“Father, I am Lucifer.”
He looks at me, waiting for the punch line. When I don’t give him one, he leans back on the sofa and laughs his weary old-soldier laugh.
“And here I thought you were my friend. The prince of lies is right.”
“I am your friend and I didn’t lie to you. I wasn’t always Lucifer. Trust me. I didn’t ask for the job. The previous Lucifer forced it on me. That’s how I know if you end up in Hell you’ll be taken care of. I run the goddamn place.”
He gets up and goes to the buffet. Shovels fruit and cheese onto a plate and brings it back.
“God is in pieces and you’re the Devil. You’re right. I might as well eat.”
“That’s the spirit.”
I go back over and spoon black caviar and sour cream onto a plate.
“You know, if anyone should be freaked out here, it’s me. You’re like the third person I’ve told about the Lucifer thing and everyone is taking it really well. I mean, I’d like just a little polite shock and horror when I tell people I’m the king of evil.”
Traven spreads Brie on a cracker with the care and attention of a sculptor.
“If people don’t seem shocked, maybe it’s because it’s a bit much to process all at once. And you do have a colorful history.”
“So that’s what people say behind my back. That I’m colorful.”
“Would you rather be boring?”
“Sign me up.”
There’s nothing sadder in this word than a true-blue Satanist. I don’t mean the ones who dress in black, listen to Ronnie Dio, and use the Devil as an excuse to throw graveyard key parties. I mean the ones who’ve bought the gaff that if they pray to the baddest of the bad, he’ll drop doubloons, luck, and hotties in their laps all the livelong day and then, when they die, they’ll get their own castles and pitchforks and get to join the endless torture party. They’re the ones I feel sorry for. Haven’t they figured out that Lucifer cares even less about his flock than God cares about His? Some of these nitwits have actually met Lucifer and he treated them like expired meat.
Career devil worshippers are Dungeons & Dragons freaks that never grew up and still believe that if they had just one superpower they’d be the belles of the ball or prom king. On the one hand, I want to FedEx them hot cocoa and a pile of self-help books. And on the other hand, I want to use them ruthlessly for whatever I can squeeze out of their service bottom carcasses. Maybe when I have more time, I can play Dr. Phil and get them to do an honest inventory of their collective psychoses. Right now, though, I’m on a timetable and I don’t have time for tea and sympathy. Maybe the best thing I can do is show them what Hell is really like. Make them copy the entire
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