What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [19]
Even the labels sucked. “Prince of Darkness?” Whatever. He wasn’t evil. No, he preferred to group his particular combination of proclivities together under the heading “Fun.” But fun wasn’t part of The Plan.
And that, of course, was why he was now here, on Earth, wearing a human-body costume and second guessing his decision to trade everything he’d known for a cold apartment, a frumpy sweater, and this robot bitch on the phone who wouldn’t turn on his damned gas.
He thumbed his copy of the collector’s edition of the Star Wars Trilogy that had just arrived, and felt just a tiny bit better. For the past week he’d holed himself up, staying out of trouble and watching a hell of a lot of television. And in that time he’d discovered the awesome saga of Luke and Leia and Darth Vader.
Oh, Darth. Darthy, Darth, Darth, Darth.
There were a lot of things that he loved about Star Wars. The Death Star kicked ass, and seeing the fuzzy little Ewoks get killed had been highly satisfactory. And, of course, he saw Darth Vader as a kindred spirit, both in terms of general outlook and his heavy reliance on what Satan figured must be anger-management breathing. Mostly though, it was the mythology of the movies that struck him. It was, he thought, kind of an allegory for his own struggle and rebellion against God. He just wasn’t sure whether he was Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader. And the whole dark vs. light sides of the force thing was confusing. God was easy enough – He was the emperor. Satan had some ideas for where the story should go next, and had decided that he was just going to have to go to Hollywood and meet the man behind the films.
Shirley came back on the line and went straight back into her mantra: “I’m sorry, sir, but you need to call us three days in adv—” but she didn’t finish, due to the fact that, at that very instant, the entire headquarters of Washington Gas exploded in an enormous fireball.
On Satan’s end, the line went dead. There wasn’t even any hold music.
“Hello?” he said. “Are you there?” But this was just denial. He knew that Shirley was no longer on the line. And he knew it was his fault.
The phone started making that rapid beeping sound phones make when left off the hook.
He punched the OFF button and took a deep breath, letting the phone fall by his side.
“Shit,” he said. No gas. No heat. And he’d risked exposure. Again. What he really needed was something to help him stay focused; some kind of motivational tool. Maybe one of those calendars like they have in factories. Only instead of saying: “Fifty-nine days since last on-the-job accident,” his would have to say something like, “Three days since last accidental use of supernatural Satanic powers to blow shit up.”
* * *
FBI Agent Bob Robertson was put in charge of the investigation of the explosion of the Washington Gas headquarters. His mandate, broadly speaking, was to answer two questions: First, just what in God’s name happened? (It was a poorly-worded mandate.) Second, how was it that, with the entire headquarters exploding in a giant fireball, all but one of the Washington Gas employees escaped completely unharmed?
Robertson hadn’t a clue. And the forensics guys had been no help at all, concluding only that it looked like there had been an “explosion of some type.”
As for the one Washington Gas employee who had been affected, it wasn’t clear how exactly her condition related to the incident, or if it was even related at all. Her name was Shirley Strickland, and really she was perfectly fine, except for the fact that she seemed to be completely incapable of saying anything other than, “I’m sorry, but if you want to place a service order, you have to call three days in advance.” Robertson had no clue about that either.
He did have one lead, at least – space heaters – for whatever that was worth.
A lot of people in and around Washington, D.C. heat their homes using oil, so the destruction of Washington Gas’ headquarters didn’t cause the kind of panic that might have occurred had the entire D.C.