29. Virgil #2
But Musa isn't here. He has never walked these gilded halls. Never traversed the miseries of hell. Never witnessed the thousand ways a soul can break.
He has always been beautifully free.
And I’ve never before truly realized that when Satan used his skin to torment me.
It is a gift, this realization. One I suspect that somehow, Dante has given me. Just as he gifted me the preservation of Musa's precious few memories. Just as he gifted me his home, his vulnerabilities, his protection.
Something shakes loose in me. Something I believe I've held tight for a very, very long time.
For the first time in centuries, maybe longer, a weight lifts from my shoulders. I stand straighter as I greet the man wearing a mask that never belonged to Musa.
"My Lord." I cross my hand over my chest and give a deep nod. "Salvē."
There's a long, unusual pause. He stares at me, the expression so different from Musa's that he doesn't appear like my lost partner at all anymore.
Satan frowns and shifts his appearance.
This time, he chooses his favored form of recent decades.
He's indeterminate of age—old enough to carry authority, young enough to still enjoy wielding it.
His face is handsome in a way that edges toward forgettable: symmetrical, composed, unremarkable at a distance and compelling up close.
His hair is dark, worn neatly, his beard precisely groomed.
He wears a tailored coat in dark velvet, cut in a style that could belong to several centuries at once.
"Virgil," he finally speaks, his voice a measured, cultivated baritone, warm and restrained in equal measure. "It took me some time to find you."
"I suppose I've been evasive. I regret any imposition."
He fixes me with an unwavering gaze. "I'd offer you tea, or something stronger, but..." He temples his fingers together and shrugs, the gesture almost sympathetic.
I don't honor the barb with a response.
For a moment, something shifts in his expression. The performance flickers. Beneath the urbane host, beneath the ancient god playing at civilization, I glimpse something I haven't seen in centuries.
"It grows tedious, you know." His voice is quieter now. Almost conversational. "Eternity. The endless parade of broken souls and hungry demons. None of them think, Virgil. None of them create. They only consume, crave, and beg. Even the best of those I’ve chosen grow dull.”
Something flickers behind his eyes, not regret, exactly, but its shadow.
“I had equals once. I made certain I wouldn’t have that problem again.
A wise move on my part, but at times I long for a mind capable of matching my own.
” He tilts his head, studying me. "You were a poet once.
You understand what it is to need an audience worthy of the work. "
I say nothing.
"We could have been allies. We still could be.
" The words carry no threat. That's what makes them unsettling.
"I've never asked you to feed. Never demanded you become what the others are.
I simply... enjoy your presence. Your resistance, even.
It's the closest thing to genuine conversation this realm offers. "
The loneliness beneath the words is vast. Ancient. For one breath, I almost feel it.
"Friendship requires shared values, my Lord," I say simply.
I believe him, as much as he believes himself.
He chose me because he found me compelling, a mind that might keep pace with his, a voice that might amuse.
I've simply had the unfortunate habit of clinging to principles he long ago discarded.
Poor friends we've made, though we've been companions of this realm longer than most civilizations have stood.
His mask slides back into place, smooth as water closing over a stone. "Well then," he says. "If your position hasn't changed, I have a request I'd make of you."
"Yes, my Lord."
He reaches for a crystal decanter on his desk, removes the stopper with a soft clink.
"I do not wish for you to speak with our Mr. Dante during dinner.
" Before I can respond, he raises a hand, nails perfectly polished, trimmed, smoothed, and oiled.
"You see, I've come to understand there’s an attachment between you two.
And those words of yours, they do tend to be rather... persuasive, do they not?"
He smiles as though we actually are companions. As though he's both jesting with me and complimenting me in turn, in the way some men do when they cannot look a friend in the eye and simply say I care for you.
But we are not friends, despite his desires. And he is doing neither of those things.
I've been toyed with by him for so long that I can already see the threads he's weaving, but no way out of the web.
"You value fairness, my Lord," I say carefully. "Why should you fear one contrary voice if you wish for an honest verdict?"
He chuckles, pours amber liquid into a crystal glass, and takes a slow swallow. He closes his eyes, sighs slightly at the pleasure of it, then replaces the glass on the desk with a soft clink.
"He is biased already, having heard your voice for—how long would you say he's been in this realm, Virgil?"
He says my name with teeth, and I wait a moment before responding, acknowledging that I understand a tug on my leash when I feel one.
"Perhaps a dozen years."
"A dozen years, and he's already ready for the mountain. A wonder." He runs his thumb along the crystal etchings of his glass. "You still impress me at times, Virgil. Even after all our years together."
I want to say it wasn't me that moved him so quickly through his loops, the bogs, the Forest, the realm. It was him.
But I also understand that is precisely the trap I'm being ushered into.
"I aim to serve," I say flatly.
Satan lifts dangerous eyes to meet mine. "I've heard that this particular soul has... let us say, captured your attention in a manner no other has." He pauses, lets the silence stretch. "Why then do you continue helping him leave?"
I shrug, affecting boredom, though he doesn't accept that performance. Never has.
"It is what I do. Guide. It gives me some manner of passing my hours."
His eyes harden to black diamonds. He's offered me countless opportunities over the centuries—enticements to cure my boredom, attractions to snare me, webs to enmesh. I've refused every single one.
"But this one," he presses. "This soul, in particular, has captured you?"
"I suppose he's sparked an interest."
Satan's smile slides into place, the kind that gets men elected, that promises worlds they never intend to deliver.
“I imagine his mind must be fascinating, then. So why don't we keep him?"
"He doesn't wish to stay," I say simply.
"If that remains the case after my offer, then he is free to go.
You know I'm no brute, Virgil." Tug. His voice is measured but my name in his mouth pulls tight against whatever tether binds me to him.
"In that vein, I'm here to warn you. Speak during this dinner, and I will remove your voice.
" He pauses for emphasis. "And perhaps I may forget to return it when this is all over. I do have a great deal on my mind.” He regards me with calculated interest. "Are we understood? "
I freeze.
How many millions of times have I thought that I am nothing but words?
If he takes that from me...
I swallow, struggling to produce the very thing he threatens to steal.
"Yes, my Lord."
My answer emerges calm. Certain.
He chuckles, believing he's found my weakness.
Or so he thinks.
For if it comes to Dante's salvation, I will sacrifice whatever I must to grant him that. My voice certainly included. I've already given up so much more than sound. What is silence compared to watching him get swallowed by hell? Ensnared in my same mistakes?
"Then let's go to dinner," Satan says, standing smoothly from his chair. "I think formal attire suits the occasion tonight. Would you agree?"
"I always appreciate an opportunity to dress well."
He smiles at this, a genuine flicker of amusement, which somehow makes it worse.
Then he leads the way out of the office, and I follow in his wake, voiceless already in every way that matters.