I was still strapped in the chair, covered in blood, when Dad walked in. My real dad, my only dad, Andrew H. Peterson, known to his friends as “Harley,” walking around like his heart problems and liver damage were all gone, even if he was frozen at the age he was when he died.

It took me a moment to recognize him, since we had gone so long without speaking before his death, and the funeral was just a photo of him twenty years younger, on top of the little box with his ashes in it.

I wasn’t terribly surprised to see Dad in Hell, but I was surprised to see him walking around like he owned the place, dressed in his favorite cowboy shirt. They even let him keep his boots, and his big gold ring.

Baalphezar had said he didn’t know if my father was in Hell or not when I questioned him directly at Madison Tower. Had he been lying? Or, more likely, had Aleister been passing on information without revealing his source? His old Master was not a detail guy.

Dad stared at me for so long without speaking, I had to break the silence myself. “So, I’m guessing you’re not here to rescue me?”

“I came here to see if you’ve learned anything yet,” Dad said.

“If I’ve learned… learned about what?”

“I was hoping Al could finally get through to you, where I couldn’t.”

“Did you just call my torturer by an affectionate nickname? Dad, have you been talking to these things? Have you been telling them things about me?”

“When Al pulled me out of the fire and said that he was about to have to go up and deal with you on Earth, I asked him, ‘Can you teach him to pay his debts?’ and he said ‘Absolutely.’ All I had to do was answer a few questions. They asked me who your friends were, so I told him about Billy, that one who was probably gay. And then I told him about your little girlfriend what’s her name.”

“You told him about Billy and Judy? Billy from fifth grade? Why would you do that? What did they tell you? Do you think I owe some kind of debt to these demons?”

“Not to the demons, to me! You owe a debt to me!”

“What do you think I owe you? You want me to pay you back for flunking out of college?”

“Not college, moron! That money you borrowed from me and never paid back!”

“I never borrowed money from you!”

“The hell you didn’t!” he bellowed, making me flinch with the old angry Dad voice. “When you and what’s her name moved into that apartment, when I was dropping off your stuff! You said you needed money for an electricity deposit, and you promised to pay me back with your first check, but you never did! I loaned you forty dollars, and you never paid me back!”

“I… what? I don’t remember this at all! Jesus, I must have been really desperate if I borrowed money from you! And I never paid you back? I tried to be pretty good about paying people back. I had a bunch of people help me through that first month and I thought I got them all. I’m really sorry I forgot you!”

“It made me so sad,” Dad said, almost in tears. “I thought about that money every day, how my own son was a deadbeat who broke his word!”

“Wait… so. You’re telling me you carried a grudge beyond the grave and sold your son out to demons because you’re angry about forty dollars? Nobody’s gonna believe this. It’s happening to me right now and I can’t believe it.

“I mean, not the going to Hell and getting tortured part, that shit happens to me all the time. But you’re about to go back in the fire for eternity. You have one last chance to speak to your only son, and you want to spend this time crawling up my ass about forty dollars?”

“It’s not about how much! It’s a matter of principle! A man pays his debts! I paid back every dollar I ever borrowed, in full, with interest! I really hoped you would learn that from me.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Does this strict attitude about debt also apply to things like wedding vows? Is that why you never took one, so you could keep cheating on Mom?”

Dad was silent and stone-faced, as if he couldn’t even register what I said as words.

“I… okay… wow. I don’t know what to do about this. You’re about to go back in the fire, and you’re not gonna have a lot of use for money in there, so here’s what I’ll do.

“When I get back to Earth, I’ll find that company bar you liked and find one of the waitresses you fucked. Then I’ll give her eighty dollars and tell her it’s from you. Then we’ll have a drink and talk about what a funny guy you were, or maybe we’ll talk about what an asshole you were, depending on which waitress is still working.”

Dad shook his head. “It’s too late, Timmy. It’s way too late to be a man about this.”

“I really wish you had mentioned this when we were both alive, when I could have apologized and paid you back and stuff. We might have even had a healthy adult relationship. I mean, probably not, but it would have been nice to try.”

“I just hope Al can get through to you where I couldn’t. I tried so hard to teach you right from wrong, but you just wouldn’t listen.”

“Wow. Okay. Dad, before you go… You’re wearing a black shirt, and I think if you stayed real close to the rocks and were really careful about patrols, you might be able to make it all the way to the gate. Then you could come to Earth and… haunt me, or something.

“And Dad, if they ever offer to make you a demon, and somebody really should make you a demon, you should definitely come to Earth and say hello. And then you and me will have a very different kind of conversation.”

* * *

I heard Aleister trading a few good-natured jokes with Dad in the hall before he breezed back in. “I hope you enjoyed your visit. It’s very rare that I allow a client to communicate with family, even as part of a session, but I believe your father is a special case, not inclined to ruin a good torture session with sentimental nonsense.”

“It’s funny,” I said. “I’m not really angry about the torture. You’re just doing your job, and you’re obviously very good at it, but Aleister, I’m gonna hurt you real, real bad for bringing my father into this.

“It’s probably gonna take a while. I don’t know if it’s gonna take ten years or a hundred years or a thousand years, but I will eventually get you in this chair.

“I don’t know how to torture people, so I’m gonna learn on you and then I’m gonna practice on you, and when I’m done, I’m gonna stretch your skin out and ram a silver sword so far up your ass, the Devil is gonna think you’re a parade float.”

“Open defiance!” Aleister beamed. “Sounds like somebody is ready for phase three!”

* * *

“Your father and I have grown quite close over the last few months, and we have talked a great deal about you,” Aleister said, as another giant Enforcer yanked me out of his chair and snapped a different set of manacles on my wrists, throwing me over his shoulder again, then chaining me up until I was dangling from the ceiling in the next room.

“You can tell a great deal from what he does not say, and from how much he resents you for your virtues. You are, above all, a survivor. I want you to know, I believe you are every bit the man my friend Jacob was, and I am proud to be your torturer today.

“Of all the stories your father shared, my favorite is the story of how he paid one of his employees to take you fishing, to help you cope with the death of your mother.

“You didn’t learn much about fishing, but you developed a deep-rooted fear of worms that was a great source of amusement to your father over time, as he regaled me with descriptions of a dozen worm-themed birthday and Christmas gifts he bought you over the years.”

Aleister snapped his fingers, and the hulking Enforcer demon brought out a large box with a sealed lid.

“Oh no,” I said. “This is a terrible cliché, Aleister. Really beneath you.”

“I know,” he acknowledged. “But when you find a client with a phobia as severe as yours, sometimes you just have to take the easy win.”

He opened the lid to reveal an astounding rainbow of writhing worms in a variety of shapes and sizes, all covered in spikes and protrusions to some degree.

I had to admire the array of colors: red, blue, green, and purple, all suitably darkened to match the color palette of Hell.

“Wait, I’m confused,” I said, desperately stalling for time. “Is this biology or theology? Are these worms that evolved in Hell, or are these the spirits of evil worms who hurt people or cheated on other worms when they were alive?”

Aleister laughed and gave me an affectionate smile. “What a fascinating question! You really are descended from Jacob. I have to leave you for a moment, but hopefully you will get this, and a variety of other questions answered in the course of the next few hours.”

And, as promised, I learned a great deal about worms, as my squirming new friends essentially became my lovers, becoming intimately acquainted with every hole in my body, including a few that I didn’t think of as holes, like my eyes and other openings left by lingering wounds.

I was in so much pain and horror, it doesn’t even look interesting on Azael’s mirror, just me alternating between screaming and freezing, screaming and freezing, broken by moments when it tickled, and I began to twitch and thrash.

Then a big one crawled down my throat, and I couldn’t even scream anymore. This would have been bad enough by itself, but it becomes a much bigger problem when you already have two worms clogging up your nose.

Pro tip: You can feel like you’re suffocating, but you can’t actually suffocate in Hell. You just keep convulsing like you still have a body that needs air, long after a physical body would have passed out.