The travel stations deposited us not into the grand cathedral I was expecting, nor even a more modern office environment, but a small and well-kept series of wide intersecting tunnels. Like everything in the Vatican, a great deal of expense had gone into their construction, with lavish marble floors, arched ceilings and interior fittings fluctuating between classic Italian minimalism and ostentatious embellishment. I recognised the place as the Vatican Grottoes, final resting place for the bodies of various popes and saints as they slowly decomposed into uncomely mummified remains.

There was no immediate sign of the ritual, but Lucy seemed to know where he was going, striding forward towards the end of the main thoroughfare where a pair of guards stood on duty in flouncy hats and voluminous pantsuits festooned with ribbons. They appeared to be guarding a series of rather unexciting paintings.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, connecting the dots. “It’s in the secret room!” The acoustics carried my voice clearly down the corridor, and both guards stared at us with stern expressions.

One of them, a tall redhead, stepped forward. “You’re not allowed in here,” he said. “Visiting hours start at 8am. You will have to leave.”

“I don’t think so,” said Lucy in Italian, not slowing down. “We have an appointment with Matteo.”

“No one by that name here,” said the guard. He shifted his weight into a more aggressive stance.

The second guard, a shorter fellow with a large chin and broader frame, reached into the folds of his robes and brought out a walkie-talkie, but didn’t activate it. “I think he means the Holy Father,” he hazarded, finger hovering over a button.

“That’s exactly who I mean,” said Lucy, aiming to bypass the first guard. In a smooth movement, the latter stepped in front of him and planted a flat hand in the centre of his chest. Lucy stopped short, looking unimpressed.

“Leave,” ordered the guard. He nodded at his partner. “Call in reinforcements.”

“Don’t worry,” I said in my most encouraging voice. “We already know all about the secret room. Swing out the central painting, type the combination into the hidden keypad and then swipe a keycard for the whole wall to slide back. All very clandestine.”

The whole of Providence knew about the pope’s secret room. Marketing had done a feature article on it on the employee intranet about a decade ago as part of their series on 101 lesser-known holy sites, and it had been very popular. For a while, everyone and their dog had taken after-hours trips to visit the secret room, including me. With any luck, there would still be a spot under one of the pews with ‘Loki is the best’ scratched onto it.

The second guard still hadn’t pressed the button yet. “They seem very well-informed,” he said to the redhead, wavering a little. “Are you sure they aren’t meant to be here?”

“Oh, we’re meant to be here,” said Lucy.

Want me to get rid of them? I asked.

Let’s not antagonise the pope more than we have to, he responded.

Fair point. No one wanted this getting back to management.

The first guard lowered his hand, a touch of uncertainty breaking into his movements. “What’s your name?” he asked Lucy.

“Lucifer,” he replied.

The guards looked at each other in that way people did when they were confronting someone whose grip on reality was less than solid, then back at us.

Lucy glanced from one to the other. “They did tell you what you were guarding, didn’t they? Summoning circle? Ritual sacrifices?”

It was plain from the looks on their faces that no, they had not been informed. But something about my colleague was nevertheless giving them pause. Lucy did tend to have that impact on people.

“Raul,” said the first guard, clearly the one in charge, “check them.”

Raul depressed the button on the walkie-talkie while his companion continued to loom over us like an approaching deadline for a project you were unprepared for. I took the opportunity to sidle over and inspect the nearest tomb, a bulky marble sarcophagus decorated with a relief of what looked like a bunch of old men with beards holding a dull committee meeting. The one with the scroll was probably reading the minutes.

“Assignment One, this is Assignment Two. Come in.”

A burst of static answered. “Reading.”

“We’ve got a man and a woman here who say they have an appointment with the Holy Father. No idea how they got in. The man says his name is Lucifer.”

There was an immediate clamour on the other end as several different raised voices competed for attention. Somewhere in the chaos I made out the words, “But he was supposed to appear inside the circle!”

With a soft ‘click’, the wall behind Raul slid back a couple of centimetres before the whole thing swung to the right; at least ten centimetres’ thickness of heavy stone. Beyond was offered a glimpse of a dim chamber lit only by candlelight. Several haggard faces peered at us from the shadows, men with white hair and crinkly pale skin touched with varying numbers of age spots, except for one lucky fellow who still had a few patches of grey left. Not cardinals, I gathered, judging by the lack of bright red robes. Nor your typical cultists in dark hoods. Most of them were dressed relatively well, in fact, in contemporary suits and vests that looked like they had been custom-tailored. I wasn’t sure who they were.

Nearest to the door, and bringing the average age in the room down by at least a decade, stood another pair of guards in ribbon pantsuits, one of whom was holding a walkie-talkie.

“Come in, then,” said the nearest, beckoning us into the chamber.

I followed Lucy forward until a firm resistance on my shoulder brought me to a halt. Turning, I found myself staring up into the face of the redhead guard. “Not you,” he directed, giving me a small but firm push backwards. “You wait out here.”

“How curious are you about the inside of that sarcophagus?” I retaliated, nodding towards the one featuring the committee.

“She’s with me,” Lucy called over his shoulder, before I had a chance to make good on any threats.

A few mumbled voices emanated from the room as its inhabitants conferred. The old fogeys seemed to be arguing with the guards. “No women are permitted beyond this point,” one of the guards said eventually, with an apologetic expression.

This was the tyrant's crew, alright. You knew you were dealing with serious bigotry when you were up against members of the clergy more afraid of a pair of X chromosomes than of the literal devil. But it wasn't worth challenging. I shifted into a male form, keeping it subtle and limiting the differences to gender. It made my short stature seem even more pronounced than it had been before.

“There,” said Lucy, taking the credit for my transformation. “Are you happy? Can we go in now?”

Again the muttered conference. Some of the guards crossed themselves. They didn’t look happy. I wasn’t sure what displeased them more – that they’d witnessed an apparent display of Lucifer’s power or the possibility I might still secretly be a woman.

Somewhat grudgingly, they let me in.

It was a large circular space. Unlike the rest of the grottoes, the secret room was not lined with marble. Its walls were made of hewed brown stone, uneven and rough, hacked out by someone who wasn’t a professional craftsman. Alcoves had been cut in at regular intervals on which clusters of thin candles had been placed, burnt halfway to stumps.

Along one side of the room stood a raised platform, in the centre of which sat a large wooden throne replete with gold plating and velvet cushions, although the carvings had been kept simple. A short staircase led up to it with more lit candles on each side, its path interrupted by a small stone altar, barely bigger than a step itself, on which lay a dead goat with a slit throat.

Normally the lower chamber was full of pews in rows, but they had all been moved to the edges of the room to make room for the construction of a ritual circle. Five concentric rings, each containing spells in a different ancient script – one of which was Futhark, the runic alphabet, I noted with interest; to do with a combination of binding and summoning – bounded a central asymmetrical pentagram whose five points extended to each of the five respective rings, reaching further out the further clockwise you went from the top.

In front of the desecrated altar knelt Pope Grace I, dressed in full ceremonial regalia, craning round to get a look at Lucifer as he supported his body weight against the length of his crosier. Even as I watched, the octogenarian beckoned to the pair of guards stationed by the door. “You, boys. Assist me.”

Hastening to his sides through the assembled crowd, they bowed upon approach. “Holy Father,” one said, extending a hand and lifting.

“Ow,” lamented the pope. “My knees. Carry me. Carry me gently.”

The guards each picked a shoulder and hoisted him up at the armpits, whereby they carried the old man to the large throne on the stage. The pope kept his legs bent the entire time, bony bare feet hovering well above the ground until he was safely on the throne.

“Thank you,” he told the guards. “Now out with you. And the contractors. Gig’s over. Don’t let anyone else in until I personally give you the all-clear.”

“But -” said one of the guards, clearly taken aback.

“Would you watch me in my bedchambers too? Give a man a little privacy, for goodness’ sake.”

The guard went beetroot red and stalked off, mumbling under his breath, while his companion bowed with a bit more professionalism, herded up the gaggle of old men, and followed him out of the chamber, swinging the door shut behind him and triggering its mechanism in reverse.

When they were gone, the pope let out an aggrieved sigh which resonated around the stone walls. “You took your sweet time,” he directed at Lucy. “What does it take to get the devil’s attention these days? Seriously, let me know. I don’t think my knees can take this a second time.”

“I guess that depends on how this conversation goes,” Lucy replied. “I’m assuming you didn’t call me here for idle chit-chat. What are you after?”

The pope shot me a sidelong glance. “Who’s that? Your personal assistant?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“I suppose it doesn't make much difference,” said Grace. He reached down to massage a knee and winced. “I want to negotiate a better deal.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Better than being pope? One of the most powerful people on the planet, dictating the fate of millions with a single decree? Controller of enough money to finance several small countries? Wielder of more influence than many heads of state? I’m not sure there’s much I can do for you.”

“We both know that’s not true,” said Grace. He smiled. “Listen, I’m nothing special as far as popes go. I’m in this for the same reason everyone else is who makes it this far – money and power.”

“Nice to hear one of you finally admit it,” said Lucy.

“Herein lies the problem. It’s not my money, and not my power. It’s an accursed puppet job. Nobody told me the position involved being subordinate to a higher authority. Every day God sends me missives, and I’m supposed to carry out his every petty order like some kind of unfortunate coffee-carrying lackey.”

“And you expect sympathy from me? Except for the part about coffee, that’s the literal job description,” Lucy reminded him, lip quirking. “Everyone told you. You can’t claim ignorance here.”

“I was an atheist,” he snapped, waving around the crosier in an exasperated movement. “None of this was supposed to be real. It was all supposed to be smoke and mirrors. I mean, if you look at the evidence, there isn’t a shred out there to support the existence of supernatural activity. The gullible masses out there might fall for it, but anyone with half a brain should be able to tell that gods and angels fall into the same category as Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.”

“Might want to give the ‘gullible masses’ a bit more credit,” I suggested. “Sounds like they’re doing better with their small percentage of brain than you are with half of one.”

His eyes narrowed. “Does anyone ever tell you you’re annoying?”

“Not if they want me to leave them alone,” I answered with a grin.

“Well, I want out,” said Grace, turning back to Lucy. “Turns out God’s an asshole and Heaven’s a lie. If I have to listen to that petulant, whiny narcissist for another day, I swear I’m going to break. Or break something. I can see why you fell.”

“I didn’t fall,” said Lucy. He hated that turn of phrase. “That implies there was some kind of moral high ground to descend from. I staged a rebellion and lost.”

“Semantics. I can see why. The rebellion part, that is, not the losing. If by some chance you’re planning another one, or need someone to act as a guardian for a baby Antichrist, count me in. I mean, I know I’m hardly a model of virtue. But that belligerent child we call God isn’t fit to rule a cabbage, let alone the universe.”

Of course, I thought. Another push towards the rebellion. How our mysterious virtuoso of Machiavellian intrigue had managed to dig their claws into the pope of all people, however, was something I was dying to know.

Lucy’s eyes widened, and he broke into laughter. “Well, this is a first,” he said, placing a hand in one of his jacket pockets. “Not that I’m not flattered, even though this is clearly more of a hate campaign than born of any sense of allegiance to me – but how do you suppose you would keep a change in loyalty secret from Yahweh? Don’t forget, he owns you. You really think he wouldn’t notice something like that?”

Laying his crosier across the arms of the throne so that it balanced above his knees, Grace threaded his fingers together and fixed Lucy with an intent stare. “Yes,” he said bluntly. “I really do. I’ve never seen someone so self-absorbed, and I’ve spent a significant portion of my life in the company of cardinals. On a related note, I am myself no spring chicken when it comes to stabbing others in the back to get what I want. Believe you me.”

Lucy met my eyes. You don’t seem surprised, he observed. This isn’t some elaborate prank of yours, is it?

I shook my head. No. You don’t know the half of it.

Really? Then we’re having a long talk when we get back to the office.

“Hmm,” he said aloud. “Well, the baby Antichrist plan went out the window a while back. Not allowed children anymore.”

Not because Lucy cared about rules. But because no one wanted immortal children to suffer. It was so much worse when they couldn’t die.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the pope.

With his free hand, Lucy scratched the back of his neck, fingers reaching under the lip of his collar. “Honestly, I don’t mind. You think I’m bad? You haven’t seen true psychopaths until you’ve found yourself between a crowd of small children and whatever thing their underdeveloped proto-brains decide they want at the time. And people just keep giving them to me like I can fix them.”

“Do they?” said Grace. “And what would you do with all those children?”

“Fix them, of course.”

The pope looked briefly skywards and made a face. “You know, I’m not going to ask. But I want to know my options here. Witness protection. Amnesty. What do I have to do to get out from under the boss’ thumb and live to tell the tale? I’ll pay any price you want. My soul is all yours if you want it.”

“Well,” Lucy suggested, “the simplest solution would be to abdicate and ordain a new head of the church. It doesn’t happen often, but there’s precedent.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t like that,” pouted Grace. “I started to set processes in motion to that effect last year, and he sent a messenger to say he’d kill me before I could go through with it. Seemed to think voluntary retirement was a bad look, especially this early in my career. And that’s the other thing, while we’re at it.”

“You want eternal life,” I declared, beating him to it.

He shrugged. “Can you blame me? Deep down, that’s what we all want, despite the façade of nobility and sacrifice people like to put on. People don’t believe in God because of logic. They believe because they’re scared.”

“They should be,” agreed Lucy. “Death isn’t what it used to be.”

A hilarious thought occurred to me. “I think we have a viable way to solve all your problems,” I offered, failing to keep the levity out of my voice. “Want a job?”