Lilah led him back to his chamber. Parry went without resistance, stunned by his inability to do what he knew was right. The demoness really had corrupted him!
In the chamber, Lilah turned, her clothing fuzzing to fog and wafting away. "You have joined us, Parry, and now I shall reward you."
Parry gripped his cross. "No!" She walked toward him, her torso moving with rhythms of its own. "Yes."
He jabbed the cross at her midriff. It passed through her without effect. She neither vanished nor screamed; she merely waited. "But—the cross!" he exclaimed, stunned.
"Parry, your icon is only as potent as the faith behind it. You have lost your faith. You can no longer invoke your prior god in your defense." She moved on in to him, and her hands went to his robe, opening it.
"Jolie!" he cried.
"She is gone, lover," Lilah said. "I am your woman now. But I want you to think of your ghost-girl as you indulge your carnal lust with me, so that you can really appreciate the irony. She started your corruption, and I am completing it."
"Get away from that"' he cried, pushing at her. But it did no good. His right hand, holding the cross, was unable to touch her body at all, passing freely through it, while his left came up against her plush right breast. There, the touch was all too tangible.
Meanwhile her hands were busy, efficiently baring his body. She moved the rest of the way in to him, pressing against him from thigh to breast, while his right hand continued to flail helplessly within her substance as if it did not exist. Then she quivered, and her belly seemed to stroke his while her hips rotated slowly.
"I beg of you—" he gasped, finally letting go of her breast.
She drew back. "I will always do what you ask, when you phrase it that way, Parry. But I believe you would really rather move on to the culmination."
"I am a friar!"
"You are a man." She glanced at his body significantly. "You can see that your body wants me."
Parry grabbed for his robe, to cover his aroused body. "You are a damned succubus!"
"Faint praise, Parry! I am much more than that. But if you really wish to wait for the raw sex, I will wait. I have no carnal desire of my own, of course; I am only acting as my Lord Lucifer directs, to corrupt you suitably, and this is merely a single aspect of it. What other aspect would you prefer to start with?"
"No aspect! I don't want to be corrupted at all!"
"You are lying, Parry. That is good; you do need practice with that." Her left hand caught his right wrist, and lifted his hand back toward her left breast.
"I'm not lying!"
She smiled. "I have no need to prove my point, but it entertains me to do so. Doff your robe again, stand before me, and tell me that you do not wish to partake of my body."
Parry did not answer, aware that he could not pass such a test.
"But you know that my body is infernally crafted to evoke the basest lust in a mortal man," she continued. "You know the route you are headed when what rises is not your soul but your member."
"Damn you!"
"Thank you."
"Go away!" he said, closing his eyes. "Why, when you really do not want me to?" Her lips brushed against his.
"Please, demoness, leave me!"
"That's better, Parry. I will return when you retire for the night. I think you need time to yourself to adjust to your new reality."
He remained with his eyes screwed closed. She did not speak again. Finally he opened his eyes, and verified that she was gone.
"Jolie?"
But Jolie did not appear. He knew why: she had been banished by his accession to evil. She knew what he refused to acknowledge: the demoness had aroused his lust, and he could not free himself of it.
Was it too late to leave the Order? He walked to the door—and stopped, unable even to start toward the Abbot's office. He dropped to his knees and prayed. "Oh, Lord, grant me release from this bondage!"
"Now that would be foolish, wouldn't it."
Parry glanced up, startled. There hovered a small black cloud within the chamber. As he gazed at it, it sprouted horns.
"No!" Parry hurled himself away.
The cloud laughed and dissipated.
The wrong Lord had answered his prayer. His orientation had changed; he now answered to Lucifer instead of to God.
How could such a calamity have happened? He had labored so hard for the cause of God! How could a single episode of love with his wife bring such ruin on him?
But he knew the answer. He was a friar, and celibate. What Jolie had offered had been sinful, and had his faith been true, he would have rejected it. His faith had not been true, and this was the proof of it. His inability to give up his position as an important Dominican was another proof: he had succumbed to worldliness in the guise of holiness.
Still, he did not regard himself as an evil man, merely as a fallible one. Granted that he fell short of perfection, he could still do much good, just as a tree that was rotting at the core could still cast good shade and bear good fruit. Perhaps, if he continued his good works, he would in time recover his prior orientation and rejoin God. He felt better. He went about his business of the day, laboring for a cause that he knew was good even if he himself was not.
But when he sought to retire at night, the demoness was in his bed, as warm and luscious as ever. "Are you ready to enjoy me now, lover?" she inquired.
"No!"
"Your body says otherwise."
"My body lies!"
"Your mind lies, not your body. That's lovely."
"May God banish you, temptress!"
"Your terminology has no power when not backed by faith."
Obviously that was true, for she remained warm against him. "How can I make you go?"
"You really do not need to ask again, Parry. You know the answer."
"But you always return!"
"That is the nature of evil."
"I beg of—"
She silenced him with a hand on his lips. "Parry, we must end this charade. Do the forthright thing: accept your situation, and get on with it. I return so insistently only because you desire me to."
"That's—"
"The truth." She embraced him and kissed him, ardently.
"No!" he exclaimed when able to wrench his face free.
"Would it help if I took the initiative?"
"I—" He was unable to answer.
"That is a useful device for reticent maidens, who are constrained not to confess the base desires they feel. They would have it that they are powerless to prevent being ravished, but that is a legal fiction. We are experienced in all manner of fictions, in the Kingdom of Lies." She stroked her body against his.
Parry knew he should protest, but he did not.
She proceeded to make love to him, while he lay almost unmoving. Technically, she was doing it, not he—but he could no longer deny that she was doing what he desired.
She brought him to a phenomenal climax, enhanced by its great guilt. "I had hoped you would be more of a challenge," she remarked sardonically as he was in the throes of it. Then, as he spasmed, she faded away, leaving him to foul himself.
That, of course, was the finishing touch. He felt completely dirty and ashamed. "Never again!" he swore—but knew even then that he swore falsely.
In the course of the night, he succeeded in coming to terms with himself: the demoness had evoked his lust, and there was no staying it. It was better simply to indulge, leaving his mind clear for better things.
She reappeared at dawn. "Well, Parry, ready for the day's mischief?" she inquired brightly. The sight of her evoked his lust as if it had never been sated.
That, too, it seemed, was an attribute of the gifts of Lucifer: temporary satisfaction, lasting guilt. "Yes," he said tightly, and stepped toward her.
But she became smoke in his arms. "No, no, Parry," the smoke spoke, as to an errant child. "I gave you a mere sample. To obtain more, you must please me, and if you please me sufficiently, I may even remain throughout the night. Would you like that?"
He was done with lying. "Yes. How may I please you?"
"By doing a significant deed of evil in the name of good. As it happens, there is a case just now coming up: a heretic who refuses to recant. You must make him recant."
"But that will be a good deed!" he protested.
"For him, perhaps; not for you."
Parry found that confusing. He shrugged, and set about making the journey. He rode the donkey, as before, but now it was Lilah, not Jolie, who accompanied him. She chatted freely about all things evil, and it was amazing the breadth of things that included. She seemed to know all the gossip about prominent figures, and she clarified with quite believable precision exactly which aspects of it were true. Parry was disgusted with himself for listening, but nonetheless fascinated. Thus he was immersed in news of evil throughout, and knew this was further corrupting him, but he could not resist it. Each time he thought to reject it, Lilah's body became naked and suggestive, and his lust rose up, and he knew he had to have her no matter what the cost. He also knew that that cost would be ever-greater evil on his soul, leading inevitably to eternal damnation. That appalled him—but he had tasted her wares, so to speak, and now was addicted.
That was the ugliest part of it: he knew exactly what was happening, yet could not wrench himself out of the process. Lucifer's minion was doing her job perfectly.
The heretic had pled innocent, and no amount of suasion had been effective. That was why Parry had been assigned. To this extent this was a normal case.
"But fair reasoning will not sway this one," Lilah said with satisfaction. "Neither will brutal torture; he will die first, and be lost to your former master. You must of course prevent that."
"Why do you care?" Parry demanded, knowing the nature of her answer but compelled to ask anyway. If there could be some way out, some way to please her without further damning himself... but he knew there was not, for her purpose was to damn him.
Parry went into the dungeon and interviewed the captive. The man showed the ravages of his interrogation; he could no longer stand or feed himself, for the bones of his limbs had been dislocated by the procedure known as squassation: he had been hauled up on a pulley, with weights attached to his legs, and then dropped suddenly so that his feet did not quite reach the floor. This had been done three times, destroying his limbs, and it was obvious that he would not survive another. Despite the excruciating pain of this, he had refused to implicate any other heretics. This was a problem, because the local authorities were running out of heretics, and needed the revenues generated by continued confiscations of properties.
Parry shook his head. He had helped start the Inquisition in order to purify the faith, not to extort wealth from victims. The secular authorities might have base motives, but the Inquisition had only lofty motives: the salvation of the individual's immortal soul, and the purity of the faith.
"But you will help change that," Lilah said. "The desire for wealth is one of my Lord's principal tools in the corruption of men. So you must get this man to implicate others, that the chain of extortion may continue and grow, in the end corrupting the Church as well as the individuals."
The corruption of the Inquisition itself! Parry considered that, and balked. "Demoness, you demand too much! I'll not turn against—"
He broke off, for she was floating in the air, on her back, and spreading her legs toward him. His lust surged up like a living entity, paced by his guilt. Damn her!
He would have to make the prisoner talk. That would maintain his reputation as the interrogator of last resort, and would bring him the favor of the demoness. He hated both aspects of it, but knew he would do it.
But how could he persuade a man who was ready to die under torture rather than implicate another person? That was the problem that had brought him here.
"Remember," Lilah reminded him. "You are no longer constrained by ethical considerations. My Lord believes in effectiveness, and therefore can accomplish things your prior lord cannot."
Parry sighed. He knew what would do it. The heretic had a small daughter. He did not want her to suffer; that was the source of his stamina.
But corrupt as he was becoming. Parry would not torture an innocent child! That might make the heretic give evidence, but would be no credit on the Church or himself.
"Remember, my Lord is the master of deceit," Lilah said.
She was giving him strong hints, but leaving him to figure it out for himself, because corruption had to come from within. Now Parry realized what she was driving at. Truly, it was infernal—but it would surely work. And it seemed he had no choice, if he was not to give up what he could not give up. For the love of evil, he was damning himself.
"Can you assume the form of the heretic's child?" he asked her.
"I though you would never ask!" she said brightly. She became the child: a string-haired waif of about five years, with big gray eyes and a tattered dress and a straw doll.
Parry took the waif's hand and led her into the chamber where the heretic lay. "Pére!" she cried.
The man's sunken eyes opened. He gave a start of recognition.
The waif took a step toward him, but Parry held her back. "Silence, brat!" he snapped. "You will have your chance to talk soon enough."
She began to cry. The prisoner gazed at her with alarm. "You would not—?"
Parry reached down with his free hand and grasped the waif by the hair. He hauled her up off the floor while she screamed piercingly. He glanced meaningfully at the ropes and pulley at the far end of the chamber.
The prisoner capitulated. "I will give the names!"
Parry smiled with cruel beneficence. "May God have mercy on your soul." And on his own, he thought. But there was little chance of that.
The rest was routine. Parry escorted the mocked-up child out, leaving the local personnel to take down the information. The heretic would be required to sign a statement (they had been careful not to break the angers of his right hand) that he had given testimony freely and without duress, and to testify against those he implicated as companion heretics. Then he would be allowed to retire to prison for the remainder of his life. His family would not be bothered, once their property had been taken. His soul had after all been saved for eternity.
Parry received his reward in full measure; the demoness was pleased with him, and she had ways of expressing that pleasure that transcended the powers of mortal women. She gave him the semblance of youth, and the vigor and potency of youth, and she became a succession of luscious young women who availed themselves freely of that potency with ever-increasing imagination. He found himself doing things with her whose very description would have evoked the Index, and that no decent person would have cared to imagine.
But the knowledge of the cruel trick he had played on the heretic haunted him; truly, this was a device he would never have thought of, let alone practiced, in his day of serving God. Worse, he knew that he would use similar devices in the future, for the demoness had as cruel a hold on him as he had on the first heretic: illusion that cut through to the core.
Five years passed in this slow descent. Parry never sought personal aggrandizement, preferring as he had before to be the power behind the power, but in private he wielded critical control over the Inquisition in France, the Holy Roman Empire and Italy. Under his direction, money became the engine that drove the Inquisition; the spoils were the estates of the accused heretics, and the requirement that each confessed heretic implicate others guaranteed that the proceeds would be ongoing. The Inquisition was now on a sound financial footing—and well on the way to ultimate corruption.
With each successful case, Lilah became more ardent. Parry was becoming older, but he felt younger, because of the magic of the demoness and his infatuation with her. A billy goat seemed to have taken up residence within him, so that in those moments when he could not be fornicating with her, his mind remained on the subject. He suspected that this was an enchantment placed on him, to greatly enhance his lust, but he did not care. He lived to indulge it.
The first part of Lucifer's vengeance was complete: the man who had done most to organize the Inquisition as a force for good had now reorganized it as a force for evil. That evil was self-sustaining; it would feed on itself and continue long after Parry himself was gone.
"My Master is pleased with you," Lilah said. "It is time for an audience with Him."
Parry was not eager for that, knowing that there could be little benefit in it for him. But this was not a thing he was in a position to refuse.
Lilah made a circle in the air of his chamber with her finger. As that circle closed, the circle filled in, becoming a disk. She hooked her thumb into the side of that disk, and it swung open like a door.
Beyond it was a tunnel. "After you, lover," she said, gesturing into it.
Parry climbed in. At first the tunnel was large enough only for his body on hands and knees, but soon it widened, so that he could stand. Lilah joined him, showing him the way.
They followed a descending spiral down through an increasingly intricate network of chambers and passages. They were, he realized, on their way to Hell.
At length they reached a grand nether audience chamber. There, on a golden throne, sat the Prince of Evil, Lord Lucifer. He was a darkly handsome figure with well-defined horns and tail, exactly as represented in contemporary paintings. Obviously the artists had infernal inspiration.
"Bow down," Lilah whispered. "Prostrate yourself before the Son of the Morning."
Parry hesitated. "The what?"
"My Lord Lucifer, the Morning Star, as he was known before the Fall. Get down!"
"So the friar shows doubt," Lucifer boomed. "For that will I do him one disfavor. Friar, I tell thee what thou dost not wish to know: the date of thy death. It is precisely three years hence, at the hour of—"
Parry dropped to the floor, prostrating himself before Lucifer, and the malignant voice cut off. The Lord of Lies was satisfied.
The Lord of Lies. Did that mean that this cruel information was a lie? That Lucifer was merely taunting him with a fallacious date of demise?
"The friar still doubts!" Lucifer boomed again. "To Hell with him!"
Suddenly flames rose up around Parry. They closed in on him, their heat excruciating. His robe caught fire. He scrambled to his feet and leaped out of the circle. He struck the ground rolling, but the material of his robe blazed up again the moment it was upward. He tore the robe off, getting free of the agony only when naked.
And found himself the cynosure of a multitude of eyes. They belonged to young women, naked themselves, who gazed at him in shocked confusion. Each held a three-tined pitchfork. Parry tried to cover himself, but had nothing other than his hands. He realized the effort was pointless, and desisted; after all, they were as embarrassed as he.
He was in a more literal version of Hell. There was choking smoke and smoldering fire all around, extending endlessly. The fire was contained in circular pits, each tended by one of the maidens.
The nearest pits blazed up vigorously. The girls squealed in dismay, and returned to their labors, using pitchforks to scoop ashes from the edges into the center of each fire. This had the effect of damping the flames, though there was a compensating increase in the vile smoke, causing the girls to cough uncontrollably. Most of the ashes sifted down between the widely spaced tines, which hardly helped, but they had no other tools.
So his appearance here had distracted these damned souls, causing them to neglect their fires, and they had been punished by increased heat and smoke. Obviously they had to keep constantly at it, or they would very soon be even more uncomfortable than they were.
Lilah appeared. "I have prevailed on my Lord to give you another chance," she said. "Considering that this is your first visit here. Apologize to Him, and He will grant you the intended audience."
Parry realized that this was the best course. Obviously Lucifer could read his mind, and he had indeed doubted what Lucifer had told him.
Then he noticed something about Lilah. Her normally perfect dresses were in disarray, and there were marks on her body. She was a demoness; no mortal could muss her or mark her, as he had long since discovered.
"You were left with him," he said. "Did he hurt you?"
"Of course not," she said quickly. "I cannot be hurt."
"But he did something to you! You're changed!"
"I am His creature," she reminded him. "I never suggested otherwise. He can do what He likes with me."
The nearer fire girls were becoming distracted again, overhearing this dialogue.
"What did he do to you?" Parry demanded. "Nothing I was not made for," she said defensively. "Look, Parry, this is dangerous. Just apologize to Him, and—"
"How did you get him to reconsider?"
"Parry, you know I have only one way to—"
"You had sex with him!" he cried, in a sudden fit of jealous rage. "You prostituted yourself to him!"
"That term has no meaning for my kind. Please, Parry, be reasonable, lest—"
"You whore!" he screamed.
The visage of Lucifer appeared amidst the hovering smoke. "Methinks our friar hath not quite yet relinquished his monkly ways," the Lord of Lies said. "Let him remain here for eternity, then!"
"My Lord, no!" Lilah cried. "It is not yet his time!"
"And thou with him, strumpet, for thy failure," Lucifer intoned, and faded out.
Lilah tore at her hair in a remarkably human gesture of remorse. "Now look what you've done, Parry! We'll never get out of here!"
Parry's rage evaporated. Of course she was a creature of this nether region, and sexual fidelity had no meaning for her. He had reacted possessively, when he had no right to be. She had never told him that she cared for him at all; she had only rewarded him in a calculated manner when he did what she wished. Whore? She had never claimed to be anything else! She had acted in her fashion to try to obtain a reprieve for him, and had succeeded—and he had thrown it away by his narrowness.
"I apologize to you, Lilah," he said. "But not to him." There was a smattering of applause from the surrounding women. Then they hastened back to their work.
"It's too late to apologize to anyone!" she snapped. Yet she seemed mollified; she had always reacted positively when he addressed her in a polite manner. It was evident that demons did not get much respect, and craved it. "We're both stuck here with the adulterous wives. In a moment the warders will assign us to our separate places."
Parry had been almost ready to accept this chamber of Hell, if it was to be in Lilah's company. Now he realized that of course it would not be; Lucifer would hardly allow him to have that satisfaction.
"Maybe we can escape," he said.
"Fool—there is no escape. The attempt would only aggravate the warders." She looked him for a moment in the eye. "But I will say that your jealously was very flattering. You know I am not worthy of it."
It was almost as if she were human! Their common plight had for this moment put them on an equal basis. "I think you are," he replied.
"A demoness? I am no more than a tool in my Master's hands. I have no soul, no conscience, no imperative except to do His will. His will is that I corrupt you, and that I am doing. Certainly you owe me nothing; I extract payment from you in full measure for every reward I return."
Absolute truth. "Yet you are very good at what you do," he said.
"I certainly am. Too bad I will not be allowed to do it anymore."
"So you do have pride in your work."
"Pride is one of the basic sins."
"And one of the basic virtues." But of course she would not regard that interpretation with favor. "Why did you try to get me another chance with Lucifer?"
"Because your failure is my failure. I had to give you a chance to show that I have done a proper job corrupting you. Then I could continue."
"Why not just let me go, and start with another assignment?"
"Well, I—"
"You're lying," he said.
"I never lie!"
"Then tell me that you care nothing for me. That I'm only an assignment."
She opened her mouth, and paused. Then she laughed. "You're doing it back to me! You're corrupting me with words!"
"I have had excellent teaching," he replied dryly.
She considered. "As a demoness, I have no mortal emotions, only emulations I use to deceive mortal folk like you. But I do have an abiding desire to accomplish my purpose, which is to please my Master. I see in you the potential for enormous evil; therefore your corruption will accrue equivalent power to my Master, and He will be equivalently pleased. I believe my Master errs in throwing you away. Therefore I tried to persuade Him to allow the process of your corruption to be completed. I care for you in the manner you might for an exceedingly precious gem, or a unique tool to accomplish your purpose. It would be foolish to mistake this for caring for you personally. I am incapable of that."
Parry nodded. That had the ring of authenticity. "I know you for what you are, Lilah. But I am mortal, and human. I hate you for what you have done to me and my spirit wife, but I care for you too, and hate myself for that. So just let me delude myself that there is some spark of human sentiment in you, masked by your demonic nature."
"Delusion is the hallmark of this realm," she reminded him. "Here comes the warder."
The warder was a huge masculine demon bearing a three-tailed whip, which he lashed about routinely, striking the flanks of the laboring women. The women screamed piercingly; but the manner in which they cringed from the warder suggested that the whip was not the worst they feared from him. One woman even stumbled into her pit; there was a horrible hiss as her feet burned, and her scream redoubled as she scrambled out.
These were damned souls. Parry knew; they had no mortal flesh. But they looked physical, and evidently felt so. They were truly being punished for their failure to remain loyal to their home hearths. As was Parry himself, now that he had taken the demoness as his lover. Lucifer was a cruel and somewhat arbitrary master!
"This way, sludge!" the demon rasped, tagging Parry on a buttock with a casual flick of the whip. Pain lanced through Parry's flesh; he bit his tongue in his effort not to scream. "What's a male soul doing here?"
"Lucifer has a warped sense of humor," Parry replied as his agony abated.
The demon raised the whip for a more telling strike—and recognized Lilah. "What are you doing here, Lil?" he demanded. "Slumming?"
"I failed to corrupt this mortal sufficiently," she explained. "So I am incarcerated here with him."
"Ho, ho! That means you are finally subject to my lust, you snooty creature. I have lusted for a piece of your posterior for centuries. Come here!" He grabbed for her.
"Down, dog!" Lilah snapped. "I'm not for the likes of you!"
But the demon caught her and hauled her in for a tusky kiss. Parry realized that she could not dematerialize here in the neither spirit realm; not now that she had been classified as an inmate rather than a favored creature. She could not avoid the demon as she could a mortal man on the surface.
Before he knew it. Parry grabbed a fork from the nearest woman and launched himself at the demon. He stabbed it at the creature's rear.
But the fork passed through without resistance. The demon, intent on Lilah, hadn't even noticed; his flesh was untouchable by local artifacts. But it was evident that Lilah's substance was touchable. She was struggling valiantly, but the demon was overpowering her, and in a moment would have his will of her.
Parry had to do something—but what? On one level he knew this was utterly foolish, because Lilah was an infernal creature who could hardly be hurt by the act of the demon. Human standards did not apply here. Yet she was in her singular fashion his female, and he could not stand to see her ravished. It had been bad enough knowing that Lucifer had used her. This time the horror was occurring right in his sight.
He had no weapon that could prevail against the warder. He could not even touch the warder! How, then, could he bring the creature up short?
His mouth opened, and he began to sing.
"Creature of Hell, hark unto me! Turn not against your own kind! Consider how all of you are minions of Lucifer, How all labor for a common cause."
The warder paused. Parry was improvising in the same manner he had when protecting the children from the possessed animals, using the mode of address that had been effective then. He was trying to pacify the evil spirit, to make it respond to his own will. He was putting magic into his song, reaching out to the demon not in enmity but in understanding.
"Creature of Hell, remember that favor is fickle; As you treat your associate, so may you sometime be treated. When Lucifer's favor orients again on her, What you do now may be remembered."
The warder froze, evidently shaken. As Parry continued singing, the warder let Lilah slide from his grasp. She stepped back, staring at Parry.
Parry took Lilah's hand and led her away from the stunned warder, still singing. She walked with him without resistance, her eyes fixed on him. They wound through the chamber, and all the women stared likewise at them, their fires untended. But, while he sang, the fires did not blaze up.
They came to the chamber wall. There was an opening in it, guarded by another warder. Parry continued singing and improvising, and the demon watched without moving. They entered the opening, and walked down a passage. When the entrance to the tunnel was small in the distance behind. Parry stopped singing.
Now Lilah took the initiative. She moved ahead, still holding Parry's hand, tugging him along the route she selected. They turned a corner at an intersection, then another, and another, winding through the labyrinth. Now the general trend was upward.
At last they emerged from the final tunnel, and stepped down into Parry's chamber in the monastery. Lilah turned, closed the door and erased it with a sweep of her hand. They had won their freedom from Hell after all. Lilah spoke no word. Instead she embraced him and kissed him with unusual intensity, and made love to him with a passion bordering on ferocity. It was of course her way of expressing pleasure with him; she knew no other.
Later, as he drifted to sleep with Lilah snuggling close. Parry considered what had occurred. He had succeeded in singing the demons of Hell itself into quiescence! How could that have happened? The surface of the world was the mortal realm, where mortals and demons could interact in limited ways; human magic could prevail against demon spirits if appropriately exercised. But Hell? That was hardly to be believed! If the damned souls could escape, they would be doing so in droves.
Of course he was not yet a damned soul; he was a mortal. Perhaps, then, Lucifer had been bluffing; he could not hold the souls of the living in hell. That meant that Parry's singing could have been incidental; all he had to do was walk out.
But Lilah—she was of Lucifer's domain. Surely Lucifer could hold her if he chose. Had Parry gotten her free despite Lucifer's sentence on her—or had that, too, been a bluff? For once Parry got free, who would corrupt him if not Lilah? Perhaps Lucifer had to let her go, once Parry made his move for freedom. Therefore all of this could be less than it seemed.
Still, suppose he had not tried to make the break? Suppose he had simply stood and let Lilah be raped by the demon? Would he ever have escaped then? He wasn't sure. Lucifer, the master of deception, had tried to deceive him into believing that he was a prisoner in Hell, and it had come closer to success than Parry liked to imagine.
He had done what he had done because of the threat to Lilah. That had perhaps been an act of folly. But it had demonstrated the extent of her hold on him, and she was duly pleased. She was after all a demoness; her power lay in her influence over him. Thus neither his action nor her reaction reflected favorably on either of them.
He tried to be angry with her. But his hand stroked her warm, plush bottom, and his lust, so recently sated, rose again. She responded, encouraging it. His anger turned back on himself, but did not cause him to desist. His need for her was beyond outrage.
Parry realized that his corruption was proceeding apace.
Parry was slated to die in 1250; he no longer doubted Lucifer's word on that, for such knowledge was a most insidious torture. That meant that his time with Lilah was limited, for he knew that once he died, her assignment with him would be over. He was desperate to please her, so as to gain as much of her semblance of love as he possibly could while he could. He knew it was not real, for a demoness was incapable of such emotion, but he cherished the illusion. It was all he had to pursue.
Indeed, she acted like a woman in love now, and she was letter perfect at it. She no longer teased him by fading out just before the culmination of their sexual unions; she remained with him throughout, making each fulfillment as compelling as the arousal. She did whatever he asked, whenever he asked, being completely malleable to his will. If he asked her a question, she answered; if he asked her to leave him for a time, she did so.
"But what do you want?" he asked, perplexed by the consistency of her attitude.
"Just to hear your voice, Parry," she replied. "Sing to me, as you did in Hell. I thrill to the suggestion of the Llano."
"The what?"
"The Llano, the ultimate song. Sing to me again."
Technically, he had been singing to the warder demon, but it had been on Lilah's behalf. He was curious about this special song she spoke of, but did not care to advertise his ignorance lest it in some way benefit Lucifer. He sang to her extemporaneously, and she simply watched him with a look of adoration on her face.
Parry did not fully trust this, so he was careful to keep trying to please her exactly as if she still rewarded him only on performance. He searched for new evil to do, so that she would know he was on the job.
He found a beauty. King Louis IX of France was the most chivalrous monarch of Europe, lofty of character and an excellent King. He was working hard to establish proper justice in the kingdom. This tended to inhibit the developing procedures of the Inquisition, and certainly it was not good for Lucifer's operations. If Louis could be removed from the scene, it would be a coup!
He worked out the way. A crusade! There had been talk of such an effort for years, but it hadn't materialized. Now Parry used his influence as a leading friar and got the crusade moving. In 1248 Louis set sail for the Holy Land by way of Egypt.
In 1249 the Nile Delta city of Damietta was taken by the crusaders without a struggle; all seemed to be going well. But Parry knew that this was a trap. The crusaders marched south toward Cairo—and were routed. The army was massacred and Louis was captured by the Saracens in 1250. The job had been done.
But Parry was out of time. His aging body was breaking down; his breathing was hard, even when Lilah gave him the semblance of youth, and he knew his lungs were deteriorating. His heart was going, too; he could feel its too rapid flutter.
"Now you are dying, thoroughly corrupted," Lilah said. "You know you are destined for Hell."
"I know. But these nine years with you have been worth it. Mock me as you will, demoness; I would do it again. Will you visit me in Hell?"
"I think not."
He sighed. This was of course part of his punishment: to long for the demoness and be forever denied her.
"Will you kiss me once more before I go?"
He expected another refusal, as she savored the last dreg of her victory over him, but she got down close to him. Her eyes seemed luminous. "Parry," she whispered, "it doesn't have to be!"
He tried to laugh, but only gagged. He was in the last hour of his mortal life, perhaps the last minutes. He had to the, and he surely was not going to Heaven!
"Parry," she repealed urgently. "You are a sorcerer! A potent one! You could be the best, if you tried! The way you sing—that suggests your potential. Use what you know to—"
"What is this?" a new voice interrupted.
Lilah shrank away. It was Lucifer himself.
Parry coughed and managed to clear his throat enough to speak. "You come for me personally, Lord of Lies?"
"I always come for My vengeance personally," Lucifer replied. "What would existence be like without the pleasure of the torment of Mine enemies? You have served Me well, mortal, and now you shall pay for that with eternal torment in the most excruciating fires of Hell."
"I am ready," Parry wheezed.
"But you have a few minutes remaining to suffer in this life. I want you to understand your situation exactly." Lucifer's baleful gaze moved to Lilah. "Wench, revile him."
Wench. Old anger stirred in Parry's breast. His blood began to circulate more strongly, and his mind clarified. He knew it was his last effort of life, but he wanted to strike back at his former nemesis and present master. He served Lucifer; that did not mean he liked him.
Lilah stood by Parry's bed, gazing down at him, unspeaking.
What was it she had told him? To use his magic to—
"Speak, slut!" Lucifer said. But still she did not. She merely looked at Parry with that same emulation of adoration she had affected these past three years.
To do what? She had said that it didn't have to be. What could she have meant? That there was some alternative to Hell?
"Do you defy Me, you piece of ether?" Lucifer snapped at Lilah. "What is the matter with you? Spit on him!"
Still Lilah gazed, and now a tear showed on her cheek.
"You disreputable bitch!" Lucifer exclaimed, amazed. "You have fallen for him!"
Fallen for him?
Lilah dropped to her knees and embraced Parry's supine form as well as she could. Her tears wet his face. "Oh, Parry, I cannot say it!"
She was a demoness. She could not say she loved him. But now he realized that she did. Her gazes of adoration had been genuine.
"When?" Parry rasped, as amazed as Lucifer.
"Yes, tell us when," Lucifer said in such fury that steam was rising from him. "It is an error I shall never again permit."
"When you sang me out of Hell," Lilah said to Parry. "When you sang to me with the power of the Llano. You charmed the demons—and I am a demoness."
"When he sang," Lucifer demanded incredulously. "You deserted Me for a song?"
"I deserted You for a man," she said.
Lucifer considered. "A mortal can love, and be in other respects unchanged. A demon can love only totally. When the object of that love is gone, that demon is destroyed. You have given up your existence for three foolish years with a dying mortal."
"It was worth it," Lilah whispered, kissing Parry's lips.
Now Parry knew why she would not visit him in Hell. When he died, she would cease to exist. She had known this throughout, as surely as he had known that his involvement with her would damn his soul. A truer love could not exist.
"But I intended you to suffer!" Lucifer said angrily to Lilah. "No one betrays Me without punishment!"
"I am suffering now," Lilah said, clinging to Parry.
"It is not enough," Lucifer said grimly. He lifted his hand, and a flicker of fire played about it. He pointed at the demoness. "Burn, bitch, while he watches!"
Parry summoned his last resolve as she hugged him. "No!"
Lucifer's lip curled into a sneer. "I will banish her to that very fire awaiting you, mortal fool! But she will suffer only while you remain alive. Then your soul will replace her there, and she will not exist. Take your time about dying!"
Lucifer made a gesture. Lilah clung to Parry. And Parry did the only thing he could think of: he invoked his mirror spell. His shield against hostile magic. All of his remaining strength went into it; he knew that the strain was destroying his heart, and that he would be dead in a moment. But Lilah would spend no time in the agony of the flame.
Lucifer's magic bounced. Suddenly Lucifer himself was bathed in flames. He disappeared, screaming.
Lilah lifted her head. "You did it!" she cried. "Take the Office! Take the Office!"
Parry's heart was fibrillating, going into its final throes. "What?"
"Assume the Office!" she screamed at him.
His brain was clouding. As his consciousness faded, he made his final effort to please her. "I—assume—the Office," he gasped.
Flame coalesced about him, but it did not burn.
"Choose Your title!" she cried.
What was she talking about? "Look, Lilah," he gasped "I—"
"Your title! Your title! It must be now! But different from that of your predecessor. You can be Scrotch, or Satan—"
The second was less objectionable. "Satan," he repeated.
"Choose Your form!" she urged him.
"What?"
"It must be now, at the outset! Your true form for the Office. Choose Your form."
"I—choose the form I was at age twenty-five," he said.
Abruptly the constriction of his heart eased, and it beat slowly and strongly. Strength returned.
"Choose Your consort!" she cried.
He hardly understood this process. "I want to be with you."
She hugged him and kissed him. "For as long as You want me, my Lord of Evil!"
The bottom dropped out of his equilibrium. "Who?"
"You have assumed the Office, my Lord! You vanquished the former holder, and now it is Yours. You will be forever as You are now, physically, until some other claimant deceives You as You deceived Your predecessor and dispossesses You. But that need never happen."
"I—am Lucifer?" Parry asked, dumbfounded.
"No, Your title is Satan. You chose it."
"But I am the—the new master of Hell?"
"The Lord of Evil," she agreed. "In Your mortal body as it was at age twenty-five, and I am Your consort. All else is malleable."
"But all I was trying to do was protect you from torture! I never thought my spell would destroy Lucifer himself!"
"You protected me from extinction itself," she said. "I have no existence apart from my love of You. Now I will serve You utterly, in any manner You require, just as I served the prior Lord of Evil when I loved him."
Parry felt dizzy. "There is something about the way you pronounce—"
She laughed. "You are now a deity, my Lord! Co-equal with the other one. I refer to You always as such."
"And—and I am now to run Hell?"
"And forward the cause of Evil, exactly as Your predecessor did. As You have done these past nine years, serving him." The subtle accent that denoted her respect was no longer on her reference to the prior Lord of Evil.
"I don't think I know how to handle this."
"I will help You in any way I can," she assured him. "You will quickly grow accustomed to the exercise of this power. You will come to understand that Evil is the opposite aspect of, of—may I say the word?"
"Say it," he said, uncertain of his authority in this respect.
"Of Good," she finished. "That both are required for either to have meaning. G—G—"
"God," he said. "You may say it"
"God. God is the Incarnation of Good, and Satan is the Incarnation of Evil, and the struggle between the two of you is the essence of mortal existence. Your position is as important as his."
"And I can authorize you to say those words I can say, that no demon otherwise can say?"
"Yes, my Lord Satan. Your power over Your minions is absolute. Your predecessor forbade those words, but Your law governs now."
Parry shook his head disbelievingly. Then she embraced him again, and kissed him again, and his young, strong body responded ardently, and he began to believe.
He had completed his progress from Good to Evil. He had become the Lord of Evil.