Chapter 2

Two

W e were a band of holy men and servants crammed into a gig and on horseback, galloping to a destination I did not know the name of. Bishop Fazio rode out with such haste that I barely had to bother with farewells; I told Oliviero not to worry, that I would make things right, and I silently hoped I would never see him again.

The only thing I took besides the clothes on my back was the letter opener I had used to cut the palm of my hand when I'd summoned Asmodeus. Partly out of sentiment, and partly out of necessity; if I was this far gone, then thinking that I wouldn't go so far to defend myself should I be discovered was idiotic.

I would go to any lengths to take Asmodeus' cock again.

"It will take two days to get there," Bishop Fazio told me. His body bumped and shuddered as the gig clattered over the uneven road out of my small town.

The sun set in a red bleed across the horizon, and the colour reminded me of what I did to summon Asmodeus to me. The sticky slickness of blood against my cock. The way it dried fast and uneven. My fingers glided over the healed cut on my palm with a tremor. A thunderous desire clapped through me.

"Pray," Bishop Fazio whispered, mistaking the look on my face. The gig had crates full of the abbey's more dangerous tomes, and they rattled and slid towards me with every bump of the ride. But I wasn't worried—I had no fear of them. It felt like being amongst brethren, in a strange way. As if I was amongst like-minded folk.

I had more camaraderie with these illicit papers than with my flesh and blood brethren.

To pass the time, I did close my eyes, and I did pray, in a way. To It, though, and not to Him. I thought of its body. I thought of its hot breath along my neck. I thought of the way it might bend me over and split me open when I finally walked into Hell.

When we arrived out our destination, I was surprised. Intrinsically I had expected we would be in the city; that Rome would be waiting with its ancient soul, that I would be before the Vatican and limited by its many measures. Instead, we were in another town.

Outside the gig window, the villagers stopped to watch us gallop past. They lowered their scythes and buckets, and then the village itself enveloped us with its warm, bright stone and patchwork tiles. But we sped through this town, too, spilling out the other side, and suddenly a lake greeted us. The gig stopped abruptly. The water was quiet and unmoving. The lake was tucked away behind another lake, set in a volcanic crater. Vineyards spilled out around the blue bastion and up the slope to where the gig had paused, these green fields sprawling over terraces down the natural incline. Reeds swayed gently in the breeze, and the sun felt warm and inviting. A peaceful place. Not the source of hellish information. Not what I needed at all.

I looked at Bishop Fazio. "Here?"

His brow collapsed at my incredulous tone, and he grunted, that familiar, unimpressed expression clouding his face. "Here," he repeated, knocking on the roof of the gig. He looked at me and said nothing more. I could feel the crates pressing in on either side, and under his gaze, the fear I had been long ago trained to feel blared to life like a warning bell, and each toll of it sent shivers into my gut. Immediate claustrophobia clawed at my throat, but I waited in tense silence for the child servant to open the door. A blustery cool breeze swirled into the gig and sent my hair flying every which way, but I breathed it in, let it settle in my lungs.

You are close. Do not grow scared now.

Pleasure. Pleasure so whole and intense I might feel as if I was beyond my body. I might reach a state beyond mortality; beyond humanity; beyond me.

It would be worth it. I wanted—I wanted it.

Despite the shame, despite the little voice in me that screamed and thrashed about, tempting me away from sin, tempting me back to goodness and primness, the cage of the church, the manacles of my rigid faith, I wanted to be used.

I wanted to be fucked.

"Let us go, then," I said, and left the gig.

By some holy miracle, we spoke to no one, and no one spoke to us. The townsfolk went to great strides to avoid us altogether, fleeing from our line of sight as if we were an incoming plague, and I wondered what it would mean to them to see men in the draperies and trappings of holy servants. I imagined anywhere else, how the people would have celebrated. How we might have been welcomed. But here, they seemed to see us and shrink away.

We became a procession weaving our way down that slope towards the still lake at the bottom. Marching single file, I trailed behind Bishop Fazio, who, despite walking slowly and clumsily, seemed to be enjoying the walk.

"What do you know of the myths, Don Alessandro?" he called back to me. The servants around us led us on, clearing a path, showing us where to walk to avoid becoming trapped in the tangling vineyard paths.

I ducked my head. "I do not engage with such pagan fantasies," I said—which was true. I didn't know much of anything, except where it related to Christianity; how God found the Romans, and the tensions that ensued.

"Do you know where we are?"

"No," I said truthfully.

"Naples. The bay of Naples."

A name even I knew, for the volcano Vesuvius, and for the towns it destroyed. "Why here?" I asked. Pleaded, really—I wanted no more of these games, no more of these questions. I wanted—Asmodeus.

But the bishop gave me no answer. We trudged down the rest of the slope in silence. At the bottom, the lake rippled out, peaceful and unmoving. Nothing appeared wrong with it. Ducks floated on the surface. A warm breeze moved through the air, and the whole scene seemed cast in a warm-green haze; it felt, in every way, like summer.

Bishop Fazio glanced at me. "Do not be fooled by its peace," he said. "I have brought you to Lake Avernus."

The name meant nothing to me, and I shook my head. The bishop nodded and craned his neck back at the sky. "The myths say it is an entrance to the underworld. That here, in a cave—they call it the ‘Cave of the Sibyl'—lies a gate to Hell itself."

He spoke calmly, but with a disdainful edge to his voice, and he would not meet my gaze as he said it. He spoke looking up at the sky, like God might be watching, like he had to prove to the Holy Father he meant no harm speaking so freely of pagan myths and hell gates.

But my heart began to race. I had to stop myself from laughing. I thought: could it be so easy? But why on earth would the bishop be leading me here?

He caught the look on my face and tutted. "Fear not. The locals still avoid it—they do not approach the cave, and certainly do not enter it."

"Enter it?" I said, glancing at the lake, but he shook his head and stalked onwards. For another five odd minutes we walked, crushing through underbrush and overgrown grass, and hidden beneath the mess of foliage sat the yawning chasm of a cave mouth.

My heart jolted.

I looked to the bishop but received no further relief from him. His brow furrowed and he gave the order—not for just anyone to walk inside, but for he and I to go.

I glanced back at the servants, feeling exposed and naked without them. How silly. I craved this moment, and yet. . .

"Come," the bishop said.

I understood belatedly as we pushed inside. The light disappeared, swallowed by the infernal dark, and whether Bishop Fazio believed it or not, I felt something in my soul shiver. As if the mortal part of me could sense the change, a tingling pain began to throb in my forehead, and the longer we pushed forward into the dark cavern, the less I felt connected to myself. He struck something against the stone wall and a blaze of firelight sparked to life. Soft orange light pulsed over the walls. Water dripped from the walls and a dank smell permeated from the ground, and then abruptly I was walking over a sheet of waxed canvas—expensive and fairly new.

The bishop kept walking, but I stopped. He reached down and dragged another canvas tarp from its place, and as the light spilled over the central cavern I saw it all revealed: huge chests stacked upon another and bolted with heavy locks.

My heart thudded.

"We will put them here," Bishop Fazio said.

It wasn't enough just to dump those now useless tomes in this graveyard. I needed to find that particular tome, the one that could tear this world asunder and give me what I wanted.

"It's not. . ." I started.

The bishop turned. "What?"

"It's not enough, Bishop Fazio. You. . .I am sorry, but you must realise that."

He raised the torch to me. The motion meant shadows danced over his face, pooling deeply in the trenches beneath his eyes.

"You think this is not enough?"

"I know it. These should be. . . the tome to open the Gates of Hell shouldn't be here, in front of a Gate to Hell!"

"It is just a myth, Don Alessandro." His voice took on a dangerous edge. "Surely you do not believe this pagan nonsense? It is the best place to hide things. No locals come searching here."

I was surprised, in a way, by his surety. I wanted him to be swayed, to be frightened. I ended up saying, "Let us take it to Rome. To the Vatican. Let us be sure and make it safe."

He scanned my face and sighed, but eventually nodded. Relief flooded me. The bishop placed the torch in a sconce I hadn't noticed and dusted off his hands away from his holy robe.

"That one," he said, pointing to one of the chest. "Haul it out for me, would you? You are still so young. My body cannot do it."

I tried to keep the eagerness from my step as I launched forward and hefted the chest out with all my might. My muscles strained and that good ache started up in my joints, and it reminded me of waking the day after Asmodeus was done with me, and feeling the pressure in my spine, the jolt in my neck, and throbbing ache in my hole.

The bishop moved his robe to the side and revealed a ring set of keys, which he unclipped and handed to me.

"Wrap it up in this," he murmured, pulling a cloth from somewhere unseen. "I had thought. . ." he shook his head. "You are right. I should have listened to my instincts earlier."

I didn't know what he meant, not really, but I took the cloth readily anyway and hesitated on my knees before the chest. Very carefully, I put the key in the slot. I breathed in, found a holy reverence in that tension, and put my intention into the unlocking of the chest.

This is a deliberate sundering. Here marks my complete betrayal for my brethren, for humanity, for this world. I want Asmodeus more than I want salvation. Let it be known.

The air shifted as I opened that chest, and its creak sounded like a waking groan as I inhaled the stuffy, long stagnant air that had lived inside it for years. I didn't need the bishop to tell me which one it was. Something happened in my vision, and I could see nothing else but that old, leather-bound tome, as if a vignette had fallen around me and tunnelled my focus towards it.

The tome itself was nothing special. The paper had a thick quality to it, closer to something woven together than what I was used to. The cover was a supple leather, grey and stained, and no title had been embossed onto the manuscript, and yet I knew.

The bishop's breath shuddered. "How did you. . . "

"It is my purpose," I said, clutching it in my hands. I tried and failed to keep to the shake from my voice.

He misheard me, misunderstood—like this was God warning me of evil, entrusting me to keep this tome safe. But the hot pull in my stomach, a warmth expanding behind my belly button, proved to me this was the work of something greater.

I put faith in that feeling and opened the manuscript. Even though the light was dull, I squinted hard to spy the words unfurling on the page. The script was stilted and small, written in a rushed hand?—

Tuum desiderium probare debes, ut ianuam vorantem inferi aperias .

Effunde cruorem, et sparsa in moenia tendit.

Clama voce desiderii tui.

Mortalem linque vitam.

Which meant:

You must prove your desire in order to open the yawning gate of hell.

Pour out the blood, and let it be spread onto the walls.

Call out with the voice of your desire.

Give up your mortal life.

I looked up at the bishop. In the light cast by the flame, that flickering, undulating warmth, I must have looked deranged. A man on the verge of falling apart from his hunger. I felt ravenous. Desire scorched my insides; you understand, don't you? You understand why I had to do what I did. There was only one way to open the gates to hell, and the path had been laid out in front of me. So, too, had Bishop Fazio—who had led me here, like a sheep leading itself to the slaughter. I felt the weight of the letter opener at my side, and I stood so abruptly I spooked him.

"What. . .what are you doing?" he whispered.

I shook my head as I wrapped the tome in the cloth he had given me, held it gingerly, and passed it him. He took it from me, grip firm but shaking.

"It frightens me," I said, which wasn't wholly untrue. He still—trusted me. I know this because of the way his lip curled up and he gnawed at his lip, a deep noise blooming in his chest.

"As it should," he said, and he made to reach back for the torch. "Close the chest. We will retrieve and add your abbey's tomes to this collection, and then we will?—"

He had his back turned, and this was the kindness I could allow him. The letter opener fit well in my hand. Its weight felt correct, a tool I was meant to have and hold and use. I brought it to the side of Bishop Fazio's neck and, like the spirit had moved me, sent its dull edge into his neck.

For a moment, I couldn't be sure what had happened. He dropped the torch, and all light was snuffed out. Only the shocked gurgles told me I had been successful. Weakly he clawed at the air around my head, attempting to reach back, to grip me, to stop me, but it was too late for him. He was dying, and I—I was on the edge of becoming something greater.

The emotion in me then felt flat, as if all the fear and worry I might have had about ending the bishop's life had been trapped behind some foggy layer in my heart. I had only the excitement, the urge to keep moving. Shucking the top layer of my robe, I lowered myself to the ground, where the bishop's blood had begun to pool and congeal with the dirt in a bloody mud. I coated my hands with it and stood, smearing it over the walls, returning to the still-twitching body to collect more and coating the other side. When it was done I went to my knees, facing the wall where the church's most illicit tomes had lived for years untouched, and I spoke out into the darkness:

"I want to open the gates of hell!"

Nothing. Nothing happened. I flushed, overwhelmed by the stupidity, by the insanity of what I was doing. The mortal in me floundered. I had committed a cardinal sin. I had killed, killed with glee, more willingly than I had done most anything in my life.

Nothing was happening. I had nothing to show for my actions. Bishop Fazio's blood was mixing with the dirt; I couldn't look at him, lest I lost my nerve. Fear pricked at my skin. The fear of being caught, of being punished here by the church, and not by some demonic presence. Not my body pushed to its limits, stretched and wanting.

I pushed my hair back, staining my forehead with blood in my attempt to wipe away sweat, and shouted: "Open!"

Nothing.

My stomach twisted. Stupid. You are a stupid man.

Bile crawled up my throat as I thrashed about in the dirt. Dust rose in clouds around me.

"Open the gates to hell!" I screamed. "Open them now!"

My voice returned to me in echoes, rebounding off the cave walls. Each time my voice came back tinny and thin, weaker with its desire, until it faded away, eaten by the cave. I was left with the stark reality of how pathetic I had become, and I spread my hands in the dirt, trying and failing to maintain my sanity.

Control your breathing. Trust in that demon: trust in how it wants to make you squirm. This waiting was a torment in its own right, an ultimate drawing out of my desire, and I believed Asmodeus would revel in seeing me like that, on my knees, so desperate for it that I had killed a man, a vessel of faith, a final nail in the coffin of my priesthood.

But I had forsaken God wholly. Why was the demon not hearing me? Why was I being forsaken in return?

"Please! Asmodeus, please!"

Desperate, embarrassing—my voice cracked. Down the cave vestibule I heard the answering question, shrill and faint. " Bishop Fazio? Is everything alright?"

I whipped my head back to the blood-smeared wall and tried again. "Open. Open. I want it. I will give everything up! Please!"

And still nothing happened. Was that—were those footfalls? I strained to hear the crunch of dirt underfoot, and upon hearing it began to panic.

They were coming. The servants of the bishop and the church and of God would find me and the bishop's corpse like this, and that would be the end. I would never have a chance again. I would never see Asmodeus—I would never be touched like that again.

No, no.

It hit me quickly.

The tome had told me what to do in no uncertain terms.

Give up your mortal life.

Fear burned hotly in me, but desire burned hotter. I crawled over to the bishop's body and wrenched the letter opener from his neck. A spray of arterial blood coated my hand in warmth, and a primal terror sparked in me. By this point though I had been so scared for so long that I ascended beyond the grip of my terror and landed somewhere close to apathy. Or rather, a singular focus drove me, and all distracting emotion seeped away until I was a vessel for my purpose.

I pulled back towards the centre of the cavern, unsure what to do with myself. Unsure now that I knew what I truly had to do. But without fear, it became easier to think.

I imagined opening my guts. I remembered the feeling of Asmodeus inside me and the way those claws pressed against the skin of my stomach. How easily it could have punctured me, then. How easy it would have been to spill my internal organs, to have them cascade out in a steaming, looping mess across the ground. Asmodeus would have used that new hole, I had no doubt; it did not care for me, not in the slightest. And this lack of care—this true apathy, which sat in such stark contrast to God's divine and endless love—aroused me more than anything else.

It wouldn't care that I had killed myself to get back to its embrace. I would call be pathetic. It would humiliate me; it would laugh at my true and inescapable desperation. But I would do it anyway. I had to.

I raised the letter opener to my heart, pulled back, and?—

A rumbling sounded just as I pierced the side of my chest.

Panicked, I drew the blade back quickly and dropped it. I stood in a rush. Blood trickled down my chest, not enough to worry about but enough that the wound stung, the area around it throbbing.

The cave shook heavily. Dust and rocks dislodged and cascaded, and the ground shook. I was flung to the side, cheek scraping against the wall. Behind me, shouts and screams reverberated through the tunnel, and in an act of unholy providence, the mouth of this chamber disappeared in a matter of seconds. Rocks and rubble collapsed and closed it up perfectly, entombing me in my decision. I turned back to the cave wall, which had ruptured. Cracks sundered the rock wall apart. From between the fissures, the smell of sulphur wafted out; my mind jolted towards it, encouraged by the reminder of Asmodeus, the smell of it, and how entwined with my own arousal the scent had become.

Heat, a pulsing light, and a deep thrumming sound grew in the now suffocating chamber. I pushed off the wall as the shaking stabilised, and though dust and small rocks still rained down, I got close enough to feel the scorch of heat against my cheeks. The smell of sulphur was strong, and the fumes were suddenly overpowering. Every inhale singed my throat, and even my lungs began to feel impossibly tight. When my vision blurred and a great weightlessness spun through my head, I realised I was dying.

But there was nothing to be done. A second later, my vision went. The depths of unconsciousness claimed me.