“I know. Believe me I have lived through many difficult times.”
“Gosh, yes, I bet you have.”
“Such as when Charlene left Neighbours. I didn’t get out of bed for a month.”
I was interrupted from tutting by Rav. “Your poppadoms. Are you ready to order?”
“Rav. I like cats-”
“We do not cook cats here, Mrs Landry. The finest of lamb, beef, but no cats. How dare you insinuate this about our restaurant. These rumours can damage busi-”
“Rav, I’m not talking about food. I’m saying do you like cats?”
His brow furrowed. “Sometimes, Shelley, you are a strange lady. I am asking what you want to eat and you are asking me if I like cats.”
“Forget it.” I said.
“Do I like cats? I’ll write that down and take it to the chef who will kick my arse for not delivering your order to the kitchen in a timely manner because I’m discussing my love of pets.”
“Hmmm, someone’s becoming a grumpy little demon tonight, aren’t you, Rav? We’ll just take another few minutes to decide.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“Ugh.” He stomped off.
“But we know what we want.” Theo frowned.
“Yes, darling, but I’m going to annoy that little shit all night. I’m beginning to reconsider getting him a date.”
After a few moments Rav returned to the table.
“So, my lovely lady and gent, could I now take your order?” It was killing him to be civil. This wasn’t like Rav. I knew he was a demon but I rarely actually saw it. I wondered what had caused the change.
“Yes, I’d like prawn puri, followed by lamb rogan josh, thank you. And a nice bottle of red wine for us to share.”
"Nothing for me." Said Theo.
“Are you not pretend eating?” Rav asked him.
“Actually, you can bring me a naan bread. Shelley will pretend she doesn’t want any and then proceed to eat the whole thing.”
I pulled a face at him.
“Thank you. I will be back shortly with your starter.”
“Rav. Stop a minute. Why are you in such a bad mood?”
He huffed.
“Remember I talked about an irritating customer? Well, your adoptive parents called in earlier and I’m sorry, Shelley, but your father, he is an arsehole.”
“Oh don’t apologise, I already know this. What was he doing this time?”
“He asked for the hottest curry and then kept returning it saying it wasn’t hot enough. If I could have, I would have flambeed his insides myself. I had to hold it in. I cannot be evil here. If I become evil here, then who knows what I could do to the lovely citizens of Withernsea? But that man, he drove me very close to the edge.”
“Well, he’s not here now. So just settle back. Is there a way to make the evil go away a bit?”
“Only if some happy things happen.”
“Well, how about if I tell you I’m going to try to set you up on a date?”
“Me?” Rav laughed. “Oh I am a lost cause, Shelley, don’t waste your time.”
“No, Rav. You are not. If we can get Theo a wife, we can get you one.”
“Hey,” Theo protested.
“Shelley, you married him yourself. That’s like insulting your own choices. It makes me feel better though. You really think you might find me a date?”
“I promise to do my best and I know about the whole getting past your mother thing and I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Ah, that’s why you were asking me the question about pets. You were trying to fill in the application form again to update it. I will come into the agency some time. No need to ask me tonight. I prefer dogs, but cats are okay. Anyway, what brings you out tonight? Is it a special occasion?”
“We’re trying to take Theo’s mind off the fact his daughter is out on a date.”
“Oooooh. Charlie is dating. And who is the lucky chap?” I noted that Rav didn’t seem to be in any rush now to take our order in. It was going to be a long night at this rate.
“His name is Kai, and he is a merman. Obviously he lives in Wyvern Sea.”
“Niiicccee. And he is one of those with the big swishy tail and no legs. I wonder what his genitalia looks like?”
“Rav!”
“Sorry, thinking out loud. I shall go hand in the order. Bet you’ve wondered the same though, Shelley, yes?” Rav took one look at Theo’s face and dashed off to take in our order.
“Theo, please count to ten because I can’t explain away red eyes and fangs in here tonight, not even by blaming hot curry.”
Theo shot up, grabbed the wine out of the other waiter's hand and drank some down straight from the bottle. “We’ll need another bottle.” He told him.
“Theo. You need to calm down. Kai assured you he would take things slow when you threatened to drain him.”
Rav brought over my starter. “Just a little something to nibble on. Save yourself for the exquisite main course.”
Theo put his fist in his mouth.
“What’s up with you now?” I said exasperated.
“Nibbling. Saving self for main course. I’m thinking of Kai with my daughter.”
I placed my hands on my cheeks. This was so not turning out to be the relaxing meal I had envisaged. While Theo worked his way through another glassful of wine, I slowly ate and enjoyed my starter. I’d been tempted to make a joke with the word fishy in it and wished Kim were here. In fact, she’d have made the joke herself. I was missing my friend. I needed to go see her and the babies soon.
Rav brought the main course. “And here is the main course. Look how juicy that sauce is. Only the best. Jump right in, Shelley. Coat your tongue in all those divine flavours. Savour it. You’ll wish you could just dive into it, be one with it. It is that amazing.”
A pained noise came from Theo who now had blood running from his fist where he’d punctured through it with his fangs while his hand was in his mouth. I picked up the naan bread and threw it at him. “Get a grip, Theo.” I yelled.
“For God's sake, I’m bleeding and you are throwing foodstuffs at me… AGAIN.” Theo yelled back.
I moved from my chair and licked his hand to close the wound. He was obviously too drunk to do it himself. “It’s just wine.” I reassured the other diners who were agog watching us. Then for good measure I picked up the naan bread and whacked Theo around the head with it again.
“Oh you two. You are such fantastic entertainment. You’ve cheered me right up.” Rav said. “Enjoy the rest of your meal.” And with that he left us.
“Rav. You need to help me drag Theo out to the cloakroom and then I can whizz us both home. He’s drunk.” I whispered as I paid the bill.
“I don’t think I have ever seen my friend drunk before.”
“Yes, well, your dear friend Theo didn’t have a dating daughter before. He’s not taking it so well.”
“He is very lucky he has a daughter at all. I shall remind him of this fact when he is sober, but for now, yes, I will help you.”
Finally, ten minutes later, I managed to whizz us back to our bedroom where my drunk husband laid out across our bed. And then he started singing, Kylie's 'I can’t get you out of my head', but replaced ‘you’ with ‘it’.
Our door flung open and Charlie stood there in her pyjamas and robe. “What the hell is that noise? I was fast asleep.” She stared at the bed and her jaw dropped. “My dad’s singing?”
“Well, that’s debatable, but this is what you’ve done to him by growing up. He’s got drunk and now he’s singing. I thought it was the child who came home drunk while they were growing up, but your father’s finding his own way through accepting your adulthood.”
Theo opened his eyes, sat up, then whizzed in front of Charlie. “Daughter! You’re back!” He sniffed the air around her, “Your virtue is intact. My baby. How I love you. You are Daddy’s girl, do you know that?” He pinched her cheeks.
“Ow.” Charlie screamed.
; “Don’t leave me, Charlie bear. Charlene left me. Now you will leave me.”
“What’s he on about, Mum?”
“That Kylie left Neighbours. You’ll have to excuse me in a moment, Charlie, but needs must.”
“Charlie warlie. I am so very proud of you. You are the Queen. Not the Princess like Kylie, Princess of Pop; but Queen, like Madonna. Ooh what Madonna do I know? Oh God, ‘Like a Virgin’.”
“Out.” I pressed my hands to Theo’s temples and blue sparks flew. Theo hit the bed unconscious.
“I thought you couldn’t use magic for your own needs?”
“Sometimes rules are made to be broken, Charlie. Rather I broke a rule than a vase over his head. Now, did you have a nice evening?”
“Mum, it was wonderful. Kai was the perfect gentleman and we got along really well.”
“That makes me very happy. Now go get some sleep, or rather, go and replay the evening over and over in your mind.”
“Oh, Mum, that’s just what I was doing before I fell asleep. I can’t help it. How did you know?”
I sighed. “Because I only just did it myself with your dad, and that is when I find this situation most weird. You’re my daughter, you feel like my daughter, but I’m only twenty-seven myself.”
“Well, we can be like those mother and daughters that are more like sisters, can’t we?” She said kissing my cheek.
“I am very proud to be your mum, Charlie, no matter how strange. Never forget that.”
“I won’t. Love you, Mum. Love you, drunk Dad.” She laughed and left the room.
I turned and stared at the passed out pale creature lying across the bed.
“What am I going to do with you?” I said, and I didn’t mean about his position of slumber.
Chapter Eleven
Satan
I was having far too much fun with this already. Debbie had proved quite the little mover in the bedroom. Seemed after she insisted on having a ‘heart-to-heart’ with me, that she had felt we were drifting apart and that it had taken her threatening me with divorce for me to see the error of my ways. What-ev-er. Her poor husband. I bet he was glad I’d taken over his body, stuffed him deep down inside himself where he ceased to exist. At least he didn’t have to listen to her. If I got fed up with her talking, I’d taken to filling her mouth with something to shut her up. However, I’d just seen the buxom brunette at number 22 put her bins out in her sheer pyjamas, so Debbie might have to be dealt with another way soon.
According to my wife, the only thing they all knew about the war was there would be one, and that it might involve a sausage roll. I’d never heard anything so stupid in my life and believe me when you’d been Satan you’d heard every excuse under the fiery, burning, excruciatingly painful rays of the sun while the new recruits tried their best to be freed from their new home in the bowels of hell.
This morning I had not been able to resist calling in at the coffee shop. I wanted to know if she could detect me, but no. As I thought I only registered as Mark Linley at the moment while I still didn’t have my powers. Now that was a problem I needed to sort out at my earliest convenience. I couldn’t exactly get Withernsea back without having some kind of power. But then they’d talked about holding a wedding reception for my lovely and completely traitorous, backstabbing ex-assistant Lucy and the arseswipe she’d married. I’d killed him and then that bloody vampire had brought him back to life, well un-life. Hmmm, there’d be a wedding buffet. Maybe war could start with a sausage roll after all… especially if I poisoned them. I could rid myself of the do-gooding bastards in one fell swoop if I got the recipe right. It was food for thought. In the meantime the dim-witted Samara had given me the perfect idea to distract them all.
Taking over the body of Mark Linley had been an act of genius. Not surprisingly, no-one noticed he’d been taken over because he was a rancid slug of a man anyway. In fact I’d done Hull and Withernsea a huge favour.
Tonight had been the icing on the cake. A tour of Wyvern Sea. Permission to go under the water and see what I could also command under there. I’d had to endure an hour with the extra do-gooding Polly and her new boyfriend, but it was all worth it for the information I had gathered.
Then I’d suggested Debbie and I go for an Indian where I’d had far too much fun tormenting my old colleague Rav. Yes I was having a devil of a time. All I needed now was to secure the return of my evil powers. There must be a way and I would find it. It was quite a problem with my current plans for Withernsea domination that I didn’t actually have any power. In the meantime I would just have to concentrate on the fact I was wicked to the core.
I rang the Cupid Inc headquarters. “Oh hello there. One of your Cupids, Rebecca. She set me up with a beautiful woman who I’m pleased to say I have just proposed to. Could you give me a telephone number for her so I could thank her?”
A happy sing-song voice came down the line. I was almost sick on myself. “Oh we can’t give out personal information, but I can give you an email address for you to send your thanks. Now which Rebecca is it? Do you have her location?”
“Yes, Hornsea.”
“Ah, do you have a pen and paper?”
“I do.”
“Okay, that’s rebeccawilkins, all one word.” She spells it out for me, “atcupidinc.com. That’s inc for incorporated with a c, not ink like in a pen.”
I hung up.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Samara
Rebecca
I heard about your incident with Samara. Basically she was in Jax's coffee shop in Withernsea telling everyone within listening distance about your unfortunate mishap down under (and we know I don’t mean Australia, don’t we?)
Here are my suggestions, as a secret supporter of everything you do in your role as Cupid representative for Hornsea.
1. Go to your bosses about Samara being helped by the Dating Agency.
2. Let anyone else know. Is there a company magazine?
3. Samara detests sausage rolls. Send her some to her grooming salon with a note that if she wants to bring it, you can too. (Anonymous of course, but she’ll know who did it.)
4. Anything else you can think of to annoy her. She’s far too loved up and happy and who wants that? (Yes for everyone else, but not for her, hey?).
From: someone else she picked on. Just because she’s a pet groomer doesn’t mean she can tell us how to shave our pussies, right?
I signed off. This should do the trick. Let the games begin. Samara had annoyed me by becoming loved up with that husband of hers, becoming the first couple of that damn dating agency, so she deserved what she got.
Now I just had to see what happened…
Chapter Twelve
Shelley
All was pretty quiet and peaceful for the next week. Charlie visited the sea each evening where Duke Brishon gave her lessons in sea politics and then she’d spend a few hours with Kai before returning home. I’d decided the best way to keep Theo from worrying was to keep him distracted. I was tired but in a good way.
Friday morning came, and yawning, I crossed the threshold of Jax’s coffee shop to get a lovely hot brew. I think I needed an espresso chaser.
The door banged open and Samara hurtled through the door, her blonde curly locks bouncing all over the place, whipping me in the face as she finally stopped at my side.
“Shelley. Shelley. It’s started. Ebony was right. It is to do with sausage rolls. Look!”
She plonked a tray full of fourteen freshly cooked sausage rolls on the counter. My stomach rumbled. Written in tomato sauce across them was
T H I S I S W A R B I T C H.
“I’m telling you, they’re from that bitch Rebecca. I got a call from Cupid Inc Headquarters and I’m being full-on audited because she’s told them I don’t do anything; that I rely on the dating agency and fudge my figures. I’d only just got out of the last audit by getting Polly and Drake together.”
&n
bsp; I didn’t tell her that actually I did that, because she had been instrumental in shooting her arrows into Keto to show the person Keto loved most was herself, which had paved the way for my sister and her boyfriend to get together for good.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Me? Well we ask Charlie don’t we? Seeing as this is the war.”
I took a drink of my coffee and closed my eyes to think this over. Surely this was not the war Charlie was prophesied to save us all from? But there was a declaration via sausage rolls, so I had to treat it as a possibility.
“I’m going to call the bitch.” Before myself or Jax could stop her, her phone was out of her bag and she’d dialled a number.
“Hey, Bex. Thanks for the rolls. Oh stop pretending you don’t know about them. Anyway, my friends are just sharing them. They said they’re delicious, so I’m just checking you didn’t put anything in them did you, or I’ll have to phone the police? Just a warning are they? Well, I’m over here shitting my pants, babe. What’s next, a Cornish pasty? You’re very strange, do you know that?”
She laughed. “Is that right? Cupid’s weekly magazine. I tell you what, whingebag mingebag. Why don’t you come here and see if Shelley can set you up on a date? Because although I might be too lazy to get people together, at least I managed to get a guy myself and he didn’t scream when he removed my panties because he thought a stray rabid dog was loose down there.”
I could hear screaming at the other end of the phone.
“Oh bring it. Go to the magazine. See if I care.” Samara hung up.
She looked from me to Jax and back again. “She’s going to write an article for the weekly Cupid magazine, explaining how dating agencies are killing the Cupid business and making some of us lazy, and how something needs to be done to stop the global phenomenon of dating agencies. She thinks she can get enough people together to descend on Withernsea in a protest.”
The Complete Collection: Supernatural Dating Agency Books 1-6 Page 70
