Chapter 28

Retire where?" I asked, because I couldn't help picturing the devil buying a condo in Boca Raton. She could then go from angel to fallen angel to mistress of hell to retiree to snowbird to, inevitably, crazed nursing home resident.

"I don't know. But that's the beauty of retirement." Satan actually looked wistful. "Choices. You have choices."

"Mother, I had no idea." Laura was looking at the devil with sympathy writ large all over her pimple-free, wrinkle-free complexion. "You must be ... I didn't know."

"You're not gonna be one of those stage mothers, are you? You know-they didn't win Miss Teeny Miss Whatever, so they raise their daughter to be Miss Teeny-"

"I wouldn't force Laura," Satan interrupted. "But I would ask. A mother can ask."

Now Laura's big enormous anime eyes were filling with tears. "You poor thing!" she cried. "You poor, poor-"

I interrupted again. Laura feeling sorry for Satan was not the plan. Laura taking over hell was soooo not the plan. I didn't know what the plan was, but I was sure it wasn't either of those. "But if you've been doing this for tens of thousands of years, how can-oh."

"What?" Laura asked.

"That odd look on her face?" Satan asked. "She isn't constipated. She's realizing something for the first time."

"Shows what you know. I haven't taken a dump since I died, so by definition I'm constipated all the time."

Laura frowned. "Uh, I'm not sure-"

"How long do you expect Laura to live?" I asked, working to keep my voice level and nonshrieky. Because none of this had occurred to me before. "Will she be like you? Are you immortal?"

"By my father, no." Satan actually shivered. The thought of what could give the Lady of Lies the shakes was giving me the shakes. "Just long-lived, like all my race."

"Angels?" Laura asked.

"Yes, for lack of a better word. We can be killed, certainly. But we never get sick and we age slowly."

"I'll say. You don't look a century over eight thousand." Of course, her stolen shoes helped keep her looking young, the hateful ...

"When Father created us, he knew he would need helpers who had long life spans. A child can grow up in a decade and be dead not even ten decades after that" Satan snapped her fingers. "Like that! Poof. The light goes out."

"Yeah, the fruit flies of humanity," I said. "That's us. But why do you need to live long in the first place? Especially when the average life span these days is-uh-" Seventy-five? That sounded low. Ninety? Too high. Where was Marc when I needed him?

"Seventy-five for men," the devil supplied. "Eighty for women. Quite an improvement over, say, the Neolithic era, which was twenty. Can you imagine being considered a doddering elder before you could legally drink?"

"Stop it!"

Satan blinked. "Pardon?"

"Stop being so helpful. It's freaking me out." A thought struck me, and for a moment I thought I was going to fall down. "Retire-so Laura-how ..." I tried again. "How long do you expect Laura to live? You yourself, you've lived for-"

Laura seemed to pale before my eyes. "M-mother? Will I-will I be as long-lived as you?"

Now, some people might be psyched to find out they could live for thousands of years. But Laura, who was occasionally a complete mystery to me, looked horrified. I could almost feel her counting up all the loved ones dying of old age, her parents, her friends, her future husband and children, and their children, and theirs, while she went on ... and on ... and on ...

"I don't know," Satan replied, no screwing around, no smirky, mean grin. "I don't know how long you'll live, Laura. Nobody knows that, except maybe our father." A ghost of a smile. "And he's quite famous for hiding his cards."

Things were starting to make sense, but instead of liking it, I was becoming more uneasy. The devil might have a perfectly legitimate gripe and reason for getting me to bring Laura to hell.

And she might not.

Or it might be both. Either way, we were probably in huge trouble. If this was some big-budget movie, I, the intrepid heroine, would do something fabulous and heroic. But it wasn't a movie and I wasn't an intrepid heroine. I didn't even know what intrepid meant.

I turned to Laura. "Okay, so, we've had the tour and the devil wants to retire and it's possible you've got the life span of Japan, the U.S., and France combined. Let's retire back to earth and ponder. For years."

"Ah." Satan cocked her head. "One moment, please, ladies." Then she blinked out.

"Great," I fumed. "Stranded in hell. Too bad I didn't see this coming. Oh, wait, I did."

"She wouldn't strand us here," Laura said, sounding pretty reasonable for a half-angel psycho with a murderous temper and a loathing for lemon bars. "If nothing else, she needs me, right? She wants me to take over. Is it true?"

"Which part?"

"Will I live for a long time? Tens of thousands of years?"

"I don't know. But I'm thinking about the Book of the Dead."

"Which predicts you'll rule for five thousand years."

"That's the one."

We stared at each other, surrounded by the damned, sisters who had no control over events or even, sometimes, themselves.

"She needs me," Laura ventured after a long moment. "So she has to be nice. To both of us."

"That's true," I conceded. And it was probably why the Lady of Lies was being just sooo helpful today. "An awful lot has happened in a very short time."

"Par for the course, right?" Laura had a peculiar expression on her face ... she was trying to eavesdrop into the hell cells without the people in the cells knowing what she was up to. "I can't thank you enough for agreeing to come."

"Chalk it up to brain damage. Ongoing brain damage, because I think I'm definitely in shock."

"Do you need to lie down? I guess I could ask one of the damned for a cot. Or maybe a quilt? Um, excuse me? Excuse me-sir? No, not you, sir, the one in the cell next to you having what looks like involuntary dental surgery ..."

"Something's fucked up severe," I announced.

Laura came close to me, her hands fluttering ineffectually. "Do you feel faint?"

"Yep. Definitely in shock. Because I'm having trouble taking all of this in."

"It's okay, Betsy." The Antichrist patted my forearm. "It's hard for both of us, I think."

"For example, Laura, you have sprouted enormous wings. I think I probably should have picked up on that earlier. Yep, definitely."

"What?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I should have. Weird. This is a very weird day."

Chapter 29

l've got what?"

"Wings." Laura hadn't noticed, either. I felt less dumb.

"Where?" Laura twisted from side to side, which had the effect of someone wearing a backpack trying to see their backpack ... every twist and turn just angled the item away. Which is how I ended up ...

"Phhhfft!"

... getting a faceful of feathers.

I waved her away from me, spitting flight feathers. (Who knew that report I did on migratory snow and blue geese in eighth grade would have a practical application in hell?)

"Are they there? I can't believe it! What do they look like? I didn't feel a thing!" Whack, Whack!

I tried to wave her away. "Stop it, stop it, I can't see a thing except for primary and secondary feathers!"

"You know about birds?"

"Eighth grade. Never mind." I was reminded of the best Christmas movie with dead people ever, Scrooged, when Carol Kane's awesome Ghost of Christmas Present is twisting and jumping around and keeps whacking Bill Murray in the face with her wings. This was exactly like that, except it wasn't December, it was November. November in hell. "You want to see them? Pop them out. You know-extend 'em."

This was pretty dumb, because I was standing in exactly the wrong spot. So at about the same half second I realized Laura had a near seven-foot wingspan, her extending left wing crashed into me.

Those suckers were strong. Picture a sparrow, lean and tough from being busy all day. And also with long blonde hair, and jeans.

"Oh my God! Betsy!"

"Could you help me up, please?" I groaned from the floor. Hell carpet. Bowels of the pit. Whatever.

She hurried over to me and hauled me to my feet. Her wings weren't the stereotypical snow white you see in old paintings of angels. They really were like gigantic sparrow feathers-a plain but cute mix of mottled browns, powerful and practical.

"Sorry to disappear on you like that; I admit to being something of a micromanager. Oh, good, you've been doing some exploring."

"Mother! I have wings here. Wings!"

"Of course you do," Satan said, gazing upon Laura with maternal pride. "Your mother is an angel."

"It's so creepy when you refer to yourself in the third person."

"Shush. Satan doesn't wish to hear from the vampire queen at this time."

"Creepy!" I shouted.

But the devil wasn't paying any attention to me; she only had eyes for Laura, who, annoyingly, was even more striking with gorgeous yet practical wings sprouting from her back. "As I was saying before what's-her-name spouted off-"

"You're being a pill!" I said, keeping a wary eye on my sister's wingspan.

"-you're half angel. My lineage didn't change when I left heaven."

"Got kicked out, you mean."

I was very surprised to find my feet were a foot off the floor, as Satan had closed the five-foot distance in half a blink and hoisted me up by the front of my shirt. "I. Was not. Kicked out. I left. On my own."

"Touch-y! D'you mind? I've only worn this shirt twice; also, it's from Eddie Bauer, which means it's practically indestructible." So, a fine choice for a jaunt through Demon Town. Oh, Eddie Bauer, only you understand my vacation clothing needs.

"Let her go!"

Super. Two winged freaks battling over heaven, hell, and my turtleneck. "Laura, I'm fine." I tried a smile to show the Antichrist that being hoisted into the air and strangled by the devil wasn't such a big deal. Shit, I've been on dates that were less pleasant. "It's not like I need to breathe. Or mind dangling a foot off the ground. But if I have to grow my larynx back, you're gonna be sorry!"

"Worth it," Satan muttered, and let go.

Instantly I bent over and checked out my footgear. "You are sooo lucky I didn't get a scuff mark, you big, jerky fallen angel!"

"I tremble as I consider that close call," Satan said with a yawn.

"Will they work? I mean, can I fly?"

"What? Back on the wings again? After I had to suck up yet another felony assault from your mother? My Eddie Bauer shirt is fine; thanks for asking."

Satan's wings appeared out of nowhere just as suddenly as Laura's had. The malicious cow waited until I was out of Laura's line of fire, and into hers, before she showed us her damned (literally) wingspan.

"I have had enough"-I cut myself off and spat feathers again-"of facefuls of wings! Which is not a sentence I thought I'd ever, ever have to say! Hell just sucks, and that's all there is to it."

"Yours are all black, like raven's wings," Laura said, awed. She put out a tentative hand and stroked her mother's wing.

"Or really dirty ones. Like you spent a lot of time lurking in chimneys. Or the Koch refinery smokestacks."

The pseudo-angels ignored me. Getting to be a common theme around here, I was sorry to note.

"Of course they work," Satan was explaining. "But like anything, you will need practice. But you're mistaken in your assumption that they've only now 'appeared.' They have always been a part of you, just like your Hellfire weapons. But they can only be seen by all eyes in this dimension."

"So when I'm home-St. Paul, I mean-they're there, but no one can see them."

"Yes. It's too much for the human eye to take in. I'm not sure I'll be able to break this down for you, but I'll try. Our wings sort of shift between realities. Your Hellfire sword and crossbow are always with you but can be seen only under the right circumstance-for example, on earth, they can be seen when you are stressed, when you are vengeful. You call on them and they appear to all. But they were always there. You aren't making them appear, you're simply making use of them. Your wings are much the same."

"Like how Jessica can't always get a taxi. If she's somewhere late and deserted, cabbies don't always see her. They don't even think they're being bigots about it; they'd pass a lie detector test that they never even saw her." They both looked at me. "What? I'm trying to contribute to the weirdest conversation ever."

"Well, all right. And I will say you've come up with a parallel that isn't completely stupid or terrible," the devil admitted.

"Aw. I'm getting all choked up and everything."

"Choked, at the very least," the devil muttered. My! Satan was Ms. Crabby Pants today.