Lucifer sat at the head of the boardroom table with a bag of deep-fried damnedsouls and a few sulphur-cured imps on sticks tucked away in case the meeting ran long. Tracking gave a brief report on the Hellraised who'd gone AWOL upon reaching North Carolina. The tracking team was actually doing a good job, but since they hadn't found all of the missing Hellraised, Lucifer ripped the head off of the department manager and threw him into the Pit, then promoted the first assistant to her place. Decisive management, he thought
He listened through the department head of Research and Development's long-winded report on the progress he was making on digitally controlled torture devices. At another time Lucifer might have found the report fascinating, and really the color overhead projections of pie graphs and bar graphs of inflicted pain with old methods versus inflicted pain with new methods were very nicely done. Lucifer experienced a momentary surge of interest when R&D brought in a couple of damnedsouls for the demo.
But Scumslag was down from his away mission in North Carolina to give the half-year report on the progress of Satco, that tiny little division of Netherlands Industries that had garnered such a lot of enthusiasm from everyone in the main branch of the company. Lucifer wanted to hear what Scumslag had to say, and not even an amusing demonstration of R&D's new toys seemed like much of a diversion while he was waiting.
Communicable Diseases was next on the agenda, but when R&D sat down, Lucifer pointed to Scumslag. "You next," he said.
Scumslag smiled, "My thanks, Your Magnificent Awfulness. I'll keep this brief. Our statewide net in damnedsouls is up four percent, statewide morale—as measured by our twenty-point morale index—is falling at half a percentage point per month, murder and suicide rates are rising, and the altruism index is way down. Plus, we show a financial profit in this second quarter of forty-seven-point-five-three million dollars. Net."
The devil, the only one in the boardroom who wasn't a fallen angel or snack food, grinned around the table at the other department heads.
"That's a good start," Lucifer said. "But how is the Devil's Point project coming?"
Devil's Point had been the idea of the first CEO of Satco, Agonostis, before he went over to the other side. It was to be an amusement park built in North Carolina, offering one-of-a-kind amusements for a slightly less-than-average day rate. It was to have a water park with real mermaids; a zoological park with living specimens of extinct creatures from every one of Earth's geological eras; a library with every book that had ever been written in every language that had ever been spoken; a live-action role-playing game park with special effects from Hell; the ultimate mall, that offered every product the mind could imagine; body shops where the customer could buy the body he or she had always wanted; and much, much more. The customer would be able to find almost exactly what he wanted at a competitive cost. Hell would make a nice profit on that, because it had virtually no manufacturing costs. And when the customer knew exactly what he wanted, he would find, instead of another shop or attraction, a magical door. That door would take him to a secret, hidden part of the park. Desire's Point. Where he could have exactly what he most desired.
For a slightly higher price.
The park looked tremendous on the drawing board. Unfortunately, it hadn't gotten past that stage yet. "Everything is ready to go," Scumslag said. "We've located the land we want in Fender County, right next to Topsail Beach. We've found a hundred square miles that we can buy up relatively cheap—land prices have fallen through the floor since we arrived. The only problem right now is that no one will sell us the land, and we're hampered by His rules about humans knowing whom they're dealing with."
"I don't recall much resistance from humans when it comes to dealing with the devil," Lucifer said. "They've always been greedy little bastards."
"Yes, they have. But this particular block of land happens to have fallen into the hands of people who aren't motivated by greed."
"Fundamentalists?" Lucifer scoffed. "They can be tempted."
"Oh, no, Your Horribleness. Much worse than Fundamentalists. Environmentalists."
The fallen angels around the table hissed, and even Lucifer made the sign of the evil eye. "Find another piece of land," Lucifer said. "You'll never get their nasty little claws out of that one."
"But I think I will." Scumslag's smile grew huge. "Greed won't get them, but I think their politically correct agenda will. More than anything else, they want the power to force other people to do things their way or no way at all. So I'm working on that angle. I'll get 'em."