Satan’s throne cracked with heat. My eyes flitted over to that beast. The Adversary. "Again, Asmodeus. You shame your seat."
Again?But I barely flinched at that word, and what it meant. I was thinking, absurdly, of the monastery, and the great debates I used to witness between the abbots. Were Lucifer and Satan the same? For the Romans, Lucifer was the name of the planet Venus, which appeared in the mornings as the morning star. I recalled many a man arguing that Lucifer and Satan were one and the same; that Lucifer was just another name for the one who defied God. Luke 10:18 helped that case:“I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven,”where Satan and the morningstar were conflated. Indeed, I knew many of my brethren felt this way. I, who flinched at most mentions of the devil, can’t recall feeling particularly strongly either way. I knew to avoid it all at whatever cost (perhaps I knew even then what sort of man I am, and how easily I would be corrupted).
But I recall, too, the discussion that they were different entities. That Satan was an agent ofGod, sent to challenge, as he did with Job, and Lucifer, the rebellious angel. Here they were, as separate entities. But as I looked, I felt another blasphemous thought rise up: that perhaps they were the same, the way God, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the same, all facets of the same being.
Perhaps sensing my distraction, Asmodeus slipped a possessive hand around my hips. Its claws dug into the supple flesh there, and I fought not to wince. I abandoned allthoughts of the nature of these demons–it was not my duty to understand.
In my periphery, Asmodeus stood with perfect stillness. It did not bow. It made no apology. It scanned the faces of the gathered kings, and its lips split apart in a smile.
"I govern Lust,” it said. “That is not an invitation for any mortal to wander in as he wishes. It is a domain."
Mammon’s laughter scraped the air. He gestured with a twitching hand. "But a domain is not sovereignty. You bring a mortal into the hollow of our court as though your pleasures are decrees."
Beelzebub bared teeth slick with rot. "Does your pet know where he stands?"
"He knows enough," Asmodeus said.
"No," Lucifer corrected, voice like soft ruin. "He knows nothing."
I dared to lift my eyes. Lucifer was terrible to look upon—not from ugliness, but from unbearable gravity. He was a star still burning from the inside out, held in shape only by the enormity of his fall. Defiant, I opened my mouth, but Asmodeus squeezed that place on my hip.
Hold, my little lamb,Asmodeus’ voice echoed in my ears. Let them air their petty grievances. We have eternity; there is no need to rush.
Belphegor stirred next. His head tilted, and his lip curled slowly upward in distaste. "You bring us meat, dressed in longing. You expect blessing. You expect precedent."
Mammon’s fingers clicked, in agreement. One coin rolled from his palm, fell, and clattered across the floor to my feet. "Perhaps the mortal will take this coin and leave. Does it wish for money? They always want money. Yes, yes–why toy with your food, Asmodeus? Does it truly pleasure you so?"
Beelzebub laughed. The noise was a wet, bubbling thing. "Does it beg? Does it moan prettily? Is it worth the stench it brings into this hall?"
A shadow rose from Livyatan’s watery basin, and the liquid lifted into the mockery of a human form. A dozen eyes stared at once from the shadow. "It is small. It is finite. What does Asmodeus see in it? There are many rats upon the Earth. Why should this one become something more?”
I knelt, then, because there was nowhere else to go. I felt them all—around me, above me, beneath me. I was surrounded by an ancient architecture too old to comprehend, and I racked my brain for something to say or some way to prove myself. Only fleeting passages from scripture flitted into my head, and I could not rely on the lies of that book here. I closed my eyes and tried to recall the feeling that had led me here, that pull as I looked out over the monastery’s walls and lied to the bishop.
“I was called here,” I whispered, too frightened to raise my voice any louder. “I have followed my own desires and the instructions of my Lord Asmodeus. How should I prove myself further?”
Lucifer finally looked down. I averted my gaze immediately, frightened by the molten glow of its eyes. Silence stretched so long that I began to panic, and my heartbeat deafened every other sound. Oh, I was human still, no matter what anyone else thought, and no matter that I had killed my body. I should not have spoken. Why had I spoken?
Very quietly, Lucifer approached. He hovered near, as though debating whether to lay a hand upon me, as though my flesh harboured some pestilence or unseen contagion. At length, he chose restraint, and I heard the faint shift of his movement as he turned away, back toward Asmodeus.
"Do you believe you can raise the soul of man to stand among us?"
“Raise?” Asmodeus laughed—a cold, hollow sound. Noone joined him, but for a moment, I felt utterly forsaken. What part of my nature was my Lord laughing at? “This one does not seek elevation. He would, I believe, be content to remain as he is. Were I to decree that he should serve my will for all eternity, he would accept such a fate without protest.”
Here, Asmodeus laid a hand upon my head. Like a hound, I tilted my neck to look up at it. My anxiety dissolved as its fingers moved through my hair. I cannot say why, only that I felt safe beneath its touch. And yes, I would have accepted whatever fate it offered, for I believed Asmodeus knew my nature too well. I was certain I had not summoned it by accident. I remembered being told I must have some great power to pull the Prince of Lust itself to the human world. But in truth, I believe Asmodeus was simply bound to my vices; that at the core of my soul there pulsed a thread of untempered lust, as though Asmodeus had marked me from the moment of my birth. I truly believe that when I’d summoned it, I was simply calling it back, to see what had become of its efforts.Come and see this ruin of a man, whose untempered lust has finally broken him. Come and see the flesh that wants without end.I was made for Asmodeus. Is that a blasphemous thing to believe? I was meant for this.
My life had always been a dance of pursuit and retreat, temptation and restraint. In the end, my surrender was so complete that it demanded the destruction of my old, pious self—a priesthood abandoned—and, at last, my mortal death. All of it had been necessary for my rebirth. My passage through Hell became both my unmaking and my forging, and it had resulted in a kind of pact between us. A contract, still to be signed. But lust had always worked in me, always tempted me. I had endured its absence for so long that it had grown and grown, and where other mortals might find ways to lance it like a boil, or holy men and women would find ways to suppress it, it simply grew tumorous until it was likeanother organ. A permanent part of me. So large that I believe Asmodeus itself could feel it, all the way in its hellish domain. That was how I had called it. Asmodeus had wooed me for all my mortal life and my time in Hell, all those trials, were Asmodeus’ final courtship, its way of confirming the man I was.
So now I leaned into its hand and thought:Yes. Whatever you would take of me.
It was not quite love, but itwasa total devotion.
6
The moment between us stretched, stolen from the Court–a brief and wondrous reclamation of power.
A smile spilled across Asmodeus’ lips as it looked down at me. My heart thudded. Could it hear me, I wondered? Did it know me that well? It gripped my hair firmly, fondly, and raised its head back to the court. “No, he shall not be made a king of Hell—why any of you would imagine I would grant such an honour is beyond me. Yet still, he shall be lifted above his mortal state. That process has already begun."
I swallowed. The flower I had consumed.Do you know that no one has done that before?
