What Would Satan Do?

by Anthony Miller

  “Uh … the gun?” Cadmon gestured to the pistol that was pointed at his head.

  The soldier glanced at Lola, who narrowed her eyes and slowly shook her head. He sighed a dreamy sigh.

  “The gun, yes?” asked Cadmon.

  The soldier shrugged.

  Lola just stared at him, shaking her head with her mouth hanging open slightly. “You are an idiot,” she said, and popped him on the head with the base of her pistol. He fell over sideways.

  “Holy shit!” said Raju. “He’s got a sword! And it’s on fire!”

  Chapter 50. Ezekiel’s Fiery Sword of Death

  Raju was correct in his assessment. Ezekiel had a sword. It was very large, and appeared to have been made from metal that hadn’t ever cooled down after being pulled from the blacksmith’s fire. And by the time everyone looked, he’d used that sword to chop about eight inches off the barrel of Satan’s shotgun.

  Ezekiel yelled and screamed at Satan, as he swung the sword impossibly fast again and again. The Devil staggered backward, trying to avoid the ceaseless strokes. The stadium shuddered and rumbled. This did not help the Dark Lord of the Underworld as he struggled to remain standing.

  “Get him!” said Cadmon offering a fist pump of encouragement to Ezekiel. Lola waved the pistol to remind Cadmon of the fact that he had a firearm pointed at his head. “Oh,” he said, straightening.

  Ezekiel continued swinging the sword, trimming the Flaming Shotgun of Divine Retribution bit-by-bit, and actually took off a largish chunk of the Devil’s hand. The Devil did not scream – he just regarded the bloody stumps of fingers with kind of a confused expression on his face.

  “Hey,” said Liam. “Wait a minute.”

  Ezekiel ignored him and conked the Prince of Darkness on the noggin with the butt of the sword – which did nothing to improve Satan’s befuddled state – and then held his sword up high above his head, preparing to deliver the killing blow. Satan put up his remaining hand, either because he wanted to discourage Ezekiel from any further attack, or because he was trying to do the Macarena. The fact that he also staggered backwards while making vague moaning sounds suggests that the latter is unlikely. On the other hand, at least some of the staggering was probably attributable to the movement of the floor. The stadium had gone from rumbling and shaking to more of a rolling, swaying movement. So, in summary, it’s a little hard to know exactly why Satan put his hand up, because while there are at least a few reasonable inferences that may be drawn, the question of intent is necessarily subjective, and Satan didn’t take the time, at that time, to tell anyone what he was thinking.

  “You are weak, and a coward,” said Ezekiel.

  “What does it matter if he’s weak?” asked Cadmon. Lola waved the gun more energetically this time. Cadmon nodded and shooed her away.

  Lola had already waved the gun as much as she could without actually doing a dance, so she just shrugged. She continued to point the gun at his head.

  “Stop,” said Liam.

  “We should stop him,” said Festus. “He can’t win.”

  “Nothing is inevitable,” said Ezekiel. “Our victory is assured. The only thing that could have prevented it was you, and your ineptitude; your weakness. We never should have followed you.” He smacked Satan with the broad side of the sword, and the Devil toppled backward to lean against the wall.

  “What?” said Cadmon.

  Festus was beginning to get a little bit agitated. “We cannot let him win.”

  Satan regarded Ezekiel with a confused expression. His head lolled, and he sucked in air in huge, labored gulps. He barely seemed to noticed as Ezekiel raised the sword up over his head, grasping the hilt with both hands.

  “You have…” Satan seemed to choke on the words. His voice was a raspy whisper. “You have to … stop this. You will never succeed. Not against Him.”

  Ezekiel lowered his hands, and laughed. “It’s too late,” he said. “It’s done. And there is nothing you can do.” He raised the sword up again.

  “No!” shouted Festus. He leapt onto Ezekiel’s back – or he tried to anyway. He wasn’t in great shape – which is like saying that Antarctica isn’t terribly warm – and his vertical leap only merited the designation “vertical” inasmuch as he didn’t fall over sideways onto his head.

  Ezekiel twisted and spun as he tried to see who was holding on to his butt. Festus held on for dear life and screamed.

  “Help me!”

  Liam, Lola, and Raju just stared, unable to move or think in the face of Festus’ heretofore unprecedented physical activity, which involved far more angelic buttock clasping than they were used to seeing from Festus. Cadmon, who assumed that this was some sort of homo-erotic pinko liberal shit, looked on in disgust. “Ezekiel, you need to explain something. Right now!”

  “Get off, you freak!” said Ezekiel.

  “Help me, damnit!” said Festus. “We have to stop him!”

  “Um … okay,” said Liam, slowly and uncertainly..

  “Ezekiel!” said Cadmon, oblivious to the fact that Ezekiel had at least two more pressing matters to attend to. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. What do you mean by ‘we never should have followed you’? Ezekiel?” He tugged on the feathers at the end of one of Ezekiel’s wings.

  The angel whipped around, causing Festus’ legs to swing out wide and smack into the wall. “Shut up.”

  “I just don’t under—” said Cadmon.

  “I don’t care!” roared the angel. He grunted, twisting back and forth as he tried to dislodge Festus.

  “Help!” said Festus.

  Lola looked at Liam and shrugged. “What should we do?” Liam shrugged back.

  Raju did not shrug. He clapped giddily and jumped up and down. “This is awesome!” he said. “Hold on tight, dude!”

  Lola smacked Cadmon in the head with her pistol, and redirected the shooty end to point at the whirling dervish that was Ezekiel. “Try to be still, Festus!” She stood with her feet shoulder-width apart, and adjusted her aim. “I’m going to try to shoot the angel!”

  Festus screamed louder.

  Liam stepped over close to Lola. “You know, I think you might want to—”

  “Don’t distract me,” she said. “This is hard enough!” She squinted one eye and stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth.

  “Oh my god!” said Festus. “Liam! Help!”

  “Festus, you’re just in the way!” said Lola. “Be still, damn it!”

  Raju ran forward and leapt onto the spinning angel to help Festus. “It’s so firm!” he said, pressing his face against one of the angel’s glutes.

  Ezekiel seemed not to like this very much. He stopped twisting back and forth, and instead began to spin in one direction.

  “Holy shit! Ow!” Raju’s legs now extended straight out as the angel spun faster and faster as if he, Ezekiel, and Festus were a kind of avant-guard, experimental ice dancing team. “Ow!”

  Festus’ vocal contributions were of the less articulate variety.

  Lola finally fired a shot, but Cadmon jumped on her just as she squeezed the trigger. Some feathers poofed up into the air and wafted away from Ezekiel, but he just kept spinning with his butt hanger-onners.

  Liam jumped on Cadmon, and the three of them had a good wrestle. Cadmon tried to get the gun from Lola. Lola tried to keep it, while also attempted alternatively either to bite the preacher or prevent him from being able to have children. Meanwhile, Liam tried to pull Cadmon off Lola, and Cadmon tried to elbow Liam in the head.

  There was an explosion of brilliant light and a grinding, roboty sound, as if somebody had accidentally uncorked a bottle of lightning inside a jumbo-sized dot matrix printer. The brilliant flash was followed immediately by a concussive shock wave, which caused Ezekiel to stop spinning, and sent Raju and Festus crashing into the wall.

  Lola, Cadmon, and Liam stopped wrestling. The tied-up soldier stopped writhing against his belt restraint, and the floor stopped shaking.

&nbs
p; “Shit, man,” said Raju, standing and brushing himself off. “I been knocked down too many times today. I’m tired of that shit. It sucks.” He looked to Liam for some affirmation of the suckiness, but Liam was busy looking in Ezekiel’s direction, so Raju looked there instead.

  Where before there had been one angel, there were now two.

  Chapter 51. The Antichrist

  If polled, the humans there in the Deliveries hallway all would have agreed that Ezekiel was pretty good looking, but that, compared to this new angel – well, there was no comparison. It was love at first sight for all of them. Only Festus would have admitted it, of course, and maybe Lola, because neither was particularly worried about being accused of being a homo.

  The new angel looked as if he’d been carved by Michelangelo. In fact, he bore more than a passing resemblance to the famous statue of David, except that he less pale and stony, and also seemed to be alive. He also had really big wings. But other than that, the he could have been Michelangelo’s inspiration.

  “Moloch,” he said, and smiled a gentle smile. “Brother.”

  Ezekiel’s eyes shone red. He put one foot forward and hefted the glowing sword.

  “That wasn’t really a fair fight, now was it?” said the new angel.

  “I can still destroy you,” said Ezekiel. He swung the sword back, holding it high over his shoulder, as if he were just waiting for a pitch.

  “No, you cannot.” There was another flash of light, accompanied by a horrible, howling scream that seemed to echo and reverberate and rattle the entire building. The sword clattered to the ground, and Ezekiel was gone.

  “What the fuck?” said Cadmon. “I mean really: What? The? Fuck?” He stomped up to the new angel. “Who the fuck are you? And what did you do with Ezekiel? Why’d you call him Moloch? Where did that – where the Devil go?”

  “I’m right here,” said the angel.

  “What? I don’t understand,” said Cadmon.

  “I am Lucifer,” said the angel.

  “Well,” asked Cadmon, “what about him?” He pointed to where Satan’s broken, one-handed body lay slumped on the floor.

  “Oh yes, I left that body,” said Lucifer. He shrugged. “Pity.”

  “Oh,” said Cadmon, pondering this fact. “Well—” He scratched his chin. “Well, that’s not very good.”

  Lucifer smiled.

  Cadmon continued to scratch his chin, and looked down at the floor. “Not good at all,” he mumbled.

  “William,” said Lucifer.

  Cadmon decided to go on the offensive. He put his hands on his hips and stuck out his chin. “You know, you really fucked everything up. Are you happy?”

  The soldier who’d been tied up had, while everyone was watching Satan and Ezekiel and Cadmon, wriggled his hands out of the belt that Liam had used. He stood quietly, snuck over to Raju, grabbed the key, and made a break for it.

  “Hey!” screamed Raju. “He’s getting away!”

  “So?” said Festus.

  “He’s got the key!”

  “Shit!” said Liam, jumping up.

  “Fuck this,” said Lola. She shot the soldier. He yelped and pitched forward, landing awkwardly against the wall.

  “Hey!” said Cadmon. “You can’t shoot my soldiers.”

  “Don’t give me that shit,” said Lola. “I only shot him in the leg. He probably won’t die.” The soldier uttered a sound that was a cross between a moan and a scream, as if to confirm first that he had, in fact, only been shot in the leg, and second, that it hurt like a motherfucker. “Raju,” said Lola, “go get the key.”

  “I love you,” said Raju. Lola aimed the pistol at him. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Alright, then,” said Satan. “I guess we’re done here.”

  “What?” asked Cadmon. He was starting to seem a little overwhelmed, what with Satan destroying Whitford and Ezekiel and Lola shooting one of his soldiers.

  “I’m done here,” said Satan. “Moloch is dead.”

  “Why do you keep calling him that?”

  Satan regarded Cadmon skeptically. “Because that was his name,” he said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s gone now. Goodbye.”

  “Wait!” said Cadmon.

  “What?”

  “I … uh …” the preacher thought it over for a moment, and then, without warning, struck a dramatic pose. “Ha, ha, ha,” he said, attempting a not-at-all-convincing villain laugh. “Didn’t you hear what Ezekiel – Moloch – said? It’s too late. It was out of his control. You can’t change anything.”

  “Hmm …” said Satan. Cadmon had a point. The ground was still shaking, and there was no telling what the hell kind of craziness was going on outside the stadium. “Maybe I should try killing you?”

  “No, no,” said Cadmon, holding up his hands. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Let’s give it a shot anyway.”

  “No!” said Cadmon.

  “Oh, yeah. It’ll be fun. Ready?”

  “No!” said Cadmon.

  “Oh, come on now,” said Satan. “Be a sport.”

  Cadmon started to say, “No,” again, but stopped when Satan held up a finger. He held it there for a moment, and then gave it a tiny wiggle. Cadmon’s eyes appeared to be locked on the Satanic finger. Satan flicked his wrist, and the preacher flew backwards. He smacked into the wall and exploded, splattering nasty, bloody preacher bits all over the two soldiers, the wall, and Raju’s shoes.

  Most of the folks there in the passageway who had to witness Cadmon’s demise found themselves completely unable to speak. It was just too disgusting.

  “Dude!” said Raju. “My shoes.”

  Liam regarded the Prince of Darkness with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. “Was that really necessary?” asked Liam.

  “Wait,” said Lola. Liam glanced at her. “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “What I want to know is,” she gave the Devil a wry look, “did you just save the world?”

  “You totally did,” said Raju.

  Satan looked sheepish, inasmuch as it is possible for a giant, beautiful guy with wings to look sheepish. “Well …” He shrugged and let a tiny smile escape the side of his mouth.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Lola.

  Satan quit looking sheepish. “What do you mean? Of course it makes sense. Do I need to splat you against the wall?”

  “Wait a minute,” she said, ignoring the threat. “If you’re the Devil, aren’t you supposed to want the end of the world?”

  “You could think of it that way, I guess. But I prefer not to. ‘Supposed’ is, after all, such a strange word – so full of unwarranted connotations and expectations.”

  “Why don’t you want the end of the world?” she asked.

  Satan spun to face her. He seemed to grow and take on a vaguely minatory aspect. She, on the other hand, seemed to shrink a little, and took a small step backward. “It’s very simple, dear. If the world is going to end, I want to win. And if I can’t win – and I can’t, because He designed this whole universe thingy that way,” he waved dismissively at the whole universe thingy, “then I don’t want it to end. See?”

  “No, not really,” she said.

  “Have you read the Book of Revelation?” asked Satan.

  “No, I haven’t,” said Lola.

  “I have,” said Festus.

  Satan did kind of a bobble-head, smirk thing and threw up his hands, like, Yeah, he knows what I’m talking about. “See?”

  “Um … okay,” said Lola, clearly not seeing.

  “It tells the story of how the world is supposed to end,” said Festus. “It doesn’t turn out well for Mr. … uh … Lucifer, here.”

  “Is that what you want?” asked Satan. He put his hands on his hips, and gave her a no-nonsense smirk far more befitting of a matronly African-American lady than the Prince of Darkness.

  “No,” said Lola, “I suppose not.”

  “Okay, then,” said Satan. “Me either.” He nodded, glad to have that over
with.

  “Alright,” said Lola.

  They all looked at one another for a bit.

  “But why is the ground still shaking?” asked Lola. “Isn’t that related somehow?”

  “It’s not,” said Festus. He turned his head to the side, like a dog listening for something. “Oh, wait. It is.”

  “Yes, dude,” said Raju. “Definitely still shaking.”

  “It seems to me,” said Lola, “that if you really had saved the world, the building wouldn’t still be shaking. I mean, isn’t that related to … to all of this stuff?”

  Satan gave her a look. “Nobody likes a smartass.”

  “She’s right,” said Raju. “It’s so not stopping.”

  “But that angel is gone. And Cadmon’s gone,” said Festus. “Maybe the angel was telling the truth. Maybe it really is too late.”

  “No,” said Satan. “I don’t think so.”

  They all stood there for a moment, mulling it over, while the rumbling of the building got louder and louder. A crack appeared in the wall, and wound its way down toward the floor. The jagged line paused briefly at the seam between the wall and the floor, and then spread with redoubled vigor. Halfway across the passageway, the crack spread, opening into a gaping, craggy mouth. Liam and Lola had to step back to avoid the tear.

  A frog hopped out of the crack, landing just inches from Satan’s foot – which, as it happens, was clad in what could only really fairly be described as “a Jesus sandal.” It sat there for a moment, oblivious to either the situation it had entered or the stares it was getting.

  As Satan watched the frog, his expression shifted, changing his face from statuesque beauty to something that would have looked more appropriate directing the flow of rainwater high up on the outside of a medieval cathedral. The edges of his mouth curled downward, his eyes grew large and fiery, his nostrils flared, and his wings seemed to get bigger and somehow pointier.

  And then the frog croaked.

  The Devil started to shake, and then, without warning, he leapt into the air, his arms outstretched in front and behind his body like a Kung Fu angel. He seemed to hang there for an impossibly long time – which is actually exactly what happened, since he was an angel – until he finally came down and, landing on his heel, splatted the frog into many nasty froggy bits.