I didn’t even do drugs.
First things first. I didn’t grow up rich. Mom taught me how to manage money. When I started making good money with my books, I didn’t immediately buy an enormous house and a fancy car. My idiot ex liked to put down what I did, but he sure wantedmeto buy him a sports car. Yeah, I spent what I needed to on my books, spent what I needed to so that I could be comfortable, and invested the rest.
Yeah, he still wasn’t getting his hands on my money after they declared me dead, but I didn’t pay for a cleaning service, either. I thought about it because Ihatedfolding laundry and doing dishes, I could just never pull that trigger.
Except I had people cleaning my house and cooking my food now. I had a fuckingbutler.Lucifer’s estate was probably payingthem, but I needed to learn their names and make sure they were being paidwellbecause the system here was kind of shitty and I didn’t exactly know my father. I knew my mom and she wouldn’t have gone there with a douchebag, butIalso didn’t leave my ex when I should have.
And damn. Working for Lucifer, Satan, and Abaddon was a coveted job amongst the lower demons because they paid really well, treated them with dignity, and they didn’t trash the place because they didn’t have to clean it.
“What about the other princes?” I asked. “You can tell me. They were dicks to me, so they aren’t my favorite.”
They gasped like I saidcuntat a Baptist potluck, but I needed to know.
“She’s on our side,” Celix said.
That seemed to be the encouragement they needed because there were several Felid demons here.
“No one wants to work for them. They have to hire through the staffing agencies. The staffing agencies don’t always tell you what jobs they are sending you on and you can’t refuse once you get there. Most demons are just grateful for permanent placement, so they bear it.”
“Some of our friends work for them. The pay is terrible and so is the abuse. If they are in a bad mood, they take it out on their staff. They trash their own house all the time.”
“Noted. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Like, don’t dig through their things, obviously, but how would they like a little payback so I can shake things up? I’m guessing they don’t even see their servants unless they want to abuse them. They probably say things around them that could help me change the system.”
“They do. Can we trust you?”
I mean, I wouldn’t, but my trust issues had trust issues. There were some massive Daddy issues on top of the trust issues that I was now having to face. I was about as qualified for thisas my manager was when I spent time in retail hell in college. Both of us only got the job because of who our fathers were. Hopefully, I could manage Hell better than Stacy could manage a store that sold cheap jewelry that turned your ears green and shouldn’t be piercing anyone.
“Look, I know I’m an outsider and things aren’t super great back on Earth. I’m not even qualified for this. I used to think Hell was a fairytale and sometimes, I paid my bills writing stories about mortal women getting railed by demons, but I didn’t think they were real, either. I’m probably going to massively fuck this up, but that has to be better than this.”
“Tell me more about your stories,” Nero said, perking up.
“Forgive him, he’s an incubus,” Celix said, putting his entire hand over Nero’s face.
“Color me curious, too,” Kujo said.
I flipped him off.
“No, seriously. Most humans find us vile and want to hurt us,” Kujo said.
“Dude, it’s a whole trope. Can we focus?”
“We can ask and pull them in. What are we listening for?”
“So, I just found out demons get visions. Someone powerful has Lucifer andsomeonehas seen who. If they are reporting that to someone who wants him to stay where he is, then they aren’t going to tell anyone else to assemble a team to get him. I’m not qualified to do any of this. I’d get lost just leaving this house. You can all help me get acclimated while we try to find Lucifer. Because honestly, none of you know for sure if me being here is going to stop your leaks and stop the zombies.”
“Errant souls,” Kujo said.
“They make zombies. Potato pa-tah-to.”
“They don’t eat brains, so not zombies.”
“Mom raised me on zombie movies, so I’m an expert. Zombies eatflesh.Brain eating zombies came from a parody and some people latched onto that. But most zombies just eat flesh.”
“Okay, well the errant souls don’t eat flesh, either. The bodies are dead. Their digestive systems aren’t functional. They don’tfeelhunger.”
“Okay, well, zombiesnoteating people is also a trope because of the whole digestion thing. This is the first time corpses have risen from the dead to confirm whether zombies are cannibals or not. I guess they aren’t. It’s science and we can all peer review it and seethesezombies don’t eat people.”
“A zombie is someone who died and their corpse reanimated because of some kind of virus. Thesearen’tzombies.”
