Page 5 of Lake of Sin

“What?” I tried to stand on the demon’s leg, my ego bruised. “Why would you say that?”

Marchosias hesitated. Despite its size, it did not frighten me, not the way Asmodeus did. When the Marquis finally spoke, it only gestured below and said, “this is what brings me pleasure.”

I let it watch for a time before I began to question what this was about. A sadness loomed in this arena—or a kind of human pettiness. It was a feeling I had never associated with infernal beings, nor angelic beings, but with hopeless men. Ones whose ventures in farming had gone unrewarded, ones whose crops suffered in the gruelling heat, or whose children contracted some malaise.

How strange to be seated on the lap of an eternal creature, one of God’s fallen angels, and think: a depression rots it.

And it had been an angel, hadn’t it?

“Your wings,” I prompted. Instantly, I felt the demon tense.

It did not look down at me, but it asked, “what of them?”

I didn’t say anything more. I could hear the twist in its voice, the nudge towards anger. But where the cherubim had wings of leather, and other demons’ showed signs of decay and disuse, Marchosias’ wings were pristine.

“They’re beautiful.” It was truthful, but it also felt right to say. Or assume. Marchosias took pride in its wings, if not in any other part of its appearance. It seemed to me that the cleanliness of its feathers and the neatness of them were manufactured.

My comment prompted the demon to look down at me. It plucked me up by a single arm, raising me high, and my full body weight dangled from between the pinch of its forefinger and thumb. It raised me up to its eyes: wide, shrewd things.

“You smell of Hell. you have been here long enough. What makes you so special that I must cast my eye upon you? You are like any other human: too sure that your belief in god made you above my kind.”

“I was a priest,” I told it, and I explained the whole sorry business. I let it know the truth about what I think. That I had forsaken God, that I wish to let my desires rule me. That theyhadbeen—that I was close to seeing Asmodeus once more.

But it has no effect. Marchosias grunted, “You summoned me like a human magician might, but in my own realm. I am not bound to you.”

“You are bound to Asmodeus,” I said brazenly. It let out an unhappy sound, and I cocked my head at it. “You disagree?”

“Lament.”

It. . .disliked Asmodeus?

It felt like a sin to hear. In my head, I heard church bells ringing, and that old dread welled up in me as if I was heading towards the confessional. Incense clogged my nose, and the eyes of my brethren fell upon me. I feared they could see the truth of my rot and its source. I feared they could all tell.

My face twisted. Marchosias grimaced in response. “Of course the lord knows it,” it told me. It had correctly guessed at my horror—the fear I possessed for the sin of blaspheming had transferred from God to Asmodeus. “Do not think you have deceived me, human.”

As I looked into the golden well of its eyes, I felt dizzy, drawn as if gravity itself had its hands around me. Marchosias showed me, either willingly or otherwise, its past.

This is what I saw:

War.

Long, blond-haired Lucifer Morningstar atop a steed of black, his wings unfurled and glinting in the impossible white of Heaven. His beauty was nearly incomprehensible, every feature carved perfectly, placed there by a master sculptor, but the anger in his eyes undercut his intensity. He appeared more human in that moment, not an untouchable angel. Fury and rage were emotions I could understand. Lucifer Morningstar was full of it, and he wasn’t the only one.

Hundreds of angels appeared at his back, all of them divine in appearance, with their smooth skin and long hair and unknowable beauty. All of them appeared humanoid to me, without any of the confusing appearances written in the Bible. These angels attacked with swords and banners raised as humans would. Trumpets rang out. In glimpses, I saw this must have been for my benefit: the truth flickered through, with bodiless orbs of light exploding against one another or metal bands looping around a hundred disembodied eyes locked in battle against beastly amalgamates. That was the truth of the battle and the appearance of the angels. I did not fight when the wool was pulled back over my eyes, much preferring to see the beauty of the angels and the way their muscles tensed with every thrust of their weapons.

I smelled incense and blood, a metallic sweetness cloying the air. Then I saw who must have been Marchosias in amongst the fray. It had long, curly brown hair, brown eyes, a muscular form. I saw the wide-eyed panic, the horror at the sight of blood. I saw its fall with the rest of them. I saw Marchosias’ beautiful wings made torn and bloody by the landing. Marchosias let out an awful scream, body bleeding and bruised as it stood, dragging the limp remains of its wings through red earth. And then its body changed, angelic form stripping away as corruption took over and made it as I saw it.

I felt a kinship. Can you blame me? Marchosias had, for whatever reason, denied the Lord, and been punished so fully that its poor body had taken the damage. I felt the pain it had felt, and I knew that it looked at me and saw a pathetic insect of a thing. What could I have said? I would live about as long as a single breath for Marchosias, and I was sure it would hate to be compared to a human.

Still, the image wasn’t done. I was imbued with more knowledge: that Heaven had a ranking like Hell had a ranking and that Marchosias had belonged to the Dominion angels, charged with keeping the world in proper order. Marchosias had been tasked with delivering God’s justice to the world by being merciful toward human beings. I couldn’t quite comprehend how such a benevolent creature had become this, until it showed me.

A series of vignettes filled my mind: Marchosias’ life as an angel, the pride it tried and often failed to contain when it succeeded in its duty. Then, the image paused, and a clearer scene emerged. I saw the beautiful angel Lucifer and Marchosias speaking.

“We know that isn’t true,” Marchosias was saying.

Lucifer, the perfect cosmic creation, said in dulcet tones, “It is what the Lord claims, and it is what we must do.”

Marchosias blanched. It bowed as if afraid. “I do not understand. This was not what I was taught. I was made to bring God’s justice, but I did not expect to bow before mortal creatures. I did not think I would be called lesser than them. Why does the Lord do this, Samael?”

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