Page 19 of Lake of Sin

I thumbed a tome made of white leather, pricked with a soft down, like feathers. The first few lines read;

ON Heaven’sHierarchy of Angels

Penned by the Seventh Angelic Scribe

The soundof a book being roughly slammed, and then brisk, sudden air—the sense ofmassbehind me, boxing me in between bookshelf and body. Clawed fingers rose over shoulder and plucked the tome from my grasp.

“Not for your eyes.”

I spun to Dantalion. “That was a book from Heaven.”

“I am a demon. Why does thievery surprise you?”

I glanced at other tomes, which looked nothing like the books I had seen in Furcus’ realm. So many of those had been empty save for the knowledge I craved. I said, “Furcus had?—”

A scoff. “All the books in that Knight’s sad excuse for a library comes from mine.”

“What were you, in Heaven?”

Dantalion turned to me, grip flexing over the spine of the tome again and again. “What I am here.”

“Which is?”

“Startling bored. Keeper of old tomes. Cowed by the whims of humans. I?—”

“I need your help.”

I said it suddenly and felt much smaller and younger than my thirty-five years. Dantalion must have seen it in me, that kernel of weakness or of innocence to be crushed, for it came closer to me, fingers flexing as if it were about to point.

“There,” it said. “Have courage. You have already summoned me; your heart has a desire. Speak it.”

Was its new eagerness genuine? Was this glee because in speaking, I would leave its domain sooner? I eyed Dantalion and turned bodily toward it, pressing close.

Rage flashed in Dantalion’s eyes. When I reached up to touch its face, it slammed its fingers around my wrist, holding me still.

It bared its teeth, showed me how strange and sharp they were, but as it regarded me, the anger died away.

“You mean to anger me,” it said, “to avoid speaking your desire.”

I went limp against it. I was a man and yet a child in this sense. I turned away. My chest seized with guilt, with shame—why?After all this time, after whoring myself and enjoying it, after making love to Vassago,whydid it panic me so to say what I wanted?

“Tell me what you would do to me first,” I whispered.

Dantalion hissed. “A way for you to cheat, a dilution of your desire, if you can spot your own inside mine.”

I looked up at it. Tears stung my eyes—ridiculous! My response made no sense. I enjoyed my desire. I partook in sexual acts. Was it really so difficult to open my mouth and say,I want this, and this, and this?

“I want. . .to know what I want.”

Dantalion let go of my wrist and pressed a finger to my lips. “You know what you want. You proved that with the Prince Vassago. You are just afraid of your wants.”

That was true enough. If I closed my eyes, I could recall living as I had. More than two decades of a lust-filled haze could only be survived through repression. Through self-denial. It had been the bravest thing, to throw it all off and choose Asmodeus. But in choosing Hell and this path, I had still been answering the call of another: of Asmodeus itself.

What would it look like if I’d answered my own call? What would my life have looked like if I had given in long ago?

Oliviero came to me unbidden. My fantasy, realised through the apparition of him on his knees, tongue on me, lips sucking over my rosary. If I had faced him in reality and told him my carnal desires, he would have been appalled.

They all would have. Wouldn’t they?

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