Satan And the Grand Council Of Demons

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“Order. Order, lady and gentlemen, please,” Brian Lucifer said to his Grand Council of Demons, who were chatting amongst themselves and completely ignoring him. “I SAID ORDER!”

“Aah, Your Satanic Majesty,” said Eyebrows Darling, a demon that looked like a hairless albino orang-utan excepting the white mop of hair on his head and his huge black eyebrows. “We didn't realise that you had graced us with your presence, Master. What's with the newly applied burgundy flock wallpaper in this conference room, by the way? It's shit. And why, pray, are you wearing stars and stripes Doc Martens and that ridiculous lime green and pink tiger striped onesie? You look a right twat.”

“I know that, Darling, my wife tells me so every time I wear my trendier gear, but I'm a trend-setter, I'm a fashion icon, I'm a man about town. I might well be having a middle-age crisis, maybe I'm dressing like a twat in an attempt to regain my lost youth and carve out an impressive new identity for myself. Do you have a problem with my choice of clothing by any chance, Darling? And I ought to remind you that the last demon who complained about my taste in interior décor suffered a very grisly end indeed.....”

“No Sir, not at all, Sir, lick-lick, fawn-fawn, suck-suck. I was kidding, I think flock wallpaper in general and this flock wallpaper in particular is bloody lovely. And when I said you look a right twat I was using the latest street slang - according to the bad-ass bros in my hood 'right twat' roughly translates as 'incredibly, unbelievably cool and astonishingly good looking dude'.”

“I see..... Millipede, what are you doing fannying around under the table? This is a very important meeting, and I hope you're going to give the issues raised your full attention.” Ed Millipede reared up and looked over the edge of the conference table, his numerous legs, each ending in a tiny twenty two carat gold Nike trainer, wriggling in a wave like motion. He gave Mr. Lucifer a big shit-eating grin, and it was a literal shit-eating grin because that was what he had been doing under the table.

“Nothing Sir, I, er, I dropped my Iphone while I was obediently switching it off following Grand Demonic Council Meeting regulations, and I accidentally walked through one of David Cameranus's runny poos – it's all over the floor. I didn't eat any, though, it accidentally splashed onto my face.”

“I haven't done a poo, runny or otherwise, you lying, spineless little tit,” Cameranus, a bloated gibbon type thing with the face of a brutally beaten Codfish complained, scratching at the puss-filled buboes in his groin and under his armpits. “Especially under the table. I went to public school, I'll have you know, and us boys were taught to be scrupulously hygienic in our personal habits – spreading bubonic plague and shitting in public were strictly forbidden unless you were a professor or Sir Patrick Moore. Such transgressions were punishable by a hundred and forty lashes, being nailed upside down to the blackboard overnight and/or a memorably violent bumming. I propose that the right honourable gentleman is a dick, a cad and an absolute bounder, and he needs a good, hard thrashing. And, of course, a severe bumming, preferably by a dragon with a huge, wickedly barbed cock. Furthermore, Your Satanic Majesty, I suggest that Millipede is sent back to Earth as a common peasant with no job and absolutely no CSE's.”

“I disagree,” a voice said softly but firmly from the back of the room. It came from a wrinkled, shrivelled thing that looked like a hybrid between a featherless vulture and a vampire bat, and its pale, parchment coloured skin was so thinly stretched over its bones it looked like it would tear at any moment. “I, the Demon Thatcher, think that your burgundy flock wallpaper is absolutely divine, Mr. Lucifer. And I propose that Ed snivelling Millipede should be dragged in chains to the Black Cavern at the northernmost edge of Hades and offered as a sacrifice to the Queen of the Pink Spiders. All in favour say 'Aye'.” Everyone said 'Aye', even Millipede himself and Mr. Lucifer, so commanding was Thatcher's presence.

“I, um, I don't think that's very fair, Baroness,” Mr. Lucifer said. “You're a pan-dimensional being, and as well as being the Demon Thatcher you are also the Queen of the Pink Spiders, everybody knows that you took the crown from Barbara Cartland a while ago after a prolonged, bloody battle at the end of which you had the Pink Thing hung, drawn and quartered and cremated on a huge funeral pyre of her tacky romantic novels. Sacrificing Millipede to yourself would be a trifle selfish, don't you think?”

“Who's in charge here, Lucifer,” Thatcher snapped. “You or me?”

“Erm..... I think you'll find that it's me, you senile old biddy. Unless of course you lot are planning on ousting me by force in a military coup.”

“Ah,” Thatcher grumbled. “So you are, Brian, I'm sorry, I forgot. I've also forgotten why you called this meeting. Where's Dennis, by the way?”

“Yeah, I've forgotten too,” Lucifer said. “Naah, only kidding. The reason I've called this meeting, lady and gentlemen (unless Millipede is a girlie, as I've always suspected, in which case it's ladies and gentlemen), is to announce my retirement and to elect a new Satan. I'm pissed off, I've had enough, I'm dropping out at the grand young age of eleven thousand nine hundred and sixty three. I'm changing my name to Smith and buying a nice cottage in the Cotswolds, or maybe the South of France. It'll probably be the South of France to tell the truth, I don't fancy going to live in the fucking Cotswolds even though it's rather picturesque and the name's got a lovely ring to it. I'd end up looking at four walls most days because of the atrocious weather - it pisses it down an awful lot there, I've heard, just like bloody Wales.”

“But Sir, you are our great and terrible leader!” Darling said, his eyebrows wriggling alarmingly like a pair of gigantic caterpillars wired up to the mains. “You've been the devil since you were twelve years old, you're the Master of all things diabolical and I can't imagine Hades without you (fawn-fawn, pander-pander, lick-lick, brown-nose brown-nose, suck-suck). Who or what could possibly prove worthy of your fiery crown?”

“It's nice of you to say so, Darling, but I'm sick of this malarkey and I'm definitely retiring.”

“Have you, erm, thought about who you might want to take your place?” Cameranus said, swallowing live babies from a huge bucket, raising his eyebrows and dribbling in anticipation.

“Not you for a bloody start, you inbred, chinless wonder. Nor you, Thatcher, you've both had your chance at leadership and you both fucked up big time. I reckon it's about time we introduced a bit of fresh blood, I reckon we should elect a new face in the infernal regions as your new Satanic Majesty. It needs to be someone of unparalleled evil and cunning, and it's an extremely difficult choice to make because so many people are complete bastards nowadays.....

But, ladies and gentlemen, I've made my decision. He is a creature of unprecedented evil; the two-faced fucker raised a lot of money for charity and he was knighted while he was on Earth, which helped to cover up his sleazier activities, so I reckon I've made a wise choice. Minions, bring in the new Prince of Darkness for his inauguration. Behold your Satanic Majesty in all his putrid, nauseating glory!”

A slightly built, ancient man with long, straggly blonde hair was led into the room by a couple of minor demons dressed as schoolgirls, and though he didn't have the most demonic of countenances he was fouler by far than every other demon that would from now on be under his jurisdiction. He was wearing a turquoise and white tracksuit and round, pink lensed sunglasses, a tangle of gold marathon medallions hung around his scrawny neck and an infeasibly huge cigar stuck out of his cruel, twisted mouth. “Owzabout that then, boys and gals!” he said, and the members of the Grand Council of Demons stared back at their new leader open mouthed.

“Oh, fuck,” Thatcher mumbled as Ed Millipede whimpered in terror and disappeared down a hole in the floorboards by the broken radiator. “That's by far the most disgusting news I've ever heard. Where's sodding Dennis when I need him?”

“Nonce-tastic,” Cameranus mumbled.

“Jingle jangle jewellery,” Jimmy Savile said. “Jingle jangle jewellery, my jewellery is all jingly and jangly, up the chuff mountain, up the chuff mountain, jingle jangle jewellery. Welcome to Jim'll Fix It. Jim would fix you, Mrs. Thatch, oh yes, he'd fix it for you good and proper, but you're way to old for Jim's liking.....”