"Now, what could the Prince of Darkness and some random guy be doing in my casino?" Mephistopheles said. He wore a black suit with a red shirt and black tie. He was in human form at the moment. He had shaggy brown hair, green eyes, and crooked teeth. You'd think Hell could afford a good dental plan.

"We're here for information," Lucifer said.

"What about?" Mephistopheles said inspecting his fingernails.

"The plan," Lucifer said.

"What plan?" Mephistopheles said now inspecting his shirt cuffs.

"The plan to start the apocalypse early. Ring any bells?" Lucifer said.

"No, I can't say that it does," he said picking his nose.

"He's not budging," Lucifer said to me. "Any ideas?"

"Can't you just make him tell you?" I said.

"I can, but he'll just say he doesn't know anything. Command in hell isn't like it is up here. It's all about power and threats. I have the power, but he knows I won't kill him, so threatening it does nothing," he said.

"Can you just hurt him until he breaks?" I said.

"I can hurt him, but it won't get us anywhere. You don't know Meph like I do. He'll take a secret to the grave if he thinks he can leverage it," he said. "I would know. I've put him in the grave before. It's unfortunate we never stay dead. Angels and demons I mean."

"What does that mean? Like you come back to life?" I said.

"Always. We're immortal. We always come back," he said.

"I see. Well, I might have another idea for getting the information out of him," I said.

"You do?" Lucifer said incredulously.

"Actually, yes. I know what this guy wants," I said.

"And what might that be?" Lucifer said.

"Simple. A deal," I said. "Hey, you! Mephelepiggus!"

"That's not my name, simple human. Can't you see the adults are talking? Begone with you!" He said shooing me away.

"Oh! Ok. Sure. I mean, I was going to make you an offer, but I guess you'll never know what it was," I said turning away and walking over to another part of the room where there was a poker table and a pool table. I grabbed a ball and rolled it hard so it bounced back and forth several times from the front edge to the back edge of the table.

Mephistopheles was quiet for 10 seconds. I waited without saying a word. He started tapping his foot on the ground. I ignored him until he could take it any longer. "Ok, fine! What was it?"

"No. You didn't want to hear it. You adults go and talk," I said tossing another ball.

Mephistopheles got out of his chair and walked over to me. He grabbed me by the collar, lifting me off the ground and his face became demonically ugly. One of his eyes was drooping out of his eye socket. I grabbed it gently and pushed it back into the socket. It moved around until its gaze settled on me like his other eye.

"Thanks. That's been bugging me for a while, but it's surprisingly hard to put your own eye back in the socket," he said.

"No problem," I said. "Now, why are you picking me up? Are we gonna slow dance?"

"Oh, right. Where was I? Oh yeah. Tell me what the offer was or so help me Dog, I will burn you to cinders!" He said.

"You can't," I said.

"Why not?" He said.

"Because Lucifer made me invincible," I said.

"Why would he do that?" He asked.

"Why don't you ask him," I said.

"Lucy, why would you make this kid invincible?" Mephistopheles asked.

"Only to external physical harm!" Lucifer said.

"What does that mean?" I said.

"Only to external physical threats. So like if you got poisoned or you had a heart attack or a stroke, you'd still die," he said.

"Why?" I said.

"I can't cure all ailments. I'm not Jesus!" Lucifer said.

"Yes, you can. You just don't want to. You said before you could fix my heart defect," I said.

"Ok, ok. I stand corrected. I can fix those things but as I said, that takes a lot of juice, and I could well, die," he said.

"But you'd come back though," I said.

"Yes, but like an hour later. The apocalypse plot might have already succeeded by then," he said.

"Why don't I just poison myself a million times and win the bet," I said.

"Because I'd know what you're poisoning yourself with. I could just remove that specific toxin from your body easily. That's why I'm keeping an eye on you in the first place. I meant if you were poisoned by an unknown toxin," he said.

"Oh, ok," I said. I was definitely storing that away for later.

"No one is answering my question! Why did you make him invincible to 'external physical harm'?" Mephistopheles said.

"Cuz I need him alive until 7 pm tomorrow night. We have a little bet going that I can't kill him at that exact time," Lucifer said.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Oh, so that's why this kid is here. That makes sense, but it's not satisfying. If I can't threaten him with death or pain, how am I going to get him to tell me the offer?" He whined.

"You know, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," I said.

"What does that mean?" He said raising his eyebrow. "You want me to bribe you?"

"If you offer me something I want, I'll tell you my offer in return," I said.

"You're extorting me just to tell me your offer? Is that the best you got?" He said smirking.

"Don't pretend. You want to know my offer," I said.

"Damn it. You're good," he said grinning an angry grin.

"I know," I said. "I can be persuasive given the right motivation."

"You'd make a good demon," he said.

"I know, but I'm not super into torturing people," I said. "It's just not my thing."

"I suppose that is fair," he said. He paused. "Well, what do you want?"

"Give me some sort of power. Something cool," I said.

"It would have to be fairly low power to be justifiable and doable," he said.

"Hmm," I said. I thought about it for a while. "I've had bad luck ever since I can remember. I'm not asking you to give me good luck, but what if you gave me the ability to correct my karma back to zero? Like if a bunch of bad things happen to me, I can correct them with good karma coming my way. Or if a bunch of good things happen to me, I can correct that by sending bad karma to myself."

"Karmic rebalancing. That sounds relatively harmless since if the universe is operating as it should, your karma should balance out relatively quickly as it is," he said.

"Yes, but this would allow me to make the karma rebalance whenever I want, in case it's taking too long," I said.

"Ok. I can understand that," he said.

"To be clear, it shouldn't matter if the bad things that happen to me are my fault. Bad things are bad things," I said.

"I suppose that's true," he said scratching his chin. "Ok. Karmic rebalancing with the stipulations you provided. Done."

"You're not lying are you?" I said, but then I felt it. The karmic balance of my life. Currently, the scales were being heavily weighed down by negative events. "Oh. I see."

"You feel it," he said.

"I do," I said. "Thank you." I bowed my head as much as I could while being held in the air.

"Yeah, yeah. Now cough it up! What's the offer?" He said.

"The offer is if Lucifer kills me and I go to hell, I'll let you personally torture my soul as much as you want," I said.

"Hmm. That's not bad, but what do I get out of torturing your soul?" He said.

"You get to torture the human that annoyed you so much, you picked him up and still haven't put him down," I said looking at the ground a foot below my feet.

"Oh, right," he said setting me down. "In that case, it's not a bad offer, considering the devil has never lost a bet, but that still depends on what you want in return."

"The who, what, when, why, where, and how of the demon plot to kick start the apocalypse. Gimme," I said.

"Fine. I'll tell you what I know in return for what you offered me. It isn't much, but it should at least point you in the right direction," he said.

"Ok, hit me," I said.

Mephistopheles punched me in the face.

"I deserved that, but seriously, what's the info?" I said.

"They're planning to rob a bank," he said rubbing his fist. "That hurt. Why did you have to make his face so hard?"

"So bullets couldn't pierce it and kill him," Lucifer said.

"Oh. That makes sense," Mephistopheles said.

"They're planning to rob a bank? Why?" I said.

"I don't know. But I heard it from a very reliable source," he said. "So I know it's legit."

"Who's your source?" Lucifer said grabbing Mephistopheles by the collar.

"You don't have to do that. I'll tell you. It's Lilith," he said.

"She said she tortured the information out of some lower-level demon named Harvey. She said she was going to look into it further, but I haven't heard from her since," he said.

"Who's Lilith? It sounds familiar, but I don't recall anything specific," I said.

"She was Adam's first wife, but she didn't much like being ordered around, so she left and made a deal with demons to become a demon and now she's a demon queen who runs a section of Hell," Lucifer said.

"That checks out. That first thing totally leads to the next thing," I said.

"Right? Adam was a jerk. He really didn't like having a wife who couldn't obey him. I think she made the deal to just have a place to stay. They kicked her out of paradise and my father didn't build anything outside of it except dirt," Lucifer said. "Kind of dumb if you ask me."

"That just sounds messed up is what that sounds like," I said.

"Yeah, well I guess it doesn't matter how she got there. She's a demon queen now regardless," Lucifer said.

"Right. Where do you think we should look for her?" I said.

"If she's been captured by this group of conspiring demons, she's probably in the Fortress of Bureaucracy. They'll tie you down for ages and not release you but say you're free to go whenever you want, as long as you sign some forms first," Lucifer said.

"Sounds like hell," I said.

"It is," he said. "Figuratively and literally."

"Well, let's go then. Time's wasting," I said.

"Leaving so soon? We haven't even gotten to play any games yet," Mephistopheles said disappointed.

"The coin is in your left hand, then your right hand, then your right hand, then your right hand again. You have a card up your sleeve, in your shoe, and in your crotch, which is gross. And the numbers you're thinking of are 3, 7, 69, 420, and 666," I said. I could read this guy like a book. He loved deals, he loved games, and he loved winning, but he was predictable.

"What? How did you?" Mephistopheles said.

"Because I've done it myself. I know all the tricks," I said.

"Bah! You're no fun!" He said. Coins and cards fell out of his clothes and several explosions of confetti went off on different parts of his body.

"Whoa! That's a little more than I expected. Well done," I said. "Touché."

"Hey, I almost always win, and when I don't, I make the other person wish that I did. You're the first one to get a fair deal out of me," he said. "I'd tip my hat to you, but I don't have one, and I don't want to. You annoyed me too much."

"I get that," I said. "Well, we're off."

"See you later, Meph! Don't die before I can kill you!" Lucifer said.

We walked out the way we came in and were escorted back out by the guards that led us to Meph's room in the first place. When we got outside, Raphael was rubbing his hands together and breathing into them to keep them warm. His breath made steam on the air, but mine didn't and neither did Lucifer's.

Raphael saw me narrow my eyes at that observation. "Demons are cold-blooded, like lizards. Hell has the perfect climate for them, because it's so hot. You have some of their magic in you, so your body is starting to run like theirs. Angels on the other hand are warm-blooded. That's why my breath is steaming and yours aren't."

"I see," I said.

"Be careful with that. Being cold blooded means you need external heat every so often, or you'll get really uncomfortable, and then you'll die. Cold blooded animals need heat to fuel digestive processes, or as I said, they'll die," Raphael said.

"Good to know," I said. "Well, it looks like we need to head to Hell to find answers. You gonna be able to tag along?"

"Normally, no. Angels aren't supposed to enter Hell at any time for any reason, but I've been authorized full autonomy on where I go and what I do to prevent this apocalypse. So, short answer is yes, I can tag along," Raphael said.

"Ok, here we go," Lucifer said snapping his fingers.

We disappeared from outside the casino and reappeared somewhere red and hot. The ground was black and cracked with red light seeping through. There were black clouds overhead that flashed with lightning and a deep red light seemed to permeate everything.

"What kind of light is this? Am I gonna need to wear sunblock?" I said.

"Red light? I think thematically it's red because we're supposed to be underground. You know, molten magma is red so the light is red, but technically we're not actually underground. We're in another dimension entirely. So I don't actually know where the light comes from or why it's red. My father created it. Go ask him," Lucifer said.

"Whoa! Settle down buddy. Sounds like I struck a nerve," I said.

"No. I mean, yeah. It's just the first thing everyone asks when they get here. I get tired of explaining it and not having the answer," Lucifer said.

"Ok. I'll try not to touch anymore nerves, but no promises," I said.

"That's all I can ask for, I suppose," Lucifer said.

"Hey guys, is this where we're going?" Raphael said pointing at the massive building in front of us.

"Is this the Fortress of Bureaucracy? This is less a fortress and more a corporate headquarters. This thing is huge!" I said.

"You'll find it's a little bit of both," Lucifer said. "I try not to spend too much time in there. The people get under my skin."

"Should we go inside?" I said.

"Let's," the Devil said.

"I'm following you two," Raphael said.

We walked towards the towering black building that was the Fortress of Bureaucracy. I wondered what dreadful policies and procedures awaited us inside.