Chapter 103: The smell of success

Screwtape was as close to being happy as an underworld lord could ever be. Jewels were flowing into the Chief’s insatiable maw faster than ever. Project Sugarloaf was again making strides. Drug addiction, gambling debts, and therefore bankruptcies, divorces, suicides and murders, were all up. Snakefoot was doing an admirable job turning the twins to his side. After so many failures, he was really making progress. “Under my leadership,” Screwtape boasted to the Chief. “If I hadn’t made an example of that idiot Glubwart, he never would have felt the heat; never would have succeeded,” Screwtape bragged. Snakefoot had managed to separate them from that troublesome Mary creature. The male nuisance, her miserable husband, was no longer a threat. Screwtape was beginning to feel that a showdown was coming -- a climax in the eternal struggle -- and for the first time, he felt that the underworld had the advantage. How long; how many centuries had he toiled, always thwarted, always beaten by the enemy. This time it would be different. This time Screwtape would lead his legions to victory against the big bully.