Perdition Lost

By Joey Peters

When the Devil abdicates the throne of Hell the netherworld is thrown into disarray.

It's not surprising that many of the damned try to use the chaos to try and escape the smoldering cauldrons of damnation, but Pete's best friend is a demon, so he succeeds where many others fail. Once back on Earth he wants nothing more than go track down his old friends, family and lovers and resume his old life.

Unfortunately for him, the conflict below is boiling over and it's only a matter of time before Pete and his best friend Dante get pulled back into the infernal war. The Devil's chosen successor isn't popular with the legions of Hell. The Angel of Death has gone mad. Baba Yaga is planning something, though nobody is completely certain what she's planning.

On their quest to restore order to the discord of hell they meet a variety of angels, demons, alchemists, eldritch abominations and a variety of figures from European mythology. They're dragged along by strange new age cults, bands that have been infected with clown, and other strange pop culture detritus.

Can Dante and Pete calm the looming conflict?

Or will all Hell break loose?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Studio Tacolicious
• Release date: Dec 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781501400285

Joey Peters

Joey Peters is a writer, cartoonist and beauty contest champion. His comics have appeared in “In a Single Bound”, “Leftovers of the Living Dead”, the Boston Phoenix, and all across the internet. He is probably most well known for his reimaginings of public domain superheroes, most particularly Stardust the Super-Wizard. His other prose works include the “Starship Victory” series and “Moonlit Massacres”. Joey lives in Boston with his wife, Donna.

Book preview

One... Perdition Lost

My story starts in Hell.

Before I continue I should explain. Living people think Hell is all fire and brimstone, agony and pain forever and ever amen. Maybe it was like that once, but not anymore.

Ten years ago I had an unfortunate run in with a train. My eyes creaked open in the burning hole of perdition. Masses of the damned surrounded me on all sides. It was Pandemonium—people yelling, screaming, moaning. A few threw punches at each other. More people than I'd ever seen before surrounded me.

Jagged tar splattered stalactites rose up above the masses and served as pillars holding the cave ceiling up at least as far as I could see.

A hulking beast scuttled up to me. He stared down at me with glowing yellow eyes from a couple feet above my head. His skin was crimson and covered in scars. Pockmarks dotted his throat and hands. Sulfur poured out of his nose. Also, he was wearing a chef jacket and checked pants.

He motioned to me with a tray of pigs-in-a-blanket and said, Can I get your drink order?

That was how I met my best friend, but the rest of my back story will have to wait.

The day started off like any other. I woke up splayed across a futon behind the bar carved out of a stalagmite in Hall 616. Marky Desade sat hunched over a trash barrel examining the empty booze bottles.

Not solid enough, he muttered in French. I could pick up most of what he said thanks to my impressive memory of high school. Too short. Corners too rounded...

Marky, I said, What up?

I'm going to meet the Third Reich this afternoon, Marky said, I want to provide them with a most pleasurable gift.

My friend Dante stared out into the hellish distance from behind the bar.

A bulbous, yellow skinned demon in a khaki suit approached. Beelzebub. The scruff covering his head wasn't exactly hair, but that didn't stop him from combing it over the top of his head to disguise his baldness.

Dantey! he said, You comin' to th' meeting today? The big man's gonna announce—

He looked over at Marky.

He said, That's Demon property boy, what you doin?

Let him, Dante said, It means I have to carry less garbage to the dumpster.

Don't tell me yore goin' soft on me, Dantey boy. You still gotta be at the meeting. Gimme a Mint Julip, the yellow demon said.

Dante prepared the drink and handed it to him.

Marky Desade grabbed me by the bicep and pulled me a few feet away.

Maybe it's finally happening, he whispered.

I said, Huh?

The devil, Marky said, Rumors have been going back and forth at least since I've been here that he's not happy. The whole Hell thing isn't operating as well as he'd hoped.

I said, Good for him? He's the one who told God to go fuck himself. Better to rule in Hell than be Heaven's bitch and all that.

Marky said, Yeah, but word on the street is Lucifer's sick and tired of being the middle manager of Hell.

Over at the bar Beelzebub took Dante by the wrist and dragged him off.

It didn't take long for Marky Desade to grow bored with my plebeian, philistine presence and he went off to shove large elaborate bottles up Hitler's ass.

* * *

I followed Dante and Beelzebub through the halls of Pandemonium. The geography of Pandemonium is a little hard to describe. You couldn't build it on Earth. Each hall is larger than a football field, so far off that you can barely see the walls from the middle.

Beelzebub pushed his way through the damned masses up to a hallway.

Hallways connect each hall of Pandemonium to one another. Two hallways ten feet away from each other lead to different Halls. Take a wrong turn and you're not going to Hall 523, you're going to Hall 752. The halls themselves are perfectly straight, it's more the space between the halls that curves. It's easy to get lost.

I never let Dante and Beelzebub get more than thirty feet ahead of me. If I lost them I might never find Hall 616 and Dante ever again.

The direction they shuffled down the halls was worrying. The numbers were getting lower. Hall 320. Hall 175. They were getting closer to the center of Hell.

In my ten years in Hell I'd never been outside of Pandemonium.

Beelzebub turned down a hallway that lead to daylight. A hazy red, nightmare daylight, but daylight none the less.

I followed them outside of Pandemonium.

I tried to get my bearings. My soul's eyes took a moment to adjust to the blazing crimson sky. Dante and Beelzebub didn't even stop.

Beelzebub dragged Dante into an open air market. This entire area of hell appeared to be some kind of city.

Demons shouted in arcane languages and motioned toward implements of torture. One slapped his hand suggestively with a wooden paddle. Another kept a wailing, damned human chained up in his stall and waved a large knife over him threateningly.

One stall was selling necklaces made from severed human hands.

I slapped my attention back on Dante and Beelzebub as strongly as I could.

The buildings were pulled from every period of history, even a few that never existed. Each was splattered with blood in at least one area and most were run down and decrepit. Above them all hung a tower that dominated the landscape. It couldn't possibly be, Hell hadn't frozen over, at least yet, but the tower appeared to be covered in a thick layer of frost.

Of course Beelzebub was making his way straight to the tower.

He lead Dante up to the front door. Two guards stood at either side of the rotating door. One was a blue skinned demon dressed up like a funeral director and the other had dayglo orange skin and wore blood splattered plate armor decorated with dents.

I followed Beelzebub and Dante as close as I could. The blue demon tried to stop me, but I spun free and pushed my way through the doors.

Hey! the orange demon said.

I pushed my way between Beelzebub and Dante. Dante grabbed my arm.

This meeting is demonspawn only. You can't be here, Earth born, the blue demon growled.

Uh, he's with me, Dante said, Promise he won't cause any trouble...

Beelzebub sighed.

What my esteemed colleague is trying to say, I said, Is that I'm his special project. I was a real piece of work topside. There's a couple mass graves in like Mexico or something I'm directly responsible for. I make Hitler look like Mr. Rogers.

The blue and orange demon stared at me incredulously.

Yew don't seem that evil to me. What you look like is one of them sodomites sent down here 'cause they soul'll track mud all over Heaven, the orange demon said.

I said, "I'm Dante's special project. He's taking, uh, night classes at the City of Dis Center of Continuing Education. I'm his senior thesis on reforming the human psyche.'

We're already running late. Just let him pass, Beelzebub said.

The two demons grumbled but didn't fight. The blue one muttered I'm telling Lucy about this, just under the level Beelzebub could hear.

They lead me up to the elevator and pressed the up button. We waited a few minutes before the door finally beeped and popped open. A small gust of cold air poured out.

We got inside and rode it up. The temperature dropped a few degrees with every passing floor. By the time we reached the 666th floor it must have been ten degrees below absolute zero.

The doors opened onto a flash frozen convention hall covered in two inches of permafrost. It was uncomfortable even without a body.

Is Hell freezing over or something? I said.

Beelzebub replied, A bird flew inna the central air unit.

A few demons huddled together using their fire breath to keep themselves from frosting over. Most of them weren't so well prepared. And unfortunately they blocked the path through the halls up to the meeting hall.

Dante slung me over his shoulder and we crawled over the frozen demons. Soon, we reached a pair of double doors that were completely frozen shut thanks to the demonic hordes cowering at them.

Pretty boy was scheduled to start this meetin' an hour ago, Beelzebub said.

His hand burst into flame. Grumbling all the way, he thawed the demons closest to the door. They started to thank him, but he ignored them, hurling them down the hall.

He cracked the door a little and forced his way through. Dante used his brute strength to force the door open a few more inches and we forced our way through.

It was a function room of some sort. Folding chairs sat assembled in rows out from a stage. A lot of folding chairs. Hundreds. Thousands. Dante walked up to the front row and sat down right in the middle. I took the seat next to him.

Beelzebub finally popped open the door at the far side of the room and disappeared into the back.

So, I said, Skyscraper in the middle of Hell.

* * *

It was another half hour before Beelzebub finally came out from backstage. A demon followed close behind him. He looked a bit like you grabbed a dude from a boy band and rolled him through a barbeque pit. Well, if you stapled two oversized charbroiled chicken wings to him afterward.

Hey Lucy! Dante said.

The Devil replied, Dante, don't see you outside Pandemonium too much these days. How's tricks?

Alright. I'm soaking up the simple afterlife. Sit behind a bar all day, mix margaritas and mojitos for the simple minded damned. Relax.

I can see the appeal, the Devil said. Who's your damned buddy?

I said, My name's Pete. I got sent down here on account of my hairy palms, if you catch my drift.

Bigfoot isn't fit to enter Paradise? That figures, Lucifer said.

You haven't been topside in a long time, have you? I said.

Well, I intend to fix that shortly, Lucifer said. Beelzy, pop the doors and let's get this over with.

Beelzebub was already over the the doors. He used a massive gust of flame to melt them enough to crack open. Once it was open enough to pucker his lips up to he fired a burst into the hallway.

The demons groaned back to life and pushed their way into the hall. At first they filled up the back seats, but once those were filled they continued forward in the manner of school kids trying to look cool until all the seats were taken. And then they filled up the sides and any open spaces.

I've got places to be, Lucifer said, so I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Most of you aren't going to like what I've got to say, but well? Fuck ya. I've got bigger fish to fry.

The Devil said, About three hundred years back I happened upon a problem. The number of mortals down here was expanding exponentially with hundreds dying every day. Thousands every year. Most of them ended up here because you're not Heaven material unless you've never so much as ripped the tag off a mattress.

And God isn't crafting new renegade angels to cast out of Heaven, so we're rather shit out of luck. I had to come up with a solution and that was Pandemonium.

Punishing billions of humans with thousands of demons just won't work out. So, obviously, we only had one choice. Pandemonium was designed to be a little bit of Paradise in Perdition.

The Devil said, I don't know why I thought it was a good idea.

The crowd roared. Whooped. Hollered. Some bellowed in anger and others in delight. Was the Devil announcing a return to form?

But like I said earlier, Lucifer said, You're not going to like what I've got to say.

We can't turn back time and we don't have the demonpower to conquer the hordes of man in Pandemonium. It's simply not possible. When you're outnumbered by a million percent... so my fellow hell spawn, I have a proposition.

The crowd hushed back up.

Integration with the damned humans. We hire some of them to help us torture the truly evil. Allow them to ascend the ranks of the fallen angels.

To that end I'm proud to announce my successor.

The curtain behind the devil jostled. A round, bald dude walked out onto the stage. He bore no horns nor strange skin colors. His hands weren't beastly claws. He was just some guy.

Jerry, Lucifer said. The absolute monarch of Hell. Beast of the Ninth Circle. Jerry. Satan.

The little man walked up to the podium and said, Uh, hello demons of the underworld. I'm sure that we'll get along swimmingly. We'll be on a first name basis within a couple weeks!

Uh, Dante, I whispered into my buddy's ear, I think we should get out of here.

Dante said, I dunno, Pete. I think I want to hear what this guy has to say...

Then Arch-Duke of the Sixth Circle Formocles, a monstrous skeleton with stretched leather binding over his body for skin, hurled a fireball at the stage.

Lucifer lurched forward and knocked the fireball backward, directly into Formocles. The Arch-Duke exploded. The flesh burned from his bones and he burned away to a small pile of cinders.

Other demons bristled. A contingent of lesser imps rose to their feet, bile black venom dripping from their claws, and a group of gargoyles climbed to their feet.

Dante and I ducked out as quickly as we could.

Fires roared and explosions popped in the distance as we charged down the hallway to the exit. We road a wave of hot air that melted the ice frosted up around. I lost my footing and skied through the hall.

I hit the wall so hard I forgot, for a moment, that I'm already dead.

Dante scooped me up again and continued around a corner toward the elevator.

Beelzebub pushed past us, muttering to himself. He reached the elevator before us and pressed the call button.

That sunuvabitch! he growled, I been his right hand beast for two millenia. I kissed ass. I played politics. I put in my time. And this is how he repays me!?

Dante said, You're not the only demon thinking that.

Yeah, but I'm the only one thinking that and not hurling fireballs at the new guy, Beelzebub said.

As if they were waiting for that, a Soul Breaker from the fourth circle rounded the corner and hurled a comet at us. We dodged to the side.

The elevator binged. The door slid open. The comet flew past us into the elevator and exploded. The door burst off and rolled down the hall.

Bits and pieces broke off the elevator and it tumbled down.

The Soul Breaker cackled and laughed. A scarred hand grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall. Jerry stepped out from behind the wall. The Soul Breaker struggled, tried to create another comet from its demonic fire and a large shard of ice.

Jerry tapped the shard of ice away and said, That was an awful impolite thing to do. I'm going to have to suspend you for two days without pay.

A fireball shot out from around the corner, but Jerry dodged it and charged away.

The Soul Breaker wheezed.

I need this like another herpes outbreak. I'm out of here, Beelzebub said.

He jumped down the elevator shaft. His body spatted against the side a couple times before a loud, wet, Wham reverberated back up to us.

Well, Dante said, I don't know if we have a better choice.

Worst case scenario I'll die, be judged again and come back down here, I said.

I dove down the elevator shaft. I tried to grab the cable on my way down, but the skin sheered from my hand immediately, leaving my sinew and bone exposed in a half dozen places on each hand. I slammed into a humungous pile of snow compacted on top of the elevator, just next to Beelzebub.

Dante followed me down two seconds later.

He was the first of us back up on his feet. He snatched me back up with one hand and dragged me out toward the exit. Beelzebub lurched toward the exit behind us.

We ran through the revolving doors.

The orange demon said, Lucifer's speech went over that bad, huh?

Y'all don't even know the half of it, Beelzebub grumbled.

* * *

Dante pushed a cup of tea in front of me. It smelled like a mixture of ginger and puke. I reached out with my shattered hands. My bones clinked against the china. The sound rattled me and I recoiled.

Drink it, Dante said, It'll heal your hands and any other injuries.

I sipped the tea. It tasted of spiney nettles and puke. It made me feel stronger anyway.

Where are we? I said.

Even if you're already dead, having your hands mangled still hurts like a motherfucker. Dante had dragged me away from Cocytus Tower while I was pretty much out of it. All I was certain of is that we were moving. Explosions roared in the distance. Demons screamed in pain and rage. And I couldn't keep my train of thought putting forward for more than a couple minutes.

Dante said, The South Side of the City of Dis. It's one of the nicer neighborhoods. The demons who live here are merely self-absorbed, not outright malicious. None of the demons here would risk true death, so they won't join the fight. I'll be safe here,

We huddled behind a building in an alleyway. We couldn't easily see the main road from there, but demons on the main road couldn't see us there either.

True death? I said.

You see that demon burn up to a pile of cinders back in the tower? Dante said. He's not coming back from that. He's gone. Forever.

Wait, wait. That one time I accidentally cut my head off I woke up back in Hell a couple hours later, I said.

Demons are different. Look—this all ties in with why Hell is supposed to be a pit of boiling flame. Let's see if I can explain it real quick. A human soul, no matter how foul and damned, still has a tiny shard of God inside it. Nothing we can do in Hell can destroy it. Demons, on the other hand, have had their shard of God forcibly removed by the Almighty Himself. We can be obliterated...

A loud grunt reverberated across the alley. I craned my head around to figure out where it came from: some kind of massive hippopotamus.

It stood on two legs and loomed even over Dante at almost nine feet tall. Tremendous tusks spit out from his mouth and he was covered in matted brown fur.

Dante, it said, Always knew you had a soft spot for our little morsels. This is just sickening.

The demon moved up to Dante and tried to stare him down.

Behemoth, calm down, Dante said.

The demon swung his arm around in a massive hay-maker. Dante easily dodged and jammed his fist into Behemoth's stomach. The demon lurched to the ground.

Sorry, Dante said, But you were out of line. Get out of here.

Dante offered Leviathan a hand up and he took it gratefully. As soon as