For Love of Evil (23 page)

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 DC 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 nicker 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!"