Chapter 14

l whirled. "You!"

"Me," Satan agreed. Against every instinct of self-preservation I'd come up with in thirty-some years, I instantly glanced at her feet. And moaned.

"Ah," God's Problem Child simpered, batting her long eyelashes. "You noticed."

Of course I noticed. She could have pulled mukluks over them and I would have noticed. She could have been disguised as the Michelin Man and I would have noticed.

The devil was wearing a pair of Stuart Weitzman stilettos. They were trimmed with 1,420 Kwiat diamonds (over thirty carats!), which were set in platinum. Anika Noni Rose (the other Dreamgirl) wore them to the Oscars in 2007. And they were quite the bargain at half a million dollars.

"Tell me. How are things with my favorite dead thirty-something?"

I was too overwhelmed to reply, or take offense. Or even really notice. I was ... dazzled. The Book of the Dead could have morphed into naked Robert Downey Jr. and I wouldn't have so much as glanced at Hollywood's hottest new/old bad boy.

Satan smiled down at her beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful shoes, and who could blame her?

While I was thinking about it, have I mentioned the devil looked like Lena Olin? Like the hottest cougar in the history of hot older women? A cougar who could seduce all your guy friends but then take you out for drinks and charm you into grudging forgiveness?

Pure evil stalked me in my own home, wearing stiletto heels and a severely cut suit with a high neckline. The suit, I knew at once, was made of vicuna wool, the most expensive fabric on the planet. It ran for about $1,780 a yard. I knew because she'd worn another suit in a different cut and color last year, a deep luscious black, and I'd been curious enough to look it up.

Severe suit in midnight blue, great shoes, minimal makeup, no perfume, no jewelry (who needed it with footgear like that?), and the sheerest stockings, more like silk webbing than something man-made. Satan preferred garter belts (I wish I didn't know that). And also tempting the bejeezus out of your friendly neighborhood vampire queen.

"-a favor."

"Bluh?"

"I said you've got the look of someone who needs a favor."

"I whuh? Neh? Mem."

"You seem less loquacious than usual. Now then. I know you and my daughter had a nice chat over A1 Pacino movies and microwave popcorn. I also know that you have a problem. Several, not least of which is your anemic IQ, but one in which I can be of some assistance. Even better, one in which I wish to be of assistance. And I am willing to assist you, but in return I must insist-"

" 'Scuse me. I have to lie down." I tottered toward the love seat (recently reupholstered in a deep moss green velvet after one of my roommates barfed buffalo grass vodka all over it) and tried to lie down. But I couldn't make it in time before my knees buckled, so I just ...

I just sort of ...

Um ... sort of ...

"Well smack my face and cast me out of heaven." Satan's face appeared above mine; the devil was about as concerned as she ever got. "You swooned. Do you know how rare an old-fashioned swoon is these days? It looked like a slow-motion belly flop. Would you like a pillow? I trust that carpet isn't as dusty as it looks. And smells."

"Those are just really very great and awesome shoes," I managed, blinking up at the Morningstar.

"And I got them for a song," she replied. "Or more specifically, a soul. But they can be yours for the low, low price of-"

"What the hell is going on here?"

Satan snapped her head around, and I heard a hiss of irritation. Or maybe she just had a leak somewhere. My best friend, Jessica, was framed in the doorway, arms akimbo. Which was pretty alarming, because she was beyond bony and her elbows could have been registered as deadly weapons. She could shatter car windows with them.

"None of your concern, Ms. Watson. Why don't you run along and spend more money you didn't earn?"

"And why don't you go back to hell?" Jessica was doing pretty well given that (a) she'd never met the devil and (b) she was, in fact, spending money she didn't earn. Daily, even. "Not that it's any of your damn business, but I bled for that money. Now, I don't know why you're here-"

"Most likely because I would never trouble myself to inform you."

"-but no way is it good news for anybody in my house."

"Her house," the Adversary snapped back, pointing a perfectly manicured, French-tipped finger at me. "The deed is in her and her husband's name."

"It is?" Oh. Right. I think Sinclair had mumbled something about that a few months ago. I was too busy avoiding the front hall and this room to pay much attention. "So we own the house ... so? It's just semantics."

"Do you actually know what that word means?"

"It means Jessica's owned plenty of the places I've rented or lived. So if the deed's in her name or my name or Tina's name or the cat's name, it's just as much her home as mine."

"Except from a legal standpoint," Baal said, rolling her eyes.

"Out!" Jessica actually stamped her foot. Also frightening ... she was a size nine, but her feet had, like, almost no width. It looked like she walked around on rulers. They were sharp like rulers, too. When she swung one into my shin, it stung like crazy. Undead superpowers could not prevent the stinging. "Right now!"

"Or what? You'll tell Daddy? He's fine, by the way, my dear, dull Miss Watson. Actually that's not true. He's damned! He is utterly un-fine."

Jessica's skin was too gorgeously dark to go pale when she was afraid. Instead, when she was scared, her face seemed to tighten. That broke the fog I'd been in since I'd eyeballed the demonic footgear.

"Knock it off." I'd meant it to sound like a tough command. But it came out weak. And feeble.

The devil didn't even glance at me. And she hadn't moved, hadn't taken a step toward Jess. But it seemed like she had. It felt like she had. With only her voice, she seemed to loom over Jessica. To ... to blot her out.

Which really, really pissed me off.

"It's a dull pattern, isn't it? In your showgirl mother's shadow until she died. And now in Betsy's. Who, of course, will never grow old and ugly, just less and less intelligent."

"Hey!"

"Do you pick beautiful women to live with on purpose?" She sounded genuinely interested, which was just another way she lied. "Or do you only realize it waaaaay down deep, in the bottom of your brain where the serpents live?" The devil grinned. "And me, of course. I visit there." Pause. "I love it there."

"You get out of here," Jessica managed, and she sort of wheezed it. I think, in her head, I think she thought she was shouting.

"Of course! But before I go, did you have any messages for dear, damned Daddy? Or your mother, who chose her husband's money over her daughter's safety? She's still a showgirl in my realm, you know. And still can't get work. And still in your father's shadow! You should see her, Jessica, you should see them both. They hate each other. Almost as much as they hate you."

Satan threw back her long, elegant neck and laughed. The booming chortles filled the room like a swarm of bats-tried, anyway, because a crunch of wood and skull cut the laughfest off just when it was getting started.

Jessica smiled, but her lips were trembling. "Oh, Bets. That might cost you one of these days."

The devil was rubbing the back of her head and glaring at me. I'd managed to shake off my stupor, get off the floor, snatch up the book stand (the Book of the Dead went flying, but it wasn't like anything would happen to it), and crown Satan with it. Since I was moving at vampire superspeed, I'd been able to get some momentum behind the swing. And did the crunch sound feel good?

Hells yeah! Tax-refund good. All-your-tests-came-back-negative good. I-can't-finish-do-you-want-the-rest-of-my-dessert good.

"The next one," I warned, brandishing the broken stand like a jagged baseball bat, "goes through your teeth. Get your saggy ass out of our house."

Satan finished shaking splinters out of her perfectly coiffed hair. "My ass is not soggy."

"Yeah? You should check it out from where I'm standing," I sneered, which was total bravado. Her ass was awesome. "Now scat. Or do I have to get a priest in here to perform an exorcism?"

"Tempting. I haven't had a good laugh in eighty-seven seconds. An eternity with you people." Lucifer Morningstar folded her wool-clad arms across her perfectly shaped boobs and eyed the toe of her beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful shoes. "I shall scat, as you like. But Betsy, when you need to reach me, and you will, you will know what I require."

"What are you gonna require?" Jess asked, a suspicious scowl on her face.

"The queen will know," she said with Lena Olin's voice. "She need only think about temptation."

"Right now I'm only thinking about caving in your skull. Again. Ha! So take that."

"Oh, and Betsy? I've already forgiven you that little bit of criminal assault, so it will all be behind us tomorrow. You need not fear to call on me."

"Yeah? Wrong again, you loser devil-type fallen angel, because I will f-" Then she blipped right out of existence. There was even a sharp pop! which I realized was the sound of air rushing into the space she had been occupying. "I hate when she does that. Right in the middle of a sentence. She's like Batman that way. Except bitchier."

Jessica still looked dreadful, but her expression was relaxing a little and her eyes, while shiny, didn't drip tears. It hadn't exactly been the worst day of her life when her useless, disgusting parents had died. To paraphrase Stephen King, sometimes an accident can be an unhappy woman's best friend.

Put it this way: if they hadn't died, I would have eventually had to kill them. And who needs that on a to-do list?

"Jeez, Betsy." She eyed the book, the splinters, the book-stand-turned-limbo-pole. "You're such a badass."

"Hey. The only person who can belittle you and taunt you with family secrets until you almost cry is me. Besides, those shoes weren't even in my size," I lied, knowing exactly how the fox had felt when she couldn't snatch the grapes.

Chapter 15

Then she said mean stuff to Jessica, so I smashed a book stand across the back of her skull. Then she left. Then Jess left. Then I left." I took another gulp of my Orange Julius. Enduring November, and back at the Mall of America. Pattern? What pattern? "Oh, and I'm not speaking to the king of the vampires right now, but I s'pose I'll forgive him in a couple more hours."

I happened to look up and catch a pair of teenage boys openly staring at me. "What? Is there something on my face?" I furtively touched my nose, chin, and eyebrows. Was I dripping Orange Julius from somewhere? "Stop staring," I told them, and like testosterone-swamped seventeen-year-old robots, they both went back to their Big Macs.

It's not that I'm a sexpot, or even a Miss America type. I have this undead sex-appeal thing going on. It had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Why Being A Vampire Takes A While To Get Used To. Yes, I occasionally made ruthless use of it to get out of a speeding ticket. But that was the extent of my evil. I swear!

"Aw, give 'em a break. You did say, in the middle of a public food court, that you made the devil your bitch and that you're not putting out for the vampire king. I'm surprised only two people noticed."

My roommate (one of the legions) lounged in his plastic chair at our tiny sticky food-court table. Marc was-I think I mentioned this-an ER doctor, though tonight he was disguised as a shave-needing, sleep-deprived cutie in faded scrubs that smelled like cotton, sweat, dried blood, and Mennen Speed Stick. (Alpine Force ... and how dumb was that? Alpine Force? Who thinks this shit up?)

So, he was in disguise as an ER doctor. I saw Marc in scrubs so often, I didn't think I'd recognize him in jeans, or gingham.

He was also slammin' handsome if you liked the sharp-featured, compassionate, green-eyed, warm, hilarious, brunet type.

"I knew I shouldn't have covered Ren's shift." Marc groaned and raked his fingers through his schizophrenic hair. In the couple of years I'd known him he'd tried shoulder length, shaved, crew cut, short and messy, short and short, buzz cut, ponytail, the Caesar, the Beckham, the fauxhawk, the crop, the Keith Urban, the Josh Holloway, and even, during one ten-day period no one in our house ever talked about, the armadillo (complete with white spikes).

Today he was sporting the relatively benign Christian Bale. I was sporting my usual blonde-with-red-lowlights, which I was fated to stick with for five thousand years. Thank God I'd gotten a touch-up a couple weeks before I died. Bad hair ... forever. That's just mean. And so, so wrong. Nobody deserves that.

"But he was bitching about how his kid did the Heimlich on some other kid in the cafeteria ... I guess the school's giving him a plaque for making a cheerleader barf up a French fry. Like the world would miss one cheerleader."

"Too mean," I commented.

Marc waved away my criticism. "Ren cornered me when I was weak from not having my fifth Coke, and I let him talk me into the switch. So where was I? Huh? Huh? Yeah," he added as if I'd said something. "Stitching scalps and fending off rash-infested babies, disimpacting a sundowner, getting puke on my shoes and in my shoes, and pretending I'm in a meaningful relationship so Dan-Dan-the-Ambulance-Man quits asking me out"

"It sounds pretty yuck-o," I acknowledged.

Marc took a swig of Coke. "ER lied to me, Betsy. All the TV shows about doctors lied to me. There's nothing glamorous about working in an ER. Not one thing. The only reason I even applied to med school was because I had dreams of being in a George Clooney-Eriq La Salle sandwich."

"Do I want to ask what disimpaction is? Or a sundowner?" About the sandwich, I could fill in the blanks. Frankly, I'd heard worse ideas.

He shook his head. "You know I'll answer you."

"Okay. So, not asking."

I had called his bluff on that once.

Once.

"Anyway," I continued, "you didn't really miss all that much."

He snorted.

"Yeah, okay, you missed tons. It was weird and scary and interesting."

"Like all of the devil's visits."

"up."

"Or a trial by jury." He shuddered. "How's Jess?"

"Oh, you know. Stressed. Missing Nick. And the holidays are starting up. Bad time."

"So her parents are burning in hell. Literally burning in hell."

I shrugged.

"Well, what did Jessica say about it?"

I shrugged again. I didn't blame Marc for loving gossip or being curious. But that didn't mean I had Information written on my forehead in purple Sharpie.

Marc leaned back, slung an arm across the back of the chair next to his, and gave me a long look. I slurped and waited him out. Gone were the days when a long, studied stare would startle me into blurting out my bra size. I was a stone of patience. A stone!

"Y'know, Betsy, there aren't a lot of dead black guys who lived in Minnesota and had one daughter, married a showgirl, and made a billion dollars before their thirty-fifth birthday."

Then I, the stone, nearly sicked up Julius all over my friend's cheese curds.