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Somewhere between prayer and dreams, Asphodel found him. As Father Thomas knelt, knees aching, during the midnight Matine, alone in the isolated village church which had been his first assignment out of Seminary, dozing off with his head against a pew, he’d heard a voice and, unthinking, answered.
“Are you not cold?” the voice asked.
“Oh yes,” he’d said, mistaking the voice for his own thoughts.
“Are you not tired?”
“Oh, very.”
“Are you not unhappy to be so uncomfortable?”
“No,” Thomas had almost laughed at the thought. “No, I am content.”
And the voice had been quiet for a time, as though surprised by the simple honesty of his statement. And then it asked.
“Are you not lonely?”
He had not answered that question so quickly, both because he was beginning to wake up, his knees stiff on the cold stone floor, and because his answer to that question was not so confident.
He sat up, rubbing at the red mark on his forehead from where it had pressed against the edge of the pew in front of him. That mark had been well known in the school where he’d been ordained, declared the ‘badge of the slothful’ by his teachers. He’d worn it more than once during his frequent assignment to assist with the midnight prayers. He supposed being prone to dozing off was simply one of the challenges God had set him. Compared to others, it was a light burden.
Nostalgic for his seminary days, he all but forgot the dreaming voice, and it did not speak again that night.
The village of Red Hill had no need of a church. Little more than a trading post connecting a handful of distant and disparate farms, the 'center’ of the town was the ancient pub, The Hart in the Hollow. And it would not be easily replaced as the primary location for socialization and community gathering. The Red Hill church had thus become a punishment detail, assigned to troublesome clergy that the bishopric wanted put quietly out of the way. The last Father of Red Hill had been ancient Father Magnus, consigned to this lonely post for sins never named but likely to do with his frequent intemperate indulgence in the communion wine. He’d died in his sleep, more than eighty years old with a bottle still in his hand, and left the position open. And Father Thomas had requested he be placed there.
He might have been the first ever to do so, judging by the reactions he received. But he had his reasons. And the Red Hill church, with its quiet garden, it’s breathtaking view of the green and fog swept fens, its empty and echoing chapel, suited him.
Thomas was a man who treasured silence and solitude. As a child, it was what had first drawn him to the church. He would linger in the chapel long after mass was completed, soaking in the reverent silence that fell, soft as the evening, once the ringing of bells and choirs had faded. Infinitely preferable, he found, to the constant clamor of home, where there was no place he could be alone, and no respite from the shouting and screaming of his tumultuous family. He sought to spend as much time in the church as he could, and it welcomed him, as Red Hill had welcomed him, with peaceful silence.
The voice next came to him on Sunday, after Mass had concluded, as he sat dozing in the garden under the white dogwood tree, prayer book folded in his lap. It was a cool day, the dogwood flowering and showering white petals over the garden path. He soaked in that silent peace and was quietly grateful.
“Why are you content?” the voice asked.
“This is everything I wanted,” Thomas thought, mistaking the voice, once again, for his own. “God has blessed me.”
“But you could have so much more.”
It was then that the Father began to realize it was not his own thoughts he was hearing.
“You are the cousin of a Cardinal. You were a rising star in seminary. You might have been a bishop by now.”
“I am too young to be a bishop,” Father Thomas replied evenly. “And I would not care to be one, regardless.”
“You might have been a Cardinal yourself one day, with your cousin’s help. You might have one day been part of the papal conclave, choosing the next Holy Father of Rome.”
“And why would I want to do that?” Father Thomas asked. “It’s of no concern to me who is bishop of Rome. This is where I am content.”
“You waste what has been given to you.”
Father Thomas frowned, more certain now exactly what he was speaking to. He was quiet for a moment, considering his reply. Though he may have pursued a spiritual career, he’d never expected to be directly confronted by the adversary.
“Are you content?” he asked finally.
There was a long silence.
“No,” came the eventual reply. And for a time there was no other sound. Father Thomas waited patiently, knowing that would not be the end.
The wind carried flowers down from the dogwood to sweep across the cover of his prayer book. Father Thomas watched the petals dance until the wind swept them off to a shadowed corner of the garden, where the old wall was crumbling and the hydrangea bush grew too dense for the sun to penetrate. The shadow there seemed darker than usual.
“You are lonely,” the shadow said.
“It is a loneliness I chose,” Thomas said. “I am happy with it. Are you lonely?”
Once again the long silence, until Father Thomas wondered if he’d imagined it all.
“Yes,” the voice said at last.
“Then I will keep you company, if you like,” Father Thomas offered. It seemed like the Christian thing to do.
There was no reply from the shadow, though Thomas waited until the sun sank low and he’d missed several of his daily prayers.
It next came to him as he sang the opening hymn for morning prayer. Though the chapel was empty, he sang anyway and enjoyed the way his voice rang off the stones of the old church. He was the only person assigned to Red Hill. In previous years there had been others, but it was often manned alone, aside from a few reluctantly recruited boys from town that helped out during Sunday Mass, the only day of the week he regularly saw visitors. But still he observed the liturgy to the letter, every hymn and prayer, recited multiple times a day to no one but himself. He appreciated the structure they gave his otherwise quiet, empty life.
“Wasteful,” the voice whispered. “God has blessed you with a beautiful voice to sing his praises, and you waste it singing to no one.”
“My praises don’t need to be heard by anyone but Him,” Thomas replied, pausing his song and searching the room for the shadow. He found it near the back of the west transept, just a patch of darkness barely discernible from the everyday shade around it. “He is not vain.”
“And yet you wear gold when you sing of Him,” said the shadow. “You drape yourself in silk and surround yourself with finery in his image. And for hours every day, you perform your rituals for him.”
“They are not for him,” Thomas said, looking with a smile at the humble stone church around him, the tarnished silver candlesticks and chalice. The fine silk stole, a gift from his cousin the Cardinal on his ordainment, which he had brought because Father Magnus’s had been old and worn and stained with wine. “God does not care about gold and silk. God does not care about rituals. He would be as pleased if I sang at the bottom of a well or while working in a field. They are for me, to remind me of the glory of heaven and the importance of my service to him.”
“He doesn’t care,” the shadow said. “Then why do you stand there every day and sing to an empty room?”
“I’m not singing to an empty room,” Thomas replied. “I’m singing to you.”
The shadow said nothing, and Thomas continued his hymn.
That night, he set an extra place at the table beside his own supper. The food went untouched, but he saw the shadow on the chair, and every night after put out an extra plate.
From then on, the shadow was his constant companion. He saw it everywhere, darker some days than others, some nights under the full moon almost a figure he could really perceive. It didn’t speak often and asked nothing of him, but it was always there. When it did speak, it was usually to accuse him of wasting his potential, or other petty sins. He had expected it to offer him temptation, but it never did. It was only a quiet, doubting voice, telling him he’d chosen his life poorly. But after a season or two, its questions became more sincere.
“You knew I was not your own voice from the beginning,” the shadow said. “Most never notice. How did you know?”
“You should have tried to get to know me better before speaking if you wanted me to think you were only in my head,” Thomas replied, bent over the vegetables in his garden, carefully pulling weeds. “If you could see my thoughts as demons are supposed to be able to, you would have known being a bishop or a cardinal was never of interest to me. I came here to escape that possibility.”
“You came because your cousin urged you to, because the bishops saw you as a threat and would have removed you one way or another.”
“My cousin suggested this place, yes.” Thomas straightened up, hands to his aching lower back, and wiped the sweat from his brow. “But I chose it.’
"Your cousin was ashamed of you. Of your lack of ambition. Of your… leanings.”
Thomas paused, and turned to look at where the shadow lingered under the hydrangea.
“Are you trying to prove you can read my thoughts?” he asked. “As though all human beings did not have urges of one variety or another. Did you think I would cry its name the moment you hinted at its existence?”
“Its name was Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“A very broad canvas of sins to draw from. We have been arguing about the nature of the sin of Sodom since the words were first set in ink.”
“Its name is you, and it is why you came here.”
Thomas frowned.
“I am a sinner, as we all are,” he said. “I have never claimed to be blameless. But I have made my peace with Him. If you intend to accuse me of something, then name it directly or else leave me to my work. I’ve no interest in speaking with you if you only wish to pry into what belongs only between me and God.”
He turned his back on the shadow and returned to his work. For a long while, there was silence. He wondered if he should be relieved or remorseful that he’d driven it away. He set its plate out as usual at supper that night but never saw the shadow on the chair.
The next day, however, as he sat studying, he felt the room grow a little darker and cooler and knew it was there.
“I thought you might have gone forever,” he said, and he couldn’t help a smile.
“You have a keen intellect,” the shadow said, back to it’s usual. “You might easily have been a great scholar, but you wasted yourself on religion. Even now you waste your efforts when there is no one to test you.”
“It’s good to have you back, shadow,” Thomas said calmly, not taking his eyes from his work. “Or is there some other name I should call you?”
“You should not ask me my name,” the shadow said ominously. “I will have to tell it to you.”
Thomas could see how that might be a problem.
“I don’t want to know your true name,” he specified. “But something to call you, something better than shadow, would be nice.”
The shadow was quiet a moment, contemplating.
“Asphodel,” it said, and Thomas smiled, for he was a gardener, and recognized the name of the white flower growing outside his window.
“Then, I am glad you have returned, Asphodel.”
Not much later, while making dinner, he took a gamble.
“Are you compelled to answer questions then?” he asked, chopping vegetables for a stew. Vegetable stews and bread were most of his diet, as he grew the vegetables on his own and the town supplied him flour as part of his meager stipend for living there.
“I must answer truth with truth,” Asphodel said, and he seemed darker than usual, looming behind the stove. “You have spoken only truth to me, and so I cannot lie to you.”
“Are all demons bound that way?” Thomas asked, curious.
“I know only myself,” Asphodel replied. “But truth must answer truth. I am owed an answer as well.”
“Ask away,” Thomas said, casting him a smile. “I have very few secrets.”
“Why have you no ambition?” Asphodel asked. “You could have had wealth, power if you wanted it. If you desired solitude, you might have had an empty castle on the sea instead of a crumbling church in a marsh.”
Thomas was tempted to answer carelessly, but Asphodel’s compulsion made him consider his words.
“My father was ambitious,” Thomas said. “But not skilled enough at the Game. It was only thanks to my cousin’s intervention that he was not left completely destitute. Still, he spent the rest of his life trying to claw his way back into power. It was not a life I wanted to emulate.”
“That is truth,” Asphodel said. “But not the whole truth.”
Thomas paused, put down his knife, and contemplated the window for a long moment.
“When I was a child,” he said at last. “I did not have dreams. I did not want anything. Because if I wanted something, it would be used against me. If I tried to reach for something, it would be taken away. So I forgot how to want. When I left home, it grew easier. Eventually, I learned to want things again. And what I wanted was a peaceful home where no one ever shouts. A place of my own where I could grow vegetables and sit and watch the day without fear. This church is exactly what I wanted. It is the first thing I really wanted. Is that the truth, Asphodel?”
“It is,” the demon answered.
“Then it is my turn to ask a question.” Thomas smiled and picked up his knife again, returning to preparing his dinner. “Why do you talk to me? Were you assigned to me by Satan, or was it a whim?”
“If there is a Satan or a God I do not know them,” Asphodel said, and the shadow moved against the wall behind the stove, creeping closer. “I was assigned by no one.”
“Then how did you choose me?” Thomas asked with a frown. “Why torment humans at all?”
“How does an animal know to hunt?” the demon replied. “I am not human. I do not choose. I simply am, and know what I must do.”
“Then there was no reason you chose me specifically at all?” Thomas asked, turning to look at the shadow with a carrot in one hand. “It was just a coincidence?”
“No,” said the shadow, and did not elaborate.
“Then why do you stay?” Thomas asked. “If there is no one keeping you here, and I have found you out?”
The shadow retreated back behind the stove and Thomas watched it go, curious. Had he offended it?
“I am owed,” it said. “Several questions.”
“Of course,” Thomas said with a small laugh, turning back to his cooking. “I’m sorry. I got carried away.”
“Why don’t you fear me?” Asphodel asked. “Why did you offer me company that day in the garden?”
Thomas slid his vegetables into a pot and pulled a bowl closer to begin working on tomorrow’s bread. The great thing about stew and bread was that he could make a lot of it and only have to cook every couple of days.
“You’re no threat to me,” he said. “Or you haven’t shown yourself to be one so far. But you are alive, I think. And God requires us to show kindness to all living things. And you were right. I was lonely.”
The shadow said nothing. Thomas glanced towards the stove and couldn’t find the shadow. He frowned, then froze as he felt a cold touch against his back.
“I could be a threat. If I wanted to. You’ve invited me in. Over and over you have welcomed me.”
Thomas held very still, his heart racing, and felt claws, cold as ice, run up his spine. Chilly breath stirred the hairs on the back of his neck, smelling of frost.
“Do you want to hurt me?” Thomas asked, feeling those claws curling around his throat. Still, he didn’t move, though part of him ached to reach for the kitchen knife just an inch from his fingers.
Asphodel loomed closer. Thomas felt a weight pressing him into the table he was leaning over, the wood creaking. His hand trembled, fingers stretching towards the knife though he still held himself back.
“…no.”
And all at once the cold presence was gone. The room was empty. Thomas stayed where he was, shaking as he leaned over the table, for a long time. Then he closed up the church and spent the night at the Hart and the Hollow. The shadow did not follow him. It did not need to. He was back by daybreak the next day.
He went about his prayers as normal, and when the height of the sun lengthened the shadows on the chapel floor, he felt Asphodel near him.
“I am still owed several questions,” the demon said.
“And you have still not answered one of mine,” Thomas replied, and if his smile was a little forced today Asphodel did not comment on it. Neither did he ask his questions. Thomas went about his day, the shadow as his companion once again, silent. It was not until he lay down to sleep that night, on his side facing the wall, that Asphodel spoke again.
“Are you afraid of me now?”
Thomas felt a weight on the edge of his narrow bed and his chest tightened.
“That… is a difficult question,” he said. “I don’t want to answer you untruthfully.”
“But still you must answer.”
Thomas gripped his sheets tighter.
“Yes,” he said at last. “At this moment, I am afraid.”
“Only at this moment?”
“I am very used to fear.” Thomas swallowed a hard lump in his throat and tried not to shiver. "It is a pit that is easy to fall in to, and difficult to climb out of. But I know you spoke truthfully when you said you did not want to hurt me. So I am trying. I may be afraid for a while longer, but I will try not to be.“
He raised a shaking hand from the sheets, offering it to the shadow beside his best.
"Again and again,” Asphodel murmured, and Thomas felt a cold hand against his own, strange and sharp-edged, but gentle. He held it for only a moment before it melted away and he was alone. It took him a long time to fall asleep.
Getting out of bed the next morning was difficult, but Thomas was committed to his lonely habits if nothing else. Asphodel was there during his work all day but keeping his distance. Perhaps waiting for Thomas to stop being afraid. Or not. His motivations were a mystery to Thomas, and he often stayed quiet all day for no apparent reason. The sun began to set as Thomas sat in the garden, resting a bit before vespers. As the shadows grew, he watched Asphodel’s grow darker. He could almost see an outline today of a figure, not at all human, winged and strange, clear only when he looked from the corner of his eye.
“A debt is owed,” Asphodel said.
“If you have more questions, I’ll do my best to answer them,” Thomas said, closing his prayer book and setting it aside.
“The debt is not yours, but mine,” the demon said. “You have given much that I have not repaid. I cannot abide such an imbalance.”
Thomas frowned, and turned his head to watch the demon from the edge of his vision as he moved closer and knelt beside the stone bench where Thomas sat. Thomas swallowed nervously. Asphodel was much larger than he’d anticipated from this close. He felt cool fingers touch the back of his hand.
“It was one matter when I hunted you. But I am not hunting you anymore. The balance must be corrected. You could ask my true name. You could ask my oath that I never harm you. I would be bound to keep it. You could ask me to leave and never return. Anything you desire.”
Thomas thought about that for a moment, then turned his hand up so that Asphodel’s claws lay against his palm.
“I like the name you chose,” he said. “And I don’t need your oath. And I don’t want you to leave.”
“Then what else would you ask of me?” Asphodel, usually so calm, his voice untouched by any emotion, sounded almost breathless. “With every kindness the debt grows deeper. Will you hold this boon over me forever and make me your slave?”
Thomas’s frown deepened. He held Asphodel’s claws a little tighter.
“Would it be possible,” he asked, “for me to see you? Really see you? Could I ask for that?”
“You would wish you had not,” the demon replied. “It would make your fear worse.”
“Still,” Thomas said, “I want to see you.”
“Then look.”
Thomas lifted his head and felt his breath catch in his lungs. There Asphodel was, as real as anything he’d ever seen. Realer, maybe, more true. It was impossible to take in all of him at once. Thomas could only take in isolated traits. The wet slate color of his skin, the multitude of arms, a dozen arching wings so vast that they seemed to be the very vaults of the sky, and all the world sheltered under them. The great, curving horns and thick dark fur. And amidst it all, a face and warm golden eyes that looked at him with a kind of adoration Thomas had only ever seen on the religious. He felt a rush of awe, but no fear.
Without thinking, he reached out towards that face, and all at once it vanished. He was alone in the garden.
“Is that it then?” he asked, not sure Asphodel was even there to answer him. “Is the debt repaid?”
“No,” Asphodel replied, though Thomas could not find even the shadow of him. “It is deeper than ever.”
Thomas did not see him the rest of the night, or all the next day. But that night he was troubled by dreams in which, while he slept, the demon stood over his bed, reaching down. Thomas woke a dozen times that night the instant before Asphodel’s fingers touched him and then lay awake, wishing he had slept just a few seconds longer.
The next day, Asphodel was back, lurking quietly in the shadows. He had not been there long before Thomas found his usually ample patience wearing thin. He knelt in the garden, his shirt sleeves pulled up above his elbows and his hands buried in the dirt, and Asphodel lay under the hydrangea like a lazy cat hiding from the sun.
“Could you help me?” he asked. “I mean, are you able to do something like this?”
“If you ask it of me.”
“Then please,” Thomas said with a smile. “I can always use another pair of hands at the gardening. You could turn that bed for me if you like.”
The shadow moved, remaining insubstantial, but he saw it go to the garden bed he pointed to and the soil began to turn over, the weeds pulled up and the fresh soil brought to the surface in a gesture. He’d finished in the few seconds it took Thomas to watch him.
“Well, it looks like I’m going to get done early,” Thomas said. “Do you know how to plant seedlings?”
He didn’t, but he learned fast. One demonstration from Thomas and he had it down. He was similarly quick to learn the various chores, cleaning and repairing, that Thomas did daily around the church, and a few he’d put off like repairing the leaky roof above the vestibule and clearing the cobwebs from the rafters above the choir loft. The only thing he wouldn’t help with was Thomas’s prayers, which Thomas understood, considering.
Thomas insisted on doing a portion of the work himself but he still finished early and, with the ample time left over to him, sat in the garden reading.
“Scriptures again?” Asphodel asked him.
“I do read other things,” Thomas replied, leaning against the trunk of the dogwood tree. “This is a novel called 'Death Comes for the Archbishop.”
“Ominous,” Asphodel said, and the shadow under the hydrangea came to arrange itself in the dogwood shade instead, curling near him. “Does the church approve?”
“It is church approved, yes,” Thomas replied with a smile. “And not as dark as the title suggests. It’s about a bishop attempting to establish an arm of the church in the New Mexico territory. Should I read you a bit?”
“If that is what you desire.”
Thomas smiled and found a pleasant passage to begin, on the assumption that Asphodel wouldn’t care too much about the plot.
“'He had one hill-side solidly clad with that low-growing purple verbena which mats over the hills of New Mexico. It was like a great violet velvet mantle thrown down in the sun. All the shades that the dyers and weavers of Italy and France strove for through centuries, the violet that is full of rose color and is yet not lavender, the blue that becomes almost pink and then retreats again into sea-dark purple—the true Episcopal color and countless variations of it…'”
As the sun sank towards the garden wall and the shadows lengthened, Thomas saw the shadow beside him grow deeper and more solid. He could almost see the curve of a stretched out back, the line of a blunt jaw angled towards him.
”'Where there is great love there are always miracles’,“ Thomas read, smiling at the sweet, familiar words. He’d read this book before and this was one of his favorite parts. ”'One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you.’“
Asphodel seemed to sit up more intently, perhaps caught up in the story, and Thomas couldn’t help imagining the words in a different context than that the book intended.
”'The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off’,“ he went on, ”'but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.'”
“Foolishness,” Asphodel murmured.
Thomas paused, putting the book aside, and swallowed a lump in his throat.
“May I see you again?” he asked. “It’s not an order. It’s not for the sake of the debt. Only if you choose to. If you would like to.”
“Why would you want to see me again?” Asphodel asked, sounding confused.
“Did I seem so afraid of your appearance last time?”
“You should have been.”
“I suppose I am strange then.” Thomas smiled, shrugging. “It takes an unusual person to choose the life I’ve chosen.”
Asphodel didn’t answer and for a time Thomas thought the demon had made his choice. But then the shadow beside him darkened and resolved and he found himself sitting in the shelter of great dark wings, circled by glittering black coils. He hadn’t even realized he was surrounded. Asphodel’s eyes were as strange and mesmerizing as they had been last time and Thomas was enraptured, unable to look away.
“How like a songbird you are,” Asphodel said, his voice sending tremors over Thomas’s skin. “Transfixed by the gaze of a cobra.”
“It’s not the habit of songbirds to ask the cobra to look at them,” Thomas replied, smiling. “And besides. I am a priest. I am well versed in dealing with serpents.”
“Are you?” Asphodel laughed, the sound deep and rich, making Thomas’s heart leap in his chest. The great shadow moved, the coils tightening around him, a cold hand on his thigh as Asphodel leaned over him. Thomas’s heart raced, his hands clenched in the grass, feeling an electric thrill every time the demon’s cold breath brushed his skin. There was fear there, but it was not all fear.
“And how would you deal with me, father?” Asphodel asked, his hand sliding higher up Thomas’s thigh. “Will you strike off my head? Will you cast me from the garden?”
Thomas’s voice froze in his throat. He stammered, trying to reply, but couldn’t find the words. Asphodel retreated at once, leaving him feeling breathless and shaky.
“I have frightened you again,” Asphodel said, his wings folding in around him, layers of shame closing like the petals of a flower.
“No, I’m fine,” Thomas said quickly. “Really. I was just… surprised. Please, I’m fine.”
He reached out to the demon, ignoring the tremor of his hands, his fingertips just brushing the soft edge of a wing. It retreated slowly at his touch, showing him those eyes again.
“Perhaps I should have taken a few more lessons in serpent handling,” Thomas said, trying to lighten the mood.
“It seems as though you are already quite skilled at it to me.”
The last light of the sun vanished beyond the garden wall as Thomas felt Asphodel’s hand touch his, his cool fingers closing around Thomas’s suddenly too warm skin. Those mesmerizing eyes vanished for a moment as Asphodel’s lips left a chilly imprint on the back of Thomas’s hand.
“It’s getting dark,” Asphodel said as he let go. “You should get inside.”
“Of course,” Thomas replied, embarrassed by how breathless he sounded and troubled by his own reactions. He gathered his book and held the door open for the shadow to slip inside after him.
Asphodel seemed to have overcome whatever shyness or propriety had kept him from showing himself before. In the kitchen he remained visible, in all his strange vast glory, distracting Thomas so badly he cut himself chopping vegetables. He cursed quietly, setting his knife aside, and felt the chill of Asphodel’s presence behind him. The demon didn’t press close but simply stood by, golden eyes watching the splash of scarlet Thomas had left on the table top.
“I could do terrible things with a drop of your blood,” Asphodel said. “I could kill you despite all protections. I could curse you with evil dreams. I could bend you to my will such that you could do nothing that I did not order.”
“And what would you order me to do exactly?” Thomas asked, wrapping a rag around his finger to stop the bleeding. “Become a cardinal so that you could choose the next pope, I suppose?”
“No,” Asphodel said, his golden gaze intense. “I might order you to lie perfectly still, unable to even breathe unless I wished it.”
Thomas looked up, raising an eyebrow, and Asphodel took his injured hand, his touch cool as marble.
“I could order you not to resist, or defend yourself, but only to lie watching as I did whatever I pleased with you.”
Thomas shivered, his throat suddenly dry. Asphodel’s thumb rubbed circles over the back of his hand.“
"I could order you to debase yourself for me. To shed your fine robes and prostrate yourself before me. You would not be able to refuse. You would even enjoy it if I ordered you.”
“Should I be afraid?” Thomas asked, his voice small.
“No,” Asphodel said, and Thomas fancied that somewhere in the divine geometry of his face he was smiling. “I do not want your blood.”
“What do you want?” Thomas asked.
“I am not sure,” Asphodel admitted, releasing his hand. Thomas let the rag fall and turned his hand over curiously. The cut was healed. “I have never wanted before.”
Thomas’s dreams were dark and heated that night and he spent a long time in prayer the next morning before his mind and his blood would settle. He was more frightened these days of his own thoughts than of the demon that shadowed him. They went about their day as normal, tending the chores together. Asphodel sat, a shadow among the pews, as Thomas performed the liturgy.
Thomas took note of how the demon’s shape waxed and waned through the day. Time seemed to be the most significant factor. He’d fade to near invisibility when the sun was high but was as solid as Thomas at night. When listening to Thomas giving mass he would pale regardless of the time of day. Even during Matine, when he was usually at his most solid, he would become faint and translucent. He could become more solid by lingering in shadows even at noon, though as soon as he stepped out of the shade he was a wisp again. Whim and mood also seemed to be a factor. He was perfectly capable of vanishing entirely at any time of day when he cared to, and seemed to do it on purpose sometimes just to make Thomas jump. He wouldn’t admit to enjoying it, but Thomas was certain he did. If only because Asphodel seemed fascinated by Thomas’s lack of fear. He could startle the father for a moment but rarely caused real fear, not since the night Thomas had spent at the inn. Thomas didn’t doubt that Asphodel could scare him again if he wanted to. But that didn’t seem to be his goal. It was simply the fact that Thomas wasn’t constantly, instinctively terrified of him that seemed to puzzle the demon.
But these days, even when catching Thomas off guard to see him jump, Asphodel was never far from the priest. Thomas had grown used to the demon’s steady presence as a shadow on the wall, but this was different. Now, even when the sun was highest and he was only a faint outline, he was a figure Thomas could discern, strange as he was familiar. Now, when he stumbled Asphodel caught him. Now, when he appeared from nowhere around a corner, Thomas felt wings surround him to steady him and found golden eyes almost-smiling into his own. Asphodel’s touch, brief and grazing, was as constant as his presence.
Thomas’s dreams remained troubled. Was this the temptation he’d waited for, then? Was Asphodel hunting him even now? The thought of being prey to his quiet companion hurt more than he’d expected it to.
“You are quiet today,” Asphodel said, breath chilly against Thomas’s ear as he knelt in silent prayer. “You were quiet yesterday. And the day before. Do you avoid me, father?”
Thomas shivered. He could feel the demon close behind him where he knelt among the pews. If he opened his eyes he would see those cool coils, like a dragon’s tail, drawing close around him.
“I am praying,” Thomas replied, not answering the question. “We can talk when I am finished.”
“You do not pray,” Asphodel replied. “You try, but your mind wanders. I can feel it.”
“I am distracted,” Thomas admitted. “Which makes it all the more important that I focus.”
“Something troubles you,” Asphodel guessed. “What is wrong, father? You have only to name it and I would see it bothers you no more.”
“It’s nothing,” Thomas said, an ill-considered reflex. “I’m fine.”
The air suddenly grew chillier, and a stony silence answered him.
“Father,” Asphodel said, his voice strangely still. “What is wrong?”
Thomas clutched the pew he knelt behind, hands shaking.
“Nothing,” he insisted, trying to stand. “It’s nothing.”
“Thomas.”
“It’s the garden. I found beetles in the roses. And the bishop is concerned about low turn out to Sunday mass and-”
Asphodel crashed into him in an icy rush like a winter wind, pushing him down over the back of the bench in front of him. He felt his forehead pressing against it as cold hands seemed to grip every part of him, a freezing gale tearing at his clothes.
“NOW?” Asphodel roared like a blizzard, like great glaciers crumbling. “After all of this, NOW you choose to lie?”
Thomas squeezed his eyes and his mouth shut, shaking both from the cold and from distress. The wild wind loosened his robes, slipped into every opening to chill his skin. And once there it became less like wind than clawed fingers.
“I could wring the truth from you if I wished,” Asphodel spoke against his ear as hands slid under his shirt, too gentle against his sides, the curve of his ribs, his hips. “In any of a dozen ways, sweet and cruel. You have no barriers against me. You have shed all your protections from me, and then broken the debt of truth you held. I could have anything I wanted from you and you could not resist.”
“Asphodel,” Thomas gasped through chattering teeth as cold fingers touched his chest, the backs of his thighs. “Please, you’re scaring me.”
For a moment those hands just tightened, enough to drive the breath from Thomas’s lungs. But then Asphodel groaned, a low, trees-in-high-wind sound. And the hands vanished. The air warmed. The frightening touch was replaced by a gentle grip on his hands, pulling him down into Asphodel’s embrace. He found himself in the demon’s lap, hands braced against a broad, dark-furred chest, enfolded in a thousand oil slick colored wings. Golden eyes found his own, raw in their desperation.
“You should be scared of me,” Asphodel said. “You have all but invited me to devour you, and yet I do not. I do not want to. That in itself is something I did not think myself capable of, and you have created it in me. Please, Thomas, tell me what is wrong. Tell me how I have lost your affections that I might regain them. Tell me how I had them in the first place, for that I still don’t understand. Speak truth to me again Father. I, son of the Prince of Liars, who has spoken only lies since dawn first touched the sand, long for nothing more than truth from your lips.”
Thomas shook, knowing he couldn't deny such a request. He could feel the red mark on his forehead from pressing against the pew. Mark of the slothful, his teachers had called it. Sloth had once meant, not idleness, but a morose attitude. A refusal to take joy in the wonders of God’s creation.
Thomas rested his head against Asphodel’s shoulder and felt the demon’s arms holding him closely, wings folding in around them, closing them into soft, private darkness.
“I’m afraid,” he confessed at last. “Not of you. Of myself. Of what I am beginning to want. You were sent to tempt me and though I don’t believe you intended it, I think you’ve succeeded.”
“That sin whose name is You,” Asphodel said gently, as though guiding him, his hand in Thomas’s hair. “What is it?”
“You know what it is,” Thomas said, his eyes closed and his heart aching. “And that I can't repent from it, or hide from it. I tried. I came here thinking that if I could avoid acting on it God might forgive me. But it's still there in me, when I look at you. I loved a man.”
“It is no sin,” Asphodel said at once. “I would know it if sin stained you, and you are as spotless as any human I have seen. I would say you might as well call having red hair a sin, or being left-handed, but I have known even these to be judged evil by the foolishness of humans. Thomas, the judgment of man is not the judgment of God.”
Thomas shook his head, wishing he could believe those reassuring words. He’d certainly said them to himself enough times.
“If that's not a sin,” Thomas said. “Then what I want now certainly is.”
“What do you want?” Asphodel asked, claws gentle against Thomas’s cheek. “Name it and I will give it to you.”
“I want you,” Thomas confessed, shaking. "And if wanting a demon is not a sin worthy of damnation then I don't know what is."
“Then we are damned together,” Asphodel replied, and kissed him.
Thomas had not previously known the demon had a mouth to speak of, but it was a kiss, undeniably, and as soon as he felt it all his ability to resist crumbled into so much dust. Something that was not a mouth opened and something that was not a tongue pressed against his lips and some still sane part of him told him that any rational man would run away. But he felt only the rush of heat that touch sent through him, and the desperate, eager fluttering of his heart as Asphodel’s many hands tugged at his robes, slid beneath them, ran tenderly through his hair to pull him closer. He pressed himself to the demon’s chest, so close he was certain Asphodel could feel his heart racing, though there was no familiar pulse beneath the cool skin of the demon, but Asphodel could not seem to hold him close enough, not even when he’d dragged Thomas’s thigh’s around his waist. He buried his face in Thomas’s throat and Thomas gasped at the cool swipe of that strange tongue.
“I will take no more from you than you offer me, ever,” Asphodel swore, his breath cool on Thomas’s skin, and Thomas felt a brief graze of teeth. “But please, let me.”
Thomas’s face was scarlet, overwhelmed. He’d held to his vows, always, no matter what the bishops claimed. But he’d never faced a temptation like this. It might not have been a sin to love, but it would be a sin to break his vows, to give in to lust here before the altar.
Asphodel sensed his hesitation and paused.
“You fear the rituals of God,” he said, then lifted Thomas’s hand to kiss the backs of his fingers. “I will marry you. Then your God will bless us.”
Thomas, if possible, turned even more red.
“Priests aren’t allowed to marry,” he said, flustered.
“But this is no earthly marriage,” Asphodel pointed out. “Nuns are married to the divine, are they not? So shall you be.”
It was a loophole, and Thomas suspected God didn’t care for those, but Asphodel pulled him closer, rolling up against him where Thomas sat straddling his lap, and Thomas’s willpower vanished.
“Marrying a demon,” Thomas muttered, laughed through his embarrassment. “What would my cousin say?”
Asphodel kissed Thomas’s hand again and Thomas felt the cold touch of his tongue, like the tingle of ice. The sensation remained when Asphodel retreated, and Thomas saw a white band around the base of his ring finger, pale as frost or scar tissue.
Asphodel offered one of his own hands, palm up, the long claws grazing Thomas’s cheek.
“Will you accept?”
Thomas swallowed a nervous lump in his throat and, unable to find the words, bent and pressed his kiss to Asphodel’s hand. His lips tingled and he saw the same pale band appear around the demon’s finger, stark against his black skin.
“Then it is done, and I am bound to you as none of my kind has ever been bound.”
He tipped Thomas back on to the floor and Thomas, unsure but desperately wanting, closed his eyes as Asphodel uncovered him, his clothes sliding away like water and leaving him bare.
“You are as lovely as your soul,” Asphodel said, soft as snow, fingers grazing the skin of his ribs, his hips, his trembling stomach. “You are the most beautiful prey I’ve pursued, and you have bared your throat to me so many times. Why does the urge to strike never come?”
Thomas covered his face with his hands, flustered by the compliments and entirely out of his depth. Asphodel gently pulled his hands away to kiss his forehead.
“Do not hide. There is nothing here to fear. There is no shame in this.”
“It’s not-” Thomas couldn’t find the words, stammering as he tried to explain. “I haven’t- This is….”
“Ah, a virgin bride,” Asphodel chuckled, his mouth finding Thomas’s throat again, making his breath catch as Asphodel’s lips and tongue explored the soft skin normally hidden by his collar. “Has any demon ever known such luck?”
He took Thomas’s hand then, lacing their fingers, the twin white bands gleaming next to one another.
“Be not afraid, my love,” Asphodel said gently. “I will guide you.”
“Have you done this before?” Thomas asked, wondering even as he asked it why that should bother him.
Asphodel looked thoughtful for a moment.
“I have not,” he said. “But I know it. It features so heavily in the sins of so many.”
Thomas couldn’t help a smile.
“Then I have a virgin bride as well.”
Asphodel’s wings flared and he swept in to kiss Thomas again, rough and eager, pulling the priest’s hips up against his own. Thomas gasped into Asphodel’s mouth and the demon’s tongue pressed in to steal his breath. It was long and thick, opening his mouth wide, and Thomas flushed at the obscenity of it even as he rocked his hips up into Asphodel’s, desperate for any contact.
Asphodel’s exploratory touches fluctuated between gentle grazes and a desperate needy grasp, as though he thought Thomas too delicate and was struggling and failing to control himself. The thought that he could send an actual demon so wild made Thomas’s heart race, all the more so when he felt one of those many hands find his cock.
He hadn’t touched himself for pleasure since seminary. He’d thought he’d put that flesh-ruled part of his life behind him when he’d been ordained. But as Asphodel touched him all thoughts of celibacy were shattered. Even his own hand, though it had been years since he’d felt it, could never have felt this good. Asphodel’s touch was skilled and measured, careful not to overwhelm Thomas’s too-sensitive nerves. Still, Thomas had to fight not to let it end too early, the chapel ringing with his gasps and cries. His ears burned to hear his own lustful noises reflected back to him.
“Do not hold back, my virtuous bride,” Asphodel said warmly. “There will be time enough to thoroughly ruin your chastity, I assure you.”
He kissed Thomas again, his tongue choking off Thomas’s plaintive sounds, but even as they kissed Thomas felt other lips grazing the straining shaft of his need. He gasped, as surprised by the ever-shifting strangeness of Asphodel’s body as he was by the contact, but his moans were lost in Asphodel’s kiss as what felt to be the same tongue ravishing his throat wrapped around his cock, coiling and squeezing. The mouth that wrapped around him was hot and wet and incredibly tight, wrapping around him as though made for him, a channel of silk against which he could never hope to stand. He clutched at Asphodel’s shoulders, choking around the tongue that pushed deeper into his throat, trying to warn that he was close. But Asphodel only kissed him deeper, starving him of breath until his head spun and dizzy ecstasy overwhelmed him. He bucked up into the mouth around him and spilled himself into it, the rush of long denied orgasm almost all-encompassing, only for his eyes to open in shock as he felt the same seed spill into his own throat, hot and thick and copious. The seal of Asphodel’s mouth wouldn’t allow him to do anything but swallow. But when the demon pulled away, chuckling, Thomas rolled on to his side, coughing, burning with arousal and embarrassment.
“Did you?” he gasped, still trembling in the tingling wave of orgasm. “Was that my own…?”
“You have an amazing mouth,” Asphodel answered, licking cum from Thomas’s lips. “I thought it would be a shame if you did not get to experience it.”
Thomas covered his face with his hands again, groaning.
“You could warn me next time,” he suggested, chest still heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
“Forgive me, Father,” Asphodel teased, and flowed like water between Thomas’s leg’s to kiss his inner thigh. “In the future, I will make certain I only do such things after I have made you beg for them.”
Thomas wasn’t sure if he liked the sound of that, but then Asphodel was pushing Thomas’s legs up towards his chest, spreading him open. Thomas had no time to even protest before he felt Asphodel’s tongue running across the underside of his balls to press against his entrance.
Thomas covered his mouth with his hands to hide the wash of humiliating noises that escaped him as Asphodel’s tongue invaded this previously untouched place, the sensation of which was so new and disarming that he could hardly move, his body seized and trembling by the cool wet pressure of Asphodel’s tongue against such sensitive skin. He couldn’t help the way his thighs clung to Asphodel’s head, his hands gripping his own fallen robes where they lay on the floor beneath him. He had thought he would be finished after a single round, but Asphodel’s patient thoroughness was stirring the embers within him already and he warred with the shame that caused him.
Asphodel followed his tongue with his fingers and with oil, which he teased that he had stolen from the altar until Thomas threatened to stop everything and he admitted it was from the kitchen. Thomas was soon thoroughly distracted again, the strange invasion of Asphodel’s fingers within him a sensation that could not be ignored. The burn that at first accompanied them quickly faded and he was left with nothing but the unusual, searching pressure within him. And then Asphodel pressed a little deeper and his cock jumped, his body lighting up as briefly as a firework, wringing a surprised shout from him.
“What was that?” Thomas asked, wide-eyed.
“Something you are going to enjoy very much,” Asphodel replied and pressed it again, making Thomas cry out, his thighs shaking as the wave of strange, searing sensation swept through him. It was so sudden and unknown he wasn’t even one hundred percent certain he could call it pleasure. His cock certainly seemed to think it was anyway. It was too soon, but it was already rising again, oversensitive and almost painful. Asphodel only went on, teasing that place as his fingers opened Thomas wider. Had Thomas not finished so recently he was almost certain that alone would have finished him off again. Instead it kept him in perpetual, torturous ecstasy, an inch from completion but unable to quite reach it. He was desperate and squirming, his oversensitive cock straining, dripping against his stomach, when Asphodel finally pulled away, leaving him lying panting and unsatisfied on the stone floor.
“I would ask if you trust me,” Asphodel said gently, leaning over him, familiar and tender even in his strangeness. “But it would feel foolish. I know that you shouldn’t, and I know that you do anyway.”
“I do,” Thomas confirmed, and touched the demon’s cheek with trembling fingers, smiling. “I do.”
Asphodel took his hand and kissed his palm and below Thomas felt the first gentle pressure against his entrance. He held his breath, bracing himself, and Asphodel rubbed slow circles over his stomach with one hand to relax him, murmuring soft, sweet phrases in a language Thomas didn’t know but could still understand. Gradually he relaxed and felt Asphodel slide slowly into him.
The spread, the weight- it was not what Thomas had expected, stranger and better all at once, warm and weird and uncomfortable and delicious. Asphodel had prepared him carefully so there was little pain. A faint sting, a burn that was in itself a kind of pleasure. Still, his nerves wouldn’t settle, expecting sudden pain or to be struck by lightning maybe. Luckily for him, Asphodel’s patience seemed to be infinite. The demon settled over him, barely inside, his arms resting near Thomas’s head, his wings covering them like a trembling ever-shifting tent. He looked down at Thomas, watching him with cool golden eyes, as though he were analyzing Thomas’s expressions. Thomas, embarrassed, had to look away. Asphodel nuzzled his cheek but didn’t make him turn his head.
“How do you feel?” Asphodel asked, rocking his hips gently to sink in just a little deeper. Thomas’s breath caught but as Asphodel stopped moving he released it with a shiver. “Are you in any pain?”
“No,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “It feels fine. It feels good.”
“Do you want to stop?”
“No!”
Asphodel laughed, a low rolling sound like distant thunder. He kissed Thomas’s cheek.
“Do you want to continue?” he asked.
Thomas nodded meekly, unable to quite say the words.
“Are you sure?” Asphodel asked, rolling his hips, grinding just inside of Thomas. “I’m not certain you are. Maybe I should stop now. We could try again some other time.”
"Don’t stop,” Thomas insisted at once, biting his lip as Asphodel moved within him, heat blooming fierce in the pit of his stomach.
“Then you want this?” Asphodel asked, teasing him.
Thomas nodded more vigorously but Asphodel just shook his head.
“If you can’t even say the words…” he said, beginning to pull out.
“No, I want it!” Thomas flushed scarlet, tightening his legs around Asphodel’s hips. “Please. I want it. I want you.”
Asphodel graced him with one of those beautiful near-smiles and began to push in again. Thomas grabbed the demon’s shoulders and closed his eyes, back arching as he felt Asphodel sliding deeper, seeming to grow thicker the deeper he went, spreading him open wider at his entrance while deeper in it was still the same gradual weight. Thomas had never felt like this before, almost feverish in his desire, open and uncomfortable and craving more. His cock had softened as Asphodel was working his way in but as he adjusted to the strange intrusion, beginning to become more aware of the strange sensation of Asphodel rubbing against his walls, an unexpected stimulation that left him shivering. And then Asphodel angled his hips giving several shallow thrusts, searching for something. Thomas moaned when he found it, the place he’d been pressing on with his fingers, which sent lightning heat up Thomas’ spine and sent a surge of precum running from his cock.
“There it is,” Asphodel said, sounding pleased with himself. “Hold on now.”
He wrapped a hand around the base of Thomas’s cock, not stroking but simply squeezing it as he began to move with more urgency. Thomas hung on tightly to Asphodel’s shoulders, trying to keep himself relaxed despite how strange it felt. Not painful, but he wasn’t sure if it was pleasant either. And then Asphodel shifted just slightly and Thomas felt the head of the demon’s cock press hard against the spot inside of him that Asphodel’s fingers had teased earlier. The rush of unexpected sensation wrung a moan from him and he could have sworn that Asphodel purred with pride, angling his hips to strike that place again. Pleasure, hot as fire in his veins, rushed through him and dripped from the head of his cock. For a moment, dizzy, he almost thought he’d come. And then Asphodel, setting up a steady, pistoning rhythm, hit it again. Thomas cried his name, hips bucking up into Asphodel’s thrusts. The demon, rumbling a low growl of approval, gripped Thomas’s hip in one hand and his leg in the other, pulling him back into Asphodel’s carefully aimed thrusts to strike harder and deeper. With every thrust he worked his way in a little deeper, until the swell of his strange cock pressed on that place perpetually, leaving Thomas swearing and squirming, half trying to escape the overwhelming stimulation. But Asphodel’s large hands pinned him where he was, his thighs shaking as waves of searing pleasure like miniature orgasms rocked through him. Asphodel’s hand around the base of his cock had tightened almost painfully, keeping him from finishing even as what little could escape Asphodel’s grip dripped ceaselessly out of him, running thick over Asphodel’s fingers. Thomas dug his nails into Asphodel’s thick hide, barely able to see straight past the dizzying waves of pleasure, the heat burning within him growing increasingly urgent. He half thought he might pass out if the relentless pleasure went on this way. But every time the darkness started to grow in the corners of his vision Asphodel would let up, thrusts slowing just enough to bring him back before speeding up again. Thomas was suddenly quite certain that he was going to lose his mind, if he hadn’t already.
“Asphodel,” he begged, shameless in his desperation, his walls tightening and fluttering around Asphodel’s cock. “Please. Please, I can’t-”
“You would like to come, wouldn’t you?” Asphodel said, teasing and superior. “Do you want me to let you come, Father?”
“Please,” Thomas begged, meeting Asphodel’s golden eyes with his own hazed with lust. “Please, Asphodel.”
“What if I told you I would only let you come if you agree to obey my every order?” Asphodel purred, bending to run his long tongue over Thomas’s throat. “What if I kept you just like this, unable to finish or relax, until you were so desperate you would do anything for me? Debase yourself however I asked you too, and lavish in as many sins as I could imagine for you. Would you still beg for me in that sweet voice if you knew what I could ask you to do?”
“Yes,” Thomas said at once, shaking with need, Asphodel’s idle threats only fueling the fire. “Yes, Asphodel, please!”
That seemed to be all the demon could take. He took Thomas by the waist, lifting him easily, and brought him down onto his cock so hard that Thomas saw stars. His hand around Thomas’s cock loosened, stroking Thomas quickly instead and Thomas, already undone, melted immediately, shouting Asphodel’s name as he shook and shivered, squeezing so tightly around Asphodel that he thought he might break.
Asphodel held him close, still rocking into him hard, continuing to overstimulate Thomas straight through his orgasm and on until it was almost unbearable, until at last Asphodel buried himself as deeply in Thomas as he could and Thomas felt the strangely cool rush of Asphodel’s seed spreading within him, so thick and copious he could almost see his stomach swell, until it ran out around the place where they were joined with each continuing thrust as Asphodel milked himself with Thomas’s body.
When at last he was finished Asphodel pulled Thomas, limp and exhausted, to lay against his chest. His wings folded in close around them, shutting out the rest of the world. He was still inside Thomas, still filling him even as they both began to cool down. His hands ran soothingly over Thomas’s back and sides, calming his over-stimulated nerves. Thomas was barely coherent, still dizzy with pleasure, his whole body tingling and aching in turns. He felt Asphodel kiss his cheek, cool and sweet.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Good,” Thomas whispered. “Tired. But good.”
“Is there any pain?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Good. I was afraid I let my control slip too much there near the end,” Asphodel said, nuzzling Thomas’s throat. “It is surprisingly difficult to remain cool-headed when you are begging me that way.”
He joined their hands, twining their fingers to look at the matching marks on their hands.
“Do you think you will regret it?” he asked.
Thomas, to his credit, considered the question seriously for a moment, as much as he could in his slightly addled state.
“No,” he said at last, and pressed a tired kiss to Asphodel’s jaw. “I don’t think I will. I told you before about learning to want things. I want this. I have wanted too few things in life to deny myself this.”
“I too am learning to want for the first time,” Asphodel replied, squeezing Thomas close. “You are the first thing I have ever wanted for myself. Will you be mine, Thomas?”
Thomas smiled, and pulled their joined hands closer to kiss the spot where their banded fingers lay beside one another.
“I already am,” he said. “Is that the truth, shadow?”
Asphodel smiled as well, his wings rustling with joy, perhaps the first joy he’d ever experienced.
“It is.”
Thomas hid his face in Asphodel’s shoulder again, filled with a warmth that had nothing to do with desire.
“There is a second thing I want,” Asphodel said then, his claws gentle across Thomas’s shoulder blades.
“What’s that?” Thomas asked, closing his eyes.
“To see you beg again,” Asphodel replied, his hands drifting lower. Thomas made a startled sound as Asphodel lowered him to the floor again, his hands already seeking out Thomas’s sensitive places. “You did not think a demon would be satisfied with just that, did you?”
He chuckled, long tongue licking his chops as he turned Thomas over on to his stomach and Thomas considered the possibility that he might just be in some kind of sweet Hell.