Yes! We were in Hell!

(This was what my life was. I was glad to fall through a hole in the world and plop into Hell, where my sister was temping for the devil. Oh, and the devil was trying to goad me into killing her. Unless I'd guessed wrong, in which case the devil was gonna squash me like a grape.)

"Tricky tricky," she panted, easily dodging my fist. And then my kick. But my other kick landed-ha! A perfect day to wear my pointiest leather boots. Take that, Satan! And that! And-

"Ow!" She was pretty fast for someone at least five billion years old. What had I been thinking?

I remembered my theory. I remembered my utterly insane idea that this wouldn't be a fair fight... and why that was actually good for me. Why it could be the saving of me... and him. And maybe even the future.

Because time is a wheel.

"You think... He loves you?"

"Really? We're gonna chat about God while we're trying to kill each other?" My ears weren't ringing so much as booming. And it was suddenly almost impossible to see out of my left eye. Was that my blood or hers making everything look pinkish red? Probably mine.

"It's the last... conversation... I plan to have... with you. So answer."

"Yeah, then. He does. Sure He does."

"And me?"

"Of course... He still loves you... moron! That was never the issue... moron! You big stupid moron!" Normally I didn't have to think of what to call people I was pissed at. Asshat, dumbshit, shitstain, fuckface, jizzbucket, fucktard, dickweed, cockknocker, jizzhole... it all usually came tripping off my tongue in a glorious rain of obscenity.

Had to work for the insults now, though. It was hard to think, what with all the red stuff in my eyes and the booming in my ears, which I was pretty sure were also bleeding.

I felt her hot little hands close around my neck and start to squeeze. I punched. Punched. Punched-nothing. Should have found the time to take a martial arts course. Yoga couldn't help me now.

It was tough work, bitching at the devil while being throttled, but I was up for the challenge. "How come... older you get... dumber y'get?"

"Yes, He does," Satan replied, a thoughtful look on her bloody face. "I suppose He does. He must, you know. It's one of His rules. I think I..."

"Gggsssshat!"

"I think I want... I'd like... to go home."

"Stop it!" It was Laura, yelling from a galaxy far, far away. "Stop it-don't-you're killing her-stop killing her!"

No idea. No idea who she was talking to. Her mom? Her sister? A player to be named later? Wow, look at all the blood coming out of me! Almost as much as a live person! Weird!

"Don't! Don't! What are you doing? Let go!"

It was good that Laura was here. Was almost here. What was keeping her, anyway? I needed her here. My plan wouldn't work without her here. Oh, Laura, I'm so sorry you're here.

Satan grinned at me through bloody teeth. Her hair had been yanked from its neat coiffure and she looked kind of Medusa-esque. With luck she'd need a deep-conditioning treatment after she'd beaten me to death. "Uh-oh."

"My thought... xxxactly," I gurgled.

"You'll have to do it in front of her."

". . . kkk..."

"You'll have to steal her future while she watches."

". . . nnn..."

"Him or her, Betsy? Now's when we see."

". . . favor..."

"What?" I had actually landed a good one-splat!-in the middle of her narrow Lena Olin face. Finally, I'd surprised her. Really surprised her. Not the fake stuff she usually showed me. Had been showing me all along. "What, stupid girl?"

". . . want one... favor... a wish... want it..."

It was probably all the skull fractures, but her eyes, usually brown, and recently dead black like a night sky without stars, seemed to burn. Eyes on fire, that was what they looked like-and it wasn't quite right. She wasn't human, this was an angel, I was killing an angel and she was killing me and she was a creature I did not understand, could never have understood, asking for an explanation had been a waste of time and had only increased her contempt and her eyes were like nothing I'd ever seen, her eyes her eyes oh God oh please help me now God her terrible terrible eyes...

"Yes! One! For what you'll do. Now do it! Your worst, vampire queen, show me your worst and choose!"

I almost didn't. Almost couldn't. I had never been so frightened, never. In the end it was my essential stubborn nature

(fuck you Lena Olin you're scary but you're gonna die or I'm gonna and I'm fine with dying again because time is a wheel)

that allowed me to reach for nothing

"Stop! Stop! Stop!"

and grasp the Antichrist's hellfire sword

"Don't! Betsy! Motherrrrr! Don't!"

which only Laura or one of her blood could wield

"Let go of me! What are you-let go!"

and shoved it in the devil's heart. Or where the devil's heart would have been, had she ever had one.

Laura's last shriek cut off like someone had thrown a switch. Maybe someone had.

Shocked, Satan looked down at the piece of light sticking out of her chest. I have to admit, I was surprised, too, though I was pretty sure this had been what she wanted, what she had been planning from the minute Laura was born, the minute I'd come back from the dead.

But knowing wasn't the same as doing. Astonished together, we looked at the chunk of Laura's soul, the pieces of her self she made into weapons that could kill angels and vampires, and then at each other. Neither of us knew what to do.

So I shoved the sword in harder. I dunno... it just seemed like the thing to do. So I went with it.

"Finally," said Satan, and she died.

I wasn't falling for it, though. I mean, probably she was dead.

But because Dr. Taylor didn't raise no fools, I took off her head with the backswing. "I chose," I told her head as it bounced past me. "Happy now?"