Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 12

The light had come while Agonostis was still finishing laying out his battle plans—without sound or warning, Heaven had taken Lucifer's hand-picked Hellspawn from whatever part of Hell they'd been in. Fifty-eight thousand eight hundred fifty-one damned vanished from the bowels of Hell. From the lowliest gargoyle and gremlin to the mightiest of fallen angels, they blinked out of existence in one location and blinked back into existence somewhere else.

But each of them was in a different somewhere else.

Agonostis looked around. He was alone, in the middle of somebody's garden, stark naked and in his original form. He had not intended to arrive in such a fashion. He'd been expected to stop by the office to pick up his final orders; he'd failed to do that, and the fact that it was God's fault wasn't going to cut any ice with the Father of Lies. Lucifer only cared about results, and the results he cared about were being screwed up because Agonostis hadn't followed orders.

Agonostis took a deep breath and nearly choked from the surprise—the air was clear, with a great deal of oxygen in it and neither sulfur nor brimstone. He stopped worrying about Lucifer for a moment and simply looked around. His night vision was very good—he could see a wealth of detail from the terrain around him on this nearly moonless night. The soft greens of grass, the rich reds and golds and yellows of leaves, the bright flowers in their matching hues of reds and oranges and golds, the cozy houses and gentle sounds and sweet smells overwhelmed him. The warm yellow light that spilled across neatly-mown grass seemed welcoming.

Unlike the lower orders of the Unchained, who had worked their way up from damnedsouls, and so had known only Earth and Hell, Agonostis had known Heaven before he was cast down—and if this place where he found himself was not Heaven, it was at least close.

He stretched—nothing hurt. He moved slowly. Still no pain. He jumped up and down vigorously, trampling huge holes in the garden—his body rejoiced in its vigor and its freedom from the constant throbbing agony of Hell.

He shouted—and a clear, icy, evil voice in his head said, "Do you intend to bounce naked on that dirt until your month is up and I recall you and turn you into an imp—or are you ready to get busy now?"

Agonostis froze. "God took us early, stripped our possessions from us, and scattered us," he said. "I have neither clothes nor supplies nor the money to buy them."

"I—know—that. You're fortunate you told your officers where to gather their troops; had you not done that, you would very likely have to round up every single one of the Hellspawn yourself. As it is, your inferiors, dreading your wrath, are out busily beating the bushes for you. And if you'll simply get yourself to Charlotte, I have your initial consignment of supplies waiting. I was going to leave you without them, but I decided I didn't want God to get the jump on us quite that quickly, since that was obviously his intent. I'd rather get even with him now . . . and you later."

Agonostis nodded. He shut his mind, effectively blocking out Lucifer's voice, then concentrated on locating waiting supplies. Some of Hell's computers sat in the pile, their souls shifting and stretching as they tried to get a feel for the world in which they found themselves. He focused on those, and closed his eyes, and thought himself to them.

The supplies sat in an abandoned warehouse—computers and peripherals, racks of clothes and boxes of shoes, boxes and crates of things someone had thought might be necessary in bringing Hell to North Carolina. Agonostis found the manifest, slipped into slow-time, and checked it off—he had no intention of signing in blood without being certain every single item on the manifest actually existed. And as he reached the end, he was pleased with himself for having checked. The manifest noted that five million dollars accompanied the rest of the supplies—Lucifer's war chest was deep. But the actual amount of cash in the bags was only two and a half million.

"Where's the rest of the money?" Agonostis snarled into thin air.

"Oh, just cross through that amount and write in the correct amount and initial it," Lucifer said into his head.

"Not a chance. I'm not signing for anything until this manifest is correct."

"Oh, nonsense," the Archfiend said. "I'll send the other half along later."

"Now, or I don't sign. I'm not going to make myself responsible for repaying two point five million dollars I didn't even get. I won't do it."

"You become annoying quickly," Lucifer said, but the extra money appeared. Agonostis counted it, and on an impulse, checked serial numbers on the bills. About half of them were the same. "I won't do this—" he started again, but with a flash of ugly red fire and the stench of Hell, real money in the proper amount appeared.

He moved back into real time as the first of his officers appeared. "Devils, demons, and leccubi—clothes are here. Sludgewight," this to an ugly devil, even by Hell's standards, "you're paymaster until Squige reports in. Any variances in the accounts, I will personally take out of your hide." This was no empty threat. Agonostis had discovered several crates of Hell's most up-to-date torture implements. Since, by God's rules, he wasn't going to be able to use them on his human prey, he might as well get some good from them; they'd be ideal in keeping his underlings in line.

An imp appeared—a vibrant blue imp with enormous bat-wing ears and a face like a train wreck. "Mighty Lord Agonostis," he said in a shockingly deep, rich voice, "Earwax, here, reporting for duty."

Agonostis looked down at the imp and said, "I ate you for breakfast today, didn't I, imp?"

The imp's blue flesh paled to a dusty, near-white color, and the obnoxious creature went down on its knees. "No, Great and Terrible Lordship—I am not that imp. I am the imp Lucifer gave you as your personal aide and gofer."

Agonostis smelled something worse than rat in that setup. "He did, did he? And what did you do before this?" Agonostis reached out a finger and touched the imp's forehead, and the fiery power of Hell itself flickered between them. The little imp froze.

Mesmerized, it answered, and its voice was flat and hollow. "Insubordination, mostly. I fetched for Pusbucket as a low-level imp, operated a phone at central communications as a mid-level imp, and recently received a promotion—I read soul radar in the main office; and just today I made the Evil One angry at me. He gave me to you because he said you would eat me within a week, and then I would be out of the way . . . and he could charge you for the body."

Agonostis pondered. Earwax wasn't a spy, then. That was something to the good. He was likely to be a pain in the ass, and that wasn't good. Agonostis didn't feel like owing Lucifer for the body, though, so he determined that the imp's skin would stay intact—barring extraordinary circumstances. He would decide those as he went along.

Agonostis took the whammy off of him. "So you can answer a phone, can you?"

"Oh, yes, your Stupendously Stinking Magnificence."

Agonostis' eyes narrowed. "Sir," he snarled. "Call me sir, you twittering excrescence, or . . ." But no. He didn't want to rip the imp to shreds. "Or . . ." But he couldn't bake him and feed him to gargoyles either. "Or," he said coldly, ". . . else."

"Sir." The imp's head bobbed up and down like a soul in lava. "Yes, sir, sir."

Imps were up there at the top—with computers—on Agonostis' list of least favorite things.

Agonostis said, "Good. Then starting tomorrow, at zero hour, find a phone and answer it. Don't report back to me until I call you."

"Any phone?"

"Any phone!"

It was too late to find Dayne Kuttner this day—though he knew Lucifer would count the day against his number. He would have to use his first night on Earth just to bring his people in and get them organized. But he could come up with a plan for the corruption of the Almighty's little favorite as he prepared his troops for battle—the next day would be soon enough to start his attack, if he knew in advance how he would run it.

Agonostis decided to get a good look at his surrounding terrain—he felt he ought to be dressed for that; in both a human body and human clothes. He could walk around, get a feel for the type of action in his neighborhood, maybe come up with a few little sidelines the Fiend Downstairs couldn't find out about, figure out ways to skim a nice piece of the action off the top without getting caught. . . .

He smiled. After all the time he'd spent in slow-time doing inventory, he felt like death fried and diced, but Earth air was invigorating stuff . . . and the limitless possibilities in his new situation excited him.

He strolled to the suit rack to outfit himself. He'd counted the suits before, along with the dresses and boxes of shoes, but he hadn't even really looked at any of them. He looked now, and recoiled in horror. There were hundreds of them, in all sizes—and every suit was a wide-lapeled polyester leisure suit, each in colors apparently deemed fashionable in Hell. Lava Orange, Gangrene Green, Boil Red, Bruise Purple, and a number of colors so ugly Agonostis thought he was better off leaving them nameless. All of the jackets were the kind with zippers.

All the socks were white sport socks.

All the shoes were black, thick-soled, and blunt-toed; and they came in two widths—extra-extra wide, and extra-extra narrow.

The ties had been scientifically designed not to match any of the suits, and the shirts . . .

He looked at those shirts and shuddered. Polyester knit Hell-waiian prints. He wondered which damned designer had been put to work on them.

The female clothing, now that he looked at it, was equally dreadful. He was going to have to use a lot of his precious cash to outfit his leccubi in halfway indecent clothing. But more importantly, he was going to have to come up with something sexy for himself.

There was no way in Hell, he decided, that the Lord of Lust would wear polyester. Not to a first meeting, anyway.

He wished he'd been able to find out something about Dayne Kuttner—he wanted to have an idea of what she'd find attractive in a man. He didn't know how old she was or what she looked like—or even if she was married. It would be just his luck that she was pushing the century mark, and faithfully married for the last eighty years.

He manifested himself into the shape of an overweight, red-faced, middle-aged human, put on one of the horrible leisure suits, and grimaced when he discovered the pants were two inches too short, so that his white socks nearly glowed in the dim light of the warehouse.

He shortened his legs by two inches—and the hems of the pants shrank by two more inches.

"Right," he muttered. Clothes from Hell. The only thing to do with them was burn them—and he wasn't even sure they would burn. Such clothing would be fine for devils, and even a step up if worn by demons—but he was going to have to go shopping. First thing in the morning.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed

Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 12

The light had come while Agonostis was still finishing laying out his battle plans—without sound or warning, Heaven had taken Lucifer's hand-picked Hellspawn from whatever part of Hell they'd been in. Fifty-eight thousand eight hundred fifty-one damned vanished from the bowels of Hell. From the lowliest gargoyle and gremlin to the mightiest of fallen angels, they blinked out of existence in one location and blinked back into existence somewhere else.

But each of them was in a different somewhere else.

Agonostis looked around. He was alone, in the middle of somebody's garden, stark naked and in his original form. He had not intended to arrive in such a fashion. He'd been expected to stop by the office to pick up his final orders; he'd failed to do that, and the fact that it was God's fault wasn't going to cut any ice with the Father of Lies. Lucifer only cared about results, and the results he cared about were being screwed up because Agonostis hadn't followed orders.

Agonostis took a deep breath and nearly choked from the surprise—the air was clear, with a great deal of oxygen in it and neither sulfur nor brimstone. He stopped worrying about Lucifer for a moment and simply looked around. His night vision was very good—he could see a wealth of detail from the terrain around him on this nearly moonless night. The soft greens of grass, the rich reds and golds and yellows of leaves, the bright flowers in their matching hues of reds and oranges and golds, the cozy houses and gentle sounds and sweet smells overwhelmed him. The warm yellow light that spilled across neatly-mown grass seemed welcoming.

Unlike the lower orders of the Unchained, who had worked their way up from damnedsouls, and so had known only Earth and Hell, Agonostis had known Heaven before he was cast down—and if this place where he found himself was not Heaven, it was at least close.

He stretched—nothing hurt. He moved slowly. Still no pain. He jumped up and down vigorously, trampling huge holes in the garden—his body rejoiced in its vigor and its freedom from the constant throbbing agony of Hell.

He shouted—and a clear, icy, evil voice in his head said, "Do you intend to bounce naked on that dirt until your month is up and I recall you and turn you into an imp—or are you ready to get busy now?"

Agonostis froze. "God took us early, stripped our possessions from us, and scattered us," he said. "I have neither clothes nor supplies nor the money to buy them."

"I—know—that. You're fortunate you told your officers where to gather their troops; had you not done that, you would very likely have to round up every single one of the Hellspawn yourself. As it is, your inferiors, dreading your wrath, are out busily beating the bushes for you. And if you'll simply get yourself to Charlotte, I have your initial consignment of supplies waiting. I was going to leave you without them, but I decided I didn't want God to get the jump on us quite that quickly, since that was obviously his intent. I'd rather get even with him now . . . and you later."

Agonostis nodded. He shut his mind, effectively blocking out Lucifer's voice, then concentrated on locating waiting supplies. Some of Hell's computers sat in the pile, their souls shifting and stretching as they tried to get a feel for the world in which they found themselves. He focused on those, and closed his eyes, and thought himself to them.

The supplies sat in an abandoned warehouse—computers and peripherals, racks of clothes and boxes of shoes, boxes and crates of things someone had thought might be necessary in bringing Hell to North Carolina. Agonostis found the manifest, slipped into slow-time, and checked it off—he had no intention of signing in blood without being certain every single item on the manifest actually existed. And as he reached the end, he was pleased with himself for having checked. The manifest noted that five million dollars accompanied the rest of the supplies—Lucifer's war chest was deep. But the actual amount of cash in the bags was only two and a half million.

"Where's the rest of the money?" Agonostis snarled into thin air.

"Oh, just cross through that amount and write in the correct amount and initial it," Lucifer said into his head.

"Not a chance. I'm not signing for anything until this manifest is correct."

"Oh, nonsense," the Archfiend said. "I'll send the other half along later."

"Now, or I don't sign. I'm not going to make myself responsible for repaying two point five million dollars I didn't even get. I won't do it."

"You become annoying quickly," Lucifer said, but the extra money appeared. Agonostis counted it, and on an impulse, checked serial numbers on the bills. About half of them were the same. "I won't do this—" he started again, but with a flash of ugly red fire and the stench of Hell, real money in the proper amount appeared.

He moved back into real time as the first of his officers appeared. "Devils, demons, and leccubi—clothes are here. Sludgewight," this to an ugly devil, even by Hell's standards, "you're paymaster until Squige reports in. Any variances in the accounts, I will personally take out of your hide." This was no empty threat. Agonostis had discovered several crates of Hell's most up-to-date torture implements. Since, by God's rules, he wasn't going to be able to use them on his human prey, he might as well get some good from them; they'd be ideal in keeping his underlings in line.

An imp appeared—a vibrant blue imp with enormous bat-wing ears and a face like a train wreck. "Mighty Lord Agonostis," he said in a shockingly deep, rich voice, "Earwax, here, reporting for duty."

Agonostis looked down at the imp and said, "I ate you for breakfast today, didn't I, imp?"

The imp's blue flesh paled to a dusty, near-white color, and the obnoxious creature went down on its knees. "No, Great and Terrible Lordship—I am not that imp. I am the imp Lucifer gave you as your personal aide and gofer."

Agonostis smelled something worse than rat in that setup. "He did, did he? And what did you do before this?" Agonostis reached out a finger and touched the imp's forehead, and the fiery power of Hell itself flickered between them. The little imp froze.

Mesmerized, it answered, and its voice was flat and hollow. "Insubordination, mostly. I fetched for Pusbucket as a low-level imp, operated a phone at central communications as a mid-level imp, and recently received a promotion—I read soul radar in the main office; and just today I made the Evil One angry at me. He gave me to you because he said you would eat me within a week, and then I would be out of the way . . . and he could charge you for the body."

Agonostis pondered. Earwax wasn't a spy, then. That was something to the good. He was likely to be a pain in the ass, and that wasn't good. Agonostis didn't feel like owing Lucifer for the body, though, so he determined that the imp's skin would stay intact—barring extraordinary circumstances. He would decide those as he went along.

Agonostis took the whammy off of him. "So you can answer a phone, can you?"

"Oh, yes, your Stupendously Stinking Magnificence."

Agonostis' eyes narrowed. "Sir," he snarled. "Call me sir, you twittering excrescence, or . . ." But no. He didn't want to rip the imp to shreds. "Or . . ." But he couldn't bake him and feed him to gargoyles either. "Or," he said coldly, ". . . else."

"Sir." The imp's head bobbed up and down like a soul in lava. "Yes, sir, sir."

Imps were up there at the top—with computers—on Agonostis' list of least favorite things.

Agonostis said, "Good. Then starting tomorrow, at zero hour, find a phone and answer it. Don't report back to me until I call you."

"Any phone?"

"Any phone!"

It was too late to find Dayne Kuttner this day—though he knew Lucifer would count the day against his number. He would have to use his first night on Earth just to bring his people in and get them organized. But he could come up with a plan for the corruption of the Almighty's little favorite as he prepared his troops for battle—the next day would be soon enough to start his attack, if he knew in advance how he would run it.

Agonostis decided to get a good look at his surrounding terrain—he felt he ought to be dressed for that; in both a human body and human clothes. He could walk around, get a feel for the type of action in his neighborhood, maybe come up with a few little sidelines the Fiend Downstairs couldn't find out about, figure out ways to skim a nice piece of the action off the top without getting caught. . . .

He smiled. After all the time he'd spent in slow-time doing inventory, he felt like death fried and diced, but Earth air was invigorating stuff . . . and the limitless possibilities in his new situation excited him.

He strolled to the suit rack to outfit himself. He'd counted the suits before, along with the dresses and boxes of shoes, but he hadn't even really looked at any of them. He looked now, and recoiled in horror. There were hundreds of them, in all sizes—and every suit was a wide-lapeled polyester leisure suit, each in colors apparently deemed fashionable in Hell. Lava Orange, Gangrene Green, Boil Red, Bruise Purple, and a number of colors so ugly Agonostis thought he was better off leaving them nameless. All of the jackets were the kind with zippers.

All the socks were white sport socks.

All the shoes were black, thick-soled, and blunt-toed; and they came in two widths—extra-extra wide, and extra-extra narrow.

The ties had been scientifically designed not to match any of the suits, and the shirts . . .

He looked at those shirts and shuddered. Polyester knit Hell-waiian prints. He wondered which damned designer had been put to work on them.

The female clothing, now that he looked at it, was equally dreadful. He was going to have to use a lot of his precious cash to outfit his leccubi in halfway indecent clothing. But more importantly, he was going to have to come up with something sexy for himself.

There was no way in Hell, he decided, that the Lord of Lust would wear polyester. Not to a first meeting, anyway.

He wished he'd been able to find out something about Dayne Kuttner—he wanted to have an idea of what she'd find attractive in a man. He didn't know how old she was or what she looked like—or even if she was married. It would be just his luck that she was pushing the century mark, and faithfully married for the last eighty years.

He manifested himself into the shape of an overweight, red-faced, middle-aged human, put on one of the horrible leisure suits, and grimaced when he discovered the pants were two inches too short, so that his white socks nearly glowed in the dim light of the warehouse.

He shortened his legs by two inches—and the hems of the pants shrank by two more inches.

"Right," he muttered. Clothes from Hell. The only thing to do with them was burn them—and he wasn't even sure they would burn. Such clothing would be fine for devils, and even a step up if worn by demons—but he was going to have to go shopping. First thing in the morning.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed