Chapter Text
(Narrator POV)
Asmodeus.
The embodiment of the sin of Lust. Every demon in hell knows him now, or at least thinks of him as one of the weakest sins. Some think that this is due to lust being too closely associated with things like love, even though the sin himself vehemently rejected the very notion. At least publicly.
There is not a Hellborne left alive who remembers a time when this was not so. Anyone who is alive likely hardly remembers.
Any record of that time in Asmodeus' life is recorded only in the Book of Tobit, who was a devout and formerly wealthy Israelite, which detailed most of the sins terrible tale of failed love.
You see, almost 3000 years ago, in the deserts of ancient Nineveh, there was a woman named Sarah, and she was the daughter of Raguel. One day Asmodeus had seen Sarah for the first time, and upon laying eyes on her, perhaps for the first time ever or maybe not, who knows, he had fallen so deeply in love with her that he longed to make her love him as well.
Sarah, when presented with Asmodeus' feelings, rejected him. It is unknown whether she rejected him out of fear because he was a demon or because she simply did not love him, but nonetheless, Asmodeus had never been rejected before, and this only made his desire and obsession for Sarah grow.
Sometime later, Sarah had become engaged and married to her first husband, and while she waited for him on their wedding night, Asmodeus appeared before her and proclaimed that he would never allow another to have her until she returned his feelings.
And with the declaration, when Sarah‘s first husband appeared in the doorway, Asmodeus consumed him before Sarah’s very eyes.
Sarah was completely distraught. She fled with her father’s help as far as she could to try and escape Asmodeus, but with each marriage she managed to secure after that, Asmodeus would appear again on the couple's wedding night and consume Sarah's newest husband.
Seven times in total, this happened, with Sarah growing more distraught with each death brought upon her husbands by the hand of Asmodeus. It was not until she had managed to find her eighth husband, a man named Tobias, that she was finally able to find a solution to free herself from the demon.
You see, Sarah‘s eighth husband was blessed by the angel Raphael, and with his help, Tobias was to banish Asmodeus so that Sarah would never be haunted by him again.
But Sarah, filled with fear due to the deaths of her previous husband’s and pain from the accusations of those around her for their deaths, could not standby. She could think of only one way to keep Asmodeus distracted long enough to keep him from killing Tobias. Keeping her new engagement and marriage secret from everyone but her father and her new husband, she waited until her wedding night with Tobias…
And called Asmodeus to her.
When the three-headed demon appeared before her, as he had done many times before, instead of showing fear, she welcomed him.
She told the powerful Sin that she had been testing him because it is believed amongst angels and mortals alike that the whims of demons are fickle and fleeting. So she wanted to test how truly devoted he was to her.
“You have killed seven potential suitors who may have taken me away from you. Seven is a holy number, the same number as the days that took God to perfect the Earth. Now I am sure of your devotion to me, and I welcome you.”
Asmodeus, as monstrous and misguided as his actions were, truly did love Sarah and had wanted nothing more than for her to embrace him. So at Sarah‘s words, he rushed to her, quick to finally copulate with the woman who had made his heart beat so powerfully that he thought it would spring from his very chest, a sensation he had never truly experienced before.
This was what Sarah had planned on.
So absorbed with the pleasure of finally laying with Sarah, the demon did not notice Tobias appear behind him, holding a closed lamp with the smoking embers of a fish’s heart and liver, before he opened it and allowed the smoke to surround the demon.
The Sin instantly recoiled, the smoke filling his every sense and causing a burning sensation like the demon had never felt before. In a desperate attempt to get away, he removed himself from Sarah and fled, pursued by the angel Raphael, who subdued Asmodeus in Egypt and banished him back to hell.
Finally free of Asmodeus, Sarah could only weep in shame for what she had to do in order to ensure Tobias's survival. Tobias reassures her, telling her that her resolve to endure such humiliation for him told him that she was loyal in the ways that mattered. With that, he removed the still-smoking container from the room and claimed his wife.
The book of Tobit comes to a close soon after this, with Raphael healing Tobit’s eyes of their blindness and encouraging both him and his son to praise heaven and its work to the Israelites.
It does not go into what happened after.
On the 21st day* after the marriage of Sarah and Tobias, Sarah experienced great pain and a rush of blood from her body. Thinking it was only the same blood that every woman experienced from month-to-month, all she could do was lay in bed until the pain passed.
But the agony continued much through that day and into that night. Tobias was concerned for his wife and had retrieved a midwife to try and ease the pain, but nothing the midwife tried worked. It was only when the midwife examined Sarah closer that it became clear what was occurring.
The midwife urged Sarah to bear down with the pains and expected to bring a lost child into the world to be buried.
If only.
The midwife's scream and terrified rush from their home brought Tobias inside to see what was wrong.
Sarah was curled up into the bloodied blankets, trembling in fear at what lay before her from where the midwife had dropped it.
It was a demon. The size of a normal mortal child just born, it bore the same appearance as the demon who pursued her.
Tobias fetched Raguel, telling him what had happened. Raguel raced to his daughter, who was distraught, hiding her face away from the demonic child.
“Please take it away! It is the same face that has plagued my nightmares; it has returned! I cannot bear to look at it! Banish it! For if we do not, it will hunt me just as it did before!”
Raguel quickly took the child, with Tobias following close behind, and quickly went into the desert. Both men were unsure of what to do, not knowing if the same spell as before would banish the Cambion.
“We must exorcise it. It is a demon attempting to come into this world to spread its evil," said Raguel, who possessed a blessed knife that could rid the world of the creatures influence.
“No, we must not kill it! To kill it would be to become the beast from whence it came!” argued Tobias.
Raguel thought about this.
“Very well.” He said. “It was God who heard our prayers to free us from the beast Asmodeus, so we will leave this creature now for God to decide its fate.”
Raguel took the blessed blade from his belt and carved the sigil for Asmodeus into the Cambion’s back, so that may God may recognise from where it had come, and in a move fueled by caution, he blinded the creature, running the edge and pressing the flat of the blade against its right eye, the creature shrieking and squalling.
“This shall not slay it.” He told Tobias. “But it must be crippled or weakened so it cannot return, for it will bring corruption if it does.”
With that, both men left the Cambion to lie in the cooling sands. The moon, not yet full, shone brightly above, lighting the way back to their village.
Afterwards, there was no word or sign of the creature again. Sarah and Tobias had children of their own, the birth of which caused Sarah to cry in joy and praise heaven for their blessings.
Raguel could only assume that God and his servants had vanquished the small demon, freeing them completely of Asmodeus' evil once and for all.
...
But one should never assume anything.