Chapter 40
ASMODEUS
Iarrive at my ziggurat to find Aim waiting with my prize. Thomas stands shackled in the center of my throne room, looking around with the wide-eyed terror of a human suddenly finding himself in a nightmare.
He's older than I expected, maybe forty now, with thinning brown hair and the soft body of a mortal who's let themselves go. He's unremarkable in every way except for the cruelty that radiates from him like a stench.
“Here's the piece of shit,” Aim says, brushing invisible dust from his hands. “Found him in Marseille, if you can believe it, still in the same neighborhood where he lived with your Simone. I don't think he believes where he is. What we are.”
I study the trembling human, noting the way his eyes dart around my throne room, taking in the explicit carvings, the obsidian surfaces, the general atmosphere of menace. Good. Fear will make this more satisfying.
“Did you tell him why he's here?” I ask Aim conversationally.
“I thought you'd want that honor.”
Thomas's head snaps toward me, rightly recognizing me as the true threat to his existence.
“Why are you talking about Simone?” he asks, focusing on all the wrong things. “Did she send you?”
A slow smile spreads across my face. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I'm her… husband.”
The word feels strange on my tongue—we're bound by something far more permanent than human marriage—but it serves its purpose. Thomas's expression shifts from confusion to rage.
“That bitch is married?” he snarls, his fear momentarily forgotten. “She always was a gold-digging whore. Probably spread her legs for you the first night you met her, didn't she?”
Aim makes a disgusted sound. I hold up a hand to forestall his intervention. This is my show.
“You should be careful how you speak about my wife,” I growl, my voice like crumbling rocks.
“She was mine first!” Thomas shouts, spittle flying from his lips. “I made her into something respectable! Before me, she was nothing but a pretty face with delusions of—”
I backhand him across the face with enough force to send him sprawling. The chains attached to his shackles clang against the stone floor as he hits it.
“Let's establish some ground rules,” I say pleasantly while he spits blood. “You don't speak about her. You don't say her name. Every word that comes out of your mouth about Simone earns you another hour of what's coming.”
Thomas pushes himself up on his elbows, glaring at me with pure hatred. “What are you going to do, beat me up? Kill me? Go ahead. At least I won't have to listen to you defend cette pute—”
I grab him by the throat and lift him off the ground with one hand. His feet dangle uselessly as he claws at my fingers.
“I said…” I growl in his face, letting a hint of my true nature bleed through my voice. “You don't talk about her. And you certainly don't call her a whore.”
When I release him, he collapses to his knees, gasping. This time, he stays quiet.
“Much better.” I turn to survey the collection of medieval torture devices I had commissioned specifically for this occasion. “Now, let me tell you what's going to happen, Thomas. You're going to experience just a fraction of the pain you caused the woman I love.”
I select a pair of thumbscrews, weighing them in my hands. “These were quite popular during the Spanish Inquisition. Designed to crush the bones in your thumbs slowly, one excruciating increment at a time.”
Thomas's breathing becomes rapid and shallow. “Please... I’m sorry! I don't... I never even looked for her after she left. Why are you doing this?”
“Ah, Thomas.” I click my tongue, fitting the device around his right thumb. “You're not sorry for what you did to her. You're sorry you're here now. With me.”
I begin to turn the screw, and his scream echoes through the ziggurat. The sound is music to my ears.
“This is for the first time you hit her,” I explain nonchalantly as I continue applying pressure. The bone begins to crack. “She told me you started small. You were testing her boundaries, weren't you, Thomas?”
“Stop! Please!” Thomas sobs. “I'm sorry! I'm sorry!”
“No, you're not.” I move to his left thumb, fitting the second thumbscrew. “But you will be.”
Over the next few hours, I work through my collection methodically. The rack, which stretches his joints until they pop. The iron maiden, though I'm careful not to pierce any vital organs—yet. The breaking wheel, which snaps bones with satisfying cracks.
Between each device, I tell him exactly what it's for.
This is for making her afraid to leave the apartment. This is for threatening her unborn child. This is for getting her fired so she'd be dependent on you. This is for the stairs.
By the time I reach the pear of anguish—a delightful little device designed to be inserted into various orifices and then expanded—Thomas has long since stopped screaming. He just whimpers now, broken and barely conscious.
“And you haven't stopped abusing women, have you?” I ask as I prepare the device. “Aim tells me you found another woman who looked like her. Young, vulnerable, beautiful.”
Thomas's eyes widen with dread.
“Marie Dubois. Twenty-three years old. An art student. She died in a car accident two years ago.” I lean closer. “Except it wasn't an accident, was it? She wasn't wearing her seatbelt. You were driving, and when she finally worked up the courage to try to leave you...”
I can see the truth in his eyes before he even tries to deny it.
“You killed her,” I continue. “Just like you tried to kill Simone and her baby on those stairs. The only difference is Marie didn't survive.”
“It was an accident,” Thomas whispers. “She grabbed the wheel, I couldn't—”
“Liar.” The word comes out with such force that several of the torture devices rattle on their hooks. “I can smell the deception on you, human. I can taste your guilt.”
This is when I show him my true form.
My transformation is swift. I feel the horns growing on my forehead, hear my wings unfurling behind me. Scales replace skin, my body growing larger and more muscular. I let my eyes ignite with green fire, and when I smile, I know he sees rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Thomas screams, a sound of pure terror that echoes through the ziggurat and makes the audience of demons cheer. They’re gathered around the edges of the throne room, drawn by the smell of blood and suffering, eagerly watching their master work.
“This,” I say, my voice now a rumbling growl, “is what I really am. Asmodeus, Archdemon of Lust. And you, pathetic little human, hurt something that belongs to me.”
I spend the following hours showing Thomas exactly what an enraged archdemon is capable of. The devices I use become increasingly creative—the Judas cradle, the Catherine wheel, the Spanish tickler. Each one is designed to inflict maximum pain.
I save the brazen bull for last.
“This one's special,” I explain as I force Thomas's broken body into the bronze statue shaped like a bull. “It was designed by the ancient Greeks. See, when a fire is lit underneath, the bronze heats up slowly. Very slowly. It can take hours for the temperature inside to become lethal.”
Thomas is too broken to beg anymore. He just stares at me with glassy eyes, his spirit finally completely shattered.
“But you're in Hell now, Thomas,” I continue as I signal for my demons to start the fire. “You don't get to escape. You'll get to experience this pain, over and over, for eternity.”
The fire catches, and Thomas begins to scream again as the bronze slowly heats up around him.
I transform back to my human appearance and take a seat on my throne, watching the show with deep satisfaction. Around me, my demons cheer and laugh, delighting in their master's creativity.
After Thomas finally succumbs to the heat, I send his soul to the Burning Pits, where he'll experience it all again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.
For eternity.
“Feeling better?” Aim asks as I clean the blood from my hands with a silk cloth.
“Immensely. Thank you for your assistance.”
“My pleasure. Literally.” He grins wickedly. He might be playing house with a human woman, but he's still a demon. He still needs to feed.
I nod in farewell, then gather the ether around myself, eager to return to Simone and Leander. As I materialize in our home, I find them both exactly where I left them—in the salon.
“How was your day?” Simone asks without looking up from her book.
“Productive,” I reply, settling beside her on the couch and peering into Leander’s bassinet. “Very productive.”
She glances at me, taking in my satisfied expression, then returns to her reading with a small smile.
“Good,” she says simply.
And it is good. Thomas will spend eternity paying for what he did, while Simone is here, with our son, safe and loved, and with millennia of happiness ahead of us.