A Diabolical Scheme

The hubbub in the boardroom hushed when the manifestation started.

Above the long table, tendrils of smoke appeared from nowhere. Disregarding the law of gravity, the limbs stretched in all directions before curling around their centre to form a dozen dark spirals. They flicked, resembling the swish of a fish’s tail, and the central mass began to spin. The speed increased until there was nothing but a rotating blur. From the midst of the maelstrom, a green-irised eye glared. It was joined by another, then a third, a fourth. Soon, the miniature tornado became a hundred blood-shot eyeballs, each staring in a different direction.

At the head of the table, a tall figure rose. Words issued from a face etched with disgust.

‘Culprost, you are late.’

‘Soz, boss,’ Culprost said, then dropped to the table and slimed its way to an empty chair. Once seated, it turned six of its eyes to the speaker. ‘Carry on, Scrixtsos.’

‘I have called you here today, lust-ladies and gruesomemen…’

He was interrupted by a scattering of ahems from the audience.

Scrixtsos started again. ‘I have called you here today, lust-ladies, gruesomemen and beings of an indeterminate, varying or unidentified gender…’ Eleven mouths smiled at his inclusion, a good result considering there were only nine bodies in the room. ‘…to discuss the ineptitude of those who govern our exalted lands.’

He stepped back and to the side, allowing the others to gaze through the floor-to-ceiling windows. A landscape of black and red, of shadow and furnace. Fires raged at myriad points. Winged creatures swept through the smoke-charred sky. A lake danced with bright blue flames.

There was a collection of ahhs from the gathered demons, their black hearts warmed by the sight of home.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Scrixtsos impatiently as he returned to his seat, ‘it’s all very pretty. But this plane could be so much more. There should be rivers of blood and mountains of bone. Our entertainment should come from the crushing of endless victims not the infighting of petty demons. And who do we have to blame for this pitiful state of affairs our Hell has descended into?’

The demons looked to one another, none wanting to be the first to cast aspersions at their Unholy Master. Finally, a creature which appeared to be formed from broken pieces of black glass leaned forward.

‘We shouldn’t really blame anybody,’ Jikwan said, its voice brittle and cutting. ‘Instead, we should seek to identify the problem and find a fitting solution which benefits all parties invol-’

Jikwan stopped as each shard which made up its body began to vibrate. Cracks formed on every surface of its seven limbs and chest. Fragments of it broke away, floating in the air instead of falling to the ground. As more of Jikwan disintegrated, the gathering dust of its particles drifted to the head of the table.

Scrixtsos’s chest swelled as he breathed in, inhaling the remains of Jikwan through his nostrils. ‘We will blame,’ he said, in a tone which could chill the bones of a month-old corpse, and indeed had on more than one occasion, ‘whoever I decide we shall blame.’

The demons nodded their agreement emphatically. Even those without heads made valiant attempts.

‘It is none other than the Lord of Lies,’ Scrixtsos continued, ‘the Lightbringer, the great Lucifer himself who bears responsibility for the stagnancy of our kingdom. On his shoulders alone lies the cause of our decline.’

More assent came from the assembly, until Culprost, its eyes looking anywhere but directly at Scrixtsos, said, ‘But… erm… why, exactly, is he to blame?’ The demons closest to the mass of eyeballs shuffled away from it.

‘Look again onto our noble world,’ Scrixtsos answered, ‘and tell me what is missing.’

The demons once again turned to the windows. A pitch sky loomed over the scarlet land. The screams of the tormented drifted on the scorched breeze.

Garglenash gave a gentle cough and raised one of his hands. As his arms included five elbows, the motion took a while.

‘Roasting pits?’ he said.

‘Got ‘em,’ said Rastur from under the table. ‘East side of Mean Street.’

‘Spittum and Cookum,’ said Orange, naming the fast food joint. ‘Best place for warm meat.’ Orange, the only Jewish demon in Hell, knew all the eateries even though none served kosher food.

‘A working post office?’ Appoxta hissed around her flicking tongue. She was one half of a two-headed snake which was coiled in an office chair. The double-ended tail, currently resting on the table, idly twitched once in a while.

‘There isn’t a working post office anywhere in the universe,’ Eppoxti said. ‘Why would we want one here?’

Appoxta turned sharply on her brother. ‘There you go again. Always demeaning my suggestions.’

‘I wasn’t demeaning you,’ Eppoxti defended. ‘I was only pointing out-’

‘Oh, so now you’re correcting me,’ Appoxta said, cutting him off. She sprang into a tirade, recalling multiple examples of when her brother belittled her. Unable to get a word in edgeways, Eppoxti resorted to a time honoured sibling tradition – violence. He shot forward and sank his fangs into the tail in front of him.

Appoxta’s chatter stopped immediately, quickly replaced by a gleeful chuckle as Eppoxti’s eyes widened.

‘Hah,’ Appoxta laughed. ‘Got the wrong tail.’

Before Eppoxti could release his bite, the skin of the entangled serpents sizzled back, flesh and sinew evaporated and bones crumbled into an ashy mess which stained the carpet. All eyes turned back to Scrixtsos.

‘We appear to be getting off track,’ Scrixtsos said with a sigh. ‘I will tell you what is missing. This is Hell. The land of lost souls. The depths into which sinners are cast. Eternal night and endless damnation.’ Realising his audience were not following, he added, ‘So where are the damned?’

All eyes turned back to the windows.

‘In the fires at Argletarn.’

‘Under the pillars of Lar’nark.’

‘Tied to the Talneer’s wheels.’

Scrixtsos’s wings beat in irritation. ‘Yes, yes, the place is full of damned souls,’ he conceded. ‘What I meant was: where are the new damned?’

Four blank faces looked at him. This didn’t include Rastur, who refused to be seen by more than one entity at a time, or Culprost and Ah-bak’us, who did not possess such features, but he could sense they were as confused as their brethren. Or sistren or enbyren, Scrixtsos hastily added to himself.

‘How many years has it been since we had in induction of new souls?’ he said.

Ah-bak’us rose to the challenge. Looking directly at Ah-bak’us hurt even a demon’s mind. It was a cube with at least seventeen planes, each surface displaying a multitude of taut tendons along which crawled clumps of unidentified meat – whether flesh, muscle or gristle, Scrixtsos had never taken the time to look closely enough. Offal move quickly along various sinews as Ah-bak’us calculated the answer. Once finished, it communicated by vibrating its tendons. As unpleasing as it was to the eye, its voice was one of the most melodious in all of Hell.

‘It has been four hundred and seventy-eight thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six hours since a new arrival,’ Ah-bak’us sang.

The expressions of the demons, already frightful, creased into new tableaus of horror as they contemplated the maths required to convert the number into years. Scrixtsos found this pitiful as advanced mathematics had been invented in Hell.

‘A long time,’ he said to the relief of the others. He would have announced the exact date but leap years confused him. He was not sure if the addition of an extra day every four years had been introduced by his own kind or was the product of their opposition designed to sow confusion and, ultimately, make demons late for Halloween.

‘Why is that?’ Culprost asked.

‘That’s what we’re doing here,’ Scrixtsos said. ‘Trying to determine the reason and to fix it.’

‘There are no more good intentions,’ Garglenash offered.

Scrixtsos cocked his head and said, ‘What?’

‘It’s a well-known fact,’ Garglenash explained, ‘that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If there are no more good intentions, it stands to reason that the pathway no longer exists.’

The crowd muttered some ayes of agreement. Culprost bristled.

‘They’re not making fun of you,’ Scrixtsos told it, easing the eye-ball demon’s tension. To Garglenash, he said, ‘The adage is a metaphor. You should know that the way to Hell is not physical, but spiritual.’

He raised a palm toward Garglenash. The multi-jointed demon was dragged from his seat and thrust toward Scrixtsos. As he reached Scrixtsos’s open hand, he did not stop but ploughed into the larger demon dissolving into the red-skinned arm. With an idle flick of the wrist, Scrixtsos shook several globules of malodorous ichor from his palm – all that remained of Garglenash.

To the room in general, he said, ‘There is neither path nor road to Hell. No amount of potholes or roadworks can deny entry.’

The mouth on Tasqueladre’s left hand beamed while the one on her right hand said, ‘Roadworks. I came up with them.’

‘If I may add,’ Orange said, ‘my tuppence worth? It seems the problem lies on Earth. The mortals there no longer think their eternal souls are on the brink. If we’re to find some sweet relief, we must, in them, restore belief.’

Scrixtsos drummed the table with his fingers as he considered this. ‘Humans are no longer coming here because they’ve stopped believing in Hell. Is that what you’re suggesting, Orange?’

The demon’s scaly lips quivered in frustration. If it had more than one eye, they would have been crossed in perplexed thought.

‘That would be my guess,’ Rastur supplied.

‘And I would say yes,’ Orange exhaled gratefully.

A chorus of cheers filled the room.

‘The riddle solved,’ Orange said over the clamour, ‘we found its heart. Now from this room we can depart.’

The volume increased as demons got to their feet or tentacles. They began to congratulate each other on a successful meeting as they shuffled toward the exit.

‘A-hem.’ Scrixtsos spoke the word clearly. He had never got the hang of the polite can-I-get-your-attention cough. The other demons stopped and turned to him. ‘We may have identified the problem but we have yet to reach a solution.’

He fixed his gaze on Orange.

Orange’s large eye blinked rapidly. ‘Is this the end?’ he asked. ‘Is this my luck?’ His words faltered as he began to shrink. Once a towering eight-foot hulk of a monster, he compressed to the size of a modest human in mere moments.

‘I was your friend,’ he screeched, the pitch rising as his body lowered still. He was waist height when he said, ‘you dev’lish-’ The final word was so high only bats could hear it. He descended past knee height, ten inches, an inch, a tiny mote. He grew so small he was no longer visible by the naked eye, yet still his presence lingered. Even an atom-sized demon holds enough dread to be felt by those in the surrounding area.

Then there was an almost imperceptible pop of air filling a minuscule vacuum and Orange was gone.

‘Shall we?’ Scrixtsos said, gesturing to the conference table.

With heavy shoulders, or other anatomical parts which could relay the same emotion, the demons slouched back to the conference table.

‘So we have to get humans to believe in Hell again?’ Culprost said. A score of its eyes stared into nothing, reminiscent of the inmates of a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane.

‘Yes,’ said Scrixtsos, glad the conversation was moving on.

‘How do we do that?’

‘Let’s brainstorm the idea,’ Scrixtsos answered.

‘I like that,’ Rastur said from under the table. ‘Hundreds of grey lumps of meat pummelling down on the cities.’

‘It’s too ostentatious,’ Ah-bak’us sang. ‘The humans would not believe it had happened.’

‘And even if they did they wouldn’t care,’ Sirenna added as she demurely tucked her hair behind an ear. Of all the demons in Hell, she was one of the few that could walk the Earth unnoticed. Or rather, she could walk the Earth without causing panic and madness. She would certainly be noticed. Her luxurious waist-length hair; her perfectly symmetrical features; her large water-blue eyes; the seductive shape of her plump lips; the curves of her bosom, hips and buttocks; her toned muscles and lithe stomach – all these were designed to fill those around her with lust and lasciviousness.

‘To make them fear for their immortal souls,’ she continued, ‘we need to threaten something they hold dear. Brains are not high on that list.’

‘Then we must raise our game,’ Scrixtsos said. ‘What are the top three items on that list?’

As one, all five demons said, ‘Money, fame and sex.’

‘What if,’ said Sirenna, ‘we make it so anyone having extramarital sex gets a horrid disease?’

Scrixtsos shrugged. ‘They’ve had that for centuries but it doesn’t stop them.’

‘I don’t mean spots and pox,’ Sirenna continued, ‘but something truly vile. Say, the body swells to horrendous proportions. Or, within the year, they are haunted by stinking, wailing goblins that rob them of all energy and the ability to think straight.’

Silence fell on the room as the others considered this nightmare. Eventually, Ah-bak’us trilled: ‘I think you’re talking about babies. Humans love them.’

‘No,’ Sirenna persisted. ‘These sprites will plague the humans for life. A constant source of pain, stress and embarrassment.’

‘Well, that’s just children of any age,’ Culprost said and the other demons muttered their agreement.

‘Your idea,’ Scrixtsos growled, ‘is that sex, an act for which the sole purpose is the propagation of the species, should be punished by more humans?’

Sirenna fluttered her eyelashes at him and cast him a coy grin that would turn the most devout holy man into a gibbering, crazed womaniser. Scrixtsos was neither a man nor holy.

Her hair began to lift and waft around as though she were underwater. It grew rapidly, lengthening to several metres in seconds. Seemingly possessed with a life of its own, the hair curled around Sirenna, caressing her waist, encircling her arms, exploring her mouth. It continued to wrap around her, probe into her, until all that was visible was a mummy of glossy blonde hair.

Sirenna convulsed a couple of times before falling lifeless into her chair. Throughout it all, her moans and cries were disturbingly arousing.

‘Sex is off the table,’ Scrixtsos said, moving the conversation along. ‘What about fame?’

‘What is it about fame that is so alluring?’ Tasqueladre asked.

‘It’s all about being well-known,’ Culprost explained. ‘Being recognised.’

‘I couldn’t think of anything worse,’ Rastur muttered, rocking the table as he shuddered in his hiding place.

‘And those who are famous,’ Tasqueladre continued, ‘have influence over the unknowns?’

‘Yes,’ Culprost confirmed.

‘So if we could tempt one Famous, we could have them ensnare all of their… What’s the correct word? Un-famous? In-famous?’

‘Must be un-famous,’ Scrixtsos said. ‘We are the infamous. What do you have in mind, Tasqueladre?’

‘We could get a Famous to give bad advice to their fans. Maybe promote eating disorders or prescribe a made-up religion.’

‘Seen it done,’ Culprost said. ‘Both of them.’

‘Okay,’ Tasqueladre rallied. ‘Then maybe we get a bunch of Famouses to argue amongst themselves, causing widespread bitterness, hatred and fear. They could even have the unknowns fight one another in their name.’

‘There’s a word for that,’ Scrixtsos said.

‘Inspired?’ Tasqueladre suggested. ‘Genius?’

‘Politician,’ he answered angrily.

Tasqueladre’s eyes, one set above her nose, the other below it, widened in fear. Tendons in her neck stood out, the only sign she was attempting to resist. Her arms rose to each side of her head, a whimpering sound coming from the mouth in her left palm.

‘Please, no,’ her right mouth began but her words stopped as she bit down on her ear. Sharp teeth tore away the cartilage, chewed and swallowed quickly before gorging into her temple. Within seconds, her whole head was gone, devoured by her own hands.

Scrixtsos did not stop there. He willed Tasqueladre’s hands to roam her body, eating away every ounce of flesh they encountered. Soon enough, all that remained were two hands, snapping ferociously as they circled one another on spry fingers. After one hand – the left – proved its dominance and feasted on its counterpart, Scrixtsos looked away. The final piece of Tasqueladre winked out of existence in an instant.

‘Politicians, yes,’ Culprost said as four dozen of its eyes tried not to look at the place Tasqueladre had been. ‘The most devious, self-centred collection of people outside of Hell.’

It was widely held that politics was one of the more insidious concoctions of Hell, though none could say from where the idea originally sprang. The general consensus was that, despite the denizens of Hell being wicked to the core, no demon would ever lay claim to the full horror that politics had beset on Earth.

‘Which leaves us,’ Scrixtsos said, ‘with money. How can we turn that to our advantage?’

‘We could remove all their money overnight,’ Culprost suggested.

‘There would be worldwide panic,’ Rastur said. ‘Brother would turn on brother. Empires would fall.’

‘Or it would be the end of capitalism,’ Ah-bak’us trilled. ‘No more greedy conglomerates, no rich fat cats. The one percent population would be equal to the rest of humankind. A person’s worth would be measured by their contribution to the maintenance of society. Commerce would rely on the trade of grown goods and quality services. It may lead to a fairer and happier world.’

‘I do not want fairer and happier,’ Scrixtsos boomed. He glared at Ah-bak’us and flexed a finger. Its closest plane shuddered and one of its tendons snapped, depositing eight gristly lumps onto the table. Scrixtsos moved more of his fingers, resembling a mad pianist performing a high-tempo piece.

Three sides of Ah-bak’us, squares of bone and sinew, contorted into circles. The tendons that had lain parallel twisted together, vibrating a perfectly pitched, ‘Argh.’ Clumps of flesh melded into one, extending from the surface into a long, flat muscle. Accompanied with more melodies of pain, grey feathers sprouted.

On the far side of Ah-bak’us, another wing blossomed. Between and above them, seven surfaces rose up into the shape of a small head. Beady eyes appeared at the sides of a pointed, black beak. At the lower end of the demon, two pink protuberances broke through, each branching into four separate growths. Dark claws crested the end of each toe.

No longer a more-than-nine-sided cube, Ah-bak’us the pigeon rose into the air and circled the room urgently. It sought escape by swooping for the outside – and bounced off the window. Unperturbed, it flew into the glass again and again and again until only a feathery smear remained.

Turning back to the remaining two demons, Scrixtsos said, ‘We leave them with money, then.’

‘What if we give them more money?’ Culprost ventured. The fear it felt was visible in each twitching eye and the tremble in its voice. When nobody responded, it added, ‘But we make it invisible. And we hide it in… I don’t know, really cramped places. Somewhere only an electron would fit.’

‘Go on,’ Scrixtsos said.

‘People would spend weeks, months, looking for it, mining it, saving it up, only to find out that it’s not real currency. The despondency would surely drive them to us.’

‘It’s good in theory,’ Rastur said, ‘but Bitcoin is already legal tender in El Salvador.’

‘Take their money, give them money,’ Scrixtsos snarled as he glowered at Culprost. It was not easy maintaining eye-contact with a hundred-eyed demon. Scrixtsos decided to pick one eyeball into which he could focus all his malcontent.

Sweat dribbled from Culprost, stinging its eyes and dripping onto the table. As more moisture left the demon’s body, many of its eyes dehydrated and sank into their sockets. More sweat poured and more eyeballs shrivelled. Soon the pool before it was larger than the remaining mass of Culprost.

‘I-’ was the last word it said before the final eye dried up and Culprost fell into its collected perspiration, sending beads of salty liquid splashing onto Scrixtsos.

With a scowl of impatience, Scrixtsos raised his body temperature and evaporated the dregs of Culprost from his skin.

‘So there is nothing,’ he seethed through clenched jaws, ‘that humans hold dear which they have not already tainted? Nothing we can corrupt to lead them back to these despicable pits?’

Rastur crawled out from under the table, a crisp silhouette of every child’s nightmare.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, his voice echoing from the depths of his blackness, ‘there is a darker truth we must face.’

‘That we could take lessons from humans on how to craft such exquisite evils?’ Scrixtsos asked, unable to hide his irritation.

‘More dreadful than that,’ Rastur said. ‘We must consider the possibility that Hell will never complete its goal of total dominion over humankind.’

Scrixtsos could not suppress the shudder that issued from his core.

‘So it will be,’ Rastur continued, ‘until we can learn to scheme as a collective without the tryst descending into the mindless killing of one another.’

Scrixtsos turned his smouldering eyes on the shadow.