The New Death and others Read Free Page B

presenting herself as
Destiny. She agreed with everything the man said, and the man found
her delightful. In truth the man liked the idea of going out with
Destiny, but probably would have found Destiny herself a bit bossy.
Ambition and the man stayed together, and lived happily ever
after.
     
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    Everlasting Fire
     
    Once upon a time there was a demon named
Lilly, whose job was devising ironic punishments for the damned.
The greedy she caused to be stuffed with lard until their stomachs
exploded, upon which they were sewn together to gorge anew. The
generative organs of the lustful she caused to sprout chains, and
these chains to be attached to skeletal horses, who dragged the
wretches around. Thus, as she explained to them, they who followed
their genitals in life would follow them in death. On her wall she
proudly displayed the award she had won for this, even though the
judges had noted that a few of the most debauched seemed to enjoy
it. However most of her work was traditional but solidly executed,
as she spent the centuries heaping humiliation on the prideful and
causing the covetous to lack what they desired most.
    One day she received word that her section
would be expanded.
    "Thou must choose for thyself three
underlings, of whatever kind and nature thou desirest. Yet beware!
For many have been brought to ruin by the attainment of their
heart's desire; and that which is bought without payment may in the
end cost...THY SOUL! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!" the memo read. She thought
for a great while on who she would request to have transferred to
her. The worst part of the job was the paperwork. There was no
point taunting an Aztec priest by denying him a cell phone, or
withholding a finely-curved sacrificial knife from a real estate
agent, and thus each soul must have a detailed file. She had often
wished that Inhuman Resources would computerize the system. Alas,
the section head was a demon of the Eighth Deadly Sin, making
puns( 1 ) and always said
    "I'll be damned if I use those infernal things! Har har, did you see what I did there?" In
the end she chose three different specialists. The first was an
expert in torture by conversation. The second was trained in the
Ninth Deadly Sin (saying 'lol' out loud). And the third was an
incubus, a male demon of lust.
    The new minions duly arrived. The first
minion worked hard, although he had a slight speech impediment
which meant that he sometimes used words correctly. He knew a
secret, extra-annoying way to mispronounce 'nuclear', and he could
use the word 'synergy' four times in a sentence. His specialty was
quoting comedy sketches and getting them slightly wrong. Few could
stand his rendition of
    'This parrot is no good!'
    The second minion did his job well, although
once she caught him looking at spreadsheets when he was supposed to
be working on pornography.
    But the third minion, the incubus, brought
joy to her black and rotting heart. From the top of his horns to
the tip of his hooves, he looked the very embodiment of both
punishment and sin. He seemed slightly taller than whoever he was
talking to. He had velvety wings and strong yet gentle claws, and
his violet eyes gave a promise of honesty and commitment that no
damned soul could resist, though they knew it was false. As she
considered these attributes one evening (if that term may be used
for a place where sunlight is unknown) Lilly realised that she had
fallen in love with the incubus.
    Love is strictly forbidden in the infernal
realms, or rather happiness derived from love. The damned may feel
the agonies of unfulfilled yearning, or pity for their equally
damned beloved, but there may be no happy marriages. Demons are, of
course, masters of deception, and so she had no fear of her
feelings being found out, provided she did not act on them. But oh,
how it cost her to maintain the facade of normal unlife. When
forcing critics to review every book in The Library That Contains
Nothing But