A Chip on Her Shoulder

by RJ Blain

  “All right. Shoot. I’ll correct you if you get it wrong. I expect I’ll have to correct you often.”

  He laughed. “You’re such a bold woman.”

  “Well, I am a cat, I’m pissed, and I have a brother to save. You’re the only divine in the entire fucking universe who can help my brother, so here I am. I’ve bargained with one pantheon to get this far, and I’m not dumb enough to bargain with you.”

  “You’ll have to bargain with me if you want my help.”

  “No. You’ll help me because you find this whole thing amusing, it’s hardly more than a blink of your eye, and you’re bored.”

  “We’ll discuss that part of this arrangement later. You want to rule over my many hells, have me installed as your second-in-command, and maintain ruthless discipline over my demons and devils.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “You want to do this so you can accomplish several goals. First, you want me to use my powers to restore your brother.”

  “That’s almost correct. I want the other goals to happen first, as I lose my motivation if my asshole brother has been restored. Frankly, he deserves to spend a few weeks as a chipmunk. Once I’m done securing my revenge, I will be expecting my asshole brother to shower me with gratitude.”

  The Devil chuckled at that. “You’re not incorrect. You might be interested to know that he is considering biting you.”

  “If he bites me, I’m throwing his furry ass into a lava pool and leaving him there.”

  “He is no longer considering biting you.”

  “That’s because he is not a complete idiot.”

  “Your second goal is to murder all members of the mafia outfit responsible for transforming your brother into a chipmunk.”

  “That depends if all members of the mafia outfit are guilty of crimes worthy of death and a long, painful stay here with you. Tell me, Lucifer. Are they all fucking assholes?”

  “So, you do care about their guilt.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Then your second goal is to secure justice for the guilty, send the guilty for their earned stay in my dungeons, where you will supervise and possibly participate in their rehabilitation.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Your third goal is to do a personal investigation of my chest to discover if my nipples are nearly as appealing as in the painting.”

  I raised a brow, eyeing the Devil. “You’re supposed to be evaluating bachelorette succubi for one who is willing to put up with you.”

  “I will consider such a foolish endeavor should you be counted as one of the bachelorettes.”

  “I will consider it only after my brother is dealt with, I’ve brought that outfit to its knees before sending every last one of those fucking assholes to the nastiest dungeon here, and I’ve paid my bills off in full. I told you, I don’t mix business and pleasure. You really are a vain creature, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” the Devil admitted. “Business with me will be a pleasure, I promise you. That would be a suitable exchange. Not a bargain, but a business arrangement.”

  “Unless you’re one of the mafia assholes who stuffed a transformative down my brother’s throat, I have no business with you beyond taking your place over until I’ve done my dirty work. You’ll probably survive.”

  “You are very bold.”

  “An archangel told me you were the only divine who might be able to help me, and I’m not stupid enough to bargain with you. I like my soul and wish to keep it where it belongs, in my custody, safe from your dungeons. I mean, I expect I’ll be earning my long-term residency as one of the many fucking assholes populating the place, but I have shit to get done first.”

  “Would you at least hear me out before rejecting my proposition?”

  “Show me this place while you pitch me. The amount of effort and my willingness to cooperate with you are directly tied to how comfortable your home is.”

  “This is a part of my hells, Miss Darlene. It’s not supposed to be posh accommodations.”

  “Bullshit, Sir Lord of Lies. An archangel told me you’re spoiled and require your luxuries. That means you have posh accommodations you don’t share with anyone because you have to maintain your appearances as the world’s most notorious bad guy. As such, you’re selfish, require training on how to share nicely with others, and otherwise need to undergo some serious reforms before a woman would even consider you to be husband material. You’re also a man who indulges in sin at every opportunity, so you probably wait maybe five seconds between women. That plays into most women not considering you to be decent husband material.”

  “Do you have a death wish?”

  “For me? No. For people who cross me right now? Yes. I’ve had a really bad day, and I don’t need any idiot man getting in my way right now. You can make this easy, or you can make this difficult. If you make this easy, I might actually consider your pitch, assuming it isn’t bullshit wrapped in even more bullshit.”

  “Being seduced by me is never bullshit.” The Devil reached out and touched my cheek. “Your spots are lovely. How many of them are you hiding?”

  The Devil could growl, and the cat in me appreciated the sound. “I said you could pitch me. If you want to negotiate for permission to count my spots, it better be a damned good pitch. There will be rules, Lucifer. You will follow them, or we’re finished with negotiations, and I will resume my hostile takeover of your hells until I’m done with them.”

  “What are your rules?”

  “At no time will you bargain for my soul. You can do nice things for my soul, but you can’t do mean things like steal it. It’s mine, and you cannot have it. I’m already scheduled to come here after death anyway, so you may as well just learn to be patient.”

  The Devil chuckled. “And once your soul comes into my many hells?”

  “Well, I assume you’ll enjoy punishing me however you see fit. I guess I’ll find out once I get here as one of the fucking assholes in residence. Hey, that’s an interesting question. Do you know if I’ve done time here before? Souls are recycled, right?”

  “Your soul does not have the weight of a prior lifetime. It’s new, so you’re corrupting it nicely without any help from me. Good work. Keep it up.”

  I pointed at my brother, who still hid in my hair. “How about him?”

  “I’ve had a few rounds with him already. Really, he’s a pain in my ass. He refuses to learn, or he just enjoys a round in the dungeon. Maybe he just likes me and can’t get enough of my attention.”

  “Damn, Jonas. You need to improve your general learning capacity. Me? I’d learn the first time. You’re a fucking moron.”

  My brother squeaked a complaint.

  “If you bite me, I really will toss your furry ass into a lava pool. I’ve put up with enough shit for one day solely on the grounds of being your sister. You have used up all my benevolence towards you, possibly for a year. Be happy I spent a ridiculous amount of money on your new home.”

  “It concerns me how honest of a being you are,” the Devil admitted.

  “Second rule. I do not mix business with pleasure, so if you want your business to include pleasure, you’re going to have to help me finish my business first. I may consider adjusting this policy if you make a good enough offer, but really, my momma taught me boys are nothing but distractions, and she was right.”

  “My chest is a good offer.”

  I wondered if tossing the Devil into a lava pool would do anything beyond tickle. Considering he depicted himself as wearing flames, he likely enjoyed any pain lobbed his way. “You have plenty of succubi you can seduce. Just make sure you’re clean and free of diseases between seducing a succubi. That’s polite. I expect you need a lot of tutoring on being polite company.” I needed to have a chat with the archangels, who hadn’t warned me the Devil might be seriously desperate for some positive female attention.

  “You’re really rejecting me.”

  “Business before p
leasure, Lucifer. This isn’t a hard concept. And the pleasure part of this equation only happens if you have a damned good sales pitch and you haven’t gotten tired of me running the joint. I suspect you’ll be more than ready for me to head on home once I’m finished around here.” I regarded the ceiling with interest. “The interior decoration of your entry is sparse but gorgeous, I’ll give you that. You could use a few sofas or lounge chairs scattered around here to make viewing a little easier. Did you go cathedral theme throughout the whole place?”

  “I have modern rooms.”

  “Because you’re spoiled and need your luxuries?”

  “You’re really calling me spoiled. In my own house.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I’d call you spoiled outside of your house, too.”

  My brother sighed.

  “Your brother wishes to communicate that he is convinced you will die a terrible death at my hands.”

  “He’s probably not wrong. I’m viewing myself as having low odds of general survival anyway, but if I’m going to go out and earn my way here, I’ll do it in a spectacular fashion. You can’t kill me until I’ve paid the CDC’s bill, though. That’s the third rule. Murdering me so you can torture my soul for however long you see fit is definitely not on the table for discussion.”

  “Any other conditions?”

  “Yeah. Show me your bathroom.” If I had to move into the Devil’s house for a while, his bathroom would give me a pretty good idea of if he was actually spoiled or just a talker.

  “I assure you, I make no boast without being able to back it. Do you want to see the guest bathrooms or the master bathrooms?”

  “I wish to see my entire domain, if you please. And honestly, even if you don’t please. If I’m going to be making my permanent residency here after I’m done fucking over the rest of my life, I’d like to see what I’m taking over and if it’s worth it. And if you bite me, Jonas, I will make you suffer for all eternity.”

  “She really will,” the Devil warned. “But very well. If you wish to go on a tour of my home, then let us go on a tour of my home. We’ll begin here, which was the first room I built of this residence, as I had the fucking asshole of a painter in residence. Painting the ceiling at my whim rather than his seemed like punishment enough, and once he finished painting, I had him work as a maid for a few years before sending him off. Really, his job as a maid was the real punishment. However much it disgusted me, he loved the painting of my ceiling almost as much as I do. So, that’s mine, and you may not have it.”

  If I owned the Devil, I owned the Devil’s prized ceiling, so I shrugged. “Whatever you say, Lucifer.”

  “Remind me to torment my brothers for the rest of eternity for bringing you here.”

  “How do you torment a pair of archangels? Truth be told, I’m a little annoyed they abandoned me here before telling me how to get back to Earth. Then again, maybe they expect me to successfully storm your gates and conquer the place, which means you could probably return me to my home in the proper time and in good health.” I shrugged. “And if not, well, I’ll come up with a new plan.”

  “For some reason, I find this worrisome.”

  “What’s this? It’s possible for a man to be smart and pretty?”

  “I’m not a man.”

  I pointed at the painting of his perfect chest and flame-shrouded body. “Close enough. You’re male, and you’re pretty. Therefore, the probability of you being smart is greatly decreased.”

  “Yet you’ve rejected me.”

  “Smart and pretty doesn’t make for a good husband there, sweetheart. And if I was in the market for a man, I wouldn’t be living with my brother. You’ll just have to get over it.”

  “You don’t have to marry me to come to bed with me,” the Devil complained.

  “I already told you how this works. Business and pleasure do not mix, and if you want to get to the pleasure portion of any arrangements we might make, then you better have a damned good proposal for the business portion of my ventures. You might make a good advisor on how best to approach this. If I had my way, I’d just poison them all with the nastiest transformatives I can find coupled with a poison to make sure they slowly died in their new form. But I could settle with just stabbing them repeatedly, but I figure an eye for an eye is appropriate, except I don’t just get mad, I get even and charge interest.”

  “I can’t believe you’re really rejecting me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Show me your bathrooms, Your Sulfurous Majesty. At least try to pretend you’re worth conquering.”

  Six

  The Devil had more bathrooms than sense.

  The Devil had more bathrooms than sense, and he had a tendency to create them with a theme in mind. His Chinese-themed one, which he saved for last in his tour of his home, displayed priceless treasures. I bet I could steal one of his vases and make enough off it to live the rest of my life in comfort.

  I spent a shameful amount of time debating if I could fit one under my shirt so I could steal it.

  “I would definitely notice if you tried to steal one of my vases, although I would find it amusing enough to allow you to try to get away with it until it was time to go, which would be when I would enjoy doing a very thorough searching of your body to make certain you weren’t trying to steal anything else. I have decided my current goal is to count all of your spots. They’re lovely, and I want to investigate each and every one of them.” He paused. “Preferably with my tongue, but I’ll settle with my hands first if needed.”

  I spent a few minutes considering his offer. How would he manage? While soft, fur was fur. When I wasn’t rocking a fur coat, I did have a collection of freckles scattered over my body, enough to keep him amused if he needed something to count. It didn’t take me long to come to a conclusion there would be no counting of my spots in his near future. “Obviously, I’m going to need to either leash you or keep a supply of willing succubi ladies around to keep you amused while I work.”

  “You could keep me amused.”

  “I’m sure the succubi will be far more talented at keeping you amused and satisfied than I.” I snorted at my general lack of experience with men, as every time I thought about landing a man, he chickened out believing he’d catch some disease or another from me—or he proved to be an asshole. Add in my asshole brother, my mother’s warnings, and decent observation skills, and I’d gone through life more frustrated than anything else.

  “Virgins are an extra special treat, and half the fun with them is teaching them how to be the perfect lover. I don’t have to go through the hassle of undoing any bad habits.”

  “What makes you think you’re good enough for my first time, anyway?”

  The Devil spluttered. “Have you forgotten who I am?”

  “No. You’re the Lord of Hell. The Lord of Lies. You have a great chest, I’ll give you that. But I’m not here to take you to bed. I’m here to take over. I don’t need you in bed to accomplish my goals. Also, if we could not talk about my lack of a love life in front of my brother, that would be great. He’ll start bringing his unsavory friends home with him, assuming I might actually want one of them. And don’t get me started on the idiots who assume my ears and tail mean I’m infected with some disease.”

  “I could resolve those problems for you while counting your spots. You have many spots, and I wish to count them. I do not like when there are pretty things in my home I cannot have. Let me count your spots.”

  “Business,” I reminded him.

  “But I don’t want to handle business. I want to handle you and your spots.”

  “Then I suggest you come up with an effective and satisfying revenge plan, acknowledge you’ll be running this place at my whim rather than yours, and make yourself useful. Only then will I consider such a reward for your good behavior.”

  “Good behavior? I’m the Lord of Lies, not an obedient puppy.”

  “That’s such a shame, then. The Lord of Lies doesn’t get any spots. The ob
edient puppy might get spots. Your bathrooms are really nice, I’ll give you that. You are obviously very spoiled. Do I want to know how you bargained for these antiquities?”

  The Devil pointed at one of the larger vases. “That one was a bribe to be somewhat merciful on a particularly nasty soul. I agreed, opting to be more brutal over a shorter period of time as part of his rehabilitation program. It worked rather well.”

  Huh. “You can bargain on things like that?”

  “Anything can be bargained away, Miss Darlene. Even your spots.”

  “Take my spots away, and I will cut off your nipples.”

  “That does not sound particularly pleasant. I was meaning we could bargain for my ability to count your spots.”

  “I’ve been here less than two hours, and you’re already obsessed with counting my spots? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Well, I am the Devil, and you told me no. Being who I am means I really enjoy the pleasures of the flesh and indulge at every opportunity. Being told no is absolutely infuriating, and that means I just want what I was denied even more. I will get my satisfaction out of you, mark my words. In good news, I’ll make certain you like it.”

  My brother squeaked at the Devil.

  “You don’t get a say in this,” the Devil stated.

  “He’s right, Jonas. He who gets poisoned with transformatives doesn’t get a say in what I do. Maybe if you hadn’t made a deal with loan sharks in the first place, I wouldn’t be storming the gates of hell right now.”

  “I do feel you could use some work on the storming the place front,” Lucifer muttered.

  “I brought two archangels with me and walked in. I stormed your gates just fine.”

  “I opened the gates because I found you amusing, although I will concede your choice of archangels for this venture to be wise. You could have put up a good fight had they waged war on your behalf. I might have had to work at it brawling with both of them. Then I would have been delighted to accept your spots as payment.”

  “The answer is still no. I have too much to do right now to worry about you and your desire to count my spots. Anyway, you’d choke on my fur.”