Standard Disclaimer: The show, Brimstone, and all characters in it, including Ezekiel Stone and the Devil, belong to Fox and not us. We have just borrowed them for a while and will put them back when we're done. Honest! We are poor as ragged churchmice and what's left belongs to the Universal Unconscious. Sue at your own risk. We're so broke we can't even pay attention. Revelations by LadySerez and LadyRhian Down in Hell, the secretaries were still discussing Eblis' revelation of a few days ago. "We should have seen it! It's not something you miss." *grumble, grumble* "Ladies, it wasn't that obvious." The only male secretary in the troupe of women remarked. "You know what it's like--get their papers, process them, then mail them off to various sections. Who has the time to check their family thoroughly?" "What about that woman he interviewed after her lover got killed? 'Excuse me, but... are you married?'. Things like that just don't happen to ordinary men." "We never said he was *ordinary*," one of the secretaries quipped. "Oh, no, never ordinary." Another secretary grinned. "But we should have noticed, the way women chase him. Remember Rosalyn and that ball?" One of the secretaries cornered a piece of live escargot trying to escape from her plate and ripped the snail out of its shell. Down in hell, you got used to the food or never ate at all. She chewed it thoughtfully. "Yeah, the ball, He looked very nice in that uniform of his. Verrry nice." Another secretary looked at her. "Watch out! We're losing her. You know the boss frowns on messing with the convicted." "Oh, just once... he'd never find out." "Don't fool yourself sweetheart. It may be okay for our bosses to do it, but if we did what they do... it'd be back to the pits." "True, true. But it's nice to dream, isn't it?" "You think we can get a picture of him in that uniform? Would be a best seller here." A secretary picked at her gazapacho. The cook in the back started screaming for someone to get a bag. "Never mind pictures. Is he or isn't he a incubus? If he is, that means we got to tell the Big Lewinksi." "You assholes! Is Stone or is he not a incubus? Because if he is, the rules change. Big time." The secretary plopped herself down and started tossing snail shells at the dartboard on the wall. It had a picture of Rev. Falwell on it. "Hello, ladies!" called out a familliar voice. Eblis the Incubus strutted into the cafeteria, wagging the ever-present bulge in his pants at the secretaries. "Doesn't he get tired of doing that?" one of the secretaries remarked. "As long as his hand holds out, he'll do it." "Never," said Margot. "Believe me, I know." Alicia snorted and blew milk all over the table. *cough, cough* "Sorry about that. Now, Eblis..." "Not like that! He works in my section. He's *always* like that." "Why didn't you say that, instead of making poor Alicia do that?" Eblis came over to the table. He smiled grandly at the secretaries. "I love it when you ladies talk about me. Talk about me some more." "Eblis, thy name is vanity. We were just talking about Stone. After that bombshell you dropped, how could we not?" Alicia smirked at Eblis. There was a wicked look in his eyes, which he dropped when Alicia mentioned Stone. "Yeah, I've been thinking about him, too." He adjusted the bulge in his pants for greater display. "That's damned obvious." Rose stared at the bulge, as if she couldn't believe it. "Ignore Rose. In her previous life, she was a nun." Eblis laughed and flicked his hips... and the bulge, in Rose's direction. Then, he sobered. "I was asking my mates about Stone. They don't know a thing about him. Besides how utterly fuckable he is. I thought I'd ask you ladies what you know. I can make it worth your time. Very worth your time." He caressed his crotch. "Hmm... so you want to see his file?" Alicia thought a little. "I'll be right back." She took off at a run. Eblis reached down and plucked a snail off Alicia's plate, eating it, shell and all. The shell crunched between his teeth. "And what about you ladies? Can I interest you in my wares?" She returned, holding a file. "Now, Eblis, do not drool on the pictures. Miriam disapproves of that." Eblis accepted the file and looked through it. His eyes gleamed slightly at the shot of Stone bare-chested, the tattoos in prominent display. Though Stone was asleep in the picture, there were several shots of him, front, back, and side. His grin widened, eyes glued to the pictures. "I said no drooling!" Alicia yelled. Eblis looked up at Alicia. "You'll know when I start drooling," he promised her. Still, he set the pictures aside and started looking through the file itself. "Not much on his parents here," he said. "Besides the father, of course... I think I saw him yesterday, down in the boiling oil." "I will? Do you see anything familiar in that file?" Alicia looked curiously at the incubus. "He deserves it too. I believe the Big Lewinisky arranged that." Alicia took the file back. "You know, there's not much about his mother here. That's odd." "Could be she took the Hellivator to the top floor," one of the secretaries suggested. That was their euphemism for going to Heaven. "Her!!?! Isn't there something about accessory to abuse?" Margot frowned. "If I what I read about that bastard father of his is true, she deserved it." "Not if the man abuses you, too." "Still... you remember that child in New York? Took the Hellivator to the top floor, but the people who did it... they're both headed here." "Headed for a very warm welcome, if I remember the case right." Margot said with a smirk. She had *no* problem with sending some people to the boiling oil pits. Not after what had happened to her as a child... Neither did Alicia. "Very warm. I'm told Beelzubub is looking forward to it, just as much as he did when Hitler took the elevator here." Alicia hummed quietly to herself. She'd been an abused wife, but finally killed her husband when he'd started on in her children. "I hope he's enjoying shoveling shit. He'll be at it until the Apocalypse. And then the big mooch'll find some other demeaning job for him." "If he doesn't, Miriam will." "Ladies, ladies!" Eblis was grinning. Talk of punishments always made him happy. "Back to my question. What do you know about Stone's mother?" He laid the folder back down on the table, having carefully mooched several pictures from it while the secreataries were otherwise occupied. Alicia thought a minute. Then lit up. "I know who to ask. Let's see if the phone's working, or if the gremlins're at it again." She picked up the phone on the table and brushed off snail shells and a suspicious looking stain that looked a lot like blood. The phone crackled and spat static. Ordinary line noise had nothing on the line noise in Hell. Sometimes, it sounded like sinners screaming. That was on the good days. On the bad ones, through... Alicia waited until a surly operator came on line. "Whatta you want," the voice said. "Put me through to Kim." Alicia demanded. "Justa minute." The phone operator went off the line, and the static changed into a harsh-grinding noise. There was a loud, grating ring. After a minute, the phone picked up. "Heaven!" a voice carolled cheerfully. The sound of cooing doves and harp music could just be heard over the static. "I hate that when they say that," Alicia said sotto voice. Louder, she said, "And this is Hell. Do you have anything on Melissa Stone? Zeke Stone's mother?" "Ooh!" The woman squealed. "The Lord's special project? Let me go check!" She put Alicia on hold, and the sound of a heavenly chorus and harp music flooded the line. After a moment it broke off. "You have been listening to 'God's Greatest Hits, Volume 8001'. And now we move on to 'God's Greatest Hits, Volume 8002' on WHVN." "Stupid woman. I hate calling Heaven--I leave it up to Margot. She doesn't get cavities." Alicia hissed. Then the signifiance of what the woman said hit her. "God's special project?!? What did she mean by that?" "Don't look at us." "You cowards." "But if the Big Mooch and the G-man are both interested in Stone, it tells us a lot, doesn't it?" "Yah. That we may have fallen in deep shit." Alicia sighed. There was no accounting for the taste of Heaven's secretaries. As much as she hated Hell, she preferred the secretaries *here* to Heaven's. They had more brains. Then, the singing cut off as the Heavenly secretary came on the line. "Yes," she said, oozing perkiness and sweetness like jelly from a powdered donut. "We have records on Melissa Stone. How may I help you?" Alicia looked frantically at Margot and Rose. No help there. Eblis looked innocent. "Uh, could you tell us where Melissa Stone is, and why she went to H-ykwhere. According to records we have, she was an accesscory to abuse, and therefore should be here." The secretary on the other end giggled. "Why don't I just Hea-mail the whole file to you? We just got a new computer system... all the latest, with the big bells and whistles." The pride in her voice was not so much as to be called bragging. Even heaven had its limits. The other secretaries stifled groans of dismay and envy. They were still making do with manual typewriters! But best not to let the secretaries at the top know that. It would only make them even more insufferable. "No, no, don't. Last time you sent us something, the main computer blew up. Could you just summary up the whole file?" Alicia sighed. "Sure!" the secretary said cheerfully. "She got sent here because her husband was beating her, too. Not where her son could see it, though..." The secretary trailed off. "Oh dear. I see the son went to you." There was a sound of flipping papers, and a soft gasp. "What was that gasp?" Alicia grinned. It was nice to get them off balance. Made up for their new stuff. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "You're not going to believe me." the secretary said. She didn't sound quite so perky now. "Mrs. Stone had dealings with... with... an otherworldly creature!" "Doesn't everybody? So, who did Mrs. Stone hump?" She grinned. Oh, to upset those vapid women... "It doesn't say. I thought they were interchangeable, down there," the secretary said snidely. "All it says is she was seduced in her sleep." "Sounds like one of mine, that's for sure," Eblis said. The harp music had given him a headache, and the chorus was like the sound of nails scraped down a blackboard, but he was holding up pretty well, under the circumstances. He groped Margot absently, and she slapped his hand away. "Have her send down a picture," he mouthed to Alicia. "We remember faces better than names." "Ah, could you send a picture down here? One of those doves should do. And, were there any clues about who the guy was?" "None in here. We don't store that kind of information," the secretary said with a sniff. "Really? We do here. It saves time and trouble, don't you know?" Alicia remarked. "And, Eblis, put back the pictures you mooched." Eblis dropped the pictures with a sulky look, not mentioning the one he'd carefully secreted in the back pocket of his pants, the front view of Stone with his tattoos. The Hea-mail arrived with the sound of harps and flutes, in the form of a dove holding a white-paper envelope. It fluttered over to the table, dropped the envelope and exploded in a shower of feathers and gore. "Shit!" one of the secretaries cursed, brushing dove bits off her plate and finally giving up on eating the rest of her gazpacho soup. "Icky. And do thank you, Eblis, for returning those." She turned again to the phone. "Thank you. The dove arrived, but I regret it won't be leaving." "Okay!" The secretary's voice was all sweetness and charm once again, and utterly brainless to boot. The connection clunked as the phone disconnected and returned to the screaming and whistling noise. Alicia smiled. "Now, let's see what we have here. Recognize her, Eblis?" She showed the picture of Melissa Stone to Eblis. Eblis looked up, and his grin returned. "Her? Yeah! Sweet little thing, all soft moans and sighs." He smiled nostalgically. "She never even asked what I was doing in her bed. Soaked up all that fucking like a sponge. Practically never even opened her eyes the whole time. Not that I minded." The secretaries looked at each other with horror. Eblis obviously didn't realize what he'd just admitted. That he was Stone's father. Alicia was the first to speak. "Well, that explains it." It took a little longer for Eblis to make the connection for himself. "I fucked my own son?" He paused, thought it out. "Cool!" "You're disgusting." Rose said. "But now what are we going to do? I mean, the Big Mooch doesn't know about this..." "We're screwed. Royally, royally screwed." Eblis blinked owlishly at the secretaries. "This is a problem for you ladies?" "You want to explain to the idiot here what it means for us, Margot?" Alicia sighed. "The big mooch wants him," Margot said forcefully, with a hint of tiredness in her words. "Do you want to be the one to tell him that Stone is half Incubus?" "So?" Eblis said. "What's wrong with that?" "Or tell him you're the father?" One of the secretaries added. Eblis paled. "Now you're getting it," Margot said. She slumped back in her chair. "Maybe we could sneak the information past the Big Mooch... or get Miriam to do it. He loves her... he won't hurt her. Much." Alicia slumped to the table. "Yeah. It's not like we could do anything about it... but he has a history of killing the bearer of bad news. Once I could handle. But over and over and over again?" "There is that. I know... why don't we get the head of the incubus to acknowlege Stone? That way, the Big Suave doesn't kill anyone but the incubus..." suggested a young secretary. "Nergal's been itching for a takedown," Eblis said musingly. "I like it." "Good... good. I don't like Nergal either." Alicia mused. "But do you think you can do it? We can't do anything in your society." "Nergal is so stupid, you have to hit him over the head with a rock to get an idea into his head. But trrrust me. By the time I'm done with him, he'll think it's all his own idea, and he discovered the news on his own. It's a good thing he's so stupid... he must have landed on his head on the trip down from the top floor." Giggling broke out among the secretaries. They *did* know how stupid Nergal could be. "What do you need from us, Eblis?" Alicia grinned. "Right now, just the picture." He reached across the table to get the picture of Melissa Stone, so young and blonde and pretty, but with a wariness in her eyes and an almost cringing manner. "Here, have it. We don't want it around. And there's no way that stupid woman is going to say anything to the Big Suave. I'm curious, Eblis--were you all like that before the Fall?" Alicia handed over the picture, a curious look on her face. "Worse." His eyes gleamed. "Can you imagine me in a toga, with a harp, singing?" He struck a mock saintly and heroic pose. He grinned at Alicia. "Whenever you're ready for your payment, toots. You know how to reach me." He chucked her under the chin, grinned, and turned into a double of Stone. He grabbed Alicia and bent her over backwards, giving her a long, hot kiss. "Oh..." All the secretaries shuddered at the image. "You better get going. I'll contact you for the payment... to Rose." Alicia grinned. "And do tell us *all* about it next lunch!" Eblis grinned, still looking like Stone, and goosed her before turning away. He began turning back into himself as he walked out, whistling unconcernedly. Alicia jumped, then broke into a slow smile. "You know... I love fireworks. Just love them." She grinned as she thought about next lunch. Maybe they'd find a way after all....
Comments to the authors Lady Serez and Lady Rhian
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