“Great. Protests against my dating agency. What amazing publicity that will be. How will I explain that away to the press?”
“They’ll just think Cupid Inc is a rival dating agency. I just hope Cupid himself doesn’t come down to earth and declare war on you. We don’t want a war on love. That would be catastrophic.”
“I’m sure Cupid will be happy to see love matches being made, however it’s happening.” I said.
“Well, maybe.” She shrugged.
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“Cupid gets all the kudos for people falling in love, yeah? He’s not going to be happy if the press get hold of the story and declare the Cupid system is outdated and agencies are the way forward. What if they say it’s agencies all the way and Cupid is out?”
“Oh dear God. Do you mean to say that this stupid Rebecca could cause Cupid himself to come to Withernsea and challenge me about my agency?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, I’ll speak to Charlie tonight. It would appear this could be the beginning of the war after all.”
Chapter Thirteen
Satan
I’d sat near the coffee shop bathroom with my back to the doorway while wearing a large black coat and hat. I'd made sure to sit across from a female customer who I made polite chitchat with which almost killed me, but it worked in not drawing attention to myself. The man had served me so no one was the wiser that I was in the shop, or rather that Mark Linley was in the shop. I heard them discussing the results of my fiendish plan. It had come together perfectly.
And now, while they prepared to solve the oncoming war with Cupid they imagined was a possibility, I would accelerate my own plans for Withernsea domination.
First stop, to get my powers back.
I was the rightful Satan. Now to find the wrong one. The person who had taken my job.
The question was, how did a displaced Satan manage to scheme his job back? You’d have thought it would be difficult to hitch a lift to hell, and maybe for those less evil than myself it could be. I knew one thing, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with this middle-aged body I was inhabiting and was ready to change to a new model. With this aim in mind I drove to Withernsea, parked up in the library car park, departed the very middle-aged-driver centric Honda Civic and made my way through the library entrance. Just as I had envisaged, the library was empty with the exception of the almost at retirement age librarian, and two youths who were throwing crisps at each other while sitting in front of the two outdated computers at the far end of the library. I wandered slowly around while I tried to work out the best place to leave Mark’s body for a while. With any luck I wouldn’t need to return to it at all. In the meantime, Mark would remain in an exhausted sleep mode for hours, so should anyone discover him-which was doubtful in the cemetery like library-they would be likely to just leave him be. Either way, to be honest I didn’t give a toss. If he did wake up and ramble about being possessed by the devil, then I’d be able to pick him up later from the local psychiatric hospital if I needed him.
The smell of damp, dogeared library books made my skin crawl. It was about time the libraries were burned down and everyone was given an e-reader. Maybe one of my first jobs back in Withernsea would be to torch the place. It would be the only way Withernsea would ever get a hot librarian that was for sure. Finally, after wandering around several bookshelves, I found a quiet corner with one chair next to the section on crossword puzzles and Sudoku. It was adjacent to the section on diet and exercise and likely to remain uninhabited for the rest of the day. I picked up a book about chess, sat in the chair and let the spark of energy that I currently was depart via Mark’s mouth and started my journey out of the building towards Hanif’s. It wasn’t often I thanked the Lord-usually he was my enemy-but on this occasion I was grateful my exit was via Mark’s mouth and not his backside given his middle-aged flatulence.
I knew from my time as Reuben, Theo’s best friend, that Rav spent most of his spare time at the restaurant, mainly in order to escape his mother. He’d clean, prepare meals, and do maintenance, because no matter how hard the work was, it wasn’t as hard work as his mother. I entered through a vent and moved through to the main restaurant area where Rav was wiping down tables and straightening menus. He was singing along to Kylie Minogue’s 'Better the devil you know'. No doubt Theo had lent him the CD. If I’d have been able to, I would have laughed at the irony. Instead, I took over Rav’s body. This time I had more of a fight on my hands given that Rav was a demon. He fought to try to expel me from his body, but given my past as Satan I was stronger. I pushed him down, so his thoughts and protests could no longer be heard and then I transported myself straight to hell.
“Honey’s, I’m home.”
My replacement was nowhere to be seen. Instead, all around were bikini wearing young temptresses, all long hair and blow job mouths, with whips in their hands. Hell had become a cliché in my absence.
I walked up to one of the living blowup dolls. “Where is the main guy, doll? I have an appointment with him.”
She turned to me, looking me up and down. “He’s downstairs in the sauna. Would you like me to bleep him for you, Rav?”
“No, I’ll find him, thank you.”
“Okay. I didn’t know you were on shift today. Do you fancy getting a drink later?”
Huh. I’d never scored a date in all the time I’d been here. Then again, I’d only employed the most troll-like looking people because then when they made goo-goo eyes at those stuck here, it added another layer to their punishments. Shelley reckoned she was awesome at running a dating agency, but I’d like to see her find the perfect date for Satan himself.
“Maybe later? Right now I have some other hot stuff to deal with.” That was if Rav survived my trip to Hell because once I encountered the current Satan, all bets were off.
“Okay, well hope to catch you later.” Blowup said with a taloned-nail wave.
I made my way down to the next level where the sauna was. Although the heat was punishment for anyone who ended up here through dreadful deeds, the staff here were employees and as such could make the most of the benefits of the heat. To that end, on this floor there were saunas, swimming pools, and steam rooms. We also had a hair salon that employees could use after they finished their shift so they could enjoy a conditioning treatment especially for heat damaged hair free of charge. See, I wasn’t all bad. Actually, that was a total lie. I quite often replaced the contents of the conditioning treatment bottles with hair removal cream and blamed the intense heat for their hair falling out.
I didn’t want to call the new guy Satan because as far as I was concerned he was an impostor and I was the real deal. Therefore, I decided to call him Bub, short for Beelzebub. I opened the door to the sauna, and stepped inside.
“Hey, Dickwad.” Okay, I’d changed my mind about his new name.
“Who is it?” Dickwad sat up from his reclined position on the lowest wooden bench and leaning forward scrunched up his eyes trying to make out who had entered the sauna. Was this guy for real? If anyone had dared to interrupt my break time in the sauna, I would have smote them where they stood. Things had got too easy around here. Now I was back and things were going to change. You would have thought it would be a lot harder to take over the body of Satan-or as we called him now Dickwad-than just leaving the body of Rav and popping straight down the current Satan’s throat. But sure enough that’s all I had to do because my successor had been so confident that he was evil incarnate that he’d failed to assume there could be anyone else more evil in his domain. He should have been right, for there was no one more evil than Satan—except of course for another Satan. My atoms and molecules fought his valiantly. If you’d ever had terrible acid reflux you would have a clue of what it would have felt like. Imagine you’d consumed curry, whiskey, chocolate, coffee, and lemon juice and then gone straight to bed to lie down and you’d have some idea of the pain of our fight for supremacy. Of course I won, completely
shutting down any aspect of Dickwad. His body was in its mid-30s, fit and toned, and a welcome change from Mark Linley’s. Now I just needed to work out what to do with Rav. He currently lay exhausted on the floor of the sauna. I debated putting him in there, jamming the door from the outside and dealing with him later. Then I remembered the offer he’d just received from Miss blowup doll. Picking him up and lying him on one of the loungers outside the sauna, I returned to the level above and found the woman again. Of course this time she was faced with Satan, her boss, not Rav. She straightened up, fear widening her eyes. I’d forgotten how good it felt to have people completely terrified to be in my presence and I felt myself getting hard. Luckily Dickwad liked tighty-whiteys which held my dick down my trouser leg and didn’t advertise to anyone that I could knock someone the fuck out with the contents of my briefs.
“Sir, can I be of assistance?” She asked, clearly hoping I said no.
“Actually, you can.” I replied. She looked so nauseous that I wondered what Dickwad had been making her do while he was here. “Rav is downstairs on a lounger. He wasn’t due to work today, and came into the sauna spouting some nonsense about having been possessed, and then collapsed. He appears to be extremely exhausted. Could you keep him company until he wakes and then offer him a massage, drink, and anything else he desires until he feels better? Please insist, and reassure him that when he arrived, he had a temperature and was delusional. Suggest that he relaxes fully before returning home.”
“Yes, sir.” Blowup doll looked highly relieved. “I will get on that straight away.”
With any luck that’s exactly what she would do, see an opportunity and get on Rav without delay. Unless things had changed significantly, Rav wasn’t used to many offers from the opposite sex, or any sex for that matter, and would quickly accept the explanation given by the beautiful woman in front of him who was offering him his every desire.
“Sorry, I can’t recall your name?” I asked blowup.
“Frida, Sir.”
“Ah yes, that’s right.” I lied as if I’d known it. “Frida. Look after Rav in any way he needs, take him for a drink if you like. Take the rest of your shift off. In fact, if Rav needs it you can both have the entire weekend off, okay? Just make sure you keep him in your sights until he seems to have fully recovered.”
“I’ll see if he wants to come and stay at my apartment.” She said, her face lighting up.
“What a splendid idea, Frida. Insist on it.” I told her. That would give me time to create hell before Rav could potentially give his stupid friends a clue I was back. Frida left and I smiled widely, looking around at the familiar environment. I was back in Hell. My staff were my playthings. I was the puppetmaster who held all the strings and I intended to dangle them until they strangled Shelley and her pathetic family and friends.
It was good to be me. I now ruled Hell once more and it wouldn’t be long before I ruled Withernsea again too.
Chapter Fourteen
Shelley
When I got home from work, I found my daughter asleep on the sofa. I wasn’t sure if she was tired from her constant travelling to under the sea, or if she was bored and falling asleep because reruns of Jeremy Kyle were no longer of interest.
I nudged her gently so as not to startle her, knowing from experience that you didn’t make a supernatural jump unless you wanted things to end badly. Strange groaning noises came from my daughter’s mouth while her eyes opened and she oriented herself with her surroundings.
“Hey, Mum. Is it teatime already?”
“Not quite, hun. I finished early and left Lucy to it. There’s something we need to discuss. The war might have started.”
This made my daughter wake up quickly. She shot up. “What do you mean the war might have started? What happened? Has someone threatened you?”
I perched at the side of her. “No, not me. It’s Samara. She got in a falling out with another Cupid representative. Today they sent her fourteen sausage rolls. Each one had a letter on it and the letters spelled ‘this is war bitch’. Apparently this woman is going to write an article for a magazine and assemble a protest march against dating agencies. Mine in particular, as she thinks Samara is benefiting unfairly from it.”
“Well it certainly has the sausage roll component, but Ebony also mentioned heat, so maybe this is nothing.”
“They fell out in a spa. They’d just come out of the sauna when Samara decided to draw attention to the fact that the woman hadn’t shaved her private area correctly.”
“Oh my god, she didn’t?”
“It’s Samara. Of course she did. Anyway, it would appear that this rivalry has been building for some time and that this brought things to a head.”
“But how does this lead to a war? Even if people protest against the dating agency, surely it’s just a storm in a teacup?”
“Not if enough Cupid representatives take offence at dating agencies. If Rebecca gets enough support behind her and Cupid representatives begin to feel threatened that their jobs are on the line, then potentially someone could try to cause us harm, try to take us out of the equation. It wouldn’t be the first time the dating agency has been attacked, although funnily enough I employed the woman who damaged it last time. Maybe I just need to offer this Rebecca a different job?”
“It’s just not what I was expecting from a prophecy about war. I thought it would be interspecies fighting, humans versus supernatural, and me being a combination of Wonder Woman, Jessica Jones, and the woman from the Matrix films. I imagined I’d have to become close to death before rising in one last final attempt at destroying the main villain and then everyone rushing to my side congratulating me on my feats of strength and endurance.”
“Charlie, this is not a Marvel or DC film. I’m going to stop the Netflix subscription if you’re not careful. Let me guess you are already picturing Kai playing Aquaman in this vision of yours?”
Charlie gave me a guilty shifty look.
“I know what you mean though. I myself thought there would be much more to the main battle of Withernsea than a fight amongst Cupid reps. However, everything Ebony said she saw in her visions has come true.”
“Perhaps I should ring Ebony and get her opinion on what is happening with the Cupid reps? In the meantime, I guess I should make the first steps towards calming this woman down and stopping potential war.”
I handed my daughter a piece of paper containing Rebecca’s details. “If you need any more information, don’t forget your father is an expert at intel.”
“Yes, I bet there’s a full report upstairs on a certain Kai Oceanson.” She raised a brow.
“How’s everything going anyway? Are you two getting on well?”
My daughter’s face lit up. She was most definitely falling in love.“ He’s amazing. Kind, funny, and a rival for any superhero any day of the week.”
“Oh, Charlie, I am so happy for you. I was worried in case he turned out to not be who you felt he was.”
“I know it’s strange, Mum, that I knew he was the one even when I was in baby form. But it’s just like something chemical within us responds to the other. It's a bit like Twilight with the imprinting.”
“Yes, and I thought that was really weird when I watched the film. Didn’t think I’d have my own fast-growing child.”
“What do you think my own children will be like, Mum? If I am made up of all of the different species, how on earth am I supposed to know what my babies will be like? I mean will I have hybrids? Maybe they’ll have a dragon head and a werewolf body.”
I could see Charlie was on the verge of hysteria. “Whatever your children look like, you will love them anyway, Charlie. But I’m glad you’ve raised the subject. I don’t want to pry in your, let’s call them 'private shenanigans', but how far have things moved along? I know you know the facts of life and where the clinic is to get contraception, but if you need me to explain things to you in greater detail, I am here for you.”
“Ew, Mum. Change the
subject immediately. We're not at that stage yet, and when we get to it, neither you nor dad will know anything about it.”
I laughed at the expression on her face. “Okay, I’ll not mention it again. But you must understand, I had to raise the subject because I’m a mum and that’s what we do.”
It was then we heard an immense amount of groaning coming from my bedroom. “Well, I think your dad might be awake, and experiencing the morning after the night before, or in his case the twilight after the night before.”
“Oh, Mum. Please say we can go and torment Dad. Please, please, please.”
Well of course I wasn’t going to refuse my daughter when we could have heaps of fun in the process. We made our way upstairs, being as loud as possible. I walked into our bedroom and threw myself down on the bed at the side of my husband.
“Theo, Theo, are you awake? We have an emergency. Charlie is pregnant and the babies are growing at an accelerated rate. We reckon we have about 30 minutes before she starts to deliver.”
Theo leaped out of bed so fast that he hit the ceiling, the wall, then bounced on the floor, before leaping up and yelling “Whaaaaaaaaaattt? I’ll kill him. Where is he? I’m going to kill the bastard. How dare he? Did I not make it clear enough to him that I would drain his blood drop by drop, making him a merman pin-cushion or an extremely slow dripping shower head? That his body would get weaker and weaker, and that I would find parasitic demons to feast on every slow drop causing him the worst pain he could ever imagine.”
My normally pale-faced vampire husband was currently puce. His eyes were ruby red, his fangs descended, and his sentences punctuated by hissing.
“Joking.” I said loudly in a singsong voice.
The Complete Collection: Supernatural Dating Agency Books 1-6 Page 71
