"So, where exactly are we going?" Steve Clarkson asked Lord Adrammelech as Hell's Grand Chancellor and President of the Senate led the departed novice Iron Knight (now an agent of the secret police of Hell) through winding caverns inside a Hellish volcano.
"To the place where you must play our part to bring back Beelzebub Carronfly, the rightful Devil," Adrammelech answered.
"You never did tell me what you found in that old book," Steve said.
"There's no time to explain," Adrammelech responded. He smirked to himself. This gullible human had no idea that he was about to die. The damned soul was nothing more than raw materials for the ritual, a classic human sacrifice. This had proven just fine with Nergal, who had little desire to give up one of his pleasure-slaves to reward some smug, horny human underling.
Adrammelech whispered a magical password to open a set of brass doors sealed with sorcery and inscribed with runes. The doors swung open, revealing a throng of other damned human souls dressed in dark crimson robes. Adrammelech whispered the password again to shut the door.
Steve didn't like the looks of the other human souls in the cavern. They had unnerving blank stares that seemed to look straight into the depths of his essence. They looked almost dead (more than usual for the damned, that is) and yet intensely alert at the same time. Steve suddenly felt less sure about working with Adrammelech and Nergal. Perhaps Rev. Church had been onto something when he'd railed about how demons can never be trusted and see all humans as cattle. Steve glanced around the room, instinctively looking for escape routs. He spotted a narrow fissure by the door.
Adrammelech raised a hand to the robed human souls in greeting. "I have returned Elder Ones! Your favored servant shall soon live again! I have delivered to you the sacrifice!" He gestured to Steve.
Steve nearly passed out upon hearing those dreadful words. So that was it! Nergal and Adrammelech hadn't wanted an agent. They'd wanted a human sacrifice! Steve would have found it cliche if he weren't busy panicking. Operating on instinct, he bolted for the fissure, knowing that it was his sole ticket to freedom and continued existence. Steve knew he had a good chance at outrunning his enemies. He'd been a football quarterback in high school and college and had stayed in shape even after beginning his job as a middle school teacher (which was where he'd met poor Emily). Steve was fast. Unfortunately for him, the robed humans (were they humans?) were even faster. They swooped over to him, blurs of uncanny swiftness, and grabbed onto Steve's arms and legs, overpowering even the human's quarterback strength.
The vaguely human things dragged Steve into the middle of a magic circle of eerie runes that hurt his eyes just to look at and tied him down. They then drove silver stakes engraved with hieroglyphs through his hands and feet, spilling his blood into the edges of the mystic circle. Steve wept as he begged his attackers to stop. In a surprising moment of clarity and self-awareness, he wondered if this was how the girls he'd preyed on had felt.
Adrammelech stood over him and began chanting in a language that Steve couldn't understand. It might have been Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Aramaic, or some unknown language that predated humanity. He pulled out a knife carved from some kind of black rock and crackled with an energy that seemed almost like darkness aside from being... blacker, somehow. He approached the whimpering Steve and raised the dagger.
Anger rose inside Steve. He glared at his captor. "You bastard! You fucking two-faced son of a bitch! You goddamn piece of shit! You lied to me! You fucking used me!"
"Many young women could say the same to you," Adrammelech laughed. "Some of them very young indeed!"
Steve deflated at that. In this vulnerable, frightened state, he finally understood Emily, Rachel, and all the others. An alien emotion filled his corrupted heart: guilt. He deserved to die and he knew it. He only regretted that he couldn't live long enough to do something to even begin to make it up to the people he'd hurt.
Adrammelech then saw a wolf-taur demon with red skin leap out of the shadows and brandishing a blade that Adrammelech knew had to be Light-bringer. Adrammelech recognized Light-bringer's wielder as Prince Enoch Morningstar, Lucifer's son, but the Grand Chancellor had no idea where he could have found the lost sword. Enoch cut down two of the possessed damned humans just as Lucifer himself lunged from the fissure to aid his son. The remaining possessing Chaos beings charged at Lucifer and Enoch as Adrammelech turned to finish the ritual.
Adrammelech raised his dagger and plunged it into Steve Clarkson's chest, utterly killing the damned human. There weren't many ways to truly kill a damned or blessed human, but being sacrificed to Chaos was one of the few ways. Adrammelech cut out Steve's heart and opened a portal, making sure to cast a spell from Beelzebub's grimoires to make his rout untraceable even by Lucifer, Jehovah Thanatos, or Juventas. Adrammelech figured that he was no longer welcome at court, but he was thankful that he at least still walked free.
***********************************************************************************************************************
Adrammelech arrived in the inner sanctum of one of Beelzebub's secret towers in the wilderness of the Eighth Circle where Beelzebub had liked to work his most secret sorcery. It was warded with powerful Chaos magic that made it impossible to find if you meant Beelzebub or his goals harm. This would be a safe place.
Adrammelech placed Steve's severed heart on a black altar and chanted once again in the weird proto-language of Chaos. Shadowy, inky Chaos spirits spilled out of the mystic circle in front of the altar and devoured the heart before vanishing. Suddenly, Archduke Beelzebub materialized in the middle of the magic circle, alive and well once again.
Beelzebub crawled over to Adrammelech on his centipede legs. "You have done well, my faithful servant. What reward do you desire?"
"I was seen," said Adrammelech. "I need refuge."
"You may stay with me in this tower," said Beelzebub. "Together, we shall plot the downfall of Lucifer from here. I trust Nergal is looking after my interests in the Ninth Circle?"
"Yes, Your Excellency," Adrammelech said with a deep bow. "He isn't suspected."
"Good," Beelzebub said, happily clacking his scorpion claws. "Hell will soon be ours."