Lake of Sin (Prince of Lust #4)

Chapter 2

2

W hen Asmodeus left with a little more than a heavy, lust-filled sigh, the darkness surrounding me lifted fully.

I was no longer sequestered on Furfur’s tiny island of stone and sea. The smoke of Asmodeus’ rage cleared, and I had been left on a hilltop overlooking a great stone structure.

It was circular and large, its walls high and the stone was a brushed white. Turrets sprouted from it at various intervals, and dozens of flags and ripped fabric waved in the wind.

The place looked awfully like something from Earth. The longer I looked, the more the structure resolved into the familiar, into something I could recognise.

A fort.

I walked carefully down the hillside to approach the structure, which was the only thing of note for miles and miles. A grey desert seeped into the distance, spreading from the back of the stone fort and creeping to the very edge of the horizon. But to the front of the fort and beneath this brown grassy hill was ground that would kill me. Lava split between black rock, oozing free, flames spitting and dancing above it. A single survivable path was raised above the licks of lava, made of onyx-black stone. Weapons of unburning steel framed it, a line of jagged, interlocking spears, swords, and great sledgehammers providing cover for travellers approaching the fort.

I wasted no time. My conversation with Asmodeus had invigorated me. With all the hubris only a mortal man can bear, I scrambled naked down the hill and walked over the hot glass-like rock. Flames leapt in the air on either side of me. My skin blistered and healed every second, the soles of my feet grew charcoal black. Still, I walked. The pain never hit its crescendo, not when the promise of pleasure drove me forward.

Everywhere was the sound of the lava’s hiss and of—fighting. Beyond the titan walls of the fort, I heard the clang of armour and swords, and I thought of knights. Trumpets and a discordant singing roared around me.

At the end of that long path, a small plaque sat flush beside the deep-set doors. It glistened in gold and declared:

designed by mulciber

Which meant nothing to me at all.

With my jaw clenched and my human fear held at bay by willpower alone, I pressed against the great door. It loomed above me, taller than a tower, and my pressing barely did anything. Nothing budged. So, petulant like a child, I called out, “I am here for the Marquis!”

What did I expect? Nothing happened. I was one human voice struggling against a cacophony of hellish discord. Nothing could be done, but neither could I wait there. I tried the door again for good measure, and every underworked muscle in my flesh pulsed and ached.

I cast about. The walls were too sheer and too tall for me to climb. The lava spat and pulsed. Would my body burn if I leapt into it? Would the skin slough off? Would the burns ever heal? I wondered if Asmodeus would appreciate such a display of despair at my own inability to reach the Marquis, or if I would be made so hideous my Lord would abandon me forever.

I had been staring into the lava for so long that I barely registered how close I’d moved to the edge. The nearness let the heat scathe my skin, and I blinked rapidly, inhaling sulphur and heat and the scent of my own sweat.

But the nearness allowed me to better see the edge of the fort. A tiny width of stone jutted from its base and encircled the entire fort. If I could balance and stay close to the wall, it would make a near-insubstantial way forward, a path only a fool would follow.

Of course, I was on it within moments.

I pressed my body flush to the stone, which scraped gently against my skin. Flame and heat licked at my back and sweat pricked at the arch that housed my tailbone. Those discordant trumpets continued blaring; none knew I was skirting around like vermin trying to find a way in.

I shuffled around the warm stone, and not once did I question what I was doing or what I had become. I wasn’t any less filled with lust than I had been. The touch of stone against my body wasn’t sobering; I felt perfectly sane as I moved. It took minutes, nearly a half hour, to get halfway around the bend. The sea of lava stopped abruptly where it met the grey sand, but I was in no mood to test whether said sand was any less dangerous, recalling the sea of grass around Furcus’ library and the poison it held. I remained pressed to the wall and found, eventually, a door.

Which was naturally a surprising thing to find halfway around a hellish fort after passing a sea of lava.

The door itself was very plain. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in the monastery. A simple, dark wood with a wooden doorknob. I reached out and turned it, and nearly fell backwards when I realised it was unlocked.

Thankfully, it swung inwards. It scraped over stone, and its hinges shrieked. I went rigid on instinct, straining to hear if the music or the distant clamour had stopped for me. Nothing. I peered into the fort and found I had been deposited in something like a hellish armoury.

Cautiously, I stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind me without intervention, and I spooked, stumbling back against something thin and metal. It fell, clanging onto the stone, disturbing several other things: a giant scoop of steel that could have been a shield for a giant, a spearhead laid next to it and utterly unattached to a pole, and some unnameable objects I had no reference for that were sharp, triangular prisms inlaid with jewels. The space was dark and cluttered. Metal rods crisscrossed overhead, and as I got my bearings, I understood that they were weapons: weapons triple the size of my body, laid haphazardly in a dusty corner. Indeed, this entire room appeared abandoned.

Light spilled in through a door to the right. Though the first door I’d encountered had been human-sized, this archway loomed large. I shivered at the thought of the body that might fit through that door.

I shivered, though not entirely with fear.

I wasted no time snooping in the armoury and instead made for that door. At the edge of the threshold, I peered around the corner and saw what was happening.

A battle. Some kind of fray.

On flat ground, arena-like and dusty, two giants engaged in battle. The hilts of their weapons were interlocked, and they hissed and growled at each other. There were demons or must have been: one had purple skin rippling with boils, wings and claws sprouting from its flesh. The other had eerily pale skin and the head of a lion. Sweat permeated the air. They roared and shoved back from one another. The lion-head thrust forward and skewered one of its opponent’s eyes. Black blood oozed from the eye socket, and as it wrenched its arm backwards, the eye popped free. The purple demon howled with rage.

But there were too many banners, too much noise, too much music for it to be a true battle—and a crowd was watching, I realised. Impish voyeurs gathered in the shadows and chittered or floated above next to demonic cherubim. They were four that I could see, and all of the cherubim were a tetrad of earth creatures. They each had four faces: of a lion, an ox, an eagle, and a man, and pressed to the lips of the human face was a trumpet clutched by two human hands. But they had the hoofed feet of a cow and four blackened, stringy wings.

A tournament, then, or a festival.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I crept out from the armoury like they would embrace me with open arms. Me! Nothing more than a naked, desperate human! I ran out with too much confidence, arms open to the Heavens, and I cried out, “I am here to meet the Marquis!”

The music stopped abruptly. The cherubim spun around and cast their four sets of eyes upon me, sixteen ghoulish faces bearing down on me from above. The imps on the ground began to whisper. Growls emerged from the giants. They slumped, their weapons drooping from their arms.

I lowered my arms.

Then, I was roughly yanked from the ground. I kicked the air. Pressure clutched at my waist, and I looked down helplessly to find fingers the size of my forearm wrapped around my midsection. All the air escaped my lungs in a rush.

I had been plucked up by a giant I hadn’t seen, one posted flush to the wall I had just run around.

I tried to twist in its grip, craning to see who had me. It had a strange, pig-like face. Great tusks curled from its cracked lips, and a myriad of eyes exploded over its forehead and half its skull. Long black tresses fell from the other half. It snorted, and I flinched back from the spray of saliva.

It seemed to be waiting. I didn’t know what to do. Cautiously, I stretched my head back, trying to see the others in the frozen tableau I stumbled upon, but the world was upside down. I flung myself back up and asked, “Marquis?”

Its expression changed minutely. Its eyes narrowed. Such a human display, I almost forgot what was holding me. The beast leaned forward and inhaled so hard its nostrils flared wide, and then it scrunched its features up into horrified disgust. Very gently, it put me down.

We all stood there in silence. Then, the two giants whose tournament I’d interrupted paced away from the centre of the arena, but not before one kicked three times, dragging its foot over the ground.

I walked forward and saw that it had disturbed the dust, and beneath that lay the sigil.

And I went to my knees before it.

All the demons watched me and said nothing. I had no weapon with which to open my veins, and so I raised my hands like I was begging for an offering. The two giants exchanged a long look. The lion-head moved first. It reached for the sword at its scabbard and removed it with a sharp schling! of a sound, and carefully pointed the tip of the blade towards my palm. I did not shiver nor shake, even when anticipatory nausea started up. The blade pressed like a fat pin into the palm of my hand, and wet runnels of blood welled up and seeped through the grooves in my palm. I cupped my proffered blood and brought it down to the sigil, and after I let the blood run into every nook and cranny, I cupped my bloody hand around my limp cock for good measure, to reconfirm my body as part of the rite.

A growl started up from the armoury. I looked up in time with dozens of heads to see black smog crawling from the shadowy room. The imps began to whisper and giggle and whine, and the cherubim blasted one final note on their trumpets, a sound that heralded new arrival and ended the festivities all at once. They fled quickly, the four of them peeling off with squeals and layered cries echoing from their four heads and shared throat. When they were gone, the giants stomped away, each of them flanking the sigil where I still knelt.

I returned to the shadow, craning to see.

A bloody, rough-pelted wolf sprinted from the centre of the darkness. Two great wings were folded against its back, the grey feathers lifting from the speed of its approach. A serpent tail whipped furiously in the air, and the panting of the wolf became the only sound. A metre from the sigil, the beast skidded to a halt. Thick saliva dripped from its yellowed teeth. It panted laboriously, and even from a distance, I could smell its rankness; a dense smell, like old fish and something septic. I gagged.

“Are you the Marquis of this kingdom of Hell?” I whispered.

The wolf opened its mouth, and something spewed forth: flame or light—something so bright I could hardly bear to stare at it. The sound, like rushing water or an all-consuming fire, persisted on and on without end. I forced myself to look, to really peer into the brightness. The light warbled, rippling with movement. And I heard the name whispered from the wolf’s throat, edging out of its jaw, and then echoed in susurrus voices:

MARCHOSIAS.

I understood, and yet couldn’t comprehend. Marquis Marchosias was not the wolf, but the thing spewing forth from its open mouth. Intangible flame, ungraspable light: I had no pleasure at the sight of it and couldn’t think of what I might do to it.

With my nerves still bludgeoned, I said, “I am sent by Lord Asmodeus Itself. Stand before me as a man!”

Marchosias, or the wolf carrying its spirit, let out a strangled cry. The flame still burned, and I thought I could see two eyes gleaming at me from the rippling white light.

A voice like a deep scrape hissed, “YOU WISH TO SPEAK WITH ME?”

I pushed off the ground and bowed my head. “I do.”

Then, “YOU ARE HUMAN.”

I told it as I told many of the demons I had serviced: “I have relinquished all mortal rights. I have betrayed my honourable self for this life. Lord Asmodeus wishes me to prove myself to it. Come before me as a man so we may speak more properly.”

I could not tell you where my fear went. Abruptly, the wolf shut its jaw, and a great hacking and writhing began in its body. When it next heaved, a wet, slick-covered ball of a figure emerged wetly from its mouth and landed in the dust, sending sand into the air. The saliva-coated limbs unfurled from its foetal position and rapidly grew into a man until it was the size of the other giants in the arena.

The wolf—deflated. As if all the nutrients in its body had evaporated, it became nothing more than an empty skin, a pelt collapsing onto the stone.

Marchosias had not heeded my exact request. Though its body resembled a human man, too much was inhuman. Its head remained wolfish. It appeared messy, the fur thick and knotted around the neck, and as if its head had bloomed suddenly from a wound rather than a creature born this way. I half expected to see puckering sutures around the neck, but no such thing existed. Its shoulders were broad, and its chest very hairy. At times, I was certain the human hair gave way to a pelt. Its feet were that of a wolf’s, too, and those two grey wings were neatly overlapping at its back.

What frightened me most was its cock, which wasn’t a cock at all, but the new source of Marchosias’ infernal, intangible light.

I panted hard, backing away from Marchosias. The demon stomped forward out of the circle; there was no point in running. I could have sprinted, and it would have caught me in seconds. I looked up in time to watch its arm swing through the air, hand slamming into my waist. I gasped, let out a shuddery sob as it lifted me from the ground, and like the other giant before it, the Marquis held me aloft to inspect me.

“CONTINUE,” it ordered loudly, clomping to the right. My head spun as I bounced through the air. With a wave of its fingers, a bright light appeared in the fort, and a new section materialised: a tremendous throne positioned three stairs in the air, at the height the cherubim had been lurking at. Sounds started up beneath us as it climbed, and by the time Marchosias was seated, the tournament had recommenced below us.

But I was hardly concerned by the battle between lesser demons. Marchosias lowered me onto its thigh. I straddled it, legs slipping either side of the warm trunk of a leg. To my right, the light from its nethers blinded me, and so I scooted back and craned up at the demon—who resolutely didn’t look my way. It was completely transfixed by the events happening below.

I swallowed and asked, “Will you speak to me?”

“ At some point.”

“I need to pleasure you. Or you may pleasure me. But it is necessary to proceed.”

“Is this some kind of punishment?”

“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 they had been—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?”

It was a blasphemous, broken cry. Tears welled in Marchosias’ eyes.

Samael, Lucifer, stepped forward to comfort Marchosias, a hand squeezing its shoulder. “Because He intends to subject Himself to the mortal form.”

And I saw the vision of the Incarnation, when God would come to Earth as a human, and experience mortal life.

Marchosias was appalled. “Samael ? —”

“I cannot allow it,” Lucifer said. “I see you cannot allow it either. Nothing divine should experience such a thing. I will fight God for His seat, and I will rule this place better than He. Will you fight with me?”

I did not need to see the rest to know Marchosias said yes. But all these memories were tinged with regret!

When my vision cleared, I was still dangling from Marchosias’ fingertips. I writhed in its grasp, feeling how small my body was before it. Gasping, I managed, “You wish to return to Heaven?” and I was surprised by how quickly its dark eyes filled with sorrow.

“ It is a false hope but one I cling to yet. I wish for heaven to open its arms to me. I wish to return home.”

I knew why this Marquis was the one sent to me by Asmodeus. Here was a once religious creature languishing in regret at its choice. Would I regret what I had done one day, when the sobering passage of time had stripped away all lustre? After I had been fucked and used and pleasured for lifetimes over lifetimes, would I wake one day, to think, “O! I should have died in that monastery!”

It seemed ridiculous to me at that moment, but I felt I owed something to my old self. I felt I should be sure. So I asked, “What is it that you regret?”

And as Marchosias searched my eyes and thought for an impossibly long moment, I knew it could not name a thing. I knew it wasn’t Heaven it lacked, but purpose: that it was hosting festivals and tournaments for entertainment. Marchosias was bored.

I told it: “Heaven gave you a purpose. Direction. Asmodeus has given me a purpose, and with it, my life has changed from dull piety to passion.

Marchosias’ eyes flickered. I walked a thin line; it might turn on me at any moment, frustrated by my mortality.

“At the very least, you could put me in my place. You could touch me and fuck me and prove to yourself I am the lowly creature you suspect all humans to be. I want you to use me. Use my flesh for pleasure, and perhaps you will find Heaven there.”

Flames burst in its eyes, a hunger that I understood.

“ Yes ,” it said with a slow nod. Its eyes flicked from me to the giants locked in battle. “ What will give me pleasure is the truth of humanity’s pitiable depravity. Enough friction, and you are pushed into the abyss of orgasm. Contemptible little creatures .” I said nothing, but its warm breath, its anger, its general disgust when looking at me—I was as depraved as it claimed, and my body twitched, arousal tingling through my cock.

And it ordered, “ You are not allowed to orgasm .”