"Ow, is what I would say if that hurt," I said, looking at my chest and peeling the 3 flattened bullets off my shirt. Luckily, it hadn't torn. I don't know what I would've done if this guy ruined my favorite shirt. It was a charcoal grey graphic tee with just the word "Beans" on it.

"Instead, I will say, how dare you fire a gun at an unarmed civilian!" I said, looking at the detective with his gun aimed at me.

His hands were shaking, and his face was twisted with fear. "You, you were dead, and now you're alive!" he said.

"Are we just stating facts? You're a detective and you shot me, an unarmed civilian! See, I can do it too," I said.

"You're not supposed to be alive! You're supposed to be dead!" he said, his voice wavering.

I looked at the man and sighed. I was sitting on the couch, because that's what I was doing when I died. I grabbed the remote and tried to turn the TV on, but his body was in the way. I tried holding my arm out to the side to get around him, but it didn't work.

"You make a better door than a window," I said.

"What?" he said, confused.

"Move out of the way!" I yelled.

He blasted me three more times with his gun, but these smushed against my forehead. I peeled them off irritably and threw the three bullets at him. "Ow!" he said.

"I'm trying to turn on the TV. Move! I want to see if Steve is on the news," I said.

"Steve? Who's Steve?" he said.

"He's the guy in the white suit who's probably terrorizing Las Vegas right now," I said. I finally scooted to the far right side of the couch to see the TV because the detective wasn't budging. I turned on the TV and changed it to a news channel.

"Oh, that guy? He destroyed Vegas already. He's moved on to Reno," he said, backing towards the door. He fumbled with the doorknob, opened the door and said, "I'm going to get backup. Don't go anywhere." Then he left and closed the door behind him.

Something important occurred to me as he closed the door. The sword! Azrael's sword! I ran to the door and opened it. The guy was already a hundred feet away from me. How fast could this guy run?

"Hey guy!" I yelled.

He stopped and turned around. "What?" He looked annoyed, but I couldn't care less about that. I needed that sword and the police had no right to take it, assuming they committed such a heinous act.

"Where's the sword?" I yelled down the hallway.

"What sword?" He yelled back.

He didn't know about the sword. If they had taken a flaming sword that could melt through concrete like butter, they would have told him about it. The entire department would know about it. Hell, they might even throw a party where they cut office equipment to pieces with it. Meaning they hadn't found it. Time to check the apartment.

"Nevermind!" I yelled back.

"Ok!" He yelled and began bolting to the elevator again. That little man was fast!

I tore the apartment apart. I looked under the couch, under the sink, under the toilet. I looked everywhere it could possibly be under. The place was in shambles when I was done.

Lucifer popped into existence in the living room and looked around. "Nice. Everything is exactly where we left it. The cops didn't ransack your apartment. I don't know from experience, but I've heard they have a bad habit of doing that when looking for clues. Well, they added those evidence markers there, there, and there. And there, but besides adding things to your apartment, they didn't do anything to it. Good."

"Lucifer! Please tell me you have the sword," I said, making prayer hands.

"Yes, I have the sword. I even went to the liberty of exorcising Lilith from it. She is safe and sound in Hell as we speak. Filling out paperwork. In her office," he said, smiling his devilish grin.

Wait. Was he still the Devil? Was he still Satan? Or did those go away now that he had been reinstated? Was Satan a name or a title?

"Are you the Devil? Are you Satan?" I said.

"Are you having a stroke?" he said, looking genuinely concerned.

"No. I mean, do you keep those titles now that you're reinstated as an angel?" I said.

"Hmm. I hadn't thought about it," he said, stroking his chin. "Well, technically, I'm not a devil anymore, because I'm an ascended angel now, not a fallen one. And Satan just means, 'adversary'. So no, those titles don't apply to me anymore," he said.

"Huh. I guess I generally just call you Lucifer in my head, but it's weird knowing that you're just Lucifer now," I said.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You say, 'just Lucifer' like it's a bad thing. Those titles were the bad things and now that's not me anymore. You should be happy for me!" he said.

"I am happy for you! It's just a lot to adjust to is what I'm saying," I said.

"Speaking of adjusting, how are you adjusting to the powers?" he said.

"What powers? So far, all I have is just invincibility still, and I'm pretty sure that's just because you never turned it off," I said.

"Oh. Oh! I forgot! I have to pass on the crown," he said.

"The crown? What crown?" I said, confused.

"The Crown of Corruption. Hold on a second. Don't look," he said. He unbuttoned his shirt and then plunged his hand in his chest. After a few moments of fumbling around, he pulled out a crown, freshly soaked in blood and tissue. It looked like tissue had grown around it, because it had been in there so long.

"Ew!" I said, shielding my eyes.

"I told you not to look!" he said.

"I mean, I can't not look at the crown. It's gross. You're not going to put that in me, are you?" I said.

"I mean, I was, but not if you don't want me to. This is the only way you get the powers of administrator of Hell though. I will say a lot of the powers are redundant with my own angel powers like teleportation, but not all of them. The darkness manipulation only comes from the crown. And the hellfire. And the zombies," he said.

"There are zombies?" I said, scratching my head.

"No. But you do get cool minions. I won't spoil it. Also, from what God told me after you left, some powers are unique to the individual bearing the crown. Isn't that cool? So you'll have powers I never had! I can't wait to see them! This is so exciting! I haven't been this excited since I was born!" he said.

"Hmm. Interesting. Ok, I'll take it, but you have to wash it off first. I'm not putting parts of your body in my body. That's nasty. Also, I didn't mean it to sound like that," I said.

"Sure you didn't," he said, winking. He walked over to the sink and began to wash all the gross gunk off the crown. When he was done, he walked back over to me and presented to me a beautiful golden crown with black jewels inlaid around the outside. He handed it to me. "The jewels light up with different colors as you activate the powers. You can't technically see them, because they'll be inside you, but you can sense them lighting up and which colors are activated."

"Cool," I said. "This thing isn't going to make me turn evil, is it?"

"No. The Crown of Corruption is just an edgy name. That's all," he said. "Try it on."

"Ok," I said. I put the crown on my head, because that's the first thing that came to mind when he said, 'try it on.'

"Don't put it there!" he said.

"Why?" I said, after already taking my hands off the crown. I immediately put my hands back on it and tried to take it off, but it wouldn't budge.

"It's just going to feel really weird, that's all," he said, looking concerned.

I felt as the crown began to dig into the skin around my skull. It dug through the skin, then the bone. He was right. It did feel weird. It kept shrinking and shrinking until it passed all the way through my skull and wrapped around my brain. I had a terrible headache for a split second and then the feeling was gone. The crown wasn't in my head anymore. I could sense that it was vaguely in my body, but in no specific place.

"Thanks for warning me after I already put it on my head," I said.

"Sorry! I thought you'd know since I pulled it out of my chest, but it's over now, and you're fine," he said, shrugging.

"True," I said. "So, when is it supposed to light up?"

"Pretty close to immediately. You should start with at least one ability," Lucifer said.

Then I felt it. A jewel lit up purple in my head. "Oh, I got a dark purple jewel. What does that mean?"

"Teleportation," he said confidently.

"Nice. That's exactly what I needed," I said.

"Well, I should get going. I just came by to drop off the sword and the crown. Apparently, being retrained for my position by Raphael," he said.

"Thanks for everything, Lucifer. I feel like a new man because of you. And you didn't even have to kill me to do it," I said, grinning.

"But I totally would have if you hadn't died first," he said.

"We both know you didn't have it in you at the end there," I said.

"No, I would've done it. I was just getting my fingers warmed-up," he said.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, buddy," I said. "I've got an antichrist to stop. Wait! Where's Sarah? You told me where Lilith is, but what about her?"

"Oh, yeah. Sarah went back to her mom's. She said she'd had enough adventure for a lifetime and left. She told me to tell you to visit her after you'd saved the world," he said. "She said she had something to tell you."

"Oh, mysterious," I said. "What is she going to say? She's the one who killed me?" I laughed.

Lucifer laughed too. "Yeah, right! That would be hilarious! You fight demons, get dropped into the molten core of the earth, and fight the literal antichrist, somehow come back from that, and then your ex-girlfriend finally does you in. Call me when pigs fly, too."

"I will," I said, with a serious expression. "When do I get my own immortality thingy? Or is it already set up? And how does it work? Where do I respawn?"

"Oh, your immortality and invincibility are already set up. I transferred it to you when I touched your shoulder. You're invincible to everything except divine powers and artifacts, and magic. If you are killed, you respawn in a primordial ooze pit in the center of my castle, which is now your castle. The pit is a lot like a hot tub. There are towels set up nearby to wipe yourself off with, too. You can do whatever you want with the castle, and the pit, for that matter. You can reshape it and restyle it however you want. You can even move things from one place to another. Want a bathroom that connects to another bathroom? A toilet that flushes on someone you hate? Why not?" he said, spreading his arms wide.

"How am I able to control the castle?" I said.

"The crown ties you inexorably to Hell. Technically, your control is not limited to the castle. You can build, tear down, rebuild, and reshape Hell however you want," he said.

"Does that mean I can change the circles and choose how to punish sinners?" I said, rubbing my hands together. I was getting ideas.

"Yeah. If you want. You can do whatever you want to Hell. You just can't unmake it and you can't banish souls from Hell. God decides where people go, and if they go to Hell, then that's where they'll stay," he said.

"Does overcrowding become an issue?" I said.

"No. Hell, like Heaven, Purgatory, and even the universe, is ever expanding. It gets larger as needed, based on occupancy."

"Interesting. I have too many ideas I want to try," I said.

"I see that evil look in your eye, and I like it. With that, you'll go far in Hell," he said.

"Evil? I was going for excited," I said.

"Same thing," he said.

"Huh. I'm not going to argue with that. So. See you around?" I said.

Lucifer nodded. "See you around. I'll be keeping my eyes on you. Yes, even in the bathroom."

"Gross. Weirdo," I said.

"Nah, I'm just kidding. See you later, Dave," he snapped his fingers and Lucifer was gone.

As soon as he left, I heard someone say on the other side of my front door, "Breaching." Seconds later, my door exploded inwards into chunks of wood. A swat team quickly marched into my studio apartment. Needless to say, it was cramped.

"Put your hands up!" One of them said.

"Get on the ground, face down!" Another said.

I threw my hands up in the air and said, "Which is it? I can't do both."