*****
Cracks in the Plaster
2001 Angelia Sparrow
*****

Zeke Stone lay flat on his back staring at the ceiling and
tracing the tiny cracks with unseeing eyes.  He was damned.

"Now there's a redundancy," said a voice beside him.

He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the owner.  He hated
that his thoughts were so easily read.

"Ezekiel, Ezekiel, haven't you learned anything?  You were damned
the instant you killed Gilbert Jax.  You've already been hanged for
stealing the sheep, so why aren't you eating the lamb chops?"

"You're the one who always tells me I really don't need to eat
during this mission."  Careful, careful.  Keep the voice level, and
say something noncontroversial.

"Figure of speech."

Hands, so very cold, ran over his bare chest.  He was always cold on
Earth after the hellfire, but the Devil was colder still.  He
kept his eyes shut.  Last time, the time he had just been brooding about,
he had acquiesced, lured by promises.  This time, he would not.

"You are delightful, Ezekiel.  You always have been.  I think after last
night, you've earned something.  Two escapees at one time.  I'm impressed."

"So we're down to fifty.  All I want to earn is my life."

"Oh yes.  And sweet Rosalind.  Do you think she'll want you after 15 years,
Ezekiel?  After 15 years of being dead?  I can't turn back time, you know.
You'll have stepped out of the stream and stepped back into it downstream."

An image of him as a boy, stepping out of the creek where the others were
playing and walking downstream to an unmuddied area rose in his mind.

"That's how it is.  The times have changed, the world has changed, she has changed."

"And I haven't."

"You have, but not in the ways you think."  The cold breath was on his ear now, and
the hand had moved to stroke his legs.  "You're mine.  Even if you
go back to your life, you will carry me, and Hell, and all you've done,
inside of you.  And that alone will be enough to damn you once more, sending
you back to me at the end of your span.  Redemption is over-rated and
limited to the elect, Ezekiel.  You were damned before you were born."

"Never figured you for a Calvinist."

A bitter laugh, and a seductive tongue along his neck now.  "I'm not.
I'm just terribly fond of the despair Calvin induces.  His doctrine of
the Elect of God sent me numerous souls that should have gone to the other side,
but didn't believe they were salvagable.  You taste different
than you did in Hell, Ezekiel.  There, you tasted of despair.  Here, you
have the even more bitter taste of hope."

"Look, either fuck me or let me sleep."

"You don't need sleep, and you know it."

"Don't need sex either."  Stone rolled grumpily onto his side, turning his
back on the Devil in dismissal.

"Then why did you just offer and move into position?"  His master was pressing
against his back, so bitter cold that he had to be naked.  One arm snaked
over his side to stroke his throat and chest.  He felt the ridge pressing
along his back and buttocks.  "You still can't admit it, can you?"

"Get this over with and leave me alone."

"Tsk, tsk.  Temper, temper.  I should make it hurt for that."

"You always do anyway."

"I do, don't I?  Of course, this human form is so limited
in the amount of hurt it can inflict.  Do you remember that first time,
Ezekiel?"

"I try to forget it."

The perfect hands had metamorphed into claws.  One clutched his throat,
the other slit the jeans he wore, and the underwear beneath them,
shredding the clothes away from his body.  He heard the sound of
Lucifer spitting on his hand, and then felt the appallingly oversized organ,
barely damp, press against the opening of his body.

"Tell me about it."  The voice was rough.  He recognized it as the real sound of
the Prince of Darkness, not the usual human voice.  "As long as you
talk, I'll fuck you slowly, and won't hurt you anymore than I have to.
If you fall silent, then I ream you."

Slowly, agonizingly the huge head pressed into him, forcing its way past
the outer ring.  He almost cried out as it pressed ever deeper into him,
until finally the full length was inside him.  He felt the coldness of the
other's abdomen cradle his buttocks.

"Talk, Ezekiel," came the warning from behind him. "Tell me about the first time."

"No," he rasped.

Diabolical laughter filled the air.  "I had hoped you would say that.
As sweet as a trip down memory lane could have been, this will be so much better."

He pulled out completely and stabbed back in.  Stone bit back a scream.
His body was being stretched, torn apart by the inhuman size of
the Devil and he couldn't even die of the injuries.

Again and again the icy-cold monstrosity slammed into him, and Stone
gave up trying to hold his screams.  He bit hard on the pillow beneath him,
locking his teeth, and reducing them to groans.  Let his neighbors think he
was having noisy sex instead of having them call the cops from him screaming.

"So warm.  You're so warm, my damned one.  Why do you want it the
hard way?  What makes you need to punish yourself, even in Hell?"

"This isn't Hell."

"Of course it is.  Hell is where-ever I am."

An eternity of pain and taunts later, Stone heard a light sigh, and felt
liquid fire shooting into his dead body.

"Damn you," he hissed.

"More redundancy.  So, tomorrow it's back to work, Ezekiel.  You've earned a night off.
And I'm not sure you can walk."

"Joseph De La Rinah."

"What?"

"That's why I fight."

"Oh, yes, damned for sympathy.  It was good tobacco, too."  Fully dressed,
Lucifer stood to leave.  "It won't help, you know," he added, pausing in
doorway, before he shut it behind him.

"Helps my dignity," Stone said softly.  He rolled painfully onto his back and
resumed his ceiling watching.
 
 
 
 

*end*