Dreamphage

Chapter 5: The Devil and a Blimp

Alex, Marcus, Juliet and Sarah entered the doors to the inner dream branch of the IDNA. It looked very much like the waking world version but all of the walls appeared to be leaning at just slightly the wrong angle. Doors kept magically disappearing and reappearing and paintings on the walls would move when you turned your back. The building itself was strange but the people were stranger. Agents of every type imaginable wandered through. There was aliens and werewolves, people with polka dot skin and others that looked something like the scream or a Vincent van Gogh painting. Of course there were normal looking dreams too but Sarah stared far less intensely at them.

They approached a secretary with crazy purple hair that stretched about half a meter above her head and were told to head right into Lucifer's office. His office was very typical of any workplace. Several book shelves and filing cabinets. On the wall was a map of the world, or at least that's what they assumed. It looked different than any map they'd seen before and clearly was meant to show the relative locations of dream levels. In the center of the room was a large oak desk with an old computer monitor on top. Behind that was a high backed leather chair. It was faced away from them as they entered the room.

As soon as they were all inside the door slammed behind them and the lights flickered out.

"Ouch" Juliet murmured.

"Sorry" Sarah whispered, stepping back from where she had jumped on Juliet's foot. "Does this always happen?"

No one answered as the lights began to flicker.

"WHO DARES ENTER MY OFFICE?" a rough voice bellowed.

"Agents from the IDNA" Alex answered, her voice steady.

"I DID NOT PREMIT YOUR ENTRY! FEAR THE MIGHTY-"the voice broke down into a series of harsh coughs "Susan! Susan! Turn the lights back on!"

The lights flickered back on and the chair spun around to reveal and an average looking boy, about in his early 20s. His blue eyes were friendly and his brown hair was gelled up. He really didn't look that scary at all but rather squishy actually.

"Were you frightened?" he asked, his eyes trained on Sarah. His voice no longer had any scratchy roughness but was warm and pleasant.

Sarah looked at him wide eyed, unsure of what to say. "Umm, a little"

Lucifer nodded his head and smiled "Good. Good." He rooted around his desk and pulled out a bowl of candy. "I am sorry. Would you like a candy?"

He held the bowl out and Sarah grabbed one of the sweets. "Thank you." She said awkwardly.

Lucifer smiled sweetly. Alex, Marcus and Juliet snickered behind Sarah. It was always fun to introduce new people to Lucifer. He was an interesting guy but really not even remotely terrifying.

Sarah noticed their laughter and sighed. "So you're not really some evil, devil are you?"

Lucifer shook his head and laughed. "Only devilishly good looking!" He laughed loudly for a moment before catching his breath. He shook his head and a self-satisfied smile sprung onto his face. He was obviously proud of his joke. "I was supposed to be something like the devil but I was created by a 5 year old to whom the scariest thing in the world was a creepy laugh and some flickering lights. You'll be happy to know Tracy and I struck up quite a friendship and get along quite fine now. I was never cut out to be a nightmare. The dream life is much better and people who say nightmares have more fun obviously haven't met me!" He laughed once again "Anyway what is your name dear?"

"Sarah" Sarah replied, still a little confused.

"Lovely to meet you!" His eyes jumped over to the others "Alex! Marcus! Juliet! Pleasure to see you all as usual! I do hope everything is going well with you all and you'll have to tell Madelyn I say hello"