by Dante King
The laptop finished booting, a command line blinking in the corner of the screen. I preferred to work in a non-graphical interface when I was on the job: partially for efficiency’s sake, but mostly because I liked looking and feeling like a cool hacker. I hooked the other end of the Ethernet cable into Christina’s router, waiting for the modem to start a connection.
Normally this would have involved a quick ping, maybe a request to log in. Nothing more.
Instead, the screen filled with ASCII characters, scrolling like a fucking waterfall.
The hell? I watched as the phenomenon continued, the black screen of the laptop filled with white characters. Most of them were gibberish, but here and there I caught a couple of strange words: Abbadon. Maleficarum. Unum Infernum…
As quickly as they had come, they were gone. The strange screen disappeared, replaced with something that looked like one of those green-and-black message boards from the 1980’s. I stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending.
Loading Morningstar Program, it read, the white letters standing out against the black screen. Loaded! Please enter your name…
I’d never seen anything like it before. ‘Morningstar Program’ didn’t ring a bell, other than it being the name of the street I was currently on. It certainly didn’t sound like any malware or computer virus I’d ever heard of.
“Hey?” I called, raising my voice so Christina could hear me from downstairs. “What’s the name of your Wi-Fi network? It wouldn’t be ‘Morningstar Program’, would it?”
There was a pause. “Huh? No...I don’t think so.” Christina’s voice sounded muffled. I heard the sound of a bottle of wine being popped, and my heart jumped in my chest.
“Well, uh—what’s the password?”
“Aren’t you the hacker?” There was a playful quality to her voice. “It’s ‘Abbadon1’. The number one, capital-A.”
That was one of the words I saw, I thought. Suspicion hardened into certainty—I must be looking at some kind of info dump from Christina’s cable modem. Probably just needs a hard reboot, I thought with a smirk. And so does Christina.
“Thanks,” I said, typing the password into the strange program. The laptop gave an angry little bleep.
That name is not acceptable, the program informed me.
“Aw, hell,” I muttered. Christina would be back upstairs with the wine at any moment. Having this problem well on the way to being solved by then would make me seem like a total stud. If I was still sitting around jerking off, I’d look like an idiot.
Fuck it. It needed a name?
Luke, I wrote, and hit enter.
The laptop beeped again. Thank you, Luke, the words said. Before activating the Morningstar Program, we require you to select one of the following two paths. This decision is final and cannot be changed once you activate the program, so we suggest you choose wisely. You may select:
THE ANGEL OF LIGHT
or
THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS
“What the fuck?” I muttered, shaking my head. “What is this shit?”
Just then, Christina entered the bedroom, bumping the half-closed door open with her butt. She held a glass of red wine in each hand, her thumb and index finger twisted along the sinuous stems of each goblet.
“How’s it going?” she asked, crossing around to my side of the bed. Her eyes narrowed as she read the screen. “Hey, if you want to play computer games, you can do it on your own time.”
“It’s not a game,” I said, looking up at her. There were at least three things I loved about that view. “At least, I don’t think it is. It happened as soon as I plugged my diagnostic tool into the router.”
Yeah, I referred to my beat-to-shit laptop as a ‘diagnostic tool’. Tricks of the trade.
Christina gave the laptop a strange look. She sat down cross-legged on the carpet next to me, handing me one of the wine glasses. “Is it a virus?”
“I dunno,” I said, hating how I sounded. I was supposed to be cool and in control, not flailing. “Doesn’t look like I have any other options, though. If I want to get into your cable modem and fix your problem, I have to answer this thing’s question.”
In response, Christina snuggled closer. Her head pressed against my shoulder as she stared at the screen, taking a long sip from her goblet of rich, dark wine.
“Looks like,” she said, clearly enjoying teasing me. “So which are you going to pick? Darkness or light—that’s it, right? Which is it, Luke: do you want to be an angel, or a devil?”
I stared at the two options. The Angel of Darkness, and the Angel of Light. The fact that Christina had said ‘devil’ hadn’t even registered with me—I was too busy thinking.
“Fuck it,” I said with a shrug. “I always did like being the bad guy in computer games. Darkness it is.”
I selected ‘THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS’ and hit enter, expecting to see the codes for Christina’s router.
Instead, the screen dissolved, along with everything else.
“What the fuck!?” Christina tensed up next to me, grabbing hold of my wrist. She spilled wine across her top in her surprise, staining the skintight fabric with beads of liquid. I reached for the laptop, only for it to disappear in a puff of purple smoke. More purple mist rolled in, replacing the walls and floor of Christina’s bedroom.
This has to be some kind of prank, I thought as the purple mist rolled over me. The dead squirrel. My college crush at the door. All the weird devil shit. I’m on some kind of prank show…
For a few moments, I couldn’t see a thing—the purple smoke was too thick. Christina’s hand squeezed and squeezed, a high, keening wail of horror escaping her throat.
Then the fog rolled over us, and we were in a large, stone chamber.
It looked like some sort of medieval dungeon—the kind of spot Vlad the Impaler would take prisoners before doing the thing that earned him his nickname. Thick tapestries hung over stone walls, with greasy torches at intervals casting the only light. There were no doors or windows to exit the chamber that I could see—just a big wooden table in the center of the room with a chair behind it.
The smoke coalesced behind that table, forming into a man. Christina and I sat on the floor, the same way we’d sat in her bedroom, looking up at him with shock.
For a moment, I would’ve told you I was looking at the coolest fucking dude in the world. The kind of guy who could walk into a club anywhere in the world and get drinks just off the strength of his stories. Who’d end up walking out the door with not the hottest, but the three hottest girls in the whole place—all of whom would be fighting over which one got first dibs on his cock. He looked like an old-school movie star, with a short, closely cropped beard and impeccable black robes. Something dark and cunning glittered behind his intense eyes—the same kind of gaze Rasputin used to hypnotize the Russian court.
A moment later, his appearance collapsed. He became ancient, decrepit—except for those dark, dominating eyes. Those stayed the same, even while his body became a thing wrapped in decay.
The man let out a grunt and cracked his neck, then leaned back in his chair as if testing it. “Rise,” he commanded, his voice sounding like it hadn’t been used in years.
With some hesitation, Christina and I got to our feet. My legs had gone half-asleep beneath me, and now my footing wasn’t as sure as I’d have liked.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, looking around the room. “Where are the cameras?”
The man appeared amused. “Cameras?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Isn’t this the part where the producer comes out with the camera crew and says, ‘you shoulda seen the look on your face’?”
For a moment, the man stared uncomprehendingly at me. Then he chuckled. “I could do such a thing if I wished it,” he said, his voice still gravelly but getting better. “I do not wish it.”
Christina and I shared a look. “Luke, I’m scared,” she admitted, still squeezing my hand.
The look in her eyes activated ev
ery single one of my protective instincts at once. “Don’t worry,” I told her, sliding an arm around her waist. “I’ll get us out of this. Whatever this is.”
The man behind the table let out a low, wheezing laugh. “Young man, you entered this willingly. It was you who chose the path of Darkness, not I.”
His words reminded me of the strange option on my laptop—the laptop that I’d just watched turn into mist before my eyes and vanish. If whatever this thing was hadn’t brought Christina along with me for the ride, I’d have thought this was some kind of strange hallucination brought on by too much stress. Like the squirrel—except I was beginning to think I hadn’t been seeing things when it came to the squirrel, either. That was real, and the too-large room and the books in Latin were real, too.
All of this was connected.
“Who are you?” I asked, marshaling my courage and looking the man in the eye. “What have you done to us?”
For a moment, he didn’t say a word. He steepled his long, gnarled fingers on the table, looking down at them as if he was disgusted by the sight of his own hands. I couldn’t blame him there—if he saw himself as the suave man I’d first seen upon his arrival, I understood his disgust.
“I am known by many names,” he said, still staring at the table. “Lucifer, the Morningstar, Mephistopheles.” He looked up at me, the beginnings of a smile spreading across his face. “Shaitan. Beelzebub. Old Scratch. The Great Deceiver. Any of these ringing a bell?”
“No.” I shook my head, unwilling to believe. “That’s not true.”
The grin spread. “Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name…”
“You’re the Devil?” I took an involuntary step backward, shocked to my core. “Satan?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding amused that I didn’t already know. “You chose to enter my realm the moment you selected the path of Darkness. I’ve been waiting a long time for someone with the guts to make that selection, Luke. Someone who’s worked his way up from a bad situation, the way I once did—who may actually deserve the woman on his arm.” He nodded at Christina. “You were about to reap the rewards of such a transition, were you not?”
Reap the...hold on. Is he saying what I think he is?
I glanced down at her. She shook like a leaf in my arms, yet it was clear from her gaze that she knew what Lucifer was talking about. As her gaze traveled to me, she gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Wait...” My jaw hit the floor. “Christina, were you and I going to…?”
She scoffed. “That’s really what you’re thinking about right now? I mean...you’re pretty fucking hot, and I was bringing the both of us wine in my bedroom. Kinda?”
I couldn’t believe it. Even though it was exactly what I’d been hoping, I still couldn’t believe it.
“Lucifer,” I growled, turning back to the figure seated behind the table. “Why the fuck did you cockblock me?”
Lucifer tossed back his head and laughed, loud and long. For a few moments, the laughter echoed across the walls, sonorous and musical—then it was replaced by long, wracking coughs. Not just allergies, either—the bad kind. The kind that meant little kids in Victorian novels were going to die of tuberculosis.
“Because,” Lucifer said, wiping blood from his lips. “I’m dying, young man. The Devil is dying. And if I’m going to stick it to all the powers-that-be that are already planning their celebrations at my passing, I’m going to need to create some serious fireworks. So I wasn’t really thinking about your boner, sorry to say.”
His words sank in. “Wait, what?” I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the Devil was dying. That he could die. That seemed wrong, didn’t it?
Lucifer seemed irritated with me. “You chose the path of Darkness. In doing so, you took your first step—toward me.” He spread his arms like a proud papa who’d just seen his kid walk for the first time. “So before I die, I’m going to give you something. Something I need very much to hand off to a capable mortal.”
I’d heard enough. “What could you possibly want to give to me?” I asked, holding Christina tight.
Lucifer chuckled. “Why, my power, of course.” His grin spread a touch too wide, his teeth as sharp as a shark’s. “You’re going to be the next Archlord of Hell, young man. And just between you and me, I think you’re going to love it.”
Chapter 2
A thousand questions filtered through my mind as I watched Lucifer’s too-wide grin. The strange chamber in which I’d found myself, the beautiful woman by my side—for a moment, I forgot all of these, too shocked to do anything but stare.
“You want me to be the Devil?” I said, my jaw hitting the floor. “To become you?”
“You don’t have to be ‘the Devil’,” the Devil said, making air-quotes with his gnarled fingers. “The title of ‘Archlord of Hell’ comes with demonic power, of course, but it’s up to you to mold that around your desires. Once you achieve it, you can style yourself however you wish—whether that involves tradition, or not.”
The Archlord of Hell, I thought. A wave of dizziness washed over me at the idea. I’d never been a terribly religious person—hell, I’d considered Lucifer a fairy tale until I found myself staring face-to-face with the guy. Still, the words sent a tingle of fear down my spine. It felt almost primal, like my ancient Puritan ancestors just reached out through the line and tried to slap me to my senses.
This was a bad idea, wasn’t it?
Lucifer gave me an indulgent smile, as if he’d just read my mind. Dimly, I wondered if he could—he’d certainly seen Christina’s intentions earlier. “Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself,” Lucifer explained. “Hopefully, it will be a long, long time before you have to worry about Hell’s succession so...directly.” He coughed discreetly, turning away for a moment. “I may look frail, young man, but trust me—there’s plenty of life left in these old bones. I won’t be sent into the Pit with the other Lords of Hell for a long while yet.”
That’s what he said. But another one of those hard lessons I’d had to swallow back in college was that people’s words and deeds rarely matched up. It was better to watch what people did, rather than take their words at face value. Lucifer talked a good game, but the man sitting before me had clearly seen better days. I wondered just how much time he had left—and what the death of the actual, literal devil might mean for the world in a metaphysical sense.
I looked over at Christina. The blonde had recovered somewhat after the initial shock of being transported into this place with me—now, if anything, she looked excited. A strange look gleamed in her eyes as she gazed at Lucifer, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly like she’d just gone for a jog. What was going on with her?
More than anything else, that solidified my decision. The only way we were getting out of here was to agree to Lucifer’s offer—I’d seen enough movies and TV shows involving a ‘deal with the Devil’ to know that refusing to play the game meant pissing the Devil off something fierce. Considering this chamber had no windows and no doors, that meant one thing—the only way out was through.
I sighed, marshaling my courage. “Alright,” I said, staring Lucifer down. “I’ll do it.”
You wouldn’t have thought the Devil capable of that confused, befuddled look. “Are you...accepting my contract? Young man, you’ve already done that. You took your first step down the path when you accepted the Angel of Darkness into your help.” He barked out a laugh. “You can no more refuse me than you can refuse the blood that courses through your veins, or the desires you feel when you look upon your companion’s assets.”
Damn. Lucifer really could sound like a dirty old man sometimes.
“I should have explained things earlier,” Lucifer said, tilting his chair back a touch. “I have a bad habit of making deals with mortals and leaving important details out—details that always end up turning their wishes against them.”
“Yeah, I’m familiar,” I grunted. “Faust, Keanu Reeves...that country song
with the fiddle…”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Lucifer groaned. “Hopefully you’ll understand I mean no such animus against you, young man. Why would I? I already consider you my protege—my heir apparent.”
Uh huh. And if the Devil himself were somehow trustworthy, I had a whole storage locker full of golden fiddles to sell you.
“You have much to learn,” Lucifer said, ignoring the look on my face. “In order to acquire your new abilities and gain the knowledge you need—not to mention the experience and leadership—you’ll need to attend the Infernal Academy.”
Christina gasped. Wait—how did she know what Lucifer was talking about and I didn’t?
“Academy?” I asked. “I already went to college. Got a degree in Information Systems—I fix computers for a living.”
“Pish tosh,” Lucifer said, dismissing my four years of secondary education with a wave of the hand. “That’s not real school, young man. The Infernal Academy is the most prestigious institution of learning in all Nine Circles of Hell! All the best and brightest of the Infernal Realm attend, and are given my gifts in return for their scholarship.”
Next to me, Christina sank to her knees. I couldn’t blame her for being overwhelmed—I felt the same way, too.
“For some reason,” I said, feeling cocky, “I’m thinking it’s also the only institution of learning in the Nine Circles. What, do you have an Ivy League of Hell or something?”
Lucifer shrugged. “The Celestial Realm has their own college,” he said with an expansive shrug. “But you wouldn’t like it there—trust me. Too many rules, and no parties. Stuffy prigs with sticks up their behinds, the lot of them.”
A sneaking suspicion entered my mind. “You washed out from there, didn’t you?”
Lucifer seemed taken aback. “I prefer ‘fell from grace’,” he growled, his eyes narrowing. “I do tolerate a great deal of impudence in my potential heirs, young man—a little rebellion never hurt anyone, after all. But there are limits. It would do you well to remember that.”
