Aleister rubbed his chubby hands together, gleefully. He leaned back on his comfy executive chair and let out a satisfied cackle. His little team of snoopers and bludgeoners had lost a few of their number, but it was all worth it, wasn't it? Accosting a mage in broad daylight, upsetting the Council, causing trouble; it was what a Prince of Hell did best. Who needed the silly Council - bunch of magical wannabes - when you had all the power that the Dark Lord Lucifer himself could give? They owned the banks, they owned the oil pipelines, they owned the communications satellites and the British Broadcasting Corporation. They owned the souls of Saudi Princes and tech millionaires who had more yachts than they knew what to do with. What did the Council have? Shiny rocks, that's what. Trinkets. Toys. The Council had an illusion of power, a fantasy that the magic of the mortal realm was under their control. Only because it was what their Infernal Majesty - Satan himself - wished the Council to believe. At any moment they could rise up from the Underworld and seize complete control of the land of the living.

Until the angels got wind of their shenanigans, that is, and plunged the world into a supernatural war. So, they had their fun as much as they could get away with.

Down here, Aleister’s loyal-ish underlings had been busy; they had swept the Warlock's residence on the Rise and found it abandoned, they had nosed around every establishment that the ugly grey mammals had access to and found it absent of their presence. They had searched high and low for any sign or clue as to the troublesome Warlock boy's whereabouts. He was, as suspected, nowhere to be seen.

Peregrin's little public announcement of visiting the mortal plane told Aleister that he was wasting his time trying to find Anar in Hell; his quarry was hiding with the living. Probably thinking he was safe. The world was big, after all. But the Warlock's weren't a bight bunch. How could they be? They were mere dumb walking, talking animals. The same as all the rest of the filthy anthros. A blight upon society.

So, it was time to focus his efforts on following Peregrin and letting him do all the hard work. Soon, everyone would know who the culprit for the fire was, who was responsible for the disturbance and destruction to their operations. Hell Afterlife Services was a smouldering heap and somebody needed to pay. The basement was too good for Anarchy; Aleister had been thinking up much better (awful) punishments for the Warlock welp. Hell had the capacity to torture a soul for eternity; to break not just bones but minds and wills. They could show sorrow and suffering, gore and torture, make you experience them again and again until you forgot who you were, what happiness was, all the joys of living and pleasures of the flesh erased from memory until it was a never-ending cycle of dread. Those reptile pals of his would get a mangling, too, if he got his way. They had been just as bad; taunting Alexis - his favourite descendant, a handsome, promising chap - making his days back at the Infernal College harder than they needed to be, setting him up as the victim of their pranks, calling him names, mocking him, throwing things at him! Time and again the Headmaster had promised to deal with them and failed. Peregrin had obviously pulled strings of his own to protect the lot of them.

It all ended now. Anarchy was going down and Peregrin would go down with him. They would be publicly humiliated, made to suffer for the entertainment of all Hell's denizens.

His phone vibrated. At last! A lead, some information, maybe even a location. He answered with a sneer, barely containing his excitement, "yes?"

He listened, intently. "Really?" he breathed, "are you absolutely sure? If I find out you're wrong...!" With a jerk he was bolt upright in his sleek, black chair, his almost translucent ears not quite believing what he was hearing. This was the best news he had heard since gaining his favourable position within the Devil's Inner Circle over a hundred years ago. "Well, what are you waiting for? Follow them! Find him! Bring him to meeeeee," a dribble of saliva sprang at his bloated lips. His stomach panged. He fervently scrolled his contacts to find his great-grandson and tell him the good news.

"What now?" Alexis sounded groggy; he was most likely sleeping in. There was no administration department right now. It was a free holiday. "Everything ok?" There was a tone to his voice that hoped Aleister hadn't found some work for him to do.

"The Warlock boy is gone from the database!"

There were faint rustles of silk quilt as Alexis wiped his nose, "Riiiiiight, what does that mean? Wait, how did you get onto any of the databases? System's still down. Power surge took it out, remember?"

"One of our boffins got it running using some tech wizardry. Something about Safe Mode booting - you know it's all double Dutch to me. He's not on there! He's vanished! Gone!"

Alexis's loud mouth breathing could be heard as he mulled this over. "He's not in the pension scheme anymore?"

"HE'S NOT DEAD!" Aleister roared, victoriously, spinning his chair in a victory lap. "Little bastard has got himself out, somehow. He's alive!" he tapped his shoes upon the floor, merrily.

"Augh, that's a shame..."

Aleister exploded; "we can murder the fucker!" he slammed his fists on the desk, "Kill him! Do him in! Have his soul dragged down here and tear it to shreds!"

"Ohhhh! That would be brilliant, yeah! Where is the donkey, anyway?"

"I don't know yet, but I'm on it! I've sent a few underlings Upstairs to do my bidding; they're currently following Peregrin, who will lead us right to him, I just know it!"

Alexis wasn't so sure, "I dunno, I mean, old Warlock's not just gonna stand by while we knife his son, is he?"

"Oh-ho-ho, old Warlock's going to have a whole investigation on his hands to keep him occupied; nobody gets out of a Hell contract! Not even a Director's son. They’re both in the shit now, knee-deep. With Peregrin out of the equation, it's plain sailing. Being a mortal is dangerous business; accidents happen every day... fatal accidents." His phone vibrated again. He shook it, irritated, "how do I read a message while on a call? Bloody phone!" he jabbed at the buttons. They beeped back at him.

"Just press the messages envelope," Alexis sighed.

"I've got to go, I've got a message I need to read..."

Peregrin had blood on his hands. Literally. He was splattered with it. His victims would be right as rain after a bit of processing, but for now he had snapped completely and was on a spree with one of the chainsaws that the entertainer imps usually juggled in return for loose change on Pandemonium's street corners. He'd spent so many years telling himself that everything would be ok; that his high-level position would protect him, when really it just meant he had further to fall.

His son had told people about his dirty natural magic. His son had used it right here in Hell in front of the authorities. His son had escaped. He even had the Crowleys after him!

Well, if Peregrin was destined for the basement, if all of his hard work was for nought, then what was the point of keeping it together, really? He'd tried to dispatch that wimpy Crispin fellow, who knew too much and was a blabber-mouth. He'd tried to bring the beautiful, lascivious Ember under his control: the one person he was sure could draw his useless eldest child out of hiding, and that had not gone to plan. He was a Director! His power should have been enough to do all this and more! He was broken. He was defeated. He was ready to make his last stand against all odds.

The doors to the sports hall hung loosely, broken upon their hinges as he stood with his cloak billowing dramatically behind him, his perfectly coiffured hair slick and swept neatly behind his massive, curved horns, his suit creases still immaculate despite the frenzy that had unfolded, eyeing the room of senior staff before him with crazy eyes.

There was a pregnant pause; a moment where nobody was quite sure what was going on and if all this was some sort of joke. It was Hell, after all. Strange things happened.

"What's that buzzing noise? Has the printer gone on the blink again?" Beelzebub gave the big slab of metal and plastic a kick for good measure. It whirred angrily, rollers shunting.

"Peregrin!" Azratheth burbled happily, grinning at his old pal, swivelling his chair, "is it true that your son has broken his contract?"

With a heave and a roar, the aardvark lifted up the shuddering, chugging chainsaw and lunged forward, scattering the Inner Circle executives who immediately tried pushing each other into the noisy contraption's reach, self-preservation being second nature to them.

"CROWLEY!" he bellowed, splinters flying as his blade hit wood.

Many clawed hands immediately reached out for the pudgy Prince. Well, if it was Crowley he was after...

Aleister squirmed, swearing, struggling as the other circle members so easily betrayed him, bringing him into the insane aardvarkian Director's presence. He sweated, freely.

"Call your lackey's off, Aleister! Leave my son the fuck alone!" Peregrin demanded, bringing the crimson-stained, jagged-toothed blade dangerously close to the Prince of Hell’s face.

Aleister pulled back his flabby lips into a snarl, "you must think I'm stupid!" he spat. "I know what Anar did! I know your boy's mortal. I know he can be killed..."

"So can you!" Peregrin warned, lowly, giving the moving blade a turn so it glinted under the sports hall lighting.

The Prince struggled aggressively, but multiple grips tightened. "I can be killed again and again," Aleister growled, "but I always come back! That's the protection of Hell! That's the reward for our servitude!"

Peregrin locked eyes with the chubby human demon. He moved his mouth carefully with every word, sounding them out, making sure Aleister understood exactly what was at stake here; "that's only when the system is online..."

Little evil eyes widened. Wrinkles creased further. Aleister's pale complexion - usually so unhealthy looking in its pallid sallow hues - reddened with panic.

After the 'Big Reboot' as the I.T. pit were now referring it, nothing was accessible. The business demons were relying on their mortal world links to get anything done. The databases were out. The soul transfers were suspended. There was a backlog of data that would take weeks, maybe months to catch up on. Dying now was a risky move. Dying now meant you might not come back. Dying now just might be a permanent career move...

After all, there were a great number of ruthlessly ambitious minions who craved the vacant spot in the Inner Circle that Aleister's sudden absence would grant them a chance of, and it only took a few nods for the restoration paperwork to be lost in the vast filing system forever. Coming back was not guaranteed for someone as universally despised as Aleister Crowley. It wasn't guaranteed for any demon foolish enough to be killed in the line of duty.

"Have it your way," the Prince said, bitterly, "but your son will be brought to account, even if by our lord Lucifer himself. Anarchy has brought shame upon you. Upon your whole family! Your position as Director will be suspended. Everything you had will be ripped from you until you are just another filthy underling, pitifully serving some unknown middle-level manager, unfit to walk through our boardroom doors!"

Peregrin lowered his chainsaw, slowly, "we shall see," he rumbled. "I want to hear you give the cease and desist order to your minions. On speakerphone!" He nodded to Azratheth, who was burbling happily at the entertaining dramatics and the blobby, tentacled, many-eyed Ancient Evil slid one of his long, fleshy appendages over to Crowley's work desk and grasped the dark blue Nokia with a sticky sucker.

After a bit of fiddling and debating on the whereabouts of the speakerphone settings, with a little discussion on the future of handheld communications devices and lament at the loss of the old paging system, the Inner Circle demons finally had Aleister's henchmen on call and he gave them the order not to pursue Anarchy Warlock any further.

Peregrin nodded and shut off the Chainsaw's motor, his shoulders sagging and his face showing the strain from his short spell of madness. Behind him, blue lights flashed. Security were arriving, late to the party as always.

Heads and horns turned to the broken doorway; peering, straining, excited to see what was going to happen next. There was always something going on in Hell; never a dull moment!

Aleister smiled. Finally, the moment he had always dreamed of was here. Peregrin had made it so easy with his chainsaw antics. If the daft grey mammal had stayed in the mortal realm like he said he was going to then things might have been rather tricky, instead he had delivered himself on a silver platter. Even better, his henchmen had only been ordered to not pursue the Warlock child; they could still merrily mangle the half-elf girl and the idiot demon Crispin.

The head of Hell's security gave Peregrin a withering look; the grey aardvark demons always gave him work to do! If they weren't driving Italian sports cars at him they were slicing workers up with hedge-trimming equipment! He placed a hand upon his wand and a hand upon his firearm - he was fully justified in the use of either after what had been called through on the communications system.

"What's it going to be, Warlock? Are you coming in quietly for questioning or have you still got some surprises up your sleeve?"

Behind him, Peregrin could almost hear Azratheth flapping in hope of surprises.

Of course he had surprises. Most of them wouldn't help. Delay the inevitable, perhaps, but not help.

This called for something truly...

Miraculous.