Lucifer motioned again. The Egyptian empress dissolved into a nebulous cloud of pastel-colored gas in which clotted star-dust winked and writhed, to the accompaniment of massed voices humming nostalgic chords amid an odor of magnolia blossoms. Another gesture, and Curl stood again before them, looking slightly dazed.
“Hey, what was that last one?” she cried.
“Sorry, that was Scarlett O’Hara. I forgot she was a figment of the imagination. Those are always a little insubstantial.”
“Remarkable,” Dimpleby said. “I’ll have to concede that you can either perform miracles or accomplish the same result by some other means.”
“Gee, I guess you’re genuine, all right,” Curlene exclaimed. “But somehow I expected a much older man.”
“I’m not actually a man, strictly speaking, Ma’am—Curl. And agewise, well, since I’m immortal, why should I look middle-aged rather than just mature?”
“Tell me,” Curlene said seriously. “I’ve always wondered: what do you want people’s souls for?”
“Frankly, Ma’am—Curl, that is—I haven’t the remotest interest in anyone’s soul.”
“Really?”
“Really and truly; cross my heart. That’s just another of those rumors they started.”
“Are you sure you’re really the Devil and not someone else with the same name?”
Lucifer spread his hands appealingly. “You saw Freddy. And those are noodles in the fish tank.”
“But—no horns, no hooves, no tail—”
Lucifer sighed. “That idea comes from confusing me with Pan. Since he was a jolly sort of sex-god, naturally he was equated with sin.”
“I’ve always wondered,” Curlene said, “just what you did to get evicted from Heaven.”
“Please,” Lucifer said. “It . . . all dates back to an incident when I was still an angel.” He held up a forestalling hand as Curl opened her mouth. “No, I didn’t have wings. Humans added those when they saw us levitating, on the theory that anything that flies must have wings. If we were to appear today, they’d probably give us jets.”
“Assuming you are, er, what you claim to be,” Dimpleby said, “what’s this about your needing help?”
“I do,” Lucifer said. “Desperately. Frankly, I’m up against something I simply can’t handle alone.”
“I can’t imagine what I could do, if you, with your, ah, special talents are helpless,” Dimpleby said perplexedly.
“This is something totally unprecedented. It’s a threat on a scale I can’t begin to describe.
“Well, try,” Curl urged.
“Stated in its simplest terms,” Lucifer said, “the, ah, plane of existence I usually occupy—”
“Hell, you mean,” Curl supplied.
“Well, that’s another of those loaded terms. It really isn’t a bad place at all, you know—”
“But what about it?” Dimpleby prompted. “What about Hell?”
“It’s about to be invaded,” Lucifer said solemnly. “By alien demons from another world.”
2
It was an hour later. Lucifer, Curlene, and Professor Dimpleby were comfortably ensconced behind large pewter mugs of musty ale at a corner table in the Sam Johnson Room at the Faculty Club.
“Well, now,” Dimpleby said affably, raising his tankard in salute, “alien demons, eh? An interesting concept, Mr. Lucifer. Tell us more.”
“I’ve never believed in devils,” Curlene said, “or monsters from another planet either. Now all of a sudden I’m supposed to believe in both at once. If it weren’t for that Freddy . . . ”
“Granted the basic premise, it’s logical enough,” Dimpleby said. “If earthly imps exist, why not space sprites?”
“Professor, this is more than a bunch of syllogisms,” Lucifer said earnestly. “These fellows mean business. They have some extremely potent powers. Fortunately, I have powers they don’t know about, too; that’s the only way I’ve held them in check so far—”
“You mean—they’re already here?” Curlene looked searchingly about the room.
“No—I mean, yes, they’re here, but not precisely here.” Lucifer clarified. “Look, I’d better fill in a little background for you. You see, Hell is actually a superior plane of existence—”
Curlene choked on her ale in a ladylike way.
“I mean—not superior, but, ah, at another level, you understand. Different physical laws, and so on—”
“Dirac levels,” Dimpleby said, signaling for refills.
“Right!” Lucifer nodded eagerly. “There’s an entire continuum of them, stretching away on both sides; there’s an energy state higher on the scale than Hell—Heaven, it’s called, for some reason—and one lower than your plane; that’s the one Freddy comes from, by the way—”
“Oh, tell me about Heaven,” Curlene urged.
Lucifer sighed, “Sometimes I miss the old place, in spite of . . . but never mind that.”
“Tell me, Mr. Lucifer,” Dimpleby said thoughtfully, “how is it you’re able to travel at will among these levels?” As he spoke he pulled an envelope from his pocket and uncapped a ballpoint. “It appears to me that there’s an insurmountable difficulty here, in terms of atomic and molecular spectral energy distribution; the specific heat involved . . . ” he jotted busily, murmuring to himself.
“You’re absolutely right, Professor,” Lucifer said, sampling the fresh tankard just placed before him. “Heat used to be a real problem. I’d always arrive in a cloud of smoke and sulphur fumes. I finally solved it by working out a trick of emitting a packet of magnetic energy to carry off the excess.”
“Hmmm. How did you go about dissipating this magnetism?”
“I fired it off in a tight beam; got rid of it.”
“Beamed magnetism?” Dimpleby scribbled furiously. “Hmmm. Possibly . . . ”
“Hey, fellas,” Curlene protested. “Let’s not talk shop, OK?” She turned a fascinated gaze on Lucifer. “You were just telling me about Heaven.”
“You wouldn’t like it, Curl,” he said, almost curtly. “Now, Professor, all through history—at least as far as I remember it, and that covers a considerable period—the different energy states were completely separate and self-sufficient. Then, a few thousand years back, one of our boys—Yahway, his name is—got to poking around and discovered a way to move around from one level to another. The first place he discovered was Hell. Well, he’s something of a bluenose, frankly, and he didn’t much like what he found there: all kinds of dead warriors from Greece and Norway and such places sitting around juicing it and singing it, and fighting in a friendly sort of way.”
“You mean—Valhalla really exists?” Curlene gasped. “And the Elysian Fields?”
Lucifer made a disclaiming wave of the hand. “There’ve always been humans with more than their share of vital energy. Instead of dying, they just switch levels. I have a private theory that there’s a certain percentage of, er, individuals in any level who really belong in the next one up—or down. Anyway, Yahway didn’t like what he saw. He was always a great one for discipline, getting up early, regular calisthenics—you know. He tried telling these fellows the error of their ways, but they just laughed him off the podium. So he dropped down one more level, which put him here; a much simpler proposition, nothing but a few tribesmen herding goats. Naturally they were impressed by a few simple miracles.” Lucifer paused to quaff deeply. He sighed.
“Yes. Well, he’s been meddling around down here ever since, and frankly—but I’m wandering.” He hiccuped sternly. “I admit, I never could drink very much without losing my perspective. Where was I?”
“The invasion,” Dimpleby reminded him.
“Oh, yes. Well, they hit us without any warning. There we were, just sitting around the mead hall taking it easy, or strolling in the gardens striking our lutes or whatever we felt like, when all of a sudden—” Lucifer shook his head bemusedly. “Professor, did you ever have one of those days when nothing seemed to go right?”
Dimpleby pursed his lips. “Hmmm. You mean like having the first flat tire in a year during the worst rainstorm of the year while on your way to the most important meeting of the year?”
“Or,” Curlene said, “like when you’re just having a quick martini to brace yourself for the afternoon and you spill it on your new dress and when you try to wash it out, the water’s turned off, and when you try to phone to report that, the phone’s out, and just then Mrs. Trundle from next door drops in to talk, only you’re late for the Faculty Wives?”
“That’s it,” Lucifer confirmed. “Well, picture that sort of thing on a vast scale.”
“That’s rather depressing,” Dimpleby said. “But what has it to do with the, er, invasion?”
“Everything!” Lucifer said, with a wave of his hands. Across the room, a well-fleshed matron yelped.
“My olive! It turned into a frog!”
“Remarkable,” her table companion said. “Genus Rana pipiens, I believe!”
“Sorry,” Lucifer muttered, blushing, putting his hands under the table.
“You were saying, Mr. Lucifer?”
“It’s them, Professor. They’ve been sort of leaking over, you see? Their influence, I mean.” Lucifer started to wave his hands again, but caught himself and put them in his blazer pockets.
“Leaking over?”
“From Hell into his plane. You’ve been getting just a faint taste of it. You should see what’s been going on in Hell, Proffefor—I mean Prossessor—I mean—”