Devil Said Bang

They’re all giving me the pig eye as I roll in. I take my time getting to the head of the table. The dirty looks aren’t just because I’m late. I’ll always be that sheep-killing dog Sandman Slim to most of them, and now, just to rub their ugly noses in it, I’m their boss. At least the armor is doing its job. No matter how much they hate me, they keep their hex holes shut with my devil armor shining like the mirrored belly of a chrome wasp.

There are twelve on the pla

Technically I’m supposed to be in ritual drag too but I have a hard time picturing Samael dressed up like a Brooks Brothers Pied Piper, so I follow his example and skip the wardrobe call.

There’s a silver circle in the center of the table. Lines radiate out to the edges, cutting the table into twelve sections. Each trick-or-treater steps up and sets down a different ceremonial object. The junk looks like leftovers from a Goth-club garage sale.

Obyzuth sets down a green rock, like a Templar meditation stone. The Hellion next to her sets down an athame knife that cuts through ignorance or butters magic toast or something. Buer drops a snake carved from the leg bone of a fallen Hellion warrior. It goes on and on like that. I’m supposed to light a red candle at the end of the ritual but things are going too slow. I fire it up now and light a Malediction off it.

“Don’t take it personally, but if I have to sit through one more of these meetings, I’m going to gut every one of you like catfish, shit in your skulls, and mail them to your families. This isn’t Hell. It’s a PTA meeting. Maybe all we need to save Hell is a bake sale.”

I flick my ashes over the candle.

“Here’s how it is from now on. Do your projects any way you want. Fuck the budgets. Fuck the schedules. When it’s done, you get one minute to tell me about it.”

The room is silent. It’s not like regular silence. More like the kind you get with a concussion.

“In case anyone thinks letting you off the leash is a license to steal or stab me in the back, let me introduce the newest member of our team.”

I go to the doors and open them. A hellhound clanks in on its big metal claws and looks over the room. The hound is bigger than a dire wolf, a clockwork killing machine run by a Hellion brain suspended in a glass globe where its head should be. They’re terrifying on a battlefield but in an enclosed space like this, the whirs and clicks of its mechanics, its razor teeth and pink, exposed brain, are enough to give a tyra

The hound follows me around the table, folds up its legs, and settles down on the floor next to me. A dutiful guard dog.

“This is Ms. 45. The new head of HR. Any of you upstanding citizens that do less than your best work, conspire against me, or sell supplies to the black market can explain it to her. She works nights, weekends, and holidays, and if she’s indisposed, Ms. 45 has a few hundred colleagues downstairs. In fact, the hounds now have the run of the palace, so watch your step. I hear stainless-steel turds stain bad.”

No one says anything. Besides the hellhound, the only sound is people restlessly moving their feet.

“Now get to work and leave me the fuck alone.”

All twelve of them file out, right into the other two hounds I stationed outside. It would have been a hoot programming them to eat each Council member as they left. A little counterproductive, though. I need them to do the work I’m sure not going to do. But if I can’t have a little fun being the Devil, why bother?

Now I can get back to figuring out the rest of Lucifer’s power so I can get the hell out of here.

I’ve made circuit after circuit of the empty parts of the hotel. I know Lucifer won’t leave me hanging on half power forever. He likes games. I know there are clues for me around somewhere. But I don’t know all the rules of the game, so I might be looking right at one without knowing it.

When he left he said he’d come back if I ever really needed him. I haven’t heard a goddamn word since. I’ve tried to get a message through to Mr. Muni

Saint James would have a plan but I’m just prowling relentless, hypnotic halls, floor by floor looking for clues. The windowless corridors could be anywhere. In space on a rocket circling the edge of the universe. Or Donald Trump’s diamond-encrusted submarine at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

Hellhounds glance up when they see me. I scratch the underside of their glassed-in brains and they growl contentedly. They’re like temple dogs guarding a royal tomb, only here the altars are unused Jacuzzis and Hellion minibars. I don’t even want to think about what’s in those.

Fun as it was busting up the meeting, something real kicked in for me. Something I sort of already knew but couldn’t put into words.

They’ve gone insane down here. Every fucking Hellion has gone mad.

They can’t lay a finger on Heaven and they can’t leave. They’ve been stuck in this hole for what? Thousands of years? A million? Time doesn’t move for angels like it moves for us. They’ve turned inward and created a rat-maze culture. All bureaucracy, schizo rituals, and murderous deadfalls.

Do you think God had a business plan when He created the universe? Did He worry about the invention of light or gravity ru

Meetings and infighting. Made-up ceremonies and new religions and Noble Virtues. This is how you fill up eternity when all you have to look forward to is the clock ru

There’s something up ahead. I can’t see it but I can feel it. There’s a set of double doors leading to a meeting room. The opposite wall is blank but there’s something fu

Sooner or later even the nonstop rituals aren’t going to hold and these assholes are going to turn on each other. The biggest baddest civil war ever, until none of them are left. What would Heaven think of that? Probably get a real chuckle out of it. A Hell without Hellions. A real-estate developer’s wet dream. They can sell time-shares, “This two-and-a-half-bath beauty is close to schools, shopping, and on a clear day you can see the dismembered devil corpses floating in the lake of shit.”

The ghost room reminds me of Vidocq’s apartment in L.A. He put hoodoo on the place so no one can see it or remember it, so he hasn’t paid rent in years. But whoever conjured up this blind isn’t ducking bill collectors. This is a lot heavier magic than that.

“I’ve been looking for you, lord.”

Fuck me harder, God. Seriously.

“I’m kind of busy now, Brimborion.”

“I can see. Another busy day of wandering the halls. I hear there are some brick partitions on the third floor where if you stare just right you can see animals and fluffy clouds. Maybe you’d like to wander down there?”

“What do you want? Wait. How did you find me?”

“I stopped by your summer home in the library and had a peep at your peepers.”

I make it to him in half a second, get my fingers around his throat, hoist him off his feet, and hold him against the wall.

“You went into the library without my permission?”

“It was unlocked,” he croaks.

He starts turning blue. And he isn’t lying. I can’t remember setting a sealing spell on the place when I left. Besides, he probably could have walked in anyway with the opening talisman of his. I drop him to the floor and head back down the hall.