I am called many things.

Prince of Lies. Lord of Hell. The Supreme Tempter of Mankind. Once, years beyond counting ago, I was the Bringer of Light. The Morningstar. His favorite.

And now? I’m all those things and much much more, but I stick with Lucifer.

It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? The screamers always emphasize the first syllable, drawing the rest out in a shriek or a gurgle, depending on if I'm in the mood for quiet torment that day.

The criers, they irritate me most of all. They choke the letters down like a child swallowing bitter medicine while they stare up at me with pleading eyes, hoping to be the one that incites the devil to mercy.

The broken ones have silent, dead eyes ignoring the torturers and demons that surround them. Sometimes I’ll hear my name on their breath, a barely audible wheeze as they resign themselves to Hell.

I can hear the disgust. What did you expect? Hearts and sunshine? I’m the Devil.

Or I was. On Earth, I'm beginning to feel like I'm something else entirely. Something new.

Nothing has been new for a very long time.

Every generation of humanity seems to think that they’ve reinvented it all. The most efficient ways to murder each other. The most depraved sexual acts.

Please.

After eons of violence and sex, I can assure humanity that everything is a remix. Everything has been done before.

I do admit though, that the 21^st century has perfected it to a fine art. The children are raised on video games that mimic violence flawlessly, racking up body counts that my top lieutenants would envy before they’re old enough to drive.

And then there’s the internet. Every flavor of pornography from the mundane to the type that can make the devil wince is ripe for the viewing from the privacy of your own home.

I wonder if my Father is impressed with what His beloved creations have made of this world.

I tempt, but I don’t put ideas or desires into any mortal’s head. All I’ve ever done is silence that little voice that says shouldn’t can’t wrong. I just bring those visceral wants and needs you bury deep inside to the surface.

I never handed humanity the rope, I just stood in the background and watched as you tied it into a noose and strangled the world.

That’s all the past.

Even your favorite pastime will grow tedious when you count time in millennia.

The Devil is bored, but that’s not what leads me to contemplate ripping my way out of this dungeon of my own creation.

Enrollment is down.

Since the beginning of it all, a steady stream of souls has poured through Hell, an unending tide of broken humanity flooding the pits with their wretched fate. As time passed and the millennium came and went, the numbers increased to a veritable tsunami of souls, ripe with sin and ready for the plucking.

Until now.

It would be easy to blame the sudden drought on the humans themselves but the likelihood of the populace suddenly finding a religion other than the unholy trinity of sex, power and money was slim at best.

No, I know exactly who is responsible for the sudden drought in Hell.

The Archangels. I’ve always been a gambling man, but this hardly even counts as a wager.

Michael is behind this.

I gaze across the cold, blackness of Hell. My domain. My creation. Everything I am, and all I haev left.

And Michael is trying to rip it away from me.

All things being said, the balance of souls that end up falling in my grasp and His most favored lambs that skip their way into Heaven's embrace has always been just that – a balance. That balance was tipping in my favor until now.

Calling human souls mere currency is insultingly inadequate. A soul isn't a thing that can be bought or sold. It can’t be traded like livestock. In its purest form, a human soul is power. Souls aren't the fruit on the vine. They are the soil and the oxygen, the very sunlight that feeds the tree.

Or they are until the reach my realm.

Damming that tide of souls might prevent them from crossing my threshold, but it certainly can’t keep the wicked from expiring, and even the pleasure of spiting me wouldn’t be enough to entice Michael to taint Heaven with those souls. That leaves only one place.

Barred from Hell and unwanted in Heaven, they are caught on Earth. The havoc hasn’t begun yet, but I can already feel it brewing on the surface.

The souls of the damned will poison Earth as surely as chemical runoff, but Michael and his cohorts will consider it a worthwhile sacrifice to weaken Hell.

I don’t.

That’s where the stories always get it wrong. I punish evil. I don’t create it. In my impulsive youth, I might have relished in watching Pestilence and Famine ride through villages, spreading disease and starvation with the ease of a tree dropping pollen. Once, I carried my own bloody sword beside War and laughed as Death trailed us on that infernal pale horse.

“Come and see,” I would whisper, and they would follow me like beasts to the slaughter.

But they were never innocents. I couldn't claim a truly pure soul if I wanted to, but why would I bother when untold millions were begging for a place in my kingdom. Seventy-two virgins aren't nearly as amusing as one painted whore.

And where better to find amusement than among the throngs of humanity?

A walk in the world would solve my little boredom issue quite nicely, and if I have the chance to tear Michael's wings off. . . Well, that would just be a nice bonus to my vacation.

Leaving Hell isn't quite as simple as strolling out the exit door, even for me. It was made to be a cage to punish the wicked and the Fallen, myself especially.

When I fell from Heaven, light surrounded me. I was the Morningstar, after all. The cold, pale glow of Heaven grew brighter around me as I plummeted to Earth, searing my skin and burning my wings black.

It was my last memory of pain, at least my own, until now.

Leaving Hell is much more of a crawl. Serpentine tunnels wind through the depths, dug by demons and broken souls over the millennia. Only the highest ranking in Hell know where they lead, and even fewer could find their way to the gates.

The tunnels are the deepest of black. No torches light the way, no errant embers of brimstone illuminate the path. The darkness is thick. It oozes over my flesh like tar, swallowing the remnants of light filtering in from the tunnel’s mouth. My shoulders brush the walls of the narrow pathway, and rough stone sticky with unknown moisture plucks at the feathers of my wings.

The walls grow tighter and the rough stone gives way to jagged shards that cut into a body that has been whole for millennia, and I know pain.

Demons may have carved the tunnels themselves, but these last few feet before the gates were wrought by the divine.

This is going to hurt.

I push forward, every cell in my body rebelling against the long forgotten touch of divinity, and—

The tunnel widens into a room with a single door appearing to rest against bare stone. The rough-hewn wood is unadorned. He never did have much of a flair for dramatics. The slightest bit of illumination escapes from the cracks around the edges, that tiny bit of light cutting through the blackness.

I hesitate. The full force of what I’m about to do presses against me.

For one brief moment, I consider turning back, but I've never exactly been one who considered the long-term outcomes of my choices.

Fuck it, I think and push open the door.

I awake on a beach. Sprawled on my back on the damp sand, the low tide waves lapping against my body soak my clothes, and I stare upward at the sky. Clear, achingly bright blue hiding the Heaven I’ve forsaken. The doorway to the Hell I’ve abandoned vanished when I stepped across the threshold.

I’m here.

Earth.

I can feel the mass of humanity all around. Buzzing in my ears like a swarm of insects are countless hidden thoughts and a million whispered sins.

I sit up slowly, shaking off the last vestiges of pain as my tattered skin knits itself back together. I cast my eyes around my surroundings, pondering where precisely the portal had dumped me out.

Not that it matters. I can cross continents in no time at all, the span of my wings tearing through the miles, but never let it be said that the Devil isn't curious.

The beach is deserted. No mortals witness the sudden appearance of a winged man on a Tuesday morning. Almost as an afterthought, I will my wings away, tucking them into invisibility. If I want to lose myself in the surge of humankind, that was the first step.

I take another, my toes sinking into the sand. A torn flyer sticks up from the sand near my feet, the half-buried neon green paper screaming up from the ground. I grab it, brushing the dust off the crumpled paper to find an ad for $2 Hurricanes on Bourbon Street.

New Orleans then.

My lips curl into a smile.

This is going to be fun.