Family Resemblance

By Earl Wajenberg

**Flaming
Feather**

Every lightning strike produces a little burst of X-rays. Sometimes, this makes Jean wonder what an X-ray of Lilith's head would reveal. Or, for preference, her cleaned and dried skull on an examination table, of course...

Jean does not concern himself much with Lilith directly. Clearly, he must spend the plurality of his moral energy in countering Vapula, and most of the rest in equipping the Host, guiding human technological progress, and so on. But he spares some time to think about Lilith. "Lightning" is not a perfect translation of his Word, you see; it's more like "forces of nature" -- force contrasted with matter, including electromagnetic force but not limited to it. And his Word centers on (or he makes it center on) the role of those forces in shaping the raw chaos of mass/energy. It's all about control, you see. And that's what Lilith flouts.

But about her skull:

Modern humans were not very numerous or widespread back in the days of the Eden experiment. It didn't take long after Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden for every human on the planet to carry some of their genes. (In fact, it took a remarkably short time, which Jean takes to indicate meddling by someone ... or Someone.) And ever since then, all human faces have borne more or less resemblance to those two faces -- faces handcrafted by God. It's nothing big, nothing mortal paleontologists could notice at their level of expertise. But Jean can see it; besides, he can just remember what pre-Adamite faces looked like; he doesn't have to reconstruct them. Not to mention Adam's face, and Eve's.

So every one of us has some resemblance to Father Adam or Mother Eve haunting our faces. But not Auntie Lilith. If you ever saw her face to face -- and in her proper body, not in a vessel -- you could see it. Well, you could see it if you were Jean, or Jordi, or one of the other few and ancient celestials who take an interest in the fine points of anatomy. Otherwise, you'd just see that Lilith's face is exotically beautiful, which is just what you'd expect.

But her face, too, was handcrafted by God. And it's unique. She has no children of her body, only the "daughters" she sings up out of the Forces she cadges. She hates childbirth; she punishes it.

But, for some time now, there have been other ways Lilith's genes could enter the world. Surrogate motherhood. Human cloning. And more tricks on the horizon. (No, Jean won't tell you what those might be.) What would such a child be? It wouldn't be a Grigori Child or a Nephal, because Lilith is human. A unique human, uniquely made by God, uniquely Worded by Lucifer. The child would be unprecedented. Or children. And it (or they) would certainly be part of an Infernal Plot(tm).

Jean does not know of any likely plot. But he realizes the possibility. It doesn't occupy a lot of his time, but he does not forget about it either.

People stare at lightning in fear, or awe, or surprise, or delight. Sometimes, the lightning is looking back. Studying their faces.

**Flaming
Feather**

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