Satan sat up in his hammock of mortal skin, his own, living skin drenched in cold sweat. His freeze-dried heart thumped in his chest and his head felt like it had been impaled on a rusty spear. His sleeping chamber was still darkened; candles unlit and curtains drawn. The thralls and imps hadn’t been in yet, it seemed. Satan scratched at the base of one of his spiralling horns. He felt odd. Rarely did he have nightmares, and never were they so vivid. Satan had never felt as vulnerable as he had been living as the human called Archey Billiard. He normally only slept for six-hundred and sixty-six hours a night, but his dream about the town of Winchward Beach had felt like a lifetime. Satan growled. Maybe an elven spy had slipped something into his blood chalice the previous day. He would lose focus if his dreams kept on being as long and pointless as Winchward Beach. Satan rose to his feet, stretching as he poked another firepoker into his weekly personal torture doll. The pain in his head worsened and he grunted in annoyance as the doll screeched.

'Oh, shut up will you?' he barked.

'Sorry,' said the torture doll. 'It's a reflex.'

Someone knocked on the heavy iron door to his bedchamber.

‘Use the buzzer!' Satan shouted at whoever was on the other side.

The unholy intercom next to the door began beeping. Satan let it go for a little bit to make a point, then pressed the button to answer it.

'Yes?' he said into the microphone.

'You have to hold the button to talk,' said his torture doll.

Satan sneered at the doll, then held the button on the intercom and said again, 'Yes?'

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One feast of mortal flesh later, Satan sat on his throne of bones to hear the news of the hour. The horse-headed Orobas and the winged Phenex, two of Satan’s best advisors, stood in the centre of the bone throne room. Phenex held a large scroll written in blood because ink just wasn’t good enough, and Orobas just stood there, a smug air of superiority on his horse face. Because Orobas was the higher ranked of the two, he was the only one permitted to speak directly to Satan. In this situation, Phenex was Orobas’ assistant. So naturally, Phenex whispered the contents of the scroll to Orobas, then Orobas relayed the information to Satan. Orobas could not simply read from the scroll himself. Such a thing was uncouth. Satan sometimes wished it wasn’t taboo to change traditions begun by previous Satans, because a lot of them were tediously tedious. Satan Four had been especially fond of unnecessary steps between him and his subordinates. Being the king of demons apparently gave some an inflated ego.

‘Beelzebub has sent a report from the Shattered Soul-Lands,’ decreed Orobas.

Satan waited. ‘So?’ he eventually asked. ‘What is it?’

Orobas turned to Phenex and whispered something. Phenex whispered something back. Satan drummed his fingers on the shin-bones making up his armrests.

Orobas turned back to Satan. ‘He says… there will be ten plagues.’

Luckily the faceplate of Satan’s helmet covered up his grimace of confusion. Can’t appear weak in front of the lesser demons. ‘Did he say anything else? Anything more specific?’

Orobas turned to Phenex and whispered something. Phenex whispered something back. Satan growled softly in annoyance.

Orobas turned back to Satan. ‘Yes.’

‘What did he say?’

Orobas turned to Phenex and whispered something. Phenex whispered something back.

‘He says…’ Orobas begun. Satan stomped over to Phenex and snatched the scroll from his taloned hands. It read-

Hello Satan!

Just checking in to see if you are eating your vegetables!

There’s going to be ten plagues!

Better get a shot!

See you in the Beach!

Your best mate, Double B.

Satan’s blood ran cold. Or colder, rather. It was already near freezing. He tore the scroll and its stupid blood writing in half and marched back to his bone throne. With a great heave he tossed it on its side and reached up to grab his weapon of choice, which hung on the wall as an ornament. It was straight-edged, sharpened, with a leather-bound hilt, but it was much too big to be called a sword. Massive, thick, heavy and far too rough. Indeed, it was like a heap of raw iron. Satan heaved the weapon, longer than he was tall, onto his shoulder and strolled back to Orobas and Phenex. With a mighty swing, he cleaved the two demons in half, splattering the bone throne room in black, steaming blood. Satan then stabbed the weapon tip first into the dark rock floor and roared as loud as he could. The guttural sound echoed through his great fortress. Once he was done, Satan turned to a nearby quivering thrall.

‘You!’ he shouted. ‘Call the Grim Reaper! Tell him these souls aren’t ready to go yet! They could still be of some use. Call Beelzebub too. Tell him we need to talk about Winchward Beach.’

As the thrall sprinted off to summon the Reaper, Satan returned to his chambers to get ready for a diplomatic banquet in the Plains of the Screeching Dead. He had some things to think about. A stony dread clutched onto his heart. Every one of the previous six Satans had fought a war or two in their reign, but not Satan Seven. Not yet.

Maybe that was about to change. The Demon Liberation Front were real, and they were in Satan’s head.