Even though I was half- demon, I still hated Hell. 

The air was vile: the taste of sulphur, fire and poison stained my tongue like permanent marker, and the stench of rotting flesh, decay and death burned through my nostrils. Screaming souls filled the red, glowing atmosphere like dying fireworks and the landscape was disgustingly barren: a long, infinite desert. There were thousands of deep, inescapable pits that housed the tortured, human souls who had turned their backs on God; and above each one was a steadily erupting volcano, except in Hell's case, the volcano's did not just erupt lava and ash. Here, they leaked out a poisonous gas that caused every soul trapped in the pit to live in their worst nightmare for eternity. 

One long, winding dirt path halved the landscape, and it was this way that I took to see the king of this wretched place, to see the one who kept all this pain going. 

Hell was Godless: no compassion, no love and no mercy. 

It was why my human half never came down here. He couldn't stand the suffering. Couldn't stand to hear the screams of the species he related to and became interested by on a daily basis. He'd probably be especially sensitive to their pain since he met that girl. Carmen.  

Admittedly, she was beautiful and yes, she did have a captivating innocence about her that was rare in the modern world; but he had met lots of beautiful women in his lifetime, and he had never been as smitten as he seemed to be now. He needed to sleep with her and get over her pretty soon afterwards. But I had to admit I wanted a piece of her too, so there was no need to be hasty. 

Regardless of the girl, however, I regarded my human half as a complete and utter coward for not coming down here. He needed to man up and adopt the mind-set that I had: ignore the screams, they all deserved it. 

I was jealous of human beings. They had the chance to live in paradise for eternity and before that inhabited a world full of beauty and wonder, completely different to the shit-hole that was technically the demon's home. Humans were valued and loved by God: he sent his son to die on the cross and save them from eternal torment, and this love even continued after they did multiple things wrong. It wasn't fair in any way possible. Humans had God's love no matter what they did, no matter how many times they did it. 

I may have been an invincible, powerful demon who could do what he liked, but I would never have that eternal love. I was condemned to be alone whilst the humans always had God to hold onto. 

And that was why the screams, despite their cries of absolute torture, did not affect me anymore; instead they dowsed the bitter fire that raged in my heart. Envy dissolved in the presence of retribution. 

Therefore I tolerated Hell. It did something for me, in a sick, twisted way.

However I still hated the place, so I continued to march along the dusty path, quickening my pace to avoid the blasting heat given from the entire atmosphere. My destination was a simple cave: the opening in the largest mountain in Hell. Mount Lucifer was the home of Satan himself, although there was nothing homely about it; even the devil didn't actually want to live there. 

The cave was only a few minutes' walk away now, which was good, because the constant pitiful cries were deafening and caused the human in me to feel sick. I couldn't help my genetics: I was still slightly human in the night, and still slightly demonic in the day. We were just both getting better at pushing those parts of us down, so that now we had almost become two different beings. 

It was better that way. 

Irritation was starting to seep its way through my skull. I knew it was only a fraction of what Satan himself felt, because getting in and out of his lair was much more of a chore than it should have been. No demon could shift in and out of Mount Lucifer because of God's spiritual block that imprisoned Satan, so we had to get as close as possible and then walk for twenty minutes, absorbing the joyful sights and sounds that a lovely place such as Hell had to offer. The journey was a pain, but I had to do it. 

It wasn't like anyone could do my job for me. 

It seemed like my increase in speed had collected it's worth as I finally arrived at my destination. The entrance tunnel was lit by simple torch brackets, blue fire blurring to give the darkness a melancholic glow, which was emphasised by the silence that was somehow more deafening than the countless screams outside. The tunnel, in a way, was a memorial; a small nostalgia Satan felt for his time as one of God's angels, when he was on the bountiful side of good. It represented a secret part of Hell itself: everyone here missed what they could've had in the land of heaven. 

It was something that we all secretly felt but did not dare to express: there wasn't any freedom in this place. 

The tunnel, like hidden thoughts, ended fleetingly and opened up to the main chamber that was Satan's dwelling. The room was a huge, hollow mountain. The sloping, rocky walls towered upwards to a ceiling that was as high as the clouds; with red flames blazing on black candles stuck to the rock, oozing wax-like evil as they burned for eternity. 

The floor was arranged in concentric circles of different substances: concrete on the outer, creating a circular pathway; white marble on the next layer, which was decorated with a dirty stain of crimson to indicate the violence and brutality against the human race; and the inner...the inner circle, which certainly held the main attraction: Satan himself. A large pool of lava lay beneath his feet holding screaming souls of the most cruellest of sinners, with faces so tortured, so warped, so disfigured, that even I had to shiver every time I looked upon them. 

Avoiding their gazes, I turned my attention to Lucifer. He did not stand on the pit of lava: he floated above it. Arms spread out, legs stuck together, he was positioned like a crucified Jesus Christ; trapped in that position until God freed him to become the anti-Christ, and was allowed to come to Earth and start an age of purgatory. Satan himself was mainly a black, ghostly spirit for now: his power was gradually building up to form a body that would allow him to infiltrate the human race and take over their world. 

But whilst his body was only a black blur of limbs, he did have a face. A face that would have been described as particularly handsome by an unsuspecting human being, for they could not see the true intent of his gaze, which was as clear to me as a cloudless sky. 

I couldn't find it in myself to study his laser-like eyes, because even I was intimidated beyond belief by their sheer power and malice, which was fiercer than any blade and harsher than any wind. God help the humans when he was released upon the world.  

I took two steps towards the concrete circle and addressed the doom of the human world like an old friend. "Hello, Satan." 

"Long time no-see, Roman," his voice was raspy, haunting the listener as he turned the words of the living into the ones of the dead. 

"I need to ask a favour of you," I spoke with confidence because I'd been taught that directness was the only acceptable form of communication with the king of Hell. "I need to see the sins of a woman, a woman named Darcy Robbins." 

"Why?" The cold voice sent a chill through me, and suddenly I was begging to be back out in the scorching pits of hell. 

"She's becoming a problem in L.A and we need to ruin her reputation to stop her." 

Satan paused for a few moments before I felt the air around me start to stir and glimmer like a spray of rain over a car window, as a breeze from behind started to tickle the back of my neck, strengthening quickly until it had become a whirl of noise and power. Two black, floating gusts of wind rushed past my head and started to circle each other in front of me, dancing to the song of dark magic that Lucifer was well practised in. 

I watched, fascinated (but putting on an act of detached bemusement for Satan's sake), as the two black spirits started to move so quickly that they were beginning to shape a shadow-rimmed diamond in the air before me. A moment later the web of darkness had been completed, and in their wake left a fully-formed quadrilateral: a smoky window into a private past. 

"What are you looking to find?" Satan asked me, drawing me away from my childish awe. 

I considered my wording carefully, knowing inside that the devil was testing me, testing me on behalf of my human 'weakness'. "Something that can destroy her reputation, and with it her Godly influence on the souls who belong to Hell and Hell alone." 

"I admire your resilience," Satan said, with a rather regal tone to his raspy voice. I felt slightly smug at his praise, although my expression did not change as I waited to finally see the dirt this stupid woman was hiding from us: my patience had seriously waned in the last few days. "But you will not find what you are looking for in the past. You must find another way, for God has destined Darcy Robbins to have this favourable reputation and it will not be taken away so lightly. Unfortunately he is far too powerful for the likes of our witchcraft." 

I gaped at him in disbelief, anger spiking through me. "So there's not anything that we can use against her?" 

"There is nothing...significant enough, to be used as a weapon." 

I folded my arms and glared at Satan, too pissed to care about the dark power emanating off him in waves of energy. "I hope you're right about this. We need to take her down and fast." 

"You will find another way, I am certain. You may leave now," I turned around, but before I could walk more than two steps, that chilling, raspy voice stopped me in my tracks once again. "Oh, and Roman, do not forget who you are when you return to the human world. It is unwise to lose your demonic identity in the bright lights of planet Earth." 

I tried to ignore his scathing words, but by the time I had marched out of Mount Lucifer I was seething more than the thousands of erupting volcanoes surrounding me. 

I'd show him...I'd show him up, the bastard. I was a demon as much as he was, and there was nothing he could do about it.