Satan, Beelzebub and Mr Legion camp on the beach after dark, with nothing but a fire and their new frog-skin cloaks to keep them warm. Night in Winchward Beach is cold. Very cold.

‘I’ve been watching the DLF for a while,’ explains Beelzebub. ‘The Ten Plagues concerts are just a minor plan of theirs. They don’t expect it to actually work.’

‘What do you mean by work?’ Satan asks. ‘What’s this all meant to accomplish? If they kill me, I just wake up. How are they planning to beat me?’

Beelzebub’s face is shadowed by the red glow of the campfire. ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

After an uncomfortable length of silence, Mr Legion pipes up. ‘What now?’

‘We go on the offensive,’ replies Satan. ‘Attack the concerts. Kill the sisters.’

Beelzebub looks at Satan through his tinted glasses. ‘Are you sure that’s the wisest plan, mate?’

Before Satan can answer, the music starts. The trio of demons spin around to face a massive crowd of screaming fans and a giant, illuminated stage that had appeared out of nowhere on the beach behind them. Satan smiles and summons his weapon. He really should give it a name sometime.

‘Perfect timing,’ Satan says.

‘Don’t do it, mate,’ Beelzebub replies.

The hulking mass of iron materializes in a puff of smoke, settling neatly into Satan’s hand. He charges into the crowd, ignoring Beelzebub’s protests. He ducks and dodges, shouldering adoring fans out of the way. Satan highly doubts anyone in Winchward Beach who isn’t a demon is sentient. It wouldn’t matter anyway. He’s literally the devil. He can kill as many innocents as he wants without breaking character. Satan reaches the sisters’ stage and leaps to the stage in a single bound. Taking advantage of his momentum, Satan launches into a sweeping cleave, slicing straight through Lilith and Aosoth. They continue singing, completely unfazed. Their bodies have not been damaged at all. Satan’s unnamed weapon passed through them like they were made of air. Something grabs onto Satan’s frog-cloak and launches him backwards. He flies over the crowd and lands by a very shocked Beelzebub and Mr Legion. Satan climbs to his feet, acutely aware of major internal damage to his body. It appears some part of the weakling Archey still remains. Something hulking and massive barrels its way through the crowd, knocking fans aside like trees in the way of a Hellbeast. The demon trio gather together, readying into battle stances. The sisters continue to sing onstage. From the crowd bursts a towering gorilla-creature with a human face. It beats its chest and roars. Standing on two legs, it’s easily twice as tall as Satan.

‘Settle down there, pal!’ comes a high-pitched voice from the gorilla.

Something climbs from the back of the gorilla-man onto its shoulder. A foot-tall lice, with the exact same human face.

‘Heya Satan!’ the lice says.

‘Hi,’ replies Mr Legion.

Suddenly, the lice’s face turns into a visage of power rage. ‘YOU STAND BEFORE THE MIGHT OF FASTER PLASTER. BOW, PEASANTS!’ it screams, its voice noticeably deeper than before.

‘I AM FASTER, THIS IS PLASTER,’ the lice continues. ‘NOW, DIE.’

From hammerspace, Faster withdraws an AK-47 with elaborate red detailing. Satan immediately stabs his weapon into the ground, with the intent of using its massive form as cover. Faster begins to fire wildly, his shots perfectly in time with the beat of the music. In the sand around Satan, dozens of red, glowing bullet-holes begin to appear, sending plumes of sand into the air. Beelzebub gets hit square in the shoulder. He keels over in pain. Mr Legion is shot several times in the chest. Faster concentrates fire on the wall of metal that Satan hides behind. Satan can’t see anything through the cloud of sand. Dents begin to appear in the weapon’s blade. Faster’s bullets pack a punch. After several more rounds, the bullets begin to punch through the weakened metal, narrowly whizzing past Satan’s head. His position won’t hold any longer. Satan grabs his dented weapon from the sand and charges at Faster Plaster. A rain of bullets hammer his torso. Aiming for the centre of mass. Smart. Satan dies.

And then he woke up. The first thing Satan noticed was the change in tense. The second thing he noticed was the gentle swaying of a Hellbeast. Satan opened his eyes. His chest burned like it was on fire. He felt lethargic. Fatigued. Satan lay in a large, wooden hut built on the back of a hundred-metre tall Hellbeast. The hut had been meticulously decorated with all the brutal, violent artistry common to Satans throughout the ages. Cold sunlight shone through cracks in the walls. Attendant thralls watched Satan, visibly concerned.

‘What are you looking at?’ Satan demanded of the thralls. They all immediately averted their eyes in response. Satan sat up, wincing at the pain in his chest. His bedding, lavish and silken, was soaked with sweat. He staggered to his feet, his robes hanging off of him. Were the thralls always so tall? No, Satan was shorter. He felt his horns. They were small and dull. Satan suspected the cause but he didn’t want to believe it. He limped to the curtain door and stepped onto the balcony, desperately trying not to get Hellbeast-sick. A lunch of bloody flesh had been laid out for him on an outdoor table, complete with a tablecloth of mortal skin. The Plains of the Screeching Undead stretched out around him, like a grey, exceptionally loud desert. That was right. The diplomatic banquet. He had been on the way there. Orobas sat at the table, new stitches holding his body together.

‘How much longer until the banquet?’ Satan asked.

‘It should only be another day, Lord Satan,’ Orobas replied, avoiding eye contact.

Satan coughed. ‘I’m going back to sleep. Don’t wake me.’

‘… Yes, Lord.’

Satan made his way back the bedding and flopped down. He had unfinished business in Winchward Beach.

Like last time, Satan falls through a cerebral abyss and lands on the underside of the beach. He has a plan; an actually, maybe good one. Satan holds his ear to the sand. He can hear the concert. It’s still underway. Good. He listens closer. After a few seconds, he hears them. The soft thuds of Plaster’s footsteps. Satan crawls along the sand until he’s sure he’s directly under Faster Plaster, then he digs. He digs until down becomes up and the constant feeling of dread inherent to the Beach fills his soul. The sand shifts around him, compressed by the weight of the gorilla-man. Satan readies himself, then reaches out of the sand and grabs his furry ankles. Plaster cries out in surprise. Satan pulls. Plaster struggles. Faster screams something. Satan can hear gunshots. Something bright and red streaks through the sand near him. A different bullet grazes his arm. Satan pulls harder, inching his way deeper into the sand. Faster Plaster’s weight is acting against them. Satan can feel gravity shifting. Plaster is up to his knees in the sand now. Satan feels his feet free of the sand, back into the underside realm. Something grabs his ankles. Right on time. Beelzebub pulls Satan the rest of the way into the underside. Satan leaves Plaster’s ankles sticking out of the sand. The gorilla’s not going to be moving anytime soon. Satan silently thanks his luck that Beelzebub went back to sleep at the right time.

‘So we get the little guy now, then?’ Beelzebub asks.

Satan gives a wide smile of pointed teeth and nods, then the two dig themselves back into the sand, right behind the immobilized Plaster. Faster fires randomly into the ground around him. The bullets come close, but none hit Satan and Beelzebub as they tunnel their way back to Winchward Beach. The duo pop out at the same time right behind Faster. Only Plaster’s shoulders and head are above the sand. Faster screams in anguish, jumping off Plaster and onto the beach. He waddles away, his little lice legs barely supporting his weight. He fires his demonic AK-47 desperately. He misses every shot. Satan summons his weapon. Faster screeches in fear. With an overhead swing, Satan chops Faster in half, then spins around, continuing the swing into a decapitating blow on Plaster. The sisters’ song ends. The crowd erupts into applause. Satan takes a deep breath and stabs his weapon into the sand. Beelzebub strolls up to the corpse of Faster, hands in his pockets. He squats down to inspect Faster’s weapon and smiles.

‘See this?’ he says to Satan, holding up the AK-47, complete with red markings. ‘This here’s a gun that kills demons.’