Chapter Seven

To be a damned soul in Hell was bad. This is a bit of an understatement, but it is important to appreciate that even in Hell, things can always be worse. Yes, having your soul cast into the lake of fire, being tortured with whips and other devices intended to break your spirit and cause unbearable suffering was very, very unpleasant. There are few indeed who claim to have a good time in Hell.

But it can be worse.

You could, for example, be a demon instead of a mere damned soul. A soul is insubstantial. A soul in a pit of boiling pitch certainly suffered from the heat, and felt the stinging pain of a whip with barbed ends, but this torture was only psychological. A soul released from Hell – rare, but it happens – is whole and undamaged.

A demon, on the other hand, suffers the same torments, but has flesh to burn and injure. An injured demon, even outside of Hell, is an injured demon until it heals.

And on top of all that, demons all have jobs, tasks they are assigned to accomplish. And the office politics in Hell are, well, diabolical. A demon can turn more souls than any other demon in his regiment and still watch another demon, one better at positioning himself, ascend into a higher rank over and over. One had to deal with this while contending with the admittedly unpleasant living conditions in Hell, and generally risky assignments given to lower-ranking demons.

Incidentally, never complain about your job to a demon.

In a cold, wet cave reeking of mildew and sulphur, a very small, grey demon rolled over in his nest and tried to muster enough energy to get out of bed. The tiny demon was ancient, even by hell’s standards, though one could not tell by simply looking at him. He had tempted more souls into hell than almost any of the other demons. He had caused wars. He had caused natural disasters, plagues and mass murders.

The Crusades? His idea.

His name, as most of the names in Hell are, is unimportant since we could not hope to pronounce or even understand it. Maybe we could if we had a couple more jaws and an extra tongue. At any rate, even the other demons did not call him by his true name.

The tiny demon, who had accomplished so much, who had brought so much evil upon the world, who had tormented thousands of souls for eons, was known by everyone as Nubbins.

And for this reason, he was unable to ascend beyond the middle ranks of Hell.

The tiny demon Nubbins groaned and sat up. Although he would never admit it to another demon, he was pretty tired of the run of the mill tormentings and possessions he had been assigned to lately. He knew better than to openly criticize his bosses, but the fact of the matter was tempting priests into doing unspeakable things just wasn’t that hard. It never had been. Nubbins wanted some new challenges. Maybe he could tempt an idealistic young charity worker to take advantage of those entrusted to his or her care. He wanted to start wars again. He wanted to corrupt the incorruptible.

Nubbins was about to be disappointed.

He stood up, splashed a bit of brackish water in his face from a recess in one of his cave walls, and emerged from his cave.

Souls shackled to sharp lava rock walls wailed as he walked glumly past them. He heard the whistling of whips and grinding of gears, and he could smell the odd sweet-sulphur smell of the souls burning in the lake of fire.

Before long, the demon above him appeared by his side. His superior had deep red skin, long, sharp teeth and wicked yellow eyes. His horns were long and black. He chuckled, and Nubbins braced himself for another bad assignment.