Damned

Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison. Whether you are or you are not, it hardly matters... because I am here. The prodigal daughter. Little Maddy Spencer has come home to roost.

Even as we approach the precipice walls of underworld headquarters, the stout gates of Hell—oaken beams blackened with age and bound in iron—are already swinging shut to block our entry. Stretched to the horizon on either hand, these crumbling battlements rise lofty as thunderheads, rearing back as if braced against our assault. Standing black against the orange sky. Here, the Great Plains of Discarded Razor Blades, a vast, baked continent paved miles deep with every dull and rusted razor blade cast off by humanity, this glittering field ends at the base of these ominous stone walls.

A sole demon stands guard as the gates are made fast, rattling from within with the telltale rasp of bars sliding into place, chains being wrapped and locked, bolts shot. This demon, its skin pebbled with infected sores, its hide running with pus and corruption, the snout of a monstrous boar dominates its rubbery face. Its eyes are those black stones through which a killer shark surveys its cold, watery victim. Here presents itself Baal, deposed deity of the Babylonians, receiver of generations of sacrificial children slaughtered in tribute. Thundering with the voice of these screaming millions, the demon demands, "Halt and approach no closer!" The demon, Baal, commands, "Disperse your menacing armies! And relinquish your delicious stores of Nestle Crunch bars!"

Thus blocking the path, this demon hybrid of pig and shark and pedophile demands to know my name.

As if, at this newest moment, I knew what to call myself.

Who I am is no longer the plump girl who'd smile winningly, bat her eyelashes, and say, "Pretty please, with sugar on top." My voice speaks with the rage of the Hitler mustache. My head stands unbowed beneath the weight of the garish de Medicis crown. My chunky loins, girded with the belt of murderous kings, swagger and display the spoils of my campaign. My hips bristle with totems and talismans, proof that I am not simply a character in a fixed book or film. I am no single narrative. As neither Rebecca de Winter nor Jane Eyre, I am free to revise my story, to reinvent myself, my world, at any given moment. Advancing beside Archer, I am resplendent in my savage finery of seized power. In my service charge the collected blackguards of a dozen tyrants now dispatched to a lesser oblivion. My fingers, stained crimson with the blood of despots, are not the fingers which paged through the paper lives of helpless romantic heroines. No more am I a passive damsel who waits for circumstance to decide her fate; now have I become the scalawag, the swashbuckler, the Heathcliff of my dreams bent on rescuing myself. For now do I embody all the traits I had so hoped to find in Goran. Meaning: No longer am I limited.

I am my own rakish seducer. I do serve as my own surly, brutish bounder.

As we advance upon the gates of Hell, not slowing our pace, that cadence of our billion-upon-billion marching feet, Archer whispers to me, "The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul."

No slippery, wet heart beats within the damp hollow of my chest. Blood courses not beneath the delicate skin of my limbs. At this point, I am no longer anything which can be killed.

Archer whispers, "Your death offers you a golden opportunity."

The demon pig Baal bares its fangs, its palate brimming with the ruptured fluids and gore of countless foes, a jagged nightmare of toothy torture and suffering—but only to those still wedded to their past lives. As kings or beauties. As rich men or celebrated artists. No, such gnashing, clashing fangs would frighten only those who have yet to accept the fact of their immortality. The demon beast snorts flame, hacking the scalding air with great, slashing claws. The monster roars laughter so greedy, so guttural with hunger that even the scoundrels and knaves marching in my wake, my rapscallions and lowlifes, even they begin to fall back in fear. Even Archer, his head bent against the onslaught of venomous, sulfurous exhalations, even my blue-haired lieutenant slacks in his brave charge.

Yet I do not venture here to be well liked. Nor do I seek any tribute of sweet, smiling affection. My objective is not to flirt and curry favor; and in my mind's eye, my hair streaming, my knees thrown high, dagger unsheathed, I appear quite Byronic.