"Shock and awe, Stogie," uttered a pale-skinned boy wearing a pink beanie and bright blue jeans to his friend who wore similar clothing as they walked down the street, Haven High School looming on the right-hand side like a forgotten dream. "Shock and awe."
It was a Saturday, a week after Sam and Jordan had last been together, and the entire school was empty, save for the janitors who were there in the morning hours, cleaning out dirt and dusting surfaces.
Just as Mr. Svensson—a middle-aged Swedish man with thinning white hair and stubble on his beard, which itched every so often—who'd made Haven his home some twenty years ago and had served as the school janitor for fifteen of those—finished up work on that day at approximately 11:46 a.m. As Svensson packed up his equipment into the janitor's closet and made his way to the front door, keys knocking on each other in his hand like hockey pucks against the wall of an ice rink, two uninvited guests made their way into the building.
He would have turned back and accosted them in the way that he usually did—it would have been like talking to truant students who were in the habit of running along the hallway, especially when the floor was wet and had just been cleaned: Stop running on the hall or I'm taking you to the Principal's office—if he had been able to see them come in.
Svensson locked the front door and ran the length of the chain through the handles, securing it with a large padlock. Within the building, the two intruders clicked and clacked their way across the tiling on the floors. They walked ahead, gurgling and chuckling as they did, bodies scraping against the walls and long toes sliding against the sleek flooring. One of them stopped in front of the door to the chemistry lab and jumped up with eerie glee to look into the room through the square glass window positioned high up on the door's frame.
The second intruder smacked the first when he got down, like a mother disciplining her child for running around and playing too much in a playground. They both scurried onward to the staircase, jumping down and scraping tiles with each landing until they got to the basement. The walls were painted a light blue and yellow—blue above and yellow below, both colors separated in the middle by a white line—and the hallway led in only one direction: towards the red door that led into the boiler room.
It had been installed with the school when it was built and was used to house mechanical equipment for regulating the hot water that ran through the building. The entire sub-basement had been locked down completely, and no one, not even janitors, had been down there in years.
They saw the red door ahead and scurried along the ground as fast as they could, which wasn't very fast because they weren't very large. Stacked on top of each other, they weren't even three feet tall. The more joyful one who wanted to look into the chemistry lab had skin that looked like that of a shark; it was yellow, scaly, and slick, glistening against every light source.
As they got to the door, they walked on, dematerializing through it like it wasn't there. There was a gentle ripple like water against the surface of the door as they moved until their bodies were fully through. The other intruder had black, hard skin like an armadillo. Its head was smaller than its body, and it ambled forward, its scaly talons making contact with the ground.
On the inside of the boiler room, everything was relatively the same as it had been for years. Junction boxes and hot water pipes ran the entire length and height of the room. An overhead incandescent bulb flickered in the middle of the room, casting occasional shadows across surfaces.
But if someone had looked just a little bit more closely, they would have definitely seen those two interesting specimens standing in front of the door, gazing around. And they would have seen hundreds of them. They were everywhere—some were hanging off of pipes and swinging around like delinquent kindergartners, others were sitting around and getting into the occasional push and shove when one inadvertently bumped into another one; it was a cramped space and bumping was inevitable—and these two only added to the number.
"You," one of the demons that sat on the boiler at one corner of the room spoke, the words slithering out of his mouth like a snake. He was much, much larger and was about six feet in length. "The only reason you're standing before me is if you've done what I have asked of you."
"Yes, Master," the armadillo demon replied. He possessed a long snout like that of a dog, but it had been bent and twisted out of shape. Like someone had tried to wring water out of a piece of fabric and stopped halfway. "But we encountered some problems along the way."
"That's the kind of excuse I do not like to hear," the demon said in a roar as he slithered off the boiler, around a pipe, and reached the floor. It was on the demon in seconds as it wrapped its scaly body around the lowly demon and proceeded to slowly crush it. Other demons that had been playing around on pipes and getting into pointless squabbles kept quiet and watched.
The demon breathed, and its breath reeked heavily of sulfur. The demon at its mercy gasped and recoiled, fearing some form of punishment that certainly awaited it.
"I could end you right now if I wanted to, and I'd forget about it once I'm done," the snakelike demon uttered, staring into the lowly demon's essence with steely red eyes. It held the demon's head with claws that were as long as knives and slowly twisted. The demon cried out in anguish.
"Forgive me, Master!" the demon cried aloud, pleading to an entity that had never known forgiveness. "They overpowered us with their weapons."
"I guess that would explain why you have come crawling back to me looking like filth and reeking of disgrace and failure," the demon said, the words 'filth' and 'disgrace' slithering off its tongue in an almost seductive tone. It released the head of its minion and rubbed its razor-sharp claws together with a fine scraping sound. "I don't know why I put up with the likes of you. You're all useless to me."
With that, it gripped the demon once more and flung it to the other side of the room, where it bounced off a pipe and fell to the ground. Silently, it picked itself up and rushed to a dark corner, hiding from its master's wrath.
"And YOU," the demon said, spinning around to look into the yellow eyes of the other demon that had arrived through the door. Whatever gleeful thoughts and dreams had been in its mind quickly evaporated like water drying off in the wake of scorching heat, and all that was left was a growing fear.
"What did you do?" the slithering demon asked. "You were supposed to sow doubt and fear into the mind and heart of the one they call Samuel."
The demon uttered the name like it was the most disgusting thing ever. It looked like it had been forced to swallow bile.
"The angels," the lowly yellow demon started, attempting to pick its words wisely to avoid being flung across the room or worse. "They stopped us before we could get to the boy. We tried to fight them off, but...
"So, you all failed. I sent out four of you," the demon stated, slithering across the floor towards the boiler. "The only reason I'm not flaying your skins like oranges and sending you both back to the depths of Hell this instant is because you had the gall to report back. That's the only thing you have going for you. Useless mites."
The entire room was silent, and the other demons watched in terror. Whenever it was angry, nothing ever went well. The lesser demons knew that they would be dispatched within seconds if any of them incurred their wrath.
"This simply can't be happening," The demon stated, closing its red eyes, that those were the only things that held any color on its body. As it stood there on four legs and stretched its body towards the ceiling, it looked like a black, ancient gargoyle. Some of the demons close to it scattered away from it and ran into the darkness to hide. "This cannot be happening. We have but a few days left to secure the one called Samuel. If we don't, this will all have been for nothing."
"What can we do—?" one of the demons started to speak.
"SHUT UP!" the snake demon yelled in the direction of the sound, its slit pupils shrinking until they were mere lines in its eyes, teeth bared, claws extended in rage. "Let me think!"
The demon that spoke looked like it was about to burst from terror and emitted a single noise that sounded like a mute shriek. It didn't even run—it was in so much shock that it couldn't move. The thick smell of sulfur continued to invade the space.
Someone who dared to speak up stepped forward slowly. It was much bigger and looked to be more capable than the other lesser demons that filled the boiler room. That might have been because it was not a demon. Or at least not physically.
"Master?" it said, getting on one knee as soon as it had spoken lest it incur wrath upon itself. "May I speak?"
The superior demon cast one glance at it and turned away like it couldn't care less. "What is it?"
"What would you have us do?" the man began, keeping his head low to the ground as a show of respect and reverence. "We are all your humble servants, and what pleases you pleases us. We...I...would want nothing more than to serve you and bring glory to you."
"Hmm," the demon moaned, turning to look at the minion that bowed to him on one knee. "Kissing ass, I like it. And you do it well too. What is your name?"
The vaguely humanoid demon looked up and spoke, its silvery eyes slicing through the darkness. "Despair, my liege."
"Despair," the demon repeated, uttering the word like a mouthful of champagne being savored for its flavor before the inevitable swallow. "I like that. We have the same agenda, you and I, and you look fairly capable. How long have you had this host?"
"I have had him for over three months, Master."
The demon didn't speak and waited for its master to issue an order.
"We don't go about trusting each other in this line of business we're in," the demon said as it began to pace around. "That would be a dangerous thing to do. But I can put some level of confidence in you. You don't appear to be as useless as the rest of the vermin in this place. If I could have my way, I would burn the lot of you. But, as it so happens, I need this little nuisance taken care of as soon as possible."
"The one called Samuel."
"Yessssss," the demon slithered. "Exactly. Samuel, the Sentinel—the piece of oblivious, stinking, rotting human meat that I would personally get rid of if I could get out of this damned hellhole!"
It stopped pacing and turned around, looking at the demon that knelt on the damp floor.
"Pun intended, of course," the demon said. "Hell is much worse than this place."
"What do you want me to do, Master?" the man asked. "I am your servant."
"It seems those angelic halfwits have begun to actively protect him, which makes two things clear: we have limited time until he becomes untouchable—attempting to do so at that point would be equivalent to dipping your appendages into the lake of fire—and when that happens, we might as well throw ourselves in willingly. The second thing, arguably the most important point as we speak, is that he is vulnerable. And vulnerability means accessibility. Ah—please tell me you're taking notes on this; I would hate to repeat myself."
"He is vulnerable, and this is the best chance to get ahead of the angels," he said accurately.
"Exactly," the demon voiced, continuing its monologue. "But if you're spotted, we're screwed."
"That will not happen."
The demon responded, "Oh," genuinely intrigued by the answer. If it possessed eyebrows, it would have raised one in disbelief. "Is that so?"
"I know just how to get to Samuel," the demon-possessed man said, bowing once more. "I will not fail in my mission."
"Very well," the superior demon spoke, its red eyes so bright that they appeared to be glowing in their sockets. "I want Samuel taken care of—you don't have to bring him here. I just need him conveniently distracted so that he doesn't achieve the plans of the angels. If you succeed in killing him in the process, I'll take an increase in your rank under advisement. Now, begone."
"Yes, Wrath, my lord." And, with that, the man slunk backwards once again into the darkness.
Wrath looked at some imps that cowered in the corner, laughing as he spoke. "I might actually like that one."