Damnation, Inc

Deal with the Devils

That door was far heavier than I ever thought it could be, but I pushed it open and looked inside. The interior of the office looked as if Frank Lloyd Wright had gone spastic for Heyronimous Bosch and thrown his hands in the air. The walls were carved in relief of details from the Book of Revelations, but slanted from a Satan-is-the-good-guy viewpoint, which I had to admit was looking better as I stared at it. The room was dark save for a hugely roaring fire pit in the center of the floor, the licking flames casting shadows on the bas-relief and making it seem as if they coming to life…or was the brimstone just making me woozy?..I was never sure.

At one end of the room sat an immense desk, carved from a single piece of black marble, veined in gold and red quartz. It hadn’t occurred to me when I first glanced at the fire, but a human being hung from a spit on a crude rotisserie over the black, his flesh blackening and cracking, it dripped blood and liquefied fat into the flames, making them hiss with greedy delight. Behind that desk, in a red leather-covered chair that would have made Donald Trump furious with envy, sat the demon itself,

Abaddon, the 1st Duke of Hell. The desk plaque read. Lord of Entitlements, Keeper of the Flames.

What a job description, I thought with black-humored glee. I refused to be intimidated, that was until he got up.

If I thought the first one was imposing, well, let me tell you, Abaddon was awe-inspiring. He stood before me, twelve feet in height, dressed in a three piece suit made completely from skin. Human skin to be precise; tanned and dyed a rich russet. His coal-black skin shone like it was ground with diamonds in it, and his bald pate was crowned with three sets of horns, each in descending order along the sides of his head. He glanced at me...and his eyes flashed red like smoldering coals, He smiled, revealing sharpened teeth like fangs. It was like Catholic school all over again, with the appearance of these demons and devils, but what was I to expect? Then, he spoke, and I knew I was in trouble.

“So,” the low voice rumbled in his chest, it had a threatening quality without implying a threat to it. “This is the vampire who thinks I haven’t heard it all. The one with a deal I can’t refuse?” He chuckled slightly, the demon who’d led me there adding his own mirth to the proceedings.

“I told him, Sire,” it replied, “But he wouldn’t listen, said you’d be interested.”

Abaddon waved a hand in dismissal, “No, it might amuse me, given his audacity.” He glanced down at me, his eyes glinting with malice. On earth he would have had Manson acquitted of all charges. “What, Little Vampire, is your offer?”

I folded my arms across my chest, trying desperately for aggressive nonchalance. It failed miserably. Never the less, I went on. “Name the six most ungodly souls on Earth, the most sin-stained.”

The Keeper of the Flames looked thoughtful for a moment. “I have them in mind, vampire. What have you to do with them?” He studied me intently, searching for my mind’s answer before I could speak.

They’re all still on earth, yes?” I asked.

“Obviously.” Now he looked bored. Think, dammit, think!

“They made deals to rule, or serve, to keep them alive. Extended lives, in order to be spared the tortures that await them?”

‘Yes, now what do you offer, you’re trying my considerable patience.” Abaddon signaled the demon behind me, who raised a hand to strike.

I flinched, but held my ground. “I’ll make them forfeit their deals!” the Lord looked surprised for a moment. “And bring them to you early.” I added to explain my conceit.

A sideways glance was what I got from Abaddon, then roaring with laughter, he asked “You...a mere vampire, will drag the ones I have in mind to Hell itself?” His amusement increased, filling the cavernous office with howls. He subsided, stared at me with a grave face. “How?”

“That’s my knowledge; you don’t need to know how I do it, only that it be done. By my hand. I will do this.”

“But of course, you have a price for so knightly a service.” The fallen angel looked at me with expectation, crossed his own arms. Now came the dealing, he was already prepared. “What is it you want?”

I looked at him plainly; there was no point in denials to one who could read your very soul. “My love, the one who made me, is here.”

“Orpheus, play me a song.” Abaddon laughed again. “Yes, yes, of course she is, but not as unreachable as you may think, vampire.” He moved back to his desk, sat down, folding his hands. “Your kind has a place reserved. A very special corner of Hell.” He smiled, and the effect was of a tiger watching his prey for the moment to strike. “Would you like to see her?”

See her? My mind raced, given the chance I would pull her from the pit of suffering this very moment. “Yes. I want to see her, how badly does she suffer?”

Abaddon leaned back, stroked his horns with his hands, eyes closed with personal relish. “As you kind suffers when they come here. Look.” He waved his hand against one of the walls, and the very rock seemed to become insubstantial, as though it melted away…no that’s not right. It vanished under his wave, shimmered and she came into view.

My heart sank and was brought even lower. She stood, as far as I could tell, waist deep in a river of blood. Nude, her skin no longer the palest snow, she was covered in the blood, and try as she might, every time she attempted to cup her hands into the beautifully warmest red of that viscous liquid and raise them to drink, it would be blow away, turned to dust in her hands, only to land and become liquid again. Her eyes betrayed her torment; the parching thirst that was upon her must be beyond monstrous, it was the worst thing a vampire could experience and still live, that thirst unfulfilled. The hunger that it brought upon one was overpowering. She had told me of Vampire princes chastising their children by forcing them through this kind of punishment, and she had told me of it with a voice that was shivering, as if the memory of it had been an experience she’d never want to have repeated.

Others came into view as well, my kind, and they all suffered the same fate. Abaddon widened his gaze and the view fell back, to show the darkest skies above my brothers and sisters, as demons flew overhead, armed with long wooden spears, they would swoop down and impale their victims at random, holding them down into the river it while it burned their skin and they screamed. The impaled ones would be released, and try again and again to drink, until they were caught anew and burned. A demon swooped over my love and she saw him, raised her hands in futile pleading and was speared, then the view went dark and the wall became itself again.

I wept, as much as a dead soul can, for my love, and her pain. In my arrogance and misery, I had thought the anguish of loneliness had been the worst hell there ever cold be. Now I was shown just how horribly wrong I could be. I looked to Abaddon, who sat there, a sad but knowing smile on his face once again. He could see my heart’s desire, knew what I would ask for this debt to be paid. He once again beat me to it.

“You want her released, of course.” The giant demon said simply. “You wish her freed form that terrible, terrible pain. How banal.”

“Not just her,” I said with sudden anger, a heat burning in my hollow chest. “All of them, my kind, they are freed as well.”

The look on Abaddon’s face was incredulous, quickly replaced with fury. “Six souls for all those in Hell?” his fists slammed down on the table, for a moment I thought he would overturn it. Even the demon behind me backed away in fear. “No one in their right minds would dare to try such a bargain!”

“Not all of Hell, Your Unholiness,” I said trying to placate but amazed I’d not been blasted into the pit itself right there and then. “Only the ones of my kind. Surely that is not too many, for are we not undead?”

“Eight hundred seventy-six thousand, nine hundred sixty-three.” The demon behind me informed with unerring quickness. “As of the last census, of course.”

The Duke of Hell got up again, moved around the desk, and faced me, looming over so hugely that I felt like a toddler being scolded by a parent. “Three others, along with you and your woman, in exchange for the six you have promised. No more, no less.” He stated with utter finality, there was no negotiation with this offer, I could take it or join her right now, forever. That didn’t mean I was a complete idiot.

“Our lives, such as they were, free from the promise of Hell to come. If we are killed, we stay where we are, no Limbo, no Hell.” I counter-offered. I could think of nothing else, other than to release her from all of this, nothing seemed as important to me as that single, driving thought. She must be freed. There were no other considerations, even my own soul seemed unnecessary to me, if it meant her freedom from this place.

The dark lord of Hell looked at the other demon, who merely shrugged his shoulders in a vague gesture.
“You have a deal. “ Abaddon replied, adding, “There are conditions.”

I knew there would be, no deals are made here without them. “I’m listening.”

“You have three weeks to complete the task. That’s two souls each week. I will give you the means to travel, but everything else is up to you.”

“I will have a physical form?” I knew this would be a deal breaker possibly, but I had to make sure.

Abaddon sat back in his chair, folded his hands once more. He sighed. “Of course.”

“Who are the six souls I must gain?” I’d not go into this blindly; I needed to know what I would be up against. Going into this as blind as I already knew I’d been was stupid, but blinded even further would just be insanity. Worse than that, she would not be freed if I failed.

Abaddon waved his hand again, and out of the air a parchment appeared in it. No, looking harder I noticed it was several parchments, what I later learned were the original contracts between Lucifer and the men on earth that had signed their souls away for whatever fleeting promises they could find on the Earth to make them happy. He looked them over, casually adding or subtracting from a growing pile of them on his desk. After a few moments of waiting he came upon the ones he wanted.

“First, I’ll grant you and easy one, to get your feet wet, so to speak.” He chuckled at the in joke but didn’t bother to explain.

“Heather Contaline,” he intoned, showing me the picture of the actress, one of the new shining starlets whose shine had recently been tarnished by a spate of drug and drink-related incidents with the police, the public, and that howling mob of Visigoths know as paparazzi. She had recently been through more rehab than an entire city block full of crazed heroin addicts, and showed no signs of stopping, at least not since I had died. Heather could be a monk by now, I wouldn’t be sure until I got back. “She sold her soul three years ago for 30 years of fame,” Abaddon informed me, shaking his head. “She’s now more infamous than famous, and as such, defaulted. But she has a clause in her contract against early reclamation, actually had a lawyer look the contract over before signing it. Lucifer wants to use her for a footstool.”

He handed me the contract, which I read over. The standard boilerplate was what I was after, to find loopholes. I knew there would be something they overlooked.

“And?” I was anticipating a harder one first time out, but that’s the way things go with demons. You never get what you’re expecting.

“He wants the confession public. Why, I don’t know. Something to do with the Scientologists.” Abaddon shrugged, shaking his head ruefully.

“Next?” I asked.

Abaddon smiled, it wasn’t a nice look on him. “This one you’ll like. Senator Charles Patrick Riddell. One of the few men in the Senate that actually had a conscience, until we buried it for him with methamphetamine and male whores. He now waits in city park bathroom stalls looking for rough trade on the weekends, in a disguise that wouldn’t fool a blind man.” I was handed that file as well. I had remembered this man in life, though hated him would have been a better description. One of the so-called Moral Majority, he’d been caught soliciting for sex in a men’s bathroom at an airport. The Senator’s press agents had cleared up the issue and the charges, calling it blithely a case of ‘mistaken identity’. Uh-huh, sure. I read over his contract as well, it was standard; there were no addendums or retractions to it. I rolled it back up.

“I bring these two first, and then two more, or do I collect them all at once?”

“Yes, just those two first, then we’ll see about the others.” Abaddon answered, and again, that same piranha smile, like I was being served with parsley at the banquet later this evening. “It will get harder the more you go on.”

“I have no doubt it will.” I said glumly. I thought of her again, the unquenchable thirst on her, being forced down into the blood, over and over. I shuddered a moment, then found my resolve. “But I accept.”

A scepter suddenly appeared in Abaddon’s hand, and he motioned me to come forward. I walked towards the desk, then around it. “Kneel.” The demon instructed. Doing so, he stood up, placed the scepter on each shoulder, and began a sonorous chant that ended in a few moments.

I felt a rush of wind surge through me, and I began to cough. It filled me, that wind, and there was a blinding surge of pain as I felt every nerve on my body become fire, it was agony, nothing I’d felt in my whole existence could have prepared me for it. It was over a moment later, but the memory of it would last me forever.

“Rise, Vampire. And go about your task.”

I stood , and felt the breath of life in me…but not just life, some newfound strength, a power, that even as a Vampire I had never possessed. I clenched my hands together, felt for the first time in I didn’t know how long, that it felt good to be flesh again. I was humbled before this creature with powers like God itself.

I knelt one more time. “Thank you. I will complete this task.” I somehow I knew I would. I had to really, there was not going back on a deal with a devil, no ‘retries’ or ‘do-overs’ would suffice. This would be the only chance I got.

I rose, as Abaddon waved a hand over me, and the demon ever behind me walked up to my side. The Deal-maker held up a hand to stop us.

“You will have this one with you, at all times, to make sure of the impartiality of your tasks. “ He informed me, and the demon at my side smiled. “You cannot use force, or threaten to expose them. And they must confess their sins out loud.”

“I understand.” There was nothing else to say, and so I turned and left, the demon with me, walking back up the long, darkened tunnel that led out of Hell.