“There’s not much to say about your brother. He was a weak son-of-a-bitch. Darwinism and all. You can’t let that shit procreate you know?” I tossed a knowing smile and wink over my shoulder. “Does anyone want a family photo? I forgot to get one before I offed him.”
I grabbed Damien’s head by the hair, taking my cellphone out as I hustled over to where Callen sat. Before I could get a few steps in, that piece of his scalp detached from the bone and his head fell just as my right foot was swinging forward.
The tip of my toe caught it at theperfecttime.
Damien’s head arced through the air and landed face down right on Callen’s lap. His bellow echoed through the room, topped only by the sound of my cackle.
“Satan’s taint, that is some Sodom and Gomorrah shit if I have ever seen it! Callen, this taboo relationship between you and your brother was something I never saw coming.”
“Get it off!” Callen screamed.
“Quit being such a pussy,” I said with a light smack to the back of his head.
I swung around to the back, stuck my hand into Damien’s neck to hold him by the spine, extended the selfie stick between them and said, “Alright, everyone say Jeezits!” The camera flashed. “Ahh, I wished I kept that old Polaroid but this will have to do.” Damien’s head thudded to the ground as I inspected the picture. Callen looked pissed, Lucifer was half-smiling from the door frame, Damien looked, well, dead, and I was definitely having the time of my life. “Yup, that’s going in the scrapbook.”
“Whatever you’re going to do, just do it,” Callen demanded.
“You’re right. The police will be here soon and I don’t really have time for any inconvenience.”
Of all the things tonight that could have set him off, mentioning police was the one that went global.
“You called the fucking police?” Callen yelled and bucked against his restraints.
“Oh, yeah. I decided, Callen, that death was too kind for you.” Luci perked up, his face locking into that cold control he saved for everyone else. I rolled out my kill kit on the table, running one hand lovingly over each instrument before grabbing my favorite spoon with the homemade serrations on one side. “And I know now that there’s no amount of torture that I can give that’s going to have the effect I want.” I turned around, leaning against the table so that I could watch every reaction unfold on his face. “It satisfies you that I’ve gone through all of this trouble just to get to you. That I’ve held onto this grudge for thirty long, agonizing years. But I’m not going to let you rule my life anymore. I won’t give you the satisfaction of controlling my afterlife the way you did my death.”
Releasing those words was like climbing out of the grave I’d been buried alive in. Because the truth was, I’d been standing in my own way for too long.
“Luci,” I said with steel strengthening my spine. “I want to make a new deal.”
“And what would that be?” he asked cautiously.
I got up from the table, ignoring Callen’s screams and the siren’s wailing in the distance, and walked slowly until I was toe-to-toe with Lucifer, God’s most favorite son and the great King of the Unwanted.
“I won’t ask you to choose me,” I whispered. “But I want you to know that I chooseyou, Lucifer Morningstar.” My hand lifted of its own accord to soothe the wrinkle in his brow. “And if one day, you choose me too, I’m here.”
His lips thinned, and he didn’t speak for what felt like an eternity. And then, “What of your deal, dearest Dany?”
“Well,” I laughed a little. “I want to renew our contract, let you keep my soul as long as you promise that this bastard relives his Death Day for eternity.”
“He is not yet dead,” Lucifer whispered.
I smiled, winked, and said, “Watch this, big boy.”
It only took me minutes to do something I’d put off for thirty years. I popped the top of the last beer and gripped Callen’s hair from behind, forcing his head back until my face was the only thing he could see.
“Sleep tight, motherfucker.”
His screams were like the climb before an orgasm and when I shoved the neck of the bottle into his mouth, breaking teeth and forcing it past the vomit I knew he’d aspirate on, it was bliss.
I held it there until the black oil stain swirling behind his eyes stopped moving. My serrated spoon made quick work of scooping them out so that Luci could claim Callen’s soul for eternity. I took comfort in knowing that this would be the moment this piece of shit would live until God decided nothing was worth living anymore.
Luci regarded me heavily as I handed Callen’s eyes over to him.
“Now get us out of here, because I’ve got some shit to say to you and I don’t think the human police are going to take kindly to us standing around a bunch of dead people.”
The corner of his lip twitched. “As you wish, dearest Dany.”
The ballroom of Hell was a crumbling museum of gilded decay.
