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duhragonball · 3 months ago

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Daima 05: Panzy

Have you seen this spiky-haired kid with a red stick? He's not in trouble or anything, I just think he's neat. Take a look.

This episode introduces Panzy, the mysterious girl who botched a heroic uprising in the previous episode. Goku saved her and finished the job by clobbering every Gomah henchman in town, but as they leave, Panzy confronts them and asks who they are.

Panzy has a lot of questions. Who are these guys? Why does one of them have round ears? What Demon World are "Saiyans" from? Where are they going? Why are they going to Kadan Castle? Can she go with them? Glorio wants nothing to do with her, but he's too low key to yell at her or anything, so she keeps following them. Also she gives Goku a rice ball, so now they're stuck with her.

Panzy finds the name "Goku" strange, so he tells her his other name is "Kakarot". Shades of the final scene of the DBS Broly movie, where Goku introduces himself by both names. I know some fans find this out of character, since Goku vehemently rejected his Saiyan heritage in the early episodes of DBZ. But he started to embrace that heritage and reclaim it in the middle of DBZ. Goku insisted he was an Earthling when he fought Raditz, but he called Vegeta a "fellow Saiyan" when he asked Krillin to let him escape. He introduced himself to the Ginyu Force as a "Saiyan from Earth", and when Frieza asked him who he was, he shouted "I am the Super Saiyan, Son Goku!"

The last time he rejected the name "Kakarot" was in the original Broly movie from 1993, where he told Broly that he was not Kakarot, but Son Goku. But he let Vegeta call him "Kakarot" the whole time. That moment probably said more about his anger at Broly than any resentment for the name.

And now we have scenes like this one, where he refers to "Kakarot" as an alternative name for himself. It's not out of character; it's just the character changing over the course of a long period of time. I know it's also a popular joke in the fandom that Vegeta is "deadnaming" Goku whenever he calls him "Kakarot", and I get it, really. I'm sure a lot of people who have changed their name can relate to Goku having two names and preferring one over the other.

But it is also valid for a person to have more than one name, and to go by all of them at once. Lots of people in the Bible have two names, for example. Abram/Abraham; Jacob/Israel; Esau/Edom, Simon/Peter, Saul/Paul. Or look at Gandalf, from Lord of the Rings.

"Many are my names in many countries. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves, Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not."

I'm pretty sure in the East, Sauron makes all the orcs call Gandalf "Jerkstore", but he's not gonna dignify that one. My point is that if Gandalf can have four or fives names at once, there's nothing wrong with Goku having two. Also he can touch his nose with his tongue. Because he's legendary.

Panzy wanted to know what magic he could do, because all Majins can do at least one magic thing, and apparently flying and clobbering lots of henchmen and touching your nose with your tongue doesn't count. Goku asks what she can do and she uses the Force to lift a rock. She can't do it for very long and it's a small rock, but it's pretty cool. Goku is impressed, although Frieza threw a whole mountain at him like that once, so he's seen it before.

But Panzy's true specialty is tinkering with machines, which will make her essential to this group by the end of the episode. See, I remember pointing this out about Pan in GT last year. The big problem with GT Pan wasn't her bossy attitude, but that she didn't have any useful attributes to balance out her personality. Contrast with Panzy here, who has this annoying kid sister vibe to her, and Glorio and the Supreme Kai would probably rather be rid of her, but she can fix stuff, and they can't. Eventually we'll have Bulma in the mix, and she can fix stuff, too, but it's taken her days to repair the Supreme Kai's ship. Panzy's from the Demon World, so she probably knows its technology better.

Speaking of the Supreme Kai, she recognizes him as a Glind, just as Glorio did a while back. She heard that most of the Glinds left to the outside world long ago, so it sure sounds like the Kaioshin are all Glinds who once lived in the Demon Realm, but that still doesn't tell us if the Supreme Kai himself was born in this place.

Panzy is suspicious, because Second Worlders like the Glinds wouldn't come to the Third World for anything other than business, and these guys won't discuss that with her. Glorio refuses to tell her his name, but he says it when Goku mispronounces it. He's been doing that lately, and it took me a while to notice that it's a running gag. It's kind of funny how he won't say his name to strangers unless he needs to correct Goku.

But Panzy is more useful than Glorio wants to admit. When she points out a faster route to the castle, Goku and the Supreme Kai follow, and Glorio has to go along.

On the way, they discuss the way Gomah's men were draining life force to punish anyone who couldn't pay their taxes. From this, we learn that demons live about a thousand years, and Panzy herself is eighty-two. So I guess stealing nine years from that villager isn't quite as harsh as it seemed. It still sucks, because they'll probably keep coming back for tribute, and I assume Gomah finds the life juice more valuable than poor subjects.

Meanwhile, King Gomah has some lady reading fairy tales to Baby Dende. He scolds her for her lackluster reading performance, and at first I thought maybe he was getting sweet on the li'l guy. Like, he originally kidnapped him as insurance. A hostage in case Dragon Team tried to come after him, or at least a way to prevent them from using the Earth's Dragon Balls again. But now he's got him in a crib with a caretaker and so forth. And Dende's so cute he could warm any heart…

… Except for King Gomah, though. He's not taking care of Dende out of tenderness. He plans to raise Dende into a Namek who will make a new set of Dragon Balls for him. You suck, King Gomah. I hope you trip on your stupid cape.

Back in the Third Demon World, the gang finally reach Kadan Castle. Oh, good, I was beginning to wonder how long this would take. Glorio tries to shoo Panzy away, and when she insists on joining them, he tells her she'll just get turned away by the guards. But what he doesn't know is that Panzy is the Princess of the castle.

So, King Kadan. He's a lot like the Ox King or King Yemma, by which I mean a big huge guy who looks mean but isn't all that bad. Panzys says he only steals from the rich and only kills bad guys. Kadan himself says that he can't stand Gomah's reign, and he wants him out of the way so that he can rule the entire Demon Realm himself and restore the peace. So that's why he sent Glorio to request the help of Goku, right? Wrong. Glorio came to Kadan with this plan, offering to bring him the powerful fighters who defeated Majin Buu. Kadan approved, but he knows nothing of them personally, and he had no idea that Gomah had turned them all into children. Clearly, Glorio's up to something.

Then again, his scheme might not be all that complex. We saw him in Gomah's palace watching the same videos of the Buu Saga that Gomah and Degesu were watching. He even overheard Arinsu's suggestion that the Z-Fighters might come to Demon Realm someday and threaten Gomah's reign, and Gomah's plot to turn the Z-Fighters and friends into children. So it's not hard to guess that he went to Kadan to get access to a plane so that he could bring Goku to the Demon Realm.

The only real question is why he didn't bother to let Goku, the Supreme Kai, or Kadan in on his plan. They're all united against Gomah, apparently, so why all the intrigue? Unless Glorio doesn't trust Kadan or Dragon Team. Maybe he's got a different agenda after all.

Anyway, Kadan is so on board with the "Goku Clobbers Gomah" plan that he offers to let Goku marry Panzy if he succeeds. Panzy objects to this idea, and Goku has to explain that he's already married with children. The Supreme Kai tells them that they need to rescue Dende or collect the Demon Realm Dragon Balls to return to normal, and Kadan is astonished that Goku would even consider fighting the Tamagami who guard the Dragon Balls. But if he be beat Buu, it might work. Glorio requests a new plane, but first Kadan asks Goku for a demonstration of his power. Goku's always down to fight.

So yeah, this is basically another Goku brawl, only this time he's fighting Kadan's best warriors. Kadan forbids them from killing Goku, and he's about to tell them to fight without weapons, but Goku's like "Nah, this will be good training," so everyone tries to get him with weapons.

What can I say, except that this is the third "Goku vs. a bunch of guys" fights in three episodes, and it still rules. I hope he does this in every episode. I mean, he doesn't have to, and it's probably better that they don't do this too much more often, since the stakes can only escalate so far. This time, the soldiers try to dogpile Goku, so he briefly turns Super Saiyan to knock them away. So it's the debut of Super Saiyan Mini Goku, even if it didn't last very long. Sooner or later, he'll have a fight where he uses Super Saiyan for a sustained period of time, and then a fight where he and Vegeta both use Super Saiyan, and so on. Of course, we have no idea how long this show is supposed to run for. The hardest number I've been able to find is something like "at least 20 episodes", so maybe 26 or 39, if we're following the "cour" system used for a lot of Japanese television shows.

Anyway, Goku makes short work of Kadan's guys, so we cut to them loading up their new plane. Kadan has to have the plane's computer "rewritten" because it's not the same one Glorio had registered when he traveled to Earth in Episode 2. This way, he can use the same PIN number he used in Episode 3. This is probably a violation of the rules, Warp-Sama enforces, but I still don't know whose rules those are, so I don't know how serious an offense this would be. Mostly, I just like that Kadan's people have ways to get around the barrier. Whoever implemented the PIN number system isn't absolute.

Speaking of that, the Supreme Kai mentions that their friends are going to try to join them here, but they have no PIN number to get access. King Kadan can't do anything about that, but then he asks a guy named Hybis to go fetch them. I'm not clear why Hybis can do this. Maybe he's just using the same registration process Glorio followed before? Anyway, Hybis needs a mid-sized plane for the job, so Kadan orders three of his guys to go steal one from the Nemophy Gang. It wouldn't shock me if the Nemophy Gang were the guys who stole Glorio's plane in the first place.

So with that all settled, Panzy invites herself along for the ride. Kadan objects, but she's good with machines, and she can fix the plane if it breaks. Glorio doesn't care for Panzy, but he's not good with machines, so that settles it. And the Supreme Kai is suspicious of Glorio, but he knows the way, so we're kind of stuck with him too. I guess Hybis and Bulma will have to catch up.

Glorio tells Goku it'll take four days to reach the Tamagami protecting the Three-Star Dragon Ball, and Goku whines about being cooped up in the plane for that long. But it doesn't matter because the plane crashes almost immediately and they all die. Whoops.

Well, that's a weird way to end the show, but it was fun while it lasted… oh, wait, they're okay.

So now that we're at the end of the episode, let me try to circle back and see what we get from all of this.

I guess the first thing we should do is talk about the GT connections. I thought this show was deviating from GT pretty decisively after Glorio's plane got stolen, but Episode 5 gives me pause. I mean, in Episode 5 of GT, Goku goes to the Imeckian ruler's palace and beats up his strongest henchman, Ledgic. They get their ship back and head off with their new pal Giru to resume hunting Dragon Balls. In Episode 5 of Daima, Goku goes to the Third Demon World's royal palace and beats up King Kadan's strongest warriors. They get a new plane and head off with their new pal Panzy to begin hunting Dragon Balls. And both shows feature the de-aged Goku using Super Saiyan for the first time. Eerie, right?

I'm not sure what to take from this. I was pretty confident that the GT parallels would end altogether, or at least become a lot more tenuous. This is either a huge coincidence, or someone genuinely pitched this as a writing challenge. "Let's take a few plot points from each GT Episode and use them to outline a new series."

The simplest explanation is probably that all of these Dragon Ball series are going to have some similarities, because they all feature the same characters in the same world with similar situations. On top of that, they're always doing callbacks to past scenes. The sabretooth tiger that chases Gohan in DBZ Episode 1 shows up again in other episodes, for example. Gohan himself is a walking reference to Kid Goku. Dr. Mu looks just like Dr. Gero. Omega Shenron dies to a Spirit Bomb just like Kid Buu. Lord Slug is just King Piccolo with a spaceship. And so on.

But it also goes to show that you can never be too sure where a story is heading. I mean, I kind of expected Panzy to turn out to be the Princess of the Third Demon World, but that sort of leads into my next point…

I like how this show is connecting all of the characters together. Panzy and Hybis aren't just new additions to the supporting cast who merely happened along. They're connected to King Kadan, who is conspiring with Glorio to overthrow King Gomah. The Supreme Kai is in this story because his brother and sister work for Gomah. It's not clear what he intends to do about that, but he specifically joined this mission because of the family connection.

Bulma, Vegeta, and Piccolo feel somewhat less relevant to what's going on now. We already have a bossy princess who can fix the ship, and a Super Saiyan, so Bulma and Vegeta don't seem all that necessary at the moment. And the Namekian connection to the Demon Realm seems less important now. But that's fine, because Bulma, Vegeta, and Piccolo haven't shown up yet to join the others.

I really like this setup with the main cast taking separate cars to the plot. It gives us time to introduce and develop Glorio and Panzy, and probably Hybis too once they get around to him. If the others were here while all this was going on, they'd be standing around with nothing to do. Or worse, they could get stuff to do and it would get in the way of the main story and overcomplicate things.

I call this principle "Klingons do not have fun." It's not a very good name, but it's a reference to Worf on Star Trek. In actual Worf-themed episodes, which are among the best of the entire franchise, we'll see Worf explored as this complex, layered character, with all sort of passions, insecurities, doubts and ambitions. But not every episode can be about Worf, so in a lot of episodes he's just in the background, and the most he might get is a brief scene where he compares Geordi's problem to some Klingon tradition. Or he'll just recommend security measures because it's his job. Or someone will make small talk with him and ask him what he does for fun, and he'll bluntly reply that "Klingons do not have fun."

And we know Klingons do have fun, because there's episodes where they party and go hunting and make out and stuff, but Worf's kind of a gloomy Gus most of the time, and he tends to assign his personal issues as a cultural feature. The Worf-focused episodes get into all of that, but the ones that focus on the other characters will just reduce him to a soundbyte or two. It'd probably be simpler to write him out of such episodes altogether, but he's part of the crew, so you can't just pretend he isn't there when it's not convenient.

Dragon Ball does this sort of thing as well, but Akira Toriyama also took advantage of opportunities to isolate major characters. The early Namek episodes focused on Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan, because everyone else was dead or back on Earth. Goku was mostly on his own in the Red Ribbon arc because he was on a training excursion by himself. And here, there's two ships, and Bulma's still working on the second one. They'll only arrive when the story is good and ready.

And so it might be worth having an extra tech girl in the story. There's a scene of Bulma and Panzy working on something together in the closing credits, so they'll probably bond or butt heads when they finally do meet later on, but we don't have to rush into that.

Speaking of Panzy, her reveal in this episode kind of reminds me of George Lucas' commentary track for Empire Strikes Back, where he compared Yoda to some archetypal "frog on the road". I'm not sure if that's the trope's "official" name, but you probably get the idea. Glorio is quick to dismiss Panzy as unimportant at best, or a nuisance at worst. He doesn't get too mean about it, mostly because he doesn't lose his cool very easily, but he still thinks she's a pointless distraction, and then she turns out to be Kadan's daughter, and far more important than he realized. It's a nice reversal for Glorio, since his mysterious stranger persona makes it hard to really get into his head. At least this way we can finally see him make a mistake and react to it.

And he's not entirely wrong about Panzy. She puts too much luggage on their new plane, and that's apparently what crashes it. But she'll probably be the one who fixes it too, so there's a sort of push-pull kind of thing with her. It keeps Glorio from getting too comfortable with his plan, whatever it might be. He never counted on Panzy being part of it, no matter how helpful she might be.

Also, I like Goku repeating their mission statement across multiple episodes. We have to rescue Dende. He also wants to fight the Tamamgamis, but Dende comes first. In GT and Super, there were a lot of times where Goku seemed kind of unfocused, usually to set up a gag where he didn't get what was going on. Someone would ask for his input and he'd say he was hungry or whatever. And Goku does get hungry in this show. He eats something in every episode, and I'm pretty sure less than 24 hours have passed since Episode 1. But he also stresses the importance of saving Dende, and he gets into fights, so you get a well-rounded Goku experience every time. The fights aren't just Goku having fun either. He's getting acclimated to the environment, preparing himself for the major battles that lie ahead. Panzy keeps asking him how he got so strong, and he's like "Kid, did you see me beat up all those guys? That's how I got so strong."

#dragon ball #dragon ball daima #spoilers #goku #supreme kai #panzy #glorio #king kadan #hybis

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cymorilcinnamonroll · 4 months ago

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And Ashmedai-Called-Tobias Loved The Daughter of Raguel (An Asmodeus x Sarah bat Raguel Romantasy One Shot)

Bathsheba’s Lament (Bathsheba)

When the cambion child first comes to me, there is David, my captor and husband, wild-eyed at my door. He holds the dark-skinned babe with a face like it has never known a mother’s love, bawling, in rags of ash.

“Bathsheba, I have done a terrible thing,” my David says, blood at his brow, a haze of fiery, gory lust in his eye – like the night he set his guards on me to take me from my bath, and I wept naked, in moonlight, before him. “Agrath bat Mahalath, the wife of Sammael, has tempted me. I do not know what to say, only that this child is hungry.”

I look up from our own nursing son, Solomon, my little prince of the red locks like Esau. “There is room for one more at my breast, my King,” is all I say, though inside, I am burning. Hatred, regret, but sadness, sadness for the newest half-born bastard of David. “What is his name?”

“Ashmedai.”

David hands me this Ashmedai, wipes his hands clean of his sin, then slams the door. I set Solomon down to sleep, then bathe tenderly and change the cloth diaper of the babe. A thick cake of grease and blood, and the sweat of a demoness’ loin, washes off the newborn like ebon silk. Tiny horns poke through little Ashmedai’s coal black hair, and wing buds unfurl from his back.

Solomon giggles in his sleep. I smile tenderly at my newly adopted child. “Oh Solomon, you have a new twin today,” I say, nursing my Ash as rain falls outside on the Kingdom of G-d. Ashmedai latches instantly and puckers his rosy mouth at the sweet tang of my milk. I rock Ashmedai to sleep that night, not letting the poor thing go. Lilith’s companions are not known to be good mothers, after all.

“Ashmedai, welcome home, my gazelle-eyed malakhim,” I tell him as he sleeps beside me, Solomon to my left, Ashmedai to my right.

Solomon snores lightly. Ashmedai stares at the ceiling, reaching for the mobile David carved, on one of the rare days he was sober, and not wrestling like Jacob with G-d. But what do I know of the Lord? I am just Bathsheba. I am just a woman. One of David’s countless wives.

The lot left to me is to pick up the pieces after the men are done.

And oh, what a thing that David has done.

***

David takes to coming home stinking of the Demoness of the Wastes. He steals pennyroyal tea bags from my spice cabinet, an abortifacient that I give out to the maids freely that David impregnates whom he would otherwise execute for not dealing with his own bastard sons and daughters. Why he let Ashmedai live, I know:

Ashmedai cannot be killed. Ashmedai is two now. Always clutching my skirts. More curious than Solomon, who is a sweet mama’s boy. Ashmedai’s wings have grown, there are scales on his brown skin, a dragon’s tail lashing, and he can fly. Each morning, I braid their hair with meadowsweet, black-red locks on Ash’s head, red-blond tresses on sea-gray eyes over Solomon, and Ashemedai’s gazelle eyes burn gold, and my treasured sons kick their feet patiently.

They play. They plot. They beg for apples dipped in honey on Rosh Hashanah. David, on his sober days, holds his sons high to blow the shofar to welcome in the New Year. It is then, when he lives up to Adonai’s burden, that G-d is pleased.

“Bathsheba, Ha Satan has many wiles. It is G-d’s way for those of us who walk with the Lord,” David begs one day when he misses Solomon’s twelfth birthday. He is covered in love bites and bruises from Agrath. My pennyroyal is all gone. I have had to import delphinium from the Etruscans. Better to prevent pregnancies on me or the maids that David sires, these days, than to prematurely end one.

To hell with any more babes Agrath may birth. I have taken in one and loved him fiercely like my own. The rest of David’s cambions can rot.

Ashmedai speeds into the room, straight into David’s arms. “Papa!” he says. “It is Solomon’s twelfth birthday, only, I am jealous, for you never give me any presents on mine.”

David, without thinking, takes a gold seal ring and places it on Ashmedai’s thumb. “Here is a ring, son. A seal of my love.”

Ashmedai hugs David, hard, then darts out of the room with a wooden sword, on wings like spindrifts of wind.

“We have done the best we can by that boy,” David rankles.

“What do you mean, my King?” I ask, horrified.

David touches the tooth ridge scar, from where Agrath bit too hard last year, on his chest. It festered and infected him with fever for days, and now, he always smells of sulfur. “It is time that Ashmedai goes back to his mother. He is strong enough that he will not die in Gehenna this time.”

“But, my King, he is our son! I love him like my own.”

“Shush, Bathsheba. Obey your King. He is my son, not yours. Ashmedai never belonged to you. You were simply his nursemaid.”

That night, all my delphinium is gone.

***

I hide Ashmedai in the rushes. That is not enough to stop Sammael’s hellhounds from sniffing him out. I hide and weep as a great demon horde headed by Ha Satan and a demoness who is more bone than flesh – Agrath – heaves into her arms my poor, bawling Ashmedai.

“Mama, mama? Where are you?” Ashmedai screams. “Let me go, monstress!”

Agrath scoops poison from behind her talon and drizzles it into Ashmedai’s nasal socket. Her son slumps, smelling of nightshade. “Oh, my sweetling, how you have grown. And to think, David had me try to eat you. I am your mother, demon child. You will do well to sit on David’s throne, one day. Sammael, let us go.”

Off they ride, in a bone chariot, as the hellhounds bay.

I clutch Solomon to my breast and cry that night. The next morning, Solomon finds his brother’s ring in the weeds. It is stained with Ash’s blood, his half-twin’s claws having scratched a type of cursed star on it.

“I will never forgive father for this,” Solomon’s tiny voice shakes.

Neither will I.

***

Agrath, Daughter of Mahalath (Ashmedai)

When David sells me down the river for a psalm to my birth mother, Agrath, I am twelve. A little stipple on HaShem’s paintbrush, like the fine horsehair my true mother, Bathsheba, uses to line her malachite eyes with kohl.

Agrath holds me firm on a stony throne of bone and blood. It is freezing, in the barren wasteland of Hell, and mangy lionesses with royalty in their eyes look at me as if I am their next meal.

“Oh, my sweet Asmodeus, Demon of Lust. There is too much of your father David in you,” Agrath sighs, twirling her rotten blonde hair with a spindly thumb.

Her poison from black milk has worn off. I flee, dressed in rags, stripped of the fine royal clothes my sister Tamar always weaves that Bathsheba dresses me in to match my brothers Solomon and Absalom.

“What have you done to me, monstress?” I weep, falling to my knees. My wings are bound, feet manacled to the base of her throne. Agrath’s poison that she has scooped behind my nose has made my limbs jelly. But kin calls to kin. I recognize my own blood. “I am only like Bathsheba, witch. And, a bit like David. Nothing at all like you.”

“Ah? But my Asmodeus. You are the picture of me and my mortal king. A cambion – half whore, half royal. You shall do well in the pleasure chambers and battlefields.” Agrath smokes a long roll of opium. There is a regality in her decay. Twisted, flatulent beauty.

“Oh, mother?” I hiss. “And what am I for?”

She grins, all fangs and terror: “Sammael and I need a weapon. A weapon to sit on a Jewish throne. You shall rule Lust and War. David has done right by you, bringing you up in his ways of warcraft, strategy, swordsmanship, archery, and riding. But this Bathsheba has taught you nothing of pleasure. Unlike us mothers do in Hell. I? I shall teach you magick, and on me, your virgin seed.”

I vomit.

And oh

am I made

to learn.

***

The Casket I Was Born In (Ashmedai)

I was born for no throne but Hell’s, child of King David and the Night Howler Agrath. The machinations of a demon are mighty, but I am only half-ensouled, half of me burning smokeless fire, the other pumping crimson blood.

Cambion, they call me. A prototype of magick. Thick in magick, it bleeds gold from my limbs, like the starry ring Solomon wished upon for my return, half-twin of mine etched in the stars. When Bathsheba seemed to abandon me in the rushes, and my birth mother came calling, had I not already given up the ghost?

I remember it well: Bathsheba’s sweetness. All little boys treasure their mother. We have the same red-black hair, mama and I, thick coils of dark Jewish locks. Where Solomon is ginger like Esau, I am dark and comely, like an homage to the Jacobean underbelly of Gan Eden. Where forefather Jacob saw a ladder of angels, I hallucinate behind closed, serrated goat pupil a great line of demon kings and queens reaching in my lineage from my silver naval cord all the way to the womb of Sheol.

Perhaps I always knew I would lose those dozen years of solace. That did not make the parting any less sweeter. Agrath, she of flayed flesh and bone tendril, did well putting me to work in her whorehouses. They call me Asmodeus, Demon of Lust and Wrath. Say I am only good at the slaver Sammael’s lashing as her witch king husband beats me with his cruel whip. They use my body in turn, my stepfather and her, Lilith, Naamah, and Eisheth.

(This was before the third of starry Heaven fell, and only the terrestrial demons reigned in the womb of Sheol. Leviathan of the frosty cancerous depths, Rahab of the abyssal sea, Sammael of the Vulcan’s forge.)

They share their wives and plant bastards and princesses amongst mortals and demon and angel alike – the Prototypical angels soon acquire a taste for the vintage of hell. In the stable I am held, I am used by merciless Raphael and cruel Jophiel the most. Even peerless Michael deigns rape me to relieve some stress of being G-d’s Champion.

But my favorite is Lucifer. He will purchase a night and day with me, feed me candied violets, and never, ever touch me. Hell is modern in a way human terrains are not, the mystic’s the country of nowhere, Qliphothic side of dreams – the Mundus Imaginalis sages describe in phantasmagories and ecstasies. What Teresa shall see in her Interior Castle is like Lilith’s laughing reflection in the mirror. We have hovels and skyscrapers, winding paths that lead to English rose gardens three millennia before the country was born. Neolithic temples. Mithraic caverns. Chinese mines. Roman tombs.

Lucifer simply says one day, after pampering me: “You must take back your crown, Ashmedai. There will come a day I shall need you. I am slave to Father. You are slave to your Mother. I see, one day, a future in which where you will want something more”

“My mother?” I ask, sixteen and jaded, a whelp of a boy. Already, Agrath and Sammael have me fighting alongside them in endless pillage and plunder against pagan cthonica. We have just struck Yama’s harbors. Next, Persephone’s crown shall supposedly be Naamah’s. And we will lose at every turn, and win again and again. Thus is the balance of Dark Queens like Ereshkigal and Izanami.

No man can rule Hell. I laugh in quiet as Sammael tries.

Lucifer sips his wine – a flinty Chablis from the future. Some fairer clime named ‘France.’ “Bathsheba is well to want, a mother’s love is worthwhile. But beyond power, beyond our native lands, beyond the humanity of immortal souls that us angels and demons long for - (angel no longer shall I be much longer), do we long for a human’s love. In that, Ashmedai, is freedom. I? I covet Eve.”

“I abhor love. It is betrayal. I shall take my mother as bride, just to piss off David.”

Lucifer clears his elegant throat.

“Be careful what you wish for, Ashmedai.”

That night, I find my chains broken, a green gleaming serpent with rainbow eyes curled around them.

“Thank you, greatest of my patrons,” I say to the Angel of Light.

I flee in the night, loaf of bread at hand, secrets and weapons in my packet, fury at my brow.

Want a woman?

A tittering blonde like Eve?

Ridiculous.

***

Le Infante Terrible (Ashmedai)

I find father in birth mother Agrath’s chambers, by the Red Sea where thousands of Lilith’s children have been murdered by Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof. The scattered abortions of their defiled births and prey are borne upon the bone broth upon the stewy sand.

David and Agrath? They fuck in the reeds, like wild animals, in a hot summer night. In quiet timbrels, David weeps of the burdens of reigning.

I slip poison into David’s decoupling wine.

Cantarella.

Afterwards, I smile. The first smile in four years. I watch from the rose bush as my father drinks it down with his Babylon bride.

It in not justice – too late for that. My body is already broken. Mind a salvaged ship. My heart – if I ever had one – is far beyond repair. I barely remember Solomon’s smile and hug. Bathsheba’s tender embrace, the way she fed me pottage, administered to my play wounds, wrapped my wing buds in silk when they itched.

But it feels a might bit of good. To see these birth sowers, traitors of blood, suffer.

David chokes up guts. Boils burn on his abdomen, spread from his crotch to his legs.

I think of the cries of Bathsheba from David’s chambers, the grave of her first husband she secretly wept by each evening that we had gardened as boys – true, the fruit of her and David’s union was sweet: my half-brother, beloved Solomon.

But we are a rotten vintage.

And Solomon? I would see him as king. Or, perhaps, a cambion would do better.

Who is wiser, after all these years - Solomon or I? Are we each a half of a baby, twins more than we know – to cleave us apart, to die?

I steal the shamir from Agrath’s gift box. David had fetched it from spoils of war from the young Queen of Shebe, one of Lilith’s bastard daughters in Ethiopia.

It is said Younger Lilith, the Queen of Shebe, is very beautiful. I faintly remember my score of younger siblings – Tamar, who is now a great lady. Also said to be an unfurling, fair lily of the valley.

Oh, yes. Haughty Absalom. He who nursed until he was ten at his mother’s weary breast.

Warring sons of David. His daughters, weeping. Who, oh who, shall win the accursed crown? Who shall I charm and please?

How can I save mama? My true mother, milk mother, Bathsheba?

How could I ever want a woman in the twisted way David fucked Agrath? In the wily way Lucifer talks of Eve, innocence in sin these humans have? Even Samyaza fell for that Istehar, then was hung as the constellation Kesil. But the Giants were before my time, well, I suppose father David saw to that.

I knife back to the present. Revel in David’s suffering.

Agrath, to her name, Howls. She flies on bloody wings with David’s corpse like a bloody pearl at her breast, to abandon the wreckage of her mortal lover at Solomon’s door. Solomon the Wise is always picking up King David’s pieces, covering up his bastards and scandals.

This, though, will be too much. I have made it so.

Cantarella, mixed with demon ichor, does miracles of death, after all.

I have learned the art of poison, war, and murder from the Drugmaster of God, my adoptive father, Sammael, who took the most pleasure in breaking me.

Like Sammael, I have become a covetous, defiled, twisted thing.

Only with Lucifer, for those four years in Hell, had I ever felt whole. Fathered

What did Lucifer mean, to want something mortal? Something more? I want a grave. Mother’s hands braiding my hair. A stiff drink with Solomon, after my dirty work to his benefit is over.

My vengeance.

The golden shamir worm burrows into my breast pocket, as if trying to get to the center of my heart. My half-human, half-monster cardiac flesh palpitates.

I am not safe here.

There is nowhere safe for any of my family, I am learning. We will kill each other at every turn.

To hell with thrones. To hell with carousing fathers.

I just want done with this whole wretched exile.

But?

I also want to stir

some

shit.

***

Bathsheba’s Elegy (Bathsheba)

David passes on to Dumah’s court, as drunken, carousing kings with rebellious sons do. Absalom rises and rapes and revolts and dies hanged by his hair from a tree. Tamar weeps of her violation and lost brother. I have no tears left to shed. They ran dry when Ashmedai was stolen.

The kingdom is in chaos.

I get on my knees and beg for Solomon to be crowned at my husband, David’s, deathbed. Solomon is 24, a brilliant mage and alchemist and sorcerer – Ashmedai’s power over those twelve years has rubbed off on his half-brother, my shining child. But oh, how I miss the little malakhim with gazelle eyes and tiny, soft wings.

David, senile, says yes, and grants Solomon the throne. My dying king had so many venereal diseases from rotting Agrath and her ladies that I have to stuff my face in my garden’s sweet flowers and retch up my guts.

I have no idea how the black, bleeding boils over David’s legs are not some kind of curse from G-d for murdering my real husband – the husband that loved me – and raping me, Bathsheba, again and again, over and over, forcing me to raise a demon child I came to love from another woman, only to give Ashmedai away. I still keep a lock of Ashmedai’s black hair in a pendant on my breast, tied and braided with Solomon’s red.

***

Bruised Passivity (Ashmedai)

I watch Bathsheba comb her hair.

I weep.

I long for mother’s

Touch.

I miss Solomon’s smile.

But more? I want

revenge.

After all this time, neither mama nor my twin

ever

came

To find me.

***

Bathsheba Reigns (Bathsheba)

Solomon is crowned. I am Queen Regent. All I ask is that my dear son find his brother and keep my herbs and teas stocked so that I may continue attending as midwife to births and deaths in the palace, and not treat his wives badly, as David did.

Solomon writes them Songs. His thousand comely brides sing. He has the Queen of Shebe walk across a floor of glass to reveal the woolen Seirim legs beneath her skirts and takes a demon lover in his own way – for the Queen of Shebe is Lilith the Younger.

We are all sitting down at dinner - Lilith the Younger, Solomon, and I – when a great wind rips open the door. In comes a great and terrible demon, with wild black curls spinning to his feet, talons on his toes and fingers, dark olive skin, burning gold eyes, and sandstone blush.

“Brother, might I know why I was not invited to your coronation?” Ashmedai says.

Solomon begins to weep, then rushes to Ashmedai. “I always wished you would come back, Ash. This is my head wife, Lilith the Younger.”

Ashmedai looks mischievous. “As great a lover as my mother Agrath was to our father David?”

Solomon blunts like the bloodied end of a worn-out mace. “Do not utter her name, Ash. Bathsheba is our mother.”

“She cast me out, didn’t you, Bathsheba?”

I am crying into my roast duck and river greens. “Ashmedai, you know I did not. You know you were stolen away.”

Ashmedai covers the space between us in a lightning strike. He kisses me, hard, on my lips. “Mother, am I not pleasing? Pleasing enough to keep? Pleasing enough to not whore out to all the shedim, lilim, and seirim as Agrath did to me, a slave to the carnal desires of her brothers and sisters? Fit enough to sacrifice like Abel on Yom Kippur?”

My pulse races. My poor, poor son. How he has suffered. “Ashmedai, that is not godly. I’m sorry.”

Ashmedai spits at my feet, then crosses Solomon’s shadow. “I have no use for the tyrant of my father David.”

Solomon begs, and Lilith the Younger shields him with her magick. “Ashmedai, please, forgive us. I tried for a decade to search for you.”

Ashmedai hardens his heart. “No, I demand retribution. I demand Bathsheba as bride.”

I pale. “What – what did you say, my dearest, darling Ash?”

Solomon looks like his temple is burning. “What did you say, bastard?”

“As you have stolen my birthright of King, Solomon, I will steal our mother to Gehenna. A fair trade, no? You have this… Queen of Shebe to entertain you.” Ashmedai’s gold eyes burn. “I want her. I have always wanted the beautiful Bathsheba, who pitied me when no one else would.”

“Ashmedai, remember yourself, my sweet malakhim. My gazelle. This is not like you,” I plead, weeping at my demon son’s knees. I tear at my hair. I always seem to find myself at a man’s feet, begging, on the floor. “I am 42. I am too old. I am your mother. This is the sin that leveled Sodom and Gomorrah to the ground.”

“Any innocence I had was whored out and ground down to the mill long ago.” Ashmedai scowls, then smiles like a serpent’s tooth, dripping poison. “I am a demon. Sin is my nature. I will not leave until you come with me, Bathsheba. I will force you if I must.”

I am weeping, beyond comprehension, inconsolable. Men, they always take. Even my beautiful, black-haired son. My rapist King David. My shy and nameless first husband, stolen too soon by Malakh HaMavet, to dance in Dumah’s Court of the Dead.

“No,” Solomon and I say in unison, his a command, mine a plea.

“Ashmedai, in the name of YHWH, I bind you with your own blood! Brother’s blood, to do me service, to be my personal demon,” Solomon says through a sheen of tears, holding the starry ring David had given Ashmedai all those years ago, that Solomon wears on his neck always, in remembrance of the brother he only had for twelve precious years.

Suddenly, chains shaped like tefillin sprout on Ashmedai. He cries out, constrained, the prayer chains weighing him down. Lilith the Younger murmurs old magick and adds her purple fire to the binding.

“My son, please, let him go,” I plead with Solomon. “He is your brother. His words are air. He means no harm.”

I watch as Solomon’s heart hardens in turn. There was always too much David in him. “My brother Ashmedai desires you, mother. It is an abomination. I will sequester you in your room, so that my whoring half-brother cannot lay an eye on you. And I? I have a kingdom to build.”

***

I watch, each morning, day and night, from my sumptuous prison tower room, as Ashmedai hauls stone. He builds a temple in a year. The ring of David is powerful, or perhaps Solomon always had the magick, dark magick, in him. I hear Ashmedai tell Solomon the secrets of the universe on the wind, teaching him how to summon and bind Goetic demons and make them do his bidding. One day, a brilliant gold worm – the shamir – burrows from my chandelier into the floor, then, to the center of the earth – at least, that is how deep the hole seems.

Solomon’s harem grows. I take food and use the toilet in my room. I mourn my lost garden. Babies cry - Solomon is spreading bastards. His harem is insatiable. Lilith the Younger rules beside him, half-time in Solomon’s court, half-time in Shebe.

Until, one day, a great clamoring comes from far beyond my garden walls. Thunder strikes Solomon’s Temple beyond my window. I tremble, nearly wetting myself. It is my 43rd year.

The Temple shifts, rearranging. I see Solomon flying like a bird, cubits and cubits, aeons and aeons, away.

Ashmedai emerges from the inside-out temple. His tefillin shackles are broken. The demons are freed and cavort. They set themselves with revelry upon the palace harem.

Soon enough, Ashmedai is at my door.

There is Solomon’s crown, at Ash’s brow. His brother’s red-violet robes, lined with white, fall to Ash’s taloned feet. There are tears there, too, in my malakhim’s eyes.

“Mama?” Ashmedai asks. There are scars where his body was bound. “Will you do my hair?”

I do. I untangle a year of knots. I massage his torn-up scalp. Solomon has not been kind to Ashmedai in his servitude. Quite the opposite. Finally, after a year, I am let out of my room.

We gather flowers together in my overgrown, year-untended garden. Ashmedai is silent as he weeds, but his tears say it all.

In the end, my demon son holds my hand, tender, and kisses my cheek.

“You are nothing like Agrath, mama.”

And like that, Ashmedai and I eke out a quiet life in King David’s court, and Ash, my gazelle-eyed malakhim, is a wise ruler.

That is, until Solomon returns anointed by the holy fire of Chokmah, three years a wanderer, and demands his revenge

exiling

malakh.

***

Hold My Girl (Ashmedai)

Since Solomon exiled me, I have been like a Bedouin warlord. Conquering Primals in Hell as Lucifer builds his empire alongside his arch-regent Beelzebub and Queen Eve – the old regents and my mother overthrown – taking pleasure where I may: casks of Grecian wine, stolen dates from rotten vines that my stepfather Sammael had damned, dreaming of Bathsheba.

“Go in the night,” mama Bath said, pressing lily of the valley perfume into my brow. “Solomon’s magick is too strong for you to defy him any longer. But remember this my gazelle-eyed malakhim Ash: Solomon still loves you. Brothers always fight. Look at Sammael and Michael.”

So, I kissed Bathsheba’s brow, left roses on Tamar’s pillow, and rode an Abyssinian gelding out into the cold, glassy night. I have mastered many magicks, and I took the shamir as souvenier – it can burrow to find spring water, this tiny gold wyrm, or arch like a sling rock into my enemies’ bodies, leaking bloody fountains.

Hell is not somewhere I enjoy. I stick to the shadows, trading with the Samaritans and Maccabees. Empires come and crumble. Bathsheba ascends to Heaven, and Solomon, immortal from his pact with G-d – more Chokmah wisdom contained in his vessel than any sage before him – retreats to the Heavenly City with King David, out of some petty vagary of repentance.

The Temple crumbles and is built again. The High Priest of Israel wears a plate of armor of shimmering jewels. On a drunken bet with Moloch, I steal into the Temple and wear it, then talk to G-d as I have longed to since I was born, offering Him a golden bull.

“What would you have of me, Father – why was I created? For tragedy?”

There is a burning rose bush, a wind of the archons, Sophia trickling like a watery serpent of gnosis into my daemonic brain.

A bright silver lizard appears with startling purple eyes: the Shekinah.

“You were created for love, Ashmedai,” the Shekinah says, quite kindly, then dissolves into mist and floats up to Gan Eden.

I retch my guts out – I have enchanted the Temple workers to serve me like a foreign Carthaginian king, as I play at paying alms to their G-d, who is secretly my own. Memories of my bondage and breaking in at the pleasure houses of damnable Sammael and Agrath, who are now bound lock and chain in Tartarus, bloody my mind like a blunted mace.

The Demon of Lust – Asmodeus – created for love?

Impossible!

Only Bathsheba loves me. Tamar relies on me. Solomon and I are bitter wine. In Heaven, my family abides. I have free reign of Earth, Heaven, and Hell, cambion I remain.

David repents, regrets. He prays with his kindred of anointed angels and my ancestors in Avram’s bosom, trying to make right his wrongs – as a husband, king, and father.

So far, I feel no blessing from starry, weeping David has befallen me.

I am simply:

A warmonger.

Gambler.

And crap dice player -

With fate.

Still, love calls, as it

always

will.

(You don’t have far to go, boy

you don’t have much

at all.)

***

There is tell of a king in Medea, Raguel, who has a daughter possessed. They say this fair, comely Sarai is possessed by me.

No human has claimed I have possessed anyone yet. Overthrown Solomon’s temple and made him spend three years in delightful exile, yes, but that wicked country is now ancient dust. Kingdoms fall and rise, and though occultists think they can bind me, I reason I am fairly free.

Sammael, Lilith, and Beelzebub are the common possession complaints. But me? This means my reputation is spreading. Amused, I send a messenger blood-hawk to Lucifer to tell him I am taking time off to strike up some revelry in Medea, and celebrate my good fortune of being named so dangerous amongst humans, I possess their comely brides.

They say this girl, Sarai bat Raguel, refuses all suitors, and aims to be a rabbi. A female rabbi? What genius! She is seconds from being stoned.

I absolutely must intervene.

***

“Your name is?”

“Tobias. I am here to save your daughter from the misfortune that befalls old maids.”

King Raguel of Medea looks at me, scrutinizing. I have disguised myself not very well, my proud red-black curls done in a turban, my outfit that of a Medean goatherd. I offer Raguel myrrh from my bag. Sweet figs. A pomegranate.

“My daughter Sarai has a sizable dowry, and has had suitors before, young Tobias. But I fear you will not last the night.” King Raguel’s hazel eyes bore into me like he is drilling for diamonds.

“Oh?” I drawl, smirking. I have a habit of smirking. Perhaps it covers my wounds. “Is this daughter of yours very ugly? To be possessed by this ‘Asmodeus,’ does she freeze them like the Grecian Medusa?”

There are tears in King Raguel’s eyes. He appreciated the fifty goats, twenty oxen, and ten white bulls I had given him for Sarai’s virginity. “No, my daughter is a dreamer, the worst predicament for a woman, young Tobias. Her love of the holy book has led her astray, and open to the devious machinations of the Sitra Ahra. Asmodeus possesses her each wedding, and has slain six suitors on my daughter’s behalf.”

I pale, my olive skin teeming. This Sarai, a murderer? And here I had thought her bookish, stubborn, and prone to dramatics. This sounds like a curse. Fun, but I have no idea what demon has cast it.

“Well, the truth is, most esteemed, venerable King Raguel,” I say, faking solemnity: “I am blessed by the healing angel Raphael. I am told by my ophanim mentor that burnt fish liver shall drive away this ‘Asmodeus.’ You can give her dowry away to set up a fund for Medean widows. After all, I, Tobias, am a wealthy man.”

King Raguel dabs at his eyes. “Blessed by an angel like the wrestling Jacob and Michael. Indeed, dear young Tobias, you have finally given me hope. The wedding is tomorrow – the ketubah will be ready. What is your lineage, Tobias? Though a goatherd, you are prosperous. A trader, I presume?”

I smile like a snake, barely concealing my fangs. “Fallen royalty, your highness. I am from King David’s line.”

His eyes go wide. He invokes a solemn prayer to G-d. “Very well then, young Tobias. Prepare yourself to rid my sweet, misguided daughter of her demon. May you have many children by my fine daughter, and inherit my kingdom in glory.”

***

I laze about all night, eating fancy cheese and honeyed loaves. The challah the kitchen girls make me is particularly wonderful. But curiousity gets the best of me. First, I visit King Raguel’s stables, and look at his fine roans, Roman stallions, and Gallic hounds. Next, to the courtyard – statues of Asherah line the fountain, teraphim are replete in each corner with offerings, there is a carved homage to Baal, but G-d is at the forefront – in the form of the snake god Yah. So, these Medeans are not strictly monotheists. More prone to superstition and casting stones at curious girls… who somehow murders her intendeds.

Finally, the library. It has the smell of the Library of Alexandria, but is much more rich in magickal tomes, occult texts, and the classics. Long Jewish law scrolls, ancient tablets, folktales, Grecian and Roman myths, books from as far as China. Oh, what a wonderful collection!

I almost do not notice the young, plump woman covered in ink, writing neatly in the corner. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, soft like my mother, strong like David.

Muscles ripple under her olive dough. Her breasts are two perked mountains, her dress made of black cotton embroidered with pomegranates in costly Egyptian crimson glass. Her hair is a spill of brown chocolate, and it smells faintly of lilacs.

But, those eyes? They burn. They pin me. They dissect every sin and regret my fulsome hips and pistoning rod has ever buried itself into for cold, shallow comfort to deal with the trauma of my life. Embers and wood.

What right does this strange girl have, to see right through me, to my heart!

“So you are Ashmedai,” she sighs, putting her quill down and neatly setting her scroll – a Hebrew poem on dawn – out to dry on the rack.

“Sarai?” I ask. I am drawn to her like a child to his mother, like a man to his wife. No human, beyond Bathsheba, has ever commanded any respect from me. To us demons, humans are toys. But I feel she is playing with me. And I am at this strange poet’s mercy.

“I suppose you may call me that,” she puffs at her oudh-clad curl. “Rabbi Sarai would be nicer, Ash.”

“I am not a demon that torments you. I am your intended, Tobias.” I bow low, smiling winningly. But, just for her, I let my fangs extrude, leaking sweet, honeyed poison. She is a murderess, after all.

“So the whole palace believes!” she laughs. “What a fool these Medean men and women are. What a fool the world is. They cannot tell demon from angel, man from G-d, a scholar and alchemist worth her salt from a doddering, demented “rabbi.” I have more wisdom in my little pinkie than this whole accursed town.”

“I do not doubt that, Sarai. You saw through my disguise. But I am only a human.”

I stride proudly toward her, taking her hand and kissing it. In my excitement at her comely form and sparkling wit, my talons come out of their nailbeds, pressing into her golden hands to form half-moon impressions.

“As human as I am a woman.” She laughs, charmed by me. Her smile could make a man kill himself just to please her – perhaps this is what these suitors are doing.

“No, you are an angel, Sarai.”

She rubs her hands down my neck, taking my measurements. “I hate rubies. They weigh me down. No coffers may enter Heaven. Take these, Ashmedai – my gift to you. You will not live long, you know. Every man that marries me dies.”

She strings her necklace of pearls and pigeon’s blood rubies around my curls and neck, free from her own sweet binding. I shudder as the bell-like sleeves of her dress, smelling sweetly of Sarai, skim my cheek.

“So, you are an angel? Why are you in this backwater prison, masquerading as a woman?”

We sit, and she leans against me. I wrap my arm around her – I do not know why. It is like she has always fit there.

“Well, I suppose I am human. I was born of Raguel and some nameless concubine who died in birth. Perhaps, as an orphan, I am prone to a wandering mind. But you know, kind demon who will not live through my wedding night, I have visions: Genesis, G-d’s darkness, a fennel stalk of flame in Prometheus’ hand. I think I have a spark of the Hol Bird in me.”

“The phoenix?” I kiss her brow, kicking my feet with her on the bench. “Perhaps, you do.”

“The shamir wyrm you wear comes from the Phoenix’s cast-off feathers, you know, when it dies in Heliopolis,” she says. “It will become a bird again when you love yourself.”

I freeze, remembering the Shekinah’s prophecy. Anger flashes in my eye, and I stand quickly up, spitting at her feet. “I am a demon, you cossetted princess. Born for whoredom and slaughter. Do not you know whom you tempt? I am Lust. I am Wrath. Your ruin.”

She narrows her cinder-colored honey eyes at me. “And yet, my demon, you came. You came all the way from Hell, to investigate a strange girl. Why?”

I stutter, balling my hands into fists until my talons make me bleed. “I do not know why I am here,” I curse. “Perhaps to shut you up.”

She smiles wickedly. “You are easy to pique, my Ashmedai.”

I tie my hair back with sinew. The red-black cloud is a mess. “I am Tobias, girlchild.”

I stomp out, and then, I fall to my knees in my private room, weeping:

Finally,

am in love.

I feel trapped.

I feel insatiable.

The hours til the marriage ceremony make my skin crawl like ice melting.

I need her, Sarai.

I want her, the girl rabbi.

I need her. I need her. I’ll eat her!

Why, oh why G-d, did you send me

an angel

of Hell?

***

During the marriage ceremony under the white canopied tent, we slaughter an ox, sign the ketubah, and dance.

Sarai watches me, amused.

I burn for her. I hold her hand to stinging closeness. Lust – is this lust? Is this love? Is this madness, what Lucifer felt when he first beheld a woman, the first terpsichore, Eve, and had to tempt her – plant his seed deep in her womb – as some arcane Forbidden Fruit, to ensoul these godforsaken humans?

Daughters of Eve – the Watchers fell for them. Samyaza and Azazel could not resist. My father David killed the last of their unholy, giant brood of Nephil brats.

But me? I am drowning. When I kiss Sarai, there is poison on her lips – cantarella. So, she poisons the suitors. Little does she know, I too poison myself, to build up immunities against my enemies. The flowers and herbs of hell are much more potent, so all the cantarella does is make me ebullient and twirl her around even faster.

We go to the bedchamber. Sarai watches me, expectant.

“That was quite a lot of cantarella, Ashemedai-called-Tobias. I suppose, it does not affect a cambion?” She laughs, pouring us saffron tea and serving it to me teasingly.

“Sarai, I love you,” I say. It spills all out of me like a child’s coins into a well. I cannot hold it in.

“You are drunk, Ashmedai-called-Tobias. Every man wants me for my beauty. Not for my knowledge. Not for my soul. For that sin, you will never have me.”

“Oh, but Sarai bat Raguel – I spent all afternoon contemplating your genius, reading the poems you write. You are better than Sappho. I cannot think of anything besides Homer to which you compare-

“Enough flattery, my demon. Come, lay your head in my lap. You are my husband now. After all, you survived my test.” She giggles, her beautiful wedding gown rich and resplendent, as befits the jewel of all Medea. My Sarai crinkles her nose. “You smell of lust and goat.”

“I am Tobias, a goatherd. I had to be. To win your hand.”

She combs my hair with tortoiseshell, then braids peonies into it. I always seem to find angels repulsive – but not this ‘Sarai,’ whoever she truly be.

On her, my first blood. On her, my heart’s kiss. On her, my troth. On her, my new life.

She is my grave, you see.

“And I must be a rabbi, Ashmedai. You do not know how much G-d calls to me. Scribbling verses in Koine Greek on the back of my mind. Burning aeons into my brain. My heart is a gazelle that longs only for your Father.”

“Are you the Shekinah, Sarai?” I ask, dazed, gazing up at her aristocratic, aquiline nose, the slanted almond eyes, the thin lips like daisy chains Solomon and I once made for mama.

“Aren’t all women the Shekinah, sweet Ash? And aren’t all men Adamah?”

“Daughter of Eve, you toy with me,” I warn.

“And you tempt me, Ashmedai. You are the only man who can hold me. Yet I will slip like rain through your hands.”

We kiss then. Fire and wine. She undresses me with medical precision, then sews my joints back together with her winsome hands. I am the demon of pleasure, so I master her, but only to her, do I yield. We sing hosannas under the starlit moon of Lailah.

Make love, again and again, until my thick black seed and her silken spendings coat us like wet grain.

“Will you have yet another Nephilim on me, Ashmedai?” she asks, hopeful.

“Do you want one?” I murmur, kissing sweet Sarai, angel Sarai’s, brow.

“Only with you.”

We are drunk off one another for twelve days and twelve nights, only stopping for food and wine, and long strolls in the courtyard garden. We talk philosophy. She shows me her alchemy lab. She has transmuted sulfur to gold. Nigredo stains the walls.

I see the phoenix in her, enshrouded deep in her amber-orange soul.

In me, Sarai sees spring rains, celery and wheat. A secret garden of roses, meant only for her.

On the final night, she uses her alchemy to twist the shamir into a cock band, and places it on my member: “You are mine, now and forever, Ashmedai.”

I kneel, kissing her feet. “You have gelded me, sweet Sarai.”

That lovemaking, after she crowns me?

It is

the sweetest

I have ever

known.

***

I finally leave the bedchamber to find her some pain reliever when Sarai’s menses comes. It seems no child was fetched – the cycle of the moon was not at its fertile peak, anyway.

“My angel, I am back!” I exclaim with vim and vigor, practically barreling like a happy toddler into the room, drunk off my new bride.

There stands Solomon, with sleeping, fainted Sarai – a smile on her face, drool at her mouth, tears in her eyes, convulsing – in his arms.

In seconds, I am feral, my mace at hand.

Solomon sighs. “G-d has called Sarai. She is a holy woman, Ashmedai. You are polluting her. It is the Law, you know. Angels and demons are not meant to be.”

“And who are you, wretched brother – God’s executor? The new Sammael, now that my stepfather is bound?”

Solomon sighs. He is still ageless, young and wicked in his beauty, but now, his eyes are jade, and his hair is platinum white. “Michael stands to G-d’s Right. I must occupy the Left. There is a balance to these things, you know.”

I slash his throat, then take Sarai back into my arms. Solomon’s work is too much though.

Sarai

Gone.

I curse, rave, dig up the guts of Solomon’s vessel until blood spatters the room. But his remains, and peaceful Sarai, dissolve into golden light covered in white feathers, and float up

To Gan

Eden.

I weep. I wretch. I am broken. I will never

love

again.

But oh, if I had only known –

Sarai was far from gone.

In fact, she would haunt me, and I her,

Throughout

The channels

Of time.

“To hell with fish liver,” I sigh. I burn it to drive myself off.

Like a thief in the night

I leave Medea as I came.

***

I do not walk the Earth again for a hundred years.

Better to rot in my own living casket. My office in Hell. I become a fuck machine. I lose myself in men and women and those in-between. I become addicted to drugs of every calibration and titration. Lucifer worries, Bathsheba mothers, but I am a rock star on a bender, before rock is even a dream, a killer who forces Lucifer to make me his Prime Executor. I take pleasure in torture and perdition, the tenebrous punishment of the Damned and wicked Primals who once ruled Hell far more lawlessly than just Lucifer, shrewd Beelzebub, and wily Eve.

I do not visit Bathsheba. Do not write back.

I am too ashamed of what I have become.

A monster.

I guillotine the Damned. Hunt down the Primals.

And I torture those in Tartarus that Lucifer overthrew.

I grow wicked, abhorrent, I finally, after one hundred and eleven years, long for sun. A garden.

I hate gardens, now. I curse daylight. It is always night in Hell.

And yet, the ghost of love? It calls me.

I open a portal to a backwater countryside my father David once shepherded in. Wells make ley lines easier focal points to travel by – and the dead may not cross water.

And then, I shriek.

For at the well, younger but still her, dressed in strange clothes

is Sarai.

She sees me, covered in blood, bat-winged, chicken-footed, scaled, goat eyed, three heads of lion, bull and ox – I have no semblance of my human father left, for in Hell, to be monstrous is beautiful.

She sees me but does not remember me. How could she?

She throws her pail of water at me, laughing in fulsome joy.

“Oh, you are quite beautiful, and I mean to make you happy, poor thing. Let this sacred water heal you, lost little malakh.”

“Why do you bless a fallen angel, girl?” I weep.

She rubs vomit from my three mouths. “I bless you, strange creature. You are in pain. But do not linger here. The City of Luz is immortal, meant only for holy prophets, women of letters, and G-d.”

The water is sweet, cool, puts out one hundred eleven years of burning.

“May I follow you, daughter of Eve?” I choke through my vomit.

She quirks her lip, pity in her eye.

“No, strange creature, you may not. I am wed and must return to my sweet Jephtha. But I wish you well, in whatever it is you seek to find. Demons do not often surface anymore these days, you know.”

And with that, Sarai pats my monstrous, beastly back, rubs my brow of vomit and blood with her skirts, and blesses me, water at her hip as she walks through a hazelnut gateway into the immortal City of Luz, within which even Death cannot enter, much less a demon.

“Sarai?” is all I can sob, over and over again. For the first time, I shed my monstrous carapace, the fleshly and scale and horn and mane armor I wore to hide my pain, and I am just Ashmedai.

Red-black hair, golden eyes, scarred olive skin. I am naked. It rains. I want

the wind

to rid me

of her ghost.

I want to go to Bathsheba, to Lucifer, and be consoled. But this, I keep secret for many years. That Sarai, instead of passing on, and whatever happened in Heaven, chose to reincarnate to Earth.

How many times has she been reincarnated?

Is she, in the fog of newly born Lethe, also searching for me, in her heart of hearts?

Oh, her husband is lucky. What I had of her for thirteen days, he will have for a lifetime.

I curse Solomon. I curse G-d.

I Carry

On.

A hundred more years pass.

I ponder. I soften.

I am still wretched.

Still, I garden.

Hope.

Hope is on my mind.

Purim draws near.

I must go to Bathsheba, and ask

of the state

of my brother.

And Sarai?

Wait

for

me.

***

Purim (Bathsheba)

I thought, in Heaven, there would be no more tears over my sons. My first husband is but dust – he passed through the final gate of starry beginnings, sickened to lose me, desiring a clean slate. But I have sons, a daughter. I must stay – for Solomon. For David. For Tamar. For Absalom.

And, of course, for Ashmedai.

He has not visited in 211 years. Eve comes each Monday with fresh figs from her husbands’ Beelzebub and Lucifer, their quaint cottage in Hell perfect for moon gardens. We brunch, have boozy mimosas, and I wonder at my sons, always at war with each other.

Absalom has shaved his head. He refuses to have more than a buzzcut. He works with Metatron to build the Heavenly City – more pearly gates, more rivers of aquamarine, more magical creatures. He has become peaceful, thoughtful.

David repents. He cries. He meditates and prays. These men of Avram’s bosom have a connection to G-d, are let into the room of the Thrones that Michael and Solomon, who replaced Samael as Left Hand of the Father in the Heavenly Courtroom, Guard.

It is a connection I will never understand. Eve and I cherish our humanity. It is the strongest, most sacred part of ourselves. Ashmedai and Absalom do too. But Tamar, David, and Solomon have given themselves completely over to G-d. Perhaps it is a matter of if one chooses the Paternitas or Matronit, in our eternities, that forms our final souls.

Or, like my husband history has forgotten – the one who loved me when I was not a woman to write of in any holy book – only certain people and angels are granted eternity in the first place. Mayhaps even I will crumble to dust, disappear into the sentence at the end of the line, one day.

I am out gardening in my healer’s hut. I practice folk medicine with Gabriel and Lailah at the Tree of Souls, the married angels of birth and healing and the moon who tend Gan Eden. They are kindly angels. The fighting factions on both sides: archangels and demons, have mostly softened since the Primals were chained in Tartarus after Lucifer ‘reinvented’ and realigned things. But what is not outright warfare, is now subterfuge and politicking.

I shall have none of it. I braid Tamar’s hair. Bath Kol and I play bridge. Eve and I gamble in Persia, disguised as old, happy maids.

But I fret, over David, Solomon, and Ash.

And at night, I leave the stars and Heaven behind, to go to the far Lake of Memory, by the Bell Trees of Machon, and I meet my first husband there, his sylvan form melding his sweet, rain-laden soul in my wondermaker form. We are like the moon and her tide, him and I.

That is a secret I only tell you, dear reader. Not even darling Eve knows.

I wish, my family – though bruised – can heal.

I pray to the Shekinah when it rains. She comes to me as a snake of pure silver, with cobalt eyes. She wraps around my ankle, tickling my skin, and gives me seeds from far distant climes. They grow such splendid fruits. A kumquat. A durian. A citron. A pomelo. A banana. A pawpaw. My favorite? Mango. Or strawberry? It is hard to decide!

I like to watch humanity grow. I am an angel, it would seem, by these four white wings on my back. I can travel from Kether to Malkuth, up and down the Sephiroth.

I never visit Hell. It would be too painful, to force myself upon Ash with a box of fresh challah and a book to bide his time. He must make peace with himself. Solomon comes for Sabbath, says few words, but always makes knish and asks to pray with me.

I am falling back in love with David. I find, like Eve, our hearts grow tenfold here in the afterlife.

It is more like the beginning of a season, not so much an end, this fabled land beyond time. A season of planting, fruiting, winter, cycles. Rain.

“Mama?” comes a voice from the door of my healer’s hut in Gan Eden. Gan Eden is nature unbound, the Shekinah’s domain, where all that are wild and true roam.

I say quietly, daring to hope: “My Ash?”

In comes a broken, wistful boy I know like the back of my hand. The splendid robes, the impeccable jewelry, the fine heavy rings on his hands – I see through to the wounded nightingale of his heart.

He is the fairytale emperor with no clothes, stripped of any protection.

I rush to him, hug him, sob. “Oh, my malakhim. My gazelle. It has been over two hundred years. You do not look a day past twenty-five. But the demon form you were so proud of? You do not wear it, it seems…”

He shrugs, guarded. His golden eyes are shrewd. “It did not suit me. I am a man of business and the marketplace.” Then, he falters – his armor falls, wings droop, lips quiver. “Nothing matters, does it mama? If one is in love?”

I smile bittersweetly. “So, Cupid of Roman fame has struck you?”

“And I am known as Dark Cupid. I tripped on my own arrow, oh!” He sighs, pouring himself red wine from the carafe on my side table. “Badly, mama. So badly, it burns like Psyche’s oil. I have done many ills in my life. I am afraid, this is my karmic justice.”

“You are just my son, Ash. There is no justice or sin here. Only love.”

“Then why does Sarai haunt me! 211 years. I have only seen her once. I had thirteen days with her. I? I rule Wrath. I am King of Lust. But she is queen of my soul. I last saw her last in Luz.”

“The Deathless City?” I say quietly. “She is holy. More holy than even Michael.”

Ash winces at the name of Michael. I wonder, sadly, why.

“Yes, mama, that is the particular problem. By the rules of HaShem’s game, I am like shellfish – unclean. Though I do hate fish as well.”

I pull out a plate and serve him fresh Hamanstaschen – cookies shaped like Haman’s ears we used to make each Purim after he became a ruler of Hell. He quite likes Esther. He smiles, grateful, and bites into one indignantly, then sobs. Ash takes off his rings in the silver bowl I offer him. They look heavy. Hard to eat with. I gently take his coat and hang it up.

“Tell me about her, Ash.”

“I love her.”

“What is she like?”

“An angel.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“Medea. She was a princess.”

“What was her mother’s name?”

“I… do not know.”

“What is her last name?”

“Bat… Raguel?”

“What is her favorite color?”

“Ember. Cinders. Brown. Her eyes. They burned, saw through me… I, she wore a black dress with claret glass pomegranates. Maybe she likes pink?”

“Does she cook? Ride? Sew?”

“Um, she… she writes poetry. An alchemist.”

“And?”

“Well, she tried to poison me.” He smiles dreamily, then sobs.

I rub his hand, careful of his talons. The rings have sunk costly impressions into his skin, wax from his crests – Lucifer’s government has many insignias – the tallow having impressed crusted red dribbles on his knuckles.

“I take it is complicated.”

“I cannot have her, oh mama!”

Ashmedai lays at my feet, weeping, his brilliant hair unspooling in a black cloud in my hands. I see he now wears ram’s horns. They are kingly. Like Moses. So, G-d has anointed him… if only he could love himself!

My son Ashmedai shakes in anger. “Solomon. Solomon took her.”

“Solomon carries out the word of G-d, Ash,” I warn. “I am not much of one for G-d these days, I suppose. I live in the exiled Bride of God’s domain, after all. Oh Ash, Solomon loves you. So does David. They ask after you often.”

“I hate them. I will string their guts from the stars as jewelry in bloody Hell.”

“Ash, that is not you,” I correct him. “That is Sammael talking through you.”

“I – sorry, mama.” He stands up, embarrassed, cheeks burning. “Locker room talk.”

“Can you give me any clue to her true essence?” I urge. My magick rises in me, my four wings piquing like divining rods.

I can sense Sarai. She senses him. Looks at him fondly, wistful, through my eyes. But he is not ready for that.

He looks towards his belly, like an arrow has impaled his loins. “She knew the true nature of the shamir… no, I cannot say. It is our secret.”

I darken. “Solomon knew a girl like that. In his exile in Egypt. She was called Khofe. She was a priestess of the Bennu bird in the Heliopolis.”

Ashmedai rankles. “Did he kill her too?”

I soften, sorrowed, happy – oh, what do I feel, now that my prodigal son has returned?

“He married her, Ash,” I say in a whisper. “Solomon wants you to visit. He wants to apologize. Explain that day. All he said is… there is bad blood between you. I do not understand why you three – David, Solomon, and you, my gazelle, cannot soften like Absalom and Lucifer. Even Moloch does not eat the children anymore.”

Ash wails. “SOLOMON MARRIED HER?”

Like that, he flies like a mad, vengeful demon from my humble hut, transformed into his beastly form.

“I should not have told him that,” I tell the silver snake at my door, with burning cobalt eyes.

The Shekinah smiles, then offers me a necklace of apple seeds.

“Yes, Sophia. Men. Complex. Let us pray, and plant. We have gardens to tend.”

And bones to mend, by the end of thisssss. She hisses.

***

Testament of Solomon (Solomon)

I have a brother I love, who is the sun to my moon. He stands in light, taller, stronger, faster, and I wish to marvel at all he touches.

My better half, Ashmedai.

Mama says we were born of David, of a fabled line of kings. I do not feel very kingly, at night when mama weeps, and papa wrestles with G-d. Ash is the strong one, the leader. If we were Sea People pirates on an island, robbing dead kingdoms, Ash would be the leader, with a shiny bronze sword.

He is faster. Stronger. Funnier, Smarter. Better.

But I? I am wise.

Papa tells me “Solomon, climb the horse this way. The way Ash does. Practice your sword better, cut like Absalom. For every lap Ashmedai does, do twenty-one. It is not your fault your mind is strong, but body thin and weak. That is how some holy men are. You were born holy, son of my favorite bride.”

I do not feel papa likes me. Just, the image of himself he sees in me. He slew giants. He played the harp and quieted king’s dreams. I am twice as good at playing the harp, I beat papa at chess. I have never seen a giant, but Ash and I play pretend. Ashmedai tires and wants to play craps or wrestle. I laugh and say okay.

Having a twin is fun. I have a best friend.

I do not understand

When

He goes

Away

A bloody ring in my hand.

A demoness of darkness, that smells like papa’s arms when he hugs me late at night – rotten roses, musk, wine.

Ash screams. I sob. Mama tries to beat back Hell. I do not understand. I take out my sword, stab a hellhound. It leaves a bite mark the size of a copper disc on my shoulder.

And so, I lose

My best friend.

Where

Is my

Favorite

Twin?

***

Father’s body is left at my doorstep when I am sixteen. Absalom dies hanged. I comfort Tamar, lead a kingdom to young. Mother is strong, and weeps at David’s deathbed.

That night, as David is buried, G-d calls to me like a broken temple. I see it in my mind: a great sacrifice, a mountain of golden brick, taller than Babel, I the master of knowledge.

Chokmah. Wisdom. G-d. It burns so clear. How could I not see? I can save Ashmedai, and mama, if I

Can save

Myself.

***

Forty days before my coronation, I fast in the desert.

I don beggar’s garb and live off locusts and honey. I only drink water from the purest wells.

G-d tickles my mind like an infant latching onto copper keys. My bite mark from the hellhound cleanses into angel feather tattoos. I whip myself with goat leathers. I bathe in Jordan streams. I wander and I pray. I make alms and penance.

I can see Ash, suffering, in oasis pools. Unspeakable, tenebrous things.

I do it all, for him. I will set him free!

Father repents, in Avram’s bosom. He was a broken man, by the end. But not beyond the providence of G-d.

I must carry on, above all, for sweet mama. The queenly Bathsheba. For lovestruck, healing Tamar, who is set to marry a Persian prince.

I must

Save

My brother

Ashmedai!

***

The thirty-ninth night, G-d comes as a burning bull.

He tramples the sand of my cave, and sweet myrrh and honey pours in waves from His amber, flaming flesh. It immolates me in sweet, lavender-orange fire.

SOLOMON.

“Yes, Adonai?”

YOU ARE MY LEFT. MY GEVURAH. MY SWORD IN THE NIGHT. MY DARKNESS.

“But – but Adonai. I mean to be a kind ruler.”

DARKNESS IS HOLY, MY CHILD. BEFORE I PARTED THE WATERS, I IMBUED THE WORLD WITH SWEET DARKNESS. SAMMAEL IS RETIRED FROM HIS DUTIES. I NEED A JUST LEFT HAND. YOU WILL FACE MANY TRIALS. YOU WILL GUARD MY COVENANT. REUNITE ME, SOMEDAY, WITH MY BRIDE.

I tremor, nearly pissing myself, overcome with gracious tears. Terror, and joy, ecstasy. “The – the Shekinah?”

MASTER THE DARKNESS, SOLOMON.

“The – the Temple, that I see? That haunts me? Is that the answer, oh Adonai?”

YOU YOURSELF ARE THE GIFT, MY SON.

And like that, the bull gores me. I bleed spring water in holy union, then I awake, possessed by holy

Darkness.

Magick is mine, that day.

Eternity, in a day.

Focused, in Ashmedai’s bound blood

My brother anchoring father’s

Ring.

***

I will save

Our People.

***

Ashmedai has betrayed me. I could not find him, in all my searching, in all the spells I cast, I could not master the fulcrum of night in my heart. The angel feather tattoos tickle my shoulder, and my starry ring echoes with his cries in the dead of night. I am asked to split a babe in half, but I give it to its proper mother. I pull a two-headed man from a far distant kingdom from the depths of the Earth.

The Queen of Shebe comforts me, a little. Bathsheba is kind. But sleep, this harrowing of ruling – I see why us Jews wrestle with G-d like Jacob. Peace and slumber elude me. My empire grows, prospers – the vinyards and fruits multiply, the women bear many sons and comely daughters, but my internal castle crumbles. I watch my bridges to Ashmedai burn to the ground.

I can feel him slipping away. So is it any wonder, he is angered when he emerges from his brooding, hiding – I the last great hope for a brooding dynasty, he the dark sword in the night? He is my sun, I am the moon and I orbit him. Power shatters, and I bind him – he means to drag Bathsheba to Hell and lock her in a tower, I am sure of it!

And, he has the darkness too. That very same darkness G-d anointed in me. We are half-light, sick-shadow, creatures of haunted Shedim. So, he teaches me. To master the Primal lords. To summon his Goetic brothers. His name: Asmoday. Aeshma Daeva. Sakhr. Asmodeus.

He is only Ash, but I never call him that.

He looks at me like I am a monster. The crowds chant my name.

Ashmedai says that he hates me.

My castle crumbles.

I watch my bridge to my brother

Burn

The

Ground.

***

The ring betrays me. Chokmah overpowers me. I fly cubits away, bound by the same tefillin I bound my half-twin with. I am stripped of my finery, and all I can do is laugh in sweet relief: oh brother, my brother – you do not know what a curse it is to rule! To have the Sword of Damocles screwed to a crown on your head, your mitre Moses’ Nehushtan, ready to strike your wrist with sweet poison!

I am a stranger in a foreign land. It is thirteen o’clock. Time through a mirrored wonderland. I learn the ways of spirits, amble through darkness and Lilith’s mirrored shards on broken limbs. Rainbow spinnerets of the Holy Phoenix caress me like a lover.

I can see her: dancing. My soul. My light. The light G-d took from me, when I was still a boy, dreaming of only winning papa’s affection, Bathsheba’s smile, Tamar’s embrace, Absalom’s mentorship, Ash’s pride.

She is called Khofe. A Bennu bird priestess in Heliopolis. Her skin is sand. Golden phylo dough. Olive and honey. Cinnamon and cinder eyes. Dark brown, sandalwood curls. Malachite and kohl eyes. Bare-breasted, these modern, egalitarian Egyptians. She dances with a sesheshet, drinks beer with me as the Nile floods to appease Sekhmet to turn back into sweet cow-eyed Mother Hathor. We roll in the reeds, kiss.

“Solomon, what brought you to the Heliopolis? There is a great sorrow about you. I am meant to save you. But don’t you know, this foreign god of yours will destroy you, my friend?” she idles one day, writing on a clay tablet the temple’s offerings. The Bennu bird has laid an egg. It burns. The golden Bennu watches me with violet eyes.

I study Khofe. I know her tenderness. She is Rubenesque, loquacious, a great prayer writer, a singer and great mistress of magic. Where did she come from? Where am I going? What is this Forbidden Fruit on the vine of Sammael that I dare not pluck?

Only, I am the Left Hand of G-d. I tell her so.

She laughs. “There are many gods, I say, Solomon, my husband. Do not you want some other god to serve? Perhaps Thoth? Hermanubis? Geb?”

“There is only one G-d, my angel.”

“What a lack of creativity. Well, your god made you a holy man. It is why I love you. I do not like happy people. I am prone to brooding – humanity is a sorry lot. The Bennu bird must wither away its wings to hatch a poor wyrm child.”

“The Shamir.”

“The fragrant Bennu babe. It is like a Ba. The eternal part of our souls.”

I kiss her, harsh, drawing blood. I crave blood. She gives it to me, draws it from my veins in turn for her alchemy. My blood flows white-silver. She transforms mercury to gold with it. She is a famous alchemist – but do not tell Khofe’s father. He is a simple scribe, and does not like newfangled sciences.

“I will not become a human-headed bird when I die, my wife. G-d has made me eternal. My Lord has made me his Left Hand.”

“That is the hand the toilet is for.”

“Fitting for me, isn’t it?”

She laughs, tickling me, setting down her tablet, and we drink our fill of kisses.

Three short years, we have. But my blood – it grows too powerful. She grows lustful, trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone, out of Bennu bird wings and my ichor. An accident, in her lab. A fire.

I carry her ashes to the Nile, spread them in the reeds with her father Atunkhem. He weeps, gives me her necklace, and I leave him a small fortune.

I can avoid fate no longer.

And so, I return.

Ashmedai took her from me.

Ashmedai pushed me away from idle kingship. My duty. My G-d. Made me a Heathen. Made me a Pagan. Made me not of David’s line.

G-d’s path is not easy. Ashmedai should know that. To his credit, he has ruled well.

But my marvelous temple, it is gone.

And the two-headed man has been delivered back to his strange kingdom. His wife went with him.

All that is left is a babe, not cleaved apart.

Instead, two brothers cleaved.

I dream of Khofe. I exile Ashmedai, weary.

I am angry at him for no reason. I will always blame him. He will always blame me.

That is the curse of Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau. Moses and the Pharoah.

If only Ashmedai knew?

Those ram’s horns on his head.

Michael is impure. I see the way he strays, wicked.

If I am the Left Hand of Adonai

Ashmedai

His

Right.

***

Cleaver (Ashmedai)

“That is your excuse?” I growl to my holy twin. My bastard brother. The murderer of Sarai. “She was holy? You are holy, and yet, you are wicked.”

Solomon looks weary. I am arrayed in monstrosity, twisted flatulent beauty, rotting flesh, cancerous growths, leaking blood and fangs and boils, dragging Gog and Magog to Solomon’s humble house on the border of Heaven and Gan Eden. It is small, and I am the size of ten of it.

“Is that why you came? For a girl from over a hundred years ago you barely knew?” he sighs. The gall! Sarai was mine, my soul, my life, my bride.

Fire of my light, life of my heart, north star, compass – oh, what use is an ode! I want to bash in his head!

And so, we wrestle. I dig my fangs into his heel. He takes his flaming sword and punctures my rotting heart.

We are at it for hours, playing bitter soldiers. I use every name for sow and whore’s son I know from Hell, from gutter urchins in bloody brothels to the gambling dens of the Damned. Solomon just grunts, says sorry, says “Ashmedai, calm down, I can explain.”

We go on for forty days and forty nights. Perhaps it is eternity. Perhaps, I am still eating and masticating his leg now, the thieving, murderous, haughty bastard impaling me like Michael and Samael down the centuries, echoed in Saint George and the Dragon.

“You did not deserve to wed Sarai!” I finally scream, snapping him in twain. We are bloody ribbons and gruel.

Solomon stitches himself back together with cosmic fire.

G-d draws dawn bleeding from the sky.

He sheathes his sword. I don my human guise, my true form, ram’s heads, my defilement that I grew after I lusted after Sarai! – never able to hide, my talons out still.

We are dressed in plainsclothes.

“No, I did not deserve Khofe-called-Sarai. Neither did you, Ashmedai. And she deserved neither of us. We were all poor matches, my beloved twin.”

Solomon hugs me. I sob into his arms.

“You exiled me.”

“You kissed Bathsheba.”

“You fought me.”

“You did not come back after four years, brooding in the desert. I searched all of Judea for you, Ash? Why did you hide?”

My eyes are bloody garnets.

“The things… my blood mother did, and stepfather… I do not wish to speak of. I am tainted like you, twin.”

Solomon’s lips quirks. “And Khofe’s lust for power and wisdom puts my own quests for knowledge and Eve’s hunger to shame.”

We settle in his kitchen. He pours mead – why does he have Northern mead? What an odd brother. What a stranger he has become. Silver-platinum hair, green grass eyes, golden-tan skin, thin lips and sharp nose, heavy brows, crackglass cheekbones… weak limbs. I was always the athlete. What came naturally as wit and wonder to him, Lucifer has had to drill into me. And I simply run entertainment and pleasure, leaving Moloch and Beelzebub and Mulciber the true labor.

“Did either of us truly know her, brother?” I sigh, brooding. Why am I always brooding? I need to be strong. Oh, Sarai! What a fool you make me. Cuckolding me with my own brother, stranding me scared shitless where only the holy tread, far from the safe womb of Hell.

“Can any man know his bride? Women are mysteries. Look at Bathsheba. Our mother is even stranger. Even more sacred and holy. Why, now, does she still love David? Why does she put up with us?” He swallows the mead, smiling, a sparkle in his eye. “This is blackberry flavored.”

“It tastes like a pixie fart.”

“There are no pixies here.”

“I am not a Jew.”

“You are David’s son.”

I rankle. “Not by these horns.”

“Moses.”

I flush, taken aback. “What?”

“Moses was granted horns of wisdom. It is Father’s Covenant with you.”

I fist him to the floor, shaking his fine but muted linen shirt. “I have had enough holy games with G-d, brother. I am a creature of spite and hate. Raped and rapist. Executed and executioner. Now, G-d has gone too far. Putting Moses’ mark on my head. I’d rather have the Mark of Cain!”

Solomon laughs, until I choke him. “Get off me, Ash, you are too – ha! Ha! – strong! What is in the wine in Hell? What does Eve feed you at work dinner?”

“Eve is a shit cook. She bakes.”

“Yes, mama loves her cocktails, desserts, and bread.”

“Old biddies…”

“We are old too, Ash.”

We dust ourselves off, then settle at the same side of the table. I sigh, tamping down my chaos. My confusion.

My happiness. My brother! My brother? Solomon…

“Solomon?”

“Yes Ash?”

“You hate me.”

“I love you more than even Bathsheba.”

“And Khofe?”

“I wonder about her. Khofe-called-Sarai haunts me. But, I think, Ashmedai-called-Tobias haunts her.”

“Why did you take her?”

He looks glum. “When G-d seizes me, there is a black space in my mind. I am not myself, but a vessel for the Lord. I do not know what happened, that night. And G-d will not answer you. He does not answer, in that way. And all his Bride does is whisper. That is the problem with ghosts.”

“Ghosts? Our Creators are very… real.”

“Tangible? Yes, I suppose. But how alive is a sentient flame? A quicksilver scale? The wind of an archon?”

“Well, what am I, Solomon?”

“Most would call us monsters.”

“You are Sammael, I suppose.”

“Pour me some fucking wine, Ash.”

We get drunk. He beats me at chess. I beat him at craps. I stay for a year, and he farms. He is quite the farmer. I visit with Bathsheba, I work in Hell, I spend the night in his spare room.

The final year and a day are done.

“I love you, Ashmedai, but you cannot stay here. Khofe-called-Sarai waits,” Solomon says, his smile bringing spring rains.

“What?”

“She has come back. She is born anew, finally. A new arrival to Hell. A Jewish girl, from a brothel, who died of venereal disease and clawed her way out of the Angel of Death’s arm into the throne room of lucifer. She has no one. Who will defend her, I wonder?”

My heart sinks like a stone.

“How do I find her, Solomon?”

“Bathsheba.”

And so, mama takes me.

Sarai is blue with cold, Her lips cold. A shade.

And oh, how she

Is angry.

“My Ashmedai?” Sarai weeps.

“My poetess.”

I breathe them back to life, imbuing her with holy fire.

And thus, my life

Begins.

***

Song of Songs (Sarai)

My first memory is gold, like sunshine. Eyes like lemons. So warm, they burn.

It is far beyond time and HaShem’s darkness, long before Light and the Word. There was a great ram, part-bull, part-lion, that breathed life into my dancing soul. His wings were a dragon’s twisted flame, and in him, I saw eternity.

Oh, how we danced as stars, in some forgotten abode by the moon, in that Land Beyond Beginnings! I called him Fire. My Fair One. Lover and Lord of My Sparks. I was but a tiny flicker, but oh how Fire delighted in me! From our union, the Hol Bird, or Phoenix, was born, and I have been Her Keeper ever since.

I have been a Medean Princess. I have been a goatherd in Sumeria. A temple prostitute in Qadesh. A harvester of grain in Gobekli Tepe, readying for the Horn Maiden’s festivities, cask of Neolithic beer in my hand. But always, I longed for Fire. Fair One. Lover and Lord of My Heart. But he was not to be born. The phoenix, our child, roosted with me, trapped in cycles of incarnation like I! At the end of our days, we shrivel up to myrrh laden wyrms, then burrow into the soil, seeking the waters of Life. We drink full well to remember.

I had all my past lives in my hands, once, like playing cards humans were long from inventing.

But I gambled them all away, the day I lost my Fire. He came to me, human-tongued, silken-skinned, cruel and beautiful and broken. He called himself Ashmedai. I loved him. I needed him. He reminded me of one of my mortal husbands (are any of my husbands truly mortal, to marry a girl of Flame?), Solomon, who had written me the Song of Songs, called me his comely bride, but I realized the connection only too late.

So Flame and Fire danced for twelve days and nights. It was Heaven again, Proto-time, the Land of Beginnings trapped in corporeal form. But oh, to revel in physicality! He touched me as only Fire could! Combusting deep sparks in my well. But I had weakened over time, not used to Fire’s dance. He was immortal, eternal, and it ended when I convulsed, so full of his kisses, I died.

Solomon played the Reaper. I saw only too late, the look of brotherhood, hatred, longing – lost love and broken bonds – in their eyes, and realized what a terrible thing I had done.

So, when I became a wyrm in Heaven, I burrowed through the soil with the Shekinah’s help, all the way to the misty waters of Hell’s river Lethe. I wanted to forget.

The Shekinah sang to me. Agrath, the Howler, screamed and rattled her chains. I was but a humble, meek-ened creature:

“You have stolen my heir’s heart. A curse on you, Sarai. Until you master the Fire, and he loves his own heart as much as he loves you,” the former Queen pronounced, “you shall not prevail.”

“Funny, sister. I said the same thing to him.” Still, I felt heavy, bitter magic loom over me like bone shards. They minced my soft, tunnel body to pieces. I soaked in Lethe, senseless… emerged, having forgotten, and yet, remembering

My Fire.

If only, in

My dreams.

***

“Ashmedai?” I whisper as he pours Fire into me, awakening the Hol Bird of my soul. I have lived as a beggar, a traitor, a lady of finery and palatial prisons, a merchant’s aunt, a farm maid. This last one was the hardest – raised in a Roman bordello, under the rule of Mad Herod. The Temple is drunk and mad. I had little but a good set of teeth and enough bruises to make my skin blue.

Winter was cold. I died in a hecatomb, corpse eaten by cats, seventeen.

Somehow, bitter as it was, my wyrm-form crawled, deep into Hekate’s cave, past Izanami, past Ereshkigal, past Queen Persephone, to hollow Agrath herself.

“I remember him, captor of Fire. How did you do it, siphon him from the winds of G-d? Corrupt pure flame to poison?”

“It was as easy as seducing a holy man,” Agrath laughs, rotting, bone in her chains in Tartarus.

I squirm my stolid, circular matrix of a worm body into Mnesymone, and I soak in the Hol Bird’s effulgence. I remember Fire. I remember being his Flame. I remember our eternity in the Land Beyond Beginnings. I remember our twelve sweet nights. The orchard drawn on the ketubah, the dates and pomegranates we shared, cantarella on my tongue (which tasted so much like his seed).

Fire, in my lab in Egypt, when I took too much of his half-twin’s blood.

I take on the form he remembers most: the one my body always conforms to. The truth of my soul.

Motherless Sarai.

Sarai bat Regret.

Sarai bat Perdition.

The only female rabbi.

The lousiest female rabbi.

Unlike Jael, I have no tent spike to drive into Agrath’s head.

There is simply me, wrestling with my G-d, drinking water of poison lilies off the Shekinah’s hands. I do not trust the gods.

I am from before gods. Before G-d and His Bride.

I am wind. I am air. I am Light. Life. Harmony.

And Ashmedai? Wrath? Lust?

He is Life. Sex. Fertility. Virility.

Love.

He breathes life into me, tongue probing. He tastes like honeyed wine.

“Sarai? Sarai! You are so cold, my angel.”

But he tastes ill. Sick.

Not a good cantarella.

More, a poison

apple.

“Oh Ashmedai, my malakh, those horns: a Covenant? But you were the answer all along, not the Father.”

He cries. “Sarai, what do you mean? You are imagining things.”

“Oh, my bashert. What have you become?”

I weep.

He sags, clutching me squeezing tight.

He faints in my arms. I am strong from millenia of experiments, farming, hunting, salvaging a future from ruin and half-scratched out poems.

Cinder eyes.

Pomegranate seeds.

I carry him to Lucifer’s throne.

“What have you made of him, Ha Satan?” I ask, cruelty in my lip.

Lucifer smiles serenely, his blonde butter hair and fine Grecian physique toned and tan, white tunica sharp as cloth steel.

“He is only King of Hell, dear Sarai. What a happy reunion you have?”

“You have broken what was pure. You are as bad as Agrath,” I pronounce.

Lucifer’s cold, blue eyes harden. “And what do you know of the games of immortals, human girl? You are no Eve. No Bathsheba.”

“No, I am simply apocrypha. An owl-eyed girl with too much wisdom to be sane. I am mad, Lucifer. We will linger here no more.”

Like that, I sprout owl wings, now a demoness like Lilith, and I fly Ashmedai back to his den of inequity. It is Spartan, clean, old books line the wall, scrolls, pottery Bathsheba has made, maces and glaives. Instruments of torture.

Endless, mad sketches of me. Naked bathing. Dressed for winter in the North. Swimming in linens. Arranged in Medean finery. From some chic Dior outfit two thousand years down the line. Time bleeds. I, Sarai bat Raguel, haunt him. He, Ashmedai-called-Tobias, pinpoints the map of my soul.

Ashmedai cries in his sleep. Though he is heavy, as heavy as a carbon jewel, he feels like a feather in my arms.

I lay him in his pristine, red silk bed, with a blackened canopy. I pour myself a glass of red wine, pull out a notebook of his, and write a poem. I sketch him – the proud jaw, the thick, hooked nose, the slanted brows, crinkled at the edges with fine lines, hooded eyes with thick crook-saw lashes.

Thin lips. Kissable, a pale olive. I know them all too well.

Tan, gold muscle. Scars, all over. Wings of bat. Legs of scale dragonhide. Rough terrain, unexplored for so long, when he came to me disguised stinking as a human goatsherd.

I am dissecting fire, after so many years.

He is exactly as I remember. Nothing as I remember. That innocence? The wonder?

As pure

as a

spring

rain.

***

Dulcinea Was Never Here (Ashmedai & Sarai)

“Sarai?” I whisper.

“Yes, my malakh?” she whispers tenderly, rubbing a salve to my chest. It sinks into the threadbare cloth of my broken heart, heals an ancient wound that was broken when I was chattel in Hell, and purged any hope away when I left her in Solomon’s broken arms.

“Is it really you?”

“Feel your head, Ashmedai.”

He does, his eyes open in wonder. “My horns of shame. They are gone.”

“To wed me in truth, Ash, my darling angel, we must become what we once were. The Lion and the Serpent. Bullish Ox and Dragon. A Dancer and a Flame. I have broken your forced pact with G-d. But can you follow the ways of a wanderer, to the Land of Beginnings?”

He kisses my lips, hard, pulls me to his chest, and we make love for eternity, sinking into each other.

“I follow where you go, my one and only Soul.”

And so, we walk the crow roads, to the place that Trickster dwells.

The Phoenix blossoms from his loins, reborn in my fiery womb. The shamir shackles him to me no more. In freedom, we embrace, and bodiless yet embroiled, cinder and effulgence -

We become

Happy.

Redeemed.

The Shekinah

and

her

Bridegroom.

“Revel in me, Fire. My one and only Ash.”

“Burn me, oh my Flame!”

We dance for Trickster. We create the world in hope. We remake it under the auspices of Bathsheba, whom I have whispered to all this time, with Solomon and David’s tenderness, with Eve and Lucifer’s strong hands.

There is no more, hurting, here.

This is the Land Beyond Beginnings.

And Ash?

We are together in the bedlam of Bedstuy, in a too-tiny flat with a hairless cat and pet lizard, writing poems, typing novels on an old Olympia.

We move through time, and worlds, as it suits us.

Sometimes, he is a painter. Sometimes, he is an architect. Sometimes, an engineer or soldier.

I dance in Babylon Berlin. Drink moonshine in the Swinging Twenties.

Party through the Nineties in Chicago.

We are lion and lioness. Fertile auroch, tender ox.

We are the makers and keepers of magick.

And for the rains?

We dance.

#asmodeus #ashmedai #king solomon #song of solomon #sarah bat raguel #testament of solomon #bathsheba #goetia #king david #judaism #talmud #jewish fiction #short story #romantasy #dark romantasy

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