Crown Of Thorns [ Michael Langdon ]

17 - hail satan! - 17

"You look so professional when you wear those." Michael said to her, and she played with the hem nervously.

"Thanks." She smiled, grabbing Michael's hand, that was sitting in his lap. They waited for another 5 minutes, until a woman with bright red hair, and a purple suit hobbled out of the elevator, as she used a walking stick.

"Langdon, Goode?" She called, although Michael and Elora were the only ones sitting in the reception area. "If you'll follow me, please." The woman walked quite quickly, despite having a cane to assist her, and Elora had to do a little skip to keep up. As they piled into the elevator, Elora read the woman's name tag as 'Ms Wilhemina Venable'.

Ms Venable did not speak to them on the entire elevator trip up, which made it incredibly uncomfortable. "Just through there." Ms Venable told them as they piled out of the elevator after the ding. She stopped at her own desk, before Michael and Elora continued through a dodgy looking hallway, before entering.

Two men were standing in a glass room that was full of robotic machines, watching them intently. They both had bowl cuts, and looked like nerds. A woman, who Elora assumed to be a prostitute, lent against a table. They eyed Michael, before setting their hungry eyes on Elora.

"Dude!" The one with brown hair said, "What's up? Come on in. Dying to meet you. Yeah, Madelyn's really been talking you up. That lady is whacked, right?" The two men laughed, "But she seems totally convinced that you're The One."

"No offense, but I thought you'd be a little bit more jacked." Michael turned his gaze to the other man, one eyebrow raised. "Like, I was picturing you totally ripped, like The... Like The Rock when he was, you know, The Rock."

"Yeah, that's, like, stereotypical, dude." The brunette said.

"What?"

"Yeah, that's not cool. Uh, what's your name again?"

"Michael Langdon." Michael said.

"I mean, got to admit, that's a little weak, right?"

"Yeah. Shouldn't you be like Beelzebub or some shit like that?"

"And who's this young lady?" Elora crossed her arms over her chest as the men eyed her greedily.

"My name's Elora Goode." She said coldly.

"Let me guess, there's two Antichrists." One of them laughed.

"She's the opposite." Michael answered, and Elora could tell he was getting frustrated.

"Okay, so we got Jesus and the spawn of Satan in the same room?" The men laughed. Michael led Elora out of the room by her waist in frustration. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" They yelled, "Wait. No, no, Dude. Dude."

"No, no, no. Uh, we-we-we believe you. It... you know, I thought I'd be, like, pissing my pants or something, and... I am dry as the Sahara, bro." Michael and Elora re-entered the room.

"Yeah. You got to look at it from our shoes here. I mean, how do we know you're the Antichrist? And why would Jesus 2.0 be here?"

"Yeah, how do we know?" Michael lifted up his hair to reveal the mark behind his ear. "Yeah, I mean, that's cool, but it's just a tattoo on your scalp."

"No. It's true. I can feel the darkness." The hooker said, standing up, "It's making me sick and it's coming from him." As she sprinted out of the room, Michael's eyes rolled to the back of his head, and the woman caught on fire.

"Oh, shit!"

"Holy shit!"

The room went dark, and the sound of thunder crashing filled their ears. Elora felt like a gush of wind pushed through her stomach and she stumbled back a couple of steps. Her eyes turned from white to black, and black liquid seeped down her face like tears.

"Hail Satan." Came Elora's voice that she couldn't control, "Get on your knees and Hail Satan!" She yelled.

Jeff and Mutt fell to their knees, and bowed their heads,

"Hail Satan, Satan, hail. Satan, hail." They murmured. Michael watched them in satisfaction, and Elora's eyes rolled back to the front of her head. He immediately became concerned as he saw her face.

"What just happened?" Michael said to the girl, who was breathing heavily and wiping the black tears off her face.

"I think my father just left me." She breathed, looking down at her body. She felt the back of her neck, but her birthmark was still there. "He's lost faith in me."

"She betrayed God!" Jeff exclaimed, still on his knees. "She literally betrayed God, just like Satan himself!" Jeff and Mutt crawled forward and attempted to kiss Elora's feet. With a movement of her hand, she forced Jeff and Mutt to their feet.

"Nice to see I still have my powers, though." She said, examining her hands. As she spoke, she didn't feel anything. She supposed she should feel scared, but no emotion washed over her as she eyed the frightened-looking men in front of her.

Jeff, Mutt, Michael and Elora went to get food and to discuss what they wanted from them.

"Dude, we owe everything to your old man. Do you know how much time we wasted doing the Silicon Valley grind before we found our faith?" Mutt said excitedly, and Elora twirled noodles between her chopsticks. She was awfully quiet after what had just happened. She felt different, and could tell she was getting further and further away from God.

"For years we worked 20 hours a day in R&D for a company whose nondisclosure agreements prevent us from mentioning by name." Jeff added. "But did Elon give us any credit? Any opportunity for advancement?"

"No!" The two said together, passionately.

"No! The fix is in, man. The world is run by prep school failsons and Russian oligarchs. Everyone else just slaves away trying to make these rich assholes richer." Mutt continued.

"Fuck that shit." Jeff interjected.

"Fuck it!" They said together.

"Why put in the work when there's no reward, right? And then we learned the secret. The politicians, the billionaires, the elite... They all made a deal to work in his service."

"My dad." Michael understood.

"Exactly." Mutt said, "That's when we took the plunge, too. Sold our souls. Did the whole Black Mass thing. Now, we own a robotics company worth..."

"Billions." They said together. Elora raised her eyebrows, she didn't know Satan could do all that.

"We inhale booger sugar like it's fucking oxygen, and we bang Victoria's Secret models every Tuesday." Mutt said, winking at Elora, who only rolled her eyes.

"Fuck yeah!" Jeff yelled, "Thursdays we get Ryan Reynolds."

"The point is, it would be an honor to play even a small role in bringing the cosmic skid mark that is Planet Earth to a fiery end." Mutt said and Elora wondered why every Satanist was so determined to die and go to Hell.

"We are your servants, Michael and Elora. Now and forever. How can we help, even in the most microscopic of ways?" Jeff asked. "I can think of a couples ways I can help you, m'lady." He directed at Elora. Michael made a noise halfway between a scoff and a malicious laugh.

"In your dreams." Elora snapped.

"Alright..." Jeff turned his head over to Michael, "So how can we help?"

"I lost someone very dear to me." Michael said, "She was dear to both of us." He corrected, before pulling out a picture of Ms Mead, "You want to help? Bring her back."

Jeff picked up the picture with his chopsticks and inspected it. "You came to the right place. Our AI tech makes HAL 9000 look like a fucking abacus. We can whip you up a new right-hand lickety-split, player." He said.

"You can?" Michael urged.

"Tell us about her. Everything you can remember." Mutt nodded.