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Beelzebub, however, cried even louder in his fly voice, his own wings betraying him by adopting the mottled emerald and ivory patterns of the marble butterfly. His body continued to dissolve into a beautiful mosaic of color, and the two succubae ran from the chamber, abandoning him to the hiccupping laughter of Eve and the gorgeous swarms that floated above her like painted clouds.
News filtered in slowly, like war reports telegraphed back from the frontlines. First Beelzebub had her, but he was now somewhere in South America or Asia, collecting flies for his new body. Harpy had been charging the other demons for a sip of fresh milk from her teat before her wells finally curdled. Greedy Mammon was said to have taken Eve next, until he was seen ru
It wasn't until Vassago opened his door, however, that he knew the game was at an end.
Towering well above him was Satan himself, his half-naked body cut to Spartan envy, his skin ruby red, and his long, slender horns swept upward.
From two of Satan's taloned fingers dangled the baby basket. Inside it, Eve giggled in delight.
"Is this thing yours?" Satan asked, his voice slipping over Vassago like warm honey. Curiously, he sounded like Tim Curry.
Someone's a fan of Legend, Vassago thought. "Mine? No, no," Vassago said, taking the basket. "But I approve of the jest," he amended.
"Hm," Satan replied, his attention equally focused and distracted. "See you return her with a little jest of our own."
"Of course," Vassago said as he bowed. He peered inside the basket and took the doll from Eve's arms. It was a stuffed animal ... a bipedal deer with horns. "You gave her a plushy of Furfur?" Vassago asked and cocked his eyebrow higher.
"That is Furfur," Satan replied, obviously a
Vassago noticed the large tear across the doll's rump and the stuffing coming out of it, "And the orifice?" he asked.
"I was bored," Satan said. "And it's a lesson to Furfur for being so easily beguiled by the child. In fact, Furfur is the first stop of many today."
"It was all rather fu
Satan harrumphed and walked away, the bronze ground trembling with his cloven footfalls. Vassago closed the door, allowing Billie Holiday's voice to flush through the house and a salted breeze to wash away the sulfur. He sat on the couch and let baby Eve play with her Furfur plushy before a
The clouds were immaculately white and cotton-candy fluffy. The Golden Gates gleamed and sparkled, the metal burnished to mirror sharpness. Saint Peter, Heaven's DMV clerk, didn't bother looking up from his pedestal; he dipped his quill in the inkwell and held it poised over his giant ledger. "Next!" he cried impatiently, shaking the long white beard that clung to his chin.
"Hey!" one of the spirits cried, "no cutting."
A dozen more voices protested in unison.
"It's okay," Vassago said as he strode past the long line of recently departed. "I'm a demon. I'm supposed to cut."
That managed to shut everyone up. Saint Peter, however, glanced up with a look that proclaimed, I'm perpetu ally a
"Vassago," Saint Peter said; he went back to studying his book. "Is it the End Times already?"
"Hardly," Vassago said with a smile. "Is this a bad time?"
"What do you want?" the saint asked.
"Nothing," Vassago replied. "I'm just here to drop this off." He deposited the basket on the pedestal before turning on his heels and heading back down the line, off to the brass-and-oak-paneled escalators poking up through the clouds.
"What's this?!" Peter shouted after him. "Ask Haniel," Vassago replied over his shoulder. "It's his practical joke."
He of God's Joy (and just a touch too much of a bon vivant to be straight), Haniel stood over eight feet tall with his long golden hair fluttering and his four feathered wings of silver spread out behind him. He stood gossiping with the other angels at the marble-and-gold fountain, Heaven's own watercooler. With casual indifference, he flicked his glorious hair and a thousand people in the world felt a grateful breeze cool their hot skin.
"I can't believe you left the Spirit of I
"What if something happens to her?" another angel asked.
"She's fine," Haniel said, waving away their concerns with an immaculately sculpted hand that sent a thousand artists into a mysterious inspirational frenzy. "She's the Spirit of I
"Vassago," Saint Peter said. He then stopped. "Don't you mean them?" he asked, peering into the basket.
Haniel cocked a perfect eyebrow, and a thousand people across the world gasped at the beauty of the setting sun. He peered inside the basket to find the sweet perfection of the Spirit of I
A ripe and snaking fart pierced the air and echoed off the clouds like wet thunder. All the angels across the nine spheres of Heaven paused in their holy works. A million harps screeched to a halt.
"What in the Creator's name was that?" a few angels were heard to whisper. But nobody moved to find out. In Heaven, everyone had a role and the angels were sure that someone would be on top of that little faux pas. Accordingly, as cultured agents of divinity, they decided the best course of action would be to ignore it.
Haniel held the strange infant up by the armpits. The baby began wailing, a miserable and uncomfortable cry that squeezed his face like a mouthful of lemons. More flatulence followed and Haniel realized the child was growing heavier.
"His diaper's swelling!" an angel cried, his wrists limp as he shook out his hands. "Jesus! Do something!"
"Do what?" the Messiah asked, sauntering up to the group with his hippie haircut, his golden halo, and his two fingers held up like, at any moment, those artistic paparazzi of Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and da Vinci might ambush him and paint him.
"You were human once," Haniel exclaimed, quickly handing off the child to the Son of God. "Do something!"
The Messiahs eyes widened at the child, whose diaper was ballooning and browning at the touch of some ungodly stain. Everyone's eyes watered at the stench that reached deep into their stomachs. "I never had children!" Jesus protested, holding the child away from himself and trying to bury his nose into his shoulder.
"Yeah, right," one of the angels quipped before groaning.
The diaper had swelled like a brown beachball and the Velcro began ripping open under the strain.
"It's go
The ripping explosion was heard up and down the funnel of the Nine Layers of Hell. What followed was the panicked shrieks of angels, what could only be described as the Heavenly Choir singing Guns N' Roses . . . off-key. All the demons paused and studied the storm clouds gathering overhead. A few devils nervously remarked how the clouds seemed more brown than purple. Stranger still, the discoloration was spreading like an ink stain in water, overtaking the silver lining of Heaven.