Lord of Hell (Alex Holden) by Devin Harnois Page A

change the plan last summer.”
    “But my Father sent us to stop him. Why would He do that if He wanted the world to end?”
    “I don’t know.” I hoped he could find a good, solid reason why it wasn’t possible. “Maybe it was too early to start. I need to be much older before I can be president, much less take over all the other countries. That’s gotta be, like, twenty years from now.” I looked at him. “I mean, even if I was following the script.”
    “So there you go. It can’t be the end of the world. Not yet, anyway.”
    “How long does the tribulation last?”
    “I don’t know. A while? The Bible isn’t specific.”
    “So… it might last, say, twenty years?”
    A flicker of worry went through his eyes. “That still doesn’t mean that’s what these disasters are. Sure, it’s unusual to have big disasters so close together, but it doesn’t mean the world is ending.”
    “Joshua.” I stopped pacing and gave him a hard look. “The fact that we exist means the world is ending.” All this time, I’d been so focused on Satan wanting to end the world and the part I was supposed to play in it that I’d almost overlooked who else was behind it. The Book of Truth makes the Apocalypse look like Satan’s idea. But Revelation puts Jehovah squarely in the driver’s seat.
    “The world is destined to end. My Father wills it. But we have time yet.”
    And we were back to the same argument we’d had the first time we met. “Do you want the world to end? Your mom and everyone else to die so Jehovah can wipe the slate clean?”
    His gaze dropped. “It’s not a question of what I want. I serve God, my Father.”
    “And you’ll let everyone die?”
    “I’ll save as many souls as I can.”
    “And what about the ones you can’t? The ones that end up in Hell? The suicides and the people who gave up Christianity, the gays and the atheists? I gave them a place they could be happy. I saved them from pain and a punishment they didn’t deserve. But if Jehovah’s version of the end is right, Hell disappears. All those souls gone, blasted out of existence. And me, too. Thrown into the lake of fire. Is that what you want?” Now I was yelling.
    Joshua set his jaw and looked up at me. “I don’t get to decide, and neither do you. You’re not God.”
    But I am a god. I became one when I took over Hell. I wanted to throttle him and force him to see reason, and that was definitely a sign I should walk away. Joshua frustrates the fuck out of me, but he’s still my friend. “Ask him,” I said. “Ask your dad if this is the tribulation. Maybe he’ll talk to you.”
    I walked out before I started calling him names. A year of high school had taught me a lot of restraint.
    ***
    Spoiling for a fight, I went down to Hell. I’d avoided it for a whole day and I hoped some other duke was pissed off enough to take me on. Since I’d killed Vetis, there’d been a lot of grumbling but no open challenges. And no one had been stupid enough to go to the mortal world. Right now I wished someone would so I could drag them back and beat the shit out of them.
    But no one was willing to take me on. The demons that appeared when I sat in the throne stayed hovering near the shadows. Maybe they could see it on my face. Maybe they could feel my mood.
    Maybe they were smarter than I gave them credit for.
    My anger simmered for a few minutes while I waited for someone to make a wrong move. I jumped down from the throne and paced back and forth through the long room. “Anybody want a fight? Think you can take the throne from me? Come on, give it a try. I know you all hate me, think I’m just a weak half-breed who got lucky. Oh, you’re so much older than me. You’ve wanted to rule Hell since it was created. Maybe you tried to take on Satan and he kicked your ass. Well, I kicked his and I’d be happy to kick yours too. Come on!”
    Astaroth came out of the shadows behind the pillars and approached slowly, his hands held up and