“How did you learn how to drive?” I gasped through my teeth. My palms were drenched with sweat, and I had to wipe them on my pants. Then I remembered the ink stamp on my hand and checked to make sure it hadn’t smeared.
“Ever heard the term ‘speed demon’?” The girl laughed as she turned out of the parking garage, and onto the main streets of Hell.
“Ummm. Yeah?”
“There you go.” She shifted gear, and the speed pushed me back into the seat.
We didn’t speak for a few minutes while she tore through the streets. Was this Hell City? I wanted to ask her, but the girl seemed lost in thought again, or maybe she was just enjoying the car. She didn’t look as if she wanted to talk.
“Are you mad at me?” I finally asked after we had left the city towers and were speeding along a stretch of empty gray road.
“You already asked that. No,” she said.
“I’m really sorry I kissed you. I didn’t--”
“Sherman, I’m not mad at you. Leave it alone. Okay?” She gave me a small smile.
“You just seem upset. That is all.”
“I’m mad at myself,” she said with a sigh.
“Why?”
“Satan knows you like me.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Ugh,” she groaned. “Sometimes you are really dense, Sherman.”
“I know he said he would kill you if I failed, but I’m not going to fail. If it means protecting you, I’ll do whatever he asks.”
“Listen, Sherman. You can’t think of me like that. I’m a demon. A succubus. I’m one of Satan’s assassins, but tomorrow I could be one of his concubines. The day after that, I could be another Hell lord’s pet. Or I could be sent back to Earth and work in a more traditional succubus role.”
“You mean… as a… sex demon?” I gasped when I thought about the mythology I knew about succubi.
“Yep. Ensnaring powerful men’s souls so that they have to serve the Lord of Hell.”
I took a deep breath and tried not to think of Charlotte with another man, or men, or demon. I knew I was being just stupid, and jealous, but the idea hurt my heart. I thought about asking her if she had ever done any of those ‘assignments’ before, but I was scared of her answer, and I also knew that it wasn’t any of my business who my girlfriend’s past lovers were.
She wasn’t really my girlfriend.
The realization hit me like a punch to the face. I’d been lying to myself since the run in with Ashley and the other cheerleaders at school. Charlotte had told them I was her boyfriend, and part of me had known she had said that to distract them. I knew we’d kissed twice now, but to the succubus I was just a job. She had taken me to see Satan knowing that the Lord of Evil would probably kill me.
She had told me before not to become attached, and she was warning me again now. Maybe she had wanted me to die so that she wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore. I thought about what she had said when she killed Joro’s spiders, what she had said when she saved me from Divyia, and how she had held my hand in the elevator. I wanted to believe that Charlotte liked me as much as I liked her, but maybe I was just projecting.
“I haven’t actually done any of that, though. I have a talent for fighting, and I understand human culture, so Satan decided I would be better on the front lines of the Earth war,” Charlotte said after a stretch of silence.
“Oh. So, ummm, you haven’t had any of that kind of, that kind of, ummm--”
“Have you?” she spat out, and her eyes started to glow with Hellfire.
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind. It isn’t any of my business. Sorry,” she apologized and looked away.
“I’m not exactly the kind of guy that girls go for. I’m unnoticeable. Most girls don’t even remember my name.”
Charlotte nodded, but didn’t look at me while she drove. The Hennessey Venom was eating the road with gusto, and the gray plains of Hell zipped past us like ocean waves. There was an occasional burst of a volcano in the distance, or a lava river that we would cross atop a freeway bridge, but the landscape was otherwise really boring.
The silence also grew to be unbearable. I wanted to talk to her more about the kiss, or about the conversation with Satan, or about this job, but I was perceptive enough to know that the succubus just didn’t want to talk at the moment, so I thought about the comic books I had been in the middle of reading and the anime shows that I wanted to watch.
“Do you like music?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes!” I said, maybe a little too enthusiastically.
“What kind do you like?”
“I pretty much like everything,” I said.
“I bet you listen to stuffy classical music,” she smirked at me.
“Oh, just because I wear glasses you think I’m stuffy?” I laughed at her. I always listened to music when I read my books or comics, and I had a broad taste.
“So what do you like?”
“Well, I do like classical,” I said.
“Told you so,” she said with a giggle.
“But I also listen to jazz, electronic music, video game music, rock, country, hip hop, and metal.”
“You like hip hop and metal?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, Sherman. Who is your favorite hip hop artist? Eminem?”
“No, I mean he’s good, but I prefer more of the New York style.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Like Aesop Rock and MF Doom,” I said with a smile. I really did know a lot about music, and it was my fourth favorite thing to talk about after video games, anime, and comic books. I felt confident about my experience in this area.
“I should have guessed that. You like the dense lyrics. Probably because you are so smart.”
Her compliment caught me off guard. Didn’t she say a bit earlier that I was really dense sometimes?
“You know hip hop? Who are your favorite artists?”
“I like RA Scion, especially his Common Market stuff. But I also like Ludacris a lot. Don’t think I’m weird,” she said with a laugh.
“I’ve never heard of RA Scion. I don’t think you are weird for liking Ludacris. Ummm. I think he is cool, and I like his movies.” I felt like we were making a great connection, and excitement coursed through my nerves. I already thought Charlotte was the perfect woman, but if she shared my love of music... well, I didn't know how I could love her more than I already did.
“I know! He is a great actor.” Charlotte smiled at me and then reached for the dashboard of the car. “Here, let me turn on Common Market. This song is called ‘Trouble is.’ I think you’ll like it.” The interior of the supercar filled with some organ music, and then a man began to rap lyrics over it. He was skilled, and I found my head nodding to the music.
“This is a great speaker system,” I said over the sound of the organ.
“Steven Tyler designed it,” Charlotte said with a smug smile.
“Wow, did you already have this CD in the car? Or is there a mp3 player somewhere?” I asked as I looked at the display of the stereo system. It just had the name of the artist and track name illuminated in red letters.
“No. All of Satan’s cars have every single song ever recorded in them. You just think of what you want to play and then hit the green button there,” Charlotte explained.
“That is amazing!”
“Yeah. It is really fun. You can even do a shuffle. Just think about your favorite songs, and it will play them randomly. It will even throw in a few new songs every now and then. It is great.”
“I’m surprised this is a technology you’d find in Hell. I would have thought something like this would be in heaven.”
“Ha!” Charlotte laughed as she shook her head. “We do have some fun stuff here, you know.”
“Yeah. I know,” I said as I smiled at her. Our eyes met across the car, and I found that I couldn’t look away from her beautiful face.
“Ummm, can you play something for me?” she finally asked as she turned back to watch the road.
“Sure, I’ll play my favorite MF Doom song.” I thought about the song ‘One Beer’ and pressed the green play button on the dashboard. The screen went dark for a second, the song displayed, and MF Doom’s off-key singing of the old Cole Porter song ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ came out of the speakers.”
“This is one of my favorites also!” Charlotte almost squealed with delight.
“Wow! Cool!”
I sat back in the chair, and we both hummed along to the music. Then I played MF Doom’s ‘All Caps,’ which was another of my favorites. Soon we were playing songs for each other, singing along, and laughing. I’d only seen the succubus laugh a few times since I’d gotten the guts to talk to her at my school cafeteria, and most of those were only chuckles. Charlotte seemed so serious all the time, but I guessed that if Satan owned my soul and told me to kill his enemies, then I would probably become pretty dour too.
Wasn’t that what he intended me to do? Find his enemies and then end them? I didn’t know exactly how the Lord of Evil wanted me to do the killing part of my mission. I only knew how to fight in video games, and while I could play some mean rounds of Street Fighter, I couldn’t do more than three pushups without using my knees. Did Satan intend for Charlotte and me to be partners? Would we visit these schools together as transfer students? Then I could point out her targets, and she would do all the murdering? The idea of spending my time with the girl I loved sounded really darn cool, even if she didn’t really have any feelings for me.
“How do your arms feel?” Her question pulled me from my thoughts.
“Oh. They actually feel fine. I haven’t even thought about them. That is weird,” I said. It was the truth; I hadn’t felt my injury since I had spoken with Satan.
“Take off those towels.”
I did as she asked and removed the red-soaked makeshift bandages. There was dried blood on my forearms or wrists where the hooks had penetrated, but there was no open wound. Just a large scar on each side of both my arms.
“It is healed. That is weird.”
“It is because you drank Satan’s banana juice.” Charlotte nodded, and she took her eyes off the road for a few seconds so she could glance at my scars.
“His what?”
“The banana juice he made you drink. When you ate his cookies? You don’t remember?” she asked.
“Well, yeah. He offered me some juice, and I drank it. Seemed kind of rude not to accept his offer.”
“Yep. Satan’s banana juice often acts as a healing elixir. Especially for mortals.”
“Okay, can you stop calling it banana juice?” I asked.
“Why? Wasn’t it banana-flavored juice?” The corner of her mouth bent upward a bit, but she kept her eyes on the road.
“Yeah, but it sounds really weird when you say it. Like it seems as if I shouldn’t be drinking another guy’s banana juice.” I felt my cheeks turn red, and I wiped my forehead with the palm of my hand.
“But it was Satan’s banana juice, and it healed you. Didn’t you enjoy the taste of it?”
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Is it wrong for guys to like banana juice? I don’t understand why you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No. Ummm. If a guy likes… juice. He can--”
“You mean banana juice? Not just juice, specifically banana juice?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Ugh, yeah. Fine. Okay, if a guy likes banana juice, then he can drink it. Anyone can drink whatever kind of juice they want. Okay? I just personally don’t want to talk about Satan’s banana juice.”
“But you liked it?” she asked. “I saw you guzzle it down. You seemed to really like it.”
“Ugh. Fine. Yes, I liked the banana juice that Satan asked you to bring me--”
“It was his banana juice, not mine. I just put it on the table. You were the one who opened the package, unscrewed the tip, and then drank some.”
“Why did you just call it a tip? It came in a bottle. Bottles have caps.”
“That goes on the tip of the bottle… of banana juice.” She couldn’t hide her smile anymore.
“Charlotte, are you messing with me?”
“Oh, Satan. Am I ever!” She started laughing, and it sounded like a thousand bells played through the Steven Tyler designed speakers of the Hennessey Venom supercar.
“Sherman, you are funny,” she said in between laughs.
“I am?” my cheeks felt like they were on fire, and the embarrassment rolled down my face in sweaty drops.
“Oh yes, but I’ll stop teasing you now. Which metal bands do you like?” She choked out the question between giggles.
“You’ll like this one,” I sighed as I thought of the band Mastodon and their song ‘Black Tongue.’ They were a bit harder than the stuff I normally listened to, but some of the darker Japanese comics, like ‘Berserk,’ required heavier music when reading.
“I do like this!” she said after fifteen seconds of the singer screaming through the car.
I played a few other songs for her when that one ended, and then she gave me some metal bands from her list. Somehow we ended up in the 80’s yelling along with Cameo in the song 'Word Up.'
“We are almost here. There is his fortress,” Charlotte said after the song ended.
She pointed out the front window of the Venom, and I had to lean down slightly to get a better angle out of the low slung car. When the succubus had said fortress, she hadn’t been kidding. I guessed we were still half a dozen miles away, but the giant castle squatted on the distant mountain top like a perched gargoyle. It was all jagged edges, towers, walls, and battlements.
Charlotte took the next ramp off the freeway, but I couldn’t read the strange language written on the sign. I didn’t know for sure if it said “road to Barrtazzu’s fiefdom,” but I guessed that it did. Another ten minutes later and we were climbing the steep mountain roads up to the castle. Charlotte had slowed the speed down significantly when we wound up the canyon, but she was still going about fifty miles per hour, and the rear wheels of the supercar threatened to break free of the road on each hairpin turn.
Then we were at the gates of the long road leading to the distant castle. The beautiful succubus rolled down her window to speak into a call box at the entrance.
“Who’s here?” a bored female voice asked after Charlotte touched the red button.
“It’s Charlotte. I’m here with Sherman,” she said.
“Park by the front door. Next to the Range Rover.”
The thick bars of the gate opened with a rusty screeching sound, and Charlotte shifted the stick on the console of the supercar before she sped through. We wound up a private road that reminded me a lot of Divyia’s. It took us a few minutes to reach the foot of the fortress, and I couldn’t help but gape at the size of the place. It must have been two hundred feet tall, and maybe a quarter of a mile wide. I couldn’t even take in the full size of the structure in one look, and I guessed that it would probably take ten minutes to walk from one side to the other.
There were a dozen cars parked near the front door. They were all large SUV-type vehicles, with spinner wheels, chrome bumpers, and tinted windows. Charlotte pulled our car into the spot next to a black Range Rover and turned off the engine, and then we both got out of the car.
“So, what is the plan?” I asked as we walked toward the door.
“We’ll greet Barrtazzu and ask him if we can look around. He might not want us to, but you have the mark, and Satan already told him to expect us.”
“How do you know that?” I asked
“The woman on the call box let us in without question.” She winked a glowing eye at me.
“Oh. Duh. So what am I looking for?”
“Anything out of the ordinary,” Charlotte said as she knocked on the giant door. The thing looked as if it was made of granite, and her knock rang out like a bass drum, echoing
through a canyon.
“I’m in Hell, about to meet a demon lord and his minions. I’m going to think everything is out of the ordinary.”
“I suspect that they have a spy. Look for a devil. Or maybe something else that looks unlike a demon.”
"I don't know if I really understand the difference between devils and demons. I always thought they were kind of the same thing."
"Ugh. Don't ever say that in front of Lord Satan," she said.
"But what is the difference?"
"We are both fiends, but devils serve Lucifer, and demons serve Satan."
"Is there any other difference? I noticed the devils at school kind of looked like reptiles. Except for the erinyes."
"Yes, but there is more to it than that. Devils--"
The door opened, and Charlotte stopped midsentence. A beautiful, red-skinned woman with short horns poked her head through the gap. She had long black hair, with thick-rimmed glasses hanging on the tip of her nose.
“Did you park next to the Ranger Rover?” she asked. Her voice was an odd mix of sexy husky purring and harsh news anchor tonality.
“Yes.” Charlotte gestured over her shoulder with her thumb without looking.
“Good. He’s waiting for you in the war room.”
The red-skinned woman pulled the door open easily and gestured for us to enter. Now that the door was opened, I could see that she was a succubus like Charlotte, only I had never seen one with her combination of red skin, glasses, and abundant tattoos. She wore a black bikini that covered almost none of her body, and the rest of her skin was etched with skulls, swords, guns, and axes.
“How long a drive was it out here?” The woman’s tail wagged in the air playfully as she walked, and her stiletto heels rang against the tile of the castle floor like snare drum hits.
“A few hours,” Charlotte answered.
“That’s fast.”
“Satan lent us a car.”
“Oh? Lucky you.” The woman turned her head around, and her burning eyes seemed to notice me. “Who’s the kid? He looks tasty. Is he yours?” she asked.
02- Satan! Page 11