For Love of Evil (30 page)

Of course he had opportunity when they changed officeholders. He had overlooked it on the first ones, and had not wished to do anything to the new Chronos, who had been his friend throughout his tenure. Then Chronos had been replaced by his predecessor, a thoroughly experienced Incarnation who was also friendly.

"How long have I been in office?" Parry asked suddenly, realizing that time had passed.

"Ninety-five years, my Lord Satan," Lilah answered immediately.

"Ninety-five years!" he repeated, shocked. "It seemed like only a few years!"

"It is only a few years. Not even a century."

"I shall have to do something!"

"My Lord, you have been trying to!"

"No, I mean something substantial. It is time that Satan made his presence felt."

"As you say. Master," she said noncommittally.

She didn't believe he could do it. Angry, Parry cast about for some new approach.

He had two areas of potential impact: Hell and the mortal realm. His prior approaches had been effective in neither. What he needed was superior management. He had been trying to do it himself, and obviously he wasn't good at this. He had depended on Asmodeus, who obeyed his every command but somehow without much effect.

Maybe it was time to replace Asmodeus. But with whom? Mephistopheles would be no better, and he did not trust Lucifer.

Then he had a notion. "Lilah, go thaw Ozymandias."

"My Lord?" For once he had caught her by surprise.

"I'm going to put him in charge of Hell for a decade or so, and see how he does. He's a competent organizer, isn't he?"

"Indubitably, my Lord. But-"

"And he will serve me loyally, won't he?"

"In the circumstance, yes. But-"

"Then what's the problem?"

"He's a damned soul. Locked in the ice. You know how I have to thaw him. If he remains thawed, he will expect-"

"Um, yes. We'll have to assign a demoness to keep him warm. Whom would you recommend?"

"My Lord, he will know the difference. He will insist on me, personally. I know him; he always demands the best."

Parry considered. "The man has excellent taste. Well, then you keep him warm. I'll borrow another demoness. Or a damned soul. Nefertiti, perhaps. She could be fun." He had encountered the damned Egyptian soul in the course of his efforts to reform Hell, and she had indicated a willingness to cooperate, in return for better treatment. She had certainly been in Hell long enough to know the nature of the cooperation that would be required.

Lilah stared at him, shifting back to her natural state. "Are you dismissing me, my Lord?"

"By no means, Lilah! But we must be realistic. If I must do without your services for a time, I must have a replacement. It wouldn't do for the Lord of Evil to be without a consort, or to be known to be sharing one. Or to accept a substitute from the bottom of the heap. Protocol requires only the best, which is of course you, or one of the second best, such as Nefertiti. When Ozymandias tires of you, you may return to me, no questions asked."

"You are generous, my Lord Satan," she said with irony. She seemed to be not completely impressed with his elegant rationale.

Parry scowled. "Lilah, I want to get moving. I'm tired of this stasis! If you have a better way, tell me!"

"I would not presume, my Lord," she said. "But you know that Ozymandias is a powerful soul, and I have been known to fall in love with that kind."

"Not this time, I think," he said. "Ozymandias is history;

I am not. Go entertain him, demoness; the break should refresh us both."

She walked out. She could have vanished, but chose to make a more dignified exit. She had reformed nude, so as to give him an excellent view of her posterior as she walked. It was the most shapely and supple posterior known to man or demon, and she knew how to make it smile and frown and dance on its own.

Parry was indeed tempted to call her back, but as a matter of principle did not. He did not want her to think she owned him.

Ozymandias took hold immediately, glad for the chance to show what he could do. Hell stirred restlessly under his lash, as overseers were replaced and damned souls shifted to new locations. Lilah kept him satisfied, but Parry suspected that he would have continued working regardless, because of his overwelming love of the exercise of power. Certainly it was better for him than the ice!

Meanwhile, Nefertiti was an intriguing change-off, partly because she was a good deal more naive than Lilah and had a certain remaining modicum of queenly pride. Lilah had, he realized, been too obliging; there had been none of the excitement of challenge with her. Nefertiti, in contrast, reacted with shock when he essayed certain configurations; it was a challenge and a pleasure educating her. In due course all her barriers would be down; then she would be less intriguing. But with proper management, she could last for a decent interval.

Still, Parry wasn't satisfied. It would be years, decades or even centuries before Hell was fully reorganized, and it was an internal affair. He wanted to make his mark on the mortal realm, and to repay the Incarnations for their early humiliation of him. If only he had an opening!

Then, abruptly, it came. The Incarnation of Nature retired, and a new woman took her office.

Of all the scores Parry had to settle, this one was the most nagging. He owed Gaea a serious humiliation! He had been unable to make headway against the old one, but the new one would be inexperienced, liable to make errors before she consolidated her power. Now was his time to strike! It was true that the new Gaea had done him no injury, but she had been admitted by the old one, and the old one was now a mortal, able to see what happened to her erstwhile office. She would rue the day she retired!

He scouted for prospects. What was in Gaea's domain that the Incarnation of Evil could influence? It was almost impossible to change the operations of another Incarnation unless that Incamation were careless or inexperienced, which was why the opportunity had to be grasped immediately.

He found a good one. In 1331 there had been a plague in China of a particularly nasty variety. The Mongols maintained trade routes between China and the West, and episodes of that plague had been known along that route. How fitting that this time, instead of arranging for a message to be delivered from the East, he arrange for an illness! The plague should drive Gaea to distraction, and she might prove unable to stop it at all. That would be an excellent humiliation! In addition, it could send a number of souls to the Afterlife before their normal time, confounding Fate's threads and overworking Thanatos. Because those souls would come early, their proprietors would not have enough time to make up for their bad deeds. They would be caught with negative balances, and Hell would profit.

Yes, this was indeed beautiful! All he needed to do was implement it, immediately, before the other Incarnations caught on and acted to nullify it.

Parry took care of it personally. He went to Samarkand in Transoxiana, a nexus of the eastern trade route. The plague had not spread beyond here, because it depended on dense populations for its propagation, and this was a sparsely populated mountainous region. He found a man who had suffered the first fever but had good resistance; his fever was coming down. He was with a merchant party and able to travel, but they would not take a sick man along that rugged trail. This was not because of any spirit of kindness, but because it was too awkward to dispose of bodies appropriately, and the pace of travel would be seriously slowed before the death.

Parry changed to an appropriate mortal form and approached the caravan master. "I need a package delivered," he said in the local language, using his prerogative as the Father of Lies to accomplish his purpose. "But I do not trust just anyone to carry it. I have found a sick man, whom robbers would not dare approach for fear of contamination. I have given my package to his care. Here is ample gold; will you see that he is conveyed in isolation?"

The caravan master made ready to protest. Then he saw the nature of the coinage proffered. It was three times as much as was warranted, even for a treacherous mission like this. He was a reasonably honest man, and not a murderer; he decided to accept the money and accept the traveler.

The sick man, eager to get home rather than being stuck for three more months here, did not quibble. He took the package Parry gave him. The package was genuine: a precious Oriental gem, for delivery to a jeweler. But it was a pretext, not the real cargo.

Parry departed, not lingering a moment after his transactions had been completed, in order to avoid calling attention to his presence. Though his simulation of a mortal had been impeccable-he had worked hard on such things during off moments in the past century-even casual questioning would reveal that no one of this region knew him. He wanted to evoke no such dialogue. He let his messenger carry his burden.

Months later, the plague struck Asia Minor. It spread through the eastern part of Anatolia and reached the developing Ottoman Turk Empire. The following year it crossed the Dardanelles and infected Constantinople. Now it was in Europe, and on its way. The new Gaea and the other Incarnations were scurrying about like dispossessed rat fleas, trying to stem the black tide of it.

Chronos called on him. "I do not wish to interfere in your business, my friend," he said gravely. "But if I might ask a favor-"

For Chronos, Parry would grant it.

"It is that you arrange to spare the city and environment of Milan, Italy. This region is destined to become a leading force in the Renaissance, and-"

Parry had no notion what that might mean, but he did not argue. "Milan will be spared," he agreed. Then he summoned Beelzebub, and directed him to see to the preservation of Milan from this scourge of the Black Death.

In 1348 it spread throughout the Mediterranean region, wipeing out one third of the population. Gaea was distraught; by the time she realized the significance of this invasion, it was beyond her means to cope with it. This was success beyond Parry's expectation!

But there was a strange gap in its progress, or rather an omission. Milan was untouched. Beelzebub had gone there and fashioned a spell that eradicated all the rat fleas in the vicinity; as the Lord of Flies, he had this power. Because the plague was transmitted to man via the bites of fleas, that region was spared the ravage of the Black Death.

Parry also had Beelzebub do his thing in southern France, in the vicinity of Parry's original home. He realized he was being foolishly sentimental, but he did not want his ascendancy to the Office of Evil to penalize the folk of that region. No one he had known remained alive, of course, but still . . . In 1349 the Black Plague spread throughout Spain and down the west coast of Africa, north across France and into southern England. The other Incarnations remained helpless to stem its progress. Thanatos fell months behind on his rounds, and made increasing errors of classification. A number of souls that should have been relegated to Heaven arrived instead in Hell. Ozymandias had to set up a separate section for them, an emulation of Heaven, with demons masquerading as angels and doing nice things. It was a joke, but it had its appeal; those souls who were favored were allowed vacations there, provided they kept silent about its true nature. Parry knew that in due course those undamned souls would have to be reassigned to Heaven, and he did not want them to suffer culture shock.

In 1349 the plague spread throughout England and Ireland and the Holy Roman Empire, skipping only Flanders, because Father Grief had a Franciscan friar friend there.

At this time Parry received a visitor. It was a young mortal woman from the city of Warsaw, in Poland. She had committed her soul not for riches or happiness but for the privilege of this single interview with the Incarnation of Evil. Intrigued, Parry granted it, and had Nefertiti usher her in.

By an eerie coincidence, the woman bore a resemblance to Jolie, Parry's first love. Perhaps it was no more than the fact that she was of peasant stock, garbed in the rags that were her nearest approach to finery, and was young and thin and terrified. It had after all been more than a hundred and forty years since the frightened Jolie presented herself at his door.

He looked at the spot on his wrist. It was so faded as to be almost invisible against his darkened skin, but it was still there. Was she still present, sleeping in that dehydrated drop of blood? Or had she at last been released to Heaven? Suddenly he missed her with an overwhelming nostalgia. His first love? His only love! He had been corrupted by the demoness, and had much joy of her malleable body, but he had never truly loved her.

"My Lord Satan," the girl said timorously. "Before You relegate my soul to eternal torture, I have one-one boon to ask of You, and I-I pray that You grant it." She was shaking with her fear, but something drove her on.

What could such a creature desire so badly that she would throw away the one asset she had, her immortal soul, to gain it? "Ask," Parry said, not unkindly. That resemblance to Jolie still shook him.

"Your Lordship, the plague-they say it is Your doing, to get back at those who humbled You."

"True."

"But it is hurting everyone, the good and the evil alike, and most of these never tried to humble You. I was visiting in Prague, and-oh, my Lord, if You could only see!"