Becca rolled her eyes as she grabbed a lightweight running jacket and zipped it up. “You’re the one who should be a Rivka, not me.” She opened the cream-colored wicker armoire by her bed, pulled out her hot pink running hat and shoved it on her head, grabbed her favorite gun in case the assassin was fireball-proof, then headed toward the kitchen while Theresa followed, listing all the ways they could kill Satan’s minion.
Becca stopped in the kitchen doorway. Sure enough, there was a blond-haired, fully stacked woman tied to her kitchen chair. She looked to be about twenty-two, but that could simply be the age Satan had decided to give her when he’d created her, assuming she really was Satan’s spawn.
The instant the woman saw Becca, she widened her eyes and started making all sorts of wimpy pleading noises.
Either she was the most pathetic assassin Becca had ever seen, or she was a cheerleader who had knocked on the wrong door this morning. Becca relaxed, realizing that her death wasn’t going to come at the hands of this particular assassin. Not this morning, at least. She still had time to get free before she lost everything.
Theresa blew a puff of smoke into the kitchen, her hind claws tapping restlessly on the new floor Becca had just installed after spending weeks selecting the perfect tile. Pale blue with white swirls. Girly and sweet. The antithesis of Satan’s decorating style, which was why she loved it.
She carefully flicked a blade through the gag, so it dropped around the woman’s throat. “Who—”
“Omigosh! I can’t believe it’s you! You’re my hero! You’re the best Rivka in history and I heard you almost got free of Satan last night. I am sooooo lucky to meet you. Will you autograph something for me?” Her eyes were wide, her mouth babbling, and Becca was tempted to re-gag her.
“You have a fan club?” Theresa sighed. “That’s so cool. I want a fan club.”
Becca flicked the nose of her gun at the cheerleader. “Who are you and what do you want? In ten words or less.”
The woman’s cheeks blushed a dainty pink. “Omigosh. I’m so rude! I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Paige Darlington.” She beamed at Becca, waiting for a response.
She flicked a glance at Theresa, who shrugged. “Sorry, but that name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Paige’s face immediately turned bright red. “He didn’t tell you, did he? Is this my first test? Oh, wow. I didn’t realize my training would start so soon. You won’t kill me, will you? Before I explain? Oh, wow. Are you going to be mad? I mean—”
“Stop talking.” Oy. Her head was already hurting. “Just tell me why you’re here.”
“I’m your apprentice,” Paige blurted, tugging on the ropes and sliding her chair across the tile with a squeak.
Becca stuck her toe against the chair leg so it couldn’t move and scratch her new floor. “My what?”
“Your apprentice. You’re supposed to train me on everything Rivka. Won’t that be fun?” Paige tried to move the chair closer to Becca and frowned when it didn’t move. “I got the highest test scores, so that’s why I got selected. Plus I’m hot. That was Satan’s requirement. Oh, and because I showed highest loyalty to Satan.”
Becca rolled her eyes at the dragon. “High test scores, hotness, and brownnosing. All the hallmarks of a great warrior.”
“Totally,” Paige agreed, not quite catching on to the sarcasm. “Everyone is mega jealous that I got picked to be your apprentice. So it’s a good thing I’ll be under your protection because I think some of them might otherwise try to kill me to get this position. It’s so coveted. I swear this is my best day ever. When will we start? Will you teach me how to shoot fireballs? And what about harvesting souls? How long ’til I can do that? I’ll work really hard and—”
“Can I cut out her tongue?” Theresa asked, her tail whipping side to side and barely missing Becca’s fridge.
“Please do.” Becca turned away and flipped on her coffee maker. Caffeine would so be needed to deal with this chick.
“What?” Paige shrieked, scooting the chair backward so fast that it slammed into the wall with a crash that made Becca wince and Theresa snicker.
“Stop ruining my new kitchen.” Becca shoved Paige away from the wall, then wet a sponge and carefully scrubbed the wall to get rid of the mark that Paige had just left. “I’ve never heard of any Rivka having an apprentice. Tell me what you’re really doing here.”
Theresa sidled up next to Becca and mimicked her stance, glaring at the girl.
Paige’s eyes flicked nervously to the dragon, then to Becca. “I swear I’m your apprentice. I mean, I’m also supposed to spy on you and report to Satan about everything you do, like if the dragon’s around, but really, it’s all about being your apprentice.” Paige bounced in her chair, dragging it over the floor again with a squeal that made Becca wince. “I have proof in my purse. I dropped it when the dragon tried to kill me.”
“Purse is probably booby-trapped,” Theresa said. “Let’s burn it.”
Becca slammed her foot down on the chair seat between Paige’s knees to hold the chair immobile, then noticed a small black handbag on the floor. “Stay.” At Paige’s nod, she walked over and picked it up. Inside was a paper etched in gold, the sight of which made her shoulders tense. She held it up. “This?”
Paige nodded again, relief evident on her face.
Becca grabbed the paper between her thumb and forefinger to rip it up, and Paige shrieked in protest. “He ordered me to tell you he orders you to read it immediately!”
“Oh, he’s getting wise to you,” Theresa commented. “That sucks.”
“He tries, but he’ll never be able to keep up with me.” Then she glared at Paige. “Next time, keep your mouth shut.”
The cheerleader’s perky little lips pursed in a cute pout. “But if he orders me to do it, I have to.”
“But he didn’t say when you had to give me those orders, did he? You could have given me the order after I ripped it up.”
“But I knew what he meant.” Paige drew her shoulders back, pride gleaming in her eyes. “I’ll get his orders right every time, I swear, even if he doesn’t make them perfect.”
Theresa snorted and Becca rolled her eyes. Just what she needed. An apprentice who actually thought Satan rocked. She sighed as she unfolded the paper. “What’s with the old-fashioned document?”
“His new lawyer soul suggested that you might have more trouble disobeying his orders if they were written out this way.” Paige leaned forward, trying to peer at the paper.
Theresa flattened Paige back in the chair with a well-placed claw to the chest.
Lawyer soul again? She was going to have to stop getting him such helpful souls, and Paige needed to be fireballed. She gritted her teeth and silently read the letter as Theresa rested her scaly chin on Becca’s shoulder and read it, as well.
My best Rivka.
Bravo for last night. I much enjoyed besting you. An evening most pleasurable. I hereby present Paige Darlington. She is your new apprentice. I Order you to teach her everything you know about being a Rivka and to assist her in her special assignment. You shall notify me when she is ready, unless she is a liability, in which case, kill her.
I am taking my true love Iris dancing on Saturday, and I need to learn all the new dance moves of today. I Order you to harvest cool and hip souls who will assist me in this endeavor to become even more irresistible than I already am.
Your lord and creator,
Satan, the best lover in the Afterlife
He’d used the “O” word.
She hated when he did that. Made it so much more difficult to thwart him.
“Huh. She really is your apprentice,” Theresa mused, her breath setting Becca’s hat on fire. “You think you’re training your own replacement?”
Becca patted her hat until the flames went out, waving her other hand through the billow of smoke Theresa had just released. “What do you mean?”
“You think it’s a fluke that you piss off Satan royally
last night, and then three hours later, the first Rivka apprentice in history shows up at your door? One who apparently worships him and would never stray from her mission to be his personal ego booster and servant?”
Becca frowned. “She does seem a little overly enthusiastic.”
Theresa nodded. “He needs you too badly to let you die, unless he can get you to create another you, who is you, but even better. Then he kills you and puts Paige in your place. Paige will render you obsolete.” She met Becca’s gaze. “I think Satan has just declared war on his favorite Rivka.”
Four
Becca and Theresa both eyed Paige, who had turned pale. “I swear I’m not after your job, Becca. I think you’re awesome and I just want to learn from you and make Satan happy by reporting on your every move.”
Becca rubbed her chin while she considered her options. “He did order me to kill her if I needed to.”
“Oh, you need to kill her.” Theresa grinned, her lips pulled back to reveal a formidable set of dragon teeth. “She’s definitely a liability.”
“What?” Paige shrieked. “How can you teach me if I’m dead?” She struggled against the ropes but succeeded only in tipping over the chair and landing on her side with a thump.
“The cheerleader has a point.” Theresa stepped over Paige and opened a cabinet. “Coffee for two?”
Becca studied the cheerleader writhing on the tile, her feet all tangled up in the chair legs and her ponytail caught under her shoulder, twisting her head at a painful angle. The girl looked so pathetic…it would be a slaughter if Becca killed her. She grimaced at the realization, because she didn’t kill innocents. It was her one way of staying sane.
“Can I have some coffee, too?” Paige called out from the floor, her face contorted in pain.
The coffee did smell good. “I’ll have some.” Becca sighed and tipped Paige back up, ignoring the girl’s babbles of appreciation. “Trust me, apprentice, I can figure out a way to kill you without actually violating Satan’s orders.” Yeah, yeah, like that. Just kill her, Rivka. You can do it. She’s going to be responsible for your demise. It’s preemptive self-defense. She flared up a fireball before she could think about it or look at Paige’s sweet face for another second.
“Well, you can’t do it today, because when my teacher told me I’d won this assignment, she said Satan specifically said we have to go soul hunting tonight,” Paige announced, rotating her neck to try to get the kinks out.
“Tonight?” Becca crushed the fireball in her fist, cursing to herself while Theresa snorted with disgust. “Fine.” She’d kill her after soul hunting.
“So, can you untie me, or what?” Paige tugged at her wrists, turning her hands pink from lack of circulation. “I can’t wait to get started. Soul hunting tonight! How cool is that?”
Theresa handed Becca a mug of coffee. “She’s actually sort of cute, in an annoying little puppy kind of way, don’t you think?”
“Cute?” Paige scowled at Theresa. “I’m a badass.”
“Yeah, we can tell.” Becca winced at the bunny mug that Theresa had selected, wondering how the dragon had found it hidden in the back of her cabinet.
She watched Paige argue with the dragon. Satan might have been trying to take care of his ego when creating Paige, but the girl would be dead within a minute of trying to take on Rivka duties. She was clueless and too excitable for her own safety. But she wasn’t backing down from a dragon, so that meant she was brave. Or stupid.
Probably the latter.
The girl was needy and unpredictable and would cause plenty of trouble for Becca. And she was most likely an innocent…Becca sighed and wrapped her hands around her mug as she walked around the apprentice, thinking. If she did manage to turn Paige into a mirror image of herself, only more obedient and groveling, then maybe Satan would let his favorite Rivka go. She felt a surge of hope.
Or maybe once he didn’t need Becca, Satan would finally kill his favorite Rivka in return for all the trouble she’d caused him over the years. Her hope was chased away by a heavy sigh.
More analysis needed before deciding whether to kill the apprentice or train her. If she had to kill her, well, she’d just have to do it, innocent or not.
Paige twisted in her seat, trying to look behind her where Becca was standing. “So, boss? Where are we going tonight? To a dark alley? Or to a bar?”
Becca swallowed the rest of the coffee, then set the mug on the counter with a thud. “We’ll go to a bar after I get back from work. It’ll be a test.”
Paige jutted out her lower jaw in determination. “I’m really good at tests. What happens if I pass?”
“You live until tomorrow.”
Paige paled slightly. “And if I fail?”
“You die.”
Theresa grinned and put her arm around Becca’s shoulder and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “You’re such a heartless bitch. No wonder I love you.”
Becca smiled back. She was really going to miss that dragon.
Nick groaned as consciousness slammed back into him with a painful thrust. He peeled his eyes open, his mouth fuzzy like he’d gone on a drinking binge, and then saw his cell phone on the pillow in front of him. Dani.
He grabbed his phone and sat up. Eleven missed calls from Dani. One from Jerome. Shit. Two messages.
His heart thudding, he called Dani as he swung his legs off the bed and tested his knee. Still gimpy, but not too bad. Should hold up long enough to kill Satan.
Dani answered on the first ring, and he dropped his head with relief at her voice. Still alive. “Nick! Where have you been? It’s been almost twenty-four hours! They’re about to cut off my finger!”
He frowned at the undercurrent in Dani’s voice. Something wasn’t quite right. A lack of…desperation. What was up? “What else are they going to do to you?”
As she rattled on about a number of torture methods, he closed his eyes to tune in to her, trying to get a read on her emotions. Excitement, adrenaline, and a little bit of nervousness. But no deadly panic or fear, which she should be feeling if she was really in danger of dying.
“Nick! Hello? Are you listening?”
He sighed and flexed his knee, trying to work out the stiffness. “Dani, I know you’re not actually in danger of being killed. What’s going on?”
There was a scuffle, and then Dani’s voice muffled. “I told you this wouldn’t work. He always knows when I’m lying.”
He ground his teeth and stood up, walking over to the freezer to make sure Satan Jr.’s unidentified body part was still intact.
It was.
Someone else came on the line. A woman. “Dani’s fate is in your hands. We will kill her.”
“Put Dani back on.” He shut the freezer and opened the fridge to see what he had inside. Moldy cheese, old yogurt, and something he couldn’t quite identify. It had been a long time since he’d needed to crash here, but he hadn’t realized it had been that long.
He really needed to get a life.
“No! She will die! You must kill Satan.”
He sighed with impatience and opened a wooden cabinet that hadn’t been there last time he’d been here. One he hadn’t noticed before he’d crashed. It was fully stocked with nonperishable goods. Obviously, his ma had found his place and decided to do a little restocking. “I don’t like being manipulated, so put her on the phone or I’m hanging up.”
“She will lose one finger at a time—”
He hung up. His sister was twenty-two years old and still trying to manipulate him, this time by pretending to be kidnapped. No appreciation whatsoever for the fact that he’d been taking care of her since her pa had been driven off by their ma. Nick had taken over dad duty, and Dani had never fully appreciated his efforts. He sensed that a part of her had always resented the fact that her pa had been nothing more than a brief fling by their ma after her true love, Nick’s pa, had died.
Nick grabbed an unopened jar of peanut butter and some whole wheat crackers and dug in
while he checked his messages. He skipped Dani’s without bothering to listen, knowing it would be more lies, then played Jerome’s. “Good move on taking a piece of Satan Jr. That was brilliant. I told everyone that was his head, and now the Council’s freaking out that if he reforms he’ll be dead because of the whole ‘I’ve got no head’ problem. It’s hilarious. Of course, Isabella Marcellini, the head of the Council, is now involved, and she ordered me to call you and tell you to and bring it back, so that’s what I’m doing. Bring it back or I’ll lose my job, yada, yada, yada. Stay tight and give me a ring when you’re back on your feet. And…um…let me know if you’ve heard from Dani lately. I…ah…she borrowed my iPod and I need to get it back.”
Nick tossed the phone on his bed. Yeah, he’d be bringing Junior back. Isabella might be somewhat legit, but there was no way the kid’s body part was going back until the Council headquarters were secure. As for Jerome’s iPod…something was off about that request. He wouldn’t be surprised if Dani was trying to manipulate Jerome, as well. He’d have to remind Jerome to keep an eye out.
Munching on the peanut butter, Nick tested his shoulder, surprised to find it was still sore. Obviously, he’d be avoiding gold weapons in the future. He was impressed the Markku had been able to damage his knee, though. Nothing had ever hurt Nick before. Must have been a hell of a blow.
He sighed as he shucked his clothes and headed into the bathroom. He had a feeling it would be too long before he got in another fun altercation like that.
By the time Dani called back, he’d already taken a shower, inspected the shriveled black skin around where the blade had gone in, and cleaned out the jar of peanut butter.
He let the phone ring three times before he answered. “Willing to talk now, squirt?”
“Oh, thanks, Nick.” Dani was truly annoyed now, he could tell. “You had to go and blow it.”
“Me? Sure, it’s my fault.” He walked over to his steel armoire and moved aside some of his weapons to get to the stash of clean clothes that were in there somewhere.
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot Page 4
