Chapter 7: Pride

I am Agbar of the Ars Goetia -- What is your desire -- You must return -- Guardian of the portals -- Turn back or face the consequences -- a Duke of Hell -- Why do you wish to enter the mortal world -- Return to where you’ve come from -- You may not enter.

Agbar’s training had been completed the week before, and now they were on their own. They were prepared and knew the spells they needed, though some required some work still, and their first couple of days had been a success. Now, however, there were unscheduled portals opening left and right. They had spent the previous day chasing portal after portal, each of them opened from some shed or basement or kitchen, and every single trespasser had to be sent back to Hell.

Why the amount of unscheduled portals increased like that was a mystery not only to them but to Agarus as well. They had sent their brother a message during the first day of this chaos, but he had no answer either. During his shift, everything had been as usual. Something was awry, and they had to figure out what it was. When an imp attempted to trespass for the second time only to be sent back immediately, they had a suspicion.

Turn back -- You don’t want me to hurt you -- You are denied entry -- Step back through the portal -- And where did you come from -- Return at once -- Get lost -- Back to Hell with you -- I will send you back in two -- Fuck off -- Who do you think you are -- Face my wrath.

“Him,” they growled when they felt another unscheduled portal open. Their upper eyes could see the imp traversing the dimensions, but they couldn’t quite tell where he was coming from. A kitchen, it looked like, but the surrounding area was unfamiliar. Somewhere in Hell, in the Ring of Pride, but that was all they could make out. The issue wasn’t even where he was coming from – it was where he was going.

During rush hour traffic in New York City, somebody was opening a portal in a corner of a subway station. Only a handful of metres from where hundreds if not thousands of people were flooding in and out of trains, in a blind spot two steps from being seen, a faint glow was announcing the portal. Although Agbar couldn’t tell who was casting the spell, they knew who was in transit, and they knew that this imp was a pain in all the wrong places.

From the Isle of Man, where the last unscheduled portal had been opened, they faced westward. The golden feather on their forehead began to glow, and a portal opened right in front of the unscheduled portal in New York so that the imp who was about to step through would end up in front of them instead.

“Whoopsie, my bad,” the imp said when he saw Agbar. “Guess I’ll head back to Hell.” With a smile on his face, he turned right around and raised his foot to step back through the portal, but Agbar cast the magic in their golden feather and closed it before the imp’s eyes. “How am I supposed to go back now, huh?” The imp turned around with his hands on his hips. “Look at me, bird bitch. Or are you looking at me? You should take a sharpie and draw some pupils on your eyes, I can’t tell if you’re looking at me when they’re all white like that.”

“Three times,” Agbar said. Their eyes lit up again. “This is the third time you have illegally entered the mortal world today.”

“So what, that’s why you’re here, right? To send me back.” The imp approached Agbar with a smug grin on his face, shaking knees, and a racing heart. A film of sweat appeared on his forehead, but he didn’t want Agbar to notice the fear inside of him. “Now open up that portal, will you. I’ve got an appointment in Hell, and then I’ll be right back.”

They held their hands behind their back, the fingers of one around the wrist of the other, and with every word the imp spoke, their grip tightened. And tightened. Until their claws drew droplets of black blood from their wrist.

“I will send you back to hell all right,” Agbar said, and their eyes glowed brighter.

“Good, and make it fast, bird b--” Two dark crocodiles, beasts from the shores of the Nile, unearthed themselves from the shadows underneath them and tore into the imp’s legs. With a cry, he fell to the ground, but the crocodiles wouldn’t let go. Their teeth ground on the broken bones, and the soil darkened with blood. “You piece of--” The imp pointed his finger at Agbar, but a third crocodile emerged and left his hand hanging by a thread.

“To hell you will go, that much I promised,” Agbar said, “but there is more than one way to get you there.”

“You…” the imp said between panting breaths, “You know that you can’t eradicate me. Not here on Earth. Not without an Angelic weapon.” He drew sharp breaths as the crocodiles were munching on him.

“I don’t need to eradicate you, imp.” They stepped closer. The imp was lying on the ground besides them, but they didn’t bother looking at him. “I will make sure you will not want to return.”

A crocodile bit into his side and spilled his guts onto the dirt and grass underneath him. His screams were lost in the wide, open field, and the few cows standing a hundred metres away didn’t seem to mind at all. He kept screaming until his voice was hoarse.

“For the love of all that’s damned,” he screamed. “I beg you, let me go!”

“Wouldn’t you love to perish now, imp?” They walked a circle around the trespasser. “Beg me to end you, and convince me that you don’t care whether you will be reincarnated or perish forever.”

“Whatever you want.” Tears started running down his face, and through the hoarse cries, his words were barely intelligible. “I don’t care.” His heart was pounding. “I don’t care.” A heart attack might have saved him, but Agbar wasn’t sure imps could even have heart attacks.

The golden feather started glowing, and the imp was consumed by a sea of flames that emerged from the ground. The roaring fire drowned out his tired screams until his body gave in and his physical manifestation perished. In a few minutes, he would find himself in Hell again, both his body and his memory intact.

Six more perished in the same manner, but Agbar still couldn’t pin-point a single one of the locations they were coming from. Then, a seventh trespasser appeared, and this time, Agbar knew where the imp was coming from. The seventh imp faced the same fate as all the others.

In a living room in one of the housing complexes in the Ring of Pride, a group of ten imps was sitting on couches and sofas. Some were pacing up and down, others were furiously typing on their phones, and all were worried about the imp who had just disappeared through the portal and not returned. Above them, on the flat roof of the building, a portal opened and Agbar stepped through, but the imps were unaware of that.

As the portal closed, their four glowing eyes sensed for any kind of danger in this building. As long as the imps were not in possession of Angelic weapons, they wouldn’t have to worry about their own safety. The glow subsided. No danger.

Another portal opened in the living room and got the imps in motion. They were crying out the missing imp’s name, hopeful that he might return at last, but when Agbar stepped through the portal and brought the fires of Hell with them, the imps’ hope turned to terror. The fire burst into the room and slithered into every last corner like a snake, and the dark crocodiles that stormed through the portal behind Agbar tossed the sofas and the coffee table against the walls.

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The imps ran out the door, towards the stair hall, and then away into the streets, but one remained in the flat. Agbar ignored her. They let the fire and the crocodiles do the work of destroying all documents containing spells. Not just the portal spells but all spells. Human disguises, light, combat – all went up in flames, and without them written down, the imps would never be able to remember most of them for they were too complex.

When the last piece of paper had been torn to shreds and burnt to ashes, the fire subsided and the crocodiles returned to the shadows. Agbar turned to the imp who was living in this flat.

“My… my D-dark Lord,” the imp stuttered and tried to bow.

“Save it,” Agbar said with a voice that was darker than what they were used to. “This is your one and only warning.” They turned around and stepped through the portal back to Earth, and as fast as they had come, they were gone again.

Over the remainder of their shift, only five more unscheduled portals were opened, and after every one of them, the time between them grew longer until no portals were opened during the last ninety minutes, save for two scheduled ones. They wrote down who entered the mortal world when and where and paid the visitors no mind after that.

 

“How was your day?” they said when they left the storage cabinet that had been repurposed into a small office. It was barely large enough for a chair and a small desk. Next time they and their girlfriend moved, they would need to find a flat with a proper office.

“Same as usual,” she replied. “Though, I told you about Jane before, right? She’s been fucking our boss for a while now, and I guess his wife finally found out. Little Boy, Fat Man, This Woman. She came to the hospital and went ballistic in his office.” She shook her head with a big smile. “It was hard keeping a poker face when she stormed out again. You should’ve seen his face.”

“Oof, that’s a tough one. And isn’t their anniversary in, like, a couple weeks too?”

Her eyes got big. “Yes, I completely forgot. Hope the cruise line has a good return policy.” She walked towards the kitchenette and looked into the fridge. “Anyway, enough gossiping for today. Traffic was hell, and the weather isn’t on my side either.”

“Main road again?” They opened a cupboard to take out a pan.

She nodded. “People driving like fucking morons. Some guy almost ran me off the road today. Gave him a punch against his rear window, that’s how close he was when he passed me. Then he gave me this whole performance—” She imitated his waving hands. “—and all I could think was, yeah, run me over, bitch. I dare you.”

They smiled but had to shake their head a bit. Leftovers had found their way into the pan and onto the stove. “Be careful out there,” they said and kissed her on her head like a child. “Being run over is worse than it sounds, you know.”

“Fuck you.” She laughed. “You know how it is. Sarcasm and all that.”

“The offer still stands, though. We could get you one of those fast e-bikes. You’d be good in all the side streets at least, and any kind of improvement on the main road would be worth it.”

She sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

“That’s what you said last time too.”

She pulled them close to her and kissed them. “I know. It’s just… I don’t know. Weird. That we have so much money now. I make an okay salary, and together with yours, we could easily afford an e-bike. Hell, a nice car, even. No, a motorcycle, I’m more of a motorcycle person. But still… It’s unusual, is all I’m saying. You made three grand during training—” It had been four and a half. “—and now forty-five hundred a month.” Ten thousand after taxes, adjusted to inflation every year. “That’s so much money.”

“Just say the word,” they said.

A shy smile. “At any rate, how was your day? Kept busy all right in your home office?”

“It was a bit stressful, I’ve gotta say that. It’s a lot to get used to, with all the requests coming in all day long. But I got through all tickets, and the queue was empty when I logged off.”

“That’s my hard worker right there.”

“I’m guessing it’ll only get easier the more I get into the rhythm, you know.” The leftovers started smoking, and now they were charred on one side. The stench threw them back to a few hours ago. The smell of burning paper and wood. The crackling sound of fire. She opened the window to air out the room, but the hinges squeaked, squeaked like the pitiful screams of so many of the imps they had sent back to Hell. All those imps had already reincarnated, but their screams remained. “I’ll get used to it,” they said and started paying closer attention to the pan.

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