Book Four (The Inhuman Condition), Chapter Four
“Down, Satan!”
The emphasis in this particular short story is definitely on the “short” half of the equation–it’s a grand total of six pages long! That makes it quite an anomaly in The Books of Blood, which stories tend to be of semi-novella length. This one’s written more like a really fucked-up fable or parable: Titan of industry Gregorius wearies of his search for God and decides the Devil might be more accessible; he therefore spends his fortune constructing what amounts to the Tower of Babel for depravity in order to lure Satan out of hiding, only to be consumed and transformed into a veritably Satanic figure himself by his labors.
It’s a funny little tale–springing Mussolini’s pet architect from an insane asylum so he can oversee design the palace of horrors is one of its clever touches. But it’s a weird story too. You can see where Barker could have teased this thing out into a bona fide story through its resonances with previous tales: the mind-boggling ambition of Gregorius’ dwelling echoes that of the villagers in “In the Hills, the Cities,” while the amoral rich man himself is reminiscent of the ill-fated Trump type in “Jacqueline Ess.” So why did Barker keep this one so short and shorn of realism? Beats me, really. In a weird way the tone presages that of his later children’s books, The Thief of Always and the Abarat series. I guess this is kind of a children’s story for grown-ups. Very grown-ups.