keep you alive. At least until the Ultimate Death Match.”
“Is that something important?”
“It didn’t used to be,” Satan said. “Every century, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory had a company get-together. Fair rides, petting zoos, cotton candy, and an informal wrestling match: Heaven versus Hell, winner takes on Purgatory. Whoever lost had to sit in the dunking booth. Everyone used to be a really good sport about it but then, about two thousand years ago, Heaven got really competitive. Maybe it was the Nazarene going to Earth, or that whole Bible smear job that came out. No one really knows. But the stakes got higher. No more petting zoo. No more pony rides. Just wrestling. And Purgatory hasn’t been allowed to enter the ring in ages. Now it’s just a Heaven vs. Hell smackdown and if they win they get Hell. If we win, we keep it.”
“So if you lose, they get everything and if you win everything stays the same?” asked Sister Mary.
“No one said it was fair, but who’m I going to complain to?”
“Have you ever lost?”
“Not once. War usually wrestled tag team with Death, and if professional wrestling was ballet they were dancing Swan Lake. The archangels always considered it beneath them to get in the ring and most angels are giant wimps anyways. They talk tough but take away their swords of fire and give them a Mongolian Chop and they fold like a rental chair.”
“Who’s wrestling for Heaven this time.”
“Michael. He’s never done it before.”
“And you’ve got a secret wrestler?”
“What? That? No, I was bluffing. I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
“I don’t want to have your baby,” Sister Mary blurted out.
“That makes two of us,” Satan said. “But it’s not really my baby.”
“You made it happen. It’s your baby.”
“I can get rid of it for you,” Satan said.
“I don’t believe in abortion.”
“I’ll think of something,” Satan said. “I’ve got eleven days. That’s plenty of time.”
They lapsed into silence again.
And then the cable snapped.
Sister Mary screamed.
The elevator plunged straight down at a sickening speed. Just when it felt like it should stop it kept plunging, and plunging, and plunging. Every time Sister Mary thought it was plunging as fast as it could plunge it would plunge faster. The noise of the elevator car scraping and bumping the sides of the shaft was deafening. Sister Mary’s fear was overwhelming. Her brain felt like it was trying to claw its way out of her skull.
“I’m going to die!” she yelled, and knowing that dying before she could forgive the one who had wronged her the most, knowing that this would damn her to Hell for eternity, knowing that death would make a mockery of her life caused panic to bubble up out of her throat, and she screamed louder.
Satan grabbed her by the habit and pulled her face to his.
“You won’t die,” he shouted.
“I’m going to die!”
“I won’t let you!” he shouted.
“You’ll save me?”
“I’ll save you.”
“At the cost of my soul!” she screamed, realization suddenly dawning on her.
“I don’t want your soul!”
“Promise?”
“Yes, but you have to do what I say.”
“Alright. But I’m not going to desecrate any Bibles.”
Nothing happened. They continued to fall, the elevator screaming down the shaft.
“Do something!” she yelled when she couldn’t stand it any longer. “Save me!”
“I am,” Satan said.
“How?”
“When I say ‘jump’ I need you to jump.”
Her stomach hit the back of her throat, bile flooded her sinuses, her eyes dilated so fast she almost blacked out. It was the “Jump in a Falling Elevator” trick, the one that everyone over the age of five knew didn’t work.
“No,” she said in a panic. “No, no, no, no, no...”
“Trust me,” Satan said. “It’ll work.”
“The momentum, the velocity, falling objects, mass and speed and force and gravity and kinetic energy and don’t be stupid! It won’t work!”
“Trust me!” he said.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head wildly back and forth.
“Jump!” Satan screamed at her.
And he jumped, and he pulled her tightly to him, shielding her face against his chest, and she had to jump too and the elevator smashed into the ground and debris shrapneled through the air like a bomb going off and the noise was like a metal wave pushing her underwater and the air was thick with the taste of hot steel and burning engine grease and then it got still again and her ankles hurt badly and that must mean...
“I’m alive?” she said in disbelief. She was on all fours on the ground. “I’m alive? I’m alive. I’m