Undead and Unforgiven (25 page)

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

“Oh my
God
,” Marc managed. He looked around. “I might need to sit down. Possibly forever. You killed her!” He said that to me like I'd fallen down on the job, or lied. “It's the whole reason you're stuck running Hell! It's the only reason we're in Hell with you!”

“Well, there's killed,” the devil replied, still absurdly cheerful, “and then there's killed.”

“I always maintained she let me win,” I replied, because it was true. The devil and I had fought to the death, and we'd gone at it hard, but somewhere in there I'd gotten the sense that she wanted out, wanted to be gone, wanted away. Why else do me a favor as she was leaving? Why else grant me a wish, and let Sinclair bear the light of God's love again?

“How'd you know?” Satan seemed honestly curious. “Checking the directory was a neat trick, but how'd you even get suspicious enough to do that?”

Sinclair's thoughts were so stunned, they seemed to come from far away.
She was a fool to underestimate you.

Yeah, maybe. But I'm not going to make the same mistake. She's the Lady of Lies, you know.

The Ant coughed into her fist. “I'd like to know that, too. Because I—” She left it unspoken, but I knew her. She meant:
I knew Satan better than any of you—we were friends, kind of—and if I didn't suspect; how the bleeding hell did you?

“There were lots of hints,” I said.

“Oh?” Satan smirked, because she was a bitch. “Enlighten me.”

“When you said that thing, ‘Behold, evil's coming forth' or whatever . . .”

“‘Behold, evil is going forth from nation to nation,'
that
tipped you off?”

“I looked it up when I got home. It's from the Old Testament. Catholics in general and priests in particular tend to stick with the New Testament. And you knew who that Civil War guy was—David? Davis? Not Jefferson Davis—most Americans have heard of him. You knew about the
other
Davis, the one who murdered his CO and never went to trial, the Davis almost no one has heard of. I remember being surprised you were a Civil War buff when it had never come up before. When you'd never asked Tina about anything Civil War related, though you knew she lived through it. That seemed out of character. My mom's doctorate is all about the Civil War and she practically stalks Tina. Why didn't you?”

“Perhaps because I could speak with any number of people who lived through it here?” she suggested.

“That's another thing. You knew so many backstories of the damned, but you were never seen interviewing anyone. You just knew what they'd done in life to deserve their punishment in death. I put it down to efficiency, but after a while I realized nobody was
that
efficient. You
knew their stories because you know everyone here. Because you're
you
. And even in disguise, you're so fucking vain you couldn't resist sticking up for yourself.”

She'd been listening to me with what looked like fond attention, head tipped to one side as she smiled. The smile dropped off at that. “Explain yourself.”

“Don't you remember? We were in one of our meetings—one of the many meetings
you
scheduled—and got to wondering where you—Satan you, not Father Markus you—had gone to. Someone suggested Heaven, and you were pretty quick to point out that the devil wouldn't set foot in Heaven for anything. And not because the devil was sulking—except you were, Satan, just admit it already: you've been in a billion-year sulk, a sulk for the ages.

“You said it was more complicated than that—except it wasn't. You said even if God could forgive, ‘who's to say the Morningstar would want forgiveness'? You were supposed to be a kindly priest, but couldn't resist defending your childish bullshit. It's hilarious when you think about it.”

Any pretense of being interested in how she'd given herself away, how this was just too cute and my goodness wasn't Betsy adorable, dropped away. Satan was scowling, and I'd like to say it wasn't a pretty sight, except she looked like Lena Olin, so it was.

She gestured to the masses of souls behind her. “No need to do this in front of everyone.”

“Oh, sure,
now
you need privacy.”

She gritted her teeth. “All of you: disperse.”

NOBODY FUCKING MOVE.

I hadn't said it. I'd thought it the way I did with Sinclair. And I fired that thought like a bullet into every soul in Hell.

Nobody moved.

“Where's the real Father Markus?”

“How should I know?” she cried, recovering quickly. Had to give it to her, Satan was like those stand-alone punching bags with sand in their base. You could punch them, but they bopped right back up. “Not here, that's for sure! He's in Heaven with my Father, I suppose, or haunting a rectory somewhere. I needed to be someone you'd trust, so he was it.”

Well. I guess it was good that the real Father Markus wasn't condemned to Hell. Still, it made me sad for some reason, because I should have been happy for him. But now wasn't the time.

“You're here, you're ‘alive,' whatever that means anymore. But you're not as strong as you were, because Hell is mine now. They”—nodding to the souls who hadn't budged—“listen to me now. So tell me: why couldn't I make it rain in the conference room? Why do some things here bend to my will, and some don't?”

“Because you didn't really want it to rain, you were clutching at a straw. When you really needed a watch, Hell provided. When you're just bitching, Hell's got nothing to fix on.”

“That sounds completely made up.”

She shrugged. “Mouthing words with nothing behind them isn't bending Hell to your will. It's just babbling, for which I assume you could take the gold.”

I smirked. “Yes, I babbled and I'm so stupid and, by the way, I saw through you in less than a week. So how about you choke on that for a while, you hateful tricky twat?”

Ever wonder what Satan would look like if she tried to swallow her own face? I don't, because I know. It's pretty funny. And like all mistresses of deflection, she didn't directly respond. She just turned to the Ant (who was wearing a distinct “ulp!” expression) and said, “I expected better of you, Antonia.”

“Me?” she gasped. “Why, what was I supposed to do?”

“Prevent some of her sillier changes from going through! Rewriting the Ten?
Buddies?
And now she's rewriting the Seven? What shit!”

“Well, I expected better of you,” the Ant replied, drawing herself up, her big, shellacked hair making her seem taller than she was. “You let her kill you, for what? So you could sneak back in and try to slow down any changes to your precious regime? That's not worthy of you, Lucifer. Stay or go, but don't do this cowardly in-between nonsense.”

“I know nobody says this anymore,” Marc murmured to Tina, “but oh, snap!”

“Shut
up
!” Satan snapped.

Marc gulped. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Oh, you're disappointed in me?” the devil taunted. “You think I should have confided in you? Did you think we were friends?”

“No.” That was it, just “no.” My stepmother stood on her dignity, which I would have thought was impossible.

“Good. We were never friends.” She ignored the Ant's flinch and continued. “I allowed you to be the Vessel for the Antichrist, and when you left your tiresome dull life by way of your tiresome dull death, I put you to work so you'd feel wanted. That's all you were to me: a worker bee. And I would have thought that you'd know a real leader from the false moron who's been pretending to be in charge.”

“She might be a moron, but she's doing a pretty good job so far. And as she pointed out, she figured you out pretty quick.”

“A fluke from a flake.”

“Ladies.” I cleared my throat. “I'm right here. Well within earshot.” Also, this was further proof (like I needed it) that this was all happening in Hell: the Ant was sticking up for me. And appeared to be sincere! Soon: the three horses of the Apocalypse. Wait. Four horses. Right? Red, white, black, and pink. No. Pale. Right? Argh.

I shook off thoughts of pink horses. “But why?” I asked. “Why do any of it? Why let me kill you and then sneak back and try to help, kind of, when not trying to undermine me? Because you
were
helpful, some of the time. But how come?”

“I wanted to see how you'd do at the helm. I couldn't give you on-the-job training unless I came back disguised like someone you'd trust. If you sucked at this too much,” Satan said with aggravating cheer—I'd never known anyone to get so mad and then recover so quickly—“you'd have been replaced. My daughter might have been stuck with it. I went to too much trouble to prevent that, so I wasn't going to just stay gone and risk that my sacrifice was for nothing.”

“God forbid,” I muttered. Blech: even after dealing with Satan, I still had to go back and deal with her rotten kid. Well, one thing at a time. Meanwhile, the devil was still pontificating.

“I might not have had control over how that went, or what happened after.
You,
though. You're almost trainable, and occasionally close to being bright. And you know what they say.” One eye closed in a slow wink. “The devil you know, right?”

“Ugh.” Overdone, but it was all I could think of to say. Then: “So all those times you said you were praying on one of my ideas, you were never praying.”

“Duh.”

“We're done,” I decided. I turned to check with my friends. “Unless you guys had anything to add?”

I never saw so many heads shake so quickly: no, nope, definitely not, we're good, carry on.

“I'll leave when I'm damned good—”

“You were never good.” I took a deep (unnecessary) breath. It helped. Kept my knees from shaking, anyway. I'd half wondered if at this point in the festivities, we'd
be fighting to the death again, or if the devil would have just tossed me out of Hell on my toned butt. “I want you gone. I want you away forever.”

“You can't—”

The archdiocese directory wasn't the only thing I'd studied. “I command you, demon. Get you gone from here. Leave Hell behind, now and forever.”

“Don't. Don't do that.”

I drew myself up and, unlike the Ant, didn't need pineapple-colored hair to look imposing. “You are cast out.
Get you gone!
”

It wasn't at all dramatic. She'd didn't explode, or vanish in a flash of light or a puff of brimstone, or let loose with a cackle like Maleficent and stay right where she was. She just faded. She got lighter and paler and her expression went from pissed to surprised to astonished to frightened and she just faded away.

You know the saying “you could have heard a pin drop”? Not this time; at least a thousand people were murmuring and gasping. You couldn't have heard a platoon of pins dropping.

“Oh, good,” I managed. I turned so my back was to the damned, so I was facing my family and could let my expression relax. “I was kind of afraid that wouldn't work.”

“What
was
that?” Marc managed. “Did you look up some kind of spell book?”

“No. It's from
The Eyes of the Dragon.
You know, Stephen King?” At their combined incredulous gazes I added, “What? I don't do magic. And it's not about the words, anyway. It's about the will.
My
will. Which reminds me.” I turned to the king of the vampires, who looked equal parts staggered and proud. “About Hell: I got this. Okay?”

“Yes, dread queen.”

“Okeydokey, then.” I turned back to the damned. “Lawrence, could you come over here for a second?”

He was on his feet at once, and if he was nervous about Satan 2.0 calling him out in front of everyone, he didn't show it. He looked as he had when he was one of mine (although he still was, but this time not as a vampire): dark suit, carefully groomed, immaculate. When he got close he dropped to one knee. “Majesty,” he murmured at the floor.

“None of that,” I said and stepped forward to seize him by the armpits and ungracefully haul him up. “Sinclair, you were asking about Lawrence. Here he is.”

“My king,” he said, smiling.

“My old friend,” Sinclair replied. They clasped hands in a vigorous handshake, the way older men did when what they wanted to do was hug.

“Lawrence, Sinclair was telling me all about you—your old nickname was Never-Tells-a-Lie or something—”

“No-Sugar-in-Your-Mouth.”

“Right. You were really good at going back and forth between the Native Americans and the army.”

“That was my duty and my honor, my queen.”

“Well, as it happens I've got a spot on my committee, and I could use someone with your skills. Interested?”

He bowed. Man, these guys knew how to class it up. “My duty is again my honor, good lady. I thank you.”

“Welcome.” Then:
Now, don't sulk, Sinclair. I don't need you on the committee. I need you in the real world, our world.

Of course, my own.

Oh, sure, “of course.” All I had to do was outwit the devil—again—to earn your respect?

You've always had it, my own. But now you have my unshakable confidence. It goes hard with me, letting the woman I love fight her own battles. But, like you, I am learning.

All I can ask.
I smiled at him, but the smile morphed into a scowl when Marc whispered to Lawrence, “They do that a lot. Stare at each other silently while sending vampire vibes back and forth. It's beyond creepy.”

I rounded on him. “You know, I
did
just thoroughly defeat evil
again
. Would a teensy bit of deference be out of the question?”

“That's exactly the amount of deference we give you,” he replied. “A teensy bit.”