The Devil’s Intern Part 4

Lu, Joshua, Scrugs, Lilith, Balthazar, Ghuul, Moloch, and Legion all walked around the giant office space. "Top floor, my office." Lu stated. "I run everything in this dimension all in here. Should've seen it when it was just a tasteless throne room. All dark, musty, and way too bland. This way to the elevator!"

The Devil led the gang to a large elevator. Unlike the demonic one that transported individuals from Hell to Earth, this was just an ordinary, rusty elevator, large enough to hold the whole party. All but Legion entered inside.

"You're not joining us?" Joshua asked the ancient demon.

"I've seen every crack and corner of the tower before," Legion grumbled, "I have no need to see it again. I shall remain to maintain order for you, my lord."

"Sounds good, Legion," Lu agreed. "Pull the lever, Scrugs!"

Scrugs obeyed. The elevator jerked around, failing to move in the right direction.

"WRONG LEVER, YOU IDIOT!" Lu spat. He smacked his cane at Scrugs' oddly-shaped head.

"Sorry!" Scrugs squeaked as he pulled the correct lever. The elevator dropped to the lower levels. Joshua could hear the screams of the damned grow louder with each descending floor.

The first floor the elevator came to was a wide space filled with scurrying demons. Some demons were dressed in fashionable suits and carried brief cases while others stood off to the sides, opening portals for the suits to walk in and out.

"This here is the Dealing Department." The Devil lectured, "It's where we send out some demons, which we call Contractors, out to Earth to deal with some humans for their souls. In return we'd give them their greatest desire. Money, power, women, whatever they can think of we can give - for a price of course. 

"They'll enjoy their taste of paradise until pay day comes around. And, oh boy, you better cough up for soul willingly or it'll end ugly. You see, Joshy, we demons live by a moral code that cannot be easily broken: if a demon should make a deal, they intend to keep it to the end."

The elevator carried the group down another level. The screams grew louder and louder. Joshua's body was shaking from the sounds of the torment. 

The elevator stopped at the floor where the screams were coming from. "And this is the torture chamber. Guess what we do in here?"

He didn't see any souls being tortured. All there was in this room was a dark corridor with several metal doors. But the screams echoed out of the stone walls. "Can we skip this part of the tour, please?" he begged.

"That's fine. We'll move onto torture chamber B. Way more exciting." Lu looked back at the young human. The boy's eyes pleaded for him to keep skipping. "Oh alright. I guess we can skip that too. And we can skip torture chamber C because that's being remodeled."

The elevator lowered them into the next series of floors. They saw a large factory for crafting and testing torture devices. They followed that up with a refinery for metallurgy projects and rocking mining. Next was everyone's favorite chamber, the sauna room. Then came the main lobby where all the demons walked around, talking and trading with one another.

Joshua was awestruck by what was constructed within the tower. It was all unlike anything that his mother read to him from the Bible. Yet he couldn't shake his teachings from the reality that was surrounding him. Was the scripture wrong? Partly true? These questions and more spiraled in his head.

"Um, Lu," he spoke up, "I was taught that Hell was like a prison. So, where do you keep your worst prisoners?"

Just as he asked that, the elevator made its final stop. The doors slid open to darkness. It was dark and cold like the mouth of a cave. Only a single light shined at the end of the chamber, where a single soldier demon sat behind a desk. 

"This," Lu explained, stepping out of the elevator, "this is where we keep the worst of the worst."

The party all exited at once and followed Lu down the dark corridor. Joshua's eyes adapted to the darkness. He could make out a number of cell doors embedded in the walls. He could barely see what were inside the cells but the shadowy outlines could make out different monstrosities that lurked in the dark. Joshua was definitely happy that he wasn't on the other side.

Lu lectured on, "I brought you down here to show you what happens when Father almighty wants some things to be completely forgotten. But most importantly to teach a very important lesson: don't screw with the Devil."

He came to a stop in front of a dark room. The others mimicked the same pattern. Joshua noticed that all the demons, even the timid Scrugs, were staring that one jail cell. In their benevolent eyes they all shared the same fiery hatred for whatever was kept inside. 

Joshua summoned the courage and stepped forward, hoping for a better look. He approached the metals bars, each marked with a series of symbols he never saw. Something, or someone, was definitely meant to be kept there. 

His eyes adjusted once more. There was an outline in the shadows. There was no monster or beast, not even a hostile scavenger. The outline looked much like a man. But it couldn't be a man. Its head was shaped oddly. For a moment Joshua thought he was staring at the shadow of a goat. 

What were those long things that extended towards the back, he wondered. Are those his ears? His horns?

The figure sat against the stone wall. It was holding something in its left hand. With enough light gifted from down the hall it looked like something red, like an apple. Joshua's eyes widen when he saw the prisoner's hands. They, like the room it was in, were dark. Yet he could make out they had some mix of grey and navy blue coloring to them.

He could also see the prisoner's fingernails were elongated. Its thumb nail, so gnarled and decayed, slowly pealed away the skin of the fruit. 

The figure did not look up. It concentrated at pealing the apple bit by bit, oblivious to the company outside its cell — or perhaps it was ignoring them.

"Who's in this cell?" Joshua whispered to the devil.

Lu leaned forward to the barred doors. He made sure the prisoner could hear him. "A lowly, forgotten, little worm placed preciously where he needs to be, under my foot."

The figure stopped pealing. Its hidden head tilted towards Lucifer and the gang. Joshua felt a cold shiver run through his spine. He couldn't see its eyes, or its face, but he could tell it was looking right at them. He felt the prisoner give them the coldest glare unseen by his human eyes. 

The prisoner then continued to peal away the apple. Its head looked away from the company. Lu gave his young intern a nudge away from the cell. "Come along," he ordered, "there's much to show you."

The gang all made their way back to the elevator. Joshua tried to resist looking back at the figure but failed. The last thing he saw before getting back to the elevator was its name that was engraved on a wooden plaque: Mephistopheles.

Inside his prison, the prisoner couldn't shake off the devil's words. A worm, he called him. Pathetic! Forgotten!

SPLAT!

The apple he was carving crushed under his vengeful grasp. The moist juices ran between his fingers. He could mock him. Oh yes he could, for now. It won't be long before he would get out. He had everything he needed. Just one thing he valued. Time. Time was all he needed, and the devil gave him plenty. 

As he sat in the darkness, he thought about his revenge and how he was going to extract it. Starting with the two brats that put him there in the first place.