Lucifer's Daughter

OR

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Satan

by Dr. Bender

A Heaven and Hell tale

      

Chapter 1 – Ashes to Ashes

"I'm sorry, Rowe, but I've got to let you go."

My lips pursed. It was a completely involuntary reaction. I sat in that putrid, tatty, mottled, dark green, spring-upholstered, swivel chair reject from 70's office décor stunned more thoroughly than any mullet ever ripped from the bosom of the ocean. I worked my jaw for a moment, gaping like the aforementioned fish as well, I'm sure.

"B-but I… you can't, Phil, I'm an essential member of this cast. The understudy can't cut the role of Julius yet…"

"Rowe," Phil interrupted, "you're a nice guy. I love you, darling, you know that. But let's face facts; fucking the producer's daughter wasn't exactly the best career move you've ever made."

I snorted. "Jesus, since when did a little fun become a crime? It's not like she's still in short trousers… or long skirts… or whatever the fuck little girls wear! She's an adult, I'm an adult, neither of us are married, what's the fuckin' problem?"

He held up his hands in an 'I give up' sort of gesture. "Woah, woah, woah there, pal. I agree with you, no harm done. Jim stormed in here and threw an ultimatum at me, either you go or his money goes. I'm sorry, Rowe, but I'm not throwing the rest of the cast out onto the street because you can't keep your dick in your pants. The rest of us need that paycheck, and besides, I got Ian interested in the part. He wants to get back to his roots."

"Great," I muttered, "can't deal with Lightsaber Boy, so you replace me with the Lord of the Rings."

Phil's eyes went flinty. "I know you're upset, so I'll ignore that."

I stared him right back in the eye. "He's my friend too, remember? And I've called him that to his face. You got some scotch in that desk?"

Phil reached into his drawer and produced a bottle of Glenn Fiddich and two glasses. He poured two fingers into mine, then one for himself. I lifted the glass in a toast, taking a moment to find the appropriate noise. "Fuck politics," I grinned.

Phil saluted me with his own glass. "Fuck politics."

#

I was slightly pissed when I lurched out of the backstage door. The alleyway behind the theatre was like every London alley this side of Soho, wet cobblestones that looked and smelt like it was covered with stale piss in the electric yellow overhead lighting. Or maybe that was just my bleak outlook on life at that point in time. I'd had a few more scotches that I wouldn't be able to afford myself for another few weeks. Phil was a good guy; he just got caught between a rock and an easier place. Stinkin' producers should all go to hell, and most of them do.

The door locked behind me with a click before I heard the shouting. One voice was roughly masculine, the other whiny and high pitched. In my state, I couldn't hear what they were saying, in fact they were both almost unintelligible anyway. The noise did attract my attention, though, and I saw the little tableau before me in one of those frozen seconds you get when a surge of adrenaline hits your bloodstream.

He was shaved bald, wearing a black leather jacket and no shirt over paint-spattered jeans. He wore several fake gold chains around his neck, and another was currently wrapped around one fist like a makeshift set of brass knuckles. His belt was spiked and had a few more chains hanging off it for good measure. The jeans were tucked into black army boots, scuffed with grimy dirt from the alley clinging to it. His most striking feature was the black sun he had tattooed to the back of his head. He suited the scene down to a tee.

She looked out of place. She wore a fabulous red dress, light creamy stockings that could only be seen because of the runs that now marred them and a short brown designer jacket that warmed her torso while showing off her figure to full effect. Her high heeled boots were fire-engine red to match the dress and came to just below the knee, fairly sensible in the cold. She was a stunning, obsidian-haired, beauty who could melt a man's knees with a single smoldering glance from across the room. Or maybe that was just my weakness for the other sex and the beer goggles talking, I'm prone to that sort of thing.

It was obvious that he wasn't after money since her purse lay discarded on the ground at their feet. The long tears in her stockings were being made by the knife in his right hand and he seemed very intent of removing all obstructions from her holiest of holies. My addled brain interpreted all this in the blink of an eye and somewhere deep in my soul touched upon the spark of chivalry that still remained despite decades of abuse.

I don't remember taking any steps forward, but I must have since I was a lot closer to the scene before I spoke. I was, quite literally, furious. A man simply does not treat a woman that way, it was, and still is, an axiom of my being. "Hold on there, son," I growled, "get the hell off of her."

"What the fuck?" The wannabe rapist pushed the girl away by the face. The heel of her shoe broke with the force of his one-handed thrust, sending her sprawling. "Get outta here, geezer, take a long hike or I'll cut ya!"

I let him bluster, waving the little blade around limp-wristed like he thought he was being cool. I wasn't the blustering sort and everything in my vision had this red tinge to it. I'd also done a little boxing before, so I knew how to hit and make it hurt. I surprised him, I think, or at least he looked very surprised when I knocked out two of his teeth.

The punk bounced back like one of those rubber clowns. I must've been drunk because I didn't feel the blade sliding through my ribs at all; I just tried to punch him again. The girl was screaming like a soundtrack. I knew something was wrong when I started coughing up warm fluid and the dull metallic tang of blood filled my mouth.

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" The guy kept screaming into my face. I wasn't trying to hit it any more, everything seemed so surreal. His face was covered in blood and I could almost see the bruises starting to bloom around his eyes and face, blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth. "I'm gonna fuck you up! Then I'm gonna fuck her, then I'm gonna fuck her up, then I'll fuck her fucking corpse! Then I might fuck yours for seconds! An' after that, I'm gonna fuck everyone you ever loved! I'm gonna fuck up the whole fucking world! Y' hear me, FUCK?"

Yep, like every true dickhead, he certainly had 'fucking' on the brain.

Something clicked into place in my head at that moment. I wasn't feeling any pain and, God knows, he was trying. If I'd been thinking rationally, I suppose that I wouldn't have taken his threats seriously. Heck, if I'd been rational, I'd have been screaming my head off. Logic says that this coward was 90% likely to run like a little girl from the scene of the crime before the cops showed up. Of course, that 10% chance would have been an unacceptable risk, so I don't have any regrets about what happened next.

I didn't say a word. He stabbed me one last time and shoved at the blade, twisting it, almost as if he were trying to dig it straight through me and out the other side. All I did was wrap my fingers around his neck and pressed my thumbs as hard as I could into his Adam's apple.

The anger in his eyes turned to pure dread. He took several whooping breaths before his windpipe closed off. He left the dagger in my chest and started clawing at my hands but I was determined. I was dead, I could feel it, but if I was going then I was damn sure this cocksucker was coming with me. I looked into his eyes as I strangled him, watching them bug out as I fought to keep every ounce of strength in my hands as my life's blood flowed out onto the street.

I thought I was hallucinating at the end, but I swear to you that this is what I saw. Impossible as it may seem, he managed to gasp at me with his last dying breath, forcing words into his death rattle with and act of sheer will.

"Fuck you," he cursed, "fuck you all to Hell."

I just kept squeezing. When I was sure he was good and dead and not hurting anyone else, I let myself collapse. I didn't feel very dignified flopping onto my back and the piss-smell was stronger closer to the diseased earth. I looked up into the night sky and couldn't see any stars for the glow of the city, which struck me as terribly unfair at the time.

"When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze fourth the death of princes," I gurgled. The blood was starting to trickle down my throat in that position.

Suddenly, she was standing over me. I knew I was hallucinating when she started to shift in my vision, black hair brightening into flame red locks while horns, wings and tail seemed to sprout from her skin. Fists thrust into her ripe hips, she clucked a forked tongue between her fangs at me. "Now why'd you have to go and do that?"

I blinked and she was gone. All I could see was a depressing field of black, still no stars, so I said the line again, though my voice seemed stronger this time. "When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze fourth the death of princes!"

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come."

The voice that replied sent an unearthly chill through my veins. Yeah, I know that's pretty camp, but it's what it felt like. It was a deep voice, sonorous and rough as gravel against the ears, yet at the same time it screeched through my bones like fingernails on a chalk board. Just the memory of that voice makes me shiver.

"If you don't mind," the voice continued, "you can get up now. I've got six more people with weak tickers waiting for the bell to ring in the next hour and a Lawyer who'll probably try to argue his way out of being dead. I swear, take one vacation out of eternity and the whole world thinks you're going soft."

I had to arch my neck upward to see the speaker. He towered over me like a fell giant, seeming all the larger for the dark robes that blended into the darkness of the alleyway as if the cloth were woven from the shadows themselves. Skeletal hands clutched his gnarled and twisted scythe while a faceless skull peered at me from under a dark cowl with glowing blue orbs of light that chilled me down to the marrow of my bones.

Maybe it was because I'd been thinking through a haze of strong drink a moment before and suddenly I was stone cold sober but the events of the past few moments felt unreal, like a nightmare I'd just woken up from. "I'm sorry," I whispered harshly, my throat dry and sore, "Seventh Seal: the Musical is two doors down."

"Ha-ha, very funny," the Grim Reaper reached under his robe and produced a silver fob watch inscribed with skulls and hour glasses, "but time's wasting away as we speak and I'm a very busy spirit. So get up off your ass so we can get moving, you're not the only one of the six billion souls on this godforsaken planet that's gonna die tonight, you know. And I can't stop time like bloody Santa Claus, so move it, cupcake."

I picked myself up and dusted myself off. It was at that point that I noticed that I was completely naked, though I wasn't cold. The alleyway seemed darker, somehow, and more menacing to me. I couldn't see anyone around, not even the girl. "Uh," I glanced about desperately, "are you sure you're here for me?"

Sighing painfully, Death reached out, turned his bony hand over and pointed down at the ground cryptically.

Blinking, I looked down… and saw a very familiar face staring blankly back up at me. Despite myself, I just couldn't place the visage, though I was positive that I'd seen it many times before. It took a few moments, and the sight of the other corpse beside my body, for my mind to put two and two together.

As inevitable as taxes, I came to the only conclusion that made sense of the whole situation, "Is… is that me?"

No, not my brightest moment, but hell, I was beyond the capacity for rational and logical thought.

"Don't be going and falling to pieces on me now, kid," Death growled, "I don't have all day to straighten you out." Skulls seem to be very good at scowling and not much else, but I think that if he could have scowled he would have at that moment. "Like I was saying," Death nodded patiently, "you're dead, Jim."

"Um… er… ah… well…" I stuttered as I wracked my brain for something to say, flicking my gaze between the dark figure of my doom and what was supposed to be my own prostrate corpse collapsed boneless on stage. "Are… are you sure that's me? I don't look anything like that."

Death rasped, though it could have been his version of a chuckle. "Everyone I pick up says that. Look, kid, it's because you're used to looking at yourself in a mirror. You humans see yourselves flipped around left to right. Of course, being dead changes people as well, all sorts of muscles you don't realize you're using go slack."

It wasn't the subject matter that made me gag; it was the tone of my companion's voice when he said it. Then what I can only describe as a spark of hope leapt into my brain. Jumping back from the Reaper, I am embarrassed to say that I laughed triumphantly, "I challenge you!"

Yes, I expect better from me too.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Death's shoulders slumped, "dude, it's your TIME! OK? I have a schedule, I have my list, I check it twice, and I don't give a flying fuck if you're naughty or nice! God might play dice with the Universe, but if the missus catches me gambling again, she'll MURDER me! Not this time, no. NO and that's my FINAL word."

Feeling well castigated for believing everything I see or read; I scuffed my feet like I was at grammar school all over again. "Er… sorry, I should have known better, pleased to meet you and all that."

Death cocked his head to one side, confused for a moment. "Oh, um… no problem. Ready to go, then? I don't mind if you want to say a quick goodbye to your old body first, most folks seem to want to."

"No," I shook my head, resigned to my fate, "I don't need it. Hey, wait a sec, where's the other guy?"

Death turned his thumb downwards like Caesar deciding the fate of the unlucky gladiators of the Coliseum. "One way ticket to Hell, cattle class. I only pick up souls bound for trial in Pergatory, if you're good or bad enough to get into Heaven or Hell without contest, the Powers That Be just route you straight there, no waiting. Or, if you don't want to come with me now, I can leave your ass here to rot for a few years as a Ghost until you're ready to accept your fate and stop asking stupid questions."

I winced. "I'm sorry, I'm ready to go. Seriously, the waiting 'd kill me… er, if it wasn't too late for that already… shit, let's just go before I dig myself in deeper… oh, God…"

"Forget it!" Death clutched at his hood in despair for a moment, a substitute for hair, "I know what you mean! Let's get the fuck outta here…"

He rapped on the cobblestones three times with the butt of his scythe. The world seemed to reverberate with the strokes, vibrating until everything around us looked fuzzy, spinning and whirling around until all creation merged into a solid grey blur.

"Well, here we are," Death finally announced, sweeping his hand around, gesturing grandly into the grey void, "welcome to Purgatory, kid, God's own waiting room."

Twirling through three-sixty degrees, all I could see was an infinite grayness reminiscent of snow blindness, only darker. If it wasn't for Death standing next to me, I couldn't have told you which way was up or down, in fact I really don't think Purgatory has an up or down, or even gravity for that matter. It's just an endless, boring, empty void. I heard recently that some Angels were considering adding some muzac as a joke, but the higher ups vetoed the idea for fear of the entire plane slipping down into Hell and taking all the waiting souls with it. How do I hear stuff like that now, you ask? Wait for it, ok, it's a real scream.

Straining to hear any sort of sensation, I thought I heard crying, as if there was a nursery somewhere in the vast distance all around me. "What the hell is that?" I asked my guide, flicking my ear so he knew what I meant.

Death cocked his head to one side like he still had ears. "Oh, that. Probably an echo from the Limbo of the Infants. It happens. Come on, follow me, we've still got a ways to go, you know."

I followed him in silence for a while as we traversed the completely groundless terrain. It felt like I was walking, but I couldn't have been because there wasn't anything for me to walk on, so it felt a bit like I was floating or treading water. To keep my mind off it, I kept talking. "So, uh, where's this place?"

"Everywhere and nowhere," Death sighed, "usually I don't talk to you people, but I gotta hand it to ya, I haven't seen a death like that for centuries. Ok, from the top, this is the Limbo of the Primarchs. Purgatory's a suburb of Hell, kid, one of the upper-crust suburbs where all the public servants live and work, but part of Hell none the less. Even still, it's divided up into several 'layers', which are more like coterminus dimensions… ever read any sci-fi when you were alive?"

"A little," I sighed, "I studied the classics at university, so I know a bit of mythology."

"Ok, basically, that means that these layers all exist in the same space and time, only with different phases. Sorta like the difference between where you lived back on Earth and where the ghosts live, get it?"

I nodded. "I think so. You're talking about planes of reality."

"Bingo. This layer, the Limbo of the Primarchs, is the closest one to Earth, so we've gotta pass through it to get to the deeper levels. Almost as close is the Limbo of the Infants, which is where infant souls who haven't had a shot at damnation or redemption wait to be born, they died before birth you see, or their bodies did. Lucifer complained that it wasn't fair that infant souls got to go to Heaven automatically, since they were only innocent because they'd never been tested. So God capitulated and a whole bunch of treaties were made so that nobody could interfere with the unborn souls and they chuck all of them into this pocket dimension while they wait to be reincarnated. Occasionally, a few older souls will get in there too for one reason or another, but that's really rare.

Anyway, the Limbo of the Primarchs was the old precinct of Hell where the just souls were kept before the big J did his whole resurrection act and went through the Harrowing. Now, it's pretty much empty except for the occasional stray soul, a couple of big rocks and some indigenous entities. Since you can't get to Purgatory proper any other way, I've got to escort every one of you little turds through this bleak bloody place, across the River Styx and into the Halls of Judgement. From there, you either go down into Infernus, better known as Hell proper to you earthlings, or up into Heaven, depending on the judgement. Satisfied?"

My jaw would have been dragging across the floor if there'd actually been a floor under my feet. "God? Lucifer? JESUS!"

Death snorted. "Look, you might want to cut that out right about now. Usually that whole interpretation of 'taking his name in vein' is a joke, but any black mark against you is going to be weighted in Purgatory. Both sides want your soul and you would not BELIEVE how bloody it can get."

"Uh, yeah, thanks," I stammered. My whole world view was spinning around my head like insane cartoon ducks.

Death chuckled. "You wouldn't believe how much that one pisses off the hardcore fundies when they get down here. 'Oh, I killed all those Jews to get revenge for Jesus!' –piiifft!- facist losers. Thank God I don't have to deal with that shit. Racists, rapists and pedophiles, may they all burn in Hell. Oh, here we are, the River Styx"

He pointed his scythe out in front and my eyes followed the direction. The 'river' of black water flowed in blobby, twisted, currents through the featureless grey space, visible as a dark distortion of the 'light' that illuminated almost everything equally. It was that quality that made me realize that there weren't any shadows at all, which made everything look cartoonish and flat, only without any black lines to delineate surfaces. Very surreal, really, Dali would've got a kick out of Limbo if he hadn't been kicked up to Heaven first off to bat.

There was a boat waiting for us and my guide allowed me to settle into the prow while he rowed. "Next stop, Pergatory," Death intoned, "please keep your arms and legs inside the boat at all times on pain of eternal dissolution."

Knowing full well the dark reputation of the River Styx from years of reading Classics and Drama, I was very careful where I put my limbs. Curious, however, I asked another question while Death poled us along with his scythe (a delicate procedure, considering the razorblade sticking out one end). "I never heard of the Styx flowing through Purgatory before."

"Not surprised," Death shrugged, "mortals are on a need to know basis. For your information, Purgatory used to be called 'Hades' back before the Greek gods joined the Christian pantheon of spirits. The Elysian Fields rose up to become a precinct of Heaven and Tartarus sunk down into Hell, along with a buncha other places you might've read about… oh, crap, BLOODY PIRATES!"

I whipped my head about to see what my guide was shaking his fist at. What I saw almost knocked me out of the boat.

Imagine one of those cliff-cities you see in National Geographic carved into the bare rock, only in 3D, sort of like an Escher drawing, rolling past your bed in the middle of the night. What I took for some sort of moss-like white growths all over it turned out to be some sort of alien beings that looked like balls of translucent arms roaming slowly through the streets. Next thing I knew, this barbed chain whips past my head, missing by about an inch. Whipping my head about to follow the asteroid, I saw one of the arm-balls giving me the bird.

"Scum-bags! You're supposed to be several light years downriver, assholes!" Death shook his fist at them again.

Understandably, I was stunned for a long time as I watched the floating city slowly shrink into a dark speck in the gray void. I'm sure you'll also understand that my first flabbergasted words were: "What the fuck???"

"Soul Trawlers, looking for the lost souls that sometimes get caught in the river and lose all sense of identity," Death growled, "bloody bottom-feeders, vultures of the ether, pirates, take your pick. They float along the Lethe and the Styx, but they're regulated by the Angels of Judgement. I'll have to send a memo to Dominic to get the boys down here."

"Dominic, like the Archangel."

"You're catching on."

We spent the rest of the journey in silence. I didn't want to push my luck anymore and Death seemed to prefer the silence. Besides, it gave me time to adjust as much as I could under the circumstances. I was resigned. I didn't know what was coming or where I was going, so I figured all I could do was see where the winds blew me. It was my default position on everything, but hey, I've got good instincts and my gut has never led me astray. My dick was another matter, but I wasn't thinking about that, or with it, so it didn't apply… yet. So I kept my mouth shut and focused on silently reciting show tunes in my head. Floating in a miasma of complete mediocrity, it seemed like the thing to do.

My guide didn't have to point out our destination to me since it was the size of a small moon. I resisted the childish urge to point out 'that's no moon, it's a space station' since I didn't think my companion would appreciate the joke. But otherwise, it did look a bit like a primitive Death Star, carved out of a big ball of granite rather than composed of a trillion panels of sheet metal. The river descended into an enormous cave that bored deep into the surface, bound by simple Greek columns and Romanesque stonework. The blocks were grey and pitted, crumbling in places, with faded mosaics and ancient statues falling into a state of advanced decay all around us. Gaunt cherubs with scabbed raven's wings on their backs fluttered through the sky in enormous flocks so that the ball of rock seemed to be surrounded by a cloud buzzing flies. Several passed close to the river and I noticed that they carried scrolls too and fro, flying into smaller orifices in the bare rock and back again as they carried out whatever their duties were.

Descending into the planetoid, torches illuminated the faded and crumbling frescoes overhead and the water took on some semblance of gravity as it flowed into its appointed groove in the floor. Rusted iron gates creaked open at our approach, powered by clockwork gears moved by some unseen power. Directly inside, two towering, robotic, iron angels, scarred, pitted and also rusting, glared at us with metal eyes that wept black oil continuously. Between the plates of their 'armor' and false skin, I could see the whirring and spinning of myriad gears, bits and bobs that kept the golems running. The passionless guardians gave me the chills, something I thought was impossible after meeting my guide.

Death piloted the boat around an ornate breakwater and into a peculiar offshoot of the river, a sort of artificial lake with a dock carved into the rock itself. "Last stop, reception. This is where we part ways, kid, and thanks for the silence. I detest gabblers."

I hopped onto dry land without complaint; it would've just pissed him off anyway. Reaching into the long sleeve of his robe, he pulled out a small card, black on both sides, and handed it to me. "I'm strictly neutral in all this, kiddo. I don't give a crap if you're on your way up or down, but either way gimme a call. We can shoot the breeze, an' I'll introduce you to the missus. She says I've gotta get out more anyway," he grumbled the last part.

I smiled and nodded. "Uh, thanks. I'm sorry for asking but, uh, why? Not that I want to look a gift horse in the mouth, of course, but you don't seem to be the social type."

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I like you. Or maybe I pity you. Either way, we won't know for sure until next time we meet. Good luck."

I nodded back and waved as Death pushed off of the pier and floated away. Still naked, I realized I didn't have anywhere to put the card, so I held onto it and took the only door that led off the docks.

The scenery changed so dramatically that it left me blinking and dumbfounded for a few moments. Gone were the impressive columns and stern guardians, replaced by dying (or dead) potplants and rows of simple steel chairs. The room was utterly empty apart from myself and a figure that slept noisily behind a counter at the far end of the room.

I can't relate with mere words the utter vulgarity of the creature behind the desk. The most notable attribute was that it was a she, of that I was certain because she was naked. She was also grossly overweight, and I'm not talking 'I've had one too many burgers' overweight, I'm talking 'I eat nothing but pure LARD, 24/7' overweight. She was so fat that the rolls of her belly had welded with the oversized wheelchair that she was stuck in, my grotesque fascination with her form forcing me to peek over the counter to take all the details in. Under all that graying flesh, two stubby little legs hung useless and unusable, atrophied long ago. By contrast, her arms were as long and thick as a Gorilla's, and then doubled in size by the jello-like pockets of fat underneath her skin. I've mentioned that the skin was grey, but that doesn't do the mottled patterns of decayed, pussy, mottled yellow/grey hide shot through with a marbling of black veins justice. The head merged with the body, like Jabba the Hutt crossed with Fat Bastard, separated from the bloated torso by a thousand chins. She was also mercifully bald; I couldn't have taken hair on that scalp. Rising up from behind her were the remains of tattered, scabrous, dead grey wings that could no longer ever hope to carry her aloft. Topping off this picture was the cigarette that hung from her lips which flared to life at the end to punctuate each snore, as if her body was so used to taking a drag that it did it reflexively in her sleep. All of that and I have yet to mention the smell, which I will keep to myself. Some horrors are not meant for mortal minds to bear.

In short, if I'd still had a stomach, I'd have lost my lunch. As it was, I gagged so hard that I thought I was going to turn inside out. There was a bell on the counter but it took a supreme act of will, snaking my arm out inch by painful inch as my skin seemed to recoil from the monstrosity behind the desk.

-ding!-

The sound didn't even interrupt her snores.

-ding-ding!-

I rang it twice again, still no response. I bashed my fist down on the button so hard that for a moment, I thought I'd cracked the bell. My efforts were rewarded with a louder snore. So I picked up the bell and banged it against the counter a few times, making a clamor that could raise the dead. She twitched slightly.

Fed up and more accustomed to the horror, I reached out and plucked the cigarette out of her mouth.

"AAAARGH!" She whirled to life like a dervish, spinning around in circles on her wheelchair, wings flapping uselessly and arms flailing. I barely survived having my head taken off by ducking behind the counter.

"HOLY CRAP, LADY! SIMMER DOWN!" I shouted from behind cover.

I saw the enormous, meaty, hands grasp the edge of the counter as her chipped, brown, nails dug into the wood like claws. Lifting herself over the tabletop, she peered down at me and smiled like a shark appraising a bleeding diver. Her teeth weren't yellow, they were black like tar, with slime leaking from between the gums. "Sorry, honey, you got a light?"

"Uh," I looked down at my naked body and shrugged, "sorry, fresh out."

"What fuckin' good are you then?" The monster snorted, letting herself clatter back to the ground.

I pulled myself together and hauled myself to my feet while the demonic secretary lit another smoke, hacking and coughing up black sludge all the while.

"Well, fuck it," she growled as she took a drag on her new death stick, pulling an old typewriter out from under the counter and dropping it on top, "name, rank and serial number."

"Uh, Rowe Welburn… I was never in the army and I don't have a serial number."

"No shit, it was a figure of speech, asshole," she groused, slowly typing in my name onto the paper with two fingers, "former occupation?"

"Actor."

She glanced over the counter at my crotch. "I can see that."

I smiled. It was the sort of smile I only ever get on my face when I'm a hair's breadth from killing someone. "Do you think you could be a little more offensive? I'm not ready to shove your bell up your ass yet."

"Oh, tough guy pickin' on a girl in a wheelchair…"

"Look, dear," I leaned across the counter, "I was stabbed today and I choked the guy who killed me with my bare hands right after I was fired from my last job. I got picked up by the Grim Reaper who, might I say, is a bigger asshole than you'll ever manage to be. My head was almost taken off by a Soul Trawler, I almost got dumped into the River Styx, my very soul is hanging in the balance, I have a migraine and now, not only do I have to look at the most repulsive creature in God's universe, and smell it, I have to take the shit coming out of your mouth as well. So why don't you cut me some freekin' slack? PLEASE?"

"Oooh," she winked at me coyly, "you are a saucy old soul aren't you? Sexual Orientation?"

"Heterosexual," I stuttered, taking a step back. "But I don't see what that has to do with my trial."

"You're right, I was just curious, baby, 'cause that's what I like to hear, like I love it when you talk dirty," she cooed, flicking her toad-like tongue at me as she typed.

I almost lost my toenails.

Pulling the sheet free from the typewriter, she pressed something under a counter and one of the scabrous cherubs popped out of the ceiling and snatched the paper into the air, disappearing again almost as quickly.

"Go on through, they're waiting for you," she winked at me, "and if you're ever in the neighborhood, look up Syphylis, Angel of Plague. I'm in the book, call me!"

I ran through the door as fast as my legs would carry me.

Slamming the door firmly shut behind me and gasping for breath, I rested for a moment against the door with my eyes shut. When I opened them, I found a room full of people staring at me. The Greek-Roman columns were back, holding up a domed roof through which shone a pure white light. My door led to the bottom floor of the room, a circular ledge that hung out over a fiery chasm. Connected to my ledge by short bridges were three other circular ledges, one made of white marble on my right, one made of obsidian on my left and the third just before me made of grey stone like the rest of the chamber.

Occupying a seat on the last ledge was a nearly-naked jet black-skinned man wearing a loincloth. The skin, however unnatural, wasn't his most striking feature. The thing that caught my attention was his head. It was the head of a jackal, a long, slender, snouted face adorned by rows of sharp teeth. He was picking at his claws with a curved golden dagger embossed with ankhs. I knew enough mythology to identify him as Anubis, Egyptian God of the Underworld; of course practically any movie-goer in recent years might have recognized the name after the mummy movies of recent years. He lounged across his small throne like a cat, eyeing me with only one eye and a vicious smile that I couldn't read. But then, maybe that was just the way he always looked.

The gallery above us was packed with more scabbed-winged angels, though none seemed as repulsive as Syphylis, even collectively. Most were busy taking copious notes and checking the work of their compatriots. Far back in the stands, several other figures of varying stature looked on with bored disinterest. On my right, the gallery was staffed by a bevy of white-winged angels in business suits. On the left, small devils with red skin, horns and bat wings crowded the stand, jostling for position.

In the center of the two upper galleries directly before me, behind Anubis, was a figure the likes of which I had never imagined, though where Syphylis was completely sickening, this one sent thrills of both awe and horror down my spine. One half of her lithe, athletic body was pale and smooth like an alabaster statue brought to life. Shiny black hair cascaded down her shoulders to preserve her flawless modesty, barely concealed by black gauze. The other half was black like the night as well as pitted, decayed and scarred as if she were a dead and rotting corpse on that side only. Her teeth could be seen through her cheek along with several other protruding bones here and there down her body. Scraggly white hair and matching gauze mercifully withheld the full horror of that half from sight. She also bore wings that stretched out from her back, one pure white and perfect, the other a mere skeleton with a patchwork of broken feathers.

And every single eye was on me. I'm not prone to stage fright, but please!

"Uh, hi," I waved at the crowd warily as I took center stage, "my name's Rowe Welburn, I was told to come here?"

"Stand there, Mr. Welburn," the half-beauty looked down on me and commanded. I obeyed, standing in the precise center of my ledge where she pointed. Relaxing back into her chair, she took a deep breath. She didn't seem either angry or kind, just stern and emotionless. "From this point on until the end of this trial, the supplicant, Rowe Welburn, will be referred to as the Persecuted…"

I gulped, that wasn't a good sign.

"…will everyone please rise for the summoning of the Representitives."

Anubis hopped to his feet and bellowed, his reedy voice managing to echo throughout the halls. "ALL RISE FOR THE HONORABLE MEMBER FOR THE PROTAGONIST, YAMON, ANGEL OF DEFENSE!"

It was the audible POP that brought my attention to a newcomer teleporting in from God knows where onto the white marble dais. As a matter of fact, I concluded almost immediately that God had in fact known where he was coming from. The clean business suit, pure white wings and blazing halo (personally, I think all Angels are guilty of Pride, every single one just LOVES showing off how special they are outside Heaven, just to show us peons how sick we are) were a big tip off as to his allegiances. He also carried a black briefcase practically bulging at the seams with paperwork.

"AND REMAIN STANDING," Anubis continued, "FOR THE DUPLICITOUS MEMBER FOR THE ANTAGONIST, BARONESS LORILEI, LILLIM OF SEDUCTION!"

A great, gaping, black gash in the air itself opened over the obsidian dais, spewing sulfurous yellow smoke into the room. A moment later a shapely, blue stiletto-hoofed, leg graced us with the sight of it before an equally perfect body joined it in the room. She was magnificent, femininity personified in a devilishly (what else?) succulent package. She was the sort of woman that men of yore would have built armies and conquered nations to possess, in fact several parts of my anatomy wanted to conquer her already as visions of my troops marching down the valley of her stomach, through the treacherous pass between her peaks and into the cavernous maw of her lips, rolled through my mind. My eyes locked onto her face and for a while it was all I could do just to look into those intense, yet paradoxically doe-like, eyes (YES, the face. She may have been naked, but boobs have never really turned me on, ok? Besides… that face… wow. Take a look yourself some time and see if you really care how big the twins are, or anything else for that matter, after you see those eyes). Her cobalt-trimmed wings hardly registered as they furled around her shoulders like a cloak. Neither did her tail, really, even though it was waving around behind her.

The Angel wasn't as happy as I was to see her to say the least. His jaw dropped, his halo flared and a sword of light sprang from his hands, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE, SPAWN OF SATAN?"

She shrugged, her breasts jiggling visibly (and very aesthetically) even bound as they were under her leathery wings. Her grin was almost feral while she answered in an 'innocent little girl' voice. "What else would you think I was here for?"

He spluttered while she giggled at her own joke, trying desperately not to look at her assets. "Temptress!" He spat, "I meant, what are you, a Baroness of the Succubae, doing here bargaining for a worthless young soul? I was expecting to meet Balzebule."

Worthless? I really wasn't taking a shining to this guy.

She jumped like an excited cheerleader. "WHEE! Does that mean I'm famous? Oh, wow!"

The look of contempt he gave her could have bored a hole through titanium.

"Oh, poo," she pouted, giving him a smoldering glance over her shoulder in return, "cool your heels, Yamon. Balzebule had to call in sick, so Asmodeus hired me to take his place. He's a little short staffed at the moment."

"Aren't we all," Yamon grumbled.

"Er, excuse me," I piped up with a quick nod of apology to the judge overhead. "If you don't mind, who the hell are you people?"

"Actually," the woman grinned, her smile lighting up the cavernous room, "I'm 'Who the Hell', he's 'What in the name of'."

Yamon snorted at that one. I still wasn't getting the joke, but a moment's thought made everything seem fairly clear to me. "Ok, so you're a Devil and he's an Angel?"

"Yup, 'frade so," she nodded.

I gulped. "I'm not sure if 'Bloody Hell' or 'Jesus Christ on a Crutch' is the correct exclamation here."

"Either way sounds good," her chuckle made me feel like I'd just won the lottery, "please call me Lorelei."

"Don't bother," Yamon interrupted, "you won't be in her company for long enough to get attached. I'm Yamon, by the way, and I'll be stating the case for the defense of your soul. This she-demon is here to drag your soul kicking and screaming into eternal damnation. Don't worry, just lie back, relax, and answer honestly and openly when spoken to and you'll be fine."

My bullshit-o-meter was going off like crazy, but Lorelei just glanced at me and winked while Yamon's back was turned. That made me feel a lot better for some reason.

"If you're ready," the half-beauty on the throne above us snapped testily, "I would like the record to show that I, Lady Hel of Purgatory, now sit in judgment over the Persecuted, overseen by Anubis, Holder of the Keys. This trial has now commenced, will the Protagonist please step forward to present his opening comments."

"Your honor," Yamon stepped over the bridge and onto my ledge to give his speech and share my limelight, "the Persecuted is very obviously an open and shut case. Despite the fact that he was a committed Atheist in life, he served his time with the distinction befitting a good Christian…"

He sang my many praises for about half an hour, starting with the time I gave a crying girl about my age my own lollipop to make her happy, right up to defending a woman about to be raped with my life. It was more than a little embarrassing.

"…and in conclusion," Yamon took a deep breath for his summation, "I believe that after stating all of my clients exemplary actions, nothing that he has done in life has earned him eternal damnation, and I am ready to take him back to Heaven forthwith."

He reached out and grabbed me, but Lorelei pinched his arm. Believe me, you 'ain't been pinched until your pincher has two-inch talons. "OBJECTION!" She yelled, "Objection, your honor."

"Sustained," Lady Hel yawned, "the Antagonist will now state her case against."

Lorelei poked her tongue out at Yamon, a foot long, sinuous, forked appendage that flapped in the breeze emanating from her mouth. It was definitely the most expressive raspberry I'd ever seen. The only response Yamon could muster was a regular old scowl, which, I discovered, is very hard to do right when your face is lit from above by an overdriven halo. Happy that he was taking the bait, she stepped over the bridge and onto my ledge which 'by coincidence' also brought her closer to Yamon. It brought her closer to me as well, so I wasn't about to complain. The difference in height meant that he had to look down into her face, but doing so also exposed the full depth of her cleavage to his field of view.

Seemingly oblivious to being ogled by every male in the room, she continued. "Yes, this man here did many good and virtuous deeds; he would not be here in Purgatory otherwise, would he not? The Persecuted, however, was drawn to the beliefs of the Athiest, not out of a sense of disbelief in something that he had no way of being able to prove, but because in believing in something, it would have gnawed upon his conscience. Indeed, religion of almost any stripe would have interfered with his many conquests in the bedroom without any intent of joining any woman in wedlock."

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you," Yamon murmured snarkily.

"Takes a sinner to know a sinner, darling," she winked, bumping her padded hip against his leg before raising her voice to the crowd again. "Section one-A, paragraph one-thousand-and-eighty-three, sub-section two states that all who are to be admitted to Heaven must believe in the almighty and be penitent for his or her sins. Being a self-proclaimed Atheist invokes the ultimate penalty."

"The Baroness has stated the Law correctly," Hel pronounced, "Protagonist will rebut."

Looking down at her, so close that he could see down her cleavage (and sheesh, was he taking a good, long, look), red began to rise in Yamon's cheeks. "Uh… NO! That's a misinterpretation that doesn't take into account Appendix eight, 'and all that would come unto my bosom will rest upon me and be given succor'."

Gee, I wonder what reminded him of that clause.

The Baroness wrapped one leg around his and pressed herself against him. "Awww, come on, he's only one little soul. If you could let him go just this once, I would be most… appreciative."

Lorelei licked her lips with her forked tongue, entrancing the Angel with her sheer sensuousness. Personally, I think it was just petty jealousy that caused me to interrupt. "Ex-CUSE me, but this is my soul here. I really don't think anyone will be happy if someone just lets me slip through his fingers 'cause he was holding his eleventh digit with both hands."

"ORDER IN COURT!" Lady Hel boomed. "The Persecuted will remain silent for the duration unless commanded to enunciate."

The booming voice seemed to snap Yamon out of it a little but Lorelei still held onto his arm while she glared at me. "Quiet, you, I'm doing you a big favor here."

"H-hold up," Yamon snapped his free fingers, wavering between the girl wrapped around him and his duty, "I think I have the clinching argument. It all hinges off Nathan's willingness to repent for his sins."

She took a step back from him and smiled coldly. "True enough, I'll agree to that. As long as both of us get one shot at convincing him, and I go first. Deal?"

His smile was shark-like. Now there was a man with something up his sleeve. "Deal."

Hel nodded. "The bench concurs. The Antagonist will proceed."

Turning to me, her smile regained its previous warmth. I basked in her glow, unable to look away from her terrible beauty. "Rowe, I can understand and respect the values that you held in life. Your file tells me that your main reason for being an Athiest is that you blamed the big guy for all the pain and suffering in the world. You were right about that; he created pain and suffering like he did all the good things in life. If you go with Yamon you will be betraying all the values that you held dear. I'd think about that before you decide, there are many, many people just like you in Hell, arbitrarily discarded for an outdated and worthless belief system. I'd also think about this: The Angels really aren't that much different to our side. They kill, they maim and they fornicate. Believe me, can they fornicate. And not all Demons do evil all the time. There's a whole bureaucracy dedicated to sorting humans into 'good and evil', people like you fall through the cracks all the time. My only crime was adultery, I committed no other sin in my life, in fact I was an upstanding member of my community, but I was still sent straight to Hell without question. From our point of view, Heaven is hypocritical. Think on that."

Her words broke her own beauty spell. I felt like a schoolboy again, being reminded of my manners by the principal. It was with a jaundiced eye that I turned to look at Yamon but he was still beaming at me with a million-dollar smile.

"Maybe you need a reality check about now, or at least a little background on exactly who you've just been talking to. Lorelei was indeed once a human, like you. She committed adultery again and again and again. When his last lover's husband discovered his indiscretions, he shot him several times through the chest. In that one act, Lorelei dragged two souls down into Hell with her, irrevocably damning them forever. Our actions in life often have unforeseen consequences and it is these that the laws of God protect us from in his infinite wisdom. In contrast, Heaven and our cohorts are selfless, seeking to bring pleasure and endless joy to the human world and break through the cycle of pain and suffering. And, last but not least, I can guarantee that you will be led through the Pearly Gates and into Paradise. I am fully authorized to offer you the sublime ecstasy of Eternal Bliss, unending fulfillment forever and ever, until the end of the Universe and beyond." Turning back to Lorelei, he beamed at her, "Checkmate, my dear."

"The Persecuted will now make his choice, and it will be law." Hel pronounced.

Despite Yamon's confidence, the silence started to stretch out while I considered both points of view. His smile started to wane with every minute while Lorelei's was getting broader. He was so worried that he didn't notice her wrapping herself around him again. Finally, I spoke in a quiet voice.

"I decline," I gave my answer. "Quite frankly, Yamon, the very idea of Eternal Bliss sickens me. Even seen an opium den? Or a crack whore on her high? Even a heroine addict has Eternal Bliss, and I don't want it. It's worse than death; it would mean that I'm useless. I can't be useless; I won't be useless, not even for your boss. And if you and your buddies were so righteous you wouldn't even offer it to me as a carrot. Lorelei, I'm yours, whatever that means."

The right gallery of Angels exploded into howls of anger, blinding light and holy fire while the left gallery of Demons did a perfect Mexican wave.

Yamon gaped. I wonder if he'd ever had a soul do that to him before. Probably not. Looking back, I do take a sort of perverse pleasure out of that moment.

Lorelei clicked his jaw shut for him then lowered her hand, probing down his hard, muscular, chest and over his abs. "Don't do that, stud, it doesn't suit you."

"ORDER IN COURT!" Hel boomed, "I SAID ORDER!"

"POINT OF ORDER, LADY HEL!" All noise stopped as every one of us turned to Anubis as he hopped across his bridge onto my ledge on his double-jointed jackal legs. "POINT OF ORDER!"

"The chair recognizes Anubis, Holder of the Keys," Hel nodded curiously.

Taking a deep breath, the ancient Egyptian God of the Underworld raised his hands over his head. "I propose that the Persecuted is insane and incapable of rational thought, or may possibly be influenced by outside forces that we cannot detect. I motion that his testimony be struck from the record forthwith and an alternate method of verdict be found immediately."

"WHAT?!?" Lorilei screeched, stamping her right hoof as her defeat seemed to be snatched from the jaws of victory.

The Angels in the right gallery returned the Demon's Mexican wave, accompanied by the red-skin's jeers, boos and cries of bias. Yamon's face was plastered with what I can only describe as a shit-eating grin. I just flicked my gaze between everyone in the room like it was a bizarre game of multi-court tennis.

"ORDER IN COURT!" Hel silenced everyone again. "We accept Anubis' proposeal, the Persecuted AND the galleries will remain struck DUMB for the remainder of the trial."

The galleries wanted to cheer, but at a deathly glare from Hel, they remained seated and perfectly quiet.

"Thank-you," Hel continued, "how does Lord Anubis propose we settle this matter?"

Anubis grinned, showing all of his teeth. "I propose that this trial be settled using old-school rules. I shall weigh the Persecuted's heart against a feather and the truth of his own heart will determine his fate!"

Yamon seemed taken aback. "Now hold on, there's no need to get barbaric about this…"

Lorilei shrugged her pretty little shoulders. "Don't look at me, Yamon, I don't mind."

It took me a moment to recognize how devious her suggestion was. Yamon hadn't been looking at her at all and when he did peer down into her eyes, suddenly realizing where she was, he got lustfully distracted. Anubis, obviously a political animal all the way, took the opportunity to address the chair. "Lady Hel, do you accept my proposal as fair?"

Hel smiled. "Are you kidding? We haven't done this one in absolute ages! Chair rules for Anubis, Lord of the Underworld! Proceed!"

I took a step back as the jackal-headed god turned to me, glancing at Yamon who still seemed to be busy.

"Don't worry," Anubis grinned as he reached out for my chest with his bare hand, "this won't hurt at all…"

All of a sudden, my body clamped down, every single muscle clenching into place. I was powerless as he reached out to my chest with his taloned fingers grasping for my second most important organ (and no, the most important isn't my dick, it's my brain. My dick came third, thank you very much). My flesh and bone peeled away from his hand as he reached inside my chest. I felt him clutch the beating organ and slowly withdraw it, still beating, as my bloodless wound closed up behind. I tried to scream but my lungs were completely paralyzed, so no sound came fourth.

Casually gripping the trembling organ in his fist, Anubis reaching into thin air and withdrew a set of scales, complete with a feather on one side. He set them on the floor and waiting for the two sides to reach a completely flat equilibrium. Raising the heart over his head, the God chanted. "This heart not only represents his flesh, but also the weight of his emotion. Guilt may be avoided, but the heart knows what the mind denies! By this weight will he be judged and found waning or wanting!"

And with that, he placed the heart delicately on the scales.

The heart dropped like a stone, overbalancing the scales and tipping the feather into the chasm below, a hot updraft instantly incinerating the fluffy white fiber.

Anubis blinked. "Oh… well color me pink and call me Susan. THE PERSECUTED IS FOUND WANTING!"

The sound from the galleries almost pitched me over the ledge myself. Unceremoniously, Anubis picked up my heart and shoved it back into my chest.

"BLOODY HELL!" I screamed, suddenly un-paralyzed and my voice several octaves higher from fear.

Anubis tisked. "Don't be such a pansy, you're going to Hell. Act like that and they'll eat you alive."

I felt the blood, or whatever was in my veins, drain out of my head.

Yamon extricated himself from Lorilei's grip at last and threw his hands into the air, "PRIDE! STUPID, BLOODY, PRIDE! All right, infidel, you're hers! I wash my hands of your fate."

"Now, now, let's not get all biblical about this," Lorelei quipped.

Growling down at her, he disappeared in a puff of white smoke. A moment later, his hand shot back through to pull his briefcase in and then he was gone.

Lady Hel snorted. "Sore loser. Let the records show that the Persecuted has sided with the Antagonist. Court is adjourned."

I swooned when Lorilei wrapped her slender arms around me and gave me a girlish kiss on the cheek. Stepping back several paces from me she waved her clawed hand at me. "See you in Hell, dear, be bad for mommy!"

I grinned and waved back a moment before Hel stamped her foot and my ledge collapsed out from under my feet, plunging me into the abyss.

  

  

  

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