02- Satan! Read online

  “Here, you can use my shirt,” I said as I gestured to my somehow-clean white school polo.

  “Thanks, Sherman.” Her right hand morphed into the bird-like razor claws, and she sliced a neat square from the bottom part of my polo with her pointer finger.

  The door made a dinging sound, and I saw that the digital reading at the arch of the doorway read ‘-999.’ The door opened, and the elevator operator stood in front of us with a mop and a bucket in his hand.

  “Ugh. Now I have to clean myself up and then continue my punishment.”

  “Can I kill you again?” Charlotte asked eagerly.

  “Naw, don’t worry about it, doll. I’d just have two corpses to clean up. What would my shrink say? Oh, I almost forgot,” the man cleared his throat and stood tall in his burgundy operator’s outfit. “Bottom floor.”

  “Thanks,” I said to the man as Charlotte dragged me out into the hallway. He nodded at me and stepped into the elevator behind us. I heard the mop hit the floor with a wet sound, and then the doors closed with another ding.

  We were in a dismal parking basement. It was all gray concrete, white-painted lines that had faded to a crayon-like consistency, and cars in various state of ill-repair. The garage was lit with sickly looking fluorescent lights, and it seemed that one out of every three bulbs was either dead or flickered annoyingly.

  “The tunnel under the city is on the other side of the lot,” Charlotte said as we walked.

  “Wow, look at these old cars. Why is this one in perfect condition?” I asked as we passed a black old-timey automobile. It was backed into its parking spot, and it looked as if it didn’t even have a scratch on the glossy paint. The front of the grill had the “Ford” logo, and there was a wide-mouthed screw opening on top for water. The spokes of the wheels looked like they were made of wood, and I guessed that the vehicle was one of the early Ford models named after a letter of the alphabet.

  “It is a 1916 Ford Model T Couplet. We need to keep moving. Satan is expecting you.”

  “Ummm, Charlotte?” I asked after we’d walked past a car with four wheels on each side; a car that looked like some weird cross between a motorcycle, rocket, and lounge chair; and a vehicle that looked as if it were a wingless plane with too many windows and a single massive headlight at the front.

  “Yes?”

  “So, back at school, before we went through your portal. Ummm, you said that Satan might want to devour my soul to learn my magic. Or torture me. Is that right?” I’d been chewing on the question since she’d left me in the cell, and I had been too afraid to ask her.

  I’d also been too afraid to hear her answer.

  “Yep.”

  “Oh.”

  We walked for another thirty seconds. I thought that she would say something else to help calm my fears, or maybe tell me ‘don’t worry Sherman. I’m your girlfriend, and I will protect you from the Lord of Hell and King of Lies,’ but she didn’t say anything.

  We passed half a dozen cars that looked like a cross between a fifties-era diner and a robot face. The sides of the doors had the word “EDSEL” written in too thin letters, and I had to squint through my glasses to read the strange script in the dim light.

  “But…” I said with a sigh.

  “What?” She raised an eyebrow over a glowing red eye.

  “You never answered my question in the bathroom. I mean, you kind of said you were going to take me to Hell to see Satan, but, I mean, you kissed me. So?”

  “What are you blabbing about?” Her eyes seemed to glow brighter.

  “I asked if you liked me, but then you said you only saved me so that you could give me to Satan, but then you kissed me. So--”

  “So you are confused. Ohh, poor mortal,” she said with a smile that made my head spin with pleasure, even if I guessed that she was a bit dismissive. “I see that I need to be clear with you, which I guess I should expect when dealing with a high school boy.”

  “I am eighteen, though,” I said in my defense.

  “Whatever. My point is that you don’t know anything. So I’ll explain that I don’t dislike you and that my affections for you might grow more if the situation lends itself that way. But, as of now, I think of you as my brother, so maybe we should just be friends, but I might want to kiss you again like I did before because I kind of liked it.”

  “Charlotte, that isn’t clear at all. I don’t understand anything you just said.”

  “I was perfectly clear. So if you don’t understand, then it is your own fault,” she said with a slight growl to her words.

  “Okay,” I sighed and then stepped around the Ford Pinto that looked as if the interior had been burnt in a fire.

  “I’ve got my career to think about. I don’t have time for a relationship,” she said after a few moments of silence.

  “But we are in high school.”

  “I’ve been in high school, in college, in an office. I go wherever my Lord Satan sends me.”

  “And then you kill people?” I asked.

  “I kill our enemies.”

  “I still don’t really understand what is going on. You said something about a war earlier, and I--”

  “Shhhh,” she put her finger over her lips. “Did you hear something? Get behind that car.” She pointed at a baby-puke-green scrap of metal with four flat tires a few feet from us.

  I ran fast as my heart pounded in my chest and dove down next to the car. It was quite possibly the ugliest automobile I’d ever seen, and the name over the rear wheel said ‘Gremlin X.’ I thought the name was fitting.

  “Char--” I said as I realized that she hadn’t joined me behind the car, but then I saw movement coming from the direction in which we were walking, and terror choked off my words.

  It was a group of four demons wearing police uniforms.

  Chapter 2

  On closer examination, the four demons in the parking garage weren’t exactly wearing police uniforms. The clothes looked blue, but the edges of the sleeves were checkered black and white. They also had badges, but when I peeped at them through the window of the ugly green car, I could see that the medallions looked like they were made of a flimsy plastic.

  “Hoooo. Look it what we have here boys! A genuine succubus!” the demon cop in the front of the group had a toothed jaw that opened up sideways when he spoke. He looked like a cross between a weasel and a bat, only instead of wings he had another set of flimsy arms that ended in claws.

  “Hey boss, I ain't never seen no succubus down here. She sure is purdy!” said another badge-wearing demon. This one looked like he was half-frog and half-bear. His belly stuck out of the bottom part of his uniform and almost dragged on the ground.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. They normally fly waaaaaaaay up in the sky!” This third one’s voice was practically a screech. He looked like a tall skinny chimpanzee with horns coming out of his head and shoulders in a spiky rose-bush array.

  The last member of the group was a snake-creature that possessed limbs like a humanoid would, but each appendage was a single tail. It moaned a few words, but I couldn’t make sense of them.

  “What do you idiots want?” Charlotte crossed her arms over her half-naked chest.

  “Hoo, hoo, hoo! Ya hear that, boys? She wants to know what we want. She ain't that smart, is she?” the weasel-bat asked his three friends.

  “She doesn’t know? Ohhhhhhh, we should tell her. Can I tell her? I want to tell her?” the horned monkey squawked.

  “No, boss, let me tell her! I wanna tell her,” said the half-frog half-bear demon.

  “I say we let Clydie tell her! Clydie, tell this fine young woman what we want from her.”

  The three demons turned to the uniformed snake- creature. It kind of leaned itself up a bit taller; and let out a long moan directed at Charlotte. The other three demons nodded as soon as Clydie had finished, and then they turned to my girlfriend.

  “I have no idea what he just said,” Charlotte sighed and frowned.

  “
What? Are you saying that, because of Clydie’s disabilities, he is less of a demon than you or me? Do you think that just because Satan blessed you with an ability to articulate your words properly, that makes you better than him?” The weasel-bat seemed genuinely upset when he asked the question.

  “No. I can’t understand what he just said. That is all. I’m in a hurry. If you four know what is good for you, you’ll turn horn and leave.”

  “Ya see, missy, that’s what the problem is. This here is our garage, and as Clydie so politely told ya, everyone needs to pay the parking toll,” the boss said.

  “Who told you this garage is yours? Lord Satan? Funny, I’m on my way to see him right now. I’ll be sure to let him know that you’re skimming some off the bottom here.” Charlotte shook her head when she scoffed at the four demons.

  “Woooweee! Ya hear that, boys? This tight little skirt says she knows the big guy! What do you think about that?”

  “And my aunt’s name is Mary! My dad is Joseph!” squawked the monkey demon. The four demons erupted into a fit of laughter, and I ducked down a bit behind the car when the snake-creature turned in my direction.

  “Ya see, it’s funny because he isn’t Jesus!” laughed the boss demon.

  “I can’t believe you idiots. Mary was his mother, not his aunt.” Charlotte sighed as she put her left hand on her face. I noticed that my girlfriend’s claws were now revealed, and I wondered if she would actually be able to fight these four demons. She had done really well against the three Erinye cheerleaders at school, but the beautiful dark angels didn’t seem as scary as these four horrific-looking demon creatures.

  “Alright, alright, sheesh.” The four demons stopped their crazed laughter as their leader spoke again. “Parking permit costs a hundred thousand million and fourteen dollars.”

  “I don’t even have a car. This is dumb.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s our garage. Pay the fee, and you can have any of these fine automobiles. They are here on impound.” The weasel-bat demon smiled largely, and the grin looked incredibly strange sitting sideways on his face.

  “Or you let me pass, and I don’t kill you.” Her eyes glowed, and she took her arms away from her chest.

  “Yeehaaaw! Well, there are other ways to pay, darlin’. There is no need to get all violent.”

  “I’m not even going to guess at what other--”

  “It’s sex. Of course! Let us each have a go with ya, and we’ll call payment made. It’s a square deal.”

  “No thanks, and ewww.” My girlfriend made a disgusted face.

  “Don’t get all hoity-toity with us missy. You’re just a lowly succubus; the only thing you are good for is fuc--”

  Charlotte’s perfectly aimed jump kick interrupted the demon’s words. The side of her foot smashed right into the monster’s horizontally formed jaw, and his head twisted around with the sound that a snapped cluster of celery stalks would make.

  The other three parking-attendant demons screamed, but the succubus was a spinning Tasmanian Devil of wings, claws, and kicks. She somersaulted under the clumsy punch of the frog-bear demon and then tore into his right leg at the knee joint with a wide slash of her clawed arm. A gallon of purple blood sprayed from the separated limb, and the monster tried to make a last smash at my girlfriend while he fell. She was too fast though and had already climbed onto his falling torso. I saw her clawed fingers dig into his thick throat, and then the beautiful woman tore both of her hands away while she boosted off his back. Half of his neck opened with another spray of purple gore, and the winged woman tucked into a tight back flip as she spun through the air.

  “Eeeeeek!” The monkey demon screeched a high pitch whine, and the strange being twisted his left shoulder to point at Charlotte, who just landed from her twisting back flip.

  Large spikes shaped like rose thorns shot out of the demon’s shoulder like a nest of arrows. There must have been twenty or thirty of them, and each missile was tied back to the monkey demon by a string of bloody ropes. My girlfriend must have guessed what her opponent was going to do because she twisted to her side in an acrobatic handspring. She flipped through the air again, and the group of needles zipped past her.

  The monkey demon screeched, and he twisted his body around like one of those torso-rotating action figures. His movement gave a whip-like motion to the projectiles that were still attached to his body, and the strands wrapped around Charlotte’s foot. The beautiful girl’s acrobatic maneuvers ended, and she fell on the ground with the strange threads coiled around her legs.

  Monkey demon let out a screech of pleasure and then squatted down on the ground to brace himself. The weird cables that were coming out of his shoulder started to retract, and my beautiful girlfriend was suddenly being dragged toward the two remaining demons.

  Charlotte didn’t seem that concerned. Even when the snake-limbed demon stumbled toward her, she just moved as if she was doing an abdominal crunch. I almost screamed out a warning from behind my Gremlin cover, but I saw the girl rip her claws across the thin rope cords to free herself. She was just in time. The snake-limbed demon performed a clumsy belly flop maneuver, and my girlfriend only managed to miss getting smashed when she rolled away.

  The succubus sprung to her feet with a bunch of the roped thorns dangling from her hand. She drew her arm back and then snapped it forward as if she was cracking a whip. The face of the snake demon evaporated into the air as if it had never existed, and his body turned to dust instantly.

  “Eeeeek!” the slender monkey demon turned to run, but Charlotte was already winding her arm back for another strike. The whipped thorns sounded like a gunshot, and the running demon’s body came apart like chopped hamburger. Blood, gore, and body parts flew in every direction, and the windows of the car I was hidden behind splattered with the thick red juice.

  “Ugh. So, gross,” Charlotte said.

  “Wow, you are so amazing!” I couldn’t think of anything else to say to the succubus as I stepped out from behind the green car.

  “Thanks.” She smiled at me and tossed aside her makeshift whip.

  I stepped around the remaining demon corpses and tried not to gag at their horrific stench. They smelled like rancid meat mixed with vinegar, and I couldn’t wait to get away from their putrid bodies.

  “This is the first of many. They didn’t even know you were with me, and they still attacked.” The brown-haired succubus nodded in the direction we were previously heading, and we continued our journey.

  “Aren’t you all supposed to be on the same side? Why would they want to--” I was about to say that it seemed as if the four demons wanted to assault my girlfriend sexually, but then I remembered that I was in Hell, and these were demons. Rape, murder, and worse things were what was for dinner around here. What had I gotten myself into? I shouldn’t have followed Charlotte into the basement.

  “The strongest survive and feast on the weaker. It is that way with you humans too; you just haven’t noticed it yet. Even angels have their backward laws that can allow those in good graces to step on the backs of lesser spirits,” she said, but she didn’t look at me.

  “But I thought there was a war going on. Aren’t you fighting against the other, what do you call them?”

  “Earth’s Soldiers,” she answered

  “Why Earth’s Soldiers?”

  “Because they are on the dimensional plane of Earth. Fighting in the war.” She turned to me with a confused look on her face.

  “But, why wouldn’t all the demons just get along while the war is--”

  “Look, Sherman. You’re cute, but when I talk about this, I feel like I’m trying to teach a squirrel how to do calculus. Don’t think about this too much. Satan wants us to fight amongst ourselves, so we do. He wants us to go to war, so we do. He is the Lord of Hell, and we are all his creatures. If he takes pity on you, which probably won’t happen, but if he does, then he might make you one of his creatures as well. Now be a good boy and just shut up for a few minut
es. We are coming to the tunnel, and I need to listen for things that want to kill you.”

  “Uhhh, okay,” I sighed. On the one hand, I did want to talk to her a lot more, and I felt frustrated that she thought I couldn’t understand what was happening. But, on the other hand, I didn’t know anything about devils, demons, angels, or anything other than what I had read in comics, seen in anime, or played in a video game.

  But I wasn’t stupid, and I wanted to help Charlotte. I wanted her to think of me as an equal. At least for the short amount of time that I had left before I met Satan.

  We passed an upward ramp in the parking garage, and I heard a distant screech echo off the wall from above us. Charlotte’s hands shifted into claws instantly, and she crouched down slightly in a battle stance while her tail did a slow dance in the air. I turned to face the ramp as well and put up my fists up like the fighters in my video games would. A half a minute passed, but nothing came down the ramp.

  “Over here,” she said as she resumed her walk.

  She had called it a tunnel, and I had thought it would be a narrow mine shaft type of passage where there was no real space to do more than walk in single file, but this was more like a freeway or subway tunnel. It was about seventy feet wide and maybe forty feet tall. I could actually see a pair of railroad tracks leading into the passage, but they looked to have had a layer of concrete poured over them so that they lay flush with the ground.

  The tunnel was the absolutely darkest shade of black. It seemed as if even the bulbs of the parking garage were terrified of the subway shaft.

  “We are going in there?” I tried to sound brave, but my voice squeaked at the end of my question.

  “This is safer than the air, trust me.” She smiled at me reassuringly, and I forgot all about her earlier comments.

  But her smile didn’t make me any less terrified of the endless darkness before us.