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"I completely agree. I want you. I want you for my helper. "

"Doesn't it gall you that I don't really respect you, believe in you, or fear you, not even after all this? That we're in my flat and I'm making fun of you? I don't think Satan would put up with this sort of thing. I don't usually put up with it; I've compared myself to you, you know. Lucifer, Son of Morning. I have told my detractors and inquisitors that I was the Devil or that if I ever happened upon Satan himself I'd set him to rout. "

"Memnoch

," he corrected me. "Don't use the name Satan. Please. Don't use any of the following: Lucifer, Beelzebub, Azazel, Sammael, Marduk, Mephistopheles, et cetera. My name is Memnoch. You'll soon find out for yourself that the others represent various alphabetical or scriptural compromises. Memnoch is for this time and all time. Appropriate and pleasing. Memnoch the Devil. And don't go look it up in a book because you'll never find it. "

I didn't answer. I was trying to figure this. He could change shapes, but there had to be an invisible essence. Had I come against the strength of the invisible essence when I'd smashed his face? I'd felt no real contour, only strength resisting me. And were I to grab him now, would this man-form be filled with the invisible essence so that it could fight me off with strength equal to that of the dark angel?

"Yes," he said. "Imagine trying to convince a mortal of these things. But that really isn't why I chose you. I chose you not so much because it would be easier for you to comprehend everything but because you're perfect for the job. "

"The job of helping the Devil. "

"Yes, of being my right-hand instrument, so to speak, being in my stead when I'm weary. Being my prince. "

"How could you be so mistaken? You find the self-inflicted

suffering of my conscience amusing? You think I like evil? That I think about evil when I look at something beautiful like Dora's face!"

"No, I don't think you like evil," he said. "Any more than do I. "

"You don't like evil," I repeated, narrowing my eyes.

"Loathe it. And if you don't help me, if you let God keep doing things His way, I tell you evil¡ªwhich is nothing really¡ªjust might destroy the world. "

"It's God's will," I asked slowly, "that the world be destroyed?"

"Who knows?" he asked coldly. "But I don't think God would lift a finger to stop it from happening. I don't will it, that I know. But my ways are the right ways, and the ways of God are bloody and wasteful and exceedingly dangerous. You know they are. You have to help me.

I am winning, I told you. But this century has been damn near unendurable for us all. "

"So you are telling me that you're not evil. . . . "

"Exactly. Remember what your friend David asked of you? He asked you if in my presence you had sensed evil, and you had to answer that you had not. "

"The Devil is a famous liar. "

"My enemies are famous detractors. Neither God nor I tell lies per se. But look, I don't expect for a moment that you should accept me on faith. I didn't come here to convince you of things through conversation. I'll take you to Hell and to Heaven, if you like, you can talk to God for as long as He allows, and you desire. Not God the Father, precisely, not En Sof, but. . . well, all of this will become clear to you. Only there's no point if I cannot count upon your willing intent to see the truth, your willing desire to turn your life from aimlessness and meaninglessness into a crucial battle for the fate of the world. "

I didn't answer. I wasn't sure what I could say. We were leagues from the point at which we had begun this discussion.

"See Heaven?" I whispered, absorbing all of it slowly. "See Hell?"

"Yes, of course," he said with level patience.

"I want a full night to think it over. "

"What!"

"I said I want a night to think it over. "

"You don't believe me. You want a sign. "

"No, I am beginning to believe you," I said. "That's why I have to think. I have to weigh all of this. "

"I'm here to answer any question, to show you anything now. "

"Then leave me alone for two nights. Tonight and tomorrow night. That's a simple enough request, isn't it? Leave me alone. "