So that’s how that really happened, regardless of what the Book says, because as we all know history is written by the victors. Looking back on the whole mess, I see where God made His first mistake by creating His wife OF himself and then letting her run out into the world with Lilith; the first woman. Asherah joined with the Egyptians, becoming the Lioness headed Goddess, Sekhmet; the vengeful mother, protector of cubs and deliverer of divine punishment; to say she is not all that fond of men, would be an understatement. Lilith was welcomed into the myths of the Hebrews where she became a sort of unintentional succubus, for she visited men in their dreams and stole their seed. Yes, she used it to make offspring for herself, but really, what man wants a bunch of cold spooge in his bed when he wakes up? So there I was, burned beyond recognition, hurting so much both inside and out that well, I have to say, though I am not terribly proud of it, something inside me broke that day. There was this sundering and then I heard a voice, a terrible dark voice, whisper to me that I had a friend now, and that I could rest, that he would see to everything until the day I had healed enough to take command again of my own mind. When I came back to myself, Hell had become. Everything was organized, there were demons torturing souls, flames leaping to the ceiling being kept fed by human spirits who were suffering all sorts of depredations, everything from heinous wounds to dehydration and, in some cases, even decapitation. And yet, they worked on, being whipped into employment by the various and sundry demons that surrounded me. Centuries and ages of centuries must have passed since my tumble. How long had the “other” been in charge? Finding my way to my palace (brass city kind of thing, a bit overdone but still nice), to my throne of bones, I found the kneeling demons calling me by a different name, or perhaps a title; Satan, meaning, The Adversary...of God. I was shocked to say the least, how had this come to pass? I cast about within my mind to find that voice again, but it (he?) remained silent. What I did find, however, was a jagged abyss within my own soul that I could not pass, that no longer felt like me, but rather, stank of “Other”. I set about changing some of the scene that displeased me, tortures that I found too repellent. The demons seemed rather confused, but went along with my commands, not daring to cross me. Apparently, when God had tossed me out from his Grace, my mind simply could not handle the shock of it, so it had created another personality, a stronger, far more vicious one, to handle things. As I looked out at my demons, for they were mine as much as I had once belonged to Jehovah, I saw that they too were fractured and so, I had carried the imperfection of Gods creation of the angels, to myself and further into the demons that I then later created; a broken child raises broken children. The demons, for the most part, were not evil or horrid, yet when I (Satan) had forced them to such odious work, they too had broken, right down the fracture within themselves that I had unwittingly placed there. There was no healing them, or myself, for we were as we were, yet, each of us longed to be perfect, to be whole and right. This above all other reasons is why we seek to possess humans, for within them, though they are imperfect, there is the spark of perfection, the stuff of the stars and should we be able to possess and consume that, we would be perfection manifest, we would be Gods unto our own.

I apparently let Satan take the reigns for way too long, as I had missed the whole “only begotten son” thing and His last temptation, though only just. Satan’s tussle with the lamb of God added to the stress of being King of hell for so long, had weakened him to the point where I was able to come to the fore once more. It was from this that I learned the trick of possession. You see, demons, even one such as I, can only enter the mortal realm in two ways; the first is to get summoned, and though many of the lower types around me were often called upon to grant miracles and reap souls, no one quite dared to try and pull off the same trick with the Lord of Hell. The second way to escape, for a time, is possession. Now you may think it is a simple thing for otherworldly beings like demons to slip in and take over the body of a mortal and you would be wrong. First you have to find a mortal who is in perfect balance, who has walked through the world collecting sins and accolades in equal measure; not an easy task. I bet you all thought we could only posses sinners, which is not true at all, both the truly pious and the truly evil lay beyond our purview. Only when a man (or woman) has no tilt in their scales, when there is no more yin than yan, only then can we slip down along that line that divides their soul and take up residence. You see, when one is all heart and soul, all goody goody, there is little chance of ever winning him over enough that you could or would want to possess him. The same with those that are wholly sinful; you can’t seduce someone who already has their panties off and their legs spread. I believe, and I have studied possession long and long, that this is the case because demons, when left to their own devices, are held in that same blissful balance. We are not evil, not from the moment of creation, as many think, but rather, it is the best case for nurture vs nature I have ever come across. Demons are evil because we are expected to be, cajoled, seduced, slapped and whipped into being so, if left to our own devices, we would likely flop down with some popcorn and watch a season or two of Dawson’s Creek (talk about evil!). For quite awhile after my return to power, I spent time simply getting Hell into an order that I liked. After that, I began to gather those demons about me who had been to the mortal realm, either on the express train or by mule. I needed to find out how the world above was doing, to find out how man was doing. What era it was now and certainly I needed to know what fashions were in (I have been obsessed with human fashion forever and a day, pretty much since the advent of the fig leaf). I was fairly certain no one would attempt to summon me, and given God’s command of “eternity in hell” I doubted very much that I could simply leave of my own accord; slip on a mortal meat tuxedo and go traipsing about the world like I was going to prom. I had an idea though. Often times, it took more than one demon to possess a human, especially a strong willed one, so my idea was that I would simply slip in amongst the other demons and stay to the back of the crowd; all stealthy like. But how to choose a vessel? Children were usually perfectly balanced, being clean slates for sin or salvation, but something about possessing a child bothered me, it didn’t seem fair at all to put an innocent through so much suffering just to test the limits of my prison. It was too close to my own fall and the corruption of my own innocence. Old folks had less will and less of a connection to the world, as they were closer to death, but often their souls lay squarely in one Court or another. So the thing of it was to find someone still in the prime of life, that hadn’t sinned enough to be mine anyway or hadn’t been so selfless as to be His. I sent my demons out to possess animals so that they could search out that perfect person; my one coquette.

What seemed like an eternity later, one of my minions, a scrawny imp named Flish, came scuttling up to my throne, bowing and kneeling so low that his rather bulbous nose scraped the floor, chafing and bloodying it. I bid him rise and report. As he began to speak, my focus was drawn to his nose, running with rivulets of green demon blood, through a river of scabs that had pealed off, from previous kowtowing.

“Master?”

Shaking my head I looked into his tiny little eyes;

“You were saying?”

At my prompt he began again,

“We found a nun master, but she wasn’t always a nun. She went to the nunnery for redemption and salvation; I guess she used to be a whore.”

I smiled then, for it was and is my belief that all nuns are whores, down deep where the light of Grace rarely shines.

“And her soul?”

Flish was bouncing on his misshapen toes now, so excited to deliver his news.

“Perfectly balanced, she walks the line between Darkness and Light with the agile footing of a mountain goat.”

Again I smiled privately to myself, being a nun she probably had the face of a mountain goat as well. Standing I let out a loud “Huzzah!” that filled my throne room, echoing back to make the flames in the wall torches gutter and dance.

“Flish, make the preparations; tonight we go topside!”

Of course, the prescribed ritual for possession required blood, human blood and we’re not talking the nick of a razor either, The amount of blood required would leave the “donor” a bloodless beanbag, and though this gave me some moral quandaries, I stood steadfast. I ordered my minions to bring me an evil man, whole. I needed more than a soul, I needed the wet stuff that powered the fleshy engine that beat inside him. I wanted a man that was irredeemable, that would never ever find redemption and, frankly, wasn’t even looking for it. I needed, in short, a man proud of his accomplishments. After a short time I heard the fresh screams of a living being, and honestly they gave me goose bumps. Regardless of what Satan had done while I was subsumed within Him, I had never truly hurt anyone.

Flish (who now appeared to feel himself my personal little scab) and another imp I didn’t recognize dragged a man between then. He was naked, clad only in the reek of illicit sex. His iron grey toupee sat askew on his speckled head. Around his neck he wore some sort of pagan symbol. His sagging chest was covered in rough hair like a Brillo pad, a trail of which led down between his deflated paps to lead one on a wild goose chase to the treasure that lay below his bulging belly. Sadly, this tiny, childlike appendage would do no woman (or man) any pleasure, lucky for him he had the money to buy all the fake orgasms and guttural praises that any man could ever want or need. It surprised me that he didn’t even bother to struggle, instead, when the imps released his rubber band arms, he simply sank to his knees, utterly defeated. Stepping forward I reached my taloned hand to lift his chin so that I might study his soul through the windows of his eyes. The remnants of a party of white powder lay smeared under his nose, sprinkled across his full mustache like corrupted confectioners sugar atop the nastiest sugar cookie ever. His sunken eyes were a wan shade of blue, shot through with broken blood vessels. His thin, cruel lips were turned down into a grimace; an expression they seemed far too familiar with. His cheeks and nose were bright red, giving him the cheery appearance that all true alcoholics possess. Forcing open his receding jaw, I saw a perfect set of dentures. Leaning forward I sniffed his breath, which smelled like a charnel house, and I should know, possessing several. It was as if an abattoir had been opened somewhere in his throat, left to steam in the summer sun and then set upon by blow flies. In point of fact, the fragrance of all sorts of sins streamed from his lungs; pedophilia, incest, abuse, adultery and yes, even cannibalism, to name a few of his Hell bound top 100 hits. I had to smile, for ridding the world of this creature could do not but good for everyone he had ever known or would know. Dropping his head, I clapped my hands and imps streamed from the shadowed corners of the room, like bipedal lemmings, they rushed to grab hold of any part of this man they could, dragging him to the center of the circle I had drawn there whilst they were out “shopping”. Securing him with the manacles provided, they backed off into the darkness that seemingly spawned them. Gliding across the floor, the hems of my crimson robes making nary a sound as they slid across the red marble tiles, I stood over him. I smiled, allowing the fangs that all fallen creatures are gifted with show. He did shiver then, but that was the only reaction. Nudging the side of his pot belly with my foot, I asked;

“Have you nothing to say? Will you not plead innocence of your crimes. OR whine that I am not even bothering to enumerate them?”

Moving his head in a barely perceptible negative shake, he whispered

“Why bother? I always knew that if I kept up with my actions that two things would happen to me; that I would be wealthy and satisfied beyond any possible dream and two, that my soul would be yours and that I would end up in the Abyss when I finally died.”

This time I laughed out loud, the sound rippling over the man’s naked flesh, causing deep tissue bruises and contusions to bloom across his gelid skin like the bites of carnivorous flowers. His only reaction was to arch his back from the floor, but rather in pain or bliss, I could not tell.