Chapter Text
“Right,” shouted Furfur, erstwhile Requisitions peon, newly minted nobledemon of Hell and right-hand demon to the new Grand Duke, “shut up, you lot!”
The rabble quieted down, but not without trouble – Furfur had to set a few unruly demons on fire before the Grand Duke could finally make herself heard without screaming. “That’s better,” said Shax. She settled into the chair at the head of the long, long table, with Furfur at one elbow and Dagon at the other, and surveyed the assembled with regal disgust (an emotion Shax was highly adept at summoning).
Every demon with any scrap of authority was there, every prince and duke and a bunch of other ranks besides, by Satan’s own order. Except for Satan himself, of course. He hadn’t been to a board meeting in a few years, which wasn’t like him – he used to at least come to the once-a-year all-staff meetings. But the master was still sulking and licking his wounds after that business in Tadfield. Shax supposed he had the right to sulk; after all, six thousand years of planning had been flushed straight down the toilet, all because of one disobedient brat.
There was something marvelously poetic in that, somewhere, but Lord Shax did not possess a poet’s soul.[1] And Satan’s continued absence from the boardroom meant a non-stop headache for his new second-in-command, who had muscled her way into power after the sudden recent (and rather disgusting) departure of Beelzebub, Prince of Hell and Lord of the Flies. Many of the long-serving nobles were deeply offended at what they described as a vicious and shameless coup, when in reality what they were mostly offended by was that they hadn’t gotten there first, and Shax knew it.
“Any problems you have with me,” she’d taken to saying to anyone who complained, “you’re welcome to go to Satan yourself. Go right up to his palace door and knock and gripe away.”
No one ever took up the challenge, but more importantly, no one ever came back to bother Lord Shax about the same thing twice.
But that didn’t do anything to solve the matter at hand, which was why the emergency all-staff meeting had been called.
“You’re all here for a change,” she noted. “Good. That makes my job easier.”
“We weren’t left much of a choice,” one of the princes grumbled, a lean, hungry-looking demon as pale as a maggot. “It’s like you first-circle insects think we have nothing better to do except listen to intake reports. I’ve got a job to get on with, you know.”
Shax ignored him. Mammon was in charge of the fourth circle, where those condemned for greed spent eternity, and the position suited him. Always complaining he didn’t have enough. Enough of what? Time, work, souls, attention from higher-ups, repeat ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
“Demons of Hell,” Shax declared, “we have a problem. Since the defection of the traitor Crowley—”
“He’s not one of us!” someone in the crowd shouted. “He’s a monster!”
Shax raised a hand to send the offending party straight into the sulfur pits. She heard Hastur (former Duke of Hell, current Requisitions peon, present at the meeting solely on the basis of institutional knowledge) mutter, “Can’t argue with that,” and decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble.
“Fine. Since the defection of the being known as Crowley, former demon and currently unemployed eldritch abomination, the number of souls arriving in Hell for eternal damnation has plummeted.”
Dagon and the pointy-haired demon known as Eric (one of the Erics; they were legion, after all) dragged forward an easel with a crude line graph, showing a fairly consistent trend of souls entering Hell versus those entering Heaven. Right up until the year of the abortive Apocalypse.
“As you can see, our recruitment efforts since the failure of the Antichrist to restart Armageddon have been abysmal. We believe this is directly due to the former demon and currently unemployed eldritch abomination Crowley no longer performing his previously assigned task of temptation.”
“One demon did so much?” Shax looked down the long folding table to where the Leviathan sat, awkwardly squeezed into a semi-humanoid shape so that she could fit at the table, and dripping saltwater from her dragon's hide.
“Jealous, old girl?” Hastur asked, grinning sourly.
“Only mildly,” said the beast who would one day consume the world. “You, on the other hand...”
Hastur let out a snarl and raised a fireball.
“Drop it,” snapped Furfur. “We all know Crowley was efficient. That’s the whole problem: he was too good at his job—any of the chaps from Admissions’ll tell you that—but now he’s not doing it at all. Look, this whole Heaven versus Hell thing isn’t actually over yet, so we still need someone on Earth to get on with the tempting and...” He waved his hand vaguely, “whatnot.”
“What about Heaven’s numbers?” Mammon demanded, producing a calculating machine of ancient and uncertain origin. “How’s Upstairs making out?”
“Roughly the same,” Shax lied. “They lost their Supreme Archangel and their experienced angel on the ground in London, so now they’re scrambling to make up for lost income as well.[2] Right now, everyone’s going either into Limbo or Purgatory, and you know what the paperwork’s like, trying to get anyone out of those places.”
The assembled demons raised a collective groan.
“But that’s all secondary. The fact is, the traitor Crowley is no longer tempting humans for the purpose of collecting souls in the service of Satan.[3] Quarterly numbers have gone down and it’s becoming a problem. We need someone up on Earth to pick up where Crowley left off. Preferably without going native this time.” She turned cold, eager eyes on the former Duke of Hell. “Hastur. Tell us about Crowley. He bested you more than once.”
Hastur grimaced. Every mention of Crowley’s name made him squirm. He still had nightmares about Ligur’s destruction, and how close he had come to ceasing existence himself that day. He didn’t actually sleep because no one slept in Hell – no rest for the wicked – but the memories of that day in Crowley’s flat were all present and accounted for, and there was no escaping them.
But as much as it rankled, he couldn’t deny that Shax had a point. “There’s never been another demon’s been able to acquire anywhere near the sheer volume of souls that Crowley sent down. Including me. And we all knew it, too; they all stank of his handiwork. I never understood how he did it.”
“I do,” said Shax. “He was efficient, and he understood humans. And you all hated him for it.”
“Uh… well, yeah,” said Hastur. “No one in Hell likes anyone else. An’ now he’s gone – defected, retired, whatever – and leaving the rest of us to pick up the slack. Typical.”
To that, Shax said nothing. There were things about Crowley’s betrayal that the King of Hell had instructed her not to reveal to Hell at large—and indeed, to say nothing about Beelzebub’s defection and departure.
“Which brings us to the point of this meeting.” Furfur flipped over a page on his clipboard. “Princes and dukes of hell, Grand Duke Shax required all of you to go through your legions and find her some potential candidates for a new London-based demon. We’ll have another meeting same time next week to go over the lists, narrow down the field and discuss—”
“If I may...”
Like a rowdy schoolroom confronted with the sudden appearance of the headmaster, the angry swarm of bickering demons fell silent. They all knew that smooth, cultured voice, though it hadn’t spoken up in a staff meeting in centuries. Every head, eye and eyestalk turned to the demon who had, at last, decided to have an opinion he thought them all worthy of sharing.
Shax eyed him for a suspicious moment, sizing him up as though deciding whether he needed to be cut down, as indeed she was. But the fact of the matter was that even she didn’t have that much courage. “Asmodeus, Prince of the Second Circle. You’ve got something to say?”
“I do.” Asmodeus smiled with all the teeth in his mouth, and stood up slowly. He had to go slowly, because of his bad leg. He reached for his cane and found someone had, as happened at every staff meeting, nicked it for a joke, so he leaned on the table instead. As he was exceptionally tall, this was probably worse for everyone involved. “I’d like to volunteer for the job.”
“What,” said Shax.
“I said, I’d like to volunteer for the London assignment. It’s been a while since I’ve done any work, top side, and I think I could be of... assistance... with this problem.”
“Whassa matter?” Hastur grunted. “Fleecing every demon in Hell not amusing you anymore?”
Asmodeus’s smile somehow became even wider and more full of teeth. “No one forces you to gamble in my establishments, Hastur. You’re always welcome to take your money elsewhere.”
“There ain’t any elsewhere!”
This was entirely true: Prince Asmodeus, in addition to his day job of overseeing the second circle where his legions tormented the souls of gamblers, was also in charge of every single gambling den and casino in Hell.[4]
Asmodeus shrugged. He had broad, well-tailored shoulders, and looked attractive when he used them, and he knew it.
He was one of those very rare demons who looked the same in Hell as he had in Heaven, and indeed, as he appeared on Earth: tall, elegant, with a film star’s blond good looks and piercing, icy blue eyes, though he could easily appear as anything anyone wanted him to be. He also limped in one leg, the result of an injury sustained when he Fell. It didn’t bother him all that much, and certainly didn’t hinder him in his work, but he could be sensitive about it.
“True, but that’s hardly my fault. I’m simply filling a niche. Catering to a need.” He turned his gaze on Shax. “I believe I can cater to that same need on Earth. Petty annoyances leading humans on the path to sin is all very useful in gathering souls for our master, and very... efficient, as you say. But it does seem so highly clinical. It is still a world where humans want things, after all. Necessary things, frivolous things... downright dangerous things. And I am very adept at seeing that they get what they want... for the right price.”
Shax pondered for a moment, then had Dagon send one of the Erics running for the prince’s employee file. The folder he brought back was very thin, but informative.
Asmodeus’s track record on Earth was short – he’d been manning a desk since 3000 B.C. and coordinating seventy-two legions of demons to torment humans with various feelings of lust and desire, and done quite well with them – but it was relatively spotless, and he’d gotten that one very solid commendation for his work in France back in the sixteen hundreds. (It was no small feat, corrupting an entire convent of nuns and their priest.) And while no one liked him, because no one in Hell liked anyone else in Hell, no one could deny that he was very effective at his job.
When he deigned to do it. He was the Demon of Lust, after all. He had a minor tendency to get... sidetracked…
But at least he didn’t get sidetracked by dinner dates with angels.
“Right,” Shax decided. “Asmodeus says he wants the job, I’m not going to be stupid enough to say no. This meeting’s adjourned.”
The assembly exploded in uproar, a fifth in opposition to Asmodeus getting such a plum job, a fourth appalled that they would be sending someone to Earth who was a prince and therefore wasn’t technically expendable (meaning that there would be more work for the rest of them), and a tenth screaming and punching things just because they could.
Shax rolled their eyes and gestured to Dagon. He climbed onto his chair and then onto the table. “We said,” he shouted, “the meeting is adjourned!”
The room shook with the force of a thousand earthquakes[5], and a few fissures actually opened in the floor to deposit whoever was unfortunate enough to be standing over them into active lava pits.
“Everybody out!” Dagon jumped down from the table. “Except you.”
Asmodeus merely inclined his head. A frown flickered across his face, and he turned and narrowed his eyes at the departing hordes, scanning for something. He singled out one particular demon. “You,” he said. The demon jumped. Asmodeus flicked his long, elegant fingers in a ‘hand it over’ gesture. “Give it back.”
Cringing, the nameless occult creature inched forward and handed back the ebony and onyx walking stick.
“Thank you,” said Asmodeus, and obliterated the demon. “Now then,” he continued, turning away from the faint remnants of sulfur and screaming, “about this job.”
“File the appropriate paperwork,” said Dagon, handing him a quite unnecessarily large manila folder. “All the forms are in triplicate and have to be filled in by hand.”
Asmodeus took the folder with the expression of someone who is insanely glad they are about to enter a world with computers, smartphones and fillable PDFs – all things he had been trying to get implemented in his circle of Hell for decades, with no luck. “I have to admit, I’m looking forward to this. All those investment bankers...”
“Just be careful,” Dagon said, sounding calm enough, but his teeth said otherwise. Each and every one of them. “We can’t afford to lose anymore people, not with the final battle with Heaven approaching so swiftly. Especially not a high-ranking demon.”
“In other words, I can’t afford to fuck up.”
“And be very cautious about Crowley,” said Shax. Asmodeus skimmed his eyes over her with professional coolness; Furfur bristled a little, but Shax was unmoved. “He’s not been heard from since the battle at the bookshop, but make no mistake: he is still invested in his cozy little corner of London. And he’s not to be underestimated.”
Asmodeus raised an eyebrow. “I would have thought he’d have gone almost native, living up there for so long.”
“Perhaps he has. Perhaps he’s become too human. He’s unpredictable.”
“Is that a warning for my safety, Lord Shax? Or are you saving his destruction for yourself?”
“Just stay away from him.”
Asmodeus put on his resigned face. “As you command. Even a demon must obey his masters, after all. But with all due respect, I’ve dealt with him before. And he’s hardly even worth calling a demon, at this point. He won’t be a problem.”
“Your lookout, then,” Furfur grunted. “You’ve heard Hastur – saw him murder Ligur with holy water without flinching. If he’s demon enough to do that... well. It’s your carcass.”
Asmodeus raised an eyebrow. “Has he really become so powerful?”
Dagon, Furfur and Shax all traded looks. “I’m not sure,” said Shax slowly. “I’m not sure what he even is, anymore. But he’s an unknown quantity, and more trouble than he’s worth.”
“Is that an order or more of a suggestion?”
“Just a suggestion. Like Furfur said, it’s your neck.”
“I hear and obey,” Asmodeus replied, bowing as elegantly as he could with a cane in one hand and an overabundance of paperwork in the other. “Lord Dagon, these will be on your desk as soon as—”
“Tomorrow.”
“On your desk tomorrow.” He strode away with head held high.
“Well,” said Furfur doubtfully, “he seems awfully chipper.”
Dagon frowned. “Is he… whistling?”
Shax narrowed her eyes at the retreating prince as he vanished in a swirl of greenish-gold mist. “He’s got something planned,” she said. “We will want to keep a very close watch on him.”
The wind howled around and through Hell’s gambling dens, but in the secure solitude of his office, there was silence. Asmodeus dropped the paperwork on his desk and sat down with a grunt. The meeting had been irritating, but he was pleased. He was always pleased when he got what he wanted.
He picked up the receiver of his battered rotary phone and dialed a number.
“It’s me,” he said. “I got the post. Yes. I should be topside within a few days. No, no sooner. Paperwork. Yes. Yes, I know it’s a bit of a wait. But Crowley will be dead, so it’ll be worth it.”