The Devil's Secret Read Free

Earth and in the Sanctuaries, the suffering is a test, to reveal the content of your hearts.”
    Thorn echoed Crystal’s words from the Sanctuary. “But You’re all-knowing. You should know what’s in my heart without having to test me.”
    “The testing was for your sake, not Mine. The testing was meant to teach you, to refine and perfect you. Look, I apologize for the suffering that you and everyone else endures, Balthior. But it’s the only way to develop intelligent beings who are perfectly good. That’s My goal for everyone, human and angel alike.”
    “Well, You’re perfectly good. Prior to creation, did You once have to suffer too?”
    God flinched at that. He sighed, then looked worriedly at Thilial and the other angels behind Him.
    Thorn’s decision to question God had crept up on him, surprised him. Perhaps it had been caused by the desperation of finding no answers after months of searching. Perhaps it was a vestige of his brief time as an Angel of Reason long ago. Or perhaps it was just madness resulting from his near brush with Hell. Regardless, Thorn found that he didn’t care if his questions annoyed God so much that he was sent straight back. He had to know .
    “You’re just as much of a thinker as I hoped and expected, Thorn. Come. Walk with Me. We’ll discuss everything in time. A demon returning to us is a rare event, requiring celebration. For now, you should take in the sights of Heaven.” He started walking down one of the room’s many gravel paths. “Can I get you anything? Bread? Wine?”
    “Answers.” Thorn stood resolute, making no move to follow God.
    The finicky, timid fellow who had created the universe turned slowly. His bodyguards readied their swords. Thorn stepped back, but God raised a hand in peace. “Walk with Me, and I will give you answers.”
    Thorn noticed that although God stood twenty feet away, His voiced sounded as clear and sharp as if He were standing right next to Thorn’s ears. Thinking over the past few minutes, Thorn couldn’t remember His voice ever having seemed any farther away than that. This is a truly powerful Being. And quirky. I must proceed with care. Hesitantly, Thorn heeded God’s words, and moved toward Him. The bodyguards allowed him into their midst, and Thorn strolled side by side with God.
    The Enemy led him beneath a pergola filled with red, blue, and purple flowers, toward a distant colonnade that, Thorn remembered, led out to the rest of Heaven. As they walked, Thorn noticed various animals loitering in the vast room. A group of pangolins were gathered by a brook, and some shoebills nested in the garden nearby. A little echidna waddled across his path.
    “Where should we begin?” God asked.
    “Begin with the Sanctuaries. Did You truly create them as tests for demons?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why not just test demons on Earth?”
    “I tried that, in the beginning. But you demons have your Rules and mores, keeping any of you from questioning your beliefs. And as your society cemented itself on Earth, fewer and fewer of you were coming back to Me. Sanctuaries offered a perfect lure: the promise of killing humans drew demons in, yet also isolated you from your peers in a controlled environment where I could test you. We started saving more of you that way.”
    “Ah. And that’s why only demons who enter Sanctuaries alone—or at least well before the rest of a group—are given a human body…” Like the one I abandoned, just twelve hours ago. “Because a lone demon in a human body might identify with the humans and question his place in the universe, but a group would just murder the humans and celebrate. Their beliefs reinforce each other’s. They’d never change.” Thorn distastefully recalled a memory of his old acquaintance Aponon, who’d once killed a human in a Sanctuary then found the same man alive later on Earth. “But the humans all survive, don’t they? The Sanctuaries are only for demons.”
    “Yes, yes, the humans in