Adjacent to the ominous laboratory lay an enormous room lined with large, dusty mirrors. Signs hung everywhere. The inscriptions were monolingual, written in demonic dialect, yet Henri Toutrec could decipher them with ease. He translated for the others: Don’t leave your sins lying around. — Handle your damned with pleasure. — Put sinners back into disorder after use. — For a model hell, think quality and morbid productivity. — To betray is to fuck and lick the general’s filthy feet.

They did not need long to realize that they were in the bedroom... of the president of hell... Rose of the Winds. There stood a rococo-baroque-kitsch canopy bed, combining every style from every era into a single piece. None of them dared sit on the general’s bed, or even touch it. The angel would have found it impure. Uncle Maxime thought it smelled foul. Henri noticed the filthy, stained sheets. Marilyn disliked the décor, with its clashing and contradictory styles.

Finding themselves alone in those forbidden quarters, they began to examine the room. There were other pieces of furniture carrying a faint scent of sulfur, like an unbreathable perfume: chaise longues, sofas, reclining chairs—everything for lounging. And there were long crimson velvet curtains, slightly parted. It did not take them long to notice, behind the curtains and resting on an old wooden workbench marked by the ravages of time, a book as large as a table for four. On the pink leather cover, Henri translated an inscription written in red ink... “Do not read this diary! Otherwise, I’ll strike your buttocks with my hot ceramic bat!” Signed... Rose of the Winds.

There was indeed a lock to keep the little devils from reading it. But in his haste to invade paradise, Rose of the Winds had left his diary unlocked.

Henri opened the book with great care, turning the pages diagonally, searching for something compromising about the president of hell. At first he found nothing but bravado.

— Ah! Look... he said, drawing attention to a few words written in tiny handwriting. “Tonight, I had the strongest orgasm of my life. I masturbated without having sex, secretly, while looking at Michelangelo’s David. The model who posed without an erection.”

— Look here! Henri pointed out, as though his three unfortunate companions could read what was written.

— But what else, Henri? Marilyn asked, curious, stepping a little closer to the translator.

— “I hid from my little devils to eat horse manure I brought back from the Battle of Waterloo, from both sides alike.”

— Look, here in the corner of the page there’s the image of a tiny paper angel, pasted on. We finally discover that he has a tender side after all. But he prefers to hide it, observed Potato Peels, amused by the detail.

— I think we’ve uncovered something interesting! What am I saying?! Found something. Let’s take this very large book back into my lovely void and confront Rose of the Winds with it.

Marilyn, who had a keen ear and powerful intuition, whispered to the others:

— I hear the devils coming back. Quick, let’s escape through that door to the left of the workbench.

They crossed the threshold in a flash. Not before Uncle Maxime seized the eccentric diary. Nor before Henri left with a voodoo doll lying nearby, next to that big, disgusting, important, and immoral book. It was a pretty doll, covered all over with tiny needles. Before entering the adjoining room, Henri carefully removed a few of the needles and let them fall onto the glass floor. As they did, the ceiling of hell brightened. This surprised them all. Then he removed several more needles without seeing any immediate effect. Yet with each extraction, somewhere on a planet a religious ceremony, a sect, or an unhealthy tradition—such as female genital mutilation or witch hunts—vanished.

By common agreement, they made the risky decision to explore hell a little further. After all, it is not every day that one willingly sets foot there. They had to cross a tangle of thousands of conveyor belts along which countless mismatched suitcases were circulating. Each one bore a name and a summary of its owner’s journey. It was as though those suitcases condensed the lives of beings stranded in this final place, this hot and terminal point. There were also messages addressed to the little demons, canned sins, evil deeds to be consumed without temptation, and so on. It looked like a giant, disproportionate airport overflowing with travelling malice.

The companions felt more and more assaulted, disturbed, and stressed by the incessant noise. Yet a persistent melody played continuously in the background. It had invasive, almost hypnotic properties. And even more than that, a unique infernal technique allowed it to remain perfectly audible despite the overwhelming decibels.

— Who would have thought? There’s music in this place! Henri commented.

The musical content consisted of little songs with mawkish, soporific melodies, performed and commented on by the same horrifically false, gravelly voice. The singer’s peculiar timbre made the intruders shudder and grind their teeth at each repeated intervention. “You have just heard my latest compositions. In order: A Spark on the Buttocks... A Little Sulfur Doesn’t Hurt My Nostrils... and, to conclude this set, My Little Pit of Pleasure. The first little devil to join me, and who manages to suck my dick, will have the chance to take part in the grand contest, carefully rigged in advance. The jackpot consists of a delightful and sublime luncheon. This, in the company of my glorious and fantastic self, where we shall taste from the same cup of liquid shadow in paradise. I remind you that the damned are excluded from the drawing. Do not bring them with you.”

The voice being broadcast was indeed that of Rose of the Winds.

Suddenly, an entire group of demons rushed past only a few steps away. They were hurrying to join General Rose of the Winds in paradise and take part in the enticing contest. These were the last representatives of evil still in hell, though the four unlikely companions did not yet realize it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Henri noticed a revealing detail. The flames slipping from the little demons’ pockets no longer interested them. Hell was becoming completely empty of its tormentors.