a
story wherein people get exactly what they deserve Unexpurgated Version
by
Celeste Hotaling-Lyons, copyright June 27, 1996
The
one time in eight hundred years that LaCroix did exactly what Nick had
asked him to do, and it had to be this.
The pain had been
excruciating, to feel the sharpened end of the fancy-carved walking stick go
through him like that, and it was a mercy that he'd literally fallen into
blackness as he fell towards the floor....
...and woke up on a
barren, rocky crag, warm to the touch beneath his palms and face. Much to his
mingled horror and relief, he raised his head to find Natalie lying beside him,
just as she'd lain on the floor of his loft.
"Nat!
Nat!" he cried her name out softly, and crawled to her, running his
fingers over her beautiful face as if trying to memorize it by touch.
She sniffed and
brushed at his hand, then rolled away from him. "...ungf... five more
minutes, mom...." At least, that's what he could have sworn she'd said.
"Natalie, wake
up!" He looked around their new world, wonder and fear in his eyes.
"Oooooh,"
she moaned, then sat up, holding her head in her
hands. "How much did I drink last night? Where the hell
are we, anyway?" She peered at her surroundings through squinting
eyes and yawned. "Oh, God, that must have been some party."
He threw his arms
about her and drew her to him joyfully, eliciting yet another moan, which he
ignored in his enthusiasm. "Wherever we are, Nat, I kept my promise to
you! We're here, together, Forever!"
"Uh, not so
fast...," a voice from above stated decisively.
"Gaaaah!"
the two, for lack of a better word, 'lovers' jumped apart at the sound of the
voice. They looked up to see a masculine figure standing on a rocky ridge some
fifteen feet away, outlined by the fierce midday sunlight behind him. The sun
was so strong, they couldn't quite make out his face.
"It's all
right, Natalie, it's just a man, I'll find out who he is," the ex-cop,
ex-vampire said to the ex-coroner, then he spoke to
the newcomer. "Who are you? Come down to where we can see you!"
"Certainly!"
said the man in a pleasant, if flinty, voice; and he picked his way down the
ridge, to stand looming over them where they sat on the ground. He had an
ironic grin and a handsome, if fleshy, face that
somehow reminded Nick a bit of his old master, LaCroix, though he was somewhat
darker both in hair and eye-color. But the resemblance was there, in that touch
of debauchery around the set of the lips.
"Omigod,
omigod!" cried Natalie, scrambling to her feet. "It's, it's...."
"At your
service, my dear, but you don't have to call me 'your god'--unless you really
want to," the man took Nat's hand and kissed it suavely, causing Nick to
frown as he pulled himself to his feet, too.
"You recognize
him, Nat? Who is he?" Nick edged a shoulder in front of her, as if to
protect her from the man.
She just pushed his
shoulder aside. "Nick! It's 'Q'! Or, it's the guy who plays him on
television, uh, what's your name? John DeLancie? I loved you on Next
Generation! Are you gonna be in the next Star Trek movie?"
The stranger just
smiled a strange, sardonic smile.
"Nat, get a
grip," said Nick, shivers of premonition going up and down his spine. "What would an actor from a canceled TV series be doing
welcoming us to the afterlife?"
"What, indeed,"
said the man, "he's right, you know, my dear. I am not who you think I am.
But I have so many names and so many faces to so many people these days. I
thought you'd be amused by this persona, it's rather fitting. When you tire of
it, let me know."
"Who... who are
you?" Nick asked, annoyed that the man kept talking to Nat and not to him.
"Oh, c'mon,
you've figured it out, Nicholas de Brabant, you just
don't want to face it--what else is new! I am He who has been known as,
um...," the man mused his choices for a moment,
"Let's see--Lucifer, Beezlebub--though I gotta tell you, I never liked
that one--The Horned One, Satan!" He threw his head back and
laughed. "I haven't been able to say that with a straight face since Dana
Carvey came up with the Church Lady. I'll be having a little chat with that
young man about disrespect in, oh, about 42.7 years, let me tell you."
"You're
Satan? This is Hell?" Natalie squeaked.
"Yes, sweet
Natalie Bertha Lambert, I am He Who Rules Hell, and this is what I
rule," Satan waved an arm at the barren landscape. "Although,
like me, my kingdom has many faces."
The three suddenly
found themselves in a civilized, turn-of-the-century sitting room, grouped
around a small table with tea things upon it. Satan poured Natalie a cup of
what smelled like Earl Grey. "I'll play mother, shall I?" he asked,
offering her a dish of currant buns and cream.
"Your middle
name is Bertha?!" crowed Nick. "Bertha?!?"
Maybe it was the pressure he'd been under recently, but for some reason this struck
him as incredibly funny and he set to laughing long
and loud.
"Yeah, this has
to be Hell!" Natalie confirmed, shooting Nick a very dirty look. "You
mean Dana Carvey is going to go to Hell?"
"Are you
kidding? He got a year down here for 'Opportunity Knocks' alone."
She looked about the
sitting room, ignoring Nick, who continued laughing weakly and muttering
`Bertha! Her name is Bertha!' to himself. "This
place looks awfully familiar." She caught sight of an oddly-shaped column
over in the corner, with switches, buttons and pulleys on it. "Hey! We're
in the T.A.R.D.I.S., from that recent TV movie about Dr. Who!" she cried
in recognition.
"Yes,
television--it is my preferred medium these days," said Satan, pouring
himself a cup of tea. "Television! Evil beyond
imagination! So many children to corrupt. The minds
never to be challenged! The books never to be written! The good works never
performed! The human connections never forged! So much that could have, would
have been done, if not for television!"
"You
invented television?" gasped Natalie. She sipped her Earl Grey,
double-cream. It was delicious.
"No, humanity
invented television. I invented the soap opera, the infomercial; oh, and
Geraldo Rivera. He was just 'Jerry Rivers' from
Nick had stopped
laughing during Satan's discourse on television, and fixed him with a knowing
eye. He was unimpressed by this frivolous being--indeed, had
he not defeated the afore-mentioned Belial with the goodness inside him not
three months ago? He hadn't lived 800 years for nothing. "So now what? Do we bargain for our souls?"
"Nope,"
said Satan simply. "I'm just having a nice chat over a cuppa with a pair
of my fav acolytes. Sure, I could be like my old buddy Jehovah and move in
mysterious ways, but that wouldn't be my style, now would it? I mean, a burning bush? Give me a break. But what happens to
you now is a fore-gone conclusion. You each chose your own Fate very carefully
and with full knowledge afore-thought, after all."
"You mean I
don't get a choice?!" cried Nick. He'd always gotten a choice
before.
"You've always
gotten a choice before," Satan echoed his thoughts. "And you've
always screwed up that choice, royally. Idiot."
The demon-master spoke genially, but seriously. "And you've managed to
corrupt this most charming angel at the last--good work, my boy. Good work.
Thank you for giving her to me." Satan took Natalie's free hand and kissed
it, looking deeply into her eyes.
"You see, I
adore you, Natalie, with every ounce of self-love I can muster. For you are Me, the brightest angel in the firmament, denied Heaven, but
not cast out, no! You, like I, chose to walk from the bright path of
righteousness and into that most delicious darkness of the soul."
"Hey,
waitaminute," began Nick, but Natalie waved him to silence without even turning
her eyes from The Dark Lord. A classic `good girl', she'd always been attracted
to the bad boys, after all. Wasn't that how her fascination with dear Nick had
started--when he'd lurched from the slab, growling and be-fanged, eyes a-glow? God,
he'd been so sexy and evil and... she'd fallen for him
hard, right then and there. But here, before her, was the Ultimate Bad Boy.
Professing, what? Love? For her?
"You... `love'
me? But you're, you're...," she gasped.
"Your biggest
fantasy and your greatest nightmare," he clutched her to him and whispered
into her curly mane of hair. "By your own choice, you are doomed, dearest
Natalie. Doomed to an eternity by my side, walking with me through death and
famine, watching petty hatreds blossom into war and ignorance fulfill itself
again and again, from generation to generation of humanity--you will look upon
misery and horror and be unable to touch it, unable to stop it, unable to help.
But always in your heart, you will hold dear the hope that you and you alone can
reform me, bring me out of the evil that enshrouds me,
back to the Light of Righteousness and Goodness. That shining hope will carry
you forward throughout eternity."
"Can I? Can I,
a mere human woman, really hope to reform you, Satan himself?" Natalie
whispered dreamily into Satan's chest. Nick was not happy with the turn
this conversation had taken.
"Of
course!" Satan laughed delightedly. "But until the day you
convince me to walk out of my self-imposed Hell and back into the Light, I'm
afraid I'm going to have to spoil you terribly, dear Natalie. We must pay our
respects to the seven deadly sins, after all. Boxes of chocolates and
magnificent meals, casks of the finest wines! And never will you gain a pound
or age a day, you will always be perfect and beautiful, my dark angel. Oh, by
the way.... with regard to `Lust'... I don't bite--unless I am
specifically asked to!"
Nick flushed red at
that. "Hey!"
"And what about
you, is that your next question, my Nicholas?" asked Satan
pointedly.
Nick was brought up
short. "Well, no, actually... but it is a good question. What about
me?"
"Well, I really
must ask you this one question, Nicky-boy--WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?"
the demon-master shouted at the ex-vampire. "And, more specifically, what
the hell were you doing with that weird pointed-stick thingie by your
fire-place? Did you figure, what the hey, when I go,
I'm goin' with something hand-carved? A broken chair leg not
good enough for you?!"
Nick was somewhat
taken aback and didn't have an answer for what he assumed were rhetorical
questions anyway. He grabbed his cup of tea and drank it down without really
tasting it, which was a pity as it had been years since he'd eaten or drunk
anything besides blood, and it was particularly good tea.
Satan abruptly let
go of Natalie who took a lemon cookie from a selection of goodies and munched
it happily, sipping her tea in a lady-like fashion from her perfect porcelain
teacup. The demon-master leaned in towards the ex-vampire and spoke in a
chummy, confidential manner. "Look, here's the deal, Nicholas. I'm not
happy with LaCroix. You used to goad him into doing all sorts of terrible
things, either to teach you a lesson or draw you closer to him. But he's been
drifting into a kind of non-evil generosity of spirit lately and I'm not at all
pleased about that. He used to be one of my better acolytes--I love the ones
who think they're serving themselves when they're really serving me, and his
lofty avoidance of self-knowledge has always amused me terribly. But now, all
Janette has to do is ask him nicely to look after her little newbie vampires,
and he accedes to her wishes. He teaches them their manners, provides them with
blood, in short does what he can to prevent them from
doing evil or being destroyed. I was floored--floored--when I realized
what was going on."
"LaCroix?
What about LaCroix?" gulped Nicholas, fear growing in what we will call
his soul. "Why are you telling me this?"
"LaCroix is
much, much better off without you, Nicholas. Therefore, it is necessary
for you to return to him."
"Gaaa--what??!
Return? To LaCroix?!"
"And the thing
I like about this little reunion the most is, it's your perfect
punishment, too. Yes, that's the ticket. You and LaCroix.
Together again, at last. Forever!"
As the sitting room
faded from Nicholas de Brabant's sight and the pain in his chest grew, the last
thing he saw was Natalie in the arms of a being far, far more evil than himself--a being therefore far, far more attractive to her
than he could ever be. And the last words he heard Satan say, at least until
their next meeting, was this:
"My dearest
Nicholas--just remember, I never nailed anybody
to a cross who didn't really want to be nailed to a cross--that's the
terrible beauty of my line of work!"
End