Page 47 of Fiends and Familiars
Lucien nodded. “He’s right. Six witches complaining that we screwed up a contract, illegally collected a soul, and then preemptively silenced a whistleblower…Grandfather might decide this half of the family business isn’t being managed properly.”
Smoke poured from Satan’s ears. “I don’t give a damn what he thinks. This ismybusiness. It’s not his any longer. It’s mine. I might have agreed to a complaint procedure and joint investigative processes, but he’ll get hell back when he pries it from my cold dead hands!”
I stepped forward, sensing this was my cue. “If I may, Lord Satan. I have a proposed solution to this mess—one that will keep it all hidden away like it should be. All we need to do is make sure the whistleblower witch is happy and satisfied with the solution and she’ll agree not to lodge a complaint.”
Satan pursed his lips in thought. “Will she be satisfied, though? And her sisters? Iwouldlike to be able to see my grandchildren someday.”
“I believe she will accept the solution I’m about to propose. And in the end, we will get everything we are owed. We just need to be patient.”
Unlike Abraxas, I thought.
Lucien and I waited, surrounded by my hellhounds, as Satan picked up his drink and drained the contents, throwing the empty glass into the pool of lava. I wondered what else was churning around melted in that pool? Books? Cell phones? A half-eaten sandwich?
“Tell me, Typhon,” Satan finally said. “Tell me your solution to this damned mess.”
I took a breath, knowing he wasn’t going to like it. Hopefully he liked the alternative that Lucien had laid out for him even less.
“The witch will want a formal apology from Abraxas, and her house restored to its former condition.” I held up a hand to let Satan know I wasn’t done. “She’ll want Faust resurrected and allowed to live out his normal squirrel lifetime without harassment from hell’s minions.”
“I can’t do that!” Satan blustered. “I don’t know who resurrected him as a squirrel the first time or how they did it. Demons can’t do that. I can’t do that.”
I nodded. “I know. I’m going to propose something different to the witch that I’m sure she will find acceptable. She’s quite fond of my hellhounds. If we offer to make Faust a hellhound, a member of hell as opposed to just a damned soul, I’m sure it will satisfy her.”
Satan scowled. “But he needs to be punished. We may have screwed up his contract, but Faust still owes us an eternity of punishment.”
“We won’t get any of that if she lodges a complaint,” I pointed out. “Hellhounds might be denizens of hell, but they have demanding responsibilities. And they are not immune from punishment. Any demon who screws up suffers the consequences, even a hellhound.”
Lucien nodded. “Even me. Faust will have an eternity of difficult work. It’s not quite what we had planned for him, but it’s better than the very real chance that he might escape us forever and that we’ll be buried in paperwork and committee meetings for thousands of years.”
Satan shuddered. “True. Okay, let’s propose the solution to the witch. Typhon, you make damned sure she happily takes the offer because I don’t think I can budge any further on this matter. I’ll release Faust’s soul to you immediately for transformation, as a show of good faith. As soon as she agrees, I’ll have Abraxas go to her house with a group of his staff to apologize and fix her house. Typhon, you’ll oversee the repairs to make sure they are complete and to the witch’s satisfaction. And afterward…” Satan’s eyes glowed once more, “afterward I’ll punish Abraxas for bringing all of this to our doorstep.”
The leader of hell waved a hand, dismissing us. Lucien and I turned and walked out, my pack of hellhounds following us. I left Lucien behind, heading out of Satan’s residence and upward, taking a slight detour along the way.
Abraxas was supervising the punishment of those souls who ran dog-fighting rings. Demons stood around the edge of a pit, cheering as the damned scrambled naked in the mud, fighting each other with bare hands and their dulled teeth. Abraxas turned to look at me, a cocky grin.
I punched that smile right off his face, taking out a few of the demon’s teeth in the process. Then I picked him up and threw him into the pit with the damned. “If you ever touch my witch, if you even look at her, I’ll kill you.”
Abraxas screamed in fury, spitting blood and a few other teeth. “You’re just jealous, Typhon. You’re jealous that I’m the one who got Faust while you sat around with your thumb up your ass. I’m in Satan’s favor. I’m in Satan’s favor and you’re not.”
I walked away, knowing that very soon he’d realize that the favor he’d worked so hard to gain had been very short-lived.
Then I smiled and went to claim my newest hellhound.
