In Which the Antichrist's Brother Shows Up the Devil
Dorimant Tyler was inherently good. He couldn’t help it. He and his little sister had been raised by their uncle, which naturally signaled awful things, as uncles were always evil beings. Jilly had learned all of Uncle William’s dastardly plans in seconds and told him several things that took away the flaws from these plans, preventing him from becoming one of those James Bondian villains that always left the lever unflipped before going to check on the doorbell. Seeing her potential, Uncle William had inducted her into the family business. This business was, naturally, a law firm.
Dorimant had taken a look at a book of laws once. He had set it down immediately in favor of a novel.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t think up evil plans. He could. He was actually rather good at it. Uncle William said that the problem was that pesky conscience that he had, and then had started pondering if it could be surgically removed. Jilly, thankfully, had then diverted the conversation onto their latest case.
He had always known that his sister was inherently evil. This was all right with him for several reasons. His conscience, for example, didn’t particularly care whether those he cared about were evil, as long as he could still scold him or her for any bad conduct. Dorimant was of the opinion that friendships and family did not have to be sacrificed for morality: it was easier to subvert others’ plans if he was close to them. Let no one say that Dorimant wasn’t smart.
Thus, Dorimant was disapproving, but not perturbed when he learned that his sister was the Antichrist. He had always sort of known. Lucifer, though was something of a distraction.
As soon as Dorimant had paused for breath after yelling at Jilly for being carried off by a satyr, a pale face ringed by golden curls popped into view. Dorimant did not instantly fall in love, as the concept of a thing like that was foolish. He did, however, think, ‘God, I would totally hit that.’
“Why, hello,” the devil trilled. “Please allow me to introduce myself—“
Dorimant rolled his eyes, cutting Lucifer off with, “Yeah. You’re Lucifer, Satan, whatever, and my sister’s the Antichrist. Now that we’re all caught up, can I please get back to yelling at—“
“Actually,” Lucifer stressed, mouth pursing, “the idea that I am Satan is a common misconception. We’re two different fallen angels, thank you very much. Satan’s the one that originally Fell, but he died, and since I kept getting the blame for it, I decided, ‘why not?’ and kept on preaching the bad word.”
The Devil was an idiot.
Swallowing his disappointment at the Great Adversary’s stupidity, Dorimant turned back to Jilly. “Are you as stupid as him?”
“No,” she said meekly, peeking at him from under her eyelashes. Manipulator.
“Then what are you supposed to do when a satyr kidnaps you?”
She sighed. “Call on the 517 BCE laws concerning the conduct of satyrs with Greek maidens. But Dorimant, I’m the Antichrist. I have the break the law occasionally.”
“Bite your tongue!” Lucifer gasped. His eyes were comically wide. “I invented laws, I’ll have you know, and bureaucracy. And metallurgy, for that matter, but that was a stroke of genius on my part. Weapons, you know? The great arms race, and I started it all in—“
“Can we please stay on topic and can you please shut up?” Dorimant huffed a sigh. “Jilly, how many cases do you have on your plate right now? Can you really afford to take another? Yes, I know this one is important, but you have prior obligations and it’s not like the apocalypse hasn’t already waited two thousand plus years for you. You have to trust me as your secretary to know the scheduling conflicts this will cause. And on a more personal note, really, I can’t approve of you Antichristing around. This isn’t the same as getting a murderer off the hook.” He paused, considering that. “Or maybe it’s really morally better than that. I’m not sure yet. But, Jilly—“
There was a sudden snarl, a blur of motion appearing from the corner of his eye, and then blonde curls filled his vision.
The Devil was kissing him. The Devil was quite good at it.
Dorimant should have known.
He tried to pry Lucifer off of him with little success and Jilly—the bitch—was laughing her head off. Finally, Dorimant let his arms fall to his sides and waited for the kissing to discontinue.
Unfortunately for him, it turned out that the Devil didn’t need to breathe if he didn’t want to.
Damn.
Literally.
