Chapter 19
It was revenge what Asmodeus had done. Petty, perhaps, but it was always the little things that infuriated Baal the most, and if Asmodeus couldn’t kill him, then the least he could do was send the regent of Hell into a rage.
Obediently, Asmodeus had said, “I’ll bind his hands,” about that angel Dina, gesturing for Baal to lead the way to Satan’s tower, and that stupid, stupid Baal had nodded and hastily moved on ahead.
‘Dumb fucking dog.’ A single twist of the screw, just loose enough that the weepy, bleeding angel should realize that he wasn’t really restrained if he tugged at the cuffs once or twice.
Maybe Baal would catch the angel instantly, but he’d at least be annoyed.
If Asmodeus couldn’t kill him, he could irritate him.
If he couldn't send Baal to Hell, then he could make his life one.
Currently, the demon was moving in between a crowd, in some other part of the underworld, one foot beginning to drag no matter how many iron bars he’d attached to the calf bones to try to force his body to accept it.
One of his hands kept twitching, looking for his typical cane.
All about him, there was pale fog, and the rock ground was warm with blood.
Demons were all rushing in opposite directions, but that didn’t stop claws from grazing his arms, then a voice saying, “Duke, do you know what’s happening by the tower? ”
“No,” replied Asmodeus. “Baal must’ve fucked something up.”
Then, he continued on his way in the all-encompassing, blinding paleness, ignoring the stench carried on its back.
Behind, he heard the demon call for him again, curiously, but Asmodeus ignored it.
He ignored all the chatter of demons around him, as well, and he ignored the distant howls and groans of the tortured dead.
However, at one particular gurgling noise, the duke couldn’t stop himself from turning his face upward to examine a bubbling, pulsing mass of wet redness.
Whatever it hung from — the ceiling — was lost in darkness and the fog, but Asmodeus knew it had a wide base and a sharp peak, almost like a limb reaching down.
A pyramid of flesh. Yet — any squinting demon would notice faces, mouths wretched open as if in screams peppered upon its body.
Some loose limbs dangled from the pyramid of flesh, but from the neck downward, the individuality of bodies, of the victims, melted into one blended mass.
How terrible. Asmodeus had really not wanted to return here so soon.
He missed the city he’d been living with Rosier, and he missed the sunsets, and he missed the technology, and the convenience of food, labor, and other kinds of service work.
In Hell, one can’t order a meal on command as easily, even a duke.
Of course, Asmodeus was not always fond of the socio-economic situation for contemporary humanity — even as an outsider who could reap the benefits and none of the consequences — but he was not an angel, he didn’t bother to cast a judgement on them.
He never missed Rosier’s downtrodden expression reflected off a passenger's seat window, however, when the younger demon looked at the state of the Earth.
In the present, Asmodeus found himself alone, all the demons disappeared into the dense fog.
He could hear the shuffling of their feet and the pain of the flesh pyramid above, but now it was silence also echoing in his skull.
If there was anything worse than the loudness of Hell, it was when it grew quiet.
Slow, he turned his head, wondering of the abyss angel Dina had fallen through.
He listened for it, heard the usual tumbling of rock and dust, but also the whip of a falling thing.
The angel again? He turned his head up, saw the flesh mound.
A corpse hand was reaching down for him and, without thinking, he took it.
The pyramid of flesh pulled Asmodeus up, and he set his good foot upon it — clawed— and then the flimsy human one.
He breathed, rolling one shoulder, as the direction of gravity turned upside down.
Letting go of the corpse hand, he trekked cautiously, hearing the squelches and agony wails beneath his feet.
They faded into the usual noise of Hell as he continued onward— the dark fall where the angel might be.
To pass the time, he kept thinking of his beloved husband.
Marriage always helped to lift the fallen angel of fruit’s spirits, and Asmodeus was already itching to host another quiet wedding somewhere, to fall into a fantasy where the two of them were humans and wishing love until death meant something.
During their most recent honeymoon, Rosier had laid over Asmodeus’ chest and confessed that he occasionally dreamed that they had never been angels, that they might’ve been childhood friends turned adult lovers, that they had families and heritage and graves waiting for their rot.
The duke had never understood the craving, especially from someone so oriented toward fruits, trees, nature.
‘Do you ever hate the humans?’ Asmodeus had asked.
‘I wish I could,’ Rosier had confessed softly.
‘You should hate them. If they weren’t hopeless, they wouldn’t all be in Hell.’
‘Not all of them are there. And there’s this old woman who runs a shop with her granddaughter next door… I think they're good people, Asmodeus. I really hope so.’
One night, Asmodeus had caught the smaller demon sitting on the sidewalk, sniffling between hushed, raw cries, cigarette in one hand, saying he wished they’d never met.
‘I love you,’ Asmodeus had said, ‘if we hadn’t met, I don’t know what I'd be doing. We’ve always been beside each other, Rosier.
It's always been you and me. I don’t even know who I am outside of you. But—’
‘If you ever leave me, I’ll die,’ Rosier had wept. ‘You put your roots in me, and now I depend on them to breathe. If only we had never met— If only I didn’t need you more than I need my own heart.’
Creeping behind him, a few limbs of the pyramid were brushing past Asmodeus, reaching out into the dark canyon.
He, simply, watched as the flesh-hands reached out to push a falling person, then grab at him, reel him into the gap in the wall where Asmodeus stood.
To the duke's feet, the thing, this person, was dragged to, then left for him as the peak of the pyramid itself retreated.
“Hm,” the duke said at what he was sure was dead.
But there were many good days for Asmodeus and Rosier — many, many of them.
Rosier detested television and still struggled with anything electric, but he'd enjoyed a bulky tablet with simple games on it and often laid his head on Asmodeus’ lap as he played.
They'd somehow never run out of topics to discuss, to laugh about — not as angels, as demons, in Heaven, in Hell, nor in all the earthy cities.
Most mornings, they dressed each other, and they kissed constantly, as much as Rosier would allow.
They fucked less often, as much as Rosier would allow.
The young man at Asmodeus’ feet grunted, shifted, tried to lift his body, then slumped back down onto the flesh.
“Fuck.” An arm slithered across his torso, clutched at the white tank beneath his open green jacket.
“Ah—” He twitched at his own breath, and if the duke could recognize anything, it was the sound of pain.
Trembling, the man tilted his head up. “Who are you?” The duke hesitated, then pulled back the hood over his head. “What are you?”
“An angel,” chuckled Asmodeus, his accent minuscule, tongue particularly good with romance languages, “like the one you were with.” He leaned down and offered a hand. “You were with that angel, weren’t you? Did he abandon you?”
Brows furrowing, the soldier breathed, lifted his body to sit, and groaned in pain once more — but he didn’t take the demon’s hand.
“No. The angel was with… this other guy. Tadeo. That’s his name.
” Asmodeus quirked a brow, lowering his offer, watching as the man wobbled to his feet, doubling over, clutching his stomach, knees knocking together; any minute now, he’d fall back over.
“I don’t know him so don’t bother asking me shit.
” He looked up at Asmodeus through a dark fringe.
“You’re not an angel. This is Hell, isn’t it? ”
“Hm, well I was an angel once.” There was some demonic shouting nearby, maybe Baal.
“Whatever you say,” Dante droned, turning back to the gape from which he’d been rescued.
“The motherfucker left me, didn’t he? I saw the angel go in after him.
Then— Then, they flew. They fucking flew and left me falling.
” Asmodeus’ eyes flickered behind him, but there was only fog; Baal was almost definitely furious right now, probably hunting him down.
“Look at this—” Dante waved the bandaged stump where his left hand was supposed to be.
“That fucker did this. He did this, and then he abandoned me down here in goddamn Hell. He thinks he’s a fucking saint, but he left me here—”
‘It’s a good thing,’ Dante almost confessed, ‘that I’m going to betray him.’
Slowly, however, the duke began to shrug off his cloak, revealing the dark robe he wore beneath, and the soldier jumped. “What are you doing? Get back. I have a gun.”
Just as the soldier started reaching into his pants, Asmodeus threw his cloak over Dante’s body and said, “Be quiet.” He turned back, then jerked his head. “You can stay here and get tortured by Baal or you can follow me down.”
“Down—?”
Asmodeus chuckled at the soldier’s yelp, knowing he'd just noticed the pyramid of flesh. “Don’t mind that. It’s just bodies.
If it hurts them, they’re all used to it.
Hurry.” He began to step along carefully, not bothering to avoid the human faces or their desperate, grasping hands.
“Don’t lose sight of me or you’ll get lost forever. ”