Infernal Informal

"If He is benevolent, why am I here?"

His voice is a car engine refusing to turn over when the killer is steps away from the window. He speaks in fits and starts, and his sentences are punctuated with wheezing coughs. His eyes are red brake lights illuminating shadowy figures in the dark; the killer isn't alone.

But there is no car. There are no killers in the dark. The two of them stand several feet apart, surrounded not with an audience of murderers creeping in the night, but by moonlight shining through tall pines and live oaks.

This used to be a crossroads, before white men arrived in floating coffins, carrying with them a new God. Game trails now mark where coastal tribes would journey inland to trade for deerskins or pottery.

They stand, the summoner and the summoned. The living and the undying.

"So you say God isn't good, bruv?"

He recoils at the g-word and it is a reassuring sign of weakness.

"I should show you your insides for wasting my time." He looms, growing several feet in the darkness. His is a shadow deeper than those cast by the moonlight, and his eyes narrow into crimson slits, demonstrating anger and seething hatred.

"Good thing that circle is there, innit?" The man is confident, but wary. He's done this dance before, but he can never relax.

"I grow tired of your games, little man. I no longer wish to speak."

"Oh, did I interrupt something important? Were you and the boys just having a grand time, torturing the wicked or being cast into a herd of swine? Tell me. Is Hell really all fire and brimstone, or is the heart of the place a giant lump of ice, with your boss trapped like a fly in amber?"

People miles away will swear they were awakened by a peal of thunder, others will claim an Air Force jet broke the sound barrier over civilian territory. No one would ever believe the anger of a demon was something that could disturb the physical world in such an incredibly powerful way.

"I serve no one. There is no boss."

"Bullshit."

The demon shrank his form into more of an animal, something the size and shape of an extremely large wolf with wings. The dimensions weren't quite right, but the snout was there, along with the bestial sense of the thing. He lunged at the man, but rebounded off an invisible shield that faintly glowed with the creature's impact.

"Watch that temper, tiny. You're still in the circle."

"Release me. Test yourself against me then, human."

"Do I strike you as stupid, demon?"

"You summoned me."

"Fair point."

"Why? Do you wish a bargain in these crossroads?"

"Ah. No, thank you. I only wanted to chat."

"You risk your soul to speak to me?"

The human chuckles. "Not even close, big guy. I was bored."

The demon seems genuinely confused, having reverted to a vaguely humanoid form. He is still bestial, with vestiges of a snout and a haphazard collection of fangs.

The man regards his prisoner. "Show me your true face."

"To see my true face would be to trade your sanity for satisfaction."

"Oh, sorry. I wasn't asking. Let's try this again, Marchosias. Show. Me. Your. True. Face."

Thunder and rage again fill the world, but the demon does as he is told. Floating, softly glowing, the many eyes of the Lord regard the man. Wings ripple, but no wind comes off them. The demon, now in the skin of an Angel, speaks.

"Be afraid."

"I think the line is be not afraid, but you already know that."

Silence is the response, and the two regard one another for a span of minutes. Finally, the man speaks.

"Thank you."

The demon almost seems surprised. "For what?"

"For proving that God exists."

"You've known He exists."

"Yes, but from time to time, I need to be reminded."

"Your knowledge is not faith, and it will not save you."

The man sadly nods. With a shrug, he turns to walk away. Looking back over his shoulder, he speaks at this crossroads for the final time.

"Do me a favor, bruv. Go to hell."

With a barely audible *pop*, the summoning ends and John Constantine walks away.