Werewolf the Podcast: Satan's Send Off (Episode 254)

Father McKenzie, the local priest, struggles with sexy satan. We've all been there. 

The Professor and co eventually take the elevator down.

Way down.

To hell,

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Transcript

Father McKenzie

I had, in my time, endured many things in the quiet and underfunded service of the Church.

Leaky roofs.

Holy hosiery, both that beginning with H type and the beginning with W type of wholey hosiery.

Hostile parish councils.

One particularly aggressive goose.

I'm pretty sure that goose was possessed by a demon.

What I had not expected. 

What no seminary, no retreat, no amount of silent prayer could have prepared me for...was standing in the drawing room of Professor Simon de Montfort, holding my hat in both hands like a man clinging to the last fragile thread of sanity, while what I had been told was Satan lounged on a sofa wearing nothing but woolly socks.

Woolly well darned socks.

Unholy socks.

I did not look above the socks.

I absolutely did not look.

I focused, instead, on the fireplace. 

A fine Edwardian piece, as far as I know anything about architecture.

It was certainly tasteful. 

Respectable. 

Entirely unpossessed.

It had a particularly large breast.

No, no, not breasts right now.

I calmed.

‘Yes,’ I said faintly, to no one in particular. 

‘Yes, that is a very...’ I swallowed with a gulp as I caught the naked lady in my peripheral vision. ‘...nice pair of... ahem mantelpieces?’

‘Thank you,’ said the professor, who appeared to be arranging cheeses with the same intensity most men reserved for defusing explosives.

I swallowed.

Hard.

No, don’t think about anything being hard. 

Oh, no!

And again calm.

I had been invited. 

No, collected by the young woman with the green eyes. 

Emerald, truly. 

Not metaphorically. 

Properly emerald.

She had eyes like jewellery that had opinions.

She had smiled at me in a way that suggested either great kindness or catastrophic inevitability and said:

‘We have a meeting at the Manor.’

I was sure I hadn’t, but on checking my Google Calendar, other calendar services are available; I saw it. It was clearly there. 

Meeting the  Lord of the Manor.

Hmmm!

At that time, I had assumed it was just that. Me meeting the local Lord of the Manor. 

Sherry, uncomfortable chat about godly things and the weather. 

Always the weather.

The English weather.

The usual awkward evening that would still be more fulfilling than being on my own at home. 

Fluffy, my pet goldfish, was not the greatest of conversationalists.

It seemed that the conversation here at the Manor was over.

Somehow... a somehow I did not understand.

Somehow, I had been volunteered to bless some items and some of the people that were going to hell.

Yes, you heard that right.

Going to hell.

No metaphor.

The nutters were preparing.

No... not nutters.

That’s wrong.

Erm... Mentally incapacitated?

It was becoming more and more apparent that I had made a mistake on leaving the house and Fluffy.

I risked a glance.

Only a small one.

A really quick, small one.

Not long.

You know.

I was not being...

You know.

That would be unpriestley.

Just enough to confirm that the woman on the sofa,who was apparently Lucifer, still looked exactly like Sister O’Connell from St. Bartholomew’s Primary, circa 1987.

Sister O’Connell, who had once confiscated my marbles and told me that curiosity was the first step toward damnation.

Sister O’Connell, who now appeared to be… reclining.

Naked.

Large. 

Voluptuous.

No, not voluptuous.

That was a... sexual thing. 

No... no... she was... 

All voluptuous and pink.

So pink and...

I quickly looked back at the mantelpiece with a renewed devotion.

To mantelpieces and ornate metal work pokers.

No, no, no.

Poke her.

How did I get there?

No.

‘I will not engage,’ I whispered to myself. 

My eyes closed against... erm... things.

‘I will not engage.’

Around me, the room continued to behave in a manner that suggested either it was full of the insane... I mean, the mentally incapacitated or that reality had quietly resigned.

I looked at the young woman who had met us at the door.

I tried again not to stare.

She looked like the one out of that film a bit.

You know the one. 

Rocky’s Horror Show Picture or something.

The maid one in that. 

I had watched it late at night when I was a younger man. 

Before I had made the choice to join the seminary. 

I had watched it and enjoyed it.

It had made me feel.

Squiffy and a bit iffy.

Men comfy in lingerie.

It certainly did not make me feel comfortable.

Ahem.

People think that priests are boring.

I had certainly had some crazy days when I was younger.

The young woman had, what I think the young people call, a gothic maid’s outfit on and hanging from her gothic tattooed frame.

My niece Joany was one of them. 

One of them goth kids. 

Not like this young woman, though. 

Joany just walked around in black clothing, looking sad and listening to that music.

This erm Werecat was different from that.

She wore black-and-white lacey... erm, heavy boots, and had a haircut that could probably cut glass. 

She moved silently around the room doing things.

Like that.

Bending over to pick things up.

And things.

True temptation.

I could not ask Satan to get behind me. 

Apparently, she already was. 

So Vaughnt was another thing in the room I could not look at. 

Her legs went all the way up...

You know...

Right from the floor all the way up to her.

You know...

...Mostly undisguised lacy underwear.

She had been introduced as Vaughnt.

She had also been described, quite casually, as a Werecat.

Just dropped into conversation.

Just like that.

‘Vaughnt's a Werecat.’

Just like that.

Why would they say that in front of me? 

I mean, I could tell anyone, couldn’t I?

I could.

I really could

Ah, but however. If I told anyone, they would think that I had lost my mind. 

Erm, become mentally incapacitated?

Perhaps I was. 

Hmm!

I had decided not to pursue the werecat line of inquiry.

I had just left that one.

Then there was...

A small creature, something between a lizard, a bat, and a deeply questionable life choice, that trailed after the Goth, making soft, hopeful noises.

‘What kind of dog... cat... thing is that...’ I had asked before I realised I shouldn't.

Before I realised that I did not want the answer.

‘That’s erm... a... Dave,’ said the professor, without looking up. 

‘He’s a chupacabra.’

‘Don’t feed him after midnight unless you enjoy structural damage.’

‘Of course, he... is’ I started, because there are moments in a man’s life when ‘of course’ is the only available response.

Then there was the threatening man.

Wil.

Handsome, in the way that storms are handsome just before they remove roofs.

He stood slightly apart from the others, smiling at nothing in particular, as though he were listening to a joke only he could hear. 

There was something about him. Something that made the air feel… threatening.

He had been introduced as a werewolf.

I actually just believed this flippant statement entirely.

Not because it made sense.

But because nothing else did.

So why not?

And then, mercifully, there was the Wing Commander.

Wing Commander Montgomery Fortescue stood with the calm assurance of a man who had seen the end of the world several times and filed it appropriately.

He held a glass in one hand and what appeared to be some sort of sword in the other, as though both were equally necessary to the evening.

Which, for him, I suppose, they were.

‘Ah, Father,’ he said, with a polite nod. ‘Jolly good of you to come. Bit of a situation, I’m afraid. Nothing too alarming, old chap. Just a sojourn to Hell for a bit of a battle.’

He rattled what I found out later was his sabre.

‘Just Hell, for a bit of... a... a bit of... a battle’ I repeated softly to myself.

‘Quite.’ He replied before sipping and appreciating his Port. 

As though this were not an unusual conversation.

I was... non...plussed.

Items began to appear on the desk.

Not gradually. 

Not sensibly.

They were simply… there.

Guns. 

Old and new.

Swords.

Blades that seemed to hum quietly when not being watched.

Relics—some recognisably holy, others… less so.

A book that I was fairly certain had blinked.

I stared at it.

It stared back.

That’s not possible.

So I firmly decided that it had not.

‘Right,’ said the professor, straightening. 

‘We should proceed.’

‘Proceed?’ I echoed.

‘With the blessing,’ said the Wing Commander kindly. 

‘Before we descend.’

‘Descend.’ I repeated.

‘To Hell.’ He continued.

‘Yes, I... gathered that.’ I said, bemused.

There are moments when a priest must choose between theology and survival.

This was one of those.

Well, here goes.

A blessing.

I set down my hat.

I straightened my collar and drew myself up to my full, less-than-average height.

And I began to pray.

Maybe God was testing me.

Maybe I would get some evidence of him helping me. 

I managed to keep my voice steady at first, then it became stronger as my confidence grew, and, rather unexpectedly, eventually it became firm.

The words came as they always had. Familiar. 

Anchoring. 

A thread of order in a room that had abandoned the concept entirely.

I did not look at the sofa.

I did not think about Sister O’Connell’s... erm woolly socks.

I dismissed the maids... erm, lacy knick... erm, underwear.

I did not, under any circumstances, consider the possibility that the Devil was listening politely.

I simply prayed.

And for a moment, just a moment, the room seemed to settle.

When I finished, there was a small, respectful silence.

‘Bravo... bravo... Well done,’ said the Wing Commander. ‘Very... erm... stirring.’

Lucifer... Sister O’Connell... smiled faintly.

‘Charming,’ she said.

I felt that this was, in some ineffable way, a poor review.

3.2 stars from the devil.

The Wing Commander stepped forward and pressed something into my hand.

A small hip flask.

‘Holy water,’ he said. ‘Blessed by the Pope himself. 

‘Very rare. Do keep it on you. You might need it, what?’

I looked at the flask, then at the Wing Commander and considered, briefly, the vast and terrifying possibility that this might actually be true.

‘Thank you,’ I sort of squeaked, because courage is sometimes indistinguishable from politeness.

It felt like the moment now to step back, clutching the flask, as the others gathered their weapons and their confidence.

I had no idea what was happening and strongly suspected that none of them did either, and that none of them was entirely sane.

Mentally incapacitated?

I was increasingly certain that I would not survive the evening.

And yet...

My duty was done

I had given the blessing.

And if these mad, dangerous, impossible people were truly going to Hell…

Well.

At least someone had thought to say a prayer first.

Lucifer—Luci,

I am not known by nature, or anything else, to be an impatient being.

I have been a being working behind the scenes for some centuries now.

I had, after all, overseen the slow moral decline of entire civilisations. 

I had watched empires rot at a pace that could only be described as geologically irritating. 

I understand delays. 

Patience in my case is not a virtue.

It is a tool.

I respected timing.

But this...

This was... This was taking the absolute piss.

Trudure, my little secretary cat, demon-type thing, had even gone to sleep, and she was known to be able to outstare the statues of Saints.

‘Right,’ I said, clapping my hands once with the crisp authority that the Professor had a few minutes ago. 

‘In you go.’ I tried to shepherd people.

Even though I was known devoutly as the non-shepherd in the religious beings cast of characters.

That was big J’s job.

Mostly.

The cupboard in the corner, still venting a deeply offensive amount of steam into the Professor’s bloody wallpaper, stood open, revealing the infernal lift within. 

‘Luci, my...’

‘Yes, Simon, your bloody wallpaper.’

‘I know.... but I am thinking of burning this entire place down right now.

‘Wallpaper will be the least of your worries if you mention  fuuuuu... flocked wallpaper one more time.’

‘So.’

‘Get.’

‘In.’

‘The sodding lift!’ 

The lift that hummed faintly, like something that disapproved of existence.

‘No, I just need a moment to...’ began the Professor, clutching his satchel as though it might file a complaint on his behalf.

‘ARRRRRRGGHHHH!’ I yelled. 

The room fell silent as everyone regarded me, mouths open.

That regard included Simon's relatives from earlier centuries in the oil paintings on the wall.

I froze.

I had shown a chink in my armour.

Trudure was now very awake and looking at me with an expression that was as close to concern as a small black cat can offer.

‘In through the nose and out through the mouth, boss.’ She told me, as she dropped onto the floor and circled my ankles, trying her best to calm me with her feline fortitude and flow against my skin.

‘Calm down. We don’t want the 1200’s to happen again, do we? You know how long it takes things to settle down when you lose... erm... it.’ said my little demon.

‘I have never lost it.’ I told the cat holding back the... it. 

‘Of course not, boss.’

‘Those plagues and stuff were just due to an unlucky... century.’ She tried to mollify me. 

She could mollify me.

Thank all that is unholy.

‘I am calm.’ I partially yelled, showing all that I really wasn’t, then instantly became composed and turned to address the dumbstruck Professor.

‘You’ve had several centuries of moments, Simon,’ I told the... the... bloody man, before physically steering him by the shoulder.

‘I haven’t dealt with the cheeses...’

‘Into the lift.’ 

‘They will not escape, I promise.’

I tried to use a chirpy, upbeat tone, but failed.

Wil, for his part, strolled quite happily into the steaming box.

‘Oooh, Hell lift,’ he said, peering around with interest before pushing all the bastarding buttons.

Including, in this case, my own.

‘Bit cramped, innit? Not the one I remember.’

‘It’s efficient,’ came Fenrir’s voice, amused. Like a coffin with ambition.

‘Don’t start,’ muttered Wil.

The Wing Commander stepped in next, adjusting his jacket.

‘Snug,’ he observed.

‘Reminds me of a troop carrier over Cyprus. Only marginally less screaming.’

‘I am not screaming,’ said the Professor.

‘You are whinging and will be screaming if you don’t get in the bloody lift,’ I said pleasantly, and gave him a small push with a strength that could shift tectonic coastal plates. 

That settled the matter; he went in.

The doors slid shut with a thankful finality that suggested appeals would not be considered.

There was a pause.

Nothing... and then the lift dropped.

Not down, precisely.

More like. 

Away.

Silence.

Steam curled lazily in the aftermath, like a dragon that had briefly considered redecorating.

I sighed. 

Not a job well done, but a job done. 

The drawing room, so recently full of purpose, irritation, and cheese, felt suddenly… full of... awkward.

I mean, the British are always awkward, but most of the true Britishness had left the building for ahem... warmer climes.

I stood feeling grateful that they had gone with my hands on my hips.

Luck was looking at the empty space in the cupboard. 

She stood nearby, looking as though she had just remembered she’d left something important in another dimension.

That did tend to be Luck's... erm... look, though.

Sorry, too many looks in those sentences.

Vaughnt drifted silently past, adjusting a cushion that did not need adjusting.

The priest remained exactly where he was, clutching his hat, his soul, and a rapidly diminishing sense of proportion.

‘Well,’ said Luck.

‘Yes,’ I said.

We both nodded, as though this had clarified everything.

It had not.

***Musical interlude.***

Luci

Father McKenzie cleared his throat.

‘Perhaps,’ he ventured, ‘we might discuss...’

‘No.’

‘...the theological implications...’

‘No.’

‘...of what just...’

Both Luck and I turned to him and gave him a resounding stereophonic...

‘No.’ No

He paused.

I could see that he felt that this was not an encouraging conversational dynamic.

Just to add to his confusion and horror.

Dave the chupacabra padded up to him and made a soft, hopeful chirrup.

The Priest looked down into that perpetual nightmare of a face.

Dave looked up.

There was a moment.

A connection.

A silent understanding between man and… whatever that was.

The poor man felt that he and Dave were on the same level in this room.

I could see it. 

Even so, he very carefully did not pet him.

‘I will not,’ he whispered to the goat-killing bloodsucker.

Dave persisted.

‘Well,’ said Luck again, picking up a glass of port and examining it as though it might offer guidance, ‘what do we do now?’

I considered this.

I had orchestrated wars, temptations, and entire theological frameworks.

I had not, until this moment, had to plan the intermission.

‘…I hadn’t thought that far ahead,’ I admitted.

‘I never do.’

‘They really didn’t have a plan, did they?’

‘I never do.’

There was again a significant pause.

‘A board game?’ suggested Luck.

I gave Luck a look.

‘Use dice with you?’ I laughed.

‘I think not.’

Thankfully, at that precise point

The doorbell rang.

Everyone froze.

‘Saved by the bell,’ I announced, with an audible sigh of relief. 

‘Vaughnt dear?’

The werecat nodded once and drifted off to answer it, boots thudding silently against the polished floor.

How did she do that?

Thud silently.

Father McKenzie, at this point, had given up on anything as profound as reason and took the opportunity to do the only reasonable thing and sit down and hold himself in a personal hug of self-comfort.

He poured himself a glass of port with the careful precision of a man who had decided that, whatever else happened, he would face it with adequate fortification before offering a bemused smile to all present.

Dave climbed halfway onto his knee.

The priest stared straight ahead.

Funny how he would not look at me.

I looked down to see his view of what I presented to him.

Oh yes, maybe he should not. 

Honestly, I did not want to look at that either.

‘This is a test,’ he murmured to no one in particular.

Vaughnt returned.

Behind her shuffled two zombies in varying states of... erm... decay.

They carried... between them, with surprising care... an enormous box that held an enormous television with dead easy dead ease.

‘Delivery, for.’ He checked a note in his pocket.

‘The Devil,’ said the zombie, in a voice that suggested it had not been consulted in years.

The other corrupted corpse tried to talk, but only managed a grunt as its tongue and some teeth fell to the floor on opening its fetid face to speak.

Vaughnt was instantly there and had already swept the bits up with a rather nifty brush-and-shovel combo before they hit the floor.

The first Zombie continued from where his... friend? Erm... Colleague... started.

‘... From Amazombie,’ he said, somewhat proudly.

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘I paid the extra for installation.’ I looked around the room, choosing the most annoying spot. 

Annoying spot for the Professor, that is. 

There always has to be a price paid when dealing with the Devil.

His wasting of my time meant he had to pay extra in this case.

‘Ah, Excellent. Over there. Perfect.’

I pointed directly at the large portrait above the fireplace.

There was a magnificently magnificent oil painting of the Professor in his former life as an armoured, noble-looking figure, looking deeply disapproving of modern upholstery.

‘You can... take that down.’ I giggled.

I giggled.

Yes, I know a giggling devil isn't a typical representation of me, but in this case, it was the right one. 

The zombies ripped down the masterpiece without ceremony.

Which was a little thrilling, I must admit. 

The twelfth-century Simon de Montfort was unceremoniously pulled at, tilted, and then thrown with a satisfying crunchinto a corner, finally settling with a dull, aristocratic thud.

Luck winced.

‘Won’t he be upset?’

I allowed the display of a lugubrious... yes, lugubrious... that’s the perfect description of my smile.

A lugubrious smile.

‘Oh, he is going to be... fabulously furious.’

Time passed as we watched the dead perform their work.

The television was mounted with surprising efficiency.

Cables appeared. 

I had to allow reality to bend slightly to accommodate them.

Within moments, the screen flickered into life.

Static.

Then...

An image.

The inside of the lift.

‘…this is bloody ridiculous, who does she think she is?’ the Professor was saying, pressed rather firmly against one wall. 

‘She is the devil, old boy.’ Said Monty, who was sniffing at a hip flask before downing a large gulp of its contents. An athlete's preparation.

‘Ah, yes. True, true, but there is no... ventilation...’

The professor did something un-professorly and loosened his tie.

‘It’s a journey to Hell, not to a spa,’ said Wil cheerfully.

‘Bit slow, too,’ the Professor added, tapping the side. 

‘You’d think eternal damnation would have better infrastructure.’

‘We are moving between layers of existence,’ Fenrir observed. ‘Speed is relative.’

‘Does feel slow,’ said Wil.

The Wing Commander adjusted his stance with quiet dignity, offering the flask to Wil.

Which he gratefully received.

‘I’ve experienced worse descents,’ continued Monty.

‘Though usually I don’t call a descent experienced until it stops. The worst descents tend to stop suddenly with the loss of limbs’

The lift gave a small, ominous shudder.

‘So what is the plan?’ Asked the Professor accepting the flask from Wil.

The men and the Wolf Soul looked at him.

‘Erm... Is that not your particular line of expertise?’ Asked Monty.

‘Yes, it tends to be chaps, but in this case I have no idea... what to do.’

‘Ah, ' said the Wing Commander. ‘Jolly good.’

It wasn’t

Jolly good, that is.

Wil looked at both men as he thought.

‘We get down there and... see what happens.’ He said, shrugging his shoulders.

‘The usual then.’ Said the Wolf Soul.

‘Followed by the general fucking up of things.’  Fen continued.

‘It would be rude not to.’ Smiled Wil as he snatched back the flask and upended it as he finished its contents.

Back in the drawing room, Luck and I settled onto the sofa.

Glasses in hand.

Watching.

Dave finally succeeded in climbing fully onto the priest's lap.

Father McKenzie, after a long and noble struggle, placed one trembling hand on its head.

‘…just a little pat,’ he said.

Dave purred.

It was deeply unsettling.

On the screen, the lift continued its impossible journey.

In the room, the fire crackled.

The remains of the portrait of Simon de Montfort glowered from the corner.

Luck sat on the couch, focusing on the screen.

Trudure sat between us, lounging comfortably.

I took a sip of port and smiled.

Vaughnt poured the contents of her dainty little shovel into the pocket of the corpse it had fallen out of, and shooed out the Delivery Zombies, then drew up a chair. 

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Now it’s getting interesting.’