An Audience With Arrogance



1

A long, black, driverless vehicle, an IntelliCar Elite, carried Cameron Kolessar—yes, that Cameron Kolessar—towards his studio. Its passenger demanded only the best, and the car still had that much-coveted and quite fleeting new car smell. Though he knew it wasn’t his, when you were Cameron, an internationally adored investigative journalist, you did what you wanted and were confident that no one dared correct you.

A periodic blue flash marked the passage of time since the last flash; Cameron barely noticed. He noticed some things, but the continued functioning of his Bluetooth was not one of them. However, if the blue flashing stopped, ending his conversation and leaving him alone, he would become dramatic. There was very little of importance he had to say that early in the morning—he considered it morning, though lacking a sunrise; yet he spoke each morning.

More than anything, he had these morning conversations because he preferred to hear himself talk rather than be bored. Ironically, while he loathed boredom like most people, he would be surprised to learn that others found the time they were supposed to be listening to him their most tedious.

In one manicured hand, Cameron held a poorly rolled cigarette that was anything but tobacco; the smoke was far too thick, for one thing, and caused a much more profound effect. What did he care? He didn’t have to drive, and his show was still hours away.

It was nearly an hour to the studio from the lavish penthouse that he called home, and that was far too long for him to sit alone in the back of his IntelliCar. It didn’t matter who he was talking to because he only did so to fill the minutes until he arrived at his destination.

George was on the phone just then. He could be quite dull.

“Yeah, passing one now. There I am, large and in charge, as promised. And you fit his ugly face on there, too? The horns and red skin are a nice touch. He doesn’t look like that, does he? Scratch that, it doesn’t matter; after tonight he’ll be exposed. Thanks so much, George,” Cameron hung up while George was still speaking.

They had been talking about Lucifer Morningstar. Or rather, the man who recently hijacked an international broadcast to reveal himself as such to the world. Cameron thought that people were quite stupid and had totally bought into his act and could not allow that to continue.

He opened the window he had been looking out with the tap of a button on an illuminated console to his left, tossing out what was still at least half of his smoke. With a grunt, he squeezed a great deal of his narrow torso out the window to get a better look at the billboard and howled at it like a wolf.

The time was forty-two past four in the morning, and he was running a few minutes late, though he hardly worried about such trivialities.

Though his show appeared between eleven in the evening and midnight, it was shot before his ‘legions of adoring fans’, as he often referred to them, had even awoken to their daily grind. Later in the day, editing took place, and computer-generated effects were added before a final viewing and approval by him, the director, and production team members. There was precious little room for error.

The billboard looked like a flashy, yellow exclamation point on the side of the road. A huge image of Cameron stood tall, his full height exceeding the rest of the sign’s dimensions. He wore a simple, expensive, three-piece suit that was not to his tastes; he found it pretentious, but marketing had all but insisted upon it. It was the subtle, yellow pinstripes he didn’t like, but even he had learned to choose his battles.

To the right of him, in large, black, block lettering was written: The Cameron Kolessar Hour. It listed the time of the show and the network’s faux-rainbow sigil.

In its lower right corner was a smiling red face with huge white teeth in a comic-book-inspired white bubble. In red, block lettering read: Lucifer Morningstar, Tonight Only!

Cameron shouted an exclamation into the morning gloom before he retreated inside the vehicle and tapped the button to close it again. Ahead of him, a thin line on the horizon was the only hint that morning was nigh.

The window would stay closed until he was safely inside the parking garage. This was a recent behavior change. Once upon a time, he would squeeze himself outside the window and gesture grandly to his fans. However, this became an issue, and the local police department received complaints that he was distracting other drivers. Consequently, he began waving from behind an open window. He was less thrilled with this compromise, however, and eventually abandoned greeting his followers altogether. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate them; his priorities had changed once his agent convinced him to limit personal appearances so his fans would attend scheduled appearances instead.

As the IntelliCar navigated to his usual parking spot, he smiled manically, thinking of what he had planned for the man who was not Lucifer Morningstar.

2

Cameron Kolessar waited patiently inside his car for the security detail to arrive and escort him inside the studio. As usual, he spent the time in mental preparation for the day ahead.

His thoughts returned to Lucifer Morningstar.

It had been a long road to what he was confident would be the symbolic sacrifice of the man claiming to be humanity’s dark father. Every show was a similar trail, and while he wasn’t always so hands-on with every show that aired, for this particular story he had been involved from the moment he saw the transmission that had somehow ended up on every screen across the globe; he still stayed up nights thinking about how such an undertaking was achieved and remained completely clueless about the method.

The authorities had yet to make a statement, public or otherwise. He had reached out to them and had received no reply, not even the standard no-statement statement was used. Nearly six months had passed since the message had aired, and in that time, he and the cast of dozens of faceless others who worked on the story had developed a rather lengthy and complicated series of possible ways to bring the imposter down and had contingency plans for absolutely anything that could happen on the day of the show.

Lucifer Morningstar didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. He grinned, glancing at the shifting watch face on his right wrist, wondering what was taking his security team so long. He had to have been sitting there for fifteen minutes, lost in his thoughts.

Normally quite patient, Cameron was developing sweaty palms as he thought about the day ahead. He would step onto his stage, interview another terrifying person, and point out their flaws, identifying all the cracks in their story for the world to see. He knew from past experience that when a person confronts the flaws in their own logic and dislikes the truths revealed about themselves, there is a predictable reaction. For an ego like Lucifer Morningstar’s, or the man claiming that name, the only outcome is a shattering.

And he was the one who would be remembered as the man who had saved them from the devil.

3

“Mr. Kolessar, you may exit your vehicle; your security detail won’t be coming just yet,” an elderly male voice shouted from the darkness. “I mean you no harm, though I’m afraid I cannot say the same of my brother.”

What madness is this? Heads will roll. Oh, yes! Heads.Will.Roll.

He pressed and held the button assigned to call the security office on his phone dial tone, but there was no sound. The phone stared back at him dumbly, silent. He both loved and hated technology just then—with a tap he initiated his voice memo app.

He stepped out of the car and made a point to look at his watch to emphasize he was running late. “It’s a bit early to be cowering in the darkness. I’m late as it is, show yourself. You have my attention. Considering this is your last act as a free man, I hope you have something interesting to tell me.”

“Not cowering,” the man replied. The voice had come from behind him. He spun on one heel to face him but found no one. “You’re walking right into his trap, you know, or you should know. My God, the hubris you possess. To think you believe that you are the hunter and he the prey! You are but an insect who has foolishly become tangled in the web he placed there, and he comes for you, and you’re too fucking stupid to realize it.”

Cameron spun around to his left. Nobody was there. His pulse quickened, his blood feeling icy; a chill started in his lower back and radiated to his toes and fingertips.

“No need to yell, friend,” Cameron smiled. “I understand your trepidation—,” he got out before echoing laughter assaulted him from all sides.

The laughter seemed to go on forever, each lurch of the man’s voice bringing another blow to his ego. His anger rose until he wanted to scream, but the laughter abated as he tried to calm himself.

“Trepidation? Is that what you think this is, trepidation? I don’t care what he has planned for you. If I’ve learned one thing, it is that my brother picks his targets very carefully; I’ve absolutely no doubt you deserve every lesson he will teach you. Even if I wanted to stop it, I could not. My concern is what happens after he leaves you whispering to yourself whatever foxhole prayer you reserve for times like these. Those misguided fools see the hero they think they need in you. What happens to them when they discover what you are? Once he is done with you, leaving a void within them that he fills quite nicely, where does he lead them?”

Ever the pragmatist, Cameron replied, “I’m listening…”