Page 29 of Interior Design for Demons
A minute for my brain to register that my name wasn’t called, that I’m not standing, I’m sitting down.
Which means I’m safe.
Apollyon’s gaze pulls mine, a tug that’s magnetic, almost tangible, and when our eyes lock he smiles faintly and gives me the slightest nod.
Rath leans down, tugging my arm. I rise mechanically and follow him off the stage. This time we exit by a different door. There’s a lounge beyond it where a couple of demons ask us questions—how do we feel about passing the first round, etc. etc. I stammer through some expression of delight and then sink onto a couch, my eyes trained on the big screen on the wall. The screen shows the stage, and the five remaining competitors—one of whom will be dead within minutes.
Charlie Wentworth is one of them.
And so is Linnea.
“Can we hear what they’re saying?” I ask of no one in particular. The demons who interviewed us are looking at the footage they got, and the sponsor demons have gathered by the bar at the back of the lounge, drinking noisily to the success of their respective contestants. Rath glowers in the corner, swirling amber liquid in his glass.
My fellow contestants seem paralyzed with relief, so finally I rise and inspect the screen on the wall. It’s like a regular TV, but I can’t find buttons anywhere, and there’s no remote. “Volumeup,” I order it experimentally, but nothing happens.
A motion from Rath’s corner catches my eye—he twitches his fingers at the TV, and suddenly there’s audio. Linnea is explaining her design choices in calm tones that tremble only slightly. After a couple minutes she’s cut off and dismissed to her seat again.
Next up is Charlie Wentworth, who babbles incoherently about “traditional Hell vibes” and “demon aesthetic.”
“And you think this is who we are?” Ishtar asks him, her red lips curling with derision. “Cave walls with blood dripping down them? Spiked desks on which we will scrape our shins every day?”
Charlie stammers, then says, “That other designer put acoffinin her office and you letherthrough!”
Oh, he didnotjust try to throw me under the bus. Suddenly I have way less sympathy for him.
The big judge, the one who looks stony in his demon form, speaks up. “But she styled it as a bookcase. She gave it an up-to-date, modern look. When I see your design, I’m thrown backward a few thousand years, and that wasn’t the assignment. The assignment was anewHell. A fresh Hell, if you will.”
“Sit down, Mr. Wentworth,” says the third judge. In human form they are androgynous, with short blue hair, two-toned violet eyes, and freckles sprinkled over their skin.
Charlie Wentworth voices a shrill laugh and returns to his chair with a defiant shrug.
“Now it’s time for us to make the choice,” says Ishtar. “Who goes on in this competition, and who goes to their eternal doom?” She gives the crowd a moment to roar the names of their favorites, and then she says, “Amanda, Trey, and Linnea. Please stand.”
They rise, and I bite my knuckle in an agony of suspense.
“The three of you are safe. You may go,” says Ishtar, and I shout for joy, clasping Aghilas in a fierce hug. He laughs, hugging me back, and when Linnea walks in I spring for her, clasping her tight. My eyes are oozing tears, but I blink them away just in time to see Ishtar raise one arm high above her head, her finger pointing straight up. There are two contestants remaining—Charlie and another man—I think his name is Maksim.
With a derisive smile that belies how much she’s enjoying this, Ishtar swings her arm downward—slowly, slowly—until it is pointing right at Charlie.
“Charlie Wentworth,” she says. “You have been eliminated.”
Charlie starts shaking his head. He’s crying, begging, “No, no, no, please—”
The other contestant, Maksim, is hustled off-stage by his sponsor.
“In each round,” says Ishtar, “elimination will involve the lengthy and torturous separation of the human subject’s soul from their body, each time in a different way. For round one, we’ve chosen a classic repossession, in honor of our revered elder Mephistopheles and his most famous target, Doctor Faustus.”
The crowd surges with riotous approval. With a thunderclap, three bat-winged demons appear, oily black with red talons and hunched shoulders, their teeth and eyes glittering. They form a triangle, closing in on Charlie as he writhes panicked in his chair, screaming. A wet spot spreads across the front of his pants, and the demon audience jeers.
I can’t watch this. I don’t want to hear this. Desperate, I meet Rath’s eyes. “Please turn it off.”
He slow-blinks at me and takes a deep swig from his glass. The demons are nearly upon Charlie now.
“Rath, please.”
With a final bitter glare, he stalks out of the lounge.
The bat-winged demons are sinking their claws into Charlie, and his screams are turning to gurgles.
