. Had I got all of them? I wasn't sure. They were thinking about first century Palestine, not about how a demon couldn't join the church. Thoughts ran through the Bishop's mind. Could she actually seriously consider allowing me through the applications process? I seemed polite, if arrogant, could I truly be redeemed? What had I been doing since I'd been a god, ethical, unethical?
But she shied off the main questions for a minute, approaching again from an oblique angle. "It's Ms Hashara, not Ms Devourer of Souls, right...?" She trailed off, leaving the question hanging.
"Yes." I winced inside, but in some ways it was easier to give an answer I'd been asked hundreds of times before, than any other way she might have started questioning me. "In my native tongue, two thousand years lost, my name referred to worshippers joining to me in the ecstasy of fulfilling albeit blasphemous temple frenzies..." I forced myself to keep on past that without stumbling. "I now know I was leading them away from, not towards, salvation. But there was no devouring, per se." Lizzie wasn't sure of that, but it was close enough as far as I was concerned. Any witnesses were thousands of years dead, their remnants long beyond the reach of any but God himself.
"But in the related ancient Hebrew language, the word for joining also had connotations of consuming, and always ready to slur their enemies, the Israelite priests used that word of me as often as possible, and it had an obscene connotation..." I cut myself off from a bitter rant. It wouldn't help me here. "I wanted to take another name, but maybe if I'm ever officially baptised..." I'd had water poured over me by the bucketful, once literally, but I wasn't convinced it had taken. I'd never submitted to holy water without fear, which I thought was likely a necessity. Would she demand it again? What would happen if she did?
"I don't want to hide from my sins, I want to atone for them." That was true enough, even if what I considered sins might be slightly different to what she might think. She was listening, but not convinced. She thought it was a very bad sign that I'd kept my old name. I let out a bit of my vulnerability. "But I'm not sure I ever can. I just want to do the right thing, but I'm not sure what God wants..."
Now the bishop felt sorry for me. That feeling she'd had, she'd counselled hundreds of people through. She moved on from my name, to more directly asking, "But do you have free will?"
We both knew the steps of this dance, the church had been round them and round them, but she wanted to hear what I would say. I gave my canned answer.
"Only God knows for sure, but it feels like I have free will. The angels that rebelled, we chose to do so. I have since chosen otherwise. Every day I choose. Those choices are presumably all in God's plan, but so are the choices of humans. I am trying my best to make amends, because I think that's what God would want. Should I continue to be evil, because I think that's in God's plan? I can't believe that. Jesus called to the poor and the sick, the blasphemers and the collaborators, even Saul who persecuted him, and called for the forgiveness to the men and women who condemned and crucified him. Would he turn away from a demon, and say I should not try to be good?"
The bishops thoughts roiled. She was scared of succumbing to sophistry, she'd met too many slick debaters who had no real connection to God, and she'd built her calling on common sense and compassion and dutifully doing her job, not on abstract theology. But my words had spoken to her, maybe I'd channelled God's will for just a second, and she wanted to believe it might be possible. Would they be enough to push her over the hump?
---
On the way home, I picked up mortal food for Lizzie, whatever was cheapest but looked like I cared, and whatever fresh vegetables I could afford for me. People forget that many vegetables are eaten alive, and I didn't feel full without s token sacrifice. Even though it felt inappropriate for a repentant demon. I walked home through the fish market, and looked longingly at the lobsters, one of the few animals it was acceptable in Europe to eat, or at least cook, alive. But my money wouldn't stretch that far. I walked past the oysters, musing. Oysters really were eaten alive, and technically were no more forbidden than lobsters, even though the Christians says Jesus had repealed those laws. But I wasn't sure, I felt like God was watching me, and judging me if I departed from those ancient Israel practices.
I didn't try to get the bus. I didn't even know the schedule. My horns barely fit, and people glared at me and sometimes shouted at me. And walking, I always felt penitent. Or was that my pride again? I skirted dropped kerbs, my hooves balanced awkwardly on the slopes. Every road crossing, a taxi would swerve around me honking. With my horns I was about seven foot tall, but people never saw me if they didn't want to.
When I fumbled my door key from my belt pouch, I felt better than I had for years. I felt fatalistic, but even if this last hope failed, I felt I had tried my best. As I climbed the stairs inside, Lizzie appeared at the top and hopped down towards me. She grabbed me in a vicious embrace, human flesh against demon hair below my blouse, and human face pressed closely against my gnarled cheek, me dropping my shopping to keep my balance. After a moment raising one hand to gently hold my head against hers by the base of my horn.
"I'm so proud of you. How did it go?" she whispered.
"The bishop said she didn't think they'd accept me," I said, "but that she'd do everything she could to make sure they did!"
When the assistant called her name, Hashara wobbled nervously to her feet, balanced on awkward mythological hooves. Nowhere in London was designed for hooves, or curving horns, and every day she shied away from the glares and suspicious looks and hate and pity and polite glances deliberately skating off her. People's surface thoughts echoing in her head, stopping drifting on dinner and TV and sex, long enough to reject her. Even on halloween, everyone else dressed up as sanitised demons, a human with a mask. Not a body covered with long hair, and gnarled, twisted horns. She showered daily, and rubbed wax into her horns and skin cream into her skin, but she still felt like a dirty, matted, horror. She'd resisted the idea of getting her hooves shod.
The assistant glanced up from her clipboard, and with an iron grip on perfectionism, hesitated no more than a second in calling "Hashara [embarrassed, shocked pause], devourer of souls? Hashara, the Bishop will see you now."
Hashara had tried all the normal jobs. She'd acquired degrees and applied for white-collar jobs. She'd gone to night school (appropriately enough). No-one ever believed her qualifications. She'd applied to fast-food, construction, any job where she thought they might not be picky and would value her dedication and strength. But they always made the safe choice. She'd taught herself web-design, and tried to find work online, but she hated typing, hated the impersonal contact, and her graphics always made humans feel funny.
So she'd returned to the religion which had condemned her. Maybe she would have better luck with people who hated her but took her seriously, than people who didn't care about her.
--
When I sat in front of the Bishop, she was a plump, harried-looking woman, in slightly rumpled professional clothes, with a dog-collar, but any other signs of her office squirrelled away on a back table somewhere. The assistant sat at the side of the table between us. I glanced at her briefly, and didn't hear her thinking anything other than waiting to take notes, but I read the unintended message clearly anyway: have notes ready for any legal proceedings which might come about when they inevitably rejected me.
I turned my attention back to the bishop, and waited for her to speak. She took a moment to compose her opening words, and I heard them rehearsed in her head before she spoke. "Ms. Hashara. You have applied for a place in the candidacy track into the priesthood. We don't interview all candidates at this stage, but we interview as many as possible." The words "and especially anyone potentially controversial" drifted across her mind, but she clamped down on them before they reached her lips, and thence the potentially critical set of subpoena-able minutes.
"As you must know, it is rare for supernatural beings to apply directly through the central church. Usually they are already closely associated with a particular parish, and are found an official role as genius loci or patron saint, serving as vicar-equivalent with a human curate handling the day-to-day material aspects of the parish, or as curate-equivalent, serving under a natural vicar."
She dropped out of the standard spiel. "But we evaluate all candidates fairly, of course." Her thoughts said, the equalities act said the established church didn't have any choice, if they wanted to avoid scandal. "No demons" was not technically a forbidden job requirement, but open discrimination was frowned on, even when everyone agreed with it. And even if it wasn't explicitly forbidden, the church was scared of test cases based on indirect descrimination on religion, or age. Of course, female bishops had had their own recent squabbles to be accepted, but that tolerance probably didn't extend as far as demons. At any rate, she wasn't thinking about the comparison right then.
I ached to apologise for my appearance and background, or to echo her thoughts back to her, and threaten her with nebulous evocations of the equalities act. But Lizzie had coached me on this repeatedly, start with a normal pitch of my strengths, let them bring up my problems. My drawbacks were obvious, apologising for them just weakened my position and entrenched their opposition. And the threat was best left unspoken, an open threat provoked a fighting response, an unspoken threat left them scrambling to justify it to themselves. I had known the tricks of manipulation for thousands of years, but that didn't make it easy to apply them when I was genuinely risking myself as a supplicant, not toying with mortals as I had once pleased... I hated how craven I had had to become, but I had not learned to beg gracefully or, despite much effort, gratefully.
I leaned forward slightly. "Bishop." Straightforward, polite, but not too formal. "I have a theology degree." I became a fixture at the university, bringing notoriety and funding, nearly two decades ago, and managed to sit the exams several times before they tired of me. But I learned which things pleased them, and my final grades looked good on paper. I summarised the formal qualifications, with passing mention of my final marks.
"I have extensive experience leading religious communities." I mentioned some of my recent abortive attempts at charity work, and vaguer references to similar experiments in northern Germany a few decades ago. My original experience, devouring blood sacrifices in my temples in the hills around ancient Israel, hung unspoken in the air between us. The bishop imagined me, surrounded by chanting, praying bodies, and I felt a surge of affection for her. All the details were wrong, but she could imagine what it had been like to be worshipped.
I talked round some of my other qualifications and skills. But I heard the bishop thinking, she wasn't surprised. I'd not been sure if I'd have to sell myself here, but it seemed like the bishop was willing to believe I could do the routine work, and too honest to assume I couldn't. She was just nerving herself to reject me for being a demon.
I hesitated for a second, but Lizzie had drummed it into me, to keep the initiative, force them into the back foot. "And, of course, to anyone who sees me, I'm incontrovertible proof of the existence and forgiveness of God. How many other curates have spoken to God face to face."
"But, don't you think that might be... inappropriate." There was no hellfire denunciation, but her polite CoE acceptance warred with her sense of good taste, and came out with this limp denunciation.
I leaned forward again. Lizzie had told me to go for broke. "Do you believe that Jesus' sacrifice mean that anyone can repent and accept Jesus and gain salvation?"
Now there was silence, except for the traditional sound of the assistant's pen scratching out an abbreviated form of my sentence. The bishop's thoughts roiled, her scripted "avoid embarrassment" conversation giving way to the thoughts she'd not let herself think about demons. What did it mean that I existed? Had I met Jesus? Had I met God? Had I really been in heaven and rebelled and been cast out? She lived her theology every day, but she only intermittently realised the full depth of what it meant, human brains can't hold that much truth continually.
I didn't interrupt, just waited. I couldn't push, just had to see if I'd broken the resistance enough she was tempted by the bait of who I was. She wasn't someone who thought I was evil incarnate, she thought demons surviving in the world were weak and lost, often sinful, but still a creation of God. But she didn't want to be known as the person who pushed for demons to be included in the church. I don't think a demon had ever even been given communion before... there was some question about the theological status of our bodies, but really, no-one had been quite brave enough...
But the assistant broke the silence first. "Did you know Our Lord?" She really wanted to know. She'd always believed in Jesus, but now the feeling of greatness, of something to hope for in the world, was resurging through her full strength.
And I knew, now they were starting to talk to me as a person, was my chance to draw them in, if I just talked naturally. "I was alive then, but I'd been cast down a century or two earlier. God sent the Israelites to attack my temple, and my followers were broken, and my temple thrown down and defiled. I was imprisoned in a cave, and the entrance closed with a giant boulder carved with prayers and sealed with temple rites. I started to lose myself, floating in the dark. The priests travelled to my cave every six months to renew the rites, and I called out to them but couldn't ever tempt them."
"When the priests were conquered and carried away to Babylon, the seals weakened and I eventually broke free, but I wasn't really a god any more. I wandered the hillsides, hiding from people, not myself. I was still hunted in the wilderness when Jesus came, and for long after."
"But eventually I heard of Jesus' message. And, well... it applies to everyone, doesn't it? When I was still in heaven I was fooled by Lucifer, in my pride and fear. I thought we could make a better world, and I didn't trust God's plan to work out well. But when Lucifer's plan failed, not all of us followed him down to hell, we'd left God, but were disillusioned by the lightbringer. We stayed in the world, clothing ourselves in flesh as the Nephilim in the early world, and trying to help the new humans as best we could."
"Some of us were worshipped, and became the gods of the old world, before He sent Jesus. We tried to do what God wanted, but some of us did better than others. The god of the Israelites heard God's message clearly, and dispensed tough justice to me, when I was cast down. Others were consumed by our own sins. Few survived past the coming of Jesus. Lucifer's plan failed, and most of us failed, but world writ by the humans since Jesus came is, well..." I gestured around me at the living world, billions of souls working and artificing and flying and loving and living and dying, and struggled to put it into words. I knew, but could I convince them?
"Since I was cast down, I tried to do what God would want, though I don't always hear Him clearly. I don't think I'm redeemed yet..." I shouldn't have said that, don't dwell on it. "But none of us" I continued, there, "us" is good, cast me as another soul, not a non-human. "None of us are redeemed by our own actions, only our hope and trust, by Jesus' and God's mercy..."
I trailed off. Those were all the things I'd intended to say. Had I got all of them? I wasn't sure. They were thinking about first century Palestine, not about how a demon couldn't join the church. Thoughts ran through the Bishop's mind. Could she actually seriously consider allowing me through the applications process? I seemed polite, if arrogant, could I truly be redeemed? What had I been doing since I'd been a god, ethical, unethical?
But she shied off the main questions for a minute, approaching again from an oblique angle. "It's Ms Hashara, not Ms Devourer of Souls, right...?" She trailed off, leaving the question hanging.
"Yes." I winced inside, but in some ways it was easier to give an answer I'd been asked hundreds of times before, than any other way she might have started questioning me. "In my native tongue, two thousand years lost, my name referred to worshippers joining to me in the ecstasy of fulfilling albeit blasphemous temple frenzies..." I forced myself to keep on past that without stumbling. "I now know I was leading them away from, not towards, salvation. But there was no devouring, per se." Lizzie wasn't sure of that, but it was close enough as far as I was concerned. Any witnesses were thousands of years dead, their remnants long beyond the reach of any but God himself.
"But in the related ancient Hebrew language, the word for joining also had connotations of consuming, and always ready to slur their enemies, the Israelite priests used that word of me as often as possible, and it had an obscene connotation..." I cut myself off from a bitter rant. It wouldn't help me here. "I wanted to take another name, but maybe if I'm ever officially baptised..." I'd had water poured over me by the bucketful, once literally, but I wasn't convinced it had taken. I'd never submitted to holy water without fear, which I thought was likely a necessity. Would she demand it again? What would happen if she did?
"I don't want to hide from my sins, I want to atone for them." That was true enough, even if what I considered sins might be slightly different to what she might think. She was listening, but not convinced. She thought it was a very bad sign that I'd kept my old name. I let out a bit of my vulnerability. "But I'm not sure I ever can. I just want to do the right thing, but I'm not sure what God wants..."
Now the bishop felt sorry for me. That feeling she'd had, she'd counselled hundreds of people through. She moved on from my name, to more directly asking, "But do you have free will?"
We both knew the steps of this dance, the church had been round them and round them, but she wanted to hear what I would say. I gave my canned answer.
"Only God knows for sure, but it feels like I have free will. The angels that rebelled, we chose to do so. I have since chosen otherwise. Every day I choose. Those choices are presumably all in God's plan, but so are the choices of humans. I am trying my best to make amends, because I think that's what God would want. Should I continue to be evil, because I think that's in God's plan? I can't believe that. Jesus called to the poor and the sick, the blasphemers and the collaborators, even Saul who persecuted him, and called for the forgiveness to the men and women who condemned and crucified him. Would he turn away from a demon, and say I should not try to be good?"
The bishops thoughts roiled. She was scared of succumbing to sophistry, she'd met too many slick debaters who had no real connection to God, and she'd built her calling on common sense and compassion and dutifully doing her job, not on abstract theology. But my words had spoken to her, maybe I'd channelled God's will for just a second, and she wanted to believe it might be possible. Would they be enough to push her over the hump?
---
On the way home, I picked up mortal food for Lizzie, whatever was cheapest but looked like I cared, and whatever fresh vegetables I could afford for me. People forget that many vegetables are eaten alive, and I didn't feel full without s token sacrifice. Even though it felt inappropriate for a repentant demon. I walked home through the fish market, and looked longingly at the lobsters, one of the few animals it was acceptable in Europe to eat, or at least cook, alive. But my money wouldn't stretch that far. I walked past the oysters, musing. Oysters really were eaten alive, and technically were no more forbidden than lobsters, even though the Christians says Jesus had repealed those laws. But I wasn't sure, I felt like God was watching me, and judging me if I departed from those ancient Israel practices.
I didn't try to get the bus. I didn't even know the schedule. My horns barely fit, and people glared at me and sometimes shouted at me. And walking, I always felt penitent. Or was that my pride again? I skirted dropped kerbs, my hooves balanced awkwardly on the slopes. Every road crossing, a taxi would swerve around me honking. With my horns I was about seven foot tall, but people never saw me if they didn't want to.
When I fumbled my door key from my belt pouch, I felt better than I had for years. I felt fatalistic, but even if this last hope failed, I felt I had tried my best. As I climbed the stairs inside, Lizzie appeared at the top and hopped down towards me. She grabbed me in a vicious embrace, human flesh against demon hair below my blouse, and human face pressed closely against my gnarled cheek, me dropping my shopping to keep my balance. After a moment raising one hand to gently hold my head against hers by the base of my horn.
"I'm so proud of you. How did it go?" she whispered.
"The bishop said she didn't think they'd accept me," I said, "but that she'd do everything she could to make sure they did!"