02- Satan!

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “He is Satan’s. Has the mark,” Charlotte said.

  “Ahh, too bad. I was hoping you would want to share him,” the girl said with a pout.

  Charlotte didn’t answer the other succubus, and the three of us continued to walk through the hallways of the castle. The interior floor was a rough gray stone, with matching walls and a slightly darker ceiling. Some sort of light illuminated the interior, but I didn’t see any braziers, torches, or lamps on the walls. Finally, I noticed that the ceiling was actually the same color as the walls and floor, but there was recessed LED lighting that shot up from a narrow gutter above the stone molding of the wall.

  “Where is everyone?” Charlotte asked as we continued our walk.

  “Hmmmm?” the other succubus raised a black eyebrow and turned to look at us.

  “Last time I was here, this place was filled with demons. Now it is like a haunted castle.”

  “Oh honey, when was the last time you were here?”

  “Hmmm, eighty years or so. When I first started my training. I’ve been up on the surface.”

  “You are eighty years old?” I asked Charlotte.

  “No, I’m ninety-one,” the brown-haired succubus answered with a shrug.

  “Oh, wow, that is so…” I stopped myself from speaking with a sudden snap of my teeth.

  “So what?” Both succubi stopped walking and turned to glare at me.

  “So… cool,” I forced myself to say instead of ‘old.’

  “Oh, so you like older women?” the red-skinned demon woman asked as she adjusted her glasses and ran her tongue over her full lips.

  “Ummm--”

  “So why is the fortress so empty?” Charlotte interrupted me.

  “Most of the operations have moved to the front lines. Look.” The woman opened a door in the hallway that led outside. Charlotte and I stepped out after her, and she pointed far off into the distance. The balcony faced the back part of the mountain, opposite to the side on which we had approached, and I could see a long line of black in the far distance.

  “Is that an army?” I asked as I squinted.

  “Yes, our line. Lucifer’s is probably too far away for your human eyes to see,” Charlotte remarked.

  “Let’s get back inside. Barrtazzu left the armies to meet with you. He’s not very happy,” the red succubus sighed.

  “What is your name?” I asked her once we had reentered the castle and walked for another few minutes.

  “Paige. What is yours again, human?”

  “Sherman,” I answered. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Charlotte frowned.

  “Ahh, okay. Here we are. The war room.”

  Paige had led us to a wide flight of stairs. There were only five steps though, and they ended at another set of massive doors. The door was made of a dark black wood that had white and brown stripes on it. The red succubus pushed on the handles, and we followed her inside.

  “Charlotte and the human, Walter are here, my lord,” Paige announced with a bow. Then she gestured to us, and we stepped forward.

  We walked into a modern-looking conference room. The right wall was a full-length sheet of glass, and it showed me a courtyard of the castle about thirty feet below. In the middle of the room was a large wooden desk with one of those diamond-shaped speaker phones sitting in the middle. A projector hung from the ceiling, and a PowerPoint slide shone on the far wall of the room. There was a large demon that looked like a cross between a bull and a red-spotted panda standing next to the wall. He had a long metal pointer in one hand and was currently gesturing at the wall.

  The slide looked almost like a football play book that I would see in a movie. It was marked with O’s, X’s, and arrows. At the foot of the slide were the words ‘Plan to kill these fucking devils!’

  “Took you two long enough to get here!” the demon at the front roared, and a massive set of wings unfolded behind him to fill his side of the conference room. He wore slacks and a black military-looking jacket that was covered with decorative metals.

  I counted sixteen other demons sitting on chairs around the long table, and they all turned to fix us with glowing stares of hatred. Their eyes were overwhelming, and I felt my stomach try to convince me that I needed to run out the door, down the stairs, through the castle, into the car, and get the hell out of Hell.

  “Sorry,” Charlotte said with a shrug.

  The other demons growled, and a few of them stood up from their pleather office chairs. Most of them looked somewhat similar to the big demon that stood next to the slide show, but they were various combinations of horned bull mixed with either bird, weasel, reptile, or gorilla. Each one possessed a unique shape and build, but each had a similarity in the way that they stood with their muscular chests pushed out.

  Except one of them.

  He, or she, I couldn’t really tell, sat in the middle of the table on the left side. Its face was a blank sheet of scaly leather, devoid of eyes, nose, or mouth. The creature turned its head to kind of face me, and I looked away, at the horrific demons that were somehow less creepy.

  “Satan said that this mortal will help me, but I think he doesn’t even look fit enough to eat. I’d probably get indigestion.” I guessed Barrtazzu was the large demon at the front, and he let out a sound that reminded me of a cross between a laugh and a car getting smashed.

  The other demons hooted, hollered, and bared their teeth at me. I realized that I was shaking with panic, and I lifted my hand to show the stamp Satan had left on my hand. The conference room full of demons was suddenly quiet, and their burning red eyes stared at the back of my hand.

  “So how does Lord Satan believe you can help me?” Barrtazzu growled.

  “He thinks you might have a traitor, or a spy. Someone is feeding Lucifer information about your strategies,” Charlotte said calmly as she gestured at the slide show projected on the far wall.

  “Ehhh. These idiots are always trying to betray me,” Barrtazzu gestured to the other demons with his clawed hand, and a few of them snickered, “But none would give Lucifer any information. I would feel their devilish intentions.”

  “Sherman is special--” Charlotte said.

  “Yeah, he looks ‘special’ to me. Ha!” the large demon laughed, and the others joined in with him.

  “Do you see anything that looks out of place?” Charlotte leaned into my ear, and I heard her whisper over the sound of demonic laughter.

  “One of them doesn’t look like the others,” I turned my face so that I could whisper in her ear. The scent of her brown hair calmed my nerves a bit, and I let out a long exhale.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t have a face, just like leather. No eyes, or nose or--”

  “Shit,” Charlotte cut me off. “Don’t look at it, which one?”

  “Left side of the table, fourth one from us,” I said as I tried not to stare at the blank-faced monster.

  “Sherman has already figured out your problem,” Charlotte said, and the room went suddenly silent.

  “Oh?” Barrtazzu chuckled. “Let’s hear it. I can’t wait to tell you that you are wrong, Charlotte. Then I can send you back to Satan with your tail--”

  “There is a devildop in the room,” she cut off the panda-bull demon.

  “Huh? How do you know?” he asked as he tilted his ugly head.

  “Sherman has magic that lets him see the truth. General Takatoor must have been assassinated by one.” When the succubus finished speaking, the room full of demons turned to stare at the blank-faced creature.

  “What the actual fuck?” the thing asked as it raised its hands defensively. “Who is this kid? I’m no devil. Satan is playing a joke on me or something.” I couldn’t see how the creature could talk without a mouth, but a British-sounding voice came from it.

  “Ehhh.” Barrtazzu raised a hand to his mouth and put a finger on his chin. “I don’t really believe it. Takatoor is one of my best, and he’s won all the battles I’ve had him fight in
the last few years.”

  The demons in the room turned to their boss and then back to Charlotte and I.

  “He looks like he doesn’t have eyes, or a mouth. It’s like a weird gray lizard or something,” I said, and the demons looked back to the entity that Charlotte had called Takatoor.

  “Barrtazzu, this kid is full of shit. Like you said, I’ve won every battle in the last few years. How could I be a traitor? I demand retribution through Death Match,” the creature growled the final sentence out as he stood and pointed at me.

  “Death Match?” I squeaked and felt my heart stop beating.

  “Hmmmmm,” Barrtazzu scratched one of his red fur spots. “That’s probably the best way to solve this.”

  “Death Match?” I asked again as I looked at Charlotte.

  “He has Satan’s mark. Sherman can’t be attacked by any of us,” the winged girl said with urgency.

  “True, but a Death Match can override Satan’s mark.” The gathered demons turned to me, and there was no mistaking the horrific glee painted on their monster faces.

  “Sherman doesn’t know how to figh--” Charlotte tried to say, but the demon lord cut her off with a sharp movement of his hand.

  “Doesn’t matter. The human mortal can choose the battle ground. The loser will be murdered and devoured, the winner will be free. It’s the only way to decide this.”

  “No, Satan gave Sherman his mark, he doesn’t have to accept the challenge,” Charlotte said, and I could hear a bit of edge to her sultry voice.

  “Yeah, he doesn’t have to accept, but then I’ll just think he is a coward. I won’t believe a coward. So you can go back to Satan and tell him I’m not going to take his advice.” The demon lord looked at me with glowing eyes, and his fang-filled mouth grinned. “So human, what will it be? Will you accept the Death Match or run out of here like a fucking baby?”

  The demons in the room smiled, and I saw the faceless creature cross its featureless arms. The air in the conference room was suddenly still, and I felt as if I could have cut the tension with the edge of my hand.

  “You don’t have to do this. We can go back to Satan and--”

  “If we go back to Satan in failure, then he said he would break you into a thousand pieces,” I interrupted her.

  “He could have been joking,” she said. “You don’t have to fight him. Please, let’s just go back and tell him that--” I cut off Charlotte’s words by leaning into her ear.

  “Didn’t you tell me a bunch of times that he was the Lord of Hell? He won’t forgive me, and, besides. I have an idea,” I whispered.

  “Did you say I could choose the type of battle?” I asked the red-spotted panda-bull demon.

  “Yes, human. You can choose the type of battle, weapons, conditions. Doesn’t matter. Whoever loses will get devoured by us here, so you might as well make it a Death Match by combat.”

  “Yeah, but I can do any kind of battle?”

  “Yes, mortal. You choose. But first you must accept. Do you accept?”

  “No, he doesn’t--” Charlotte said.

  “I accept!” I shouted over her, and the demons raised their hands with a howling shriek of glee.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she grabbed my arm.

  I felt her nails dig into the thin material of my shirt, and her eyes glowed with anger.

  “I said I have a plan.”

  “Sherman, your plans aren’t really that good,” she sighed as she shook her pretty head.

  “Hey, I helped you with Joro didn’t I?” I tried to smile at her.

  “Human!” Barrtazzu shouted to get my attention over the scary sounds of the happy demons in the room. “What will be the battleground?”

  “I choose Darkstalkers: Resurrection. Darkstalkers Three game mode. Best two rounds out of three!” I pointed to the faceless monster as I spoke and shouted the words over the cheering demons.

  Sudden silence.

  “Huh?” Barrtazzu asked in confusion.

  “Darkstalkers: Resurrection. It is a PlayStation Three game, or it is on Xbox One. There are two game modes, I’m choosing the Darkstalkers Three version,” I explained.

  “Huh?” the faceless monster asked. The other demons all had their mouths open.

  “It is a video game. Don’t you guys play video games?”

  “Ahhhh… What is a video game?” one of the sitting demons asked.

  “The humans play them. They use hand-held controllers that attach to a small computer to show it on the TV,” Charlotte explained.

  “I don’t know anything about video games. This isn’t fair,” whined Takatoor.

  “Shut up!” Barrtazzu screamed. “You were the one that challenged the human. You idiot!”

  “But I thought we were going to fight! This isn’t fighting.”

  “It is actually a fighting game. There are a bunch of different characters you can pick, and each one has different moves. You can even pick demons,” I explained.

  “It has been decided. It will be death by this human ‘video game,’” the red-spotted bull demon shouted, and his generals screamed with joy.

  “Paige!” the panda-bull demon shouted.

  “Yes, Lord Barrtazzu?” The red-skinned succubus had been standing by the door, and she saluted the demon by placing her fist against one of her bikini-covered breasts.

  “Give this human what he needs. This ‘station box’ and the ‘Stalkers’ game.”

  “We can play it on a PlayStation 3 or an Xbox One. We’ll also need an internet connection and two controllers. Oh, and can we order some pizza and soda if we are going to have a game party?” I turned to ask Barrtazzu.

  “Yes. Bring an infinite amount of pizza and this soda stuff the human speaks of,” the demon lord agreed.

  “Got it. Anything else?” Paige was taking notes with a pen and pad of paper that had appeared in her hands when I looked at Barrtazzu. I had no idea where she had kept the thing since her tiny black bikini left little to the imagination.

  “No, that should be it,” I said with a nod.

  “I’ll be right back.” The red-skinned succubus winked at me and then ran her tongue over her lips suggestively before she slunk out the door.

  “You are good at video games?” Charlotte asked me after Paige had exited the room.

  “I’m not just good. I am awesome! I can beat the game on the hardest difficulty, and when I play online I always win.”

  “Ohhhh, sounds like Takatoor is gonna. Get. Hurt!” One of the demons sitting next to the faceless creature sprayed spittle as he yelled.

  “Shut up. I’ve never been defeated in single combat. No human mortal can best me.” Takatoor stood and pointed a scaled finger at me from across the table. “Let alone a scrimpy half-man, half-child virgin.”

  “Ohhhhhhh!” the room full of demons let out a surprised moan, and they all looked at me.

  “That’s not very nice to say--” I almost yelped when I felt Charlotte’s claws dig into my arm.

  “Ohhh, poor baby. Gonna go cry to your mommy?” Takatoor nodded at Charlotte.

  “You have to trash talk him back, it is part of the Death Battle tradition,” the succubus whispered urgently in my ear.

  “I’ll beat you!” I yelled back at the faceless monster. The other demons laughed, and I saw Charlotte put her face in her hand.

  “I will devour your flesh in three gulps. First, your legs, second, your arms and finally, your head. All into my maw! I’ll not even bother with your lower body, because your man parts are too small and puny.” The room gasped with pleasure and then erupted into laughter. A few of them stood up from their chairs and started slapping the faceless devil on his back.

  “Well, you’re so ugly, you make onions cry.” I said as I looked at the demon and winced.

  “Ha! I love onions, mortal. Just as your momma loved my big demon--”

  “I have pizza!” Paige shouted as she entered through the door.

  The sexy red succubus balanced twen
ty large boxes of Domino's pizza in one hand like a tower of Lego blocks, and she hauled a giant Walmart bag of soda in the other. The woman set the pizzas on the table and placed the soda next to them.

  “Get your hands off that!” Paige smacked one of the demons as he made to reach for the boxes. “I got everyone what they wanted, so you all just need to sit down and hold on a damn minute.”

  I was surprised when the giant demons in the room all followed her orders and sat back in their chairs patiently. Paige started calling out demonic names, and she passed each one a large box of pizza.

  “Here is yours, William,” the tattooed woman passed me a box. There were four empty chairs at the table, and I took a seat next to a demon that looked like a cross between a ram and a shark. I wondered if he might accidentally take a bite of my arm as he tried to eat his pizza.

  “Charlotte, I guessed Hawaiian,” Paige said as she handed the cream-skinned succubus a box.

  “That is fine. Thank you,” the girl said as she took the box and sat next to me.

  “Wow, this is exactly the kind of pizza I like. How did you know?” I asked as I looked at the mushroom, onion, sausage, and garlic pizza with extra cheese.

  “Succubi always know what men like,” Charlotte answered with a shrug, and I realized that the other winged woman was handing out two-liter soda bottles on the other side of the table.

  “Hey, human! Pass the damn plates. What are we? A bunch of animals? Idiot!” Barrtazzu yelled from his spot at the far end of the table.

  Charlotte and I each took a paper plate from the stack and then passed it down to the other demons.

  “Forks and knives also!” the demon lord commanded, and I passed the plastic cutlery down the table.

  I took a piece of pizza from the box, put it on my plate, and then started to eat. I noticed that the other demons all ate with a plastic fork and knife, just like Charlotte did. Maybe it was a demon thing? I was about to ask, but then Paige ran her hand across my shoulder and rested her fingers on my neck.

  “I got an Xbox One. Is that okay?” she asked as she leaned between Charlotte and me.

  “Yeah, that is great. Do you have an internet connection? We’ll have to download the game. Oh, and we’ll need a credit or gift card for the Microsoft shop.”