Chapter 23

That was ... hmm, what is the word? Ah! Pointless. A word that leaps effortlessly to mind whenever the queen of the vampires expresses an opinion."

"Well, excuse me for having a moment of self-awareness!"

"You are excused; I know full well how rare and wonderful such moments are for you. Now." The devil clapped her hands together, like a kindergarten teacher briskly bringing the rowdy ankle-biters under her command. "Since you have both agreed to come to my domain, there are a few elementary rules you must-"

"No."

The devil blinked. "Pardon?"

"We say. Not you. Because I know something you prob'ly wish I didn't. You need µs." I paused, relishing the sweet, sweet words about to tumble from my lip-glossed mouth (Too Faced in Drop Dead Red). "You need me." Ha! Reap the whirlwind, Satan!

"Yeah!" Laura echoed, but she was a shit poker player, because the doubt? It was writ large, as they say. "You need me. Uh. Her."

"I smell a list of demands," Satan said, but to my relief, she didn't seem annoyed, or even put out. "Speak, 0 Vampire Queen."

Bark, bark! "You want Laura to see your domain, or whatever the hell you call it."

"Was that supposed to be a pun?"

"Not on purpose. And you know Laura wouldn't come by herself. So I'm gonna get her to the Underworld for you. In return, you're gonna fix it so I can read the Book of the Dead without going nuts."

Laura made a muffled squeaking sound, sort of a gasp crossed with a sigh. "The book! Betsy, I don't think that's a good idea."

"I'm sick to death of the damn thing being in my house and always being right, while at the same time nobody can read the stupid thing."

"But, Betsy ... it's bad. You know it is. Anybody who looks at it for more than a second and a half can feel how bad it is. How can being able to read it be any sort of improvement? Think of what it might cost."

"Worth it. Can you imagine all the shit we could have avoided over the last three years if we could read the fucking thing?

"I'm tired of guessing and wondering. I want to know. I need to know. Your mom's probably the only one who can-uh." Probably said too much. "Anyway," I finished with a forced cough, "that's my price for bringing your kid back for Old Home Week."

"Agreed," she said at once. And the way Satan said it-the word out so quickly it almost stepped on the end of my sentence-it was a tone I'd never heard from the devil. She had the air of a person who knew she was getting off lightly.

"But what's in this for you?" As if she'd tell us. But I'd at least ask. I'd at least know, when this whole thing went screaming off the rails, that I'd asked. That I'd tried. "What do you care if Laura ever sees hell? Maternal obligation isn't exactly the phrase that springs to mind when we're talking about you."

"I want her to see my home because not seeing it will eventually drive her mad."

There was a painful silence as Laura and I digested this. Then I forced another cough (which sounded more like a croak) and said, "You mean make her mad. Really piss her off. Like how people get when they get dragged to their high school reunion. Right? That's what you don't want to risk. Right?"

"You think the dreams are bad now? You think the pains are bad now?" Satan asked her kid. The fallen angel looked as concerned as I'd ever seen her. The devil was a caring mom; who knew? "You have no idea, Laura. And I mean for things to stay just that way. I mean for you to never have an idea. For you never to know how bad it could have gotten. I'm not here for her. I'm not even here for me. I'm here for you."

"You mean ... you didn't do that? You didn't make that happen to get me to come?"

"By my father, no! I could never hurt you-and even if I could, I would never. You coming into harm-serious, permanent harm-how does that help me?"

That was logical enough to be true.

"Laura, you look human. You sound human, you talk like a human. You smell and speak and excrete like a human. You menstruate and-"

"TMI!"

Satan ignored me. "But you aren't. You're only partly human. And all that is me, within you, that part of you calls to my home, and will always call to you. The part of you that isn't human yearns toward the dimension where my will shapes reality."

"I don't get it," I admitted.

"Laura is an Arabian horse," Satan explained, "who was raised on a pig farm and thinks she's a ping."

"Your analogies are hideous." Did that make me queen of the pigs? Or just queen of the pigs who were already dead? "Almost as hideous as-" I eyed her up and down. "As hideous as-wait."

"I prefer not to wait for your tedious mental grinding to bring you up to speed. Now, when we go to my dimension, you'll need-"

"Wait!"

I'd been so caught up in figuring out who was going to do what, and who was going to get what, and who wasn't going to go crazy, I'd barely glanced at Satan's ensemble. But now ...

Now, there was no shutting it out.

"Your feet."

"-pay close attention to-"

"Your. Feet."

"-for the sake of your immortal-"

"Your feeeeeet!" I shrieked, and launched myself at my sister's evil evil evil evil evil mother! Who was wearing a sleeveless gray and black checked shift with a gathered waist and a round neckline, a dress subtle and pretty and which was the perfect outfit to wear ...

... with ...

... my sacrificed Valentino black-lace pumps!

I figure Satan wasn't used to bitchy vampires jumping her, because she went over as though she were made of feathers. I even got in a right cross to her demonic jaw before a thousand firecrackers went off behind my eyes and the bricks above the fireplace jumped forward and slammed me in the back.

The good news was it didn't hurt a bit ...

Chapter 24

l see I can gloss over the hell-is-another-dimension-and-not-easily-visited portion of my lecture."

"I hate you," I said without opening my eyes. There didn't seem to be any point to getting an eyeful of where I was and what was going on. "So, so much."

"If I were human," Satan bitched, "I would have an unsightly black eye. This is how you treat a guest you invited into your home?"

"Invited is a strong word," I replied.

"Are you okay? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Child, she hasn't opened her eyes."

"That's true, Laura. I haven't."

"Does it feel like anything's broken?"

It was nice; Laura sounded superconcerned. "Only my sense of reason, purpose, and childlike wonder." I opened my eyes. And blinked. Lots. "Where the hell are we?"

"Yes," Laura and the devil said in unison. Followed by the devil adding, "I'm astonished you got it right the first time. I had allotted twenty minutes for you to eventually guess right, and then need everything explained at least twice. Starting two minutes ago. And now, see? My entire evening just opened up."

"Yes, well, let that be a lesson to you." I sat up, wincing, then lurched to my feet. My back ached from neck to butt, and I had a whopper of a headache, probably from the devil tossing me ass over teakettle into the bricks above the fireplace. Luckily I'd fed recently, and thank you again, would-be rapists.

Dead or not, I could still be hurt. I could still die (again). Tough to kill didn't mean invulnerable. It did mean tough to kill. So I bounced back pretty quickly, and never was I happier about that than when I woke up in hell.

Which was really, really good, since I was betting she'd fractured my skull and possibly, for funsies, shattered my spine. In hell for-what? Seventy seconds, and already hideously crippled.

"And I left my overnight bag in the stupid parlor next to the stupid Book of the Dead!" Great. Already this field trip sucked. "No lip gloss." (I dunno if all vampires were prone to dry lips, or just me, and there was no way to tell, because I had lived on Chapstick since I was six.) "And no change of underwear!"

"Tsk. I can't tell you how much-" Satan cut herself off and got a peculiar look on her face. She looked as though she were listening to voices. Which she most likely was. Unlike the average citizen of the damned, the voices in her head were probably real. "Well, that's just terrific. Sorry, ladies; I must fly. Something has come up."

"But-" Laura began, already sounding panicked. In hell for a minute and a half and ditched by the devil? Muy uncool.

"My assistant can answer your questions and give you a tour. Just go through that door."

We looked; we were standing in a room of nothing.

Okay, I'll elaborate: we were in a nondescript room with high ceilings and cheap carpeting. Everything was blah gray. No windows, no doors. No sound. No light source. It was almost like we were standing in a fog bank that had walls. It was a room of nothing.

"But Baal-" Laura began.

"I'm good, darling, but even I can't be in two places at once. As I said-my assistant will take over until I return. She's through that, there. No worries; no one here will bother you. Unless I tell them to." Satan grinned, and blinked out of sight.

"Well, this is off to a suck-o start. What's amazing is that I hear myself, and I actually sound surprised."

"She might not care if you die," Laura said, clearly trying to be reassuring, which would have gone over better if she didn't look terrified, "but she seems to care if I do. So if you stick by me, Betsy, I think we'll be safe."

"And I think I'm weirded out." I gestured. "That's a door."

"Uh ... yes. It is a door. See? I'm not scared. You shouldn't be, either."

"Laura, you sound like an episode of Sesame Street. There wasn't a door three seconds ago. There wasn't anything three seconds ago."

"Should we-?"

I looked at her, then back at the door. The doorknob gleamed innocently. I was pretty sure. "I guess we'd better," I said.

I stepped forward and gingerly gripped the knob. I was expecting it to be hot. You know ... hellish. But it just turned when I turned it.

So we went in.