Jack was awoken by a kick to the side.

“No rest for the wicked,” came Amdusias’s voice. “You got songs to write.”

Opening his eyes, Jack slowly became aware that he was on the stone floor of a cell, large enough to stand in. He could move again, but with dull pain still bouncing around in his head he had no motivation to do so.

Amdusias instructed his servants to lift Jack to his feet. Jack stumbled from his weakness, but after a few steps he was able to walk on his own. He was led to another room at the far end of a hall just as Miles was being taken there too. Jack noticed his friend shared in his weariness, but also noticed he had a very light shadow of stubble around his mouth and along his jaw line, and his hair was just slightly longer with a few strands dangling over his forehead.

Inside the empty room, Dorian and Cameron were already there. Dorian was sitting against the wall, limp and staring at nothing while Cameron lay face down on the floor, his head resting on his arms.

“All right you bunch of babies,” Amdusias boomed, “time to get to work. Get up and listen to me. I’m gonna tell you what Lucifer wants you to do.”

Dorian and Cameron slowly got to their feet, and all four of the new musicians stood wearily before the duke. Amdusias pulled a roll of parchment from inside his black velvet jacket and unrolled it.

“Listen up. These are the rules Lucifer has given for you to follow. One, he wants melodies. So not just heavy riffs, okay? But not happy, cheesy shit. Heavy and melodic, you’ll figure it out. Two, guitar solos and keyboard solos in every song. Duel like you’re knights or something. Three, all songs must be longer than five minutes. Anything less is boring, and I agree. There’s a timer over there to help you. Four, no screaming or growling vocals. Melodic only. Not like opera shit, but nice melodies, all right? It’ll come naturally for you now. Five, no religious or satanic lyrics. I thought that was weird, but the Dark Lord always has his reasons. He wants it kind of cryptic though, something that could tempt someone vulnerable to ‘the power of music.’ Those are his literal words here. You’re tempting someone or something in particular, so do that but not too obvious. You work for Zagan, you’re already a natural. Each of you still has your regular powers, obviously, since that’s kind of the reason you’ve been chosen. You just got extra stuff now.” Amdusias rolled up the parchment. “Right then, I’ll leave this with you in case you need a reminder. You have two weeks to write seven songs minimum. No sleeping or eating, you’re all like the Soul Reacher here, don’t need all that anymore, for now anyway. You will not leave this room at any time. My servants will check on you occasionally. If you don’t have seven amazing songs by the time I come back in two weeks, well, Lucifer’s gonna be pissed and I don’t think you want to find out what he’ll do to you. Got it? Questions?”

Jack stared at the duke. It didn’t matter how much information had been stuffed into his brain, he still felt like he had no idea what he was doing. Cameron spoke what he was thinking. “Are you sure you put the right powers in our heads? Like, I don’t feel like I can play the drums.”

Amdusias laughed. “Don’t worry about that. As soon as you have drumsticks in your hands, it will be like flipping a switch. Here.” With a wave of his hoof, drumsticks appeared in Cameron’s hands, and with another wave, a huge drum set popped up behind him.

The new drummer’s eyes widened as he stared at the sticks. He immediately started twirling one of them between his fingers. “This is awesome!” he said, running behind his new instrument and proceeding to play a complicated yet methodical blasting of various drums and cymbals in front of him. Jack, Miles, and Dorian stared, gaping.

“Here,” Amdusias said, waving at Dorian and creating a six-string bass guitar that hung in front of him by a strap. “Follow a beat with him, but have fun with it.”

Dorian’s expression showed no interest in having fun, instead looking down at his new instrument in shock.

“Let’s go, dude,” Cameron said. “Follow me. Play something crazy. People are gonna love you, remember? Guy like you should be excited about that.”

With a snarl, Dorian took a breath and listened to Cameron’s complicated beat, then began lacing some notes over it. He, too, played complicated lines improvised into a melodic baritone riff. No amplifier was needed, as the music seemed to blast straight out of the instrument. He raised his eyebrows as he looked down at his hands, then stopped, a tiny smile appearing. “I feel like I’ve been doing this for years.”

“You have the skills of a highly trained musician with at least a decade of experience,” Amdusias said. “To feel that way means the procedure worked perfectly. Now you.” He made a keyboard appear on a stand behind Miles. “Play that.”

Miles stood behind his new instrument and placed his right hand in a chord position as if he’d done it before. The keys made a piano’s sound, and Miles began to fly along the black and white plastic keys with perfection. “Holy shit, this is fun,” he said, grinning.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Experiment with the other sounds on there, mix it up, be creative. Last but not least is you, Soul Reacher.”

A guitar was suddenly in Jack’s hands, hanging from a strap just like Dorian’s. It was just like the vision flash he’d had earlier. A pick appeared in his right hand, his left hand naturally formed a chord, and he strummed the six strings. The distorted sound radiated from his instrument, and he tried more chords that came to him, knowing the names of each one, knowing which ones to put together to match the right key. Then he moved his hand farther up the guitar’s neck and played a string of notes so fast, his right hand plucking along at the same speed, jumping between the strings with ease. It all felt so easy even though it looked incredibly difficult.

He stopped, staring at his hands. “How…?”

“Now sing.”

“Huh?”

“I said sing, fool.”

“Sing what?”

“I don’t care, make something up. Need to test it out.”

Jack pointed at Cameron. “Isn’t he supposed to write the words? I don’t—”

“Just sing some random words, damnit! Who cares?”

Jack thought a moment, drawing on the improvisation he had just used on his guitar. He played some power chords and sang, “I’m in a band now, and I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Miles and Cameron laughed, the drummer playing a rimshot. Dorian snorted but couldn’t hide his slight amusement. While they laughed at his words, Jack couldn’t stop thinking about how clear his voice had been, how the notes he sang had come out so naturally, and sounded pleasant. Very pleasant.

“And there you have it,” Amdusias said, his horse teeth showing in his grin. “Do all of that but together. Seven songs, two weeks, see ya later. I think you’ll be great.”

The stone door shut as the duke left and the four musicians were left in silence. Miles finally broke it.

“So, raise your hand if you know how to write a song.”

No one moved.

“Cool, so I guess it’ll be torment for us in two weeks.” He bent down and picked up the parchment Amdusias had left, unrolling it. “It’s one thing to be able to play an instrument, but something entirely different to be a band, you know? Five-minute songs? How are we gonna do all this?”

Dorian stepped forward and took the parchment, and Jack looked over his shoulder. “Guidelines for Beautiful Apocalypse,” Dorian read. “Is that our band name or something?”

“Sounds cool,” Cameron said. “Demons, apocalypse, it fits.”

“Do none of you still realize how stupid this is?” Dorian held up the parchment. “How is this supposed to help us catch a demon? How is it that no one like Malphas or whoever can find it? A heavy metal band. Seriously?”

“Beelzebub said it’s a cambion,” Jack said. “What is that anyway?”

Dorian turned and looked at him, brow furrowed. “You don’t know? Of course you don’t, you’re from the west.”

“I don’t know either,” Cameron said. “Enlighten us, genius.”

“Great, I’m stuck with idiots. A cambion is a creature that’s a cross between a demon and a human. It’s a mythical creature because it’s literally impossible for that to happen. A true cambion requires an incubus at the very least, if not a succubus too, but there haven’t been any of those in centuries and Buriel is not one of those. I don’t even think he has the right…parts, if you know what I mean, unless he has a human form he can morph into on demand, which I don’t think he does. Regardless, even if he did somehow copulate with some human, she would have died almost instantly. They’re probably calling it a cambion because they don’t know what it is.”

“Buriel does have a human form,” Jack said.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve spent the last fourteen years finding people he’s killed, and they all say he and Merosiel and Drusiel are humans.”

Before Dorian could respond, Miles said, “But of course you wouldn’t know that, you’ve been too busy kissing Asmoday’s ass.”

While Cameron laughed into his snare drum and Jack bit his lip to hide a smile, Dorian scowled at Miles. “I suppose because your house is under Great King Beleth, you think you’re the badass of the group. The evil one? The killer?”

“Nah, that’s Jack’s job. I make his targets do evil shit and then he kills them. What’s your power? Making people smart or pissing them off with your obnoxious ego until they kill themselves?”

Cameron stood and walked around his drums to stand between them. “Guys, guys, listen. Just because Dorian is a dick and Miles is a smartass doesn’t mean we can’t try to get along for this mission. Maybe it’s a dumb mission, but it’s fun, and don’t deny you actually enjoy having an extra power. We all saw your smile, Dorian. Just think about it: we’ll get to go back to Earth finally, get to do something that no one else gets to do. Amdusias said we’re ‘the chosen ones,’ and I don’t know why we were chosen above everyone else, but we were and we should be proud of that. And Dorian, we all work for Lucifer now, remember? Same playing field for all of us. Use your intelligence to help us succeed at this instead of making us all hate you. We all bring something to this, so let’s take advantage of that. It’s probably gonna take all of us to take down this beast, so let’s start by writing some songs.”

Jack stared silently at Cameron along with the others. He had underestimated the new drummer, who looked and acted like an immature young man but spoke wisely at the perfect time. He didn’t know anything about President Zagan, but at least according to Amdusias, it gave Cameron a way with words. Perhaps his purpose was to hold them together.

“Well said.” Jack finally broke the silence. “Words we should all listen to.” He looked at both Dorian and Miles. “All of us.”

Miles nodded at Cameron. “I’m with you. Is that your superpower? Wise words?”

“Something like that,” Cameron said. “That’s what Zagan’s mostly about. Wisdom, wittiness, make things out of other things. I’d show you that but I’m not sure I’m allowed to in here.”

“Try it. Make something.”

“Dude, we’re supposed to be writing songs, not playing around.”

“Can you turn something into a song? Because that would really help.”

Cameron chuckled. “Only tangible things, man. But for real, we gotta focus.”

Jack pointed at him. “You should be the leader of all this, not me.”

“You’re the one who kills people, so that’s probably why you lead. But I’ll definitely help. As we all should.”