Wrath James White presents Poisoning Eros I & II (13 page)

Gloria’s heart pounded. Despite her torment, she’d
grown used to this demon. The thought of facing a new one was
terrifying. A new demon might be even worse.

“Or maybe I’ll just toss you into the lake of fire
and let you burn there for the rest of eternity.”

“But why?” she cried. “I’ve done everything you’ve
asked! I haven’t tried to escape. Why would you want to get rid of
me?”

“Enough talking! Just shut your mouth.”

“You don’t know why I’m here. Do you?”

“It doesn’t matter why you’re here. You
are
here. That’s all that matters.”

“Vlad sold me out. That’s why I’m here—because that
bastard gave me to you. I don’t belong here!”

“Stop talking!”

Gloria twisted and contorted until she was at the
edge of the cage, her fingers wrapped around metal bars searing the
flesh from her fingers. “Listen to me,” she begged. “What if I
really don’t belong here? What if I’ve paid for my sins a thousand
times over? Does that matter at all to you?”

“You’re in
HELL
,” the demon bellowed.
“Nothing matters here!”

And for the first time since Gloria had been cast
into damnation, the demon stormed out, clearly unnerved by what
Gloria had said.

*

The demon returned a short time later and dragged
Gloria out of the cage, chained her to the wall. It retrieved
several of its favorite instruments of torture: the razor-studded
whip, the phallic club mottled with barbed wire, the cat o’ nine
tails made of thick chain.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Gloria said, “but
please don’t send me away. Please.”

The demon raised the whip and drew back its arm, its
massive, bulging muscles flexing. Gloria winced, preparing for the
pain. The moment seemed frozen in time. The agony of waiting for
the attack was almost worse than the attack itself.

The demon dropped its arm. Gloria exhaled, relieved
just for the moment, waiting for the inevitable pain.

“You weren’t lying,” it whispered.

“What?” she gasped, almost tripping over the word.
Had she heard correctly?

“You don’t belong here.” The demon turned away,
clearly thinking, clearly struggling with a decision. It turned
back to her. “But that doesn’t matter. I have to do this. I have no
choice.”

“Yes you do! You don’t belong here either.”

“There is no hope for me, Gloria. And there is no
hope for you.” With that, the demon raised the whip and flayed the
skin from her torso. It switched weapons shortly after. Even
through her pain, Gloria sensed the demon was only going through
motions. The usual joy it took from destroying her flesh was
absent.

As she lay on the floor a writhing, hemorrhaging
pulp, she tried to speak. Words did not come easily from her
crushed jaw and lacerated tongue. Blood gushed from her mouth in a
steady stream. The demon smashed her skull with the club until the
side of her head caved in, until green-gray bits of brain and bone
decorated the weapon like a coat of paint.

This time the demon didn’t throw her back in the
cage. She was left on the floor, free of the chains, and slowly her
body regenerated.

A few hours later, she was able to speak again, but
the demon was asleep on its bed.

“Can you hear me?” she asked. There was no answer.
But she recognized when he was sleeping—recognized after all this
time the signs: the change in the rhythm of its breathing; the
pattern to the rise and fall of its massive chest; the disturbed
twitching when it had one of its frequent nightmares. The demon lay
still, but without signs of sleep.

“I think you can hear me. And maybe you’ll listen
this time.” She waited a moment before continuing, afraid that the
demon would be angry and would lash out. Instead, it remained
silent.

“I’ve done awful things in my life. I’ve sold my
flesh, I’ve experimented with every drug imaginable. I’ve caused
heartache and grief. I’ve done so many things I regret … but I
wasn’t an evil person. The only reason I’m here is because Vlad
sold me out. I’m here because I committed suicide—but the only
reason I did was to save my grandchild. It was either kill her, or
kill myself. I know you probably don’t believe me … there’s no
reason you should. But it’s the truth. I’m trapped here for all
eternity but I shouldn’t be.”

The demon’s head stirred, but it didn’t turn to face
her.

“My daughter Angela’s here as well. And I don’t know
why. I don’t know if she was murdered, or tricked, or what. I can’t
imagine what that child might have done to end up in this place.”
Tears streamed down cheeks that hadn’t completely regenerated. “You
don’t belong here either … do you?”

“It’s not that simple,” the demon said, its back to
her. “I’ve been condemned. There is no hope for me.”

“The animal parts you graft onto your body, the
tattoos and markings … what would happen if you stopped? What would
happen if you refused?”

The demon sat up and faced her. It looked
heartbroken, she thought. Sorrowful. “I was tricked as well. I
followed the wrong path. It’s too late for me.”

“I’ve seen beyond your exterior. It’s not too late.
You can save yourself.”

“‘
It is b
etter
to rule in hell than to serve in heaven’.”

“Do you rule?”

The demon turned its head, almost in shame. “I can’t
reveal myself. I would be destroyed. No place in heaven, no place
in hell. Banished to nothing.”

“It would mean the end of your torment.”

The demon cradled its head in its hands, as if in
anguish. “Stop!”

“Please let me die, then,” she bluffed. “Please
banish me to nothing. There’s no place in heaven or hell for me
either.”

“You don’t know what you ask! You don’t know what
it’s like.”

“Do you?”

“Trust me when I tell you, you’d rather spend an
eternity here.”

Gloria crept over to the demon, and gingerly touched
its cheek. She waited for it to lash out, to break her arm or jaw
or neck. Instead, it lay still. “You don’t want this,” she sighed,
tickling his face with her breath. “You’re torn. You want to be
redeemed.”

The demon looked up at her, tenderness in its
horrible eyes.

“I imagine what you looked like, with gossamer wings
and beautiful features. I imagine what you once were. But I can’t
imagine why you accepted this. It seems cowardly, and you’re no
coward.”

The demon sat up, grabbed her upper arm tightly in
its clawed hand. Blood tricked from beneath its fingers. “You say
too much!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

The demon dragged her down the corridor, her bare
feet scraping on the small stones, her knees ripped skinless when
she tripped. They moved quickly, and she was too terrified to
question his intentions.

They reached the vast cavern that Gloria had
stumbled into a year earlier. It was unchanged, still packed with
shrieking, tortured souls dissolving into a boiling stew of
white-hot effluence, equal parts molten earth and liquefied human
flesh. A bubbling cauldron of misery and anguish, where the guilty
and condemned melted into a noxious steaming sludge, its banks
overflowing with the damned.

“Why are we here?”

“Redemption.”

Gloria panicked. She had hoped to convince the demon
to jump in alone, but now it appeared that he intended to take her
with him.

Perched on a cliff overlooking the endless river of
burning sinners, he clutched her wrists tightly. There was longing
in his eyes.

Gloria hoped she could save herself. “You want to be
an angel again, don’t you?” she babbled. “You want to return to
what you once were. You want to be forgiven.”

She wasn’t sure he’d heard her. He did not so much
as turn in the direction of her voice. Just stared into the lake of
fire.

“He used to love you once. I’ll bet he still does.
He loves what you were, when you were an extension of his will.
When you were beautiful. How can he love you now? This isn’t what
you were meant to be. This isn’t what God made you.”

This time the demon responded with a wince, as if
her words had wounded him. He looked down at his scarred and
mutilated claws and then back across the burning river.

“I bet you’re still beautiful. Deep down. Underneath
all of that tainted flesh, you’re still an angel of the Lord.”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he said, shaking
his head. “I’m not a fool. My decision to return here wasn’t
impulsive—your words aren’t that convincing, Gloria.”

She gasped, swallowed the lump in her throat. “I
wasn’t—”

“All I ever wanted was to be loved by him. As he
loves humanity. I want to know that union of flesh and spirit that
he gave you but denied us …” He spread his vast arms and looked
himself over. His flesh was a tapestry of pain and rage. “And for
that I have become a monster.”

“It wasn’t your fault. This isn’t what you want—you
can be beautiful again.”

“Yes,” the demon whispered. He began to claw the
flesh from his body, slowly at first, digging deep into the muscle
and wrenching it free from the bone, and then with greater and
greater vigor. The demons below stopped what they were doing and
stared up as he raked away the hideous facade of meat and bone in
long bloody strips. Beneath those layers of muscle and fat,
glimpses of pure unblemished spirit began to shine through. A
spirit more radiant than that of any human, like the soft morning
sun shimmering off a placid lake.

The other demons began charging toward the
cliff.

“No!” They sang out with voices all as sweet and
beautiful as windchimes, contrasting with the menagerie of hideous
features that shaped their grotesque bodies. Gloria stepped away
from the demon. Chunks of flesh fell at her feet as he continued to
dissect himself. Blood sprayed from countless lacerations. The
demon stared across the lake, as if transfixed, even as he tore out
handfuls of flesh and cast them aside, now even snapping bone and
pulling it out through the skin to pile at his feet.

The other demons were scaling the cliff, still
crying out in chorus. They had almost reached him when the demon
that had tortured Gloria for months without relent cast himself
into the lake of fire.

Punishment hardens and numbs, it
produces concentration, it sharpens the consciousness of
alienation, it strengthens the power of
resistance.
—
Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Genealogy
of Morals

Straight is the gate, and narrow
is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find
it.

Mathew 7:14,
Holy Bible

Gloria was consumed with a stillness at her core as
the demon/angel sank into the burning river. She felt nothing for
him. Neither the exaltation of revenge nor the sorrow of loss. She
had no feelings to spare, ill or otherwise. Her emotions were now
focused on her daughter.

The cliff was crowded with demons. Gloria could
almost feel the anticipation of the others as they watched the
ancient demon slip further into the depths of the lake of fire, his
flesh burned away, revealing the beautiful angel beneath. Skin a
pale iridescent blue like moonlight. Eyes the color of liquid
night, dark pools reflecting everything like tiny mirrors. Limbs
long and lithe floating on the volcanic current as the flesh
dissolved in large liquefying chunks. The demon/angel’s melodious
screams were terrifying as the last of its hell-born flesh melted
away.

The demons crowded in closer to watch the spectacle,
ignoring Gloria. The demon/angel sank into the flames, and the
other demons sucked in nervous breaths. Their excitement and fear
charged the air like static electricity.

Gloria suddenly realized what the other demons were
waiting so eagerly for. Not to see the angel unveiled, but to see
if the fire would kill him; to see if he could die, if the flames
would consume him.

They wanted to know if they could die as well.

Gloria looked into one hopeful face after another as
they stared expectantly into the lake of fire. There was a
desperation etched on their infernal features. Clearly, they hated
it here, too. These torturers were every bit as captive as their
victims.

The reborn angel pulled himself out of the lake of
fire and stretched his still-burning wings, and the demons’ hopeful
faces fell in disappointment, twisted in rage. There went their
last hope for release from this infernal torment. It had been
better to not know and to still harbor hope for this agony’s end.
But now they knew there was no way out. The revelation that not
even death was possible. They charged down from the cliff and
overwhelmed the angel.

Their claws tore his wings, ripped them from their
moorings in his back. They gouged out his eyes. Flesh exposed,
revealed to the bone. His screams filled the cavern with an
anguished wail that shook the walls and wrenched tears from
Gloria’s eyes.

Gloria’s last sight of the angel, her demon, was of
him being dragged off to the caves. They cursed at him, spit on
him, urinated on him. He was an angel but, like her, he was still
in hell. No longer a demon, now only a victim, one more sinner to
be punished. A former demon who had abandoned the others, had
become a pariah. His sightless eye sockets roamed the cavern; his
elegant angelic fingers pawed the air in terror. For a moment those
sunless pits seemed to focus on her. His mouth formed her name.
Then he was gone and all that remained were his screams echoing
throughout the cavern.

Not all of the demons had left the cavern. Some
milled about, looking frightened and confused by the loss of one of
their own. Then, one by one, they turned toward Gloria.