The final door was kicked open, and angels rushed in to the darkened room: Satan’s office. The inner sanctum of Hell.
“Clear!” an angel yelled.
“Clear!” another called.
The overhead fluorescents were switched on. The room was empty. Gabriel, needless to say, was peeved.
“Where are they?” he asked.
No one knew.
“Bring me someone who knows where they are!” he shouted.
No one was quite sure what to do, and so they shifted nervously from foot to foot.
“How did they get out of here?” Gabriel yelled, at no one in particular and at absolutely everyone.
“I found this guy,” an angel said entering from the room next door and throwing the hipster to the floor.
“You are a douche,” the hipster said, sitting up and rubbing his bruised elbows.
“Heavenly Father!” one of the angels gasped.
“What is it?” Gabriel shrieked.
“It’s hideous!” another angel said, recoiling.
“Your mother’s hideous,” the hipster said.
“Shoot it!” Gabriel cried. “Get that horror out of my sight!”
“Excuse me, sir,” one of the angels said. “Michael is coming.”
“Oh, crap,” Gabriel said. “Everyone look busy.”
Two angels used their spears to lift the protesting hipster and stuff him into a filing cabinet drawer, which they promptly locked. They weren’t about to risk touching that thing. Who knows where it had been? The rest of the angels began tearing open filing cabinets and throwing papers around, ripping back the wood paneling on the walls, pulling up the carpet (which, despite having a little poo on it, was in the best shape of anything in the office). They wanted to give the appearance that they were leaving no stone unturned in their search for Satan, hoping that this would distract Michael from the fact that they did not actually have him in their custody.
“Where is he?” Michael asked, striding through the door, his wings folded as low as he could get them so that they wouldn’t brush against the stained acoustic tile ceiling.
“We almost had him, but he got away,” Gabriel said. “He was right in our grip and then he gave us the slip.”
“Don’t lie to me, Gabriel,” Michael said.
“I’m not lying.”
Michael gave him a pitying look.
“All right,” Gabriel said, folding his hand. “Stop ransacking.”
The angels stopped their busy work.
“We can’t find him anywhere,” Gabriel admitted to Michael.
“As I expected,” Michael said.
“You’re not angry?”
“Why should I be angry?” Michael asked. “Never for a moment did I expect that you would be a match for the Lord of Lies.”
“Oh, thanks,” Gabriel said.
“He is far too devious for you,” Michael continued. “There is only one way we will be able to lure Satan into daylight and then remove him as King of Hell.”
“Please share, oh great one,” Gabriel said.
“The Ultimate Death Match,” Michael said. “He will not miss it.”
“You might have said something before we invaded Hell then,” Gabriel said. “It hasn’t exactly been pain-free. Do you know how many angels that Spanish hussy took out? If we could have just waited for the Ultimate Death Match then I don’t see the point.”
“Earliness is next to godliness,” Michael said. “And besides, you’ll be installed as temporary regent here. There is no such thing as starting the transition too early.”
Gabriel liked the sound of this. He bowed.
“Thy will be done.”
“Yes,” Michael said. “My will be done. Now,” he walked over to the filing cabinets. “What is that knocking sound?”
“Don’t open it,” Gabriel shouted, but it was already too late.
Outside the razed Mall of the Unbaptized, on the vast muddy plains of the First Circle of Hell, a temporary city had sprung up. This was stage one in Heaven’s takeover of Hell: the Retraining and Attitude Adjustment Facility. Hundreds of tents and trailers stretched to the dark and gloomy horizon and inside of them, lit only by the subterranean half-light of Hell, demons had their attitudes adjusted. One tent was for the Greeters Workshop. Here, demons were given green vests featuring twelve flair points and received instruction on how to properly welcome souls to Hell. This course was for the demons that Heaven’s Demonic Resource Managers had determined were familiar with the layout and resources of Hell. These brand new Demon Greeters of Hell would assist newly-arrived “clients” in finding the right department while keeping an eye out for potential troublemakers. The three-headed rabbit, Cerberus, was no longer considered an appropriate face of Hell and was relegated to an enormous, and enormously uncomfortable, hutch on one of the lower circles.
Throughout the Retraining and Attitude Adjustment Facility there were tents devoted to all the new aspects of Hell. Formerly a realm of eternal torment, Hell would now focus on client satisfaction, which would result in higher client value. The happier clients were, the more money they could be encouraged to spend once the new pricing models went into place. The more money they spent the wealthier Heaven would become. The wealthier Heaven became, well, the greater the glory of God? Or something like that?
An enormous number of temporary teaching structures were devoted to remedial client interaction and customer service training.
“Our Demonic Resource Managers teach by doing, with less than fifteen percent lecture and eighty-five percent hands-on activities,” Gabriel said. “Demons will learn through personal experience and not by being told. We’ll give them group training exercises that are practical, realistic, skill-based and fun.”
So far, the Resource Management counselors were reporting that none of the demons were finding the customer service and team building exercises “fun.”
“They’re predisposed to complain,” Gabriel said. “They like being unhappy. Our metric of success is not based on how much complaining they do. It’s based on my satisfaction with their progress on this mutual journey we're all undertaking towards making Hell a fun, productive and profitable place to work, live and share.”
No one knew what he was talking about, just as no one understood where all of these Demonic Resource Management counselors came from. Why did the Heavenly Host just happen to have a highly trained team ready to assist with the transition of Hell? And why were they all available to be dropped into place at a moment’s notice? But they were. Hundreds and thousands of angels all devoted to making the demons less demonic and more like your average Wal-Mart employee were on the ground within hours. And within two days there were dozens of mobile teaching trailers devoted to classes in “Complaint Resolution with a Smile” and “Overcoming Challenges the Right Way” and “Improving Torturer/Torturee Chemistry” and “Making Every Violence-Based Interaction a Richer Experience” jammed up against one another across the vast First Circle of Hell. The demons had almost no idea what was going on or what they were being taught, but without any leader they shuffled along and did what they were told.
In one of the classroom trailers, far over on the edge of the great plain of cinders and woe that was the First Circle of Hell, there was an electrical outlet. The outlet was at the back of the trailer where demons were being taught how to “Create Value-Added Options for Clients Spending an Eternity in Hell.” The demons who attended this class were so confused by the concepts being presented to them that none of them noticed the orange extension cord plugged into the outlet at the back of the room. None of them noticed that it ran along the base of the floor and out the rear window.
The extension cord ran down from the rear window and into the cinders and continued on until it reached the edge of a rocky crevasse. From there it dropped into the dark chasm through which a foul, black wind screamed. The extension cord swayed gently in the wind until it touched down on the sandy ground at the bottom and conti
nued on. This was the Second Circle of Hell, where the lustful were blown about by a biting wind. Since the arrival of the Heavenly Host the wind had been made even colder and ice was added so that the torments of the lustful were multiplied. Heaven really hated lust.
The orange extension cord ran across the wind-scourged ground of the Second Circle until it eventually disappeared into a tiny hole, ran through a tight, icy tunnel and emerged on an ice choked cliff in the Third Circle. Here, an icy rain pelted down on the gluttonous, who probably would have eaten, or at least gnawed on, the extension cord if they could have seen it. But it was too well hidden. It ran for miles across the Third Circle, hidden beneath slush and mud. Eventually it disappeared into an icy spring, only to emerge even deeper in Hell, running down a waterfall to the Fourth Circle. Here it passed between the lumpen bodies of the avaricious, who were pressed down flat to the rocky soil with great weights tied to their chests. Flat on their backs they lay, and the few who could see the extension cord tried to grab it, to possess it and make it their own, but none succeeded.
The cord eventually left the Fourth Circle through a dark crack and emerged again in the swamps of the river Styx on the Fifth Circle. It ran across the muddy Styx, winding through its reeds with their razor-sharp leaves and iron hard roots until it reached a rocky slope far, far to one side of the swampy Styx. There the extension cord began its climb, wending its way over toe-cracking rocks and foot-shredding volcanic shards of hardened lava, running up and up until finally it reached a television set. The television set was being carried by Minos, who was picking his way up the treacherous mountainside, scrambling to find purchase for his hooves.
After a long, hard slog uphill he reached a level patch of rocks near the top of the slope where an enormous boulder rested. Minos walked around the boulder which was hiding a crack in the mountain. He entered the crack and there beheld a picture of utter and complete despair. Nero sat to one side of the crowded cave, slumped against the wall, while Mary Renfro stoked a miserable, greasy little fire in the middle of the floor. A few feet away, Satan lay on his side with his face to the wall. Occasionally he moaned and that was how they knew he was alive.
“I brought da TV,” Minos announced.
“Planning on watching sitcoms while everything collapses around our heads?” Nero asked.
“Hardy har,” Minos said, lowering the TV to the dirt floor. “You need ta see dis. It’s what I wuz tellin’ you about.”
“Why bother?” Nero said. “It’s all over.”
“They aren’t allowed to do this,” Mary Renfro said. “Are they?”
“Why don’t you go down and tell them,” Nero said. “I went through this once before when Rome burned. Now I don’t even have my cithara.”
“Thas why you gotta watch dis,” Minos said. “Somethin’s happenin’.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It’s on the TV,” Minos said.“An’ if the TV says it’s happenin’ then you know it’s happenin’.”
“Unless it’s a miracle, I don’t want to see it,” Nero groused.
The burly demon turned on New York One, local news. The slightly orange face of an inept local anchorwoman filled the screen.
“In what people are calling a ‘Satanic Miracle’ it looks like the entire country is coming together for the Devil,” she said.
The camera cut to a bake sale at a school. Rice Krispie treats, oatmeal raisin cookies in plastic sandwich bags and overly baked, nearly black chocolate chips cookies were changing hands at a surprisingly brisk pace.
“Since the verdict was passed down in the Babbit vs. the Devil court case last week, bake sales like this one have sprung up at schools across the country,” a field reporter said.
On the front of the table was taped a piece of poster board that read, “Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund.” The reporter pushed his microphone into the face of the pimply middle school girl with thick glasses who was running the cash box.
“Sam Soto, New York One,” he said. “Sweetie, why are you selling cookies for the Devil?”
She smiled shyly.
“Because I think he’s cute.”
Sam Soto turned to the camera.
“And it’s not just at schools, Sara.”
The camera cut to the outside of a bank. Sam Soto approached an elderly woman, just emerging.
“Excuse me, Sam Soto, NY 1,” he said. “Did you just donate money to the Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund?”
“I did,” she said, primly.
“What motivated you to do that?” he asked.
“I saw that Satan on television and he reminded me of my George,” she said. “George didn’t like working for the paper company but he did it all his life. Never complained once. Then when he passed, not one of those people came to his funeral. That’s a shame.”
Sam Soto turned to the camera again.
“One did it because he’s ‘cute.’ This one does it for George,” he said. “Who are the Americans giving their money to Satan’s Defense Fund?”
Now the camera was showing a bunch of high school girls in bikinis conducting a car wash in a Quiznos parking lot. The big sandwich board on the corner read, “We feel your pain: Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund.”
“And it’s not just your average Americans,” Sam Soto said. “Celebrities are getting in on the act, too.”
Cut to: a giant coliseum somewhere in the New Jersey Meadowlands. The capacity crowd was cheering and screaming and snapping their lighters. Onstage, the lead singers of Iron Maiden, Queensryche, Quiet Riot and Ratt were singing earnestly into a microphone. Behind them, an enormous banner read, “Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund.”
“The Satan Prince of Darkness Gods of Hair Metal benefit show sold out the Meadowlands last night,” Sam Soto said. “With the leaders of four of the biggest metal acts saying that Satan was a ‘special guy’ who had ‘done a lot for their careers’ and it was time for them to give something back. And in Portland, musicians of a different stripe gathered.”
An outdoor stage in Portland with a “Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund” banner and a Tibetan flag hanging from it. The Indigo Girls were playing.
“The Beastie Boys, Rage Against the Machine and the Indigo Girls gave a benefit performance for the fund, as well.”
Emily Saliers stepped up to the microphone as the last notes of “ Galileo” faded into the summertime air.
“I don’t believe in Satan,” she said to the crowd. “But there comes a time when an artist just needs to say ‘Enough is enough.’ And that time is now. Free Satan and Tibet!”
The crowd roared.
“I feel so close to the Indigo Girls,” Minos said.
“With over sixty million dollars raised in only three days, the Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund is one of the most successful charities in American history,” Sam Soto said. “But what does that say about us? And what will they do with the money? Questions that can only be answered by the fund’s managers, who at this time declined to comment. This is Sam Soto, NY 1 News. Anne?”
“We’re back in business,” Nero said. “Sixty million dollars in three days? I’ve got to get in touch with these people. Maybe we can pay off the judgment without going broke. Sir? Sir?”
“I never thought that the world would come together for Satan,” Mary said. “This is a miracle.”
“Do we have a phone? Do any of us have a phone? Sir? Wake up.”
Satan’s breathing was fast and shallow. Nero shook his shoulder for a minute but Satan was non-responsive.
“I think something’s wrong,” Nero said.
Mary and Minos came over.
“Hey,” Mary said, slapping Satan’s gray, putty-colored face. “Wake up!”
“Do you really think hitting him will work?” Nero asked.
“No, but I like doing it,” she said and smacked Satan again.
Minos poked Satan in the tummy with one enormous claw.
“He don’t mov
e when I poke him,” he observed.
“I think...” Nero began, then wet his lips, nervously. “I think I need to do that mouth-to-mouth respiration. Or the Heimlich. I’m not sure which. Do either of you know which? I need to do something.”
Before their eyes, Satan was fading. Color had left his skin, his eyes flicked feverishly behind their lids, even his hair was limp and lifeless. Nero rolled him over onto his back.
“Okay,” Mary said. “This isn’t funny anymore. Is he dying? Can he die?”
“None of us die,” Nero said. “But we do become irrelevant.”
“What happens then?” Mary asked.
“We shouldn’t talk about dat,” Minos said.
“She deserves to know,” Nero said. “You know Zeus? Odin? The Great Spirit? They all became irrelevant. They just faded away into nothing.”
“Is that what he’s doing?”
“I’ve never seen it before, okay?” Nero said. “This is my first time watching a deity die.”
Mary shoved him aside and began CPR. Minos and Nero watched as she delivered efficient chest compressions, one-two-three, rest, one-two-three, rest.
“I think yer hurting him,” Minos said.
“What do you want me to do?” Mary snapped.
“Please,” Nero said. “Don’t let him die.”
Nero looked at his lord and master with frightened, wide eyes, full of despair.
“We need to come up with a plan,” Mary said, as she continued CPR. “Can we stall them at the Death Match? And get that money from the defense fund to pay off the judgment?”
“Maybe?” Nero said. “I don’t know? Yes?”
“Which is it?” she shouted.
“Stop shouting!” Nero squealed.
“I’m going to punch both’a ya if ya don’t calm down!” Minos yelled.
And then the cave was full of smoke. Mary collapsed to the floor, her lungs aching, unable to draw a breath. The three of them were hurled to the front of the cave by a great, concussive blast. Mary turned her streaming eyes to follow Nero’s horrified gaze. At the back of the cave, looming over Satan, was a hooded, cloaked figure sitting on a Rascal scooter. It spread its arms wide and its intention was clear: it had come for Satan. And then, with a flourish and another billow of smoke, it was gone and, with it, Satan.
Satan Loves You Page 21