Bosses from Hell, by Loren Rhoads | A Post about Asmodeus from As Above, So Below
My first real "adult" job was working as the private secretary for one of the main lecturers at the Dental School at University of Michigan. Bradley was an intimidating man, large, with a booming voice when he lost his temper. He got angry at his lab assistants a lot …
Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal
A note from me (EMM): Welcome back 💙 I hope you enjoy this post by author Loren Rhoads. Want to know my thoughts over Lost Angels and Angelus Rose? Check out my review!
Book Blurb
Angelus Rose: As Above, So Below #2
by Loren Rhoads & Brian Thomas
If Romeo had wings and Juliet a barbed tail, could they find happiness in the City of Angels?
After their escape from the ashes of Lost Angels, the succubus Lorelei and the angel Azaziel want nothing more than to enjoy each other's company. Unfortunately, Asmodeus, the Demon Prince of LA, has threatened to devour Lorelei's new-grown soul if she doesn't bring about Azaziel's downfall. Meanwhile, Aza is keeping secrets of his own that threaten the tenuous peace between Heaven and Hell.
Three archangels come to town to try to set things right, but friendships are fracturing. The demon in charge of fallen angels is sniffing around. And Los Angeles is about to be caught between a devil and the deep blue sea.
Photo Credit: Loren Rhoads
Bosses from Hell
by Loren Rhoads
Photo provided by Loren Rhoads | Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal
My first real "adult" job was working as the private secretary for one of the main lecturers at the Dental School at University of Michigan. Bradley was an intimidating man, large, with a booming voice when he lost his temper. He got angry at his lab assistants a lot. He didn't shout at me, because my work was strictly a prestige thing for him. He didn't have enough filing or typing for a full-time secretary, but he liked to have someone around to jump when he called.
Sounds pretty much like any secretarial job, doesn't it? What made this one traumatic was that we all worked in an animal testing lab. The lab assistants were vivisecting rats and lambs, mapping the connections between their taste buds and brains. I wrote in Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues about what pushed me to quit that job, but I'd never written about it in fiction...until I started exploring the relationship between the succubus Lorelei and Asmodeus, the demon in charge of running Los Angeles.
Asmodeus, like my former boss, could make things really fun. Bradley would spontaneously take all of us out for a lavish Indian feast or invite us to his beautiful home for Christmas dinner. Those invitations weren't optional. He could be incredibly generous and he loved to teach, but I developed bursitis in both shoulders while trying to file things in his massive, heavy cabinets. I was too young to know I could complain about the conditions. Everyone else had made a devil's bargain for the boost they could get in their graduate studies and eventual careers.
Omar Shariff
When I set out to create the character of Asmodeus, I wasn't thinking about Bradley at all. Instead, I had in mind Omar Shariff, especially in Lawrence of Arabia: darkly handsome, on the edge of violence, quick as a snake.
Asmodeus is a Persian devil, mentioned in the Bible as a false god worshipped by the Syrians. In the Book of Tobit, Asmodeus slew the seven bridegrooms of Sarah before they could consummate their marriages. The demon was eventually outwitted by the angel Rafael and banished to Egypt. Brian and I worked that mythology into our book Angelus Rose.
By the Middle Ages, Asmodeus was considered one of Seven Princes of Hell, each a personification of a deadly vice. Asmodeus served as the demon of lust, credited eventually with inventing carousels, dancing, drama, and music. He commanded 72 legions of demons and oversaw the gambling houses in Hell.
Traditionally he's represented as having three heads, but I prefer the 18th-century French description of him as the limping devil. It's said he was lamed when he fell from Heaven.
In the As Above, So Below books, Lorelei talks about Asmodeus as a boss who knew how to make it fun to serve him. She sasses him, but she doesn't forget that once he punished her by piercing the bone spurs atop her wings and locking them together for months. He plays on the jealousy between Lorelei and her sister succubus Floria -- and the competition both succubi feel toward the temptress Yasmina. He never makes it any secret that all of them are expendable, if it advances his power in this world.
In my short story "Never Bargained for You," Asmodeus appears to be an entertainment agent with a mansion above Laurel Canyon. Lorelei works as a talent scout, using sex to lure bands into signing over their souls for fame and fortune. (The story is available to read for free at Bookfunnel. Here's the link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/5tecny8c9j) (EDIT 9/2: The link was broken, but it’s now fixed!)
By the start of the book Lost Angels, Asmodeus has staged a coup and overthrown Beelzebub to become the Prince of LA. He has minions running talent agencies and horse tracks. He owns dance clubs and restaurants. His organization has tendrils throughout the entertainment industries of LA. Lorelei is happily working amidst them, capturing souls for the glory of her boss and Hell...until she sees the angel Azaziel drinking at her master's bar one night and follows him home.
It was really fun to write for Asmodeus. I hope he comes off as frightening and capricious as my boss Bradley used to be.
Excerpt
Photo Credit: Loren Rhoads
Asmodeus, Prince of Los Angeles
excerpt from Lost Angels by Loren Rhoads & Brian Thomas
A section of the alley wall wavered. First the cinderblocks were solid, then oily blackness swallowed them. Out of this darkness stepped Asmodeus, trailed by two fiends in the form of large men, angular to the point of being misshapen.
Probing the refuse with his ebony walking stick, Asmodeus picked his way through the alley. Near the passage’s mouth, he halted. At his feet lay a crumple of shadow: Lorelei’s cast-off dress. The demon gestured down toward it.
Recognizing its master, the dress stirred, lifting a sleeve flirtatiously. When it brushed his hand, the cloth hurried upward into his grasp.
The demon rolled the fabric between his fingertips. Lycra had definitely been one of his engineering staff’s most useful inventions. He considered how tasty Lorelei had looked poured into this pinnacle of the art. What a shame the angel cast it away so maliciously.
Asmodeus raised the torn fabric to his face and breathed deep. Beneath the dark fragrance of Lorelei’s musk—wound amongst it—was the scent of the angel’s longing. He’d lain beside the succubus, kissed and caressed her, but his desire didn’t end there.
Unsmiling, the demon prince crushed the dress in his fist and let it dissolve.
¡No Manches! (Not a Book Review): As Above, So Below (Duology) by Loren Rhoads & Brian Thomas
Welcome back! I hope everyone is keeping safe and staying healthy <3 Today I’m coming at you with a book review of the duology As Above, So Below by Loren Rhoads and Brian Thomas. For longtime readers, this is not the first time you’ve seen the name “Loren Rhoads” here on my blog. But here’s the thing—I picked up the first book in the duology, Lost Angels, long before Loren and I met …
Welcome back! I hope everyone is keeping safe and staying healthy <3 Today I’m coming at you with a book review of the duology As Above, So Below by Loren Rhoads and Brian Thomas. For longtime readers, this is not the first time you’ve seen the name “Loren Rhoads” here on my blog. But here’s the thing—I picked up the first book in the duology, Lost Angels, long before Loren and I met. And lo and behold, I LOVED the book!
Fast forward a year or two (I think) to when I was tabling with Shut Up & Write and selling my books at the local Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, California. While there, I happened to walk by the Horror Writers Association table, of which I later became a member. It was through the HWA that I got to meet Loren—the co-author of Lost Angels. It was a fangirl moment for me, for sure!
Loren’s been a great support in my life as a writer—both on and off the pages. We put out a charity anthology together, and I even had the honor of having my name be on the blurb on the front cover to Angelus Rose, the sequel to Lost Angels!! Most definitely a career high for me as an author and a reader.
I mention all of this because I want to be clear that I went into this series (book 2 had not yet been published) as a fan, and that the review that follows contains my honest views on this series and in particular on its lead character—Lorelei.
Spoiler Free Run Down…
This paranormal romance duology is very much about enduring the consequences for choices made, which is something I really enjoyed in this story. In the first book, Lost Angels, succubus Lorelei's life takes an unexpectedly dark turn when exiled angel Azaziel possesses her with a mortal girl's soul. For me, it was Lorelei who propelled this book to the top of my paranormal romance list. Despite the situations Lorelei finds herself in, she has agency. Without giving away too much, the sequel, Angelus Rose, addresses the repercussions of her choices even as the hard truths are laid out. Check out Loren Rhoads's blog about Lorelei's role as a succubus, sex positivity, and how "in the novels, sex is—above all else—about character development," and I agree.
Genre: Paranormal romance, angel and demon romance
If you like … angels, demons, and theology in general that takes place in a modern location, all with a splash of horror
Heads up: If you do not like to read about rape, violence, or female characters that are sexually liberated, then this series may not be right for you. But know this: The above points are used not as shock value but as character growth, and they serve to further the plot. This was one of the reasons I enjoyed this series so much.
Potential Spoilers…
This part is going to focus on why I liked the book and its female lead—Lorelei the Succubus.
Lorelei was created by a world run by demonic men. And yet, despite being part of a system that compels succubi to be nothing more than a tool for Hell, she makes the best choices she can when pretty much all the choices she has available to her are bad. Lorelei has agency, yes, but it’s important to note that throughout the duology she is constantly being put in disempowering situations by Heaven and Hell. Furthermore, she is “rewarded” when she plays by the rules, a tactic further seeking to disempower her by making her believe she is the one in control. Life tends to be less shitty when you fall in line and don’t stand out.
If the choices Lorelei makes don’t pan out, she will (and is) punished, and yet she continues to fight back in her own way—and this is why I fell for both Lost Angels and Angelus Rose. The authors’ choice to show the unfiltered power structure of the world the characters inhabit helped add weight and meaning to those characters’ actions. The story becomes more than just about Heaven and Hell hating each other because of theological reasons; it becomes a story of Lorelei discovering her agency and then fighting to retain that agency in a system seeking to oppress her from both sides—Heaven and Hell.
And that’s the end of my review. I hope you’ll check these books out! If you’d like to read about the inspiration behind the power dynamic between Lorelei and her boss, Asmodeus, the author has written a post which I will be publishing tomorrow here on my blog (EDIT 9/2: Here’s the link to the post, Bad Bosses! Enjoy!!). Until then, you can visit Loren Rhoads at her website to check out her other books. Oh, and she also writes about cemeteries, so I think it’s safe to say Kira from The Deadbringer is a fan. 😎
See you tomorrow!
EMM
