Her face seemed sorrowful but restrained—like a mourning nobility. Her eyes were two points of blazing, white-hot light, and her massive horns, ones that I was sure were larger than my arms, tied the intimidating look together. Caught in such headlights, I dared not speak up or move. Realizing I should probably prostrate too, I was just about to crouch, when I heard her speak and froze up.

"What have you done to my daughter, Ald-ghareth?" it was like a voice of an opera-singer and a courtisan rolled together. It was booming, but incredibly smooth. Feeling it gliding down my ears and instantly enveloping my brain with infatuation, I took a little relief in having my hearing back.

Ald-ghareth spoke back, but I couldn't decipher his words. The succubus frowned her beautiful, slim eyebrows and responded with the same incomprehensible tongue—yet the sound still made me want to beg to hear more. Ald-ghareth responded again, this time sounding disparaging and uninterested.

"You are a cruel liar, Ald-ghareth," the succubus switched to comprehensible speech again. I presumed, for whatever reason, she wanted me to understand what she thought. "A vermin of the Zahalaei... A vermin pretending to be Lord is all you've ever been."

She looked tearful, lifting her hand up to her face while pondering something. I heard footsteps behind me and turned around. Ald-ghareth was approaching the giantess with his awkward, half-paralytic steps. The succubuses in his way stepped aside, visibly weary of getting near. Looking up, he spoke back, and this time he must wanted me to understand as well.

"You are a whore, Lilit," he growled, immediately confirming my suspicions. "And you might be the most beautiful and alluring one... but that's all you, and your daughters, and your daughters' daughters will ever be."

I couldn't tell if he was grinning or scowling, the face he made was too inhuman to interpret.

Suddenly, I felt a pull, and I was lifted from the floor. Flailing around, I noticed the other succubuses looking up at me. I floated mid-air, until I was in front of Lilit. Unwilling to continue the conversation, she pointed her finger at me, almost touching my torso with the giant fingernail, and I felt like my innards were being ripped out of me.

"My Ra'zizi... Give her back..." she said with a sad but calm voice. I began wailing and flapping my wings, desperate to fly away from the unbearable feeling.

In a moment, another force started pulling me away from Lilit. When he tersely responded with a single demonic word, I figured Ald-ghareth had a differing opinion. The tug between the two quickly started feeling like stretching my body to the point of ripping. Whatever was happening to me, I felt sure this one would not just heal like the previous wounds. Turned into an equivalent of a toy, about to burst in half from being tugged on by two hellish children unwilling to share, I screamed out at the top of my lungs. It was time to remind Ald-ghareth.

"Do iitttt!" I screamed. Taking another breath, I urged again, "Nowwwww!" before the pain was too strong for me to articulate anything.

Just when it felt like my tissues were about to completely separate from each other, I heard it:

an overwhelming sound of horns, blaring at us from much closer. The forces tearing me in two let go, and I fell right on the cold ground, wheezing and in tears from the pain. My yelps and groans were completely drowned out by the hellish tones. Looking up and trying to muster enough strength to plug my ears, I saw the succubuses were trying to shield themselves from the noise too, some swiveling in place, some hiding under theirs wings, finally some, smallest, falling to the ground. Only Ald-ghareth, keeping his left hand up, and Lilit, who grimaced back at him, didn't seem to be deafened by the booming sound. He made a gesture, flickering middle and index finger pointing up and thumb to the side. As soon as he dropped his arm back down, the noise stopped. With not even a ringing sound in my ears, we were all in the most complete silence I've ever experienced.

Suddenly, the ground trembled. Looking up, I saw the roof sliding away into nothingness, as if evaporating, stone by stone, pane by pane. The previously bright light now turned into a supernova. I actually felt as if my skin was burning, and couldn't stand not just looking up, but staying in the light. Still on the floor, I opted to scuttle closer to the succubuses hiding in Lilit's large shadow. It took a while before I dared to open my eyes again—the light was still beaming. Carefully, I stuck my hand out and, feeling no burning, looked up once more. There, I saw a winged figure, pure white feathers bathed in a warm glow, descending upon us. My hearing came back just in time to perceive a gentle tap made by leather business shoes landing on the smooth marble, merely a few meters away from us.

The figure looked like a man, about my height, wearing a stylish but reserved business suit with a black tie and white, neatly buttoned shirt. His figure was slim, and his face had a narrow nose and a pointed chin, smoothly outlining the bottom of his face. With the bright, neck-long, blonde hair and clear, light blue eyes, he looked almost girly. I realized: he didn't come from the light, or surrounded by light—it was beaming from him, a halo around his figure, brilliant rays stretching out of him every now and then in random directions, illuminating the room and the underside of Lilit's wings. All the succubuses began prostrating again, Lilit took a knee and Ald-ghareth bowed. Beyond this, no one moved or talked, all in perfect, radiant stasis. The man looked at me, still cowering on my knees. He had an empty, relaxed expression when he nodded at me, raising his eyebrow and eyeing me expectantly. I felt compelled to speak. I knew what I was planning to say, but it all escaped me. When in stressful situations, you always revert to what you know best, what you've been exposed to most often. For me, there was only one memory of what one says in such circumstances.

"Hello... I uh... wanted to... talk to the manager," I muttered.

The winged man strolled calmly towards me, his footsteps filling the deafening silence. When he stood just in front, looking like he was scanning me up and down, what I can only describe as raw power was beating from together with the light—that uncanny feeling like I was kneeling on train tracks, facing an oncoming freight train, but a million times more powerful. He suddenly turned to Lilit and asked her a question in demonic. His voice was gentle, refined, like that of a young man with good upbringing, who went to study at a posh school after a childhood of private tutoring. Lilit bowed her head deeper and responded, equally incomprehensibly to me—though she did sound upset. The man turned to Ald-gharet—who I had never seen bow before—and spoke to him in turn. This was also the first time I've heard what sounded like he groveling come through the Lord of Hell's cacophonous voice. Finally, the man turned back to me once more, and his eyes lit up, making me genuinely wonder if I was about to evaporate. I fell down even lower on my knees, bowing my head, but neither a punishment, nor any reaction came from him.

"Matthew," he said to me. My head jerked upward, my eyes caught by the piercing light of his eyes. His tone was almost amicable. "What do you desire?"

The million dollar question. Had he asked me a few months ago, I would have said: "exactly this!" But even now, the knowledge that I could go and seduce women at will was endlessly tempting. Would I go to Paris for a french kiss, or perhaps leave a geisha in Tokyo breathless? In my mind, I could already picture the tens, hundreds, thousands of women who I would be ravaging and leaving to shiver every night, maddened with desire, until I dragged them down here, for the endless carnal feast. And I could do so, at will, till the end of human history. The past me would have salivated at the deal, eager to inflict throes of passion upon the world's beauties, to revel in pure, unrestrained lust. But the current me had already done some of it. And he—I—remembered the smell of rubbing alcohol, the slow whooshing sound ventilators and the beeps of heart monitors. Her face looked back at me through the broken mirror. I could escape, I could be anywhere and anyone—besides the real me.

Perhaps being alone for all those years had not made me into the misanthrope that I imagined myself to be. Or perhaps it was all a lie, my life was full of excuses and self-deceit, perhaps I had fallen back on my cowardice, and it was making a fool of me. I couldn't disentangle myself from these thoughts. The only thing which felt real was the guilt. No ecstasy could mask it. Perhaps I was just a fool. In the end, I was the product of my actions.

I opened and closed my trembling mouth a few times, temptation clawing at me harder than any of Ra'zizi's charms, before I finally answered.

"I want him... to honor our deal," I said quietly, noding towards Ald-ghareth. It was the first time I saw him twitch and clench his fist. "I want things... to go back to how they were—like we agreed... And I want-"

The man gestured with an open hand in front of my face, and my mouth stopped moving. He spoke to Ald-ghareth once more. Lilit pleaded with a sobbing voice, and the three exchanged a few more sentences. When the winged man spoke a long utterance, Ald-ghareth nodded. After a few moments of deliberation, the man seemed to conclude the dispute, and looked back down at me.

"It will be done," he announced and turned back. "That is all," he concluded, walking away.

I felt confused and exasperated. My voice came back, but the moment I shouted "Hey!", his body burst into a flash of light that sent warmth down into all the way into my entrails and marrow. Once my vision came back, he was gone.

Getting off my back, I turned towards Ald-ghareth, who, like Lilit, was back to his regular posture. Stepping over the succubuses scrambling off the ground, I walked up to him.

"So, what did he say?"

No response, not that I expected one.

"Anyway, you heard him, you h-"

Faster than I could notice he started moving, the Lord of Hell struck forward, plunging his hand into my chest, and the same stinging pain radiated through me. But in just a moment, instead of the piercing sensation, I felt like something was being ripped, sucked out from my insides. It was as if my body was imploding. Screaming in pain, I caught his arm, but trying to move it was futile.

"I gave you such chance, and you throw it away... You mortals never cease to disappoint," he growled at me, his face flickering into completely novel degrees of ugliness.

I realized the pain was coming from where my wings, tail and horns had sprouted. Something was pulling them inward, as if stuffing them back into my body, crumpling them along the way, then threading them out the other way. The searing, burning sensation didn't stop, spreading throughout, and I had no recourse other than wailing like a wounded beast. My voice became strangely lower and lower, reaching new levels of baritone while I felt the last of my energy being siphoned out of me. At last, Ald-ghareth jerked his hand back, pulling a glowing blue-purple orb out of my chest, letting me collapse on the ground, struggling to catch my breath.

Instinctively clutching my chest, I looked up at him, and he seemed to be presenting his belonging to Lilit, who gave him a distinguished glare. He said something in demonic to her, and she looked down, shedding a tear for a moment, then fixed her face to look more neutral before responding.

"So, we're done?" I asked Ald-ghareth while scrambling back on my feet..

He paused for a moment, holding up the sphere in front of his face, then looking back at me with warped but unmistakable disdain, and said, "We are done. I have her. You shall get what you asked for."

"... Okay..." I said, with a tinge of confusion. I expected another lie. "So when you say I shall-huaegh!"

A titanic force grabbed around my neck. I felt soft, smooth and warm matter push against my skin, then against my torso. In a moment, Lilit turned me around in her hand, and studied me up close with a sorrowful, disappointed look.

"Remember... the... deal...!" I tried shouting to Ald-ghareth, but my voice came out choked-out and raspy.

He said something to Lilit, and she looked back at him, grimacing for a few seconds. She crouched and, before I could think of anything to say or ask, sprang up from the floor. The upward force pushed my blood down so fast I almost fainted.

We flew up, above the ceiling of the palace in less than a couple seconds. Lilit kept me in her hand, like a bird of prey transporting a catch. I couldn't see much below me—above me was only a sea of swirling clouds, pierced by light. Eventually, we breached their level, and the radiance and their warmth overtook me.