Fun with Flames and Fangirls
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“O-kay, sir, let’s try again,” said Missy through a fixed smile. “This is what we call the ‘Start’ button . . .”
Why had she taken this job? Why? Well, because she was pretty much the only demon who knew how to work a computer and Duke Ligur had told her she would be disembowelled if she didn’t teach him, but she was starting to think disembowelment would be a preferable alternative. Ligur had taken three hours of tutoring from the increasingly exasperated succubus to merely work out how to plug in and switch on the computer, and then had managed to clog up the keyboard with cigarette ash. Why he bothered to smoke in the first place, she did not know, as demons don’t normally breathe and Hell was full of smoke anyway. Most likely just to irritate people, which was probably the same reason he used that horrible cockney accent, another thing about him which was slowly driving her insane on top of his abuse of the computer. It wasn’t even her computer, but she couldn’t stand to see any helpless machine manhandled in this way. Fortunately he seemed totally oblivious to her annoyance, despite the deep clawmarks she was gouging in the arms of her computer chair. Since the arms of the chair were made of human bones instead of the more usual plastic, this was not an easy thing to do.
“This thing really ain’t easy to use, is it?” Ligur said critically, stubbing out his cigarette on the mouse. Missy cringed.
“No, sir. No, it’s not,” she agreed, suppressing the urge to scream. Was he doing this deliberately? Possibly yes. Demon lords were always looking for new ways to torment subordinates. But why me personally? What have I done to deserve this? Oh well, I can always complain to Mummy. A perk of being one of Lilith’s thousands of children was that you could quietly complain to her about demons who outranked you but not her, as long as the demon you were complaining about didn’t catch you doing so. She briefly consoled herself with visions of nasty things Mummy did to her victims, then was jerked abruptly out of her reverie by Ligur saying “Wot ‘appens if I do this?” She only just managed to prevent him ripping out the CD-ROM drive, and then had to resist the urge to leap claws-first at his throat when he said, “Hey, that’s handy – a cup holder!”
On top of the rage at her superior’s incompetence, she was getting nervous because of the picture on the wall behind her. She couldn’t actually see it when facing the computer, but the mere knowledge that it was there was upsetting and every time she turned her eyes were automatically drawn to it, in the same way as one cannot help staring at a train wreck. Ligur had proudly pointed it out, announcing that he had drawn it himself. It was a life-sized depiction of what he and his associate Duke Hastur were apparently planning to do to Anthony J. Crowley, a.k.a. “that bastard snake Crawly”, should they ever get the chance to avenge the now-notorious incident back during the Almost-Apocalypse, nearly ten years ago. The result was . . . best described as graphically unpleasant, even by the standards of Hell. It would probably have been marginally less disturbing if Ligur had chosen to use a medium other than children’s wax crayons (mostly red ones).
The Duke in question finally managed to manoeuvre the cursor onto the Start button and click.
“Alright, now move the cursor to the bit which says ‘run’,” said Missy, mentally screaming Finally!
“It won’t move,” said Ligur, jiggling the mouse.
“Uh, that’s because it’s stuck in the top corner of the mat,” Missy pointed out. “Just pick up the mouse and move it to the middle of the mat, and it’ll be fine.”
“I thought you said I ain’t supposed to pick the mouse up.”
“No, sir. What I said was, it won’t work if you hold it in midair and wave it.”
“Uh, yeah, I knew that,” muttered Ligur, producing match and cigarette from thin air and striking the match on the monitor casing. He looked curiously at Missy. Weirdo, he thought. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a succubus with her charisma switched off – when cowering in front of him being yelled at for something or other their charm was usually at a low ebb. It was, however, the first time he had seen a succubus (or anyone, for that matter) wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “C:DOS, C:DOS/RUN, RUN/DOS/RUN”. He assumed it was supposed to be some sort of joke, but he didn’t understand it, and this annoyed him. He resisted the urge to ask what it meant. One of the major rules of being a high-ranking demon is never to display more ignorance than is strictly necessary. Right now, however, he was going to have to display ignorance again.
“Wot did you say yer name was?”
Missy groaned inwardly. She missed the good old days when high-ranking demons never bothered to ask their subordinate’s names. Somehow that was less aggravating than having them ask it, then forget five milliseconds later. Besides, reciting her full name was humiliating.
Of course, she had to recite her full name to Ligur anyway. It took nearly two full minutes. The sound was nearly indescribable, but if one was to try it would be best to compare it to a weird mixture of vaguely Latin-sounding gibberish crossed with Ancient Egyptian, plus a dash of Aztec, being spoken through a mouthful of jelly and gravel. Ligur was looking vaguely shellshocked by the time she finished, sat back and rubbed her throat.
“Sorry, sir,” she said. “The tonsil click in the twentieth syllable gets me like that sometimes.” She saw the duke’s expression and sighed. “Mummy was starting to run out of ideas for names for us and Nyarlathotep owed her a favour,” she said, by way of explanation.
“Oh yeah,” Ligur said. “Hastur introduced me to the old Crawlin’ Chaos once. Right bloody weirdo.”
“It’s easier to just call me Missy. Everyone does, sir – oh, look at the time! I think we’ve done all we can for now, I really must be going, I have an emergency appointment in five minutes, same time next week, right?” Missy realised she was starting to babble and shut up, but kept the fixed grin. Please let me leave! Please!
“Oh. Yeah. Right. Same time next week, fine.” Ligur looked disappointedly at the computer. Just when I was getting the hang of it, too, he thought.
“That’s great! I’ll be seeing you then, Your Disgrace,” said Missy, curtseying. “I can see myself out.”
She left in a great hurry, managing at least to get through the office door and out of the Duke’s hearing range before tearing wildly at her hair and screaming like a rabid banshee.
~~~
“Wait! Please don’t hang up, please don’t – ah, hello.” Aziraphale managed to juggle the phone receiver with the pile of books and coffee mug he was already holding. Admittedly heavenly powers were not really meant to be used to prevent the dropping of books and coffee mugs, but at that precise moment he didn’t care much. “Hello, Crowley. Is something wrong?”
“Short answer, yes,” Crowley replied. “Uh, look, angel, maybe you should just come over to my place so I can show you. It’s complicated.”
“Oh? Can you at least give me a summary?” Aziraphale asked, shuffling over to the already-overstacked table to put the books down. He heard Crowley sigh on the other end of the phone.
“O-kay. Some humans have found out about our . . . status.”
“Well, that’s not a problem, is it? Just modify their memories, we’ve done it before.”
“I can’t, angel!” Crowley snapped, more panicked than angry. “I don’t know who or where they are! Or how many people know! Someone found out and posted it all over the internet!”
~~~
(Notes: If you want to know Missy’s full name, I’m afraid it’s not possible to type in the Roman alphabet and would take up far too much space if I tried. However, here is one of her relatives with a similarly unfortunate name. You can work it out from there. http://friendlyhostility.com/d/20050530.html
The artist of this comic does not know I exist, but she’s a genius. Look for her portrayal of Nyarlathotep in the “Chaos Theory” story arc.)
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