Lawyers in Hell

by Morris, Janet

  It was getting quite late and LaVey and Helena began preparing to close up.

  “Hellish Curiosities and Clothiers will be closing in ten minutes!” LaVey announced to his remaining customers, who quickly made final selections and left. As LaVey was about to lock the door, a demon, red-skinned and horned, with a long barbed tail, waltzed in and handed LaVey an envelope.

  “Anton LaVey, you are herewith served by the Hall of Injustice. Have a hell of a day.”

  “What the devil is this? A court summons?” LaVey read aloud: “‘The client of Meletus, attorney at law, hereby summons Anton Szander LaVey to appear at the Hall of Injustice for trial regarding the sale of goods under false pretenses, hereinafter designated as the “Trousers of Turin”.’ Some damned bastard is suing me because I sold him a pair of pants that didn’t save his soul? Outrageous!”

  The summons burst into flames in his hand, and LaVey dropped it, sucking his scorched fingers.

  “I did warn you about this, but you never listen to me, you charlatan,” scolded Madame Blavatsky.

  “Oh, hush up, Helena, you porcine-faced hag! I have to go to the Hall and hire myself a lawyer. Finish closing up for me.”

  *

  Guy Fawkes was pacing back and forth across the expensive Persian rug in Bolverksson’s office.

  “I don’t see what good will come from a second appeal. Why is it going to be any different than the last one?” asked Fawkes. “And now there’s a new conviction to reverse.”

  “Guy, I told you before that the right judge can make all the difference in a case. I think I can leverage my connections with the Administration to get a judge predisposed to our cause. We’ll take this matter to the highest court in hell, if need be.”

  The lawspeaker’s phone buzzed and his secretary announced: “Mister Bolverksson, a Mister LaVey to see you sir. He doesn’t have an appointment but he insists on seeing you immediately.”

  “Yes, okay. Send him in. Sorry about this, Guy, but someone seems to be in dire need,” said Bolverksson.

  “No, no, it’s fine,” replied Fawkes.

  The door opened and in walked Anton LaVey in a black suit, black shirt and black tie.

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Lawspeaker. I am Anton Szandor LaVey, and I need legal representation immediately.”

  “Bolverksson. Pleasure to meet you, Mister LaVey. This is Guy Fawkes, one of my clients.”

  “Ah, the famous Guy Fawkes, how interesting. I’ve read about your gunpowder plot. Too bad it didn’t succeed,” said LaVey. “I like seeing the socio-political order shaken up and overthrown once in a while. Keeps everyone more honest and accountable don’t you think?”

  “Of course I think so. Sometimes justice must be served by direct means to effect change for the betterment of the people,” replied Fawkes.

  “Mister Fawkes, in my experience, ‘the people’ don’t know a good thing when it bites them on the ass,” said Anton LaVey.

  “That’s the truth,” chuckled Bolverksson. “Guy, I need to work with Mister LaVey here on my own particular brand of justice, so let’s talk tomorrow.”

  “Yes, of course, excuse me gentlemen. I’ll call on you tomorrow morning, Eyjolf. It was a pleasure to meet you Mister LaVey,” said Fawkes.

  “Likewise, Mister Fawkes. I hope we can meet again and continue our discussion.”

  Fawkes left Bolverksson’s office and headed for his house in New Hell. He’d only walked a few blocks when the InfernalPhone that Eric Blair had given him vibrated on his belt. As soon as he grasped the phone, it sent a jolt of one million volts of electricity through him.

  His body went rigid from the shock and he fell soundlessly to the ground. After seconds that felt like eternities, the current stopped flowing and his body relaxed.

  Several people stepped obliviously over or around him before he could struggle to his feet.

  “Damned Hext Message!” Fawkes said, breath ragged and shallow. “Cursed InfernalPhone!” He touched the screen to read the message: ‘We have the package. Meet me in one hour, same place. Make sure you’re not followed. – G.O.’

  ‘G.O.’ stood for Eric Blair, a/k/a George Orwell.

  This is it! Time to take matters into my own hands: Hall of Injustice, all its judges, and Satan be damned! Fawkes sent a confirmation to G.O., then replaced the InfernalPhone in its pouch. Turning, he retraced his steps at a brisk pace, and then kept going, toward the bar designated as his rendezvous with fate.

  Fawkes walked into the Oasis Bar after the usual security pat-down by the Marines guarding the door. He sat where he and Eric had sat before, and ordered a beer. He was early. As he waited, he picked up a newspaper from the table. The date on the header read: 5th of November. The 5th of November was forever after called ‘Guy Fawkes Day’ in Britain, in memory of the events of November 5th, 1605. How fitting.

  Blair walked over to their table. “Guido, our operatives are waiting for us with the package.”

  “Yes, let’s go do this.” Fawkes gulped the last of his beer.

  They walked out of the Oasis and through the alleys of New Hell toward the waterfront.

  An old warehouse several blocks from the bar had a service entrance in back. Eric “G.O.” Blair tapped a rhythm on a rusty steel door.

  A man with a jowly face and limpid eyes in black, white and gray combat fatigues ushered them inside.

  “Eric, we have the package in the back office.” Feminine lips twisted with his British accent. He pulled on his long nose, appraising Fawkes frankly. “You must be Guido. Welcome to the revolution, Guv’ner. I’m Jonathan Swift, once known in England as a satirist.”

  “This revolution has been too long coming. Now we overthrow a corrupt regime and establish a new order in hell,” Fawkes said.

  Swift nodded his head and grinned until his jowls quivered, then led them to a corner of the warehouse and through a door leading to a small office containing a desk and two chairs.

  Sitting in one metal chair was a portly graying man with gold-rimmed glasses. His hands were bound. A rag gag was strapped around his head. In his lap he held a stainless steel box, two feet long. Cyrillic letters were stenciled on it, along with the international warning sign for radiation: a black trefoil in a yellow square background.

  “Oh, m-m-my,” stammered Fawkes. “Who is this?”

  “Yuri Andropov,” replied Blair. “He was first the intelligence czar, then leader of Russia’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the late twentieth century. The personal nuclear bomb he is damned to carry for all eternity is his punishment for using nuclear weapons to hold the world hostage through fear and intimidation. In his day, they called such a bomb a ‘nuke.’”

  “Stand up, fat man,” ordered Swift, grabbing an AK-47 assault rifle from the table and waving it in Andropov’s direction.

  When the big Russian stood, Fawkes saw that the box was connected to his navel by a cord threaded between the buttons of his sweat-stained white shirt.

  “We’re going for a little ride, Yuri,” Blair said to the trembling, gagged Andropov.

  Swift prodded Andropov in the back with the rifle and they led the Russian outside, into an alley where a black van waited.

  They pushed Andropov into the back of the van; he stumbled, almost dropping the box containing the ‘nuke,’ as Blair had called the bomb-in-a-box. Fawkes wondered how a box so small could contain a weapon that had held the world ‘hostage.’

  “Be careful with that box old man, or you’ll blow us all to ... never mind,” said Blair. “Just watch what you’re doing, Yuri.”

  All climbed into the van, with Blair in the driver’s seat and Fawkes beside him in front, Andropov and Swift in back. Blair turned the key and the starter stuttered, then caught.

  They drove down the narrow streets of New Hell, gears grinding and suspension creaking as the van struggled along. Finally, the engine died and the van rolled to a stop in an alley a few blocks from the looming Hall of Injustice, towering
one hundred and fifty stories high.

  Blair tried to re-start the vehicle, to no avail.

  “Shit, G.O.!” Swift exclaimed. “Time to take it on foot.”

  Blair got out and opened the rear doors of the van. Swift pushed Yuri Andropov from the van, while the old Russian struggled to hold on to the nuke connected to his belly with its eerie umbilical.

  Fawkes searched the dim streets for witnesses as they all walked briskly down the shadowy alleys toward the tower. Swift, who had left the conspicuous AK in the van, prodded Andropov along with a semi-automatic pistol. As they neared the steps of the Hall of Injustice, they saw Anton LaVey round the corner.

  The conspirators and their prisoner froze in place. Swift aimed his pistol toward LaVey just as Fawkes called out, “Fear not. He’s a friend!”

  “Guy, what the devil is going on here?” asked LaVey, seeing the restrained and gagged Andropov, holding the box bearing the nuclear radiation symbol.

  “LaVey, remember when we talked about shaking up the socio-political order of things back in Bolverksson’s office? We’re about to do just that!”

  Never taking his gaze from LaVey, Blair growled at Fawkes, “Guido, I told you we couldn’t trust anyone. What part of that did you not understand?”

  “LaVey’s all right, G.O.,” said Fawkes. “Sympathetic to the cause. Right, Anton?”

  “Indeed. The occasional revolution is necessary to upset the status quo and bring welcome chaos and anarchy into play,” said LaVey.

  “This may be a necessary revolution, but you’re no necessary part of it,” said Blair. “Fawkes vouches for you. Fine. Before I change my mind, get out of here.”

  “Okay by me,” said LaVey. “You gentleman carry on with the good work.”

  “LaVey, stay far, far away from the Hall of Injustice for awhile,” warned Fawkes.

  “Prudent advice, clearly. Thank you, Guy.” LaVey wheeled and ran back the way he’d come.

  Fawkes, Blair, Swift, and Andropov proceeded into the Hall of Injustice through a side door. They took the elevator to the sixth floor and walked down the long hallway to the door of the law office of Eyjolf Bolverksson, suite #666.

  Swift inserted a metal shim near the door’s latch and fiddled with it. The door opened. They all filed into the lawspeaker’s inner office and Blair locked it once more from within. Swift shoved Andropov before him and into an upholstered client chair and stood over him, pistol in hand.

  Fawkes closed the inner door while Blair rummaged in a backpack from the van, pulled out a length of black rope, and tied Andropov to the chair. From the backpack, Blair then pulled out a digital timer wired to a piece of C4 plastic explosive.

  Just then a musical tone came from Blair’s pocket. He fumbled for his InfernalPhone and answered it. “Yeah. Okay, we’ll get back there. May take a while. The van died but we’re on our way,” Eric said into the phone.

  “We’ve got a situation back at headquarters, Guido. We need to leave. You finish up here. Give us ten minutes before you set the timer. Press these two buttons simultaneously and you then have twenty minutes before the nuke blows. Good luck!”

  Blair and Swift hurried away, leaving Fawkes with Yuri Andropov, eyes wide above his gag, and the nuke. He checked the time. This wasn’t how we planned it.

  After ten minutes, Fawkes nervously mashed the buttons on the timer attached to the C4. Its glowing numbers started counting down from 20:00. The descending numbers seemed to blur before Fawkes’ eyes.

  Just as he set the timer and C4 down on Andropov’s personal nuke, the door to the office opened and in walked Eyjolf Bolverksson.

  “Guy, what are you doing here? And who in damnation is that?” the lawspeaker demanded, pointing at Andropov, bound and gagged in one of his chairs, now struggling to get free. “And what’s that box?”

  “Eyjolf, we have to get out of here! That box is a bomb set to explode in less than twenty minutes!” Fawkes whispered in the lawspeaker’s ear, looking back at the timer. Instead of reading nineteen minutes and a few seconds, the numbers indicated they had less than twenty seconds to get out of the building.

  “Oh, hell,” said Fawkes, turning to run out of the office and bowling over a stunned Bolverksson as he went.

  As Bolverksson was gaining his feet and Fawkes was sprinting down the hall, the timer reached zero and set off the C4 charge, detonating the nuke.

  Yuri Andropov was vaporized, along with the office of the Icelandic lawspeaker, Eyjolf Bolverksson, and the lawyer himself. A millisecond later, a blast wave ripped into Fawkes. The fireball followed, incinerating the entire sixth floor and expanding, disintegrating floors directly above and below in a rapidly-expanding pressure bubble.

  In his penthouse on the one hundred and fiftieth floor, His Satanic Majesty, with his bat/cat/familiar Michael on his shoulder, felt the explosion rock his world. The pressure wave thrust them through the roof as the entire tower of the Hall of Injustice was reduced to flying debris.

  Satan screamed with rage, “Daaaammmmmnnnnit!”

  In his most classic form, all wings and fangs and fury, Satan, clutching his flailing demon familiar under one arm, rode the shock waves thirty thousand feet into the sky over New Hell, tumbling aloft, enveloped in a roiling fireball of incandescent gases. When they finally stopped rising through a sky filled with ash and dust, Satan let go of his familiar. Together, devil and pet spread their wings and glided in ever-widening circles, surveying the damage.

  Where the once-mighty tower of the Hall of Injustice had stood, there now rose a black mushroom cloud of smoke, ash, and dust. The rest of New Hell looked as if it had not sustained much damage. Andropov’s had been a tactical nuke with a carefully calculated yield. Even so, the entire tower had been vaporized from the massive explosion.

  His Satanic Majesty and his demonic familiar descended until they reached New Hell’s military headquarters, the Pentagram. Michael settled onto Satan’s right shoulder, digging needle sharp claws into his master’s flesh.

  Satan winced with pain, but hardly cared. He stormed through the Pentagram’s front doors as its armed guards fell back: No one doubted that this was their Commander in Chief. His Satanic Majesty’s eyes smoldered and the temperature in the lobby rose unbearably.

  Satan strode up to the front desk where a young receptionist in uniform stood frozen in horror.

  “You. Soul. Call the chief of the Devil’s Children. I want whoever blew up my tower!” bellowed the devil.

  The receptionist fainted dead away.

  “Figures,” Satan said under his breath, and reached over the desk to pluck the secure phone from its cradle. Before he could dial, a voice called out from behind him.

  “Your Satanic Majesty, I know who blew up the Hall of Injustice,” said Anton LaVey.

  The devil’s eyes saw the soul and saw into the soul, shallow and vain. “Yes, Anton, do tell,” replied Satan, without turning to face the cozening fool behind him.

  “Guy Fawkes did, Your Satanic Majesty, along with two others I didn’t recognize. They had Yuri Andropov, the Soviet security chief, and a nuclear device with them,” said LaVey.

  “Where are Guy Fawkes and his playmates now?” demanded Satan of the damned soul, although he could see the answer in LaVey’s small mind.

  “You should find Guy at the Undertaker’s, Your Satanic Majesty, Sir. As for the others, I do not know,” responded LaVey.

  “Sire.”

  “Sir?”

  “Not ‘Sir.’ ‘Sire.’”

  “Forgive me, Sire.”

  “Perhaps if you ask on bended knee.” All around, guards stood at attention, and suited officials behind them, row after row in complete silence.

  Down went Anton LaVey, on the Pentagram lobby’s black marble floor. “Excellent, Anton. You’ll make a fine member of the Devil’s Children one day,” said Satan as he quickly dialed the Undertaker.

  A grating monotone came from the phone: “Slab A. Undertaker speaking.”

  “
It’s Me. Have you a recyclable down there named Guy Fawkes?”

  “Yes, Sire. What’s left of him. A piece or two. Odds and sods of thousands of casualties are scattered all over the damn morgue. All the little bits, glowing…. Was this a scheduled event no one bothered to tell me about, Sire? If I’d known, I’d have brought in more staff,” said the Undertaker. “It’ll take me some time to sort the pieces….”

  “Never mind sorting pieces. Fawkes is your first priority. Put him back together and reassign him to the crater where the Hall of Injustice stood, so I can take him apart again myself – slowly and painfully, this time,” said Satan.

  After much effort by the Undertaker, Guy Fawkes was materialized on charred ground next to a colossal crater filled with smoking debris. Satan was waiting for him, arms crossed, wings half unfurled.

  “Hello, Guy,” said Satan. “Have a pleasant trip back from the Undertaker’s?”

  Fawkes trembled and threw himself to the ground at His Satanic Majesty’s feet. “You’re a-a-alive,” Fawkes stammered. “But we blew you up along with the Hall of Injustice.”

  “Did you? Confession, fools think, is good for the soul. As you see, I yet rule New Hell. Surely you didn’t think that you and your gang of unrepentant ideologues could bring down the Prince of Darkness by destroying my Hall of Injustice,” said Satan. “And don’t bother trying to protect your cohorts: your mind has shown them to me, each and every one. You avoided your decreed punishment in life, but in hell, every punishment fits the sin.”

  Satan reached down, grasped Fawkes by the throat and, lifting him high above his head with one clawed hand, choked him until he kicked and gasped, his face turning purple. The devil then thrust a long, sharp claw into Fawkes’ groin and, making a circular motion, emasculated him. His Infernal Majesty dropped the tissue into a steaming pile of debris from the Hall of Injustice.

  Fawkes screamed, feeling his testicles and member burn as if they were still attached to his body.

  Next Satan drew a razor-sharp claw across Fawkes’ belly. Entrails spilled out upon the ground. Satan pulled out loop after loop of Fawkes’ slippery intestines and dropped them into the fire.