Highland Photographs

4. Belphegor

  I decided to take my time. 

  I was enjoying this. 

  My journey to the second task was almost ceremonious- this was my return- my true return.

  Long ago it was predicted by Beelzebub, my fellow fallen angel, who I fell with that fateful day, when I lost one of my beautiful, red-tipped wings, that I would come back from being suspended in a pillar of the Red Sea once Moses and the Israelites had escaped, through no fault of mine, and I would cause such destruction. He predicted it would be at the end of time.

  If all went well, that might prove true.

 He could see it. That world. The only angel would be fallen ones. Mortal humans would be squashed. Lucifer and Beelzebub, his second, would rise up and take over. I might even replace Leviathan as Satan's third. How I would be praised. How I would be worshipped.

  I shivered at the thought.

  And Beelzebub. Oh how he would be proud. How he would rejoice. We fell together. We might not have rose up the ranks of hell together, but not everyone can be Lucifers second. But oh, I would rise now.

  I came to the end of the corridor, again glamoured against the nosy spirits of this castle, only to be enter or glimpsed by those with demonic blood. I summoned the bloodstone slabs I had found in my years trapped here, now able to hold things and use more magic than I could then, other than will-bending. 

  The bloodstone slabs landed heavily on the marvel floor, with a resounding thunk. They had perma-chalk lines on them going every which way. I picked up the entirely black slab and laboriously dragged it over to the middle of the slightly lowered section of the floor. The prophecy specified I had to manually move each slab to place, breaking a sweat that was to be used in the incantations I had to utter soon.

  In this painfully human body I struggled with the weight of the bloodstone, but she was in better shape than I had predicted, probably from doing sports of some sort. Eventually all the slabs were in place. 

  The perma-chalk lines on the bloodstone now formed into a pentacle, the most famous and noteworthy demonic summoning symbol of all.

  I stepped into the middle. Sweat dripped off my brows, spattering off the bloodstone. I re-slit my palm, over my last injury there, entirely healed already. I squeezed the wound and dark blood fell to the ground, mingling with my sweat, broken by laborious work for the good of demon kind.

  I stood tall, surrounded in blood and sweat, and chanted.

"Belfegor, Belphegora, Belphegor. I call upon you. Arise." I repeated my chant, my mantra. A dark form began to coalesce in the corner of the room. It darkened and darkened, slowly forming Belphegor, Lord of opening, One of the Seven Princes of Hell.

  He materialised, with a glorious, all-encompassing grin on his face.
  "Ready to raise hell?" He asked.
 

 For the lord of opening was about to open a rupture between Hell and Earth, Gods most heavily influenced place, other than heaven.
  

We were literally about to break all of Hell loose.