“Except they could be. There are spiritual zombies and soul enslavement where you canmakea zombie, so zombies.”
Kujo threw up his hands and stormed out.
“You deal with her before I strangle her.”
I flipped his back off, even though he couldn’t see me. I still didn’t know why this was a hill either of us wanted to die on, but they were clearly zombies and anyone could see that.
Dick.
“Um, he’s not really going to strangle you and I’d stop him if his entire personality changed and he tried,” Nero said.
“Uh, he totally gives off vibes he’d strangle me.”
“He wouldn’t. But your idea was a good one,” Celix said. “If we can get intel from inside the other prince’s places, we can find out if they are planning to make a move against you and hopefully find Lucifer.”
“I basically don’t know what I just witnessed, but you can guarantee the other princes will be smelling blood and making a move. Lucifer stopped having kids after his son was brutally murdered, but having his line continue is a threat to them,” Wrathhog said.
“Which means you need to learn to fight demon style,” Celix said with a smile.
“I grew up in the eighties. Is it a different fighting style than that?”
“I have no idea what that means, but you have magic now, so I’m guessing no.”
“Excellent. Maybe I should track down Bobby Fairbanks because that fight in fourth grade would have gone down differently with magic.”
Wrathhog pat me on the shoulder.
“You’re dealing with much powerful, infinitely older bullies this time.”
“Then you all need to teach me how to finish it.”
Kujo and Sydney were eventually going to explode and I still couldn’t tell if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. Kujo spent more time on the mortal realm than I had, so he’d know more about zombies. He’d just never seemedthatpassionate about them before.
When we went to the mortal realm for a Cambion, he never wanted to check out the latest in zombie movies and television shows. He wanted to make a stop for birria tacos since he couldn’t get those in Hell and converted Nero and me, but he was never interested in zombies.
He was grumpier than usual and it was more than just getting kicked in the nuts. We’d have to figure that out because I needed him focused. The other princes couldn’t kill Luciferbecause of his connection to Hell, but there was nothing stopping them from hurting Sydney.
She was a threat, and she didn’t have all of her magic yet. Lucifer wasn’t here to protect her. No one was scared of Abaddon because he never wanted a fight and no one expected Satan to protect her over his own daughter.
We needed to teach her to fight, but Kujo also snatched her naked and didn’t let her bring anything like we did the Cambion kids. Most of them didn’t want their clothes, but they had a sentimental toy they wanted to bring with them. Some wanted to bring their pet.
We were debating a quick trip back to her house for clothes and her computer since she said she was a writer.
“We could portal in, grab what you need, and pop back out,” Nero said.
Which was amuchsafer option than taking her shopping in Hell. Most demons hadn’t met Lucifer. We certainly hadn’t. But there were paintings all over the place and eventually photos. The gossip rags loved covering the princes and took photos any time they were out in public.
We knew damned well what he looked like and Sydney looked exactly like him. Once I got over my shock that we were in the bathroom of a stunning, adult woman with no clothes on and not some scared child, I knew exactly who her father was. The rest of Hell would, too.
“She blew the roof off her house. If the cops have left, that whole place is a crime scene. If they go back looking for more evidence and her clothes and computer are gone, it’s going to raise suspicion. They are either going to think she killed someone or someone kidnapped her,” Kujo said.
“It’s not like I can go back for long periods of time, right?” Sydney asked. “Angels want to horrifically murder me justbecause of my DNA. Does it matter if the cops think I did anything?”
“You mentioned you’re married. They always suspect the husband first. You want to do that to him?” Kujo demanded.
“Well,Kujo,he shat on my career, cheated on me with a nineteen-year-old, and I have no problem with lettingherdeal with his shit, but I make way more money than he does and he thinks I owe him spousal support despite constantly knocking how I made that money. If he’s briefly a murder suspect, he probably has it coming. There was no blood at my house and they won’t find a body, so it’s not like he’ll go tojail.”
Yeah, that was definitely the part of her DNA that was connected to Hell talking. We weren’t about possessing people or making them do bad things. Making bad people pay was definitely a thing we all did. We just had a shitty system here where not all evil demons paid if they were important.
