with a wooden bucket come to a boiling river.
“Look what she does,” the demon shrieked in (mock) surprise.
She lowered her bucket into the undulating crimson, and then set it down on the gray bank. She lowered her face into it and loudly slurped its contents.
“See, my son, what a great thing she does! She drinks all the foul deeds of mankind, for they boil in this great river. There is more to her sacrifice than meets the eye, and she does it for no one to see but her lord, her demon.”
Behind her appeared the largest, most muscular demon the satyr had seen yet, at least twice the size of Red. He glittered entirely of gold: his skin, hair and eyes. And he must have been pleased, for he snatched the woman up by her head and began beating her against an oaken tree thousands and thousands of times, without pause.
In another time, the demon showed his son a small cave. “Look at the theater and see the drama. Only one play is performed here, and the beings call it, ‘The Single Reverent Thing.’ Look within, my son, and tell me what you see.”
The satyr did so. “A young lad is walking down a street on a sunny day. From his right a bullet enters his brain, causing a huge hole to appear in the left side of his head. He falls to the ground and is still. Later he awakens and realizes the wound has healed.
“The lad wonders at the meaning of all that when a voice rings out above him. ‘Never tell anyone what happened to you today. Make it our secret and I will see to it that you have absolute dominion over all creatures, everywhere.’ The lad agrees.”
“Yesss, my son,” the demon whispered, red stains flowing down his blistered cheeks. “It is the only history lesson any of us here cares to learn. You would be wise to do likewise.”
In his ecstasy, the demon threw the satyr to the broiling floor and coupled with him for three thousand generations.
“My son,” the demon shrieked, “behold, another level!”
The environment flickered around them. When it righted itself, they were in a burning forest.
“Let me mount you in my joy. Let your jaws crack for screaming as I oppress my own kin.”
And he did. The satyr was sexually dominated within the forest of yellow flame-trees for a [thousand parts of] time.
On one of the rare occasions that Professor Delaney spoke, she asked the old man, “In your fiction, do you really propose that there is religion in Hell, uh, I mean, Infernus?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “But, only because it amuses me. Just a trifle to amuse others, not that there are such things, really.”
“Oh,” she said, momentarily satisfied. She crossed her hands in front of her, holding her wrists, and waited for him to continue.
“In fact,” he said, realizing there might be a need for clarification, “if I had followed the Biblical model, the book would have been boring. How could I have made an exciting adventure about screaming in the dark, for that is the Biblical model. No, I wanted my version to be exciting and fun.”
“It’s hardly ‘fun’!” said a student.
He looked to the rear of the class but could not determine who was speaking. He laughed. “And there will be more of religion. Actually, it’s coming up in the very next chapter. I have put hate cults there. They are eternally punished, also. For no other reason than it amused me.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“TIN BELLS”
“Have you ever thought,” said the demon, “that there are laws here?”
“No,” the satyr said.
“When you dreamed that you lived on a world, and had a day-to-day existence, all creatures thought a being existed that was above all else. He was known as a creator or
The demon’s sockets glittered and filled to overflow with black blood.
“You mean the… ” the satyr said.
“Yessss,” hissed his father, “sssssay the NAME!” He coaxed him and laughed.
“It’s… ” The satyr gritted his teeth and they cracked in the heat. “Uhhhh, his name is…” The satyr pulled on his lips and tore his skin from his face.
Red laughed until his sides actually split.
The satyr kept ripping the flesh from his own face.
“My son,” sighed the demon while holding the satyr’s head as he roped his entire member into the throat. “Do you know what the most evil thing in all the omniverse is?”
The satyr could not reply.
“It is
“And it is so,” the demon said.
And it was.
“You must become all things, truly,” Red said later, after he had spit the son out of his mouth.
“My beloved,” Red said, “I will give you another gift only because of my great love for you.”
He ran a finger over the hot teeth of his son and removed his canines. Two long bloody fangs emerged through the gums.
“You have now become a
At this, the demon grew excited and split the satyr’s cheeks with the snap of his fingers on both hands. He lovingly watched the blood flow down his face.
“My son!” shrieked the demon as he ran his fingers through the vampire satyr’s exposed brain. “I need to show you a vision of the last days (that were) of Earth. It is a hotel in The Decadent City.”
The satyr saw in his head (the demon played among the hot fibers of his brain as if it were an instrument) the most opulent hotel of all time. As he imagined that he was approaching the front of the hotel, he saw marble columns wrapped in gold overlay. As he went through the great hall, he saw satin curtains and lamps made of pure silver hanging from the ceiling forty feet above the ground. It was the last, great hotel.
The corridor was well-hung with what seemed to be silk tapestries, all done in the deepest reds and browns. The walls were liberally decorated with gold torches.
A doorman, sharply dressed in a suit with finely pressed edges, stood waiting before a door. Another man approached and showed him a card key.
“What is your pleasure, this evening, my lord?” the doorman asked.
“I’d love to see you in my chambers in five minutes in red briefs,” the man stated matter-of-factly.
“Your pleasure is my desire, my lord.”
The vision ended.
“Alas, my son,” the demon said, “the last decade of man’s mortal age was his best. You could never have
