Satan Loves You (30 page)

Vendors made their way up and down the stairs, selling Styrofoam “We’re Number One!” fingers, Glo-Stiks, Glow-in-the-Dark necklaces, cups of beer and nachos. Angels and demons didn’t need to eat, but it gave them a rush and the night of the Ultimate Death Match was one of the few times they were all ready to give in and put up with the next day’s tummy trouble in order to whip themselves up into a frenzy.

But tonight was different. Beer and nachos were selling like salvation to the angels, all packed into one side of the Arena. The angels were ecstatic, of course, anticipating their victory and getting an early start on their celebrations. On the other side of the arena, not a single cup of beer was sold. The demons were depressed and uncomfortable in their tight, tiny, red devil suits that no one had thought to measure. Angels patrolled the aisles like wardens. Mirth was not encouraged. Frivolity was not allowed. The demons were there to lose.

From the North Corner Sky Box, the princes of heaven looked down on the packed Arena. They could hear the rumble of the crowd, even here behind their double-glazed glass window. Metatron was pacing the room.

“It will be unique to finally experience victory,” he said. “I must admit that I am terribly excited to taste it. They say the taste of victory is unforgettable. I remember once when – ”

“Would someone shut him up and bring me another bucket of wine,” Barachiel growled. He was already getting his party on.

From his corner, Phanuel chimed in agreement. About Metatron shutting up, not about the wine.

“I was only trying to share my experiences,” Metatron huffed.

“Do you still think that this is wise?” Jegudiel asked Barachiel.

“You’ve been whining since the moment Michael first showed some balls,” Barachiel said. “It’s time for you to shut up, too.”

“There is a balance to Creation,” Jegudiel said. “Having a monopoly on the afterlife seems to me to be an invitation for trouble.”

“They haven’t invented a kind of trouble that I can’t beat,” Barachiel said.

“I fear we are asking for repercussions,” Jegudiel said. “Ones we are not prepared to handle.”

“Yeah,” Barachiel said. “Fear. That’s all you ever think about. Well tonight, for once, there’s no room for fear. We’re going to win.”

“Have I ever told you about the time that I finally categorized all the different types of fear?” Metatron said from his corner. “There were over three thousand five hundred and fifty-eight. It was quite fascinating, really...”

In Heaven’s locker room, Raphael was giving Michael a rubdown. The archangel was sprawled facedown on a padded table with his enormous wings outstretched so that the tips of their primary feathers brushed the ceiling. Raphael rubbed ambrosia into Michael’s powerful, corded muscles while Gabriel walked a figure eight in the far corner, hunched over his cell phone, wrapping up last minute details.

“Mmmf mf mf mft?” Michael said, from where he lay facedown on the table.

“What?” Gabriel asked.

Michael lifted his head.

“Are they here yet?” he repeated.

Gabriel held up a finger.

“Uh huh,” he said into his phone. “Okay.”

Then he hung up.

“They just came in,” he said. “They’re in their locker room now.”

“I am satisfied,” Michael said. “ How do they look?”

“The angels at the gate said they look pretty straggly.”

“Is the Fallen One with them?”

“No,” Gabriel said.

“Where is he?”

“We still can’t find him.”

“He can hinder our plans no more,” Michael said. “But I do not like loose ends. We should tie this up as quickly as possible.”

“I’m on it,” Gabriel said.

“See that you are,” Michael said, and put his face back down on the table. Then he lifted it once more. “Gabriel, never raise your finger to me again. When I ask a question I expect an immediate answer.”

“Yes, my lord,” Gabriel said, and he bit down on the anger that squirmed in the pit of his stomach. It was better to be a king in Hell...it was better to be a king in Hell...it was better to be a king in Hell...

Hell’s locker room hadn’t been cleaned since the night before and four laundry bins were stuffed to overflowing with damp, mildewing, sweat-saturated game uniforms. Three of the fluorescent tubes were out and one was flickering maniacally. The air was heavy and humid. Everything stunk.

Mary Renfro stood uncomfortably in the middle of the room wearing a bright red body stocking. It ran from her ankles to her wrists and covered her to the neck. With gold sequins stitched down the arms, up the legs, over her shoulders and down her back, swirling and whorling across every free inch of her, she looked like a handkerchief that had been used to stop one of Elvis’s nosebleeds.

“It’s missing something,” Nero said, and then he took a few damp sweat socks from the putrid pile in a laundry bin, rolled them into a ball and stuffed them up Mary’s sleeves.

“Don’t touch me,” she said. And then the smell hit her. “Ugh!”

“Now you have biceps,” Nero said. “ They look good.”

“Don’t talk about my body,” she said. “It’s – these really stink!”

She fanned her face, but that just wafted more of the horror smell up her nostrils. When Minos entered she was doing a complicated dance as she tried to pull the sweat socks out of the tight sleeves, while Nero tried to swat her hands away and both of them tried to avoid the stink.

“I need ta talk ta ya,” Minos said. He was dressed like Burgess Meredith in
Rocky
, with a white towel rolled up and stuffed into the neck of a gray sweatshirt. Nero had no idea where he’d found a sweatshirt in his size.

“Stop fooling with your outfit and listen to him,” Nero said to Mary. “It’s important.”

He pushed Mary down onto the wooden bench.

“Thank you for coming,” she said to Minos. “I need some kind of last-minute strategy intervention. Nero’s useless.”

“I keep telling you,” Nero said. “Wrestling was very popular where I’m from, it was just much more sensual.”

“Stop talking!” Mary snapped.

Tensions were running high.

Minos cleared his throat. Mary waited, expectantly.

“I just wanted ya ta know that I think yer bein’ real brave,” Minos said. “And the fact that I jes’ put a large bet on Michael to win in no way means that ya don’t have my full and complete support.”

“What?!” Mary cried, her heart sinking.

“I need ta protect my nest egg,” Minos said. “Times’re uncertain.”

“It’s actually completely understandable,” Nero said. “Michael can cut steel with his fingernails and I’ve heard that he can turn coal into diamonds just by squeezing it between his buttocks. One punch, and he can unmake you. Minos is being quite wise in betting against you.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Mary asked.

“Reverse psychology,” Nero said. “I tell you that you can’t possibly win, and you’re inspired to overcome incredible odds and prove me wrong.”

“Um, yeah,” Minos said.

“Well it’s not working,” Mary said. “You’re just freaking me out.”

She got up and began to roam around the locker room in obvious distress.

“He won’t really kill ya,” Minos said. “Yer already dead. He’ll jus’ punch ya so hard that you’ll cease to exist fer a few years.”

“Centuries,” Nero said.

“Stop it!” Mary yelled.

Nero got up and tried to cram more sweat socks down the neck of her bodystocking.

“Stop poking at me,” she said, swatting his hands away. “I don’t want to cease to exist for a few centuries. One of you has to have a plan, right?”

Nero wouldn’t meet her eyes. Minos looked around for a place to hide, but couldn’t find one.

“You’ve both been in Hell for a really long time. You’re both devious. Minos, you’re enormous and you torture lost souls a lot. You’ve got to have something.”

She tried to look into his eyes, but Minos kept looking at other things: the floor, the lockers, the flickering fluorescent tubes, the floor again. Finally, he stopped squirming and shook his head.

“I dunno,” he said.

“What about you?” Mary asked Nero. “History books are full of all the evil things you did. You’re famous for your plotting and for being completely crazy. You’ve got to have some kind of plan.”

“I do,” Nero stammered. “I mean...it’s not a very realistic question. I do have a plan. Of course I have a plan. It’s just a...secret plan.”

“At this point, I don’t think we have time for any secrets,” Mary said.

“Don’t lose,” he said, falling back on his legal strategy.

“What?” she said in disbelief.

“It’s the best I can do,” he snapped. “I’ve been under a lot of pressure. This has all been very distressing.”

“Why me?” Mary asked. “Why did this happen to me?”

No one said anything. Nero and Minos both had the good grace to look embarrassed.

“You’re going to lose,” Nero said. “It is going to hurt. A lot. You are going to cease to exist for so long that the next time we see you we probably won’t even remember your name. Your only hope now is to stall and delay and drag your feet and pray for a miracle.”

“A miracle?” Mary asked. “That’s the plan?”

“Actually, we’re from Hell,” Minos rumbled. “We don't get no miracles.”

Mary despaired. Once again, her very presence had brought nothing but death, pain, chaos and failure. Truly, she was in Hell.

Michael was quietly meditating in the private prayer corner of Heaven’s locker room while Gabriel stood a respectful distance away, briefing the referee. The only mortal entrusted to witness the Ultimate Death Match, Pope Benedict XVI was wearing a polyester black-and-white striped shirt, a clip-on bow tie, black trousers and his mitre, which glittered impressively from on top of his head.

The Pope was many things. He was the father of the Roman Catholic Church, the Bishop of Rome and the Sovereign of the State of Vatican City. But refereeing the Ultimate Death Match was his most important duty. The Catholic Church has many functions but the entire hierarchy of leadership was established to ensure that only the most spiritual, wisest, most trustworthy and most dedicated individuals eventually rose to the Papacy so that Heaven and Hell would be assured of the best possible referee in the Ultimate Death Match.

“Now look,” Gabriel said. “When we win, he’s going to take his championship belt and do a victory run around the ring, so make sure not to crowd him.”

“This match isn’t fixed,” Pope Benedict said. “What makes you so confident he’s going to win?”

Before Gabriel could respond, Michael stood up and strode over to them. His muscular torso gleamed as if it had been carved from marble. The Pope sucked in an awed breath. Michael bent down, his muscles fighting beneath his skin like wild animals, and he picked up a brick that had somehow found its way into the locker room. Locking eyes with the Pope, Michael placed the brick between his enormous pectoral muscles. The Universe stopped spinning for a moment. Michael rippled his massive chest melons and the brick exploded into dust.

“I’ll stand over on the side,” Pope Benedict said.

The hour was at hand. After years of preparation, the time of the Ultimate Death Match had arrived and across Creation the weight of the moment could be felt. Hell was quiet, its torture machines abandoned, its instruments of pain abandoned in the dust. Confused souls wandered about in a daze, looking for their tormentors, not knowing that they were all up in Madison Square Garden. Some of them tried to figure out why enormous, newly-installed video screens were broadcasting static, but most just sat in stunned silence. Their quiet disbelief filled the caverns, tunnels and pus volcanoes of the Inferno.

In Heaven, it was a nonstop party. The blessed, who were being allowed to watch the Ultimate Death Match for the first time ever, were reveling in the sudden novelty. Video screens blared and blenders whirled as margaritas were made, loud laughter echoed off the cloudbanks and lounge chairs were arranged in rows.

In Madison Square Garden, the angels were rhythmically chanting and clapping.

“We will, we will, rock you!” they shouted, stomping and clapping so hard that they shook the arena walls.

Across from them, the demons squirmed miserably in their tiny, too-tight devil suits. A few of them had “Go Heaven!” signs duct taped to their hands and angels strode the aisles and exhorted them to brandish their signs with more vigor. All Creation held its breath, waiting for what would come next.

Pope Benedict XVI, his gold mitre catching the light, crawled under the ropes and walked into the center of the ring. The lights went down, leaving him standing alone on a brightly lit, square island in the middle of the vast darkness of Madison Square Garden.  A microphone was lowered and the Pope grabbed it.

“Angels and demons,” he shouted. “ Souls of the blessed and souls of the damned. Every celestial and supernatural being in all of creation. Welcome to...the Ultimate Death Match!”

The demons gave pallid little cheers, but the angelic crowd went wild. A glutton for attention, the Pope surfed the waves of wild adulation until they had reached their highest point and then his voice dropped in over the roar.

“Tonight, for the first time in history, the Match is being broadcast throughout all of the celestial realms. The eyes of millions – billions! – are upon us now as we gather to witness the ultimate wrestling event, the biggest athletic spectacle ever recorded in the annals of eternity, the final match-up between angelic creatures of light and grace and dirty, hairy fiends who have crawled out of the very pits of torment and despair themselves. Tonight we will witness Heaven vs. Hell, with the winner taking Hell! At stake is the very fate of Creation itself!”

He caught a gnarly avalanche of applause that broke into a wild wave of cheering, and then he pumped it, carving down its shimmering face until the moment was ripe and he let them have the biggest, loudest, clearest shout from his magisterial voice.

“And now, wrestling for Heaven, please welcome the patron saint of chivalry, paratroopers and fighter pilots, patron saint of all Germany, the General of God’s army, the Thing on Wings, Archangel Michael, the gentle destroyer, here tonight to rock your soul!”