“Alright, what’s next on the tour from Hell? You know, you should really consider making this a tourist attraction. You could make a killing bringing single women down here, convincing them one by one that they’re your reincarnated queen. Then in the Second Circle, you can have a gift shop that sells t-shirts or fridge magnets with ‘Satan’s bitch’ stamped on them or something.”
“You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”
“You’re laughing, aren’t you?”
His lips spread into a diabolical grin, his tongue running over his teeth. “I’m laughing because I think it’s cute the way you tell jokes to try to distract me from all the dirty thoughts in your head. Your beast is going mad for me, Jessica. You’ve been practically dripping for me after you saw what I did to you that night. That was the result of decades, rather, centuries of pent-up sexual frustration. Just imagine how good I’m going to fuck you after the thousands of years we’ve been apart.”
He was looming over me again, starring down at me with an unholy grin that had my lady parts throbbing, making me wish I had packed a change of panties in my clutch.
I fumbled with the proper response. What was there to say to him that I hadn’t already said? That I wasn’t Lilith?
What bothered me was that I was becoming less sure of that with every passing hour.
With the way he was looking at me, like I was his whole world, seeing how in love they’d been in Limbo, I almost wished I was her.
The elevator came to a halt with ading, and the door opened. I sent a little prayer of thanks to The Fates for the distraction. Lucifer had said that they governed the fate of shifters but hey, praying to triplets crouched over voodoo dolls in some hellish cave seemed more appropriate than praying to Lucifer’s dad.
”Welcome to the third layer,” Nyx’s voice announced over the intercom. “Though I’m not really sure what it is you two are planning on. There’s nothing there. Why don’t you come back up to Lust? I can show you around Downtown. Or I can arrange a meet and greet with some noteworthy souls. The Einstein lectures we have are popular, as well as the interactive display where you can flog Hitler. Or we can—”
“Thank you, Nyx,” Lucifer interjected with a curt dismissal. “I know you’re eager to catch up with Jessica, but there will be plenty of time for that later.”
“Of course, Sire.” The demoness said her goodbyes with a pouty tone, and with the click of the intercom, she was gone.
“Why did you promise her I was going to be going back to hang out with her? You said you were going to take me right back home once we reached the ninth level.”
“I didn’t promise her anything. What I said was that there would be plenty of time for you two to catch up later,” he sniffed. “Though if you don’t, you’ll properly break her heart. You two were very close once upon a time.”
“Excuse me. Don’t go playing mind games with me, trying to get me to stay through guilt. A deal is a deal. I get to leave at the end of this weird tour.”
“I keep my promises, Jessica. Once you have all the pieces in place to properly decide if you’re going to acknowledge your past and accept me as your mate, then you can choose to return to your old life.”
“Then stop making me feel guilty.”
“Could it be that you’re experiencing guilt for snubbing your own sister? She loves you. And it doesn’t sit well with your beast that your flighty little human inhibitions are going to quite possibly keep you two separated forever. Now, let’s get on with the show, shall we?”
He stepped out of the elevator, and I followed. So far, every single layer of Hell was not what I’d been expecting, and the third floor was no exception. Although, this place left me a little disappointed.
“It’s just a parking garage.” I blinked, looking all around the concrete structure to see if there was something, anything I was missing.
But nope. It was just a parking garage. And judging by all the empty parking spaces, it wasn’t even that busy of a parking garage. “Um, is there more to it than this?”
Lucifer shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks and shrugged both shoulders. “Not really. To be honest, I really couldn’t think of what to do with it. Gluttons are some of my favorite sinners, so you see, in my eyes, they don’t really do anything wrong. Most of the souls sent here on account of gluttony spend their better days up in Lust, where they can really gorge themselves. Some of the more feral demons native to this realm still roam out in the wastes, but that’s pretty much it beyond these walls.
He strolled over to a car at the far end of the parking lot. I trotted after him, my platforms clicking against concrete, bouncing off the walls and making me accurately aware that we were once again completely alone. There wasn’t another soul here.
“Great. So, can we just skip this level then and go to the next?”
“Sorry, Kitten. You and I had a hell of a time here, rescuing poor souls, plucking them out one by one. This place sits on what used to be a rather nasty mire, a really shitty place, pun intended. Abaddon was a bit of a psychopath way back when which you’re probably picking up on. The fellow has his strengths, but creativity really isn’t one of them. When he ruled the Underworld, he just stuck all the gluttonous in the mire, letting them stew in their own filth.
“While you and I spent many years on the second layer building a paradise, we spent many years here simply rescuing all the souls from their eternal shit bath. Some of them are still trying to wash the stench off their flesh. Those are the folks that run the water bill up real high at the hotel.”
He paused near a parked vehicle and pulled out a comically large key ring, like the kind in cartoons when the protagonist needs to make a hasty getaway, but there are too many keys to sort through. While Lucifer searched for the right key, I caught up with him, and gaped at the car. It was gray, sat low to the ground, and was so high tech it looked like something that should be sitting in one of NASA’s hangers and not in the Third Circle’s parking garage. Then I realized that I’d seen it before, all over the internet.
“Wait a second. This is one of the new DeLorean models. The re-imagined car fromBack to the Future, right? This model hasn’t even been released yet.” Not to mention it was a car with a price tag well into the six figures.
He held up the correct key, a modern-looking fob that looked incredibly peculiar amongst the ancient, rusty skeleton keys on the ring. “That’s right, Kitten. I’m a resourceful man.”
I rolled my eyes and stomped around to the passenger door. “Don’t tell me you got this just for the joke because we’re going back in time through your memories.”
