"You have no taste in beer," Samael starts, as we lounge in Hell's graduate school courtyard, and he drinks a Belgian ale. It is always winter in the lowest circle, firs dark in snow as icing spreads across the land like a crystal blanket. "Who am I, married to a teetotaler?"
"I can keep you in check, Sam-Sam."
"That's Headmaster Samael to you - remember, in this degree program, I'm your superior. Not that I'm not your superior in all things."
"Except for sobriety."
"Touche, worm."
We go back to his lustrous ruby and black quarters until it is time for my first graduate school class - an art class on sigils. I am severely lacking in the sigil department, and I walk up to find a Chinese demon - half woman, half phoenix - carving chiaroscuro sigils at the front of her classroom.
