Death

Happiness Meets Sorrow Meets Mortician Meets Ars Goetia

"Ness, what on earth are you doing here?" I asked. I couldn't believe my eyes. Happiness, my best friend, was holding the Lesser Key of Solomon, and sitting in a room meant for demon generals.

She grinned at me. "Morty, Morty, Morty. Down in hell, are we?"

"The Underworld," I mumbled, "even though Pluto's the King of Hell. What is up with that, anyway?"

She raised an eyebrow. "This is starting to sound like one of our text conversations, Morty dear. You're the most random person in the Underworld. And I assume you're the demi-human everyone's been talking about, huh? Future Queen of Hell? Nice, nice. Just one question. Were you ever going to come home?"

I was almost too shocked to answer. I still hadn't quite figured out that Ness was one of the generals. And what was she doing, acting like this was totally normal, like we were just catching up?

"Ness, I bargained so that I could come home. To Earth. To you, and to my father. I basically sold my soul to the devil!" I protested, once I had figured out what was happening. Since coming to the Underworld, I had started to become more readily accepting of the strangest things.

She didn't look impressed. "I see, I see. So, now that we're all caught up, when are the other generals supposed to get here?" she asked.

I glared at her. "I don't know. I'm only the almost-queen. You're the senior general."

Ness smiled. "True, true. But it's not really me, you know, it's this," she said, brandishing the book in her lap. As she was waving it around carelessly, I caught a glimpse of it.

To be honest, for a grimoire, the Ars Goetia looked rather unimpressive. It was obviously old, bound in red leather, and it had the faint impression of a gold stamp on the cover that might once have been a title. When she turned it up, it caught the light. But besides that, the book didn't have much of a presence. If I hadn't known what it was, I would have thought it merely an antique.

She grinned, and this time, her smile held a hint of madness. "You want to see something cool?" she asked, opening the book. Instantly, the presence that I hadn't felt appeared, like gravity pushing me down into the ground. I could almost see the shadows emanating from the pages.

"I'd rather not," I replied, but she didn't stop staring at the pages, her mouth open in wonder.

"Baal, King of the East, give me wisdom and hide me from mine enemies," she said, and closed her eyes.

One minute she was there, and the next she was gone. All I could see was the book, lying on the table, and a faint shimmer in the air where she had stood. The next thing I knew, I was laying flat on the ground, my stomach pressed into the oddly warm stone floor, with Ness' weight on top of me.

"I never thought you'd get married, Morty," she said, and for a moment, she was the very same Ness I knew. She stood, I rolled over, and she extended a hand to help me up. When I saw her, wearing black and blue robes, the whites of her eyes tinted slightly red, the spell was broken. She was nothing but a General of hell now.

"Me neither," I said, trying to prolong it, but all she did was nod and hold out her hand. The book picked itself up off of the table and fluttered towards her, landing in her outstretched palm.

"Thank you, Baal," she said, and closed it. The strange presence was gone, and Ness' eyes faded back to normal. I could still remember what she had done, though, and there was a hint of something eerie and wrong about her. Something that remained dark and twisted, so unlike my friend.

Damn. That sucks. Ness is a general of hell, and so are you? Would you look at that. Two nearly human humans that got in too deep. Just wait until you see war, kids.

"Look, Ness, I was going to come back. I'm marrying Pluto when I die," I said. Ness laughed.

"Idiot. You're really dense, aren't you Morty? You're dead."