Alex Lee Martinez - In the Company of Ogres

The ninth circle was where Hell did its accountancy. The demons within were ruthlessly efficient. All they cared about were profit and cost-effectiveness. Everything was a debit or credit, a gain or a loss. Their ultimate goal was to reduce the universe to a calculation, a final heartless equation in which every soul, living and dead, divine and damned, would serve in the Glorious Ultimate Dividend. They were evil incarnate, but they were the best at what they did, which was why the Legion subcontracted much of its troubleshooting work their way.

Ned drank the rest of the bottle before getting on with it.

He ran the sharp edge of the coin across his thumb, drawing blood. The coin absorbed the offering, gaining a crimson glint. Then he dropped it in the slot. The air sizzled. The unholy lump broke apart, hatching a devilish little creature, eight inches of stringy, red demon. The homunculus looked very much like a man, save the scales, wings, tiny horns, hooves, and long pointed tail. The creature was balding, though he had tried, with no success, to disguise this by brushing his thin hair across his shiny scalp. He wore a tunic stitched together from the cursed flesh of the damned, and he stank of moldy ledgers and burning dung.

The homunculus adjusted his thick spectacles and twitched his crooked nose. “Never Dead Ned, I presume.”

Ned nodded.

“Excellent. Shall we get down to it?” The homunculus glanced around. “Where are your ledgers?”

“I don’t know.”

The homunculus frowned. “This is quite unacceptable. Time is money, after all. Every wasted second is another expense against the Final Profit. You should’ve been prepared.”

“Sorry.”

“Mortals.” The demon sighed. “Just as well, I suppose.

We can skip the consultation phase. Saves time. Frankly I’ve looked over this case and already sent ahead my recommendations. Anything you said would’ve been summarily dismissed. I wouldn’t even have listened. I would’ve just nodded my head until you were finished speaking and said what I’m going to say anyway. I did expect more from a fellow accountant though. Must say I’m disappointed.”

“Sorry.”

The homunculus kept on talking as if he hadn’t heard Ned. “There is no business like war. Yet Ogre Company has never produced a profit for the Legion. This is unacceptable. It’s a blasphemy, an unforgivable heresy against the Dark Ledger. There was talk, very serious consideration, of dissolving this particular venture and allocating its resources to a more productive end.”

Ned didn’t consider that a bad thing. If Ogre Company disbanded, he might get sent back to bookkeeping.

“However, it all comes down to the numbers,” continued the homunculus. “The numbers reveal all. Profit exists throughout the universe. If we cannot find it, then we have let the numbers down, not the other way around. As such, I see no reason to abandon this project just yet.”

The demon beat his wings and hovered in the air. He snapped his fingers, and a scroll materialized, floating before him. “I’ve drawn up a fiscal battle plan, which I can assure you is spelled out with such thorough magnificence that anyone should be able to follow it.” He pushed his spectacles to the end of his nose and arched his brows in Ned’s direction. “And I do mean anyone.”

The scroll unfurled. It slithered across the desktop. When Ned reached for it, the parchment slapped at his fingers hard enough to leave a pinkish bruise. The budget shook, drew near Ned’s face, and snarled.

“Careful,” said the homunculus, “she bites. Perhaps it would be wiser if I explained some of the finer points. Just to be certain you understand.” He snapped his fingers, and the scroll, growling in an obscenely affectionate manner, fell obediently into his grasp. “The plan is simple. It’s broken into seven hundred and seventy-seven subsections.” He cleared his throat. “Which I will now go over in detail.”

Ned slumped in his chair. He wondered if Ulga would ever get here with that wine.

The homunculus droned on for hours. His squeaky voice grated on Ned’s ears and stood his hair on end. The demonic bookkeeper chanted his depraved dirge to the powers of infernal accounting, and an evil spell settled on Ned’s office. The scroll unfolded, filling the floor with line after line of cost cutting and expense trimming. The walls melted. Cruel imps cavorted in the shadows. The hourglass on the desk ran backward. And Ned could almost hear the distant howls of the damned.

The homunculus grew. The demon fed off Ned’s suffering, and his agonizing boredom fed the homunculus well. By the end, he’d grown a foot taller, his skin had turned a brighter shade of red, and his tiny horns had curled into impressive ornaments. Ned hunched in his chair, drooling, with debits and credits poking at his brain with wee pitchforks.

“In conclusion,” said the homunculus, “I believe this project can be redeemed. Providing Ogre Company can finally be whipped into a functional military unit. But that’s not my end. I’m the accountant, and I can assure you the accounting is flawless.”

Ned wiped the tears from his face with trembling hands. His flesh felt clammy and cold. The demon’s lecture had leeched Ned’s already diminished will to live. He’d have gladly fallen on his own sword then to end it all. He had no such option. Such were the disadvantages of immortality.

The ferocious budget slithered around his office, under the desk, across the floor, tightly coiled around his legs, cutting off his circulation. It alternately purred at its creator and grumbled at Ned.

The homunculus said, “It was my recommendation you be transferred to this post. There was some resistance to the idea. Your military record is nothing exceptional. But I pointed out that all the previous commanders had been fine officers and not one had been able to make anything of Ogre Company. From a logical perspective, it would be a waste of resources to throw another distinguished soldier into the slavering jaws of almost certain death. But here was a man, by which I mean you, who had the necessary bookkeeping experience to understand the situation as most soldiers could not. A man blessed with a curious talent for thwarting death over and over again. Most importantly, a man who, should this talent fail him, was ultimately expendable.”

Ned tried to stand. The budget wrapped around his waist, holding him to his chair.

A satisfied smile crossed the homunculus’s face. “It took some convincing. I think they were just hoping I’d recommend scrapping the whole project. But I convinced them to give it one last shot. You’ve six months to turn this company around. More than enough time if you follow my counsel.”

Ned couldn’t remember any of the demon’s recommendations. He couldn’t remember anything of the last few hours except the infernal dirge, a hum without words, a song of the fiscally forsaken.

“Just follow the budget, and do your end, and things should work out fine, Commander.”

The budget raised up and threatened to slice into Ned’s face with a nasty paper cut. He didn’t want to antagonize it, but his bad left arm had other ideas. It grabbed the empty whiskey bottle and brandished it at the parchment. The budget hissed and spat as it fought with Ned’s arm.

“What if I can’t make it work?”

The homunculus chuckled. “A consideration I’ve already taken into account. Profit knows the numbers never fail, but men are prone. In which case, Ogre Company will be dissolved, and its personnel reassigned per my recommendation.”

“Where would I be going? Back to bookkeeping?”

The homunculus drank up Ned’s anxiety. The demon’s eyes simmered with red flames. “Oh, no. Your position in that department has already been filled. And it’s a waste of your talents in any case. I believe you’d be of more use in the Berserker Program.”