by Mark Cain
“BOOH! We fixed everything and found out that Surtr’s been behind this whole mess. You feel up to helping us kick his fiery ass?”
“SKREE!”
“Then let’s fly!”
Drawing from some hidden reserve of strength, BOOH took off for the Ninth Circle like the Bat out of Hell that he was.
We landed in front of Bruce’s desk. Satan’s personal secretary was standing on its surface, looking uncertainly at the crowd of devils and demons trying to force their way through the door leading to the traitors and the Boiler Room.
But not for long. Soon, they were scrambling away from the blasts of flame coming from inside.
Leaning against the wall of Satan’s reception area, in pretty much the same spot he was when this adventure began, was Beezy. “That would be Surtr,” he said, pointing at the flamethrower-type discharge coming out of the door. “Those poor schmucks,” he continued, indicating the retreating members of the Devil & Demon Squad. “They didn’t have a chance against that old fart.”
“How did you know it was Surtr?”
The Lord of the Flies shrugged. “Satan read your mind as soon as you got clear of Erebus. He ordered the attack of the D&D Squad. I think he was curious to see how they’d do against the bastard.”
“Not too well, I’d say.”
“No. I think they need to earn some continuing education credits.” Beezy cracked his knuckles. “I’d love to go in there and take a swat at that traitorous SOB myself.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because I’m reserving that pleasure for myself,” said a voice behind me.
I gasped. Exiting Satan’s office was a huge and savage creature. He was naked, with legs of a goat, complete with cloven hooves. Sprouting from his forehead were the horns of a ram, but the ends curled forward, terminating in points that could skewer an opponent. The creature’s tail was long and barbed, his chest broad, hairy and rippling with muscular power. Satan’s eyes were no longer gray; they glowed now with a scarlet fire, and he was wreathed in flames.
He didn’t have a pitchfork, though. No sense in overdoing things.
I had never seen Satan like this, and I shivered at the violent potential of Hell’s ruler. The devils and demons parted before him like the Red Sea for Moses. Well, perhaps not the best simile, considering the parties involved, but the D&D Squad was in red and it did split up the middle to make way for the boss. The Earl of Hell took a swipe at the metal door the devils and demons had slammed shut to block the fire. His black claws shredded it with a single blow.
Yep, Satan looked pretty pissed off, and ready to rumble. I had hoped for something like this. I hadn’t really wanted to take on Surtr myself - that seemed like suici … Scratch that. Let’s just say I was hoping Management would want to deal with an insubordinate employee its own way.
And how. The flames were still coming through what little remained of the door, but Satan merely absorbed them.
“Come on, Steve,” Beezy said. “You too, Orson. This should be fun. I haven’t seen the big guy go one-on-one with someone else in millennia.”
“Okay, but after you,” I said, indicating the doorway. If the flames got out of control, I wanted a major devil between them and us. “Bik, you might want to stay here.”
“No,” the little guy said, a look of malevolent anger on his face. It made me shudder. “I want to see Satan stick it to Grandpa.”
We walked through the corridor fronting the cells of the traitors, all but one of whom were cowering in the corners of their cells. Cain however, was pressed against the bars, trying to see what was going on. His thirst for violence was showing, and the mark of the murderer on his forehead glowed a lurid red.
Satan confronted Surtr in the latter’s seat of power: the boiler room. Orson, Beezy, Bik and I, oh, and also Bruce, which I thought interesting, were the only ones who’d come in to watch the fight.
The boiler room was as hot as any place on Hell I’d ever been. Flames were everywhere, and in the center of the conflagration stood a savage and desperate Surtr. Gone was the pretense of an old giant. Instead, Surtr stood at his full height, sending blasts of flame in all directions.
“You’ll never take me alive, copper!”
Ah, he was a Cagney fan.
I looked from the giant being to, by comparison, a rather small guy, admittedly with great pecs, but small nonetheless. Yet Satan merely yawned as Surtr sent a blast of white heat against him.
“I can take you, you little pipsqueak, you,” roared the Norse fire giant. “I kicked Freyr’s butt. I even engulfed the world in flames, or I would have, if given the chance. You think you have a chance against me?”
The Earl of Hell stared at one of his claws, frowning. He reached in a pocket that was secreted somewhere on one of his hairy legs and pulled out a nail file. He spent a long time filing the offending claw, then satisfied, returned the file to its hidden compartment. “Undoubtedly … you dirty rat,” he added as an afterthought, which I thought was a nice touch.
I leaned over to Beezy. “Do you,” I began, “do you think Satan can take him?’
“Are you kidding? Just watch.”
The Lord of the Underworld held up one hand and closed it, extinguishing all of Surtr’s fire. Then Satan grew to gargantuan size, which was quite a trick, since the boiler room had a thirty-five foot ceiling. But Big Red made the rules in Hell, so the room expanded to accommodate him. The Devil was now so large that Surtr, by comparison, looked like a small kitten. With one hand, Satan picked up the fire giant and shook him. “You! You were behind this all the time. Why?”
Surtr struggled against a grip of steel. He was caught, but the old geezer was rebellious to the end. “I was going to keep the fire all to myself,” he said with a growl, “and when Hell froze over, I figured you’d get the boot for incompetence.”
“Hmm. Interesting, just as I’m now about to do with you. Surtr, you’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me,” Flamebutt snarled. “I quit.”
“Fine by me. That means you don’t get unemployment.” Satan casually threw Surtr over his shoulder. A hole in the boiler room floor opened to reveal a dark, whirling vortex. Surtr, still cursing, fell into it and disappeared in the blackness of Chaos. The hole closed behind him.
Satan shrank down to a more human scale. “And now to turn on the heat.” A hiss of sound began to fill the room, the essence of lost souls that had finally made its way from Erebus to the boiler room. Fire blasted from Satan’s eyes, igniting the essence leaking from the burners. At once, all the jets burst into flames.
“Neat!” Bik enthused.
Satan arched an eyebrow at us and walked back to his office.
* * *
We were back at the trailer, sitting on the front steps. There was no room for us in our office - it was full of new work orders - but for the moment we didn’t care. We were still in the blush of victory. Bik was with us, sitting on the steps’ railing, and BOOH was sprawled on the pavement nearby, chowing down on half a dozen blood bags I'd managed to pull out the back window. Satan had left the scene of Surtr’s humiliation without a word, so - after getting Beezy to sign off on the completed work order for the HVAC system - I took advantage of the situation to have BOOH bring us back to Five.
My giant friend looked as good as new. Admittedly, that was pretty grisly, seeing as how he was a giant vampire bat, and his face was covered in blood, but he had his strength back. His color looked good too. For a bat, again.
“Wow!” Orson said, peeling an orange. “That was really something.”
“Boy, isn’t that the truth? You know, I’ve never seen Satan show that much of his power. Actually, Beezy is more prone to demonstrations of puissance.”
Good word, puissance. It doesn’t get out nearly enough.
“Well, maybe Satan is so secure in his strength that he doesn’t feel the need to show off. Want an orange?”
“No thanks,” I said, shifting my butt on the step. It
wasn’t very comfortable, but I wasn’t yet ready to tackle the paperwork inside. Besides, it had been a really long, cold day in Hell, and it was almost quitting time. I began to think we might just let things wait until tomorrow.
The air around us was already warming up. Devils and demons walking the street were stripping off jackets and parkas and toboggans (still the hat kind), tossing them to the ground. Things were getting back to normal. Of course, normal sucked in Hell, but at least it was more predictable.
I ran my fingers through my full head of hair. I still had it, which was amazing to me, but I had thought to throw that little “forever” into my “it will be a cold day in Hell” statement, and that seemed to have done the trick. “I don’t think Beezy intentionally shows off. Lots of times when he makes a demonstration of his power, he’s by himself. I’m not even sure he’s aware he’s doing it.”
“How are you doing, Bik?” Orson asked. “Any regrets?”
The fire giant shook his head. “Grandpa got what he deserved. Besides, he won’t die out there in Chaos. He’s been there before. I’m sure he’ll get another job.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “Maybe in Diyu.” Diyu was Hell’s Chinese doppelgänger.
“Yeah, I hear Diyu uses lots of fire to torture people. Grandpa would do okay there.” The little guy was quiet. “I wonder what Satan will do with Ymir.”
“Nothing,” I said. “Beezy told me that Ymir gets to keep his job. The boss said everyone has always known what a moron Ymir is. In fact, Beezy described the ice giant as sort of an innocent. It’s no wonder he was so easily duped by Surtr.”
“You broke his phone, you know,” Orson pointed out.
“Yeah, and I’ll be going back to fix it soon. Think I’ll take Ymir some Popsicles when I do.”
“He’d like that, I’m sure, but are you going to climb Erebus all over again?”
“No. I have a better idea. In fact, I wish I’d thought of it sooner. It could have saved us a lot of trouble.”
Orson stuffed another slice of orange in his mouth. “Whth tht?”
“Pardon?”
“Sorry,” he said, swallowing. “I said, ‘What’s that?’”
“You remember the ladder running parallel to the summit of Erebus?”
“How could I forget? Between it and the one at the base of the mountain, my arms are still aching.”
“Well, I’m going to get BOOH to fly me just as close as he can to that ladder, then I’m going to take a page from your book and throw a rope up to it. Shimmying up the line won’t be much fun, but I’d rather do that than climb Erebus again.”
“And what if you drop the rope?”
I blushed. “I’ll practice with you until I’m a little more proficient than when we were on the mountain. … And I won’t let go of the rope.”
Bik stood up. “Well, say hi to the big fellow for me. Now, I’ve got to get to work.”
“Work?” Orson and I said in unison.
“Yeah. I had a talk with Lord Beelzebub, too. He’s offered me Grandpa’s position in the boiler room, and I’m going to take it.”
“Really? Well congratulations!”
“Thanks. See ya!” And with that, our new friend ignited and shot skyward.
“Isn’t he a little small to be running the boiler room?”
I smiled. “He’ll grow into the job.”
An enormous belch rattled the trailer, accompanied by an overpowering stench of blood. BOOH got off the concrete and stretched his wings.
“You takin’ off now, BOOH?” I said, getting off the steps.
He nodded.
“Well, thanks again for all your help. As usual, I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Hey!” Orson shouted, half joking. “What about me? If it hadn’t been for my oranges, you know … ”
“You too,” I said with a smile. “Thanks to both of you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Urm.” Then BOOH took off as well.
“You know,” Orson said, “BOOH is a really nice guy. Handy to have in a pinch too.”
“That’s an understatement.” I stretched, yawning. “Feels like quitting time, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. I don’t really want to start sorting work orders. This has already been a hell of a long day.”
“Well, see you tomorrow then.”
“Steve, wait a second. I… ” Orson looked a little awkward. “I just wanted to warn you about something.”
“Warn me? About what?”
“Well, I don’t know how to say this, but,” he leaned over and whispered to me, “you’re getting too good at your job.”
“Me? Nah. I’m a crummy handyman.”
“Maybe, but you’re getting better. You generally fix the stuff that really needs fixing. Not like your predecessor.”
Orson had predeceased me by ten years and had immediately been made Assistant in the department. He actually had seniority over me. I was his second supervisor in Plant Maintenance. “Hey, who was my predecessor anyway?”
“Charlemagne.”
“Karl der Magnus? First Holy Roman Emperor?”
“Yeah. Charlemagne was the head of this department for over a thousand years. Needless to say, he was a slow learner, but by the time I got here, he was beginning to get it figured out. And once he got good at his job … ” Orson shrugged.
“What? Did Satan move him to another job where he could feel incompetent all over again?”
My assistant, looking very serious now, stared me straight in the eyes. “No. Satan made him a demon.”
A chill went down my spine. The Lord of Hell had already been making noises about promoting me to demon. Up until now, I’d managed to talk him out of it. I wondered how long I could keep doing that.
“Thought you’d like to know.”
“Thanks, Orson,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good friend.”
As a good friend, my assistant helped me up from the pavement and gave me a rag from his pocket. I used it to wipe off the coconut cream pie that had just pounded me. “You think I’d know better by now.”
He shrugged. “It happens to all of us down here. It’s Hell, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” I said, wincing as the painful welts from my coconut allergy popped up all over my face. “See you tomorrow.”
“Right,” he said and headed toward his apartment.
I had a lot to think about as I walked home: the very long day I’d just finished, the duplicity of a certain fire giant, and the friendships I’d made here in the most unlikely of all places: Hell.
As I turned a corner, I saw my favorite friend. Flo was just exiting the hospital. When she saw me, she waved. I waited for her to catch up. By the time she did, the welts on my forehead had disappeared.
“Hi, Steve,” she said, breathlessly.
I smiled a tired little smile. “Hey, Flo. What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to let you know that I was able to light my lamp a little while ago.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “that’s good.”
Flo blushed slightly. “I … I also didn’t want to leave things the way we had at the hospital. I know you didn’t do anything with that horrid succubus.”
“She wasn’t horrid. Actually, she was pretty nice,” I said then caught myself. Quickly I added, “But you’re right. Nothing happened between us.”
“Good, I mean, I, I do trust you, Steve, and seeing you today, well, I’ve missed you.”
My heart was thumping hard. Taking her hand, I said, “Me too. I mean, I miss you. I don’t miss me. I’ve got me around all the time.”
“You sound a little flustered.”
“You have a way of doing that to me.”
She gave me a big smile. “Good. I want to see more of you, but I need to take this slowly. Perhaps … perhaps we could have coffee together sometime? The coffee in the hospital isn’t very good, but … ”
“That would be great!”
Flo kissed me then, a sweet, chaste kiss on the lips. “Call me soon?”
I felt a little lightheaded. “How … how about in five minutes?”
She grinned. “How about tomorrow, instead? You look a bit tired.”
I rubbed my face with my hands. “I am a bit peaked. It’s been a long day. Tomorrow then.”
She squeeze my hands in her own, gave me another breathtaking smile, and left.
Despite my fatigue, there was a bounce in my step as I went up the six flights to my studio apartment. On the floor before my door, there was a small box with a note. I picked it up.
The box contained some hard cinnamon candies, shaped like hearts. The note said:
Hey, hot stuff,
So glad I got to spend time with you today.
I know you may find this hard to believe, since we succubi are not known for our sincerity, but I like you sooo much, in fact more than I’ve liked anyone in eons. If you ever want to get together, give me a ring. I could show you some moves that you wouldn’t even find in the Kama Sutra.
Yours if you want me,
Lilith
P.S.: Hope you like the candies. They’re my favorites.
I thought of the luscious redhead, and a familiar warmth suffused my nether regions. I shook my head to clear it.
“Great,” I said, as I broke into my apartment. In the background, I could hear the chittering of my roachy roommates. “Fifty years without a girlfriend. Now I’ve got two. What a helluva situation.”
From the back of my brain came an all-too-familiar diabolical laugh.
An extract from the sequel to ‘A Cold Day In Hell’
Deal With The Devil
(Circles in Hell, Book Three)
Chapter 1
A dull, red glow, like that of a wildfire in the distance, or the burning ocher of a lava flow, suffused the sky, driving back the shadows of night. They weren’t gone. They were never gone, but lingered always along the edge of sight, nightmares that would not end but lost some of their potency in the light of day.