I am Belphegor

Chapter 11. I am Belphegor

Some rural town in England, 1591

Once upon a time, there was a woman called Hilda.

Her parents were gypsies, moving from place to place, captivating the common and royal folks alike. This merry group contained great entertainers: singers, dancers, contortionists, craftsmen, and everything in between.

But having gotten tired of this nomadic lifestyle, Hilda's parents abandoned their traditional ways and settled down in the land of Britons.

They knew that they would always be outsiders. They knew that they would never be accepted by the locals. But the dream of stability won over their fears of exclusion, and they made a home on the outskirts of a friendly town. They even gave their daughter a foreign name to appear non-gypsy.

The beginning years were great. Hilda's mother was a herbalist, and her father was a strong man. One healed everyone's ailments, while the other joined the guards. The two did everything to help the townspeople and fit in better. And the peasants grudgingly accepted them. Not as their own, of course, but as good outsiders.

That all changed when a plague wrecked the town ten years later. And since it was a time where anything abnormal was branded as witchcraft, the collective blame and frustration fell on the gypsy outsiders. The colour of their skin made them stand out, and this abnormality was enough to make them guilty.

Hilda's parents were burned on stakes, crying for help and mercy.

And the mob spared Hilda only because of her delicate age. Even their dark hearts curdled at the idea of killing a child.

That would prove to be their biggest mistake, as they would come to learn later on.

The orphan Hilda roamed the woods near the hut and practised her magic, willful and spiteful enough to prosper on her own. The hate burning in her chest was hot enough to consume everything. These woods. This town. This country. This very world.

The townspeople—while wrong in blaming the outsiders for the plague—were indeed right in assuming them as magicals.

But without proper magical education, Hilda's growth stagnated once she blossomed into a beautiful woman; family books and instincts were only able to take her so far. It was then that she delved into the forbidden realm of demonic arts. With unwarranted confidence, she believed that her mastery of sorcery had reached its peak and that she must borrow powers from higher beings to advance further.

She remained unaware that she was merely a frog in a small well, croaking its superiority.

These taxing rituals deteriorated her mind and her already shaky morals.

Children getting lost in the woods became common in the town. Many immediately jumped at the chance to burn the mysterious witch—to finally end the gypsy family line—but her strange wicked powers kept them away from her home; the location of her house was only known to two.

"You're Belphegor." The mad woman exclaimed, cradling her newborn daughter at her bosom, her brown eyes glinting with pride.

The mother and the child were in a bed, which was housed in a tiny hut on the fringes of a sparsely populated town. The walls were made of dark stone, and the roof was covered with straws. A single candle burned in an alcove near the bed, providing dim lighting for the entire shack. And the windows were shut tight, not allowing a single ray of moonlight to slip in.

The man sitting in the chair grunted his assent. "She better be. I wouldn't have fucked a darkling like you otherwise."

Hilda sneered at the insult, shooting a murderous glare at him. "Watch your mouth, pasty. I'd rather burn than have that ugly pale skin of yours. Be glad I even allowed a pasty like you to bed me."

Cassian bit back an angry retort, not wanting to sour their complex relationship. And the terror she inspired in him was enough to cow his rage. Though this sudden bout of anger did surprise him, he didn't even know the cause of these recent mood swings. Maybe he, too, was becoming deranged. That was bound to happen in the company of this woman.

He was the seventh child of a merchant from the town and had only meagre wealth waiting to be inherited. But he was an ambitious and greedy sort. He had dreams to build a big house and marry a comely woman. But he was neither clever nor strong. All he had was his handsome boyish face, which, while effective in wooing girls, failed miserably in charming mature women.

So when God didn't show him any ways to realise this reasonable dream, he resorted to demonic arts.

He didn't know how Hilda found him at the right time in the right place, but he was glad she did. Because no matter how frightening her craziness was, he'd be a clueless man without her. He didn't have the necessary books or any idea how to contact the demons. Only Hilda knew that. And he had gotten used to following her without asking any questions.

It had been five years since he joined her. And they had accomplished so many great things in that time. He had seen impossible beings materialise before his very own eyes. Ghosts, demons and spirits, to name a few.

His normal life had been morphed into an exciting one just because Hilda took a shine to him. If he had been of the heroic sort, bards would have written songs about his adventures. But he wasn't—the heroic sort, that is. He couldn't be when he was complicit in all of Hilda's inhumane crimes.

And contrary to his words, he obsessively lusted after Hilda. Her light brown skin was soft and blemishless, making her look like some foreign princess. Coupled with her lustrous dark hair and naturally voluptuous body, she was nothing but a pagan goddess in human skin. If he hadn't been so frightened of her magic, he'd have already forced himself on her; the allure of her beauty was too potent to allow him to control himself.

But by some stroke of luck, Hilda had spread her legs voluntarily after years of declining his unsubtle advances.

Obviously, this change of heart wasn't caused by love or desire. No, it was because the unhinged woman had found a way to reincarnate the demon of Sloth as her own child.

How? By using some complex ritual he was too dumb to understand.

Why? Because Hilda wanted a powerful offspring under her control.

What would he get out of it? Loads of wealth and prestige.

He had sacrificed numerous innocent children. He had shed so much blood—others and his own. He had even allowed himself to be possessed by the spirit of Belphegor while fucking Hilda. And all of that led to the conception of this child. This magical child who would grant him any wish.

He would have to wait until she grew up and amassed power. But he was fine with it, to be honest.

After all, he could simply ask her to prolong his life if he got too old.

"Stop staring at my tits and fetch me water!" Hilda sneered while breastfeeding the goose that would lay golden eggs for them, her brown eyes brimming with unbridled madness.

Cassian flinched and ran away to do as he was told.

~xXxXx~

"You're Belphegor," Hilda said to her five-year-old daughter.

"I'm Belphegor," the little girl happily repeated, and she received a rare and delightful headpat. A radiant smile instantly appeared on her face, brimming with pure joy and contentment.

Hilda grinned as the child ran around her in circles, singing a poem that she had learned today.

Her revenge would come soon. Just eleven more years, and then she would ask this demon to demolish the entire town that had been responsible for her parents' deaths.

Though her grin disappeared, replaced by an ugly sneer when she was struck by an errant thought. What if this child wasn't Belphegor? What if her sacrifice of sleeping with that pasty amounted to nothing? It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that the demon Belphegor had tricked her, that he had simply taken the opportunity to lay with her.

She looked at her playful daughter, and her eyes twitched. Her hand flashed, and she slapped the child.

"You're Belphegor!" she roared.

The young girl broke into a confused wail and received another slap.

"I'm Belphegor! I'm Belphegor!" she screamed desperately, hiding her face behind her hands.

Hilda nodded and opened her arms.

Like a kicked puppy, Belphegor rushed into her mother's embrace.

"You're Belphegor."

"I'm Belphegor."

~xXxXx~

Belphegor was twelve when she first saw death.

She was huddled in a chair with her mother's notebook spread open in her lap, rereading the few spells her mother had created. The one where the caster hid their house from non-magicals was particularly interesting since she had seen it used every week.

That barrier was the only thing separating them from the wrathful non-magicals.

As she flipped onto the next page, the commotion outside made her shut the book and tiptoe towards the window. Gripping the sill, she perched her chin over it and looked out.

The evening sky was dark orange, and the red sun was sinking behind the treeline. The woods were getting darker and darker with each passing second, and the eerie noise of insects grew in volume too. She dragged her gaze back to her mother and Cassian, shivering when something shrieked in the woods.

"You fucking bitch! I have had enough. How long will you keep deluding yourself? How long will you keep deceiving me? Belphegor is not Belphegor. She is just a stupid child. You made me waste my entire life on this. I have grown past my youth and still don't have a big house or a beautiful wife! What will I do now after spending my prime years following you?" Cassian yelled, throwing up his arms.

There was a shadow of uneven beard on his jaw, and his eyes were bloodshot. She didn't even have to go near the man to smell the alcohol on him.

Her mother stood still in the face of Cassian's rage and narrowed her eyes.

Belphegor flinched, cowering, knowing something bad was going to happen. Living with her had taught her many things, one of which was that an angry mother was a kinder mother. It was when she became silent that things got worse.

Unable to wrench her eyes away from the fast-approaching catastrophe, she stared at them while her heart thundered in her chest, beads of sweat glistening on her brown face.

"You done, pasty?"

Cassian's eyes bulged with rage, and he made a move to slap her.

But his hand froze in midair.

A second later, he burst.

His body was ripped apart by an unseen force, showering her mother with splatters of blood and chunks of torn flesh.

…

Her mother's lips stretched in a vicious smile, and she licked her blood-stained mouth. "Fucking pasty."

Belphegor remained frozen in her place, deeply repulsed by what she saw but incredibly mesmerised by the golden globs of oil bubbling on the grassy ground.

Where did it come from? Did it come from Cassian's body?

She blinked when they disappeared, making her question if she really saw them or not.

Her mother looked over at her, her dark eyes bright with satisfaction. "You're Belphegor."

"I'm Belphegor," she murmured back.

Even days after the murder of her biological father, Belphegor couldn't help but ponder about that strange golden liquid, which had probably seeped off Cassian after his death and had vanished into the ground.

Accepting her ignorance in that matter, she sought out her mother and informed her about it, wishing to learn more about the golden oil. And that led to a rare occurrence where her mother seemed just as clueless as her.

But instead of declaring her claims as a figment of her imagination, Hilda grinned and patted her head.

The next day, Hilda brought an old woman into their hut. The red flames of the candles were reflected in her terrified eyes, her old, wrinkly skin seeming paper thin in the low lighting.

"Be ready. I'm going to kill this woman. See if you can find the golden oil again," Hilda said, touching the woman's neck with the sharp edge of her dagger.

Belphegor hesitated before quickly nodding when her mother's eyes narrowed at the display of weakness.

The old woman's eyes, once filled with life, became dim and lifeless as Hilda brutally severed her neck. The glow that once sparkled within her gaze was extinguished, replaced by a haunting emptiness.

Ignoring the chilling sight of blood gushing out of the crevice and splattering on the wooden floor, she focused on finding the golden oil that she had seen after Cassian's death.

But she did not find it. Though it wasn't all a waste, she did witness a clump of grey mist shooting up from the dead body. The smokey mist rushed through the thatched roof and vanished away.

When she informed Hilda about it, the mad woman grinned at the challenge. "Well, that's new. We have to learn more about these golden oils and grey mist."

Over the next couple of years, Hilda would go on to kill hundreds—a pitiful number compared to the population of the growing town—to find out more about the mist and the oil, which only Belphegor could see.

The conclusion she reached was astounding.

Most people, when they died, left a smokey mist that quickly floated up through the clouds. The very small minority that didn't leave the mist behind after their deaths gave off a golden, oily liquid instead, which instead of flying up sank into the earth. It wasn't hard to realise that the non-magicals released mist while the magicals left small globs of golden liquid.

What did that mean? Hilda didn't know, though she feared that these pasty Britons were right about their fake God. Was there really a God and a Satan? Did that mean all the non-magicals went to heaven while the magicals suffered at the hands of the devil? She didn't believe it, of course, but she couldn't be assured that it was entirely wrong.

~xXxXx~

It was the year 1607.

It was the day after Belphegor turned sixteen.

The mother-daughter duo stood on a hill overlooking the colossal town. The rural seaside town had almost grown into a never-sleeping city. The houses and buildings stretched as far as their eyes could see, until the waters of the sea limited their growth. And the people numbered in the thousands, tiny ants crawling unaware of the giant's murderous gaze.

This was the very town that had burned Hilda's parents. And here they were, trying to seem advanced and civilised when they were just like any barbarians found everywhere. Hilda's brown eyes gleamed with barely suppressed rage, wishing she could breathe out fire and turn everything to ash.

"Belphegor?" She prodded without turning her head to look at her daughter.

Hiding her grimace, Belphegor faced her mother and stood straight. With an outward confidence that hid her fears, she intoned, "What do you desire, human?"

Hilda finally looked at her before going on her knees and staring up at her in reverence. "One village for one life. Take mine and destroy this land and its people."

Belphegor nodded, snapping her fingers. "You have yourself a deal."

…

Hilda knitted her eyebrows and looked over at the sprawling town.

It was still there.

Why?

"Belphegor?"

"I did as you told me, mother. But nothing happened," she whispered ashamedly, taking a step back from the cliff.

Hilda got to her feet, silent and brooding.

And one thing she had learned from living with her was that an angry mother was kinder than a silent one.

"You're Belphegor?" Hilda whispered coldly, peering at her through half-lidded eyes.

With a pounding heart, she nodded, pressing her palms over her dress as an errant breeze washed over them. "My name is Belphegor."

"Don't play word games!" Hilda snapped. "Are you Belphegor?"

…

"I don't know."

Hilda let out a disappointed sigh. She shook her head, her eyes filled with angry tears that she fought to hold back. "Sixteen years," she whispered, her voice trembling with pain. "All those years, I dedicated myself to watching over you, nurturing you, and guiding you. Countless sleepless nights were spent with Cassian, sacrificing my own dignity to bring you into this world. And now, you're telling me it was all for nothing?"

Belphegor stilled, waiting to be struck down, waiting to be killed in fit of anger.

That was why she was surprised when Hilda dropped down and lay on her back, gazing at the clear blue sky.

"Do you love me, child?" Hilda asked in a murmur, her voice barely audible.

"Of course, mother," Belphegor answered immediately, kneeling beside her and taking her hand.

There had been hundreds of occasions where she had seen and suffered her mother's madness, but it still paled against the thousand instances where she had basked in her love and affection. There was no lie in her answer. She indeed loved her mother with all her heart.

Hilda tilted her head towards her and shook her head. "I don't. You're a disappointment. I wish I hadn't wasted my life on you. I wish you were never born."

The words were poison arrows, digging into all her weak spots and melting her from inside. The weight of her disappointment crushed her spirit, leaving her feeling utterly worthless and undeserving of love. The realisation that her existence was a regret, a burden to her, intensified the agony within her soul. The words echoed relentlessly in her mind, tormenting her with the knowledge that she was nothing more than a regrettable mistake.

She allowed the tears to flow freely down her cheeks, making no effort to wipe them away.

"I hope I never see you again." With those tired words, Hilda closed her fingers into a fist, and her body burst apart. In that very moment, Hilda's body disintegrated into a gruesome spectacle. A horrifying explosion of blood and gore erupted from within her, spraying out in every direction.

The air filled with the metallic scent of blood, and the ground around Belphegor stained a deep crimson. Every fibre of her being recoiled at the visceral scene, unable to erase the haunting image from her mind.

Shock and horror washed over her face as she struggled to comprehend the horrifying sight before her.

"Mother!" she screamed, and a sob tore through her throat. "Don't die, please don't die."

Her eyes latched onto a blob of golden liquid as it slowly sank into the ground.

"Don't go!" she yelled and tried to grab it.

Her body went slack, and her heart was filled with unquenchable hatred. It wasn't her own hatred, but her mother's. And flashes of memories passed through her mind, showing her the entirety of her mother's life.

It was beautiful and tragic.

Belphegor had never thought her mother could ever be so sweet and innocent, so precious and kind. But that was how she was before the murder of her parents.

She flinched and came back to her body.

But she wasn't on the hill overlooking the town.

No, she was standing on the golden sea. The golden sea, which sprawled to infinity in every direction. The surface of the sea was dense and oily, slimy and viscous, and yet her feet were unable to sink through.

Her eyes widened when she looked up.

Sparkling golden mist hovered over her, fluttering and swirling like a swarm of billion insects, hiding the entirety of the sky—if there was even a sky in this breathtaking place.

But her excitement dwindled as the memory of her mother's death played in her mind. With emotionless eyes, she chose a direction and trudged without any expectation.

She walked and walked, wanting nothing more than to remain blank and void. But every other second, a flash of memory blinded her. None were hers; all came from the sea beneath her. It didn't take her long to conclude that the sea was in fact a graveyard, a resting place after death for all the sorcerers. It was here that those strange golden oils gathered. It was here that her mother's and Cassian's souls found peace.

Belphegor couldn't decide if it was calming or dispiriting. Maybe a bit of both. Her gaze quivered towards the mist acting as the sky. If the golden sea was the amalgamation of all the souls of the dead sorcerers, then what did the mist represent?

She walked and walked, wanting nothing more than to die. Things would have been irritating if she still got hungry and thirsty in this queer place. But her body somehow functioned without food and water. The lack of fatigue also helped her to keep walking without any rest. After a while, she actually wished to starve to death.

"Here, child. You can rest here." A voice made her stop in her tracks.

Turning around, she found a man sitting in a tiny boat.

How did she miss it? She just came from that direction, didn't she?

"Come here and give me company. It's been a millennia since someone talked to me." The man chuckled, but despite his easy smiles, there was a powerful aura around him.

Not that she was scared. If he decided to kill her or something, she'd just take it, too exhausted to care.

His hair was pitch black, and his skin was warm brown. But what took her breath away were his sharp red eyes. And even his clothes were equally strange. Some sort of doublet tunic and snug black trousers. All in all, she hadn't seen a man like this before. He must be from another part of the world. Or maybe he wasn't a man at all.

With suspicion-filled eyes, she climbed into the boat and took a seat before him, her heart still a glass after her mother's death. "Who're you?"

The man smirked at her rudeness. "In my time, people introduced themselves first before asking that question."

She shrugged, her face blank. "I am Belphegor."

His lips quirked up, and he let out a chuckle. "Believe me, you're not Belphegor. The last time I saw him, he was a lazy bastard who loved deceiving everyone and taking all the credit. And he was nowhere as beautiful as you."

Her heart remained ice cold even under his affectionate gaze. "This is the name my mother gave me. Now tell me, who are you, stranger?"

"Once I was the strongest angel—Michael and Gabriel can suck my big fat, erm, ignore that. Then I was cast down for rebelling. I am Lucifer, the first fallen, the devil, the progenitor of demons and sorcerers," the man said, spreading his arms grandiosely.

Belphegor's chest tightened, and she prepared to die—not really opposed to it, but he waved his hand. "Don't be scared, child. I'll not harm my own blood."

She didn't correct him. She didn't tell him that she wasn't scared, that his assurance disappointed her.

"Your blood?"

"Did you not listen? I said I'm the progenitor of all the sorcerers. You have my blood, just like all the sorcerers. It's my blood that gives all of you magic. You can even call me daddy—wait, has that word been invented yet? Never mind." Lucifer chuckled.

Belphegor was too occupied by her grief and crumbling worldview to notice his mishap. "Is God real?" She asked softly.

Lucifer tilted his head. "Yesn't?"

"What?"

"Well, God doesn't exist in your world, but he does in a couple of other worlds. If he actually existed in this one, I wouldn't have fled here to find freedom."

"There are more worlds?"

"Yes, people from the future will call it a multiverse. To give you a simplistic answer, I'll describe it as a sea where every droplet is its own world."

That didn't help her one bit.

"But if God doesn't exist in my world, then why are there Bibles and churches?" Belphegor muttered, unable to wrap her head around these revelations but both glad and guilty to be distracted by them.

Lucifer laughed at that. "That's because I had my own rebellious children who denounced me and tried to please God. Unfortunately for them, the mere hints of my blood in their veins damned them. If I hadn't created this graveyard as a resting place for all my children, then their souls would have been snatched by God for eternal torment. He is a petty bitch like that."

Belphegor looked around in muted awe. "So that's why you created this hidden realm. To save our souls from damnation. But what about the souls of non-magicals? If there isn't a God in this world, then what happens to them?"

Lucifer got on his feet and pointed to his left, the boat not even shaking from his abrupt movements.

She sucked in a sharp breath.

Chalk white. The tree was chalk white. And it was massive. Massive enough to supply chopped wood for the creation of an entire town. It was leafless and gnarly, its giant branches growing into the roof of this realm. Into the dancing mists.

And if she wasn't mistaken, the golden mists were denser and brighter around the branches, clinging to them.

It seemed like the tree was holding the sky.

"Normal humans die and reincarnate instantly. But sorcerers and all my children are foreigners in this world. The very world rejects us and sends our souls back into my world, where God is eagerly waiting to damn us. And that's why I had to create this realm and look after it. I couldn't let my children suffer for my sins. What you see here is a graveyard. But it is just a resting place, my children won't remain dead. Once they lose their sense of identity, once they become blank, the White Tree's roots transport them from the silent sea to the loud mists. And from these mists, their souls are released back into the world to be reborn again."

Belphegor was stunned into silence. This feat of magic was way out of her league. Only some divine being could achieve that. And for all his sins, Lucifer was indeed divine.

"Do you want to go back, child?" He asked her suddenly.

She nodded, disappointed by the confirmation that she wasn't dead.

"I will grant you one boon for talking to this lonely man. What will it be?"

Belphegor had had only one desire ever since she was little. "Make me real Belphegor. Since all the demons come from another world, I want to be the first demon in this world, so I can fulfil my mother's wish and make her proud."

He gave her a pitying look. "Why waste your wish for your dead mother? I implore you to be more selfish. Think what you want."

"This is what I want."

Lucifer sighed and shrugged. "Alright, but beware that your personality will change. Your very soul will change. Various natural laws will start applying to you after you become a demon. Are you sure you want to be shackled by these laws? Do you still persist in giving up your freedom?"

"I do."

He pressed his lips in a thin line and stood before her.

Taking her face in his hands, he stared into her soul. "I declare you, Belphegor—child of two worlds—as a demon. Go sin and feast. Wreck havoc and chaos. Kill and butcher, do as you please."

She screamed as her blood changed from red to black. She screamed when her eyes turned red from brown.

"You're Belphegor." Lucifer smiled as she wiped her black tears.

"I'm Belphegor." She smiled for the first time that day.

Knowing how to return to the real world, she vanished and stood atop the cliff overlooking the seaside town. "One village for one life."

She spread her arms and brought her hands together. With a resounding clap, a deafening shockwave erupted from her palms, shattering the tranquillity of the town. Buildings trembled and crumbled under the immense force, as if nature itself rebelled against their existence.

The ground quivered beneath their feet, echoing the terror that gripped their hearts. A horrifying realisation dawned upon the townspeople as the very earth heaved. In a heart-wrenching spectacle, the town, once rooted firmly on the mainland, broke away from its foundation, as if snatched by an invisible force.

Panic and chaos ensued as the doomed town teetered on the edge of oblivion. Frantic cries filled the air, drowned out only by the sound of crashing waves. With a cruel and relentless pull, the town was dragged beneath the unforgiving depths, swallowed whole by the merciless ocean.

Silence followed the cataclysmic event, as if the world itself held its breath in fear of the new demon. All that remained was a vast expanse of water

"One village for one life," she repeated.

~xXxXx~

After that day, her nature began changing. She became powerful but also deceitful. She became bloodthirsty but also lazy. She made for herself the Black Tower and a small-dimensional realm to be used for slumbering. And she slumbered a lot. Sometimes it was just for days, while other times it was decades.

She didn't understand how her summoning worked. She didn't have control over it, nor did the summoner. She merely felt a tug and was bound to answer. Sometimes, she wondered if it was Fate overlooking this summons or if it was the devil himself.

Over the years, she granted many wishes, but her price remained the same.

One village. The annihilation of one village. That was the only thing she took for any type of wish.

On the night of Halloween, in the year 1981, she felt a tug and answered it, not that she had power to ignore it. When she appeared in a mansion filled with the scent of blood, she found a beautiful, dark-haired woman bathed in red. A child was cradled in her arms. And dozens of butchered bodies were strewn around.

"What do you desire, Alice Longbottom?"

"Who are you?"

"I am Belphegor."