I better talk about her this time, or Macabre might have whatever the equivalent of an aneurysm is for us.
Believe me when I say that we’d rather not talk about Lilith. She’s Macabre’s little sister, believe it or not. From what I’ve been able to gather, she had a slightly better childhood than he did. While Gretchen ignored her just the same, Halphas actually tried to be a better parent to her. Macabre wasn’t jealous of this, apparently he was proud of his father doing better. No, it was something else that made him despise Lilith.
Turns out nothing that Halphas was trying to teach her was sticking. He tried to teach her discretion, discipline, and subtlety, but Lilith always preferred to be as noticeable and sadistic as possible. Apparently what she desired most was Gretchen’s attention. Then Halphas made the mistake of mentioning that she has a brother who defected from the Goetia.
Feigning a desire to connect, Lilith approached Macabre when he was on his own, and got him to lower his guard. She took advantage by knocking him out, then tried to do the same to me while I had Ollie with me. I was quick enough to realize the strike, but she ultimately had the surprise advantage. She almost succeeded, attempting to kidnap Ollie just to show her brother the consequences of defecting from the Goetia.
She didn’t count on Macabre recovering fast enough to intervene, or the fact that Macabre’s ribs can hit with enough force to impale. Our bodies are ultra-durable, and here Macabre was with the equivalent of three spears going through her chest. Of course, all of us being immortal, it wouldn’t kill her, but definitely caused enough pain to get her to drop Ollie.
To add even more insult to injury, Lady Cerberus showed up to help, having sensed an extra Infernal showing up. Lilith was at least smart enough to realize that four to one were really bad odds and escaped. We all knew that we now had a new threat to contend with.
Apparently when Lilith reported what had happened to her parents, she had finally achieved her goal; Gretchen became impressed with her for taking such a lead, especially since at this time Gretchen had come to loathe Macabre. Gretchen would become significantly more involved with Lilith in the hopes of properly honing her cruelty.
Halphas, on the other hand, was NOT happy about this. He berated Lilith for what he viewed as abhorrent, saying that such squabbles and backstabbing should be left to mortals. In the end, a major schism developed between the two, and apparently it’s still growing.
Halphas definitely isn’t alone in this. Lilith’s methods, and her glee at performing them, are infamous even in Hell. Most want nothing to do with her, viewing her as too violent and psychotic. Only Gretchen views her with approval. It’s hard even to marry her off, as her reputation was the reason why Aria defected in the first place.
I don’t think there’s any saving Lilith, as she has made it clear that she doesn’t want to be “saved.” Her only remorse is that she failed in her first attempt at getting us. The good news is, at the end of the day, she’s a pretty bad fighter, so it won’t take much skill to make her regret picking a fight.
