Page 18 of Lake of Sin

Something compelled me to bow before the magic had even taken effect. I pressed my face into the aged hardwood, breathing in dust and mildew and age. A gurgling sounded as my blood was consumed, and the silvery light cast by the moon grew briefly stronger, sending large boxy highlights across the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter.

I could sense this demon almost in the way I could sense Asmodeus. The power of it loomed large in my mind, like something always in the corner of my eye: a shadow whose size was inescapable. Call it the nearness to my Lord, or simple wishful thinking: in any case, I knew when it had manifested before the floorboards creaked with the sudden new weight. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel it craning over me. Then footsteps shifted, the weight of the demon moving, and a chill went through me—not heat the way I felt beneath Asmodeus’ touch.

A long, clawed hand reached into my hair. I melted beneath the touch, catlike with my eagerness, pushing into the touch like it might save me from what came next.

It didn’t, of course.

The hand tightened, sweet grip becoming rough, and suddenly I was being wrenched to my feet by a fistful of my hair.

I yelped, pain searing in my follicles and then in sharp jolts down my neck and back. I scrabbled in the air, squirming, eyes closed against the pain.

“Look upon me,” a voice commanded.

It was husky, a deep whisper. Compelled to obey, I opened my eyes. For a while, I could see nothing but the umbral pool of its gaze. No other features made themselves known to me.

“What is thy name?” the voice asked.

“Alessandro,” I told it. “I am Asmodeus’—”

“Toy in training,” it breathed. “I am aware.”

A second passed and it was only the two of us breathing. I smelled of sweat; I was sure I smelled of sex. This demon smelled of pine and ocean breeze.

“And you?” I whispered. I shook slightly in its grasp. “What name do you keep, lord?”

It exhaled nosily and lowered me to the ground. All the while, I could only see its unblinking gaze.

“Dantalion,” it told me. “Duke of Hell.”

Like that, my pin-hole vision was revoked, and the whole room’s vision came hurtling back.

The Duke was very tall. It wore a long, great robe that, from the right angle, I could have mistaken for a cassock. Its visage slipped into the uncanny, bearing both the faces of men and women and oscillating between them with each blink of its two eyes. Eventheyrapidly changed in size, shape, and colour. What was fascinating to me appeared ever banal for the demon: this was simply how it looked, like everybody and nobody at once.

“If you know who I am, then you know my plight and what I must accomplish here.”

Perhaps my eagerness was getting the best of me: I wanted nothing more than to be used and sent to Asmodeus. I had forgotten everything I had promised Asmodeus and, frankly, could not be bothered spending time on overcoming whatever human traumas were keeping me in my shame.

How fickle of me. How brash. I had clearly learned nothing.

Dantalion looked down at me, eyes shifting in size and shape but never in emotion: always, its eyes showed the faintest hint of disdain. Of pity. I shrunk beneath it. “I do not wish to have thee,” it said.

“Then we are at an impasse, my Duke,” I said whilst shaking, my whole body contorting on the ground. “For I must fulfil my Lord’s wishes, and as its underling, you must do the same.”

Where had this brashness come from, if not from my wilful and desperate desire? Dantalion looked at me and said nothing, but the pity in the inky wells of its eyes made me shudder. With almost petulant silence, Dantalion turned its back on me and began to pace its own library, finger gliding over tomes. It selected one and moved to the corner, where it draped itself like a beautiful, terrifying ornament.

I stared.

Dantalion had an age to it, an ancient thing, and yet, in this moment, the demon felt adolescent.

“What is it you are usually summoned for?”

Dantalion gave an affronted huff. “He draws blood for me without even knowing what he wants, and what I have to offer.” The demon glanced up slightly from its reading. “An apt descriptor of thee, I presume?”

I flushed because it was entirely correct. I knew what I wanted in vague terms. I was frightened to demand my own pleasure. I had told Asmodeus I would overcome this by the time I returned to its side, but I couldn’t fight the cotton-mouthed feeling in me to tell Dantalion.

The demon’s eyes narrowed. I expected it to push me as so many other demons had. Even Furcus had, in the end, wanted to plough me, to root his seed in me—despite the hours of talk beforehand. Dantalion—I couldn’t be sure it even wished to look upon me.

With nothing to do, I stood and gazed upon the library Dantalion kept. The Bibliotheca. Since the demon hadn’t evaporated, I assumed it would stay summoned until we fulfilled our joining. This gave me ample time to explore.

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