Sympathy for the devil

by Holly Lisle

  Dayne felt a cold fire begin to burn in her belly. "They do, do they? Remember what Jesus said. Judge not, that you are not judged, Mr. Fisk," she said.

  The cameraman grinned and zoomed in closer on her face.

  Fisk took another step into her house, and said, "Even the devil can quote scripture. How long have you been in communication with the devil?" he demanded.

  "Mr. Fisk," Dayne said softly, "I did not invite you in my house, and you are both trespassing and unwelcome. Get out, right now."

  "Then you admit to being in league with the devil?"

  "Mr. Fisk, I prayed for God to have mercy on every soul, and I hope he has mercy on yours, but if you don't get out of my house right this minute, I'm going to send you to Heaven to talk to him tonight."

  The cameraman laughed out loud—one short, sharp bark that died away to silence as Fisk turned and faced the camera. "Satan worshippers and death threats, lies and deceit. We're here live in an interview with the notorious Whore of Babylon . . ." He rested a hand on the little earphone in his ear, listening to a question from his base.

  Dayne's right hand brushed against a lump in her jeans pocket. She slipped her hand in, and wrapped it around a cold metal canister. She grinned. Pepper gas. She flipped the safety off, and said, "Mr. Fisk?"

  "I'll ask her now," he said in response to the question she couldn't hear. He turned, another question on his lips—and Dayne sprayed him in the face.

  He gasped and screamed, and she stomped on the arch of his foot, then rammed one knee up between his legs, and when he buckled forward, slammed her elbow into his nose. Then, coughing and with her own eyes watering, she pointed at the cameraman and gasped, "Get him out of here or you're next."

  The cameraman grabbed the reporter and dragged him off, and Dayne stepped back into her hallway, locked the door and bolted it, and ran to the kitchen and stuck her head under the tap and ran water in her eyes.

  The insides of her eyelids felt like they were going to melt off, her face was on fire inside and out, and she'd breathed the stuff and couldn't stop coughing. The big problem with pepper gas was that it was almost as tough on the person who used it as on the one it was used on.

  "Sorry son of a gun," she muttered. "I guess I know how to deal with reporters now."

  She stomped up the stairs. "Whore of Babylon."

  She kicked the doorframe—it made a satisfying noise. "Who does he think he is?—Whore of Babylon."

  She strangled the toothpaste tube and brushed her teeth as if she were murdering them.

  "I'll give him the Whore of Babylon."

  Chapter 22

  Wild laughter interrupted Agonostis' work—he'd been refining and adding to his battle plans. He walked out to the main office to discover that the imps had found a television set and VCR, and had gotten them to work.

  "Did it tape? Did it tape?" one shrieked.

  Its twin howled, "Rewind! Rewind!"

  "It's rewound! Play it! Play it!"

  He was going to tell them to turn the TV off when the imps' tape started to run, and he realized the reporter onscreen was interviewing Dayne. She had a great television Q, he noticed—even though she was obviously tired, and obviously angry, she still looked terrific on the idiot box. He leaned against the wall with his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans and watched—he would learn something useful about her from the interview.

  Moments later, she went from being angry but polite to being furious and dangerous. He saw her reach into her pocket and pull out something, though he couldn't make out what she had. But when the reporter turned and she sprayed in the face with whatever it was, then gave him a couple of well-placed kicks and a punch, Agonostis felt an itch growing between his shoulderblades. She aimed the same weapon at the cameraman, and the last of the picture was of the ground in front of her home bouncing and jostling, and a blurry picture of two sets of stumbling, running feet.

  The imps howled and rewound the tape again, and Agonostis walked thoughtfully back into his office.

  She'd had that little lump in her pocket when he'd been there.

  It had been a weapon.

  She wasn't such a trusting soul after all. And he wondered if, in his human form, Dayne could have hurt him badly had he tried something she didn't like. He was from Hell—he was used to pain. Except he hadn't hurt at all since he'd arrived, and not hurting quickly became a pleasant habit. He thought he would be careful to mind his manners in Dayne's presence.

  The reporter had been an idiot to present his questions the way he had, but he'd had a nice angle. The Whore of Babylon bit would certainly work well against Dayne, if it were used by someone who knew what the hell he was doing. Agonostis gave some thought to rumors and innuendo he could spread via his coalescing network; he ought to be able to see that she was completely humiliated and discredited within a couple of days. That would break her spirit. From that point on, it would be simple to effect her downfall.

  Meanwhile, he had a war to run.

  Agonostis picked up his copy of The Sensitive Male and flipped through the last several pages. He snorted, disgusted. "Yeah, sure. I could have written this shit. I know dodges this guy never even thought of."

  "We're ready, Lord Agonostis."

  He put down the book and rested his feet on his desk. "Let's have a look."

  The leccubi were ready to get to work. They'd outfitted themselves in bodies as well as clothes—the bodies were spectacular, the clothing good—if expensive—Earth-made stuff.

  Moret paraded in first. It was in succubus form, and had designed itself as a pneumatic platinum blonde with black lashes and silvery blue eyes. It wore a see-through blouse, fishnet hose, and a micro-micro miniskirt.

  Agonostis nodded. "With that look, Moret, you want more tits. And more of a wiggle. And remember, cash only tonight. We aren't set up for credit cards yet."

  Moret nodded and obligingly added about two cup sizes to its breasts.

  "Better," Agonostis said, "You want to be sure the buttons are almost ready to pop. Next."

  Federet had made itself into a boy, not more than twelve or thirteen. It primped at Agonostis seductively and the fallen angel smiled coldly. "Very good. Very, very good. No doubt at all that you're under age. Take advantage of that."

  They paraded past him as males and females, as males dressed as females, as children—wearing leather, lace, neoprene rubber, elegant business suits and evening wear. They were aiming for every segment of the flesh-buying market, and Agonostis thought they were going to be quite a hit.

  He didn't have to worry about Jezerael getting credit for the sinners his leccubi dragged in; Hell would credit him with every sin won by the onsite team, no matter the method. And in fact, Agonostis thought of a very clever dodge that might permit him to trash Jezerael's numbers and leave her dangling by her talons from the lip of the Pit.

  His "whores" would be—as demanded by Heaven's regulations—disease-free. They could not cause physical harm; while he would have preferred the freedom to destroy humans in any manner he saw fit, he could see where in this one instance, that odd little barrier to what he would have preferred might work in his favor.

  If he could advertise Heaven-warrantied disease-free whores, he could grab an enormous share of the market.

  He stood and paced. It would take clever advertising, and a way to tell his whores from the human variety. . . .

  Marketing was definitely the key. The marketing of damnable vice as good, clean, safe fun—that was the ticket. Using all the modern means of advertising at his disposal . . . coming up with an attractive package . . . emphasizing the entertainment value, the novelty value . . . finding a locale where he could control ingress and egress, and make sure no diseased human hookers could contaminate his product. . . .

  What he needed, he thought, was sort of an amusement park of a whorehouse.

  He stopped stock-still as that thought took hold of him. Why not? Why not! What a marketing concept!

&n
bsp; He sat down and began listing the things that could tempt people in, basing the concept on the amusement park idea.

  The whores, naturally . . . but the whores were small-time. Screwing wasn't much of a vice unless there was evil in the heart, too. So he needed to inject an element of evil into that aspect of the temptation—something that would subvert his marks. He'd come back to that. But the idea was bigger than whores. The amusement park concept was greatly expandable. He would have to start with rides, of course. He could do something terrific with multiple dimensions, and special effects. There was no real way that he could think of to make the rides into part of the temptation—but they could certainly be part of the draw. Good, clean fun. In North Carolina, water parks went well—summers were hot. Water parks meant girls in bikinis, lots of lust. What was his angle for that? He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Girls . . . endless vistas of screwable girls. He smiled slowly. A water park with real mermaids. And mermen. Teasing, taunting, endlessly horny mermaids, always just out of reach. His leccubi could fill those roles.

  What else? There were humans who wouldn't ever bother with a water park. How about the scariest haunted house this side of Hell? Monster rides. Riding monsters. But funny . . . play down the horror of Hell. Make it . . . cute.

  Instead of a petting zoo—a prehistoric petting zoo. The success of Jurassic Park and its ilk were not lost on him. But with guaranteed safety . . . Oh, yes. That would draw them in. If he were very careful to keep his epochs separate, and to use only the real beasts, he could get the soul of every paleontologist breathing. And when was the last time a paleontologist went to Hell? Not even he could remember.

  For the upscale crowd, the best of Broadway and opera, reviving long-dead stars to reprise their most famous roles . . .

  Ballerinas (or rather, their perfect simulacrums) brought back from the dead to dance the ballets the viewers most wanted to see, and to meet backstage afterwards with their adoring fans . . .

  The return of the best of the jazz musicians, of the rock-and-roll superstars, of the comedians now lost and gone to dust . . .

  A historical district, with living historical figures . . .

  For the arcade and gaming crowd, a castle full of live-action, alternate-reality gaming—the real thing, with special effects provided by Hell . . .

  A body shop, to give people the bodies they'd always wanted . . .

  A sports world, that let armchair heroes become the real thing for just a little while . . .

  A library of lost books, featuring every book that had been written since the dawn of time. . . .

  The ultimate mall, for power-shoppers . . .

  A midway . . .

  A carnival . . .

  A lover's point . . .

  Devil's Point. The Amusement Park from Hell. He caught his breath. It was incredible. Who could resist it?

  And then he thought of the perfect final draw. The cover price would be a bit less than for any other theme park, and he would do extensive advertising that the cover price was the only price. No selling of souls for anything in Devil's Point. The mark would find almost exactly what he wanted in Devil's Point, whatever it was, and he would get it for the cover price, plus the item cost. The things the mark would find would never be quite perfect, but they would be very, very good. Good enough for a while—good enough until the mark wanted more than good enough, and until he wanted it badly enough.

  When the mark knew exactly what he wanted, and when he wanted it enough that he was willing to do anything to get it . . . he would find a door. The door into Desire Point—the secret part of the amusement park. And behind that door, he would find his heart's desire.

  For a slightly higher price.

  Chapter 23

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10TH

  Dayne bounded out of bed early on Sunday morning, did a quick workout on the stair-stepper and with her weights, and ignored the ringing of the telephone downstairs—the answering machine could get the phone, because after finishing a seventy-hour work week, she had no intention of going in to help out at the hospital on her day off.

  The phone rang at fifteen minute intervals, with some calls closer than that. They must have had a stack of Sunday morning call-ins. She shrugged and climbed into the shower. Life's tough, she thought. She'd worked short-staffed all week and covered everybody else's hours, but if she answered the phone, the supervisor was going to try to make her feel guilty for not coming in to help out on her day off, too.

  "Today," she muttered, "the hospital's problems are not my problem."

  The phone was still ringing when she got out. "Two options," she thought. "I can unplug it, or I can go someplace."

  On such a beautiful October morning, with the sun shining through her kitchen window and the light slanting long, in that peculiar way that signaled autumn, unplugging the phone seemed to her a fool's choice. So she packed a lunch, grabbed her keys and her purse, and headed out her front door . . .

  . . . Into the only silent circus she'd ever seen.

  She noticed the picketers first; two lines of them worked opposite ends of the sidewalk. The batch on the right were dressed in business suits or neat dresses, and they carried signs that read, "SEND THEM BACK, WE PRAY!" and "NO DEVILS IN MY BACKYARD!" and "THINK OF OUR CHILDREN: NO DEVILS HERE!" and "BAPTISTS AGAINST SATAN!"

  The other line consisted of people wearing black. Their signs read "MAKE ROOM FOR DEVILS," and "OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HELL, WELCOME TO NORTH CAROLINA," and "HELL HERE NOW!"

  Two men at a hastily set-up card table seemed to have been doing a brisk business in T-shirts—on one, Dayne recognized a fairly good caricature of herself holding a miniature devil by the scruff of the neck with one hand and slapping her forehead with the other. The slogan blazoned across the front read "I Should Have Had a V8." Another had her standing arm in arm with a devil holding a trick-or-treat bag. That one read "Hell for the Holidays."

  Uniformed police officers stood beside their cars, some watching the goings-on, and some directing traffic. And the traffic! Nobody honked horns, nobody leaned out of windows and shouted. It was the most polite, orderly mob Dayne had ever seen. She frowned—she couldn't understand the silence. Then her eyes widened as she realized the quietest group of all waited, video cameras trained on her, reporters watching with microphones in hand—studying her warily from just beyond her landing. Everything had stopped when she stepped out of her door, and all eyes were trained on her, and in all of them she saw something she would never have expected.

  She saw fear.

  They were afraid of her. She walked toward them, and the nearest reporters took a single step back. The walk in front of her cleared, the massed humanity separating neatly and silently as if it were water and she were Moses parting the Dead Sea. The picketers had stopped walking, and stood watching her. The cars in front of the house had come to a halt, and people were leaning out of their windows taking pictures. The police were watching the people in the cars, and she realized with a sick lurch in her gut that they were trying to make sure the only things pointed at her were cameras.

  She took another step forward, uncertainly. She couldn't get her car out of its parking place—not in this mob. She looked at the reporters, and one man nervously crossed his legs, and one woman cleared her throat.

  "Would you be willing to give a statement to the press?" the woman asked.

  Would she? What could she possibly have to say to reporters?

  But she nodded, and walked back, and sat on the top step of her landing. She tucked her purse behind her feet and dropped her lunch beside her, and made sure her keys were in her left jacket pocket, and slid her hand over the reassuring weight of the pepper gas canister in her right pocket. "What do you want to know?"

  It was the oddest press conference she'd ever seen. The reporters, who had talked fearlessly with the minions of Hell, were circumspect with her. They were polite, and careful, and quiet—and they stayed a good ten feet back from her, though they maneuver
ed their microphones close. And suddenly she realized that, while the people in the street might be afraid of Dayne Kuttner, the reporters were even more afraid of Dayne Kuttner's pepper gas, and her knees, and her elbows. That fear was evident in the protective stances the male reporters took.

  Dayne grinned. She'd like to know why people did the things they did. As long as she could understand, she could cope. They asked her a few simple questions, taking turns instead of trying to shout each other down. She began to believe all people who were to be interviewed needed to gas the first reporter who approached them and kick him in the nuts. It did wonders for the manners of the rest.

  At last they got to the meatier questions. "Would you tell us why you asked God to free Satan's hordes?" one reporter asked.

  "I didn't," Dayne said. "I only asked God to give every soul in Hell a second chance. I am no more sure than you are about why he chose to answer my prayer in this fashion. I do have a theory, though."

  "What is it?"

  "I think perhaps God wants our help." She leaned forward and spread her hands in front of her. "Think of it. The Fallen have been in Hell for eons—we have no way of knowing how long. But they are God's creatures as surely as we are, and certainly he must want them to repent and return to his grace. A father who loves his children could take no pleasure from seeing them in pain. Perhaps he wishes us to show them the things they have been so long without in Hell, to remind them of what they have forsaken."

  "What have the Hellraised forsaken, do you think?"

  "Friendship," Dayne said softly. "Kindness. Hope. Compassion. Honor." She looked out over the faces that stared into hers. "Love."

  "You think God wants us to love them?"

  "I suspect he might. I don't want to seem presumptuous by claiming to speak for God."