“Hey Belial,” Lilith shot the demon a furious glance, “will you quit your beatboxing, or I swear to Dog I’ll beatbox your ears.”

His single, vein-etched eye widened as she swept a taloned claw inches from his snout and he tumbled backwards in mid-beat into a vat of moral turpitude soup.

“Watch it, mam,” he coughed, picking lumps of jellied depravity out his hair, “you nearly had my eye out then.”

She skewered him with a look that would have frozen sunspots.

“What,” she snarled, “do you think I was TRYING to do?”

He tensed expecting another wave of maternal violence; she was always grouchy at this time of the millennium.

“Here,” he simpered, “have a kitten, it’ll calm your nerves.”

“Awww thanks, honey,” she cooed as she stuffed it into her maw, “I’m sorry. It’s bloody Lucifer putting me on double shifts. There’s only so many tormented souls you can flay in one day. Why don’t you go out to play and I’ll fix us some gruel?”

Not wanting to miss an opportunity to escape, Belial slithered to the door and disappeared into the corridor that led to the mortal realm.

The walk took an eternity, but it was just a stroll to Belial and he used the time to transmogrify into a facsimile of Biz Markie, the clown prince of hip-hop.

“Ptch-cha-cha-boom-chuka-wah-wah,” he warbled as he emerged into the dank environs of Dead Horse Bay, a favoured spot for demons. He breathed in the acrid air and sighed contentedly as he crunched across broken glass. Happily, he noted, gamma radiation levels were up and the capped-off landfill bordering the beach was burping its contents merrily into the sea.

“Hey dickwad,” a woman’s voice called furiously, “get off the beach. Can’t you read?”

She pointed angrily at a sign reading, “Danger – Area Closed”

Yanking a lanyard from inside her jacket, she held up an ID.

“National Park Service,” she snapped, then did a double-take. “Say, aren’t you Biz Markie?”

“Naw,” he said, “I just look like him. Boop-fatcha-oor-bramp-wakka-wakka-weewoh.”

“You are, aren’t you?” She prompted. “I’ve got all your records.”

“Yeah well,” he said, “I might…”

“I knew it,” she squealed. “Can I have your autograph?”

“Sure,” he said as she handed him her notepad. Their fingers touched, time slowed and her demons streamed through her fingers into his mind. “The rent, my boss, politics, war, my cheating boyfriend, daughter doing drugs, global warming, my debts… desperation…”

Belial inserted the solution: “insurance claim” and smiled.

“There you go,” he purred. “You take care, I have to dash.”

“I’ll show you the way off the beach,” she said and gestured to the car park. She turned, and he was gone.

“Where the hell did he go?” She whispered to herself as an icy chill rode her spine. She looked at the notebook, in perfect gothic script it said, “Thanks for everything, see you soon. B”

Then a ghostly “boom-chaka-wah-wah” echoed across the empty beach and she fled.