Page 29 of Lake of Sin

I pulled away from Oliviero. With the lack of contact, exposed as he was on the altar, he bolted upright and off. His body shook. The shame was eating him alive.

I pulled him into an embrace and waited for the shaking to stop.

“You can be absolved because God loves you. But so too can you enjoy your body and worship God if you so wish.”

“Then why haven’t you done so?” he sounded desperate. He clung to me, burying his beautiful face against my shoulder. “Stay. Stay here with me. Or we can leave—together. Let us goand find a place where we can worship God and share love with one another.”

And I tell you, I was tempted. I imagined worshipping and loving Oliviero unabashed.

But I knew it wouldn’t work. Not for me, not for someone who had worked to rid himself of the institution’s foul grasp. Not when I imagined a life with Vassago and knew there would be no true freedom in a world that despised my love.

I looked Oliviero in the eye and told him, “Because God never answered my call. Only Asmodeus did.”

I knew this was where our paths would divulge. Oliviero would never follow me into Hell; nor did I want him to. It was my path, and he was part of that path as I was on his.

“What will you tell them?” I asked.

He looked towards the door, frowning hard. “I do not know.” Then, a visible swallow. “Not the truth. Only God will know the truth.”

I nodded; it was for the best this way.

I turned to go, and he reached out for my hand. I paused, looking back at him.

“I don’t know what I’ve done,” he said, and for a long moment, I didn’t expect him to say anything more. Then, quietly, he whispered, “But I thank you for it.”

I slipped my hand free, turning it to plant a gentle kiss on the back of his hand.

“You deserve pleasure without shame,” I told him, told myself.

And I left the abbey behind for good.

10

When I exited the double doors of the abbey, I walked right back into Dantalion’s realm. The hellish bibliotheca, with its amber scent and dust mites and distant smog of sulphur, greeted me with a warmth that felt like a homecoming.

The demon sat in its wingback chair in the corner; its hands steepled over its knees. The bloody remains of the sigil lay at its feet. I had materialised before it and looked up at Dantalion, who stared at me with great interest.

“Well,” it said, voice a low purr.

I swallowed, flushing. “Did that please you?”

“It most certainly pleasedyou.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that. I had wanted Oliviero for so long. To have given him pleasure, to have helped him on his own path, was a great thing for me to have done. And so, too, was the taking of my own pleasure. I had known what I wanted, and I had done it. I had told him I loved him. Love and pleasure and rough sex and blasphemy—all of it could co-exist.

Dantalion rose, its tall form towering in the corner of its library. Carefully, it crossed around its sigil to me, arms outstretched. I did not know what to do with this suddendisplay of almost-affection. I let it lay its clawed hands upon my shoulders.

“Look up at me,” it demanded, and so I looked.

Its many shifting faces oscillated between human and demon, male, female, other, until suddenly I was staring at the visage of Asmodeus itself, in the form of the first demon I had summoned all that time ago.

My entire heart seized.

The voice that came no longer belonged to Dantalion. It was the voice I had been hearing for my entire journey through Hell. I had crossed a lake of sin to reach this moment.

“You have done it,” Asmodeus said. Gone was the violent, rough tinge to its voice, the anger at my insolence.

“You have beensucha good little lamb for me, haven’t you, Alessandro? My once-priest. My eternal whore.”

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