Sean and Wormwood, Canto II, Part i

Serial novel, new installment every Monday

Canto II

VIRTUTIS SEDES

Part i

We begin the next chapter of this chronicle of doom and misfortune in medias rec room. Sean and Wormwood are seated on a couch in an unhallowed common area within the cavernous base of operations of the Satanic Megachurch. They are speaking with a fellow Satanic operative known as Debbie. 

Hush you now! Wormwood is speaking!

“…so I asked ‘Can we put party hats on the bodies?’ and they said ‘Knock yourself out, kiddo,’” and that’s when I knew Satanism was for me. How’d you end up here, Debbie?”

“Oh, you know. Once my cleric hit eighth level, it was pretty much all over for me.” Debbie was young, but absolutely over 18, let’s make that perfectly clear. Despite being unequivocally over the age of majority, Debbie wore her blonde hair in bangs and double ponytails, possibly to tempt sinners away from the path of righteousness, but probably because the look had always worked for her and she didn’t see any reason to change it. Like Wormwood, she wore a profane-but-affordable black cloak. “What about you, Sean?”

Sean’s voice echoed like a sob in a silent forest. “The circumstances of my descent into the abyss are lost to time.”

“I think—“ said Wormwood.

“And to madness.”

“I think he answered an ad on Craigslist.”

“It’s my week to host the orgy,” said Debbie. “You should stop by!”

“We will, if we have time,” said Wormwood.

“And I shall provide a test of wills that will lay bare the greed and duplicity of the human soul,” said Sean.

“You mean…?” Debbie asked, just a trace of fear flickering around her eyes.

“Settlers...of Catan.”

The rec room went as silent as death. All present soberly considered the discord and savagery this could bring to the event. They saw visions of ecstasy and enmity playing out side-by-side, bacchanalia and bloodletting sharing the chamber like Romulus and Remus suckling from the same she-wolf.

“Awesome!” said Debbie.

“If we have time,” Wormwood repeated. “We have a new intern and we need to show him the ropes. I have a feeling he might be a bit obstinate.”

“Oh, an intern!” Debbie said, clasping her hands. “How did he die?”

“Adult-onset truck bumper.”

“Ah,” said Debbie. “I’ve heard that’s going around. Why do you think he might be obstinate?” 

“Well, to begin with, I was the one driving the truck.”

“That makes sense.”

“Speaking of which, we should run. We need to get our next assignment from Infernal Demonic Overseer George then see to the intern.”

“Toodles!” said Debbie. “Hail Satan!”

“Hail Satan,” replied Sean and Wormwood.

---

While I am not an omniscient narrator, I’m pretty good at what I do. Thus, the next segment of our chronicle takes place from the point of view of Sean and Wormwood’s new intern. That point of view is pitch black.

Mary’s balls, what happened? the intern thought. I think I was in an accident?

Still unseeing, he tried to move his limbs. He found that they were not so much unresponsive as missing. Oh shitfuck, I must be paralyzed! I remember now, I was crossing the street. I had just shoved those girl scouts out of the way and…

He strained to open his eyes, but found he could only open one. He was able to see a sliver of blurred color. 

Oh, craphammers, now I remember. A truck swerved and came directly at me. And that driver! The driver was looking right at me…with a horrible, leering grin.

The intern opened his eye fully as he adjusted to the light. He found himself staring directly at Wormwood.

“Welcome back, chuckles!” said Wormwood with a horrible, leering grin.

The intern’s confusion and fear was replaced with a hot, arrogant anger. He had given been promised a life of leisure and privilege; getting hit by a truck, losing an eye and becoming paralyzed in the process were not part of that bargain. He responded in the only way he knew how.

“I’m gonna sue!” he shouted. “You ran me over, you pig-rimming dicksnot! I’m gonna sue you so hard you’ll shit lawyers! You’re going to spend the rest of your life buying me gem-encrusted hookers! You—”

‘Hey look a mirror!” shouted Wormwood, pointing behind the intern and throwing off his tirade. 

The intern spun around and found himself staring at a floating blob of green goo. The blob was the size of a large cantaloupe—or a small honeydew—and the color of pond scum. Three large thick drips of goo hung down from its central orb like dewlaps, looking as if they might fall off at any moment, yet somehow dangling in place. The glob’s bilious central eye was somehow most revolting aspect of its body, with its oily pupil staring directly at him, seeming to peer into his soul.

The intern screamed. The abomination in the mirror screamed. 

“I’m gonna grab a beer,” said Wormwood. “Take your time.”

By the time Woodward returned, bottle in hand, the intern had transitioned from screaming to rapid, shallow gasping.

“He has passed the mirror test,” said Sean, putting away a hand mirror. His voice evoked the steady drip of water in an underground grotto.

“Well, that brings him up to the level of an Atlantic ghost crab, so I guess he’ll do,” replied Wormwood.

The intern spun on Wormwood, the blobs of ooze waving and dangling beneath him. “What in God’s sack did you do to me? I’m a slimy tentacle head!”

“Technically,” said Wormwood, popping the lid off his beer. “You’re a slimy pseudopod head.”

“That,” said the intern, “is the least important aspect of my question. What did you do to me?”

“You sold your soul to Satan, ‘member?”

“You are not Satan. Satan is not a twelve-year-old with bed head.”

“No, no! I just work for Satan. Well, I work for Infernal Demonic Overseer George, but Satan’s somewhere at the top of the org chart. Plus I’m twenty-seven.”

“Yeah great thrilling whatever,” said the intern, rolling his eye. “The only reason I supposedly sold my soul is because I know that’s a load of artisanal goat crap. There’s no such thing as a soul, there’s no such thing as Satan, and anyone who thinks so has an asshole between his ears.”

Wormwood smiled genially. “How are those pseudopods working out for you?”

“When I figure out how to extend the middle one, you’ll be the first to know.”

Wormwood took a pull on his beer as the intern wrestled with the discord between his worldview and his world. “Okay, fine,” the intern finally said. “I sold my soul to Satan. Is this Hell?”

The intern spun in place, taking in the room. It was spare, like a dorm or extended-stay hotel. An unremarkable coffee table held a perfectly-fanned array of magazines, a futon on an unfinished wooden frame was against a wall, and what looked like a teddy bear—except for the fangs, claws and multiple beady black eyes—leaned against a pillow.

“Hell’s tacky,” the intern concluded.

“Oh, you’re someplace even better than Hell,” said Wormwood. “This is our apartment! And you’re our new intern!”

“Intern? That sounds like a temporary gig.”

“It is.”

‘What happens when my internship ends?”

“You’re free to go.”

The intern wasn’t sure he’d be any happier as a blob of free, self-actualized goo rather than a blob of indentured servant goo, but it was something. “How long till it’s over?”

“Sean?”

Sean’s voice was like the crack of thin ice under a herd of caribou crossing a winter lake. “He will be released from the harrowing bonds of soul-servitude in the year 2078.”

“I’m going to be your drudge for over fifty years?”

“Oh gosh no,” said Wormwood. “He means 2078 in the Satanic Calendar.”

“So what year is it according to the Satanic Calendar?”

“It’s Year Twenty-One. We count from when Britney kissed Madonna.”

The intern wasn’t sure if he was being fucked with. He wasn’t sure of anything, really, but he especially wasn’t sure if he was being fucked with.

“Whatever, red. You have fun giving orders, but don’t bet all your bitcoin on me following…them…”

By the time the intern finished delivering his challenge, Wormwood had wandered off. The intern turned his floating orb of a body around and found himself staring at Sean.

He tried to lock eyes with Sean to assert dominance, or rather lock eye. The point was moot because Sean was staring blankly into the distance. The intern positioned himself directly in front of Sean and gazed deeply into the abyss of his pupils. The abyss gazed also into him. He decided to go see what Wormwood was up to.

Wormwood was tossing black cloaks and tighty-whities into a plaid suitcase that looked like something the Brady Bunch would have brought to Hawaii. 

“So, uh,” the intern said. “What orders were you going to give me? I want to get a solid start on disobeying them.”

“Well, first, you need to learn to move your pseudopods.”

“These things move?” The intern couldn’t see his pseudopods, and attempting to tilt down to get a peek threatened to send him spinning, so he took them as given. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“There’s a pamphlet on the coffee table in the living room.”

“Well, how am supposed to read a pamphlet about moving my pseudopods if I can’t move my pseudopods?”

“I’ll give you a hint: The inside of the pamphlet says ‘You did it!”

“Hilarious. Are you a licensed and bonded asshole or are you working under the table?”

“And once you’ve wrangled your dangles, get to work on my laundry. I expect my blacks blacker than black when I return”

“Where are you going?”

“Satanic business. And don’t bother trying to escape while we’re away. If you go too far you’ll just end up writhing around in incredible pain until someone remembers to come look for you.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” replied the intern, thinking of it. “What’s ‘Satanic business’?”

“In this case, we’re retrieving a Relic of Unimaginable Power. Basic stuff.”

“A relic? Is that magical?”

“Yep!”

“Is it powerful?”

“More powerful than you can imagine.”

The intern thought this over while Wormwood threw black socks into, and almost into, the suitcase. This could be a way out. If I can get ahold of the relic, I can use it to disintegrate Wormwood and make him turn me back into a person. Something told him there was a problem with this plan, but he didn’t have time to work out the details, Wormwood was zipping his suitcase shut.

“That sounds fun,” the intern forced himself to say. “Why don’t I come with you?”

“Aw, that’s cute. Maybe when you’re less useless.”

“Useless?” shouted the intern. “Why you little red beagle boner! Once I get these pseudopods working I’m going to...” He suddenly remembered he was trying to get on Wormwood’s good side. “…pat you on the back? Because I’m very good at providing encouragement? Yay you?”

“Okay, you’re in,” said Wormwood, walking back into the living room with his suitcase. 

The intern furrowed his brow, to the extent that you can furrow a single brow. He wasn’t entirely sure he had gotten the better of his captors. He floated after Wormwood.