[This is part of an ongoing tandem writing experiment. To read the full story, click here.]
Satan didn’t ask himself once who the man was. It didn’t matter, because he had shaken the self-pitying stupor that had clung to his Royal Lowness and gotten him back up on his cloven hooves.
“What AM I doing?” He shouted, knowing he was the only being within earshot.
“Jupiter’s testicles! I don’t need this council, with their highfalutin theories and distinguished backgrounds. So what if the conquered continents, committed mass murder, or convinced the poorest people of their nation that they had their best intentions and religious aspirations at heart, when in actuality all the wanted was to import foreign labor and cut domestic jobs to fill their pockets. I am Lucifer! It was I who challenged the throne so long ago, and now it’s time for me to step up to the plate, again. First things first, however, the council is to be obliterated.”
As the words formed on his lips, every council member blinked out of existence. Where once they had filled the council chamber, seated around a table like some hellish parody of King Arthur’s round table, there was nothing. The room, the individuals filling it, every chair and every piece of tile simply vanished. Not destroyed, mind you. Just not there, as if it had never been, and all because…
“I think the furnace will do nicely. If any of them were listening to me early it shouldn’t come as a surprise, either.”
And just like that, 100 dry-aged souls sizzled, cracked and then went silent in the unimaginable heat of hell’s furnace.
Lucifer felt them depart. Not just the slight jump in heat, the temperature gauge reading “noxiously searing” once again. He felt the last screams of every one he had ever depended on. The old Lucifer might have shed a tear.
“Good riddance, you awful herd of jackasses,” was the best the new and improved Lucifer could manage.
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