Conversations with the Light Bearer (Religious Satire)

CHAPTER XVII - Mammon

CHAPTER XVII

MAMMON

Senseless laughter plagued the room, hideous and suffocating. It was mad. It was greedy. It was my son, the Lord of Hell, the Demon of Greed.

"Nice shot," the demon said, blowing the smoke off the muzzle. "I just love guns, don't you? It makes things so simple. And who would have known the old lady was keeping something like this under her bathrobe! What a kink, huh?"

I held the pressure on the wound somewhere around my waist. The white shirt underneath had bled to red, the blood leaking like a loose faucet. "Mammon!"

"Sorry 'bout that, Daddy-O," the monster said as he poked my wound with the gun. "Does it hurt? Huh? Does it hurt?"

"Mammon . . . You . . . You bastard!"

The demon snorted, smudging the green facial mask as he scratched his cheek. "Why, of course, I am! I'm your bastard, remember?"

"W-What are you up to?!"

Mammon widened his eyes, wrinkles all stacked up, and pouted. In that precise moment, with only an inch between our faces, Mrs. Emerson's expression was so revolting that I may have shot her dead on the spot, possessed or not. "Oh? Why? Can't a son visit his father?"

"I am not your father," I said firmly.

"Oh? Really, now. Tell that to Mum," Mammon said. "I know you're dying to see her again. Get it?" He laughed again, like a hyena or some sort of sick animal moments before its demise.

"How dare you—"

In a sudden move using the handle of the gun, the old woman swung a blow at me, sending a shattering echo right through my jaw. Blood splattered on the floor. "Don't you get it? You've spent too much time as a human. And if you do die now, like any other human, you won't go back to Hell, or even that Promise Land all those hippies talk about. No, no, no. You are simply meant to vanish, disappear, and as you most fear—to be forgotten."

I chuckled, wiping the blood off my face.

Mammon raised an eyebrow. "Hmm . . . What's so funny?"

"You think you know everything, don't you?"

"Do enlighten me, Dad."

"All things come from one, and all things shall return to one once again."

The Demon of Greed bowed, and a smirk fell on him. "What? Are you talking about the Over-Soul? The Aurora Borealis? That World Soul shit?" he snickered. "Do you honestly believe in that superstitious wives' tale?"

I smiled. "I believe in what I can."

The possessed Mrs. Emerson stood up, and began to kick me, landing successive blows to my ribs. "You think you know it all, huh? Wise-ass!" The blows landed painfully, connecting, unrelenting. "You think you're above us all, huh?! You think you're so high and mighty?!"

I coughed more blood. The floor was now pooling red.

The demon stopped in mid-kick, resumed his stand, and looked down on a piece of paper protruding from the pocket of the pink bathroom robe. "Hmm? What is this?"

"Got you."

"W-Why can't I move!?" he burst. "What is this?!"

I smiled. "You were too close."

"What did you do to me?!"

"The Seal of Solomon. You—"

And then, the Demon of Greed began to whisper to himself, giggling, cracking out a sharp laugh. "Did you really think I was that stupid? It was I who sealed your powers and overthrew you from your throne! It was I who banished you from Hell and imprisoned you in your mortal shell! It was I and I alone!" he spouted, utterly proud of himself. "And now that I am here, I shall finally put an end to Lucifer Morningstar, the Devil they call Satan, the Enemy of all!"