For Love of Evil (41 page)

Parry smiled. He had not been sure that a demon who was independent of Hell would react in the same way those within Hell did. Now he knew: he had the same power over outside demons as over inside demons. The power over their belief. He had not performed any magic; he had simply made a gesture, and Jezebel had erased the memory herself, obeying the power she believed he had.

He remained, invisible, just to make sure she was not trying to trick him. In a moment the party boarded. One of them came straight to the kitchen chamber. It was the guitarist. He swept the demoness into his embrace and kissed her ardently, and she responded with complete abandon.

Parry was amazed. Demonesses seldom gave their love, particularly this species, but this one had. He could tell when they were deceiving and when they were true; he had centuries of experience. Certainly Jezebel did not want Satan interfering; she just wanted to be left alone with her lover.

He would leave her alone. He remembered Lilah, who had been true to each of her lovers until they tired of her. He had lost Lilah because he had lost respect for her; he had brought it on himself.

Then Orb entered the kitchen. The two broke their kiss, remaining embraced. "Food's ready," Jezebel said. "I'll get on it."

"Finish what you're doing," Orb said with a smile.

They returned to their kiss. Orb watched indulgently, but also with a trace of envy. She had no lover of her own.

Parry gazed at her, remaining invisible. This was the woman who might marry Evil. He had been contemptuous of that prophecy, remembering beautiful Niobe, not really able to appreciate how the baby she had after departing the office could ever interest him. But then he had heard Orb sing, in the way that he himself sang, and a dimension had been added to the prospects. Now he saw her in her natural state, and she was a beautiful woman in her own right, and a feeling one. In fact, she reminded him of her mother-and, oddly, of Jolie. Her hair was the same color, and so were her eyes. Also, there was her little harp.

Of Jolie! He was abruptly aware of his chain of thought. A woman almost as lovely as Niobe, cast in the image of Parry's long-dead wire. Had Gabriel known it would be this way?

Parry conjured himself away from there, dismayed. Now he appreciated the potential treachery of the situation. There were two ways he could join with Orb, the potential Gaea. One was to seduce her into loving him, and adding her power to his, giving him victory over God. The other was for her to seduce him into loving her, and that would destroy all his prospects. Pluse she was allied with God, and would not betray God unless her heart went first.

His smartest move might be to drop any consideration of any association with this young woman. To stay well away from her, and go to Nox . . .

He shook his head. He knew he could not do that. He had to settle matters with Orb, one way or the other. It was apt to be the most significant challenge of his career as an Incarnation.

Parry watched Orb for some time, attending a number of the concerts on the tour and observing her as she went out shopping or visiting. He was avoiding the issue, he knew; but he was uncertain how to approach her. Certainly he could not walk up and introduce himself as Satan; she would refuse to have anything to do with him. But if he fashioned himself into some other semblance, she would be furious when she learned the truth, and that would end the association. Either way, her mother would be trouble. Niobe knew of the prophecy, and would surely labor diligently to void it. As an Aspect of Fate, she had extraordinary power to do just that.

Yet she had, he reminded himself, in her fashion given him leave. She knew that the issue would not be settled until the prophecy had been expended. That critical word may had to be settled; it had to be determined whether Orb would or would not marry Evil. Perhaps she wanted the issue settled as much as he did.

Why not start with Niobe, then? Settle with her about the manner he would settle with her daughter. Whatever she acceded to, the other Incarnations would.

He mulled it over, but found no better approach. There had to be some way to do it that would not have him at odds with the other Incarnations.

He went to the Abode of Fate. Niobe expected him, for there was a tangle in her threads at this stage. She met him in her own form; the other two Aspects were of course with her, but not evident. She was somewhat dumpy in her middle age, yet the echo of her former beauty remained. He knew that she could have changed her form to be beautiful again, but her pride prevented her. She had let her body decline, and would live with it. He respected that, though he himself had chosen to adopt a younger perpetual form when he had become an Incarnation.

"How may I approach your daughter without your malice?" he asked directly. "To settle the prophecy."

"Simply tell her the truth," she said. "That you are the Incarnation of Evil, and you have come to fulfill the prophecy. Ask her to marry you. I'm sure she will give you an answer."

"Indubitably," he agreed wryly. "The same answer you gave me. I fear I would not be quite satisfied with that."

"You must either speak the truth to her, or a lie," she said. "I'm sure the lie comes easier to you."

"But the resolution of the prophecy cannot be a lie!" he reminded her.

She looked at him penetratingly. "You're serious. You actually want to marry her!"

"Yes."

"But not to love her, of course."

"Of course."

"Why, when you know she will never be corrupted to evil?"

"Because she will become the Incarnation of Nature. Her power added to Mine will give Me the balance of power in the mortal realm."

"Satan, if you think for a moment that I will concur in that-!"

"But she must do it voluntarily. If you are certain she will not, why do you object to the trial of it?"

She considered. "Because I do not trust you, Satan. You are devious in the extreme. You almost got my soul; I will not give my daughter's soul to you!"

"If Orb is certain of her own values, she should be able to make that decision for herself. Do you trust her or don't you?"

"I trust her if she knows the truth. But you will deceive her."

Parry sighed. "The truth would send her away at the outset; we both know that. I will not go into sure defeat."

She angled her head, in a way that carried over from the days of her beauty. "Atropos has a suggestion."

"Put her on," he said.

The black grandmotherly woman appeared in her place. "Why don't you lie to her," she said.

Parry shook his head. "We have covered that."

"No you haven't, old Scrotch! You just said it and never thought about it. How about this deal: you go court her-but everything you tell her must be a lie. That way you can tell her you love her. Then the moment you ask her to marry you, you must tell her nothing but the truth. Before she answers."

"What would be the point? She would cast me off the moment-"

"Man, if you loved some girl, and she said she wanted to marry you but there was one thing she had to tell you, and that was that everything she'd told you before was a lie but now she would always tell you the truth, what would you say?"

Parry thought about that. If Jolie had said that, would he have married her? He concluded that he would have, because he had come to know her well despite her words; he had judged her by much more than any words. He would believe that he could in time win her love, given complete honesty between them.

Would Orb judge him by other than his lying words?

He opened his mouth to ask another question, and heard himself say "Agreed."

Niobe reappeared. "Now wait! I didn't agree!"

"I will court her," Parry said evenly. "Everything I tell her will be a lie, or part of a construct of a lie. You Incarnations may watch throughout, unobserved, and verify that this is so. You will not interfere. Then, before I have her answer, I will tell her the truth. If she then decides to marry me, none of you will oppose it."

Now it was Niobe's turn to think. Evidently an internal debate was going on between the three Aspects of Fate. "We must ask the others," she said at last.

"But no word to any mortals," he cautioned. "This must be our private deal, until I tell her the truth. Then she may consult with whom she pleases. If she decides to marry me, you accept it. If not, I accept it, and make no further suit. She will decide the issue."

"We shall get back to you in a few days," Niobe said grimly. She converted to her spider form and disappeared.

Several days later she had her answer. The Incarnations, with misgivings, had agreed. They would stand by without any kind of interference, as long as he lied to Orb.

So the challenge was on. He was the Father of Lies; if any person could do it, he could. But could any person do it?

He went again to the fringe of the Void and pondered in solitude. How could he lie continually to a woman, never telling her the truth, and yet win her love-a love that would hold when she learned the truth? A stupid woman, or an ugly one, might be fooled, because she might desire to be fooled. But Orb was brighter than her mother, and almost as beautiful, and considerably more talented. That music-

And, after an instant or an eternity-there was hardly a distinction here-he saw the answer. "The dream's the thing!" he exclaimed.

He would fashion a construct that was a lie. Within that construct everything would relate; all would be true, so as to lend verisimilitude, the semblance of accuracy. In this manner he could tell the truth to Orb, and try to win her love, without violating the agreement he had made to speak only lies to her.

First he had to learn more about his subject. He had to learn what kind of lie Orb would want to believe, so that he could fashion it for her and make her believe. He had to understand her truest motivations, so that he could play on them with his best expertise and win her love. Then he had to know how to hold that love, or at least win her acquiescence, so that she would marry him despite learning the truth.

He researched her life. Only Chronos could actually travel to past times, but there were demons in Hell who could recreate past scenes with fair accuracy by evoking them from substances that had been present when the scenes occurred. He sent his minions on a quest for such substances all along the route that Orb's physical life had traveled. He chafed at the time this took, but when the substances arrived, and he started witnessing the key evocations, he was satisfied.

Orb had led a fairly ordinary life, complicated by some extraordinary influences. She had been joined early in life by her niece Luna, who was of similar age and lineage; indeed, Orb's parents were Luna's grandparents, and the girls resembled twins. They had been raised together, and shared each others' lives. Luna had shown an early affinity for art, and Orb for music; their gifts from the Mountain King confirmed them.

Then Luna had departed with her father for America, and Orb had gone on a quest across the world for the song of songs, the Llano. That quest had taken her to the Gypsies, and she had made a close friend of a blind Gypsy girl, Tinka.

The Gypsies. There was a lever! Parry had acted to save the Gypsies from the holocaust. It was true that he had done it for another reason, to help JHVH's people; but it was also true that without his intercession, none of the Gypsies Orb had encountered, including Tinka, would have survived. If he told Orb that-- But he could not, for that was the truth. Only later, when the time for the truth came, could he tell her, and that might be too late. He had to win her love without taking credit for what he had done. What an irony!

Orb had gone on to tour India, and had made more friends there. She had come to love Mym, a fugitive Prince who stuttered, and had a child by him.

Parry gaped, watching the animation of the sequence. Mym was the man who had become the new Mars! The one who had finally balked Parry by threatening to move the Doomsday Clock to midnight and bring on the final war! The one who had taken Lilah from him!

How could this have happened, and he not known of it? But he realized it was because he had not cared to know. Orb had been nothing to him then; he had been preoccupied with affairs of routine evil, and with combatting the other Incarnations as they changed office. He could not concern himself directly with every thread in the tapestry! Certainly there had been nothing at this stage of Orb's life to suggest that the prophecy of her involvement with Satan was serious.

Orb had given away the baby and traveled to America, where she joined with The Livin' Sludge, continuing her quest for the Llano. She was making progress; already she had learned to use an aspect of it to make storms. What she perhaps did not realize was that her mastery of the Llano would be far more significant than the mere satisfaction of curiosity about a song. The Llano would make her capable of assuming the office of the Incarnation of Nature. The present Gaea, it seemed, was ready to retire, and Orb was now a leading prospect to replace her.

The Llano-now there was a thing he could use! He could laern about its nature, and in the process win her gratitude by helping her to learn parts of the song she did not yet know. He could draw on his own talent for singing-a talent unrivaled until Orb herself appeared with similar magic. He could use the power of the Llano on her, even as he did her the seeming favor of teaching it to her.