“Yes, Astaroth?” the Devil himself asked, arching one impressively villainous eyebrow.
“Well, you see, Luci…” Astaroth mumbled, wringing his hands and avoiding eye contact with the Dark Prince.
The Devil sighed, slumping back onto his throne of skulls. “Asti, we talked about this. It’s ‘Your Infernal Highness,’ or ‘My Dark Prince,’ or maybe ‘Lucifer,’ if we’re being informal. Quit calling me Luci, it’s wrecking my image.”
Astaroth nodded, his blackened wings curling closer around his torso. “Sorry, Lu- Lucifer. I’m just a bit rattled, is all.”
The Devil leaned forward a bit on his throne, his midnight robes floating like smoke around his lean frame. “I can see that. I don’t think I’ve seen you sweat before.” He frowned. “Is it even possible for demons to sweat?”
“I don’t know,” Astaroth continued, wiping his forehead with a tattered cloth stained with the blood of the damned. “But I’ve never… encountered a soul quite like this one.” He reached into the satchel by his side, removing a small black box.
Laughter filled the gloomy chamber as the Devil threw his head back, the raucous echoes causing ash to fall from the far-off ceiling. “This is about a human?” the Devil asked, brushing a tear made of glowing embers from his cheek. “That’s what has you all bothered? I thought at least you had discovered a plot by our dear family upstairs to invade, or something.”
Astaroth blanched at the mention of their relatives, but pulled himself up a bit higher, the snakes winding their way around his shoulders hissing. “No, it’s about a human soul. I made a deal with a particular human for ten years-”
“A standard arrangement,” the Devil said, smirking.
“Yes, standard,” Astaroth grimaced. “Well, I went to collect just now, and… I’ve never seen anything like it, Luci.”
The Devil raised his hand to rebuke his friend, but Astaroth cut him off.
“Trust me. The things this person has done… the things they’ve thought about! It makes this place look like, well,” Astaroth pointed up, mutely.
“Come on, Asti, it can’t be that bad,” the Devil said, chuckling. “Let me see, then.”
Astaroth held out the little box, and it floated across the room. He thought he heard faint screams coming from the box, mixing with the normal sounds of Hell.
“I did warn you,” Astaroth said as the Devil lifted the box and began to open it.
“Yeah, yeah,” the Devil said, lifting the lid and peering inside with bored curiosity.
His expression quickly changed to shock, then horror, before landing on nausea. He stared into the box for several minutes, his face getting paler than his already deathly pallor. Finally, as if shaking himself from a trance, he slammed the lid closed on the soul inside, and looked up at Astaroth, who could have sworn he saw fear in his fiendish eyes.
“I’ve-” the Devil started to say, then swallowed a few times. “I’ve never seen anything quite…”
“I know,” Astaroth said, eying the box, hoping he wouldn’t have to handle it again.
“What…” the Devil said, slowly, staring back down at the box. “I didn’t even think… And I thought we were bad…”
“I know,” Astaroth said, more emphatically. “What do we do with it?”
“Do with it?” the Devil said, holding out the box with a shaking claw. “We dump it in the deepest, darkest hole in Hell, and hope no one ever finds it.”
Astaroth nodded, shifting his feet anxiously. “Who’s gonna do it?”
The Devil shook his head. “I don’t know. Beelzebub?”
Relieved, Astaroth nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, Beelzebub would be perfect. He knows all secret hiding places. He’ll make sure this soul is never seen again.”
“Good. And tell him not to look inside,” the Devil added, delicately putting the box on the floor and pushing it away from himself with his cloven hoof.
“Yeah, like he listens to me,” Astaroth grumbled.
“Well, that’s his choice, I guess,” the Devil said, smiling weakly. “We’re all about free choice down here, right?” He stood, shaking out his robes. Tiny bats flew from the folds, fluttering around his head like a crown. “I think I’m going to go to the Third Circle and watch the gluttons slip around in the mud. That’s always fun.”
Astaroth nodded. “Sounds like an excellent plan, Your Infernal Highness.”
The Devil smiled to himself as he traveled his domain, the cries from the tortured souls soothing. But in the back of his mind, the soul in the box haunted his thoughts, and he wasn’t sure the stink would ever leave him.
Inspired by a prompt from Squibler.
© The Lightning Tower, 2020