Wench. Old anger stirred in Parry's breast. His blood began to circulate more strongly, and his mind clarified. He knew it was his last effort of life, but he wanted to strike back at his former nemesis and present master. He served Lucifer; that did not mean he liked him.

Lilah stood by Parry's bed, gazing down at him, unspeaking.

What was it she had told him? To use his magic to- "Speak, s.l.u.t!" Lucifer said. But still she did not. She merely looked at Parry with that same emulation of adoration she had affected these past three years.

To do what? She had said that it didn't have to be. What could she have meant? That there was some alternative to h.e.l.l?

"Do you defy Me, you piece of ether?" Lucifer snapped at Lilah. "What is the matter with you? Spit on him!"

Still Lilah gazed, and now a tear showed on her cheek.

"You disreputable b.i.t.c.h!" Lucifer exclaimed, amazed. "You have fallen for him!"

Fallen for him?

Lilah dropped to her knees and embraced Parry's supine form as well as she could. Her tears wet his face. "Oh, Parry, I cannot say it!"

She was a demoness. She could not say she loved him. But now he realized that she did. Her gazes of adoration had been genuine.

"When?" Parry rasped, as amazed as Lucifer.

"Yes, tell us when," Lucifer said in such fury that steam was rising from him. "It is an error I shall never again permit."

"When you sang me out of h.e.l.l," Lilah said to Parry. "When you sang to me with the power of the Llano. You charmed the demons-and I am a demoness."

"When he sang," Lucifer demanded incredulously. "You deserted Me for a song?"

"I deserted You for a man," she said.

Lucifer considered. "A mortal can love, and be in other respects unchanged. A demon can love only totally. When the object of that love is gone, that demon is destroyed. You have given up your existence for three foolish years with a dying mortal."

"It was worth it," Lilah whispered, kissing Parry's lips.

Now Parry knew why she would not visit him in h.e.l.l. When he died, she would cease to exist. She had known this throughout, as surely as he had known that his involvement with her would d.a.m.n his soul. A truer love could not exist.

"But I intended you to suffer!" Lucifer said angrily to Lilah. "No one betrays Me without punishment!"

"I am suffering now," Lilah said, clinging to Parry.

"It is not enough," Lucifer said grimly. He lifted his hand, and a flicker of fire played about it. He pointed at the demoness. "Burn, b.i.t.c.h, while he watches!"

Parry summoned his last resolve as she hugged him. "No!"

Lucifer's lip curled into a sneer. "I will banish her to that very fire awaiting you, mortal fool! But she will suffer only while you remain alive. Then your soul will replace her there, and she will not exist. Take your time about dying!"

Lucifer made a gesture. Lilah clung to Parry. And Parry did the only thing he could think of: he invoked his mirror spell. His shield against hostile magic. All of his remaining strength went into it; he knew that the strain was destroying his heart, and that he would be dead in a moment. But Lilah would spend no time in the agony of the flame.

Lucifer's magic bounced. Suddenly Lucifer himself was bathed in flames. He disappeared, screaming.

Lilah lifted her head. "You did it!" she cried. "Take the Office! Take the Office!"

Parry's heart was fibrillating, going into its final throes. "What?"

"a.s.sume the Office!" she screamed at him.

His brain was clouding. As his consciousness faded, he made his final effort to please her. "I-a.s.sume-the Office," he gasped.

Flame coalesced about him, but it did not burn.

"Choose Your t.i.tle!" she cried.

What was she talking about? "Look, Lilah," he gasped "I-"

"Your t.i.tle! Your t.i.tle! It must be now! But different from that of your predecessor. You can be Scrotch, or Satan-"

The second was less objectionable. "Satan," he repeated.

"Choose Your form!" she urged him.

"What?"

"It must be now, at the outset! Your true form for the Office. Choose Your form."

"I-choose the form I was at age twenty-five," he said.

Abruptly the constriction of his heart eased, and it beat slowly and strongly. Strength returned.

"Choose Your consort!" she cried.

He hardly understood this process. "I want to be with you."

She hugged him and kissed him. "For as long as You want me, my Lord of Evil!"

The bottom dropped out of his equilibrium. "Who?"

"You have a.s.sumed the Office, my Lord! You vanquished the former holder, and now it is Yours. You will be forever as You are now, physically, until some other claimant deceives You as You deceived Your predecessor and dispossesses You. But that need never happen."

"I-am Lucifer?" Parry asked, dumbfounded.

"No, Your t.i.tle is Satan. You chose it."

"But I am the-the new master of h.e.l.l?"

"The Lord of Evil," she agreed. "In Your mortal body as it was at age twenty-five, and I am Your consort. All else is malleable."

"But all I was trying to do was protect you from torture! I never thought my spell would destroy Lucifer himself!"

"You protected me from extinction itself," she said. "I have no existence apart from my love of You. Now I will serve You utterly, in any manner You require, just as I served the prior Lord of Evil when I loved him."

Parry felt dizzy. "There is something about the way you p.r.o.nounce-"

She laughed. "You are now a deity, my Lord! Co-equal with the other one. I refer to You always as such."

"And-and I am now to run h.e.l.l?"

"And forward the cause of Evil, exactly as Your predecessor did. As You have done these past nine years, serving him." The subtle accent that denoted her respect was no longer on her reference to the prior Lord of Evil.

"I don't think I know how to handle this."

"I will help You in any way I can," she a.s.sured him. "You will quickly grow accustomed to the exercise of this power. You will come to understand that Evil is the opposite aspect of, of-may I say the word?"

"Say it," he said, uncertain of his authority in this respect.

"Of Good," she finished. "That both are required for either to have meaning. G-G-"

"G.o.d," he said. "You may say it."

"G.o.d. G.o.d is the Incarnation of Good, and Satan is the Incarnation of Evil, and the struggle between the two of you is the essence of mortal existence. Your position is as important as his."

"And I can authorize you to say those words I can say, that no demon otherwise can say?"

"Yes, my Lord Satan. Your power over Your minions is absolute. Your predecessor forbade those words, but Your law governs now."

Parry shook his head disbelievingly. Then she embraced him again, and kissed him again, and his young, strong body responded ardently, and he began to believe.

He had completed his progress from Good to Evil. He had become the Lord of Evil.

Chapter 9.

h.e.l.l.

"What now?" he asked Lilah, after a suitable orgy of celebration over his sudden fortune.

"Now You must establish Your mastery over h.e.l.l."

"Isn't that automatic, now that I have the Office of the Incarnation of Evil?"

She shook her head in negation. "You have dispatched Lucifer; You have not proved You can fill his boots."

"Oh? What happens if I don't prove it?"

"You have a thirty-day grace period. If in that time You do not demonstrate Your fitness for the Office, You will be dispatched to that fate Lucifer intended for You, and he will be restored as Incarnation of Evil, unless some truly evil mortal preempts the Office first."

Parry was abruptly serious. "You knew this-yet you supported me?"

"A demoness can be a fool; that is one of her few similarities to mortal souls. When I came to love You, I could do no other. Thus I did not warn Lord Lucifer of his danger."

"His danger?"

"He could not banish You to h.e.l.l without first separating You from the soul with which You are bound. I would ordinarily have reminded him of that, just as I will remind You of those things You need to know but may on occasion forget."

"The soul with which-" Parry repeated blankly. Then it came to him. "Jolie!"

"In the drop of blood on your wrist," she agreed.

"But she went to Heaven long ago, didn't she? Once you made it impossible for her to be with me?"

"No, my Lord. She merely retreated into her drop and slept. She cannot leave You until her onus is abated-and because she is in balance, she cannot be relegated to either h.e.l.l or-"

"Say it. Say any word you need, while you serve me."

"Heaven. She must remain with You, until her balance is changed. She is with You now, though she cannot manifest."

"She is not suffering?" he asked anxiously.

"No, my Lord. She knows nothing now, and will not until she wakes again, which may be only when You retire."

Parry was relieved. "And her invisible presence caused Lucifer's spell to bounce?"

"Your spell did that, my Lord. But Lucifer knew of Your spell, and was contemptuous of its feeble power against the magnitude of his magic. But no amount of magic could send Your wife to h.e.l.l with You, so your spell a.s.sumed far more force than Lucifer reckoned."

"Like an iron bar hidden in a loaf of bread," he agreed.

"Yes, my Lord. Had I warned him, he would have severed Your hand first, thrown it away, then banished You with his magic."

"But she was with me in h.e.l.l when we visited. How-?"

"That was not the same. You may go to h.e.l.l of Your own volition, and she may travel with You, because that is not d.a.m.nation. But she cannot be d.a.m.ned eternally. Lucifer inadvertently tried to do that."

And Lilah had known. "So I owe my salvation-" He paused, reconsidering. "My present situation to Jolie-and to you. What an unlikely collaboration!"

"True, my Lord. But also to Your own effort, which enraged Lucifer and caused him to be careless in his arrogance. He was past his time, I think."

"Because he treated you with contempt," Parry said.

"You might put it that way."

"Lilah, suddenly I want to know more about you."

"Ask, my Lord, and I will answer, as I always have." She smiled and embraced him.

"Exactly who are you? I mean, I know you're a demoness, but what is your history? What is the nature of your a.s.sociation with the Incarnation of Evil?"