Lilith was weak, very weak. The summoning of the trees, her precious trees, had sapped much of her strength. Completely empty? No, but the fuel gauge was hovering around that dastardly ‘E’. What she needed was to feed, to refuel. How long had it been? Decades? Millennia? Of that, she’d no idea. That damned meddling magic man with his dragon; well, she would get her revenge. At some point, she’d get revenge. But first, filling up the tank.

Lilith was still in the brat’s world; it was to be her world now. Who was going to stop her? She would keep her word and stay out of the little shite’s way. All the spoiled bitch had to do was stay out of hers. Her skin sagged from her bones like a sheet hanging from the edges of a bed. She was old, an aged old crone. That was another thing she would have to fix; she wanted to be young again. There was, she thought, as she worked out what she needed to do, no rest for the wicked. And boy, she would be wicked when she was topped up.

Lilith stepped forward into the trees like an animal coming out of deep hibernation. The trees were lush and green; dew sparkled on the leaves in the slight sunlight that could break through. She ran one of her old crone hands down the bark of an oak and caressed it tenderly. She would have preferred to have seen the sun shining from autumn’s orange and red leaves; despite that, this would have to do. She could redecorate once she had regained her strength.

She walked and headed away from the castle. She would keep to the trees and undergrowth as much as she could. Her clothes had once been extravagant; now, they hung only marginally more than her skin. They were nothing more than rags after all this time. She watched the animals climb and examine the trees, hopping about and minding their own business. If you gave them a chance, animals would always return. She needed to feed, and she needed to do it well and correctly on the first go. She did not want to risk any screwups while so weak.

In life, you create from what you know; it has always been this way. She was the Mother of Monsters, the Designer of Demons, so her first creation had been much like herself. There had been a few rules she gave herself when she had created. The most important being to make sure you always keep control. She walked through the woods, cackling like the madwoman she was as she thought about this. Early creations had no intelligence, and she had learnt that you had to give them the power to think. You could teach, train, and even program them to do certain things. What made them special and scary was the power to think for themselves. You could never teach everything; you can never train for every situation. Intelligence was the key; without that, you have mindless drones.

Lilith’s foot tangled in a branch as she walked; the skin was torn from her foot, revealing the soft pink flesh underneath. She cursed in an ancient foreign tongue as she pulled the skin free. There was no blood from the wound. What blood she had once was now dried and long forgotten. Had she been human, she would have been a hollowed-out old husk at the bottom of a six-foot hole. She let her fingers run along a tree as she walked past. “Not long, and I’ll be back to myself,” she said to nobody but the trees surrounding her. Her voice was old, frail, and decrepit; it was a voice that had not spoken aloud in many years. She threw the flap of skin to the ground and continued to walk.

A lone rat crawled from a tangle of grass and roots; it stopped and sniffed at the discarded flap of skin. It looked around to ensure no larger prey was watching and started nibbling the edges. When it was sure it was safe and not being observed, it gobbled the lot. Down in one, dead Lilith skin tasted good, very good. The rat turned and itched; it had a terrible skin-crawling itch. The itch swarmed all over its body, covering it from tail to nose. It felt like something was crawling and picking at the flesh beneath its fur. Pricking from the inside.

A sore popped up on its back, pulsating and pushing through the skin. It grew like a teenager’s acne until the skin could stretch no more, and then it popped like a well-squeezed zit. Then another pushed through, and another. The rat’s body now looked like burning plastic; it bubbled away with the sores. The yellow pus from the spots slimed its way over the rat, and smoke rose from it. The rat squealed and writhed on the ground as it tried to escape the goo, unable to understand that it was coming from within. Its skin sagged and looked like a watercolour where the paint had run. The top half looked gooey and full of pus; the lower hung and touched the ground. The rat scrambled, trying to move its legs, but the bone and muscle slipped from the skin, becoming detached, trapped like the feathers in a cushion. The rat struggled inside its skin; it looked like a cat in a sack trying to escape a farmer. The smoke billowed from the yellowing discharge, and the goo hardened. The hardened pus lost the yellowing colour; it faded slowly until all that was left was a rat-sized grey looking rock. The rat cried out, and its only reply was the echo from the hard stone shell that was once its skin. It screamed until it could scream no more, and then it waited. It waited to die. Its death, if you could call it that, took a long time. It took years for consciousness to depart, and although the rat didn’t know, that was all it was now. The newly formed stone grew inward until it was only a rock in the woodland. The rat screamed and cried when it could, confined in the rock. It squealed, yelled, squeaked, and screeched for years until, finally, its mind dissolved, and then it was nothing more than a rock on a path in the woods.

Lilith emerged from the trees and could not believe the sight awaiting her. When she had been jailed, the world had been primitive. It was a world still learning to stand on its own feet, but now…

The farmland that was once there and the simple wooden buildings that had grown over time were gone. Lilith had seen these things before in other worlds, but never in her own. This was hideous; it was outrageous. What had they done to her world? How long had she been confined? She arched her head up and looked at the buildings that reached for the sky. Skyscrapers in her world? Well, they’d have to go. In her opinion, the 1920s and 30s in the prime were the best times for style and look, not these horrendous glass monstrosities. She knew that many of them were being built in that human era, but like many things Lilith didn’t like, she ignored the contradiction. “Besides,” she hummed, “they looked better then.”

Lilith looked and saw a small pathway through the buildings. It was an entrance to the woodland for many, but it would be an exit for her. The path opened up like the neck of a wine bottle and got wider as she walked it. A group of youths watched as she hobbled past. She turned to glance at them and saw her reflection in the glass window behind them. Her hair, now grey and tangled, hung down around her backside. Her breasts dangled and sagged like an overfilled plastic bag; they wobbled from side to side as her weak matchstick legs moved. “Oi! Grandma!” one youth shouted. Lilith looked over; it was a short, dumpy girl.

Grandma? Grand — fucking — ma! What is it with kids these days? First, she’d had to deal with the shite in the castle and now this! She wasn’t that old! Not compared to some. Back in her day… Okay, that was an old thing to say. Even so, these kids, disrespectful little shites. But maybe, they had a use…

Lilith limped over to them; the damage to her foot finally hurt a little. “Granny, don’t you know it is dangerous in there?” the tall, skinny one said. “Could be monsters in those woods.” Heh, Lilith sniggered to herself. Monsters, they had no idea. She approached the group, and the four of them watched as she did so. Two girls and two boys, one fat, one thin, one tall and one slim. “What d’ya want, granny?” Fatso said as she pulled her jacket back, revealing a knife stuck into her trousers. “You should be careful with that young lady,” Lilith said, eying the knife’s handle. “You could hurt yourself.”

Lilith closed her eyes. She pictured the four of them standing there as she chanted in her head. Fat and short girls, tall and thin boys. Stood next to each other in a line. She would need everything she had; the situation wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. If Fatso had her knife, then it was likely that the others were armed. Would it matter? She thought not. But why take a risk? She would take out Fatty and then the tall one. After all, the tall one had more to aim for, and speed was her best weapon.

The four knew something was wrong; this was not how it was meant to be. They were young, and together they were strong. There were four of them to one of her. This haggard old crone, this bag of skin, bone and tissue. Why, they thought, wasn’t she afraid? The thought seemed to be transmitted between them by a form of terrified telepathy, and they all came to the same conclusion at once: she must be mad. They all took a step back, the fat one first and finally the slim one. Like dominoes, they moved one after the other.

Lilith still had her eyes closed, and she felt the change. She did not need to look; she knew her instincts were right. They were suddenly afraid. Withered, frail, and weak as she may have been, they had got that much right; they should be frightened. Lilith opened her eyes and smiled at them.

She created from what she knew. There had been missteps, but the first creatures that Lilith had born were the blood drinkers. They had been given weaknesses, but they lived on the life of blood and could come back, could survive most things if they had the gift of blood. Blood magic was one of the most powerful of magics. Dangerous to many, but not to her. The top row of teeth that Lilith had, slightly overhung the lower. You would not usually see this when she smiled, as she is not one for big, toothy smiles. She could have changed it, but she liked it how it was. Her imperfections made her beautiful, the Devil had once said to her. Today, she made an exception and smiled at the four, her top lip pulling back to show her teeth. The two cuspids extended, pushing down until they were an inch long, and sat on her lower lip. The group took another step back, getting ready to run. But by then, it was already too late.

Lilith pounced at the one with the knife. You first, Fatty, she thought. She grabbed the knife by the butt, holding the pommel and pushed down with all her strength. The knife slipped from the belt that held both it and the jeans, and she continued to push. She got lucky. She had expected to have to adjust as the knife dropped. She’d have to move it through and reposition her hands because of the belt. The knife’s blade had cut the belt; as she pushed, it had cut through the leather. “Why, how lucky I am.” Lilith chuckled as the knife moved downwards, piercing through the girl’s skin. Little Miss Chubby Chops screamed as the knife entered her leg, and Lilith laughed as she felt it hit bone. Lilith pushed the blade into the leg and then, as hard as she could, against the bone. Then she pulled the blade downwards. The blade scraped against the bone as she did so, cutting the leg from top to bottom. She’d give Chubby this much; she knew how to look after a blade.

This took seconds; for Lilith, it was over too soon; for Chunky, it seemed to last forever. The remaining three had turned and were about to run. Had they not been so shocked, things may have turned out differently. Lilith darted from the fat one to the tall one. She moved at speed, quite unnatural for her aged appearance. She looked old and frail but moved like a fit, sporty teenager. She grabbed the tall boy and jammed her fungal-infected thumbnail into his neck. Jamming it down hard as it squished through the soft tissue. She pulled the thumb out, and blood spouted from the wound like a burst pipe. She had broken the artery. She took a mouthful as he fell, then held her hand tight over the wound. She waved her free hand in the air, closing her finger and thumb in a circle, and the two remaining teens froze. They froze as they ran, stuck like a bubble in an ice cube. “Hold on, I’ll get to you,” Lilith said. Her voice sounded younger now, not young, but younger. “You too,” she said to the girl lying on the floor, sobbing her eyes out while holding her leg. Blood had pooled on the surrounding floor. A sticky red goo that clung to her and the ground she lay upon. Lilith again shaped her free hand, linking her thumb and little finger, the other three fingers pointed outwards. The blood turned blue and stuck to the large girl; a sticky, bloody blue tar held her in place. “You too, sweetheart.” Lilith smiled her usual conservative smile. “But first, I have to feed.”

Like the vampires she had first created, she clamped her mouth down on the neck and removed her hand. And then she fed.

First, the liver spots on her body faded and then vanished. The skin that was hanging free now tightened. Ageing in reverse, the lovely Lilith returned to form. Her buttocks firmed up, as did her breasts. The wobbly dangling things sucked back up as the skin tightened around them. Her hair darkened, the grey knotting and weaves of time being turned backwards. Colour returned to her skin and hair, blossoms to her cheeks as she drank the last of the blood.

Lilith dropped the now bloodless body to the floor; it landed with a thump. Forty-three seconds from grabbing the knife to the final slurp, she had got slower. Still, this was better, she thought, as she looked down at her newly reformed cleavage. “Okay, nearly done, children. I shall be with you in a moment,” she laughed aloud. She now had the laughter and body of a woman in her mid-thirties and was back to her best. Well, almost…

She stood and put her two hands together; all fingers touched the tips of their opposites. She twisted her hands, and crossed fingers, and her ragged clothes vanished. One minute, they were there, the next gone. She continued with her hands, and new clothes appeared. She was fully dressed in an instant. Boots to her knees, stockings to her thighs and cleavage to die for, and many would. Held together with a dark purple corset. The purple icing on this dangerous cake, this deadly trifle. Her hands continued to move, and the knickers appeared black and laced. Then, the low-cut dress, black, purple, and down to her ankles; shoulders covered but not her arms. She stopped, looked down at herself, and then looked in the glass window. “Something missing…” she mused aloud. “Ah-ha!” she exclaimed and twisted her hands once more. A thin lace strip of creatures appeared on the bottom hem of the dress. All of her babies sewn along the bottom of her dress. The vampires, the werewolves, the succubi, and everything else represented and honoured by their mother.

Lilith turned and looked at the three that remained. “I look better, don’t I?” she asked. Her long black hair hung over one shoulder and settling in her cleavage. “D’ya know,” she said to the frozen two, “if you had run when I first started, you would have maybe escaped. I’ve been running on empty for so damn long.” She looked down at the one held by the gluey blue blood. “Do you know what it is like to be that hungry?” The girl sobbed as Lilith continued. “Well, no, you don’t, do you? You don’t look like you’ve missed a meal in your life.” Lilith looked at her with disdain; her fangs had retracted.

“Please, we didn’t mean you no harm. We was just having a laugh,” the stabbed girl cried.

“You will learn something here, a valuable life lesson. Life! Ha!” Lilith laughed out loud, an evil crackle of a laugh. “Don’t take the piss or ‘have a laugh’ with your elders. That is the first lesson. Now, be quiet and learn something else.” The big girl sobbed; her friends were still stuck in the air, at half-step, trying to run. All they could do was hear what was being said. “Now quiet,” Lilith said, and the girl on the floor instantly closed her mouth. It would have been comical at any other time or place.

“Up you get,” Lilith said to the bloodless corpse. “I have work for you yet. You too…” Then she stopped and burst out laughing. It was impulsive; it may have been contagious at any other time. She clasped her hands over her mouth. Her eyes danced with humour, and she spluttered to suppress herself. Finally, she managed it and regained her composure. “Oh shit. I was going to call you a Weeble! But then I remembered. Weebles don’t fall down, and you did.” Then, she lost it again. The laughter returned. It spewed from her like gas escaping a pressurised container. She held her belly and bent over, then she laughed, walked to the glass windows, and put her arm against them to steady herself.

Eventually, she stopped. She looked over at the two frozen runners, and her eyes darted from them and then to the window. They moved as quick as a flash and smashed into the pane. Flying through the air at speed. The glass behind them cracked, but it didn’t break. These were secured panes for a shop frontage. She looked at the one on the floor, the one she had mocked relentlessly. “You’ll also learn that I am a bitch,” she told her. Then she looked at the shop front again, and the girl with the knife still sticking from above her shin flew and crashed into the glass.

The three of them were in a torturous lineup. Their eyes remained open even though they wanted to close them. The three of them could not look away. “Come on, you too, Corpsey,” Lilith said to the blood-drained husk. Lilith held her arms out, holding them in front of herself with her palms facing downwards. Then she flicked the two middle fingers upwards; as she did so, the corpse rose. It was slow to start with; it was like it had a string attached to its head. Then, whatever creature or magic that reeled the invisible line got the hang of it, and it sped up. The dead body was lifted by his head until he stood tall once more. Lilith raised her arms and spun. The body walked like a puppet on strings to the glass window. “Ha, look, it is my puppet. How wonderful is that?” Lilith screamed with joy. She smiled, spun and laughed as the four friends stood pinned to the glass.

Lilith stood with her back to the four; she placed her hands in a fist. The fingers and thumbs interweaving with each other. She held them up to her mouth and kissed them, and then threw her arms forward as she unlinked her hands. As she did so, the ground rumbled, and a small twig pushed and poked its way through. Six inches that pushed through the stone pathway as quickly and efficiently as Lilith had the neck of the tall boy. She walked to the twig and snapped it off. “Bye-bye, Mr Twee,” Lilith said like a baby and waved. The small hole that the twig had made, closed. The branch that had been pruned receded to the earth below. Lilith spun around and looked at her four victims. “I think you will be perfect!” she said to them as she walked towards the store.

She snapped the twig into four parts, holding them in her palm. “Tall Man, Thin Man,” Lilith said. “Fat Girl and Short Girl.” She considered. “Oh, I like that. I like that a lot,” Lilith said to them. She walked to the thin one and placed one piece of twig into his mouth. She repeated this with the short girl. She then came to the fat girl, whose mouth was still closed. “Well, come on, open up,” she demanded. “Oh, sorry. I forgot you can’t.” Lilith reached down slowly. She can take her time; for now, there is no rush. She pulled the knife handle stuck in the girl’s leg. The knife was released. “Oh hush, ya baby,” she said without looking up. The girl’s eyes watered from the pain. She tried to scream, but she could not open her mouth. A snail trail of snot escaped from her nose and bubbled at the end of her nostril. “That’s gross,” Lilith said as she looked at the girl. “Right, this might hurt a little. I’m warning you,” she said. Lilith then slammed the knife forward with her left arm, sinking it deep into the girl’s cheek. She pulled the knife free and threw it to the floor. “Won’t be needing that again,” she said. She leant forward and pushed the twig through the hole the knife had made. “See, that was easy.”

Lilith then walked to the final one, her Tall Man. She pushed the twig into his dead mouth and stood back from the four hostages. She then started chanting in Elden.

Language, like monsters or humans, evolves. Phrases get swallowed and regurgitated, and words get dropped or repurposed. Enochian is the language of angels. Elden is the language of devils. Lucifer has to be different; he must always have his own things. All angelic creatures and satanic ones can speak both; at minimum, they are dual-lingual. Many are also masters in other languages; what good would it have done if they had come to earth to help or hinder and could not be understood? It is possible to understand, in a way, and order a pint using your arms and hands to motion what you want but try to possess someone that way or bring someone back from the edge. It is difficult! So that was the third thing she always did when creating.

Lesson one. They had to be scary or fun.

Lesson two. They had to be intelligent.

Lesson three. They had to be willing to learn.

To be intelligent and unwilling to learn, to think you know it all, is useless. You should never stop learning.

The four stood pinned as she chanted, three alive still and one dead. They stood, and she chanted. The plump girl was trying to keep the blood that flowed from her cheek from drowning her. The other two were frozen and could only watch and listen. The final one was already dead. They all twitched at once. A leg on one, an arm on another, they all in harmony. Their bones cracked, and the pain ripped through their eyes. Their arms contracted inwards, pulling themselves into their bodies. It was like an unseen force was pulling them back into the centre, back to the heart. Their torsos swallowed the arms. The legs followed in the same manner. Bones were clicking and clacking as the limbs were sunk. Sucked back up into the body.

Lilith pointed at the girl who had taken the full force of her anger. The one who had caught her attention first. Grandma indeed, she thought. “Ha!” she said and pointed at what was left of the large girl. “Now you really are a Weeble!” She burst into laughter again. The torsos shrank. They shrunk fast; within ten seconds, they were each the size of a small pea. All that remained were the heads with a small pea shape attached to the bottom. “Okay, so it’s been nice meeting you all,” Lilith said, “but I have what I need now, so goodnight.” She pointed her finger like a gun at the head of what was once the tall boy. She took her time as she pretended to aim. She lined up the shot like a child at a fairground shooting range. Then she said, “Bang!” The head exploded, and the small pea dropped to the ground. She drifted her gun finger along the row to the thin boy. She smiled as she lined it up and then, “Bang.” The head exploded; the pea once again dropped. She pointed at the short girl. “Hidey ho,” she said, followed by, “Bang.” The pea torso fell. Finally, she walked up to the last one. The girl she had teased. She placed her gun finger under the girl’s jaw and then held it there. “I am going to level with you,” Lilith told her. “I could not give a shite if you are fat or not. I felt annoyed when you called me a grandma. I am a mother to many things, all the best things, you could say. But look at me; I am no grandma!” Lilith smiled at the girl; it was a pleasant smile. The smile that friends who have not seen each other for a long time may give across a busy bar. “So I should apologise,” Lilith said. “But I won’t, because I’m a bitch.” She left it hanging for a moment and whispered, “Bang.” The girl’s head exploded, and the pea torso fell to the ground.

Lilith gathered the four peas in one hand and looked at them. She spoke to them with all the affection a mother or father would have for a newborn. “Oh my baby-wabies, you are going to be so special.” She then closed her palm and headed back. Back into the woodlands.

Lilith wandered deeper and deeper into the woods; she wandered for half an hour until she came to a small clearing. She entered the clearing and walked to the centre. She got down on her knees and dug a small hole with her spare hand. She needed little, a handful of dirt. She placed the peas into the hole and then covered them with soil. Then she slipped her knickers to her ankles, crouched over the soil and urinated on it. Once she was done, she pulled her knickers back up and stood. She turned and looked at the disturbed earth, now wet with her waste. She chanted once more in Elden, and then it happened.

A tree pummelled up through the earth. It started right on the point of her piss. It threw itself up into the open air and shot upwards like an F1 car flying from a tunnel. It was no small tree either; this was a massive, king-sized oak that darted upwards. Fully formed and ready to drop acorns on the ground. It was like it had been hiding and wanted to come out and play. Lilith walked to it and drew a symbol on the bark using her finger; she then stood back. Like the tree that Sophia had used, this one groaned and creaked. The bark split and opened. This time, it was light, not dark, and it flooded what was left of the clearing. Illuminating it for a moment, but then the light withdrew. It almost seemed to crawl back into the centre of the trunk of the tree. Then it was gone, and all that remained was blackness. A figure walked from this darkness. A tall man, six-foot-five and dressed in a suit. A woman, five-foot-nothing and in a dress suit, followed him. Then came a thin man, once again in a suit. Finally, a fat woman emerged, also wearing a dress suit. They  lined up side by side, standing still and obedient. “Shall we go and have some fun?” Lilith asked them. “Go and cause a little mayhem?”

“Yes, Mistress,” they said, one by one.

“Oh goody,” Lilith said, and turned back to the tree. She walked up to the light, towards the light she had once called home. Heading to the black centre of the great tree’s trunk. She walked into it and vanished. One by one, her new creations followed her into the starless light that hid inside that tree. Once they had all passed through the tree, it groaned again and closed its trunk. The bark rejoined its other half until there was no sign that anything had been there.