Satan Loves You

by Grady Hendrix

  He pulled two folded pink invoices from his inside jacket pocket and passed them to Ted Hunter.

  “What’re these? Invoices for your bruised feelings and ruffled sensibilities?” Ted Hunter sneered, opening them.

  “No,” Satan said. “They’re not.”

  Ted Hunter scanned the first invoice and then flipped to the second one. He flipped back to the first. Then he turned them both over. He read the fine print. His face fell.

  “This just isn’t true,” he said. “It’s an outright lie, a fabrication, a falsehood. It’s grotesque. It’s un-American.”

  “There’s clearly been a clerical error,” Satan said. “We’ve been experiencing a work stoppage and there’s been a bit of a backlog but I’m taking care of that now. It won’t last forever. And in a few months it’ll be rectified. We’ll get to those invoices sooner or later. But I could lose them. We’ll eventually issue new ones, but that should be years down the road. You could both live twenty to thirty more years, easily. But if you insist on enforcing your judgment I’ll have to produce those in a court of appeals. And I don’t think that any court in the world will uphold a judgment awarded to two people who are already dead.”

  On QVC, the hosts were hawking Little MissMatched girl’s leg warmers.

  “How’d it happen?” Ted Hunter croaked.

  “Food poisoning,” Satan said. “There were some really egregious food handling violations on Continental flight one-oh-eight. You two both had the fish.”

  “I thought it smelled funny,” Ted Hunter said.

  “Should have gone with your gut,” Satan said. And then he plucked the two flimsy, pink papers out of Hunter’s hands. “I’ll hold on to these while you make up your mind.”

  “I’ll do it,” Ted Hunter said.

  “Good choice, but I’m still holding on to these,” Satan said. “You might decide to go to Terre Haute again.”

  Satan was feeling good. He still had an overwhelming list of things to check off, each of them a bigger risk than the one before, but the first item on his list had gone off flawlessly. He’d even gotten to sound tough, which was new for him. He checked his watch: his next secret weapon should be in place by now. And then he just had to hope that Death had done his part.

  “Be seeing you,” he said to Ted Hunter and gave a little wave.

  Hunter was slumped on the love seat while Frita stared, mindlessly, at the TV set where two QVC hosts showed all the different settings available for the Bethlehem Lights Battery Operated Window Candles. Satan let himself out.

  Mary ripped off her mask so that she could breathe. A fine spray of blood and sweat splashed onto the floor of the ring. She was doubled over, trying to get air into her burning lungs.

  “Please...” she tried to say, but it came out instead as a blubbering little “Pllsss...” sound. More blood, sweat and spit spattered the canvas. She just wanted to go home. She just wanted to get away from all this pain. She just wanted to cease to exist.

  Michael pulled her up by the hair.

  “Don’t I know you?” he asked. “You were that little soul who was following Satan around, weren’t you?”

  He dropped her to the floor, where Mary lay on her side, gasping. Gabriel handed Michael a towel through the ropes and the archangel wiped the touch of mortal from his enormous hands.

  “Violation!” Minos yelled, but no one cared.

  Michael knelt down next to Mary’s head.

  “I just thought you should know that this is all your fault. You must be the unluckiest, unholiest, most accursed nun in all of Creation. I hope you can appreciate the irony. I know I do.”

  He stood up and kicked Mary so hard in the stomach that she slid halfway across the ring, leaving a snail trail of bloody spit in her wake. Lying still, she moved her numb mouth.

  “...end it...” she mumbled, and tried to smile through her split lips.

  “Here comes the big one,” Michael said, and he grabbed Mary by the scruff of her neck and lifted her up off the floor, dangling her in the air like a sack of old laundry. He drew back one of his massive, sledgehammer fists, ready to drive it into her face. Nero looked away.

  “Repent, sinner!” Michael cried.

  Suddenly he was dancing from foot to foot. He craned his neck, looking at his feet, dropping Mary to the ground. Slowly, she dragged her broken body to safety and then looked back. There was a beige and brown blur on the floor zipping between Michael’s legs. Michael was squealing as if something was nipping at his ankles. The crowd rustled as everyone strained to get a better look. On principle, several hundred angels began to boo.

  Mary hauled herself up by the ropes. The blur was coming at her and then it screeched to a stop and she saw Delilah, Charo’s Chihuahua, standing between she and Michael. Delilah’s needle-like teeth were barred, a tiny soprano growl vibrated in its throat. Michael stared at it, dumbfounded. This animal was small, but it was clearly possessed. Something resembling hope spread its wings in Mary’s chest.

  And then Michael kicked Delilah so hard the tiny beast went sailing out of the ring in a perfect arc, heading towards the top tier seats.

  “Yiiiiiiiiiiiipppppppp...” it dopplered.

  The crowd went wild.

  “Do unto others!” They chanted. “Do unto others!”

  “Now do you comprehend the forces you have unleashed?” Michael said, turning his attention once more to Mary. He drew himself up until he was massive and unstoppable. He snapped his wings open to their full, fifteen-foot span and they blotted out the lights. He spread his feathers and they got even bigger, the tips of his primaries brushing against the floor of the ring. He advanced on Mary who tried to ward him off with wild swings. Michael easily swatted aside her feeble blows, and then he seized her by the collar and the belt. He lifted her up above his head and then he dropped down onto one knee, slamming Mary’s back across the other. Her spine bent itself into a backwards “C” and she screamed in agony. Casually, Michael threw her to the ground and walked away. He pumped his fists, working the crowd up into a frenzy.

  Mary was nothing more than a bag of pain now. How had she come to this? Through her swollen eyes she saw Michael stand on the ropes and rile up the crowd.

  “Yeah!” he shouted. “Yeeeaaahhh.”

  That was how she came to this, Mary realized. That was how she always came to this. She had wanted nothing more than to live a good life and be left alone in peace and quiet and then came the assholes with their big plans and their perverted conspiracies and their hidden agendas and suddenly she was a pawn in their machinations. How had she come to this? It was the assholes. It was always the assholes.

  Wracked with pain, she slowly sat up. Michael caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and he hopped down off the ropes.

  “You want more?” he asked. And then to the crowd. “Does she want more??!?!?”

  They roared back at him.

  Mary pulled her lips back to show her teeth, smeared with blood. Her whole face hurt. Her pupils were dilated to two different sizes but she turned them on Michael, and then she raised one broken middle finger.

  “Assholes...like you...make me glad...I quit...the church...”

  Michael’s face turned dangerous. He ran at her and leapt into the air with both feet outstretched, perfectly positioned to take her head off of her shoulders with the soles of his boots. The crowd exploded into cheers, sounding like a bag of rocks being violently shaken. They had come for blood and they were going to get it. Michael was thrilled. He had never kicked anyone’s head off before. This was going to be one of those rare new experiences for him. His body sailed through the air like a missile...

  ...and came crashing down. A searing pain ran through his left wing. He rolled over and looked back. Standing behind him, with one foot mashing his primary feathers to the mat, stood Satan.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I had some business to take care of.”

  Michael scrambled to get back on his feet and untangle
himself from his overextended left wing. Feathers flew everywhere. Satan knelt next to Mary. Minos and Nero reached for her through the ropes. Satan lifted her beneath her armpits and slid her back to them across the canvas slick with her sweat and blood and a few things that looked, disturbingly, like her teeth.

  “Y’r’u...?” she mumbled.

  “Good job,” Satan said to her. “ Thanks for stalling him for me, but I’ve got this now.”

  Mary smiled and passed out.

  “Sir – !” Nero began.

  “Sorry,” Satan said. “I’m a little busy right now. Let me wrap this up.”

  Then he stood and turned to face Michael.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” the archangel said.

  “And rob you of your big moment?” Satan asked. “This is as good as it gets for you, isn’t it? The Ten Thousand Year Plan? Heaven uniting all the celestial spheres with you at the helm? The Creator will be so very proud of you.”

  “Do not use His name in vain,” Michael said, his face black with fury.

  The violence radiated from Michael in thick waves, saturating the brains of the spectators. The archangel had hated Satan for so long, had planned his downfall so carefully, had readied himself for victory so thoroughly that now, faced with the Adversary himself, Michael was the very embodiment of righteous violence.

  “I’m going to unmake you,” he growled. “You are going to be destroyed.”

  “Of course you’re going to destroy me,” Satan said. “We’re wrestling. You can beat me in wrestling with your hands tied behind your back.”

  “Then take your beating like a proper deity.”

  “You’re lucky it’s wrestling. You couldn’t beat me in anything else,” Satan said, loudly. The stands quieted down so that everyone could hear. Satan was insulting the Archangel Michael? “You couldn’t beat me in judo, say. Or karate. Or even Krav Maga.”

  Michael blinked at Satan in disbelief.

  “You can beat me in wrestling, but so what?” Satan shouted, addressing the crowd. “You wouldn’t stand a chance against me in tae kwon do, or boxing, or capoeira or ninjitsu. You’d go down like a punk if we were kickboxing. You’re too chicken to go up against me in Indian leg wrestling, or one-armed boxing.”

  He was jeering now, practically thumbing his nose at Michael. And if there was one thing that Michael could not tolerate, it was disrespect.

  “I could beat you in kickboxing,” he said.

  “Could not,” Satan said, dismissively.

  “Could too.”

  “You wouldn’t stand a chance,” Satan said. “Not if you went up against me in wing chun, or wushu, or tai chi. I’d mop the floor with you in muay thai. Or silat. Or Zulu stick fighting.”

  “No you wouldn’t,” Michael yelled, his face turning from red to black. “You can’t fight. I’d beat you in any one of those.”

  “Oh, BS. Everyone knows you’re lying.”

  “I am not lying.”

  “I could beat you in savate.”

  “I’d win at savate!”

  “I could beat you with rapiers, or quarterstaffs, thang-ta, gymkata, Nuba fighting, jeet kune do, Defendo or kenpo.”

  “I could beat you at all of those,” Michael yelled. “I could beat you at anything. ANYTHING!!!!”

  “Alright then,” Satan said. “Then I challenge you – ”

  “Challenge me to anything! I’ll beat you!”

  “I challenge you – ”

  “Bring it. Briiiing it!!!”

  “I challenge you to a board game.” Satan said.

  “Yeah, I’ll – what?”

  Throughout Madison Square Garden the feeling rippled out. The sensation spread through the stands, it crept into skulls and raced up and down spines. The demons stirred. They lifted their heads, they began to look a little less defeated, they began to rustle with meaning. Because all through the Garden there was the feeling that Michael had just walked into something. A flicker of fear fluttered across faces of the Heavenly Host.

  “What just happened,” Barachiel said, from the Sky Box. “What has he done?”

  Down in the ring, Michael shook it off.

  “Fine. Fine!”

  “And my champion,” Satan said, like a showman, like PT Barnum, like conmen and pool hall hustlers and grifters and card sharps all down through the ages, “Is the Minotaur.”

  A bovine bellow tore through the air. Follow spots whirled wildly as they sought its source and then they caught movement by the curtains from Hell’s locker room and by the time they had pinned it down the Minotaur was halfway up the aisle, rushing the ring.

  It’s easy to forget how mighty and terrifying the Minotaur is when you’ve only seen him in Hell. On a rocky plain, surrounded by the bleached bones of the damned and with a river of boiling blood gently burbling nearby the Minotaur just seems like one more terrifying object in a blasted landscape of despair. But on Earth, in Madison Square Garden, surrounded by handicapped seating and beer vendors and OSHA-mandated “No Smoking” signs, he was a bizarre, snorting, screaming, blood-soaked vision of pure horror.

  The Minotaur snapped the ropes around the ring and they whipped through the air and slapped the mat. He tipped back his bull’s head and roared, his wiry mane dangling down his back, his bony horns trembling with rage. And then he reached one massive, horned hand into his loincloth and he pulled out a familiar deck of cards and lifted them up above his head.

  “Me challenge you...to UNO!!!” the Minotaur roared, and the blood of the Archangel Michael ran cold.

  Just outside the Gates of Hell, stacked in Hell’s Vestibule, there was a mountain of tractor-trailer containers. They towered over the mostly-empty Vestibule, silent and inscrutable. No wheels, no undercarriages, just enormous, corrugated metal boxes stacked up almost to the ceiling. They were as mighty and mysterious as the monuments of Easter Island. Like suitcases left unattended at an airport they were full of secrets and potentially dangerous. And down at the base of this mountain of cargo containers, Death sat on his Rascal. Next to him stood one of his minions.

  “Thanks for this,” Death said.

  “It was fun,” his minion said. “But I have to get back to Chernobyl now.”

  “I understand,” Death said. “It was one last ride. But we did good. All of us. We paid our debt to him.”

  And the two of them left, one walking and one rolling, going off into the great unknown.

  Behind them, the tower of cargo containers sat and the wind howled around them. Softly, faintly, quietly, something inside of them rustled.

  “Uno!” the Minotaur roared.

  Michael threw down his cards in disgust. A rickety bridge table had been dragged out from some forgotten store room and dropped into the middle of the ring. Folding chairs were set up on either side and in one hunched the Minotaur, snuffling with delight over his victory. In the other sat a miserable Michael.

  “Look,” he said to Satan. “I didn’t mean that I could beat you in board games. I meant in close personal combat.”

  “So you’re giving up?” Satan asked from his corner. “You’re admitting defeat?”

  “No, but – ”

  “You said you could beat me in anything. Well, this is anything. You changed the rules, not me.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Michael snapped. “Fight me in something else.”

  “Minotaur?” Satan asked.

  The Minotaur reached into his loincloth and pulled out a blue plastic box.

  “Minotaur fight you in Battleship!” it roared.

  Forty-five minutes later:

  “D-14!” the Minotaur bellowed.

  “You sunk my battleship,” Michael grumbled.

  “Ha ha! Minotaur is best!” the Minotaur roared, standing up and raising his burly arms over his head. “Minotaur beat you in everything!”

  The angels in the stands were getting bored. Board games were no fun to watch, especially when their champion had been winning up until he started playing t
hem. But on the opposite side of the arena, in the stands where the demons huddled, something was stirring. Prince Vassago, who had always been known for his good nature and razor sharp claws, wrapped one talon around the “Blessed Michael!” placard that had been duct taped to his paw and he pulled. With the sound of a thousand hair follicles being torn out by the roots, it came free and he threw it to the ground. Then he rose to his full height of two feet tall, climbed up onto his chair and screamed:

  “Satan rules!”

  His voice was high and reedy but it carried across the massive arena. Angels patrolling the aisles heard it and they began to converge on him, whips in hand. They would brook no dissent. And then, from another part of the demonic seating section, there came another voice shouting:

  “Satan rules!”

  The angels stopped and turned their mighty, gleaming heads trying to determine where this latest rabble rouser was seated. Two of them continued to converge on Prince Vassago, and three started off in the other direction looking for this new rebellious demon.

  “Yeah, Satan rules!”

  A third demon, now. More angels were in the aisles, more whips were unfurled, more celestial eyes scanned the cheap seats trying to determine the location of this minor uprising and crush it.

  Down in the ring, Satan stood in his corner with Nero and Minos and he heard the voices. He couldn’t smile, not yet, but it was what he had hoped for.

  “Did you hear that?” he said to the Minotaur. “They’re cheering for you.”

  “Cheer for Satan,” the Minotaur said.

  “And who do you think Satan’s champion is.” Satan asked. “Who do you think is mighty enough to defend all of Hell without having to use physical violence? Only the Minotaur.”

  The Minotaur drew his black lips back and bared his yellow teeth in something that approximated a grin.

  “Satan rules!” came a fourth voice.

  The Minotaur reached into his loincloth again.

  “You no admit defeat to Minotaur?” he asked Michael.

  “I’m hardly defeated, you overgrown cow,” Michael said.