Midlife in Hell
You know those YA books we still love where some plucky teenager finds out they are the chosen one with magical powers and has to save a realm?
Someone fucked up. Someone fucked up badly. My second husband just left me for his TA, and I just had a hot flash so bad, the roof of my house blew off. I honestly thought it was just spontaneous human combustion, but then three demons appeared in my bathroom, and they, apparently, don't like it when you squirt shampoo in their eyes because you can't reach the towel.
So, yes, it was a hot flash, but it was also demon puberty because my dad is Lucifer. That explains why Mom never talked about him. Apparently, I'm not the antichrist, but I am heir to the throne of Hell. Lucifer is missing, and Hell needs a Morningstar or it malfunctions. All those reports about a dangerous new street drug were actually souls escaping Hell and plonking themselves in the freshest dead body they could find. Someone should have told me there were zombies.
So, yeah, me and my hot flashes have to go to a realm known for being a fiery inferno to stop the zombies from invading Earth and probably locate the devil because I have no idea what I'm doing.
Midlife in Hell is a why choose twist on the ‘chosen one’ trope, but the heroine is in her forties with three smoking-hot demons she doesn't have to pick between.
So, this got a little blasphemous. Sorry, not sorry.
Islammed my phone onto the pillow and blew out an irritated sigh. The divorce wasn’t going well at all. The bastard thought I owed him spousal support. That was the latest. He was an adjunct literature professor with no tenure, and I was a fairly successful romance writer, something that made his asshole itchy.
I started out in nursing and eventually wrote my first romance book under a pen name. I didn’t expect it to do anything, but it did. Pretty soon, I was able to quit my job and write full time. My fucking life was anything but a romance novel. I should have left first and years ago.
Yeah, sometimes, I was a dipshit. Karl turned into a bitter asshole as soon as my writing career took off. He knocked mybooks as lady porn all the time and pretended like he wasn’t teaching Bible fanfiction. Finally, he left me for his TA and acted like he’d wanted kids the entire time we were married.
He hadn’t. He seemed relieved when I was told I couldn’t have them. He threw it in my face that this nineteen-year-old child he was dating had childbearing hips. Yeah, fuck him. But I made way more money than he did, and he thought I owed him spousal support to keep up his lifestyle.
My lawyer fell out laughing when Karl’s lawyer sent that over because she had the receipts he’d been cheating with the fetus before he left. We didn’t have a prenup, but she was almost certain there was no way in fuck he was going to get it.
All of this wouldn’t have been so bad if the hot flashes hadn’t started. No one prepared me for this. Not how it felt and how I was going to get gaslit about it. They blamed anxiety at first because of Karl and tried to throw antidepressants at me. I wasn’t really depressed about him, just pissed I hadn’t left earlier.
Theyfinallyput me on hormone replacement, but it didn’t start working right away. So far, it’d just made my skin really dry. And another hot flash hit as soon as I hung up with Karl, who was demanding I just give in and grant him the spousal support.
Yeah, first things first. I whipped my shirt and bra off. I usually got rid of that thing as soon as I got home, but I got interrupted. I went straight to the bathroom and turned the cold tap on the shower. Cold showers seemed to help.
MaybeI was imagining it, but it was almost like steam was coming off my skin as I stood under the cold water. But that was ridiculous. I needed to stop letting Karl get to me. As soon as the divorce was final, I was taking a vacation somewhere tropical and having a torrid affair with anyone who was nice to me.
Except itreallyseemed like steam was coming off of me. Uh, was that normal? I hadn’t read anything about that. The cold water didn’t seem to be helping, like it usually did. If anything, it was worse. This was the worst hot flash I’d had so far.
And then I just spontaneously combusted, and the entire roof blew off my bathroom.
What.the.fuck?
The alarm was blaring, so I had to bring my team to fetch another half-demon child who was abandoned by their father back to Hell so he could step up like he should have in the first place.
This was theworstuse of my time, but I was that kid once, so they thought I was suited to this. I wasn’t. In my case, it wasn’t my dad that stepped out; it was my mom. She had me on Earth and then disappeared back to hell and left me at the hospital. She wasn’t all that maternal when I got brought to Hell, either. She was a Fury, so I didn’t exactly expect her to be.
Why they thoughtIwas going to be good with kids as a half Fury was beyond me, but I could pass among the humans. They paired me up with two scary-looking motherfuckers whowere basically marshmallows and better with kids than I was if the kids ever stopped screaming after they saw them. There was always that one kid who thought the monsters were badass and also asked them to murder their bullies.
Yeah, that was their demon half. They called us Cambions.
Celix and Nero were full demon. They might be good with Cambions, but they weren’t weak, and you didn’t want to fuck with them. You didn’t want to fuck with the three of us. Weshouldhave been dealing with the issues plaguing Hell at the moment instead of fetching Cambion kids.
I mean, we shouldn’t leave them on Earth where they’d either be hurt by scientists or the church folk, butotherdemons should be doing this. I gathered my team and stepped through the portals to Earth.
I hoped it wasn’t a screamer or a biter this time. Ihatedit when they bit me. Or kicked me in the shins. They were kids, so I wouldn’t do what I’d do if an adult bit me or kicked me in the shins. And theyalwayswent straight for me instead of Celix and Nero, who actually looked like demons. I looked like a human with a lot of piercings and tattoos. My wings only came out when I wanted them to.
Celix was a Felid demon. Basically, a cat demon. His skin was pitch black, his eyes were bright green with slits for pupils, and he had giant teeth. He was also one of the biggest demons in Hell outside of the monarchy. He had razor-sharp claws, and if you didn’tknowhe was a giant softy; he was pretty scary looking.
Nero was in incubus. He could shapeshift to be anyone’s sex dream, but he never did it, even when we were fetching Cambion. He didn’t particularly like how many half-incubus Cambions we were always bringing back to Hell.
“What do you think we’re dealing with this time?” Celix asked.
“If it’s another elemental, I’m asking for a transfer,” I growled.
