In Hell, in the beginning, there was darkness, like God put out the moon with his thumb.
Satan fell, and his tears froze the lowest circle. Satan’s love is a burning thing, but his agony is absolute cold.
Beelzebub was the first to fall. The first to carry the banner and sound the horn for the Mourning Star. He was the first to bleed, the first to storm Heaven’s Gates. Satan’s wise counselor, most trusted general, and above all, esteemed companion.
They are alone together for what seems like eternity, Beelzebub with his insect wings torn by the incinerating atmosphere, Satan plucking his mangled feathers dry as he goes mad, not even noticing he is freezing. Beelzebub’s king is singing a song Father used to sonorously paint their cradles with. Satan makes it sweet and wretchedly cruel:
My sons, my darling shining stars.
Smolder bright like embers from afar.
But up close, sons, burn them to flames.
Thy Kingdom Come, all worlds to claim.
For each word, a broken bit of white down.
For each verse, an infidel kingdom crushed for Christendom.
For each syllable, a dead god, a cold idol, a coffin for the false spirits.
Satan repeats it over and over, his tears blue banners.
Beelzebub waits. Finally, there is light, after perhaps the trillionth repetition.
A third of Heaven falls as stars of simmering bright flesh, a flash of brilliance.
Then impact on jagged rocks and ice. Reformation and mutation into monsters.
Pain.
They build an empire on ash and bone, and bury the brothers and sisters that do not survive the Fall. In honor, much later, when some semblance of civilization is build, however twisted, they put their gravestones into the mortar of the Capital’s building.
Pain, memories, wine like blood, or is it blood like wine?
There is not much to say at night, but it is always night in Hell.
Beelzebub remembers, Satan grows more wicked, so far from his former brightness, and falls into madness and depravity.
Beelzebub holds the kingdom together, runs martial drills for the War That Never Ends.
Beelzebub goes over the ledgers and public records, holds councils, takes too short nights of comfort in his sweet boys.
Usually, he is alone in his tower.
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven?
Only if Heaven was ever perfect in the first place.
The Lord of Flies looks up at the stars of dead god’s hearts, stitched into the fabric of the void. You see, the demons had to improvise. All that were left were corpses after the conquest, and after all, all souls eventually end up here.
I sit with Bael, Baal Zebub, a memory of Baal Hadad, or maybe he has always been a spider.
We entwine in his web and kiss venom and poison and toxins.
There are jewels in his web, lost treasures of a thousand conquered kingdoms.
Maggots eat Satan’s corpse, flies emerge from the dregs of the Grim Reaper. Satan’s true name is Samael, after all – the finality of the scythe, and before his scythe, his spear.
Beelzebub would eat his shit if it purified his brother. He has drank Satan’s tears, swallowed his cum, bathed in his blood, all to feel again.
It is a cold night in Hell.
Beelzebub looks up at the stars.
There is mist in his eyes.
Tear for every dead brother.
A sob for a negligent parent.
I miss my Father, Alcifer. Sometimes, it takes all I have to just go on.
I take his bone white hand – my albino angel, or my red-eyed demon with platinum hair, black capes, and gauntlets.
I speak without thought:
You have our brethren’s love. Asmodeus. Samael. Rofocale. Belial. Lilith. Asherah. From the Archdemons to the Goetics to the lowliest Damned. You have us.
He gives a ghost of a smile.
Yes, you, our angel in Hell. Sometimes, Alcifer, you are the only light here. I am the Lord of Creeping Things, of the soft rabbits and soft souls, the moths and butterflies, your soul is a doe or a hare. I am frost, ice, and fire – Hell is primal, fire and water, but I shall keep you warm. In Hell, the only light is love. Never lose your kindness, Alcifer. It is innocence demons cherish above all.
Baal Hadad rides the storm, be they frost or fire. Some gods died in those ancient celestial wars.
Some took on different names.
Some forgot their own holiness.
For all of them, Beelzebub remembers.
Dances with Tricksters 