"Who's next, Lucifuge?"

"The Seven Princes."

"I see. I do hope that Aamon and Abaddon are enjoying their new promotions."

They walked into another room. A large table was in the center, with seven chairs around it.

Four of the chairs seated Beelzebub, Belphegor, Asmodeus, and Mammon. In another chair was seated Aamon.

Aamon resembled a blue werewolf with the head of a raven, with the feathers of a little owl on top of his head. His head had doglike teeth in his beak. He had a serpentine tail that was segmented like a worm's, the hands, legs, and feet of a lion, and he had the wings of a falcon. Smoke came out of his mouth. Aamon was one of Lucifer's demon creation projects; he was artificially created from the spiritual energies of the gods Amun and Baal-Hamon.

In another chair was a black iPad, with a video chat app opened. The iPad showed Abaddon chained to a stone wall at the bottom of the Abyss.

Abaddon was formerly a seraph named Muriel, who fell much later than the other demons. It was he who gathered the dirt used to create Adam, and he also helped Moses block out the sun over Egypt. Eventually, however, he became too powerful and destructive, so Deus imprisoned him in the dark Abyss, located in Hell, where he will remain until the Apocalypse. While Muriel was a small angel, glowing with white light, and had wings of steel and silver, Abaddon was an eight foot tall demon, resembling a man with dark skin, a black mustache and beard, black hair, and black eyes. Two of his six wings had black feathers; in fact, he was so dark that it was hard to see him on the iPad. The other four were that of a giant locust. Inside his mouth were a set of large locust mandibles; the left one contained venom that was at the constant temperature of absolute zero, while the right mandible's venom was at the Planck temperature constantly.

Beelzebub had changed recently; Lucifer had used him as an experimental storage for the Antichrist, and the results were...unexpected. While the Antichrist now existed as a small cloud of vaguely sapient gas hanging around Lucifer's palace, Beelzebub now had a sort of growth on his back, caused by using a live virgin female Shedim as the surrogate and merging it with Beelzebub's back to imbue it with more demonic power. The growth formed from the now dead Shedim was a small, withered, reddish-purple thing that appeared to have something inside of it, hunched over in a fetal position. Occasionally, one could swear that whatever this was pressed against the inside of the growth, giving impressions of ram-like horns and a forked tongue. This was made even more notable as the Shedim itself, in order to give the Antichrist a physical form, was also impregnated with an entity that mortals referred to as a "Jumpity-Jim" or, if they were feeling intelligent - or what passes for intelligent among mortals - a "Primate Horrific". However, demons knew the truth of the creature - that it was, in fact, the juvenile form of a Dimensional Shambler, a creature of one of Hell's neighboring dimensions. Essentially, Lucifer failed in impregnating Beelzebub with the Antichrist, and instead impregnated him with a mutant Dimensional Shambler.

Lucifer sat in the final chair.

"Now then, let's begin. Abaddon, you first, and then we'll go to the left around the table."

"I am Abaddon, the Destroyer, formerly Muriel. I bring the sin of Wrath upon all; my rage brings down earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, and tornadoes. I shall not rest until all of Deus' creation returns to dust and ashes."

"I am Aamon. I can create reconciliations and love, or I can create feuds and conflicts. Through this I bring about Envy. I know all things, past and future. I can become invisible and create life in the form of smaller versions of myself - however, these are weak and mortal. Unless my summoner is wearing a silver ring on his middle finger, I shall kill him with my breath. I was once summoned by the Nazis so they could sample my breath, creating Zyklon-B."

"I am Mammon. I bring about powerful feelings of Greed within men, causing them to hoard and desire riches, to the point of creating injustice to obtain them. It was I who first taught them how to mine, and in time, I shall strip Heaven's roads of their golden pavement. I am also Hell's English ambassador. And also, Lucifer, I do hope that your conference with the gods will not go poorly; if it does, it will surely ruin my business relationship with Zeus. Hell's minerals have already been mined out by my company to build Pandemonium, so if we want to build anything else, we'll have to buy it."

"I am Asmodeus Shamdon. I can bring passion or remove it; through this, I cause the sin of Lust. I twist sexual desires in men. I teach arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and all handicrafts. If my summoner has removed his hat, I give full and true answers to their questions and I can render them invisible. However, if they disrespect me by not removing their hat, I lie to them and reveal all of their secrets to others. I show where treasures lie. I am the demon of impatience, the sign of Taurus, and the month of April. I was named Asmodel, but I am now called the Destroyer Of Men, as Abaddon is the Destroyer Of Creation."

"I am Belphegor, the Disputer. I grant riches, the power of discovery, and ingenious inventions to men, and I cause discord, promiscuity, and orgies. Mankind, the idiotic, unloving race it is, prefers these to actual work, bringing about the sin of Sloth. I am the Lord Of The Opening, the ambassador to France, and the patron demon of the month of April, along with Asmodeus. I have successfully disproved Pluto's claim of true love being real."

"I am Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies. I bring the sin of Gluttony. I aim to cause destruction through tyrants, to cause demons to be worshiped among men, to excite priests to lust, to cause jealousies in cities and murders, and to bring on war. I caused the Salem Witch Trials and the Black Plague. I lead the greatest army in Hell, the Order of the Fly."

"Excellent," said Lucifer. "And Mammon, don't worry. Hell's business relationship with the gods will be stronger than ever after today. If I fail, Lucifuge wouldn't let me hear the end of it. Isn't that right, you greedy bastard?"

"Yes, brother."

"This guy's like a fucking Jew lawyer on steroids. He not only charges for his summonings, under the threat of stealing the summoner's soul, he also writes contracts with clauses stating that he won't appear on Sundays and that he gets the summoner's body and soul in fifty years. My brother, the damn Law professor." The demons laughed.

"Come along now, Lucifuge. There's still much work to be done."