Chapter Sixteen

Reverend Cyrus Evander Milton had just had the single worst night of his entire life. His morning was not shaping up to be any better, either. In fact, he was quite certain that the morning would, if anything, be worse than the night before had been. After all, the night before, he’d been able to hide in his room, and no one else would have to know there was a knee height demon named Nubbins following him around to make certain that Reverend Milton would make it to Hell when he died.

Which, by the way, he didn’t really care for anyone else to know about.

Unfortunately, Grace came to his room later that morning, as she always did, to get him moving and on to the next destination on schedule. She knocked on the door to his hotel suite. When he didn’t answer, she knocked again, louder.

“You might as well get that,” Nubbins said. “People will start to wonder what’s up with the guy living in the presidential suite and never emerging after a couple of months. It might look bad.”

So, since Reverend Milton couldn’t come up with a better plan, he went to the door and let Grace in. He steeled himself for her shriek of terror when she got in to the room and saw Nubbins sitting in one of the easy chairs, smoking a Parliament Light and drinking the little bottles of liquor from the mini-bar.

She didn’t scream. In fact, she didn’t notice Nubbins at all. She did notice the smell of tobacco smoke, and mentioned she would complain to the hotel’s manager about the smell in Reverend Milton’s room.
“It’s like someone is still smoking in here,” she said.

She also noticed Reverend Milton hadn’t packed yet.

“What the fuck? Do you expect me to start packing your dirty underwear for you now too? Because you aren’t paying me that much, so I’m not going to,” she said.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, uh, I didn’t sleep well at all. Woke up late. I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten minutes, I swear,” Reverend Milton said.

“Ten minutes, or I’m going to come up here and drag you to the car, packed or not,” Grace said, and left.

Reverend Milton looked at Nubbins, who had just cracked another tiny bottle of Johnny Walker and put it to his lips.

“How come she didn’t see you?” he asked the little demon.

“Because she wasn’t fucking expecting to, didn’t want to, and more importantly because I didn’t want her to see me. She’s already figured out her own little path to Hell, you think I’m going to let her see me, prove there is indeed a Hell, and set her on the straight and narrow path again? Fuck that, it’s bad enough my bosses sent me here to deal with you, I don’t need another fuck up on my record to make them consider giving me some really shitty jobs,” Nubbins said.

“Now pack your shit, we need to get you out on the road again. Your public awaits,” the little demon said, and winked at him again.

Because he couldn’t come up with a better idea, Cyrus Evander Milton packed
his bag, double checked all the drawers, cabinets and closets in the suite as he always did, checked his hair in the mirror to make sure he didn’t look too crazy (Crazy? Of course he was crazy. There was a god damned demon smoking recessed filter cigarettes and drinking little bottles of whiskey on his room’s tab. On the crazy scale, he had to be getting pretty god damned close to Charlie fucking Manson eating a big fucking bowl of Fruit Loops.), grabbed his bag and strode out of the room.

The little demon followed about three paces behind him, taking about three steps for every one of his. The Reverend and the demon got on the elevator to the lobby along with a couple of self-important looking businessmen. Once the doors were closed and the elevator had started its descent, Nubbins farted. This was not a quiet, accidental fart. No, Nubbins let rip with a long, loud, eye-wateringly powerful blast. The businessmen both looked at Reverend Milton, who did his best to pretend he hadn’t noticed.

Had one of them commented, he would have had to resort to saying “He who smelt it, dealt it,” since the businessmen probably would not have taken the news that a knee high demon named Nubbins had farted solely to make him look bad.

Luckily, they just shook their heads, and tried to hold their breath for the rest of the trip.

The elevator was mercifully quick, and the two businessmen practically shoved each other out of the way in their attempt to get out of the foul smelling little room.

Grace was waiting for the Reverend on one of the couches in the hotel lobby. She had already checked him out of his room, and the car was waiting in front of the hotel to whisk the Reverend and Grace on to the next city. Nubbins was looking forward to the trip, though he didn’t show it outwardly. It had been ages since he’d been top-side, so to speak, and he was looking forward to seeing the new delights available to him. He had heard good things about a common eatery called McDonalds, and specifically about something called a Big Mac. The food in Hell was awful, so it was always nice to get a break and try something new.

He was also looking forward to accompanying the Reverend to a strip club. And the Reverend would indeed be going to a strip club - many of them - while Nubbins was around. If not, well, there would be hell to pay.

The hotel’s bellhop loaded Reverend Milton and Grace’s luggage into the car, a large, black Cadillac. The Reverend’s driver opened the back door and helped Grace into the car, then ran around to the other side and let the Reverend in to the other back door. Nubbins slipped into the car unnoticed by the bellhop, driver and Grace. He clambered up in to the front seat and made himself comfortable.

Nubbins thought cars were pretty neat. Not only were they fun to ride in, but oh the sins that were committed in and because of automobiles. The only thing in the world responsible for more sins and atrocities was pussy. And maybe religion.