02- Satan!

by Michael-Scott Earle

  The woman who held me waved her other hand, and the tall fountain of ebony succubi shattered and crumbled in on itself like it was made of glass. Blood, obsidian fragments, and chunky parts of the erotic sculpture dropped on top of where Charlotte’s body lay, and I knew that if the fire had not killed my girlfriend, the hundreds of tons of rock most definitely had.

  “Muuuurrrhh!” I kicked out against my captor, and my sock-covered toe actually connected with the tiger woman’s armpit. It was as if I had kicked a wall of steel, and my whole foot went numb with the impact.

  The pain in my foot didn’t matter though. Charlotte was dead.

  Nothing mattered now.

  I knew tears were flowing down my cheeks like a river, but I didn’t care. Why did this happen? I would have given myself up to the tiger women if it meant that Charlotte could have lived. I shouldn’t have run. I should have tried to fight by my love’s side.

  But I didn’t even know how to fight. I had just been a liability to my girlfriend. I couldn’t help her on her quest to take me to Satan. I had been like a heavy piece of luggage that the girl had to drag across Hell.

  “Ohhh, I like it when my meal struggles. You are going to be a tasty treat, Stuart. Let’s adjourn to my kitchen. We’ll have a chat while I prepare your garnish.” As soon as the woman finished speaking, the walls, floor, and ceiling of Satan’s black lobby began to spin, shift, and fade.

  Then the world went totally black.

  Chapter 6

  “Your flesh has just the right amount of fat, and not that much muscle. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such young meat,” the rakshasi said as she squeezed my ass with her strong, furry fingers.

  When my vision had cleared, we were in a palace of white, gold, and bronze. Its architecture had a distinct Indian-ish Hindu feel, and it didn’t seem like the kind of place that I would have found in Hell. I guessed that the demon had used some sort of teleport magic, and I wondered whether we had traveled to somewhere on Earth or if we were still in Satan’s domain.

  “Yes, yes, yes. I am thinking of a yogurt marinade. I have a tandoor big enough for you. Yes. That will be delicious. To die for.” The tiger woman had thrown me over her shoulder so that she could fondle my ass, and she began walking through the long hallways of her mansion.

  “Let me go!” I slammed the bottom part of my fists against her back, but the demon laughed at my blows. I didn’t really know why I cared to escape, my life didn’t really mean much now that Charlotte was dead, but part of me now actually wanted to meet Satan so that I would have accomplished my girlfriend’s mission. If I was going to die either way, I would rather have known that the beautiful succubus would have been happy with me.

  “This is my kitchen, Sheldon. Would you like something to eat or drink while you wait?”

  The kitchen was much different from what I would have expected of a tiger-shaped demon that indicated she wanted to eat me. I kind of expected a horrific cave-like structure with piles of human skulls in the corner and a big black pot of boiling water. Instead, the kitchen looked like something I would have seen inside a home design magazine. The floor was made of perfectly cut travertine. The wooden surfaces were a dark zebrawood, and the counters were a cream granite with pink swirls. There was a sixteen-burner Viking stove top set above four ovens. Three refrigerators lined the walls, and an array of copper pots and pans hung over the large center island.

  The demon-tiger-woman set me down on a chair in the corner and walked to the other side of the tiled space. There was a traditional looking white chef’s coat hanging on a peg, and the demon woman slipped easily into the garment. Then she put on the muffin-shaped white hat to complete the uniform.

  “Something wrong?” she asked. “You sure I can’t get you anything to eat or drink? I have some gulab jamun in the refrigerator. I can heat it up for you if you wish. Have you ever had it?”

  “Ummm, no. Sorry.” I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Oh! You are in for a treat then. My gulab jamun is to die for,” the rakshasi said as she opened one of her many refrigerators. She took out a large clay bowl that had a dozen tan colored balls floating in a dark syrup.

  “You can eat it cold or warm. I think warm is the best.” The demon’s hands suddenly turned blue, and I could almost feel the fire from across the room.

  “There, that should be good. Here is a spoon.” The demon faded with the weird water-like movement, and then she was suddenly standing next to me. “You will like. Have a bite.”

  She pushed the bowl into my hand and gave me the spoon. The balls were a little too big to eat in one bite, so I cut one in half, swirled it in the syrup, and ate it. I’d expected it to taste like something that had been cooked in Hell, but the sweetness hit my tongue almost immediately, and the heat warmed my entire body.

  “Wow, this is really good.” I sniffed and wiped my tears with the back of my hand.

  “Ha! I knew you would like it. It is the best dessert,” the tiger woman clapped her hands and nodded.

  “It is super sweet. What is this syrup? It tastes kind of like--”

  “Roses? Yes, that is the secret. They are sweet doughy milk balls that I fried in saffron oil. The syrup has a light sugar in it, but is also seasoned with rose water and cardamom.”

  “Wow, I love it,” I said as I took another bite. It was beyond delicious, and each spoonful of the dessert made my head spin delightfully. It almost made me forget about seeing my girlfriend explode into a ball of fire and fall into a pool of blood.

  “Oh! Have you ever eaten aam shrikhand?” she asked.

  “Ummm no, I never really ate at different--”

  “Ahhh! You will try some. I have it in my icebox.” The tiger demon teleported to the doors of one of her refrigerators and dug around inside. She popped back out with a few bowls cradled in her arms. Then she appeared next to her kitchen island and started mixing the contents of the bowls into a small glass.

  “This is a simple dessert dish. It is my special blend of sweet yogurt and alphonso mangos. I use a bit of goat milk in my yogurt to add tanginess. It tastes so good. To die for. Here, you will love this.” The demon finished cubing some mango with a very large chef's knife, laid it on a plate, and set a cup of yogurt next to the mango.

  “Use the fork to spear the mango, then dip it in the yogurt,” she said as she appeared next to me.

  I followed the demon’s instructions and gasped as soon as I chewed. The smooth mango mixed with the sweet and sour blend of the yogurt perfectly. I couldn’t resist taking another bite of the mango mixture, and soon I’d eaten the whole plate of cubed fruit.

  “You are a great cook. I’ve never tasted something so wonderful. Is this Indian food?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said as she clapped her furry hands again. “Wait, have you never eaten Indian food?”

  “Ummm, no. I was kind of on my own with food, and I bought most of my stuff at the corner convenience store,” I admitted with a shrug of my shoulders. I had set the unfinished bowl of sugary milk balls on the counter next to me, and I picked it up again to eat. “I wish I would have tried more now. This is really amazing.” I couldn’t decide what I liked better: the mangos with yogurt or the gulab jamun, and I took another bit of a sugary milk ball.

  “Hmmmm. Well then, it is settled.” The tiger woman said as she took the finished plate of aam shrikhand from the counter and teleported to her sink. “I refuse to eat someone who hasn’t had a full-course Indian meal. I will cook the most wonderful meal for you. Then I will cook and eat you. I believe it is only fair.” The tiger woman nodded.

  “Uhhh, I guess that would be great. I mean, if you are going to eat me, I’d rather go on a full stomach. Especially if you are cooking. This was really good.”

  “Excellent! We will start with kind of an introduction dish. Most Westerners like chicken tikka masala. I will prepare vegetarian samosas as an appetizer. Have you had those?”

  “No,” I said as I tried to smile. I g
uess I should have been thankful for the reprieve from getting eaten. My heart was still breaking when I thought about Charlotte, and I almost didn’t feel like eating. The food I had tasted so far was beyond wonderful though, and this would delay my own death.

  “Ahh! This is exciting. Be a dear and run into my spice room,” she pointed to a side door next to me. “I need garlic, ginger, turmeric, garam masala, coriander, cumin, cilantro, and dried red peppers. I have them in a sack in the corner. Can you remember all that, Scott?”

  “Yep, I have a good memory. Oh, but my name is Sherman.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Sherman.” The demon made a motion with its mouth that may have been a smile, but it just showed off her many tiger teeth.

  I walked into the spice room and looked around for all the ingredients. This room was half the size of the kitchen, was filled with hundreds of spice racks, and had its own Viking-brand oven and stove top. The scent was overpowering, and I realized that it was smart to have a separate room to store all the aromatic components lest they overpower the cooking in the main room of the kitchen.

  It took me ten minutes to walk through the aisles of organized spices and pick out the ingredients that the demon had told me to retrieve. By the time I made it out of the spice room, I could smell the first traces of cooking oil. The tiger woman was hard at work in the kitchen, and I saw that she had folded some sort of tortillas into a pan of boiling oil.

  “Ahh, good! I was about to send my hunters after you.”

  “Sorry, that is a big spice room. Why do you have a stove in there?” I asked as I set down the ingredients on the counter next to where she was cooking.

  “It is for roasting my own spices. It is how you get the best flavor. The stuff you buy at the store is often too old. And sometimes it is produced en masse. No, real chefs who do aromatic cooking, need to handle their own spices.”

  “You know a lot about cooking,” I said as I watched her bend the fried tortilla around a bunch of cooked vegetables.

  “It’s a good hobby to have.” She nodded as she spoke and gestured over her shoulder at the center island. “Can you dice some onions for me? I like to have fresh ones mixed in at the end. Gives it a little kick.”

  “Sure.” I walked over to the cutting board and grabbed the ten-inch chef’s knife along with an onion. I set the vegetable on the wood and then brought the blade down onto its skin.

  “Oh no, no, no,” the demon said behind me. “Oh Joshua, that is not the proper way to cut an onion.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t really know how to cook.”

  “Here, I will show you. First take off this outer part.” Her cat-like paws ripped off the tough skin of the onion easily. “Then you bore out the center like so.” She dipped the point of her knife into the onion and twisted it in a small circle around a piece that looked like the root. “The core is the part that makes you cry. You can always cook it, but I prefer to use the better parts. Most chefs don’t know this secret.” She pushed on the core of the onion, and it popped out of the sphere. “Now we cut it in half, and you dice it like so. I will do this half, and you shall do the other.” I watched her striped hand wield the knife expertly. Then she handed me the blade and pointed to the other half.

  “Make sure you hook your fingers so that the blade pushes against your knuckles, you don’t want to cut off one.” I followed her example and began to cut into the vegetable.

  “Good! I’ll make an entremetier out of you yet.” The demon let out a growl of a laugh and then patted me on the back.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “It is French for vegetable chef. Ha! Bring me those onions now,” she said.

  The samosas were finished a few minutes later, and the rakshasi served them to me with a side of green and red chili paste.

  “Amazing,” I said after I took my first bite. It was too hot, and I had to open my mouth to get air in, but there was no denying that it was the best food I’d ever eaten.

  “Thank you! Oh, drink this. Sorry, it is a bit hot.” The demon handed me a glass of what looked like milk. I took a gulp and found it to be what I expected, but there was some additional sugar and spice mixed into the frothy white liquid.

  “This is good too!” I said as I took another sip.

  “That is lassi. I figured that you would like it.”

  “I do! Ummm, I feel bad about eating all these,” I said as I pointed at the other three samosas that the demon had served me. “Do you want one?”

  “Oh, you are so polite. Thank you for offering. However, I need to save my appetite for when I devour you later. I hope you don’t think I am rude for not eating with you.”

  “No, I guess that is okay. You are treating me nicely.”

  “You don’t know many Indians, do you?” she asked.

  “No, not really.”

  “Most of us are very nice, and we love showing off our cooking. Ahh! The tikka masala! I will start.”

  She turned to one of her fridges and opened it. I was standing behind her when she did so, and my mouth froze around my bite of food when I saw what was inside the fridge.

  It was filled with human body parts.

  Heads with faces frozen in screams, long arms, thick legs, and broad shoulder pieces. I felt my stomach flip flop like a dying fish, and I swallowed air to keep the vomit down in my stomach.

  “I know I have some chicken in here. Where did I put-- Ah! There it is!” the demon pulled a large zip-lock bag out of the fridge and dangled it in the air with a fearsome smile.

  “So, ummm, I don’t know your name.” I tried to change the subject so that I wouldn’t think about the half dozen carved up people in the tiger demon’s refrigerator.

  “It is Divyia. I am demon-god of the rakshasis,” she said proudly.

  “Wow. That is amazing.” I hadn't heard of her, but I figured that she said her title as if it were really important.

  “Thank you. You know, Timothy, you are really fun to spend time with. It is kind of a shame that I have to eat you,” the Indian demon said with a sigh.

  “Well, ummmm, you don’t actually have to eat me. You could just let me go. Oh, and it is Sherman. I know my name is hard to remember.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Shannon, but you see, I have to eat you. It what rakshasis do. We consume humans to get more powerful magic. Now let me show you how to carve this chicken into easy-to-cook pieces. My chicken tikka masala is to die for. To. Die. For.” She pulled the chicken out of the zip-lock baggie, laid it on the cutting board, and then expertly sliced all the parts off with the tip of her giant chef’s knife.

  I stood next to Divyia while she explained the proper way to cut the bird. Then she showed me how to cook it ‘the Indian way’ by using the correct assortment of spices, heat, and meat placement on the pan. I had never cooked before, and I probably asked the demon way too many questions about the process. Even though I knew that Divyia was responsible for killing Charlotte, it felt good to learn the cooking steps, and I only had to wipe tears from my eyes a few times. I wondered if the tiger woman realized I was crying, but she was absorbed in the cooking process, and even if she had studied my face, the demon might not even know what tears were. She could have thought I was still feeling the effects of the onion that I had chopped.

  “And that should be ready. Oh, this will be delicious. I can’t wait to see the look on your mortal face.” Divyia poured the orangey chicken onto a plate with rice she had cooked in a pot and pointed to the chair I had sat on earlier. I sat back in my spot and then mixed a bit of the chicken with some of the rice.

  “Ohhh. Wow!” I said after I ate the first bite. “This is so good! It tastes spicy, but creamy and soothing at the same time.” I took another mouthful and enjoyed the complex array of flavors. I had never realized that Indian food tasted this good.

  “What is wrong, David?” she asked as a few tears started to roll down my cheek.

  “Oh. Sorry, Divyia. This is just really wonderful, and I wish that Charlotte was here t
o taste this with me. She would have liked it.”

  “Ahh. I understand,” the tiger demon said as she nodded. “It was too bad we had to kill her, but it was for the best. Her fate was far less painful than what Satan would have inflicted had she shown up without you.”

  “She was my girlfriend. I loved her.” I felt more tears stream down my face, and I rubbed them away with the back of my hand before I took another bite of food. “Sorry. I suppose I shouldn’t be crying. It isn’t very manly.”

  “Ehhh, I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m not one to judge. The good news is that once I consume your flesh, you won’t be in pain anymore.” Divyia patted me on the head with a velvety tiger hand. “Now finish that plate. I know you’ve already had two desserts, but since this is your last meal, I think I should make you a third. What do you think?”

  “That sounds good to me. Thank you. You’ve been very kind. I mean, other than killing my girlfriend and intending to eat me and all.”

  “You are quite welcome. I think I’ll make some--”

  The door to the kitchen burst open, and three of the rakshasis walked in. I couldn’t tell if they were the same ones that had thrown fireballs at Charlotte, but they looked to be wearing similar belly-dancer outfits. They seemed angry, and they yelled at Divyia in a language I couldn’t understand while pointing at me.

  My hostess yelled back at them, and the exchange lasted for about a minute. The air was thick with tension, and the three other horned tiger demons finally left with a growl.

  “Oh, that is too bad, Jonathan. My sisters are getting hungry. I didn’t realize, but it’s been many hours since I first brought you here. We are going to have to skip this dessert I had planned for you. Such a shame. I was going to make you some ras malai. It tastes like sweet cheesecake. You would have really enjoy it.”

  “I see,” I said as terror replaced the delicious food in my stomach.