Tanya led Etrigan away from the camp and across the blasted wasteland that surrounded it, until they'd left any familiar landmarks far behind. She intended that their duel would take place on a flat, featureless plain, where there'd be no bystanders, innocent or otherwise. However, Etrigan was displeased by this.
"No audience? What a copout!" He threw back his head and gave a scornful laugh. "When I defeat you, I want everyone to see it."
Ignoring his taunts, Tanya said, "You want an audience, do you? Fine."
The Key to Hell was on a chain around her neck, underneath her clothes. She reached for it, grasped it tightly, and concentrated on what she wanted to happen. The landscape shifted and changed. Instead of a barren desert, the site of their duel became a vast amphitheatre. All around, there were rows of seats into which crowds of demons were packed, most of whom looked dazed and disorientated. Hastur and his lieutenants were there; they recovered from their momentary confusion with commendable swiftness. Chantinelle was with her fellow succubi, who were glaring daggers at their mother, Queen Triskele, who was in a separate section of the stands. Agares, Paimon and Vassago wore their usual expressions of boredom and indifference, but their flunkeys were flustered and in disarray. When Etrigan's cronies arrived, they were closely packed together, nearly falling over each other, but they quickly recovered and began cheering for him, hooting and hollering and shouting encouragements.
Elsewhere, Crowley was seated next to an angel – a real angel, one of Being X's lackeys? – a plump fellow in a tweed waistcoat, who looked utterly lost and befuddled. Why was he there? Tanya was annoyed that she didn't know. She resolved that later on, after the duel was over, she would have to find out exactly what had happened in Hell during her absence.
She noticed Crowley slowly edging away from the angel, which she thought was rather sensible of him. Undoubtedly, if Tanya had suddenly found herself next to a potential enemy whose capabilities were unknown, she would have acted in much the same way. At least the angel didn't seem inclined to start a fight – and Crowley's careful movements suggested he was trying not to provoke him – which meant that he was a problem that could be saved for later.
As well as those few she knew personally, there were thousands of other demons from both sides of the war. Tanya sensed their feelings hanging over them like a thick and sickly pall. Many of them were shocked, angry and apprehensive. Some had fresh wounds, were smeared with mud, soot and ichor, and might have continued to grapple with each other if Tanya hadn't separated them with magical barriers. Almost nobody was pleased to see her. Even those who hadn't rebelled against her were worried about what she would do next.
Gazing around at Tanya's latest creation, Etrigan saw that the arena floor stretched far into the distance, beyond the dusty horizon, as if there was no end to it. This was despite the fact that the stands seemed very close by, close enough that he could see individual faces in the crowd; there were rows of seats climbing up into the sky, but he couldn't see where they touched the ground. It was a bizarrely distorted edifice and he couldn't see how it all fit together. Of course, there was no need for anything in Hell to conform to the laws of physics.
"You could have done this at any time," he realised. "But still you made me fly all that way? Hah!"
"It's not that simple," said Tanya, with a weary sigh.
She appeared to be trembling with exertion, but Etrigan eyed her distrustfully. He suspected she was trying to lull him into a false sense of security by pretending to be more fatigued than she really was.
"Are you sure about that? At the beginning of the war, you turned your office building into a warzone easily enough. Then, a few minutes later, you fought the Triumvirate and forced them to retreat," he reminded her. "Why would this be any more difficult for you than that?"
"War is something I'm very familiar with. It was easy for me to recreate a few of the battlefields I've seen before," said Tanya. "But this place… This is all new. And there are other things I've had to consider. For instance, I'm not used to moving thousands of demons all at once."
It was impressive that she had managed it, as well as separating those who would have been inclined to carry on fighting, Etrigan had to admit. Even if she'd made a few mistakes here and there, like putting Crowley and that angel together, it was quite an achievement. Was it the Key to Hell that gave her such power? Or was she much more powerful than she had allowed anyone else to realise? Had she deliberately been downplaying her abilities so that she would be underestimated? She was a truly formidable opponent. The thought of their upcoming duel filled him with tingling excitement.
"As long as you're not too tired to give me a decent fight," he said, playfully. "I don't want anyone to say that the only reason I was able to defeat you was because you were already about to collapse with exhaustion."
Tanya shook her head. "Trust me, no one will say that."
Suspecting he was being mocked, Etrigan bared his fangs at her. "We might as well get on with it. Are you ready?"
"Sure," said Tanya. "Show me what you've got."
Without hesitation, Etrigan lunged at her. His claws scraped through empty air. Light as a feather on the breeze, Tanya flitted away from him. "Are we dancing or fighting?" he snarled. "Fight me!"
"As you wish." The air shimmered around Tanya's fists as she swathed them in layer upon layer of magic. A moment later, she darted forward, too fast to be stopped. Even before her fist collided with his face – when it was still several centimetres away – Etrigan was smashed to the ground, feeling as if he'd been hit by a speeding train. If he hadn't been a demon and therefore much tougher than an ordinary mortal, the duel might have ended then and there.
Scrambling to his feet, he spat a stream of hellfire in her direction. Neatly avoiding it, she glared at him and said, "I've heard that your flames cause eternal pain, so I'd prefer it if you didn't use them on me. Eternal life is bad enough without having to suffer eternal pain as well."
"Should I fight you with one hand tied behind my back as well? No, you should be flattered that I feel the need to fight you with every weapon I have," said Etrigan. "Besides, my flames cause eternal pain to humans because hellfire is anathema to them, but you're no longer human. You're a demon, steeped in the raw stuff of Hell, so I'd be surprised if my flames cause you anything worse than a mild sunburn."
"I'm not sure about that. A short while ago, I saw Choronzon being tortured by some of my minions who were roasting him over a slow fire. He certainly didn't seem to be enjoying it."
"It won't cause him any lasting harm. And I doubt it'd do anything to you."
"Then why bother?" asked Tanya.
"Because I'm taking you seriously." Etrigan's red eyes narrowed. "I don't think you're taking me seriously."
He blasted her with more hellfire, a torrent of the stuff, so much that it filled his vision entirely. For a moment, all he could see was fire. Then, as the flames died away and the afterimages began to fade, he glanced around and couldn't see her anywhere. Had he reduced her to ashes? No, of course not. But where was she?
A column of fire and light came down from the sky, scorched Etrigan's flesh, burnt away his clothes and knocked him off his feet again. Tanya was there, high above him, gliding on batlike wings and glaring at him as if he were something she'd found squished under her shoe.
"Hah…" Once again, he struggled to rise. "You know, if you just wanted to see me naked, you could have asked."
"It's not as if you've got anything worth seeing," she said, with a dismissive snort.
"Ah, so you must have been looking! Otherwise, how would you know?"
She didn't dignify that with a reply. Instead, she gazed into the distance and said, "You want me to take you seriously? That's fine. Perhaps I should have done so from the very beginning. I just didn't want to humiliate you too badly."
"You say that, but–" Etrigan began to speak, but Tanya had already zoomed away into the distance. Somehow, she avoided crashing into one of the stands, despite the fact that she seemed to fly straight through it. Presumably, she understood the peculiar geometries of this place better than he did.
Before he could decide what to do next – should he chase after her or get ready to defend himself? – she wheeled around and hit him with another barrage of energy. And another. She seemed to be attacking him from every direction at once, speeding back and forth across the arena so quickly that he had no hope of keeping track of her.
"Huh. You'd give the Flash a run for his money," he murmured.
It occurred to him that this must be what it must be like to be a mere human fighting for a small, impoverished country against a much larger and wealthier country, with outdated and inadequate equipment against top-of-the-range military hardware. He was being bombarded from what seemed like miles away, unable to fight back or even remain standing for longer than a few seconds, and the only reason why he was still alive and conscious was presumably because Tanya was a sadist who wanted him to suffer for as long as possible.
Even as he thought that, Tanya appeared in the air above him, floating a few inches above his head, tantalisingly close, and asked, "Had enough yet?"
"I never had a chance, did I? You were toying with me right from the start." Etrigan didn't have many tricks left in his arsenal, but cunning was one of them. If he could make her doubt herself, he might have a chance. Or maybe not. Either way, he had to try. "Just like the Triumvirate and everyone else who rebelled against you. With the Key to Hell and all the power at your disposal, you could have ended the rebellion as soon as it began. But you didn't. Because it amused you. Because it was all a game to you."
"That's not entirely true. I have been… negligent," said Tanya, as if she were confessing to a terrible crime. In a dull whisper, she continued, "If I had been doing my job properly, the rebellion would never have happened. I was lax and inattentive and I nearly paid the price for that." Her gaze drifted over the crowds in the stands. "In future, I'll have to do better."
"Do you really expect me to believe that it all happened by accident?" Etrigan scoffed. "You wanted it to happen. Because you were bored and wanted something to occupy your time. You manipulated all of us, right from the start."
Tanya hesitated, staring far off into the distance, seeming lost in thought. Desperately seizing this opportunity, Etrigan leapt up and swiped at her, but she dodged without seeming to notice his efforts.
"That sounds like the sort of thing Being X would do." She sighed dismally. "I think it was Nietzsche who said that if you live long enough you'll become something you despise. Or was it one of the Batman movies?"
Etrigan was nonplussed, so much so that he forgot to try attacking again. "There are Batman movies?"
"Nearly a dozen of them."
"I've met him. I thought he was supposed to be an urban legend. A dark and brooding man of mystery, despite his troupe of underage sidekicks. But now they're making movies about him?"
Tanya gave a vague shrug. "A long time ago, in another life, maybe."
"Huh…"
There was a thoughtful pause, during which the spectators jeered and roared their discontentment. Hearing that, Etrigan remembered that he and Tanya were supposed to be duelling. But before he could rise up and attack her again, she pinned him to the ground with an invisible force. Try as he might, he couldn't get free.
"I win," said Tanya, leaning close to him, making sure her words were heard by him alone. "That means I need to decide what to do with you. You fought by my side for months, so I won't imprison you with the rebel leaders. But neither will I reward you as I had planned to. Instead…"
Even as she spoke, Etrigan was distracted by another voice. A very familiar voice. Although it was at the edge of hearing, it seemed to cut through everything else – whatever Tanya was saying, the roaring of the crowd and so on – until he could hear nothing but the words of a rhyme he knew almost as well as he knew his own name: "Gone, gone, the form of man. Rise the demon, Etrigan!"
He sighed resignedly. It was an irresistible summons, calling him to the mortal world, where he would switch places with the human he was bound to. There was no avoiding it.
As he faded away, he saw Tanya's disapproving scowl and heard her say, "I think that's cheating."
Etrigan was gone. In his place, there was a human. A white male, of indeterminate age, with red hair that had a prominent white streak. His shoes were scuffed, his pants were torn and he was wearing a brown suit jacket over a turtleneck sweater.
"I don't believe we've been introduced," said Tanya, offering him a hand to help him to his feet. "I am Tanya Degurechaff, ruler of Hell."
He hesitated, refused to take her hand, and managed to push himself up off the dusty floor, though not without difficulty. "I am Jason Blood, though I expect you know that already," he said, glancing around the arena. "Ah… Hell has undergone some changes since the last time I was here."
"What did you expect?" asked Tanya, raising a curious eyebrow.
The ghost of a smile haunted his lips. "Normally, I would be being tortured by now."
"That can be arranged, if it would make you feel more at home. But it will have to wait," said Tanya. "For now…" She raised a hand, summoning her most faithful servant to her side. "Scumspawn, take Mr. Blood to one of the guest suites. He is to be shown every courtesy during his stay here. I'll send for him later."
"Yes, my lady," said Scumspawn, eyes glowing with devotion. "I'll do it right away!"
Jason Blood looked suspicious. "When you say 'guest suite' you mean torture chamber, right?"
"Go and see for yourself. I think you'll be disappointed," said Tanya. "For now, I have work to do. Be off with you."
She gazed around the arena, gripped the Key to Hell in one hand, and began to change it back to what it was before.
In the catacombs beneath Arkham Asylum, surrounded by damp and darkness, a group of necromancers had set up a dark magic ritual, trapping the lost souls of former inmates, guards and psychiatrists and anyone else who'd died within the walls of that wretched place. Perhaps they planned to sell them to a demon in exchange for immortality, or they were planning to raise an army of zombies, or plunge Gotham City into eternal night, or some such nonsense.
Etrigan didn't care about that. Gazing around at the subterranean cavern, the stalactites and stalagmites, the dripping walls and dribbly candles, the ritual circle drawn in blood on the floor, and the necromancers in their black robes and hooded cloaks, he put on a predatory grin.
"I'm sure that I've been here before. I suppose this is my first encore," he said, glad of the chance to show off his rhyming skills, now that he wasn't talking to Tanya. "I've been called to set things right. Will you give me a decent fight?"
"Great and mighty demon!" one of the necromancers cried, in a quivering voice. "We offer you these souls in exchange for–"
"So that's a no? Oh, what a shame. 'Cos now you'll have to face my flames!" He blasted them with hellfire. Two of them were reduced to ashes in an instant, but the others raised magical shields to protect themselves from harm.
"Begone, spawn of Hell!" cried one of them, pulling out a magic wand and waving it at him.
Without waiting to see what the wand was supposed to do, Etrigan grabbed the man's outstretched arm and pulled until it parted from his shoulder with a spray of blood and an agonized scream. Letting the soon-to-be-corpse fall to the floor, he turned to the others and said, "So far, this fight has been a bore. To win, you'll need to do much more."
Skeletal hands reached up from the cavern floor, clawing at him. The necromancers had conjured a horde of undead monstrosities, seemingly out of the depths of the earth, all of which were intent on ripping him to shreds.
Etrigan's grin grew even wider. 'Now, that's more like it!'
"I must say, Lady Tanya, you're not what I expected," said Jason Blood, sipping at a cup of coffee Scumspawn had provided for him. "But I don't see how I can help you. You'd be better off talking to an economist. Or looking at a reference book."
Tanya refrained from telling him that she knew more about economics than most economists ever would or could. Instead, she said, "All I want is a general overview. What are people afraid of? And what do they need? On a global scale, I mean."
The immortal mystic looked uneasy. "Uh, what will you do with this information? Persuade people to sell you their souls in exchange for an end to climate change and natural disasters?"
"There are billions of souls in Hell already. I don't need anymore," said Tanya. "No, I've been thinking that Hell needs an economy – and a system of currency – that isn't based on the trade in human souls. But for that to work, we need to have something to sell."
Having won the war, Tanya was once again the undisputed ruler of Hell. The rebels had been consigned to the Blackest Pit, where they would remain indefinitely until she had need of them. She was considering offering parole to some of them on the condition that they do the drudge work her other employees didn't want to do. In particular, she suspected she might need Beelzebub to help her make sense of the filing system.
Many times, she had been told that delegation was the key to successful leadership. With that in mind, she had given each of her loyal lieutenants – and Ran Va Daath, who had at least been an ally of convenience – their own fiefdom to rule over, as well as a percentage of the human souls who were languishing in Hell. To Hastur she gave those whose sin was violence, Chantinelle the vain and lustful, Agares the gluttons, Paimon the avaricious and spendthrift, Vassago the liars and frauds, and to Ran Va Daath she gave the worst and most despicable criminals, those most deserving of dreadful punishment. The rest she kept for herself.
Although she'd wanted to promote Crowley and give him his own fiefdom, he had refused, saying that he'd rather stay where he was, as the head of her field agents on Earth. This she had accepted, though it left her short of competent subordinates where she needed them most.
Hastur turned his realm into a mountainous region, where clouds drifted over an endless blue sky, where sheep and goats grazed over the sunny uplands and the wind whistled over the high crags. Through this serene landscape, the violent sinners wandered aimlessly, seeming bemused by their surroundings. Tanya wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a punishment for them. Whenever she visited, it always filled her with an aching sense of loss.
"What is this place?" she asked Hastur. "What's the point?"
"Point? Does it need to have a point?" He looked bemused. "This is home."
Meanwhile, Chantinelle was more concerned with consolidating her power as the new queen of the succubi than punishing the sinners who'd been entrusted to her care, for which they seemed grateful. Whenever Tanya looked in on them, they were huddled together and trying not to be noticed.
Agares, Paimon and Vassago ruled over palaces of endless revelry and hedonism, which seemed to satisfy neither them nor their charges. Sooner or later, Tanya knew they would descend into anarchy, fought over by the ambitious flatterers who crawled over the former angels like lice, and she would have to intervene. But that hadn't happened yet.
Ran Va Daath seemed content with her realm of depraved torture and horror. Tanya thought it best to leave her to it. She had no reason to get involved.
At Hell's heart, there was a vast office building, the seat of Tanya's power, from which she presided over the administration of her domain. There, she made plans for the future, consulted with her advisors, and arranged meetings with the great powers of the universe. In pride of place, in the breakroom, there was a picture frame inscribed with the words 'Employee of the Month', inside which there was a photograph of Scumspawn, looking pleased and proud of himself.
"That sounds very unlikely," said Batman, having heard garbled accounts of zombies, demons and evil wizards running loose in Arkham Asylum. "Dr. Crane must have slipped fear gas into their ventilation system again."
"But what about the fire?" asked Robin. "It took them a whole day to put it out!"
"There are some dangerous chemicals he could have used. Some of them are very flammable," said Batman. "But we'll have to investigate that later. For now, our priority has to be the mass breakout."
"Okay, sure," said Robin, with a nod.
Lucifer was feeling pretty good about himself. Here in Los Angeles, surrounded by the best and worst humanity had to offer, he had everything he could possibly want: pleasant company, drink, drugs, sex, music, and every other sin and vice. He was a wealthy businessman, the owner of Lux, the city's trendiest nightclub, a figure of envy and admiration, and one of the USA's most eligible bachelors according to every gossip magazine. Even if he was only killing time before the Apocalypse began – which shouldn't be long now – it was fun while it lasted.
By now, he'd heard every chat-up line imaginable, so he just rolled his eyes when a petite blonde came up to him and said, "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven… Lucifer?"
"You'll have to try harder than that," he said, giving her a dazzling smile. "Put some passion into it next time. Show me how sweet and charming you can be. Maybe wear something a little more revealing. I get that the intention is to be mysterious, to make people wonder what you're hiding under there – done right, that can be very alluring – but you've gone a bit too far, darling. Points for trying, though."
She stared at him with that same flat, emotionless expression. "Don't you recognize me?"
"Nope! But don't take it to heart. I sleep with a lot of people," he said, cheerfully.
"It's Tanya. Tanya Degurechaff," she said, folding her arms.
If he'd been holding a glass, he'd have dropped it. "Oh. What are you doing here?"
"We need to talk," she said. "In private."
His good mood evaporated, but he didn't argue. "Yeah, all right. Come with me."
As he passed by the bar, Mazikeen started humming 'bow-chika-bow-wow', so he gave her the finger.