What Would Satan Do? (11 page)

The elevator dinged and Satan stepped out onto the twelfth floor into a semi-circle of twenty agents armed with automatic weapons, all of which were pointed directly into the elevator.  Agent Robertson stood behind the other agents, his hands on his hips.

“Don’t move,” he said.

Chapter 12.
          
Grandma Was Secretly a Velociraptor

It was sunny, breezy, and fairly cool as Festus P. Bongwater stood outside the enormous church doors of St. Crispin’s Catholic Church.  The monstrous old building looked like a holdover from back in the days before Texas had won its independence – when vaqueros, empresarios, and Spanish missions abounded. 

It sat on Guadalupe Street – “the Drag” – on the western border of the University of Texas, and its three-story, whitewashed walls were utterly devoid of windows or other decorative frivolity.  The plainness of the edifice stood in stark contrast to the graffiti-strewn record shops, whimsical toy stores, and hip clothing vendors frequented by students, and yet, for most people, the building somehow managed to blend into the background. 

Festus shot surreptitious glances up and down the sidewalk, checking for cops and other ne’er-do-wells.  His long hair, unkempt beard, and overcoat, however, actually worked to his benefit for once.  The other pedestrians gave him a wide berth and avoided making eye contact, just as they did with all the other weirdos on the drag who looked like they might ask for spare change or start ranting about hellfire. 

Festus had planned a dramatic entry, but found that the doors were much too heavy for him just to burst in.  The huge doors were as imposing as the rest of the façade, and appeared to have been hewn from some sturdy old tree or six.  The wood was studded at intervals with huge metal rivets that might have been stripped from an ironclad during the War of Northern Aggression.  He put all of his weight into it, and one of the doors creaked open.

The congregation was lined up in the center aisle, where the priest had just started handing out the communion wafers.  They appeared not to notice Festus’ entry.  He took a deep breath, and pulled an over-sized water gun from the folds of his coat. 

“Step aside, fiends!  I’m here for Jesus!”

The music stopped, and fifty horrified parishioners turned to face the intruder.

The water gun was a high-tech model, with dual-pump action and a two-liter reservoir.  He held it up above his head. 
Shock and awe
, he thought. 
Shock and awe
.  “Put.  The Jesus crackers.  Down,” he said.

Nobody moved.  The congregation was silent.  Festus scanned the crowd, surprised that they weren’t putting up any kind of fight at all.  The last time he’d done something like this he’d had to squirt a mean old lady.  But these parishioners just looked confused and hurt, with their knitted eyebrows and trembling lips.  It was disconcerting.

Festus faltered.  This was turning out to be much more difficult than he’d anticipated.  These people were supposed to be angry and irrational.  He didn’t want to steal Jesus crackers from sad little grandmas.

He didn’t notice, up at the altar, the slight smirk that crossed the priest’s face.  Or see the altar boy’s lip curl in disgust as he stole a glance toward Festus.  He definitely didn’t pick up on the priest nodding to a parishioner who was standing off to the side of the pews.

They didn’t show it, but the congregation was prepared for idiots like Festus.  They’d heard about that kid in Florida who had absconded with the host without swallowing, and a few of them had even seen the communion-cracker-desecration videos on the Internet.  And as close as they were to the University, they knew it was only a matter of time until one of the goddamned hippie kids showed up and pulled a stunt like this.  So they’d prayed, and then they’d planned, and then they’d drilled.  They’d drilled until each of the congregation elders knew his or her part cold.  And then they’d drilled some more.  They were ready.

Festus took a deep breath.  “I’m here to rescue Jesus, you dirty cannibals.”

The priest set the bowl of Jesus down, and stepped out from behind the altar, locking eyes with Festus.  “Son, I understand what you’re saying.” 

Festus responded by pointing the water gun at the man and moved toward the altar.  The priest held his hands out.  “At least do me the favor of hearing me out,” he said.

As Festus made his way up the aisle, an older man slipped behind him and quietly turned the lock on the doors at the rear of the church.  Two old ladies crept toward Festus from either side, keeping just outside his peripheral vision.  They walked on their tiptoes and bobbed their heads, holding their gnarled, old-lady fingers out in front of them, looking very much like velociraptors dressed in their Sunday best.

Festus took a deep breath, preparing to dive in.  He’d practiced his speech.  “In the Bible, Jesus—”

“Son—” the priest’s voice boomed.  Festus stopped, mouth agape.  People usually ignored him, though he never knew whether it was because they regarded him as a harmless weirdo, or because they thought he was crusty.  “This is serious business,” the priest said, “This isn’t just snack food we’re talking about here.”  He glanced at the predatory old ladies moving ever closer toward their prey.  He still had a little bit of time to kill.  “Tell me son,” he said.  “Have you ever heard of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Festus, shaking his head.  “I’ve heard all that, and you know what?  It’s crap.  Total crap.  They made it up.  You know it, I know it, so please shut up, okay?”  Festus lifted the water gun back up from where he’d let it hang down and waved at the congregation.  The old priest took a step back, gathering up his vestments. 

Festus knew these people.  He’d spent years with them – among them.  Back then his name was Daniel – a good, Biblical name.  And while he’d never had much in the way of faith or been much of a fan of what he considered the “mystical” side of the church, he’d understood that there was far more to it than that.  He understood the role it played in people’s lives.  And like so many people, he’d felt that he was a ship without a keel or a rudder or whatever.  But maybe he shouldn’t have let it bother him so much.  He was, after all, never really in to sailing.  Or any sports or outdoor activity of any kind really.

After high school, when people he knew went off to the military or college or jail, he’d enrolled in the seminary program of a small Catholic university.  He’d spent the next six years studying theology, getting first a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree, always thinking that maybe he’d catch some spark of faith somewhere along the way.  But he never did.  In fact, the further he went, the more skeptical he became.  Then, one day the Pope denounced a nine-year-old rape victim for having an abortion and proclaimed that condoms actually increased the likelihood of the spread of HIV.  Daniel decided right then that he’d had enough; that he needed a change.  And so he’d left.

A year later, he was back.  With a beard, a new name, a water gun, and something that was almost, but not entirely unlike a plan. 

“Bring me Jesus,” he said, but before the priest spoke the old ladies pounced.  The water gun skidded across the floor and under a pew.  The retirement-age velociraptors slid their claws through Festus’ arms, and started dragging him back toward the doors.  At ninety pounds apiece, these grannies should have been no match for their quarry, but they had surprise on their side.  Nobody ever expects to be attacked by a grandma, let alone two of them.

“What the fuck?!”  Festus tried to wrench his arms free from the vice-like grip of the diminutive septuagenarian killing machine in a floral dress on his right, but it was no use.  Knitting apparently helped build incredible arm strength.  He consoled himself for a moment by telling himself it wasn’t right to fight old ladies, even batty old dinosaur grandmas with claws of steel.  There was also the fact that it really didn’t seem to matter whether he fought back.  And so he did what any red-blooded beta male would do in his situation.  He flailed wildly and screamed like a little girl.

A few of the men in the audience had actually been enjoying church for the first time in a long time.  After all, although the priest usually strung together a good homily, his sermons rarely involved intruders armed with water guns.  But nobody liked to see a grown man cry like a that.  One leaned over the back of the pew where he was sitting, and looking at Festus with disgust, called out, “Get a grip, man!”  Another man picked up the water gun and began shooting Festus.

Festus’ howls bumped up an octave.

“Stop screaming, damnit!”

The absurdity of the situation was beginning to take its toll on Festus.  Of course, being pinned down by psycho-killer attack grandmas while being shot in the face with a high-caliber water bazooka probably would have been rough even for a man like Gregor Samsa, let alone a powder puff like Festus.  The pressing issue, however, was not the grandmas or the water guns.  It was the fact that he’d come in to this church as the weirdo troublemaker.  And somehow he’d stumbled upon what might have been the most screwed up, psychotic congregation in Texas.  He saw no option other than to howl like a maniac.

One of the parishioners came up and tore the water gun out of the first man’s hands.  “Stop it!” he said.  “He’s never going to shut up if you keep spraying him in the face.”

Festus spluttered and caught his breath, and looked up just in time to see the priest stride up, tearing off his vestments as he walked, leaving only a severe, black cassock.  His face was dominated (and actually preceded) by a large, angular protrusion that he, presumably, regarded as a nose, but that looked more like a beak than anything else.  Between his freakish nose and his black, man dress – which flowed and billowed behind him – the priest looked like a giant crow. 

Two old men in leather pants and black T-shirts fell in beside him as he walked.  One of the old men had the word “Mother” tattooed on his arm.  The other had leather wristbands adorned with half-inch metal spikes.  Festus noticed that the parishioners were streaming out the side doors of the chapel.  In fact, most had already left. 

“You’ve got no idea who you’re messing with, boy,” said the priest.

“The Catholic Church?”

The priest’s Village-People cohorts laughed.  He held his hand up to silence them.

“Young man, what you’ve done here today is an awful, awful thing.  And you are going to pay for your sins.”  He turned to the priest.  “Bring me the host.”

It was at this point that Festus went into full-on batshit comic-book-character mode.  His eyes turned to slits, and he set his beard-covered jaw to give his best steely look.  “Do your worst,” he said.

Chapter 13.
          
Friggin’ FBI Agents Everywhere

Satan raised his hands slowly.  Fifteen FBI agents stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a semicircle facing the open elevator, pointing guns of various sizes and shapes at him.  Some of the weapons were very large and very unpleasant looking.  His FBI nemesis, agent Bob Robertson, stood in the dead center of the group. 

“Lie down on the floor,” said Robertson.  “Now.”

Satan stared at Robertson.  He lowered his hands and, leaning over, put them on his knees.  He slid one leg back, as if he were about to lie down, and scanned the eyes of the men with all the guns.  They were just men, he thought.  Just men.

The elevator lobby exploded with light.

A few seconds later, Robertson sat up and looked around.  His agents lay sprawled all over the floor.  Satan’s body sat in an awkward heap near the elevator door.  One of those “EXIT” signs with the red, illuminated letters dangled precariously from the ceiling and then fell, smashing to bits on the floor. 

Robertson turned to look up at the point on the ceiling from where the sign had fallen, but stopped as he spotted a very large, very well-lit man standing in front of the elevator.  The man had wings.  Really big wings, which seemed to stretch from one end of the lobby to the other.  He was the most beautiful thing Robertson had ever seen. 

Satan rolled his neck and sighed.  It was good to stretch his wings, even if it was only for a moment.  He felt light and unencumbered.  His mind raced, free of the thought-inhibiting sludge that slowed and muddied his thoughts as a human.  He opened his eyes and stared down at Robertson, who was still on the floor, looking a little shocked.

“What—?”

The Devil pressed a finger to his lips.  “Shhhh,” he said, and turned to lift his human body and place it just inside the open elevator.  The door chime bonged as the door tried to shut, thwarted by the body of one of the agents.  He turned back to Robertson with a kindly smile.  “Relax, my friend.”

A warm breeze began to blow there, in front of the elevators, and Robertson suddenly felt very calm and a little sleepy.  He closed his eyes, feeling the warm air on his face, and let his head drift back, as if he were settling into a bath. 

After just a moment, however, the breeze picked up, swirling and scattering papers and other garbage from the offices nearby.  The temperature began to rise.  The comfortable warmth on Robertson’s face faded, replaced by the sensation of having been out in the sun a little too long. 

The wind blew faster and began to make a faint, whistling sound that grew to an insistent howl.  The small trashcan in front of the elevator suddenly burst into flames.  One of the slumbering agents began to stir, apparently awakened as his clothes started to smolder.  Robertson reached for his gun but immediately dropped it, yelling out in pain as he clutched his now burnt hand to his chest. 

The walls began to smoke; the paint blistered and bubbled and, after a few seconds, fell in ashy chunks to the floor.  Flames burst out from the holes in the paint and spread across the walls.  An alarm sounded and sprinkler heads dropped from the ceiling, but the nozzles sprayed no water – only steam.

Satan stood over the scene with the beatific countenance of a priest at a wedding.  He glanced over at Robertson, who was standing now and looking down at his shoes, the soles of which had melted to the floor.  He glanced up from his liquefying footwear, meeting Satan’s eyes.