Satan Loves You

Normally, when you get a Cherubim Summoning you drop what you’re doing and get yourself to Heaven, ASAP, but all the management books Nero had ever read emphasized staying focused on your goals and avoiding distractions.

“Sir, if there’s no Death, then no one is dying. We need to address this problem before it gets bigger.”

“I have to go to Heaven,” Satan said, trying to give Nero the slip, but Nero had a grip on his arm and wouldn’t let go.

“This is important, sir,” he said.

“It’s just Death.”

“It’s death,” Nero said.

“So?” Satan shrugged.

Nero wasn’t shocked. He had once been mortal and Satan had existed since before the dawn of time. Their takes on death were of a necessity very different. Death had certain rules it had to follow, and while most deaths could be handled by Death’s Minions, Death itself had to be present for situations where fifty or more humans lost their lives at once. And, like Broadway ticket sales, Hell depended on bulk business.

Right now, deaths were still occurring, but they were occurring on a delay. Gangbangers were fleeing in terror from punks they’d busted full of caps who were now chasing them down the street. ICUs and ERs were overflowing with patients who just wouldn’t die no matter how bad the doctors were at their jobs. A suicide bombing in Indonesia had resulted in two dozen very angry train passengers ganging up on the extremely startled and very much alive bomber and dragging him to the nearest police station. People were dying, but they were dying in ones and twos, in tens and twenties, and they were dying slowly. Slowly enough for the victims of a bus crash in the Andes to haul their shattered bodies back to their home villages and freak their hysterical families right out. Slowly enough for anti-insurgency actions in Afghanistan to turn into dusty remakes of Night of the Living Dead. The situation was causing a lot of problems on Earth. But the repercussions were going to be worse in Hell.

Satan’s realm existed in a state of delicate equilibrium. The main event in Hell was demons tormenting the souls of the damned. But the demons worked for so little pay that they were basically interns, doing it because it kept them entertained while they frittered away eternity. Without Death ushering in big blocks of newly dead souls the demons would get bored, they’d get distracted, they’d wander away from their stations. Then souls would start jamming up and the lines for processing would back up, and the longer the lines got the more demoralized the demons processing them would become and the slower they’d work and the more jammed things would get and eventually it would all grind to a halt.

It had happened once, after Atlantis sank, and it had taken hundreds of years before things got back on track. Nero didn’t want to see that happen again.

“We have no choice, sir,” he said. “We’ll have to unleash that hipster unless we can find an alternate Death today.”

“I will not have a Death who has a tattoo on his chest that says, ‘Strength & Respect’.”

“I don’t know if we have a choice, sir. Look around you. People are trickling in, but without any big disasters we’re going to fall behind. Death is an ever-unfolding mystery. It can’t just stop unfolding.”

“Can you do it?” Satan asked. “Just until we find someone permanent?”

“I was going to suggest you,” Nero said. “I can’t leave Hell.”

“I’ll get you a waiver.”

“But you’re the boss.”

“I have a strong belief in delegating.”

“You are the Lord of All Evil, Father of Lies, Bel, Behemoth, The Fallen One, the Prince of Darkness. Leviathan.”

“Okay, okay. Fine. Way to pass the buck. I’ll do it just like I do everything else around here.”

“Personally, I thought Nic Cage would have made for a compelling Death.”

“Who told you that?”

“I saw it on his Twitter feed. He thought it was a new Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Unfortunately, we’ve only just touched on the tip of the Problem Iceberg.”

“Do we have to touch on the rest? You do realize that was a Cherubim Summoning, right?”

“It’s about the Ultimate Death Match, sir. Without Death, we only have War and he won’t be wrestling for us this year. He’s decided to go on a biking tour of Iran. They’ve got some human rights violations that he’s really excited about.”

“What about Famine and Pestilence? They’ve got moves.”

“Famine is doing a walking tour of Somalia to work on her book about Central African cuisine and Pestilence has three months of vacation time due and she’s using it to go on a package tour of some of the most infectious cities in Canada. That’s all four Horsepeople of the Apocalypse, sir. Our entire first string.”

“But...” Satan wasn’t quite putting it together yet. “But who’s going to wrestle for Hell?”

“We should talk to the Minotaur.”

“There has to be someone else.”

“I don’t think there is, sir.”

“But everyone says he’s gone funny in the head,” Satan said. “I don’t know if I can handle that right now.”

“Sir, do you really think that avoiding your problems is a way to solve them?”

“Yes?”

“Sir, you have to confront this problem head on.”

“Fine,” Satan said. “Let’s go see the Minotaur.”



The Minotaur roared. It was a blood-chilling sound, as big as the Appalachian Mountains and as inhuman as a shark. The roar was one word, loud enough to burst your eardrums, powerful enough to vibrate your blood. And that word was:

“Uno!”

The centaurs threw down their cards in disgust as the Minotaur played his last card (a Wild Draw Four) and snuffled in delight.

“Me out!” the Minotaur crowed, and the centaurs drifted off, grumbling.

Satan and Nero approached.

“Hail, Minotaur,” Nero said.

“Hail, Minotaur,” Satan said.

“Hi,” the Minotaur said.

When Hell first opened for business the demons were already there, but some creatures came of their own volition, attracted by its dark energies. The Minotaur was one of them. By the time the deformed, bull-headed giant arrived in Hell he was already an object of so much fear and veneration that a black aura surrounded him. He was a nexus of power, made strong by the swirling force of the prayers of his uncountable victims. The Minotaur had stopped being a monster long ago and was now something like a demi-god, and demi-gods were not to be taken lightly. Unlike Death or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Minotaur was not an employee. The Minotaur merely Was.

“We need to talk,” Satan said. “About the Ultimate Death Match.”

“Is wrestling,” the Minotaur said.

“It is wrestling,” Satan agreed. This was delicate. He’d never tried to compel one of Hell’s freeloading residents into action. His attitude had always been very Latin American in regard to inhabitants like the Minotaur: expect nothing, and you won’t be disappointed. But now he needed the Minotaur. This required diplomacy, and Satan was a terrible diplomat. That was more Nero’s realm.

“Did you know that you’ve never volunteered?” Nero asked. “Thousands of years you’ve been here, but you’ve never gone into the ring to fight against Heaven. War’s done it, Pestilence’s done it, Death’s done it for years. But you, the most terrifying and savage denizen of Hell, the Custodian of the Seventh Circle, have never entered the ring.”

“Hate violence,” the Minotaur said.

“But you’re in charge of the violent,” Satan pointed out.

“Minotaur different now,” the Minotaur said. “Finally think violence no good. Violence no solve anything.”

“What are you babbling about?” Satan snapped. “Earlier today I was just thinking that violence solves a lot of things.”

“Excuse us,” Nero said, pulling Satan aside.

“He’s being a jerk,” Satan said.

“Sir,” Nero said. “When was the last time you were down in the Seventh Circle? A few hundred years ago? Let me handle this.”

“You finish whispering about Minotaur?” the Minotaur asked.

“We’re just surprised – and impressed – by your changes,” Nero said. “You have to admit, renouncing violence is the last thing we’d expect from you.”

“Was crushing skull of Emperor Charles the Fat and think to self, ‘What me hope achieve? Why me so violent?’ After that, no more violence. Only games!”

“Games?” Nero asked.

“Uno! Risk! Monopoly! All very exciting! No violence, but still me always win!”

“You know,” Nero said. “The Ultimate Death Match is a game. It’s wrestling. That’s a game.”

“Is fake!” the Minotaur said. “Minotaur see many wrestlers here. All tell Minotaur wrestling fake.”

“Excuse me,” a voice called. They turned and saw Alexander the Great, soaked in blood up to his chin, stumbling across the rocky ground. “Mr. Minotaur, I was wondering – ”

“Shut up!” the Minotaur roared. “Is you stupid, fat dummy? You no see me talk to King of Hell and Roman Emperor.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexander the Great’s lower lip trembled.

“You sorry? Who cares? You stupid idiot with dumb brain and jiggle thighs. Go sit in River of Blood.”

“I’ve been sitting in the River of Blood for eighty years and you promised – ”

“Me never promise anything! Get back in River of Blood, dum-dum!”

Cowed, Alexander the Great hobbled back to sit in the River of Blood.

“Are you sure that’s the best solution?” Nero asked.

“After hundred years souls no feel physical abuse any more,” the Minotaur explained. “Emotional abuse only way to hurt them now.”

“Don’t you miss the physical abuse?” Nero asked.

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

“No.”

“How do you know if you haven’t tried it? Just in the ring? Just wrestling in the Ultimate Death Match? You may find that you miss it more than you think.”

“Minotaur no miss physical violence.”

“You would really be helping us out,” Nero said. “Death is gone and we – ”

“What happen Death?”

“He was...let go,” Nero said.

“You fire Death?!?” the Minotaur said, suddenly looming over them both, steam shooting out of his flapping nostrils, eyes red and blazing.

“Kind of,” Satan said.

“Then maybe you fire Minotaur if Minotaur no good in Death Match. Maybe you fire Minotaur if you no like Minotaur attitude. Minotaur cannot work in conditions like this!”

The Minotaur turned his enormous back on them, sat down and began to brood.

“Now you’ve done it, sir,” Nero said.

“What was I supposed to do?” Satan asked.

“The last time someone upset him that much,” Alexander the Great called out from behind a rock, “He brooded for six years.”

“What do we do?” Nero asked.

“You could try to hurt his feelings,” Alexander the Great said. “That might goad him into reacting.”

“How?” Nero asked.

“Like this: the Minotaur is very insensitive.”

The Minotaur didn’t move. Alexander the Great tried again.

“The Minotaur is often inconsiderate of the feelings of others,” Alexander the Great said.

But no one brooded like the Minotaur. Eventually, Alexander the Great, onetime conqueror of the known world, gave up and moped off to immerse himself in the River of Blood.

“No Death. No Four Horsemen. And now no Minotaur,” Satan said as they left. “At least we’ve got the second stringers. They’ve got a lot of heart.”

“Well, actually, no sir. We don’t have them. The Seven Deadly Sins have that band? They’re playing a Japanese tour.”

“They can’t do that!”

“Their contract says they can. They’re very popular over there. The Japanese think they’re a death metal act.”

“We’ve got the third stringers?”

“Most of them are gone, too.”

“The fourth stringers?”

“Cholesterol, the tobacco lobby and Long Island teens into industrial music? All gone on tour, taking adult enrichment classes or otherwise out of action.”

“Who do we have left?”

“Deep Insecurity.”

“Well, Deep Insecurity is not to be underestimated. Just ask Alexander the Great. If Deep Insecurity wrestles for us that’ll make us the underdog. Underdogs always win.”

“I’ve met with Deep Insecurity,” Nero said.

“And?”

“We don’t have much going for us.”

“Dumb luck?”

Nero shook his head.

“Natural talent?”

Nero shook his head again.

“A catchy theme song?”

“Not this year, sir.”

Satan was stunned.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Nero said. “Lose?”

“We can’t lose,” Satan said. “That would be...where would everyone go?”

They were walking through the Sixth Circle, with its flaming tombs crammed full of heretics moaning for relief. Nero dodged a burning hand that feebly grabbed at the hem of his pants.

“You can’t think about that right now,” Nero said, shifting gears. “Right now you need to go to Heaven for your meeting, and then there’s a food poisoning outbreak in Minneapolis that you need to handle as acting Death. Come on, sir. You should go before anything else goes wrong.”

Suddenly, with a sputter, all the flames went out. The burning tombs stopped burning. Sarcastic applause rang through cavern.

“Nice going!” a heretic shouted.

“Way to run Hell,” another chimed in.

“Let me see you try it!” Satan shouted at them but, to be honest, he agreed.



One hour later, Satan was back on the escalator. In the old days he had used the travel time to work on new torments, but these days there was only one thing he really enjoyed. These days, he liked to stare off into space. No one bothered him when he was staring off into space and if someone asked him what he was thinking about he could just smile and nod as if he were thinking thoughts that were deep and complex when, in reality, he was just staring off into space. More and more, Satan found that he was happiest when he just let his mind go blank.

“Satan,” someone yelled. “Hey, Satan!”

He looked up just in time to see Gabriel passing him on the down escalator.

“In a hurry. Got summoned,” he said.

“I summoned you,” Gabriel said, flapping his enormous wings and lifting himself up off the escalator. He hovered over Satan like a sanctimonious Macy’s Day Parade balloon.

“Oh, right,” Satan said, scrambling to walk down the up escalator, puffing hard as he worked to stay in one place.

“There’s a woman – ” Gabriel said.

“I don’t do that thing with the apples anymore,” Satan said.

“Not that.”

“Come on, my legs are giving out,” Satan said.

“The incident at the Charlotte Airport? Last week?” Gabriel said.

“I already told you, it won’t happen again. I was just looking for a miserable place where I could try to come up with some new torments.”

“You were seen. By this woman.”

Gabriel held up a picture of Mary Renfro. It was an unfortunate photo from her high school yearbook that made it impossible to tell if she was laughing at a joke or howling in pain.

“Didn’t you guys clean up?”

“We did. Apparently, we missed her.”

“Go zap her now.”

“We took a vote upstairs, and you’ve been elected to take care of her. Personally.”

“I’m busy,” Satan said.

“Your sloppiness will no longer be tolerated,” Gabriel said. “If you won’t do it, then you need to come to Heaven right this minute so we can have A Very Serious Talk.”

“All right, I'll deal with it,” Satan grumbled. Anything to avoid yet another sanctimonious lecture upstairs.

“Besides, she’s one of yours. An atheist.”

“Self-proclaimed or de facto?” Satan asked.

“Oh, self-proclaimed. A member of the Council for Constructive Atheism.”

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“See you in the ring,” Gabriel said. “Michael’s going to decimate your devil spawn this year.”

As Gabriel erupted upwards in a flurry of feathers Satan called after him:

“Technically, I didn’t spawn anything.”