The series protagonist is Cassie, a goth girl haunted by the guilt of driving her sister to suicide and dooming her soul to Hell. After learning she can enter and leave Hell any time she wants because she's The Chosen One, she willingly ventures in to reconcile with her sister. Here, she becomes the target of Lucifer's State Sec who wants to harvest her angelic power and use it to bring the apocalypse.
The series has five installments:
- City Infernal (2001)
- Angel Infernal (2003)
- House Infernal (2007)
- Lucifer's Lottery (2010)
- Lakehouse Infernal (2019)
The stories provide examples of:
- 0% Approval Rating: Despite Satanism being the enforced state religion of the Mephistopolis, 99% of its practitioners hate their God-Emperor, since he's the one responsible for their eternal torment and humiliation. But the top 1% genuinely worship him, since he rewards their loyalty with a facsimile of eternal paradise.
- A Fate Worse Than Death: The whole series is set in Hell, duh. Every human is being tortured endlessly in terrible ways, like being skinned and shoved in a cramp barrel of salt, where they stay contorted and writhing forever.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: After her Heroic Sacrifice, Cassie ascends to angelhood.
- Asshole Victim: Hudson betrays God for the stupidest, pettiest reason and gets to spend the rest of eternity as Lucifer's toilet paper.
- Colin, too, is given a proper "reward" for his loyalty to Satan: getting raped forever by trolls. It's hard to feel bad for Candice as well, who emotionally abused and took advantage of Walter.
- Been There, Shaped History: Lucifer's favorite hobby is to go back in time during horrible events, like the Black Plague or the Yugoslav Wars, and possess people to commit atrocities.
- Canon Welding: Set in the same world as Edward Lee's other series the Bighead/Minotauress, which is made evident by the reappearance of Father Alexander and Pasiphae.
- The Chosen One: Cassie is an Etheress, a one-of-a-kind virgin whose purity is so great it makes her a godlike being in Hell.
- AM/FM Characterization: Cassie can't go five seconds without mentioning Rob Zombie or Marilyn Manson.
- Anarcho-Tyranny: To give you an idea how "law enforcement" works in Hell, when Ruth throws her trash in a trashcan, a police officer fines her for *not* littering.
- Anti-Anti-Christ: Venetia is the daughter of an angel who was tortured into insanity, where she was groomed to be Lucifer's empress. This scheme fails, however, and Venetia remains a pious nun.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Venetia's mother was an angel who was tortured, brainwashed, and raped for a hundred years straight until her mind snapped and she pledged loyalty to Satan.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Unlike some incarnations of Lucifer, who deludes himself into believing he's a freedom fighter against God's tyranny, this Lucifer has no such delusions. Everything he does is out of spite for God's perfect creation. When an angel calls him a disgrace, he takes it in stride.
- Childless Dystopia: Because God deems all children innocent by default and humans can't reproduce in Hell, the Mephistopolis is exclusively populated by adults. At least as far as humans go. There are still demon children and demon-human hybrid children so Lucifer can at least simulate the joy of torturing children.
- Demon of Human Origin: Humans aren't tortured forever in Hell. Eventually, their bodies die and their souls are recycled into a demon. Grand Dukes in particular are the highest evolution of this, and the end goal of every Satanic servant.
- Demonic Possession: Lissa is secretly possessed, most likely by Lilith.
- The Devil Is a Loser: Lucifer is depicted as being pathetically insecure and fails at almost everything he does. If it wasn't for all the suffering he caused, he'd be an utter laughingstock.
- Dramatic Unmask: Xeke pulls off his Bi-Facer mask to reveal Lissa underneath.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Ezoriel and Cassie's parents die off-screen between books.
- Dystopia Justifies the Means: Satan runs Hell to be as miserable as possible. Not only because misery generates power, but because misery offends God.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The Bighead's Cruel Twist Ending had Father Alexander going to Hell despite his heroic, pious demon-slaying. Apparently this was so unpopular that Edward Lee retconned it so Alexander instead went to Purgatory and eventually to Heaven, only after working his ass off to undermine Lucifer in Hell.
- Eldritch Location: The Mephistopolis combines the Nine Circles of The Divine Comedy with R'lyeh from the Cthulhu Mythos, as the Malevolent Architecture of Hell is full of Alien Geometries.
- Everyone Has Lots of Sex: Father Alexander and Ruth compare body-counts, the former being 200 and the latter being 600. Both figures are utterly insane, yet is treated as nothing special by either.
- Evil Tower of Ominousness: Lucifer lives in the Mephisto Building, the tallest structure ever built. It's a 666-story citadel that can be seen towering over everything in Hell no matter where you are.
- The Faceless: Even the few times he appears on-screen, Lucifer's face is never seen, as it's too beautiful for anyone to comprehend, even for other angels. To others, his head is simply engulfed in light.
- The Ghost: Other than Angel Infernal, Lucifer makes no on-screen appearances despite being the Big Bad. His omnipresence is simply felt in every scene, as the Mephistopolis is a shrine to him.
- And God/Christ make no appearances either, despite being the Greater-Scope Big Good.
- Good Is Not Nice: By modern standards, God's morality is tough but fair. He has a zero tolerance policy on suicide and he damns many of his own priests to Hell, like Father Alexander.
- Gorn: It is written by one of the most notorious Splatterpunk authors, after all. The tortures of Hell are all described in nauseating detail.
- Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of Angel Infernal, Cassie sacrifices herself to stop Lucifer from destroying Christianity. Meanwhile, Walter sacrifices himself to free the suicidal souls of Hell to Purgatory. And also, Afet committed one of these as well simply to stipulate Walter's own sacrifice.
- Historical Domain Character: Hell is full of historical figures, ranging from serial killers like Gilles de Rais or Jeffrey Dahmer to celebrities like Elvis Presley or H. P. Lovecraft.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: While there's plenty of unmistakably evil bastards who serve Satan, like Antipope Boniface or Ernst Rohm, there's some more controversial figures, like General Sherman, who was damned due to his march across Georgia.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: As wise and knowledgeable as they are, angels are mentally incapable of creativity or imagination. That blessing is reserved only for God and humans. Meaning all the elaborate tortures in Hell were devised by humans working on Satan's orders.
- Lady Swears-a-Lot: Ruth literally can't go a sentence without saying "fuck", much to Father Alexander's chagrin.
- La Résistance: Hell is full of "Anti-Luciferic terrorists" led by Ezoriel, a fallen angel who defected back to God.
- Industrialized Evil / Powered by a Forsaken Child: Hell is run on agonicity, a mix of agony and electricity. You can figure the rest out.
- Messianic Archetype: Much like Jesus himself, Cassie is a virgin from humble origins who sacrificed herself to save the world and ascended to divinity for it.
- The Mole: Xeke turns out to be a double agent for Lucifer.
- R.J. is this as well, secretly a fallen angel.
- Monster Misogyny: The only thing Satan hates more than mankind is womankind. This is mainly because he loves making a mockery of childbirth. This is multiplied tenfold after Cassie humiliates him. He builds a monument to misogyny out of spite, a giant mansion constructed entirely from the still-living severed heads of women.
- Special mention goes to Felton's rape-harem, where dozens of sex slaves are raped and impregnated forever.
- Nature Adores a Virgin: Cassie's powers come from her virginity.
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: H. P. Lovecraft is Hell's tour guide.
- Our Demons Are Different: In this mythology, demons aren't fallen angels or Nephilim, but rather the natives of Hell. When Lucifer was banished there, he conquered them and made them his Slave Race. And humans are reincarnated as demons and other hellborn if they die in Hell.
- Perky Goth: Outside of her edgy taste in fashion and music, Cassie is a very friendly and optimistic God-fearing virgin.
- Religion of Evil: Lucifer operates on earth through Satanic cults, who mainly target nuns and little girls.
- Ret-Gone: Lucifer's ultimate Evil Plan in City Infernal is to do this to the Apostles before they can write the Gospels, by extension retconning Christianity itself out of existence.
- Sinister Minister: Antipope Boniface, who committed many atrocities in life and afterlife.
- Suicide is Shameful: If you commit suicide, you go to Hell. No exceptions. However, this is mainly due to a very regrettable loophole: suicide is technically murder, and obviously you can't repent your own murder. Lucifer has built a monument to this oversight of God's: the Bastille of Otherwise Souls, boasting how he gets their souls despite not earning them. This is why Via, Xeke, Hush, and Lissa are in Hell, despite being otherwise good people.
- Ungrateful Bastard: After Zeihl sacrifices himself for Lucifer, humbly asking in return only to not be forgotten, Lucifer immediately forgets him out of spite.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Bizarrely, the fates of Via, Hush, and Lillith are never mentioned. They simply disappear and are never mentioned again.
- Would Not Hurt A Child: God. As strict as he is, there are no children in Hell, because all children go to Heaven by default, no exceptions.
- Wretched Hive: The Mephistopolis is urbanized evil, where the alleys are crawling with imps that'll mug and gangrape you, the streets are patrolled by cops who'll beat you to death for no reason, and the lights are powered by the eternal torture of the damned.
