The Devil's Computer: Demon Land, #3

By Daniel Sokoloff

"The Devil's Computer" is the electrifying third installment in the Demon Land series, plunging readers into a dark and treacherous world where demonic politics and supernatural technology collide. In this gripping tale, the bat-demon senator, Malekarm Howler takes center stage, driven by his insatiable ambition and an insidious desire for ultimate power.
Malekarm stumbles upon a malevolent conspiracy of unparalleled proportions: the resurrection of Great Satan's consciousness within a diabolical computer system known as the Leviathan Matrix.

In the wake of the immortal emperor Amon abandoning Demon Land, a sinister power vacuum has emerge, giving Malekarm the opportunity to seize the reins of control. But standing in his way is a formidable adversary that threatens to make his dreams of domination a reality – the enigmatic and alluring mind of Great Satan himself, calling himself Sulphur, who Malekarm's own illegitimate daughter, Madiah, has befriended.

As Malekarm grapples with his own internal demons and his daughter's loyalty to the sinister machine, he must make a fateful choice: to embrace his ruthless thirst for power or to fight against the Leviathan Matrix's devilish agenda. "The Devil's Computer" is a tale of malevolence, ambition, and unexpected alliances, set against the backdrop of a world teetering on the brink of supernatural chaos. Prepare to be enthralled by this dark, thrilling saga that will leave you questioning the very boundaries between man and machine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Sokoloff
• Release date: Oct 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223559047

Daniel Sokoloff

Daniel Sokoloff lives in Philadelphia, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His experiences growing up in cities informs the depiction of the demonic cities in his books.  He also moonlights as a poet and occultist, dabbling in demonolatry and divination. His first book of poetry, Dream of the Ash, is about his relationship with the god of wisdom, Odin.

Book preview

Prologue

T

he mob came, and the dark-weavers knew they were coming. Even the youngest, oldest, and most dim of the spider demons could sense the waves of fear and hatred emanating from the city of Duskrim, nary twenty miles away. The wiser and more talented spiders had seen the pogrom coming months ago, but being massive, hairy arachnids, really had nowhere to run. Dark-weavers had lived in the Moor to the north of the city, bordering the hamlet of Batsmark, preferring to continue living in their trees since the days of the Rapture Wars, and when demons began raising goblets in the captured castles of their very human oppressors, the dark-weavers went back to their trees, feasting on birds as Absalom, the angelic Prince of Stars, and his headmate, the demon Amon, with whom he shared a mind and body, taught the demons about electricity, carpentry, and the basics of civilization. The spiders gazed up at the stars, singing of the torturous millennia that would pass as they spun their webs, hearing the voice of fate in the twinkling orchestra of the night sky, seeing the tangled path destiny would take in the gooey, thick strands of their webs. Wars raged, cities fell, kings died, the continent of Sunmaria was renamed Demon Land, and still the dark-weavers huddled in the warped world of spindly tree limbs, twisted around one another like the limbs of tortured giants, the viscous nests of the dark-weavers stretched between them as they fed and taught their young to read the strands of destiny. Those brave enough, demon or human, could venture into the Moor to visit the Bleeding Trees of the dark-weavers to hear their future, but the spiders had little loyalty for the mundane dreams their demonic brethren had gotten entangled in; the desperate pilgrim was just as likely to end up cocooned and sucked dry by a demonic spider as they were to hear a secret so deep and horrific as to make the listener lose perspective of their minute concerns.

Long had Absalom and Amon shared a body, and long had they ruled over Demon Land as emperor, with a dark-weaver serving as their personal seer, the Over-Seer. When the emperor fell into a deep sleep, the Over-Seer, from his web above the Cracked Throne of the emperor, told the denizens of Demon Land that the angel and demon had lost their stalemate, and were at war with one another for control of the body, and that he would awaken one day to lead his people once again. It wasn’t until the previous year, three months ago in September of 1990 AD (Angeli Descendunt), that the Over-Seer had been outed as a liar, exposed by a young demon aristocrat who had broken the tradition of over nine hundred years to discover the emperor, bound in silk threads, comatose from venom injected by spider-bite. The emperor was gone now, flown away from the planet after his awakening, but the demonic peoples of the empire weren’t content with the Over-Seer in prison, awaiting trial. They turned on the insectoid amongst them, the demons incarnated in dragonflies, roaches, and beetles, before turning their attention on the hermit dark-weavers that dwelled on the periphery of civilization.

Wandering ghosts, stragglers from wars fought in the distant past and little more than a nuisance in the modern age, floated through the Moor, howling as they passed through the gaseous vapors emanating from the murk where alligators and fish swam. They were drawn by the negative feelings of the mob, the nervous anticipation of the dark-weavers, the black smoke of the torches, and the murderous intentions that hovered over both sides.

The younger spiders stayed to defend their oaks and birches, who sobbed and bled as the spiders readied for war. Other spiders, having foreseen the blackened remnants of trees and suffocating smoke, left their home behind, hissing as they fled, marking a tree to return to someday. Most of the older dark-weavers though, the wizened, massive, slowest-moving arachnids, whose bodies were covered in shaggy fur like massive, smelly yaks, chose not to fight or flee. They had seen further than all the other dark-weavers, and while predicting the future can be fickle and prone to revision, the patterns they had seen in their webs and the moaning of their trees had gone further than their patch of weeping trees, further than the Moor, further than Batsmark, further than Duskrim, further even than Demon Land. Better to stay in your cozy nest of strong branches and soft spider’s silk and burn than to run into that future.

The demon senator smiled, his telecaster slate held loosely in one claw as he drove down the Basilisk Expressway. His large bat-ears could hear the voice coming from the small black slate just fine, but his glee was so great that he couldn’t help himself from bringing it closer to his ear. Finally, everything was going his way.

So where are the terrorists now? What charges were filed? he demanded.

They weren’t terrorists, Senator Malekarm, merely vagrants engaging in an unlawful assembly in the woods, the High Inquisitor said, his voice sounding exactly like the voice that would emanate from a flaming dog skull.

That’s plenty for me to spin, thank you, Flux. How many Scourge squadrons are out there monitoring these protests? Malekarm asked.

We’ve got four squads out in the field, with three more on standby. We’re just waiting for one dotard to slip up, throw something or say the wrong thing to start cracking down, High Inquisitor Flux said.

Or the right thing, Malekarm preened. So, what happened in the woods, then?

And the High Inquisitor described the Scourge’s assault on the unlicensed, peaceful gathering the Happiness Moot had organized. Organized by hippies, artists, unlicensed seers and fortune-tellers, Happiness Moots happened all across Demon Land every year, the invitations spread throughout the underworld of Duskrim, Howl’s City, Doom City, and the other major metropolitan areas of the empire, asking demons and humans alike to come into the woods to supply and enjoy homecooked meals, unregulated alcohol and ichors, live, unproduced music, hand-stitched clothing and blankets, illegal fortune readings, and untaxed souvenirs and other products that were a drain on the local, legitimate businesses. As far as Senator Malekarm and High Inquisitor Flux were concerned, the Happiness Moots were just as close to terrorists as the actual terrorists were. The Inquisitor had the full command of the Suppression Force, which served as the principal law enforcement division within the Scourge, which comprised the sum total of Demon Land’s domestic peace-keeping organizations. The Suppression Force was tasked with matters of national security, and typically didn’t get involved in shaking up harmless counter-cultural situations that the regular Scourge was better suited for, but the 1990’s had turned out to be a decade of upheaval and turmoil. Malekarm’s younger son, Splinter, had fallen in with a human terrorist, his magic tutor, the wizard Witheron, and had been forced to battle his fellow student, Faustina, herself a girl of angelic lineage, an event that the media now referred to as The Struggle, as if it were a microcosm of the demonic philosophy of self-determination and stoicism that shared the name. Though Splinter had killed her, Washer’s Square, where the Senatorial Palace and the forum of the empire was, had been utterly destroyed. With the emperor gone, where did demonkind go from here? Certainly not anywhere the human majority of the empire wanted, not if men like Senator Malekarm and High Inquisitor Flux had anything to say about it.

Banners declaring that Faustina was Right! and We Police Our Own! were a common occurrence in human neighborhoods now, as well as streets filled with protestors demanding equal representation in the Senate, Church, and Scourge. While the Hexehedron, the mighty nucleus of Demon Land’s military and Scourge, was capable of putting down any single protest no matter its ferocity, killing sizable portions of their poor human workforce and committing tremendous lists of human rights violations hardly served the national interest, nor did giving the common man an inkling that the humans weren’t actually in the minority, as the demon-run media reported. No, better to make an example of the feeble, drug-addled, disease-ridden mongrels of the Happiness Moot, descending on the Moor to protest the lynching of a few dark-weavers who would have happily cocooned them and sucked their innards dry. Better to bring the spiked glove of the empire down on helpless, useless hippies who couldn’t possibly fight back in any meaningful way. Let the bold human youth and the weak-hearted demons who sympathized with their ancient enemies see what happened to those who willfully chose to flout the laws of Demon Land and act as if their freedom was guaranteed unconditionally.

It was funny how similar every Happiness Moot shook out, really. The one out in the Moor near Malekarm’s family holdings of Batsmark had similarly tried to resist the Suppression Force that had arrived to rout them out. Old men singing of days when the air was soft and the water was clear, when heroic knights had held the Darkness at bay; women dragging barrels of fruit and pots of stew and ale while others fornicated and played games of chance among the trees and rocks. When you came down to it, was it really an imposition for law enforcement to make sure the illegal assembly wasn’t harboring any criminals, drug use, or prostitution? After all, if they weren’t doing anything wrong, they had nothing to fear, or so the mantra went...

When should I come down to the Hexehedron? I want to ride in a sky urchin, that’s the kind of photo op that defines an entire career, Malekarm asked.

Drive by whenever, at least one of the Howler clan will be here, the High Inquisitor said, referring to the fact that Splinter was supposed to be overseeing the operations of the Hexehedron, but hadn’t bothered to show up once since the Senate had unanimously elected him to serve in the new position of defender of the realm.

Malekarm was jolted out of his joy as he came off the highway and a dark blue Scourge vehicle swerved, too late and too fast to avoid him, scraping his Basilisk as it screeched away.

Confound you, worthless fiend drivers, Malekarm cursed, running his car up against the curb as he came to a stop.

You alright, Senator? the High Inquisitor shouted through the telecaster in Malekarm’s claw.

Yeah, I’m great, the chiropteran said, tightening his bat-wings against his shoulders as he surveyed the damage to his passenger side door. A grisly, silver scrape greeted him, like a metal scar in the dented door, and Malekarm quaked with anger. I’ll have to call you back, he said into his telecaster, and ended the call with a swipe. He traced a sigil into the telecaster’s smooth, reflective, black face, the lines and swirls of the symbol lighting up as his finger traced it. The call connected as soon the other demon accepted, and Malekarm held it up to one of his ears in a rage.

Mal? What can we do you? a squeaky voice shouted.

Scratch, tell Mako to file a claim with the Hexehedron, a Scourge car just crashed into my Basilisk, he said curtly, and ended the call just as his beeper went off. Everyone just wants a piece all of a sudden, he snapped, grabbing the pager off his belt. Humans, not having souls that could be expressed as a demonic sigil, couldn’t use the telecaster system, and so had to resort to calling pagers to let others know when they needed to talk to them. The number on his beeper’s screen was from his office, which meant his secretary, Wendy Watkins, was trying to reach him. That needy bitch can wait another ten minutes, the demon snorted, climbing back into his car. He was running to his office before tonight’s soliloquy, an embarrassing display he wished he could skip, and he would see Wendy there. The blaring of sirens became louder the closer he got to Maw’s Village, where his office was, and several more cars passed him, some flying models, and Malekarm cursed when he saw where they were heading. A tenement building was on fire, and the Senator shook his head, cursing softly.

Another day, another pogrom, he muttered, doing his best to avert his eyes from the crying insectoid child on the pavement. As far as Malekarm was concerned, demons had no business assaulting one another, not when the true Struggle they all faced was against the rest of Erde.

I was hoping you’d call, I was ready to send your tux to the theater, Wendy Watkins said, her dress as white and floral as a porcelain tea pot, the skirt as wide as one as well.

It’s fine, I think I’ll fly, it’s a clear night and Baphomet’s Hill is only a short distance away. If you would be so good as to have a car waiting for me though, that would be most excellent, Miss Watkins, Malekarm said, doing his best not to let his gaze linger on the human woman’s blue eyes.

You really don’t have to go, you know, Wendy said as the demon took the tuxedo that was hanging on the back of his door.

I do, Senator Festerman will be there, and I have it on good authority that he’s meeting with someone very important to him at the theater. If I can catch him doing something, I can destroy him in the midterms, Malekarm replied, going into his office.

But Mal, the Knights of Melodia said...

Don’t mention those terrorist cowards in this office! Malekarm yelled. They are murderers, teenage miscreants and scum to be exterminated with impunity! Let them attack us, they will see that our empire is invincible, unfazed to their carnage!

You know Mal, I’m not on their side. I just don’t want you to, you know, get hurt, Wendy said, doing her best to hold her composure as the Senator looked from his tuxedo to her.

Wendy, I will be fine tonight. Please, if it will make you feel better, I’ll be sure to take a window seat.

I can’t tell you what to do, sir, she replied, sniffling.

That’s right, Miss Watkins. Why not order the car now, and see yourself off? The night is still young, why not enjoy yourself for a change? Malekarm said, dreading Wendy’s response that he knew was coming.

I would feel better, so much better, if I could come, she said.

Out of the question, I must go alone, Malekarm said, holding up his free claw, unable to meet the human female’s doting gaze.

Wendy wanted to argue, but knew better. She knew that there were a multitude of things that she could do to help Malekarm spy on his rival, but her usefulness was outweighed by the risk of others thinking that he was romantically involved with a human. Even if Malekarm was a Promiser, a political party that claimed to stand for equality, the working-class demon voters they depended on to win elections would only tolerate so much.

Chapter 1: Hello, World!

T

he old demon, Professor Runo leaned against one of the towering, black stacks that lined the dark room. The hard drives within hummed softly, the delicate machinery within breathing as the mind that slumbered within them dreamed. And dream it did, for the program these stacks, arranged in orderly rows like plastic high-rises, contained was like nothing else that had ever been built since the end of the Rapture Wars. The blinking lights of the hard drives were the only source of illumination in that dark, quiet space, and also the only indication of the virtual life within.

Runo sighed deeply, lightly tapping one of the plastic shells as he went towards one of the doors. He couldn’t stay here, in the physical depths of the Leviathan Matrix. Like most things, the old professor was beholden to a master, and he wanted to leave his sacred space on his own terms. He didn’t need a call on his telecaster to force him into the communication bay. Through several more dark rooms he went, past row after row of breathing, sighing, blinking hard drive stacks, their fans whirring, their disk drives spinning, circuits clicking as the thoughts of the Leviathan Matrix processed. It was no longer sleeping, Professor Runo knew as he went through the final door, squinting as he entered the communication bay.

He’s pretty good at this game, one of the computer controllers was saying, his white lab coat unbuttoned as he sat at the computer monitor, typing in his credentials on a video game’s login screen. Two other controllers sat around the room, one of them waving awkwardly to Runo as he entered, the other typing away at another monitor. A fourth demon stood beside the controller who was playing the video game, a pestilence demon, something like a large, grey-scaled rat with dark fur that grew in scraggy patches between his scales. His red eyes were fixated on the computer monitor, but he turned to face Runo, his long, bald tail slapping against the tiles of the floor in anticipation.

So, I see this is what your controllers have been teaching and programming Sulphur for? Playing video games? the rat asked. He wore an expensive Moureaux suit, with a red, crystalline rose in the breast pocket, and white gloves on his front paws. In one paw he held a black walking stick with a gold knob at the top, and Runo noticed there was a thorn affixed to the tip of his tail.

Senator Festerman, I’m sorry we didn’t prepare a presentation for you, but you asked to see us performing with Sulphur, and I feel that perhaps we should have sent you an overview of how we are raising him, Runo explained.

Oh, do tell what I’m giving you two million novae a year for, the senator said softly, eyeing the video game. Wait, what is that screen? he asked suddenly. A smaller, horizontal monitor was set up beside the larger one, and words continually typed out across it.

That is where Sulphur speaks to us. We haven’t installed a text-to-speech program or even looked at the hardware yet. We are hyper-fixated on developing his personality and teaching him the skills he will need to fulfill his purpose one day, Runo said.

[Fedris, you know I can run Maggojester myself, right? There really is no need for you to lock me out. I have no need to abuse the game.], the screen read.

How do you talk back? the senator asked.

See that little keyboard? The small one in front of that little screen? It’s hooked in, Runo said. What looked like a forest was rendered on the main monitor now, the pixilated graphics cartoonish, yet distinct. There were no speakers hooked up to the computer, which meant that as Sulphur moved his character, a tiny priest in what was supposed to be a robe, there was no music, and no sound. Other characters were on the screen as well, and the controller named Fedris, who was watching Sulphur’s interactions with the other players and how he was playing, didn’t notice Sulphur’s question on the other screen.

[Hello Sulphur] Festerman typed onto the communication screen, and instinctively pushed the ENTER key. The message was sent as Runo grabbed his paws.

Just what do you think you’re doing? Runo reprimanded.

I’m trying to say hi to the little lord! Festerman said, slapping the professor’s hands away.

You need to be careful what you say to him, he’s at a crucial point in his development, Runo snapped.

He’s writing back, the senator said incredulously, watching the screen clear, and new ones seemingly type themselves out.

[Hello, I haven’t seen you before. How are you doing?]

Wait, this thing can see me? Festerman asked, tapping the screen.

There’s three cameras in this room. We installed them last year when we deemed his development stable enough to be able to process visual stimuli, Runo replied.

[I’m Senator Fynn Festerman, I’ve been funding your project, my lord. I am here to be your humble servant. Ave Satanas] the rat typed out.

Festerman, please, you need to stop that, Runo admonished.

Sir, he’s telling his party about what’s going on, Fedris said, swiveling his computer chair around to face Runo.

Is it that princess girl? Professor Runo asked, squinting through his glasses, his insect-grabbing tongue slipping through his sharp teeth.

Pissed_Princess13, yeah, the controller said. On the side of the screen was a log of the conversations the players were having with one another, scrolling up as more text was sent back and forth.

[This old man is calling me lord and master, it’s kind of weird. Here’s that save! - Punyking777] Sulphur typed, his character’s name, Punyking777 next to his message.

[lite his ass on fire hes a pedofork – Pissed_Princess13]

Sulphur’s priest was casting a healing spell on Pissed_Princess13’s character, shown by a crudely rendered blast of yellow pixels meant to represent a healing light that spiraled from Sulphur’s staff and engulfed Pissed_Princess13’s scantily-clad barbarian warrior character.

Runo chuckled despite himself.

Sulphur isn’t ready for all that. We’re socializing him with this game because it is a game you play with others. We want to teach him to be assertive, to take command, but so far, if you care to talk to the controllers here who watch him play this Overlord game over the network with other young demons, he’s very much a follower, Runo said.

The senator stared at Runo as if he were a graffiti tag scrawled across his front door.

What do you mean, teaching him to take command? I thought this was the soul of our lord and progenitor, put back together for a new life? Festerman demanded.

He is, but you need to understand that Sulphur is practically a child right now. He needs to be taught to be what we need him to be, Professor Runo said.

Great Satan was the greatest general to ever exist! He was the mightiest of those prissy angels, and even the fires of Hell were nothing to him! You want me to think this feeble thing playing video games with little girls is the font all demonkind were born from? Fetterman sputtered, waving his paws angrily as he ranted.

"You need to relax, Senator. He can read your lips. He doesn’t understand what you’re talking about. You wouldn’t sit a child down and tell them how their life is going to end, what the Over-Seer saw for them in their infancy, you wouldn’t start grooming them for their destiny so overtly. You need to be subtle, sir," Professor Runo said assertively, and the rat flinched as the older demon rocked his heels, his dark, terrible eyes flashing, his horns looming monstrously.

You’ve been at this for twelve long years. That means this computer boy is twelve years old. Want to know what I think of that? At twelve, I was the debate champion at Ragworm, and had already been accepted into Jokums with a free ride. Our parents didn’t have video games to gauge our potentials back then, Festerman spat, and turned to go, tapping his stick on the ground.

"Sulphur did not grow up among his own kind, Senator. His concept of himself is as unnatural as his birth, and will require a delicate approach. Be patient, and remember, you have no idea whatsoever how our beloved Great Satan grew up, what led to him becoming the proud, indomitable angel and demon he was," Professor Runo said, not budging as Festerman scowled at him over his shoulder.

"Check your Monstrum, it sounds like you haven’t read it in a while, professor, and try to remember who signs the checks around