Page 6 of Hell and Its Pleasures

The bishop’s breath shuddered. “How did you. . .”

“It is my purpose,” I said, clutching it in my hands. I tried and failed to keep to the shake from my voice.

He misheard me, misunderstood—like this was God warning me of evil, entrusting me to keep this tome safe. But the hot pull in my stomach, a warmth expanding behind my belly button, proved to me this was the work of something greater.

I put faith in that feeling and opened the manuscript. Even though the light was dull, I squinted hard to spy the words unfurling on the page. The script was stilted and small, written in a rushed hand?—

Tuum desiderium probare debes, ut ianuam vorantem inferi aperias.

Effunde cruorem, et sparsa in moenia tendit.

Clama voce desiderii tui.

Mortalem linque vitam.

Which meant:

You must prove your desire in order to open the yawning gate of hell.

Pour out the blood, and let it be spread onto the walls.

Call out with the voice of your desire.

Give up your mortal life.

I looked up at the bishop. In the light cast by the flame, that flickering, undulating warmth, I must have looked deranged. A man on the verge of falling apart from his hunger. I felt ravenous. Desire scorched my insides; you understand, don’t you? You understand why I had to do what I did. There was only one way to open the gates to hell, and the path had been laid out in front of me. So, too, had Bishop Fazio—whohad led me here, like a sheep leading itself to the slaughter. I felt the weight of the letter opener at my side, and I stood so abruptly I spooked him.

“What. . .what are you doing?” he whispered.

I shook my head as I wrapped the tome in the cloth he had given me, held it gingerly, and passed it him. He took it from me, grip firm but shaking.

“It frightens me,” I said, which wasn’t wholly untrue. He still—trusted me. I know this because of the way his lip curled up and he gnawed at his lip, a deep noise blooming in his chest.

“As it should,” he said, and he made to reach back for the torch. “Close the chest. We will retrieve and add your abbey’s tomes to this collection, and then we will?—”

He had his back turned, and this was the kindness I could allow him. The letter opener fit well in my hand. Its weight felt correct, a tool I was meant to have and hold and use. I brought it to the side of Bishop Fazio’s neck and, like the spirit had moved me, sent its dull edge into his neck.

For a moment, I couldn’t be sure what had happened. He dropped the torch, and all light was snuffed out. Only the shocked gurgles told me I had been successful. Weakly he clawed at the air around my head, attempting to reach back, to grip me, to stop me, but it was too late for him. He was dying, and I—I was on the edge of becoming something greater.

The emotion in me then felt flat, as if all the fear and worry I might have had about ending the bishop’s life had been trapped behind some foggy layer in my heart. I had only the excitement, the urge to keep moving. Shucking the top layer of my robe, I lowered myself to the ground, where the bishop’s blood had begun to pool and congeal with the dirt in a bloody mud. I coated my hands with it and stood, smearing it over the walls, returning to the still-twitching body to collect more and coating the other side. When it was done I went tomy knees, facing the wall where the church’s most illicit tomes had lived for years untouched, and I spoke out into the darkness:

“I want to open the gates of hell!”

Nothing. Nothing happened. I flushed, overwhelmed by the stupidity, by the insanity of what I was doing. The mortal in me floundered. I had committed a cardinal sin. I had killed, killed with glee, more willingly than I had done most anything in my life.

Nothing was happening. I had nothing to show for my actions. Bishop Fazio’s blood was mixing with the dirt; I couldn’t look at him, lest I lost my nerve. Fear pricked at my skin. The fear of being caught, of being punishedhereby the church, and not by some demonic presence. Not my body pushed to its limits, stretched and wanting.

I pushed my hair back, staining my forehead with blood in my attempt to wipe away sweat, and shouted: “Open!”

Nothing.

My stomach twisted.Stupid. You are a stupid man.

Bile crawled up my throat as I thrashed about in the dirt. Dust rose in clouds around me.

“Open the gates to hell!” I screamed. “Open them now!”

My voice returned to me in echoes, rebounding off the cave walls. Each time my voice came back tinny and thin, weaker with its desire, until it faded away, eaten by the cave. I was left with the stark reality of how pathetic I had become, and I spread my hands in the dirt, trying and failing to maintain my sanity.

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