Prologue

HI. MY NAME IS BOB. I’ll be your demon this evening. I promise to take good care of you. We’ve prepared a delectable array of vices to suit the most discriminating palate. And I can tell by looking at you that you are a discriminating person. If you have an appetite for Greed, we have so much hoardable stuff… Pardon me. We have so many collectibles that we can fill your basement and attic and still leave you wanting more.

Need a really good lie to tell the little woman when you get home? Or the boss about your expense report? Our cellar is stocked with the widest selection of defendable lies in the country. We serve some of today’s top politicians, lawyers, and preachers. Our lies are recommended by both right wing and left wing publications. And lies aren’t even a deadly sin!

As far as Gluttony goes, eat as much as you want. We’ll keep filling your plate.

For dessert, may I recommend one of a wide selection of our most lustful beauties. We have the ever-popular blondes, with a special sauce all their own. Something a little spicier? I still have a few redheads available. You can order any of our lustful delicacies in male or female, any race you’d like. If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, we can even custom fit them with your preferred body type.

Pride, Wrath, Envy, Sloth? You need look no further than the selection of sides available. Every vice is represented on our menu with some you might not yet have thought of!

Best of all, there’s no tipping! When it’s time to pay the tab, I just eat your soul.

I lied about that last part. I’ve never actually eaten a soul. Disgusting looking things. The ones you think should be sweet look like they are as bland as earwax. And those that purport themselves to be spicy smell like rotted nuts. Souls are an acquired taste and I don’t want to acquire it. I did that with beer and haven’t been the same since.

You see, I’m not really interested in striking deals that make you my servant for eternity… though there are a few who have willingly offered themselves. Not as many as you might assume. You see, eternity is a very long time. I take very good care of my possessions. A well-fed minion is a happy minion—that’s my motto. I find getting myself into trouble is about all I can handle without tempting others—though I’m not above helping a buddy out if he or she needs a push in the wrong direction. It’s a special talent of mine.

I’ve been around more than 4,000 years—ever since my conjuring in Knossos. As I said when I was writing The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, “All men of whatsoever quality they be, who have done anything of excellence, or which may properly resemble excellence, ought, if they are persons of truth and honesty, to describe their life with their own hand; but they ought not to attempt so fine an enterprise till they have passed the age of forty.” No, I didn’t really adopt the persona of Cellini and write his autobiography, but I read it and I could really identify with his tales. But that is the subject of his autobiography, not mine.

Anyway, having now passed the age of forty centuries, I feel compelled to tell my story… or what I remember of it.

To clarify: Four thousand years is a fucking long time! I’m a simple demon. Don’t read too much into that word. I’m not dumb. I’m just not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnimnemonic. That last word I coined to mean “all-remembering.” I’m not. I remember some things as clearly as if they happened yesterday. In fact, I should tell you about Liz and her bra-burning episode. It was… not in this part of the story. Okay? Besides, at this point, I can’t always keep straight what century some things happened in, let alone what order they happened. There were a couple in which I spent most of my time drunk and don’t remember anything that happened. And then the time I was stuck in the infinity room for seventy years. Esmira…

This is a memoir, not an autobiography, so most of the time, don’t expect it to start at the beginning and go all the way to the end. I tell about things as I think of them, so if I take a detour to the fifteenth century AC (After Caesar) while I'm supposed to be writing about BC (Before Caesar), that’s the order I remembered it in.

I took time to learn English and even took a writing class so I could compose this memoir in a common tongue that will be understood by all. Or most. Or at least some. At least more than can read Minoan Linear A.

Mostly, I learned what not to do that I’m going to do anyway. Take backstory, for instance. Professor Tolkien went on and on about not starting a book with a lot of backstory. Practice what you preach. The theory is that if it is necessary to the story, it will come out eventually.

Well, right, but if you are going to understand any of my story, it needs to start with something more than, “Esmira, I’m going to kill you!” You would think this was a typical story of an evil demon, rending the flesh from innocent victims, and that would be so unfair! How are you to understand who in four thousand years Esmira was. And why would I hate my wife so much that I would threaten to kill her? Ha! Now the surprise has been spoiled!

So, I'll begin at the beginning. Even though the first chapter was not my personal experience, I’ll tell the story of Pinaruti the way I learned it from the man’s memories.

❮ Cover Part I: In the Beginning ❯

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