"I'm not lying!"

She smiled. "I have no need to prove my point, but it entertains me to do so. Doff your robe again, stand before me, and tell me that you do not wish to partake of my body."

Parry did not answer, aware that he could not pa.s.s such a test.

"But you know that my body is infernally crafted to evoke the basest l.u.s.t in a mortal man," she continued. "You know the route you are headed when what rises is not your soul but your member."

"d.a.m.n you!"

"Thank you."

"Go away!" he said, closing his eyes. "Why, when you really do not want me to?" Her lips brushed against his.

"Please, demoness, leave me!"

"That's better, Parry. I will return when you retire for the night. I think you need time to yourself to adjust to your new reality."

He remained with his eyes screwed closed. She did not speak again. Finally he opened his eyes, and verified that she was gone.

"Jolie?"

But Jolie did not appear. He knew why: she had been banished by his accession to evil. She knew what he refused to acknowledge: the demoness had aroused his l.u.s.t, and he could not free himself of it.

Was it too late to leave the Order? He walked to the door-and stopped, unable even to start toward the Abbot's office. He dropped to his knees and prayed. "Oh, Lord, grant me release from this bondage!"

"Now that would be foolish, wouldn't it."

Parry glanced up, startled. There hovered a small black cloud within the chamber. As he gazed at it, it sprouted horns.

"No!" Parry hurled himself away.

The cloud laughed and dissipated.

The wrong Lord had answered his prayer. His orientation had changed; he now answered to Lucifer instead of to G.o.d.

How could such a calamity have happened? He had labored so hard for the cause of G.o.d! How could a single episode of love with his wife bring such ruin on him?

But he knew the answer. He was a friar, and celibate. What Jolie had offered had been sinful, and had his faith been true, he would have rejected it. His faith had not been true, and this was the proof of it. His inability to give up his position as an important Dominican was another proof: he had succ.u.mbed to worldliness in the guise of holiness.

Still, he did not regard himself as an evil man, merely as a fallible one. Granted that he fell short of perfection, he could still do much good, just as a tree that was rotting at the core could still cast good shade and bear good fruit. Perhaps, if he continued his good works, he would in time recover his prior orientation and rejoin G.o.d. He felt better. He went about his business of the day, laboring for a cause that he knew was good even if he himself was not.

But when he sought to retire at night, the demoness was in his bed, as warm and luscious as ever. "Are you ready to enjoy me now, lover?" she inquired.

"No!"

"Your body says otherwise."

"My body lies!"

"Your mind lies, not your body. That's lovely."

"May G.o.d banish you, temptress!"

"Your terminology has no power when not backed by faith."

Obviously that was true, for she remained warm against him. "How can I make you go?"

"You really do not need to ask again, Parry. You know the answer."

"But you always return!"

"That is the nature of evil."

"I beg of-"

She silenced him with a hand on his lips. "Parry, we must end this charade. Do the forthright thing: accept your situation, and get on with it. I return so insistently only because you desire me to."

"That's-"

"The truth." She embraced him and kissed him, ardently.

"No!" he exclaimed when able to wrench his face free.

"Would it help if I took the initiative?"

"I-" He was unable to answer.

"That is a useful device for reticent maidens, who are constrained not to confess the base desires they feel. They would have it that they are powerless to prevent being ravished, but that is a legal fiction. We are experienced in all manner of fictions, in the Kingdom of Lies." She stroked her body against his.

Parry knew he should protest, but he did not.

She proceeded to make love to him, while he lay almost unmoving. Technically, she was doing it, not he-but he could no longer deny that she was doing what he desired.

She brought him to a phenomenal climax, enhanced by its great guilt. "I had hoped you would be more of a challenge," she remarked sardonically as he was in the throes of it. Then, as he spasmed, she faded away, leaving him to foul himself.

That, of course, was the finishing touch. He felt completely dirty and ashamed. "Never again!" he swore-but knew even then that he swore falsely.

In the course of the night, he succeeded in coming to terms with himself: the demoness had evoked his l.u.s.t, and there was no staying it. It was better simply to indulge, leaving his mind clear for better things.

She reappeared at dawn. "Well, Parry, ready for the day's mischief?" she inquired brightly. The sight of her evoked his l.u.s.t as if it had never been sated.

That, too, it seemed, was an attribute of the gifts of Lucifer: temporary satisfaction, lasting guilt. "Yes," he said tightly, and stepped toward her.

But she became smoke in his arms. "No, no, Parry," the smoke spoke, as to an errant child. "I gave you a mere sample. To obtain more, you must please me, and if you please me sufficiently, I may even remain throughout the night. Would you like that?"

He was done with lying. "Yes. How may I please you?"

"By doing a significant deed of evil in the name of good. As it happens, there is a case just now coming up: a heretic who refuses to recant. You must make him recant."

"But that will be a good deed!" he protested.

"For him, perhaps; not for you."

Parry found that confusing. He shrugged, and set about making the journey. He rode the donkey, as before, but now it was Lilah, not Jolie, who accompanied him. She chatted freely about all things evil, and it was amazing the breadth of things that included. She seemed to know all the gossip about prominent figures, and she clarified with quite believable precision exactly which aspects of it were true. Parry was disgusted with himself for listening, but nonetheless fascinated. Thus he was immersed in news of evil throughout, and knew this was further corrupting him, but he could not resist it. Each time he thought to reject it, Lilah's body became naked and suggestive, and his l.u.s.t rose up, and he knew he had to have her no matter what the cost. He also knew that that cost would be ever-greater evil on his soul, leading inevitably to eternal d.a.m.nation. That appalled him-but he had tasted her wares, so to speak, and now was addicted.

That was the ugliest part of it: he knew exactly what was happening, yet could not wrench himself out of the process. Lucifer's minion was doing her job perfectly.

The heretic had pled innocent, and no amount of persuasion had been effective. That was why Parry had been a.s.signed. To this extent this was a normal case.

"But fair reasoning will not sway this one," Lilah said with satisfaction. "Neither will brutal torture; he will die first, and be lost to your former master. You must of course prevent that."

"Why do you care?" Parry demanded, knowing the nature of her answer but compelled to ask anyway. If there could be some way out, some way to please her without further d.a.m.ning himself... but he knew there was not, for her purpose was to d.a.m.n him.

Parry went into the dungeon and interviewed the captive. The man showed the ravages of his interrogation; he could no longer stand or feed himself, for the bones of his limbs had been dislocated by the procedure known as squa.s.sation: he had been hauled up on a pulley, with weights attached to his legs, and then dropped suddenly so that his feet did not quite reach the floor. This had been done three times, destroying his limbs, and it was obvious that he would not survive another. Despite the excruciating pain of this, he had refused to implicate any other heretics. This was a problem, because the local authorities were running out of heretics, and needed the revenues generated by continued confiscations of properties.

Parry shook his head. He had helped start the Inquisition in order to purify the faith, not to extort wealth from victims. The secular authorities might have base motives, but the Inquisition had only lofty motives: the salvation of the individual's immortal soul, and the purity of the faith.

"But you will help change that," Lilah said. "The desire for wealth is one of my Lord's princ.i.p.al tools in the corruption of men. So you must get this man to implicate others, that the chain of extortion may continue and grow, in the end corrupting the Church as well as the individuals."

The corruption of the Inquisition itself! Parry considered that, and balked. "Demoness, you demand too much! I'll not turn against-"

He broke off, for she was floating in the air, on her back, and spreading her legs toward him. His l.u.s.t surged up like a living ent.i.ty, paced by his guilt. d.a.m.n her!

He would have to make the prisoner talk. That would maintain his reputation as the interrogator of last resort, and would bring him the favor of the demoness. He hated both aspects of it, but knew he would do it.

But how could he persuade a man who was ready to die under torture rather than implicate another person? That was the problem that had brought him here.

"Remember," Lilah reminded him. "You are no longer constrained by ethical considerations. My Lord believes in effectiveness, and therefore can accomplish things your prior lord cannot."

Parry sighed. He knew what would do it. The heretic had a small daughter. He did not want her to suffer; that was the source of his stamina.

But corrupt as he was becoming. Parry would not torture an innocent child! That might make the heretic give evidence, but would be no credit on the Church or himself.

"Remember, my Lord is the master of deceit," Lilah said.

She was giving him strong hints, but leaving him to figure it out for himself, because corruption had to come from within. Now Parry realized what she was driving at. Truly, it was infernal-but it would surely work. And it seemed he had no choice, if he was not to give up what he could not give up. For the love of evil, he was d.a.m.ning himself.

"Can you a.s.sume the form of the heretic's child?" he asked her.

"I though you would never ask!" she said brightly. She became the child: a string-haired waif of about five years, with big gray eyes and a tattered dress and a straw doll.

Parry took the waif's hand and led her into the chamber where the heretic lay. "Pere!" she cried.

The man's sunken eyes opened. He gave a start of recognition.

The waif took a step toward him, but Parry held her back. "Silence, brat!" he snapped. "You will have your chance to talk soon enough."

She began to cry. The prisoner gazed at her with alarm. "You would not-?"

Parry reached down with his free hand and grasped the waif by the hair. He hauled her up off the floor while she screamed piercingly. He glanced meaningfully at the ropes and pulley at the far end of the chamber.

The prisoner capitulated. "I will give the names!"

Parry smiled with cruel beneficence. "May G.o.d have mercy on your soul." And on his own, he thought. But there was little chance of that.

The rest was routine. Parry escorted the mocked-up child out, leaving the local personnel to take down the information. The heretic would be required to sign a statement (they had been careful not to break the fingers of his right hand) that he had given testimony freely and without duress, and to testify against those he implicated as companion heretics. Then he would be allowed to retire to prison for the remainder of his life. His family would not be bothered, once their property had been taken. His soul had after all been saved for eternity.

Parry received his reward in full measure; the demoness was pleased with him, and she had ways of expressing that pleasure that transcended the powers of mortal women. She gave him the semblance of youth, and the vigor and potency of youth, and she became a succession of luscious young women who availed themselves freely of that potency with ever-increasing imagination. He found himself doing things with her whose very description would have evoked the Index, and that no decent person would have cared to imagine.

But the knowledge of the cruel trick he had played on the heretic haunted him; truly, this was a device he would never have thought of, let alone practiced, in his day of serving G.o.d. Worse, he knew that he would use similar devices in the future, for the demoness had as cruel a hold on him as he had on the first heretic: illusion that cut through to the core.

Five years pa.s.sed in this slow descent. Parry never sought personal aggrandizement, preferring as he had before to be the power behind the power, but in private he wielded critical control over the Inquisition in France, the Holy Roman Empire and Italy. Under his direction, money became the engine that drove the Inquisition; the spoils were the estates of the accused heretics, and the requirement that each confessed heretic implicate others guaranteed that the proceeds would be ongoing. The Inquisition was now on a sound financial footing-and well on the way to ultimate corruption.

With each successful case, Lilah became more ardent. Parry was becoming older, but he felt younger, because of the magic of the demoness and his infatuation with her. A billy goat seemed to have taken up residence within him, so that in those moments when he could not be fornicating with her, his mind remained on the subject. He suspected that this was an enchantment placed on him, to greatly enhance his l.u.s.t, but he did not care. He lived to indulge it.

The first part of Lucifer's vengeance was complete: the man who had done most to organize the Inquisition as a force for good had now reorganized it as a force for evil. That evil was self-sustaining; it would feed on itself and continue long after Parry himself was gone.

"My Master is pleased with you," Lilah said. "It is time for an audience with Him."

Parry was not eager for that, knowing that there could be little benefit in it for him. But this was not a thing he was in a position to refuse.

Lilah made a circle in the air of his chamber with her finger. As that circle closed, the circle filled in, becoming a disk. She hooked her thumb into the side of that disk, and it swung open like a door.

Beyond it was a tunnel. "After you, lover," she said, gesturing into it.

Parry climbed in. At first the tunnel was large enough only for his body on hands and knees, but soon it widened, so that he could stand. Lilah joined him, showing him the way.

They followed a descending spiral down through an increasingly intricate network of chambers and pa.s.sages. They were, he realized, on their way to h.e.l.l.

At length they reached a grand nether audience chamber. There, on a golden throne, sat the Prince of Evil, Lord Lucifer. He was a darkly handsome figure with well-defined horns and tail, exactly as represented in contemporary paintings. Obviously the artists had infernal inspiration.

"Bow down," Lilah whispered. "Prostrate yourself before the Son of the Morning."

Parry hesitated. "The what?"

"My Lord Lucifer, the Morning Star, as he was known before the Fall. Get down!"

"So the friar shows doubt," Lucifer boomed. "For that will I do him one disfavor. Friar, I tell thee what thou dost not wish to know: the date of thy death. It is precisely three years hence, at the hour of-"

Parry dropped to the floor, prostrating himself before Lucifer, and the malignant voice cut off. The Lord of Lies was satisfied.

The Lord of Lies. Did that mean that this cruel information was a lie? That Lucifer was merely taunting him with a fallacious date of demise?

"The friar still doubts!" Lucifer boomed again. "To h.e.l.l with him!"

Suddenly flames rose up around Parry. They closed in on him, their heat excruciating. His robe caught fire. He scrambled to his feet and leaped out of the circle. He struck the ground rolling, but the material of his robe blazed up again the moment it was upward. He tore the robe off, getting free of the agony only when naked.

And found himself the cynosure of a mult.i.tude of eyes. They belonged to young women, naked themselves, who gazed at him in shocked confusion. Each held a three-tined pitchfork. Parry tried to cover himself, but had nothing other than his hands. He realized the effort was pointless, and desisted; after all, they were as embarra.s.sed as he.