“Look at me,” Nero said.
Nero shimmered. His horns and tail disappeared, and I was looking at a giant man who looked like a human model. I brushed my fingers across his forehead.
“You’re gorgeous like this, but I prefer you with your actual face, horns and all.”
Celix changed next. His skin stayed dark and his features semi feline for a human, but less cat like than when he wasn’t wearing a glamour. Again, hot as fuck, but I wanted the cat man.
“Again, I wouldn’t kick you out of bed, but I like the original better.”
Kujo was giving me this weird look. I wasn’t going to ask, because if he wasn’t offering something unpleasant, I wasn’t going to bring it on myself. He didn’t need a glamour because he looked human except for when he brought his wings out. I knew I needed one because I was supposed to be missing and eventually declared dead.
I was probably going to be around alotof cops because people were coming back from the dead and all the souls jumping into those bodies were bad people. They probably had alotof questions.
“Do it but if I’m going to be hanging out with a bunch of deathly hot men, don’t make me ugly.”
“Perish the thought,” Satan said with a small smile.
He waved his hand, and I got a brief case of goosebumps. It was over in a minute. I caught my reflection in the mirror in the entryway and that was freaky. I looked nothing like myself anymore.
“I’m ready. Is there anything I should know?”
“Yes. Heaven isn’t above and Hell isn’t below. Hell is more like a mirror world to the mortal realm. If there’s a thin spot in Hell, everyone who escapes ends up in the same place on the mortal realm. Lucifer had a strict inventory system, and it just got better over time. We know exactly who is there and what they did. The system was so good, we know who escapes, too. I have the list. We knowwherethey popped out. We just need to find the closest place with fresh corpses. Sometimes, it’s a hospital and sometimes, it’s a funeral home. This is easier as a team.”
“So, I just say their name and tell them to go back to Hell? That seems too easy.”
“Listen, my kid is one of the best torturers in Hell, but she had a mentor and she’s also been a mentor to other demons. Youdo notwant to end up here when you die. Soul possession is unnatural, but it’s always done because that soul has nowhere else to go. Sometimes, it’s just a ghost, but lately, it’s souls from Hell. They don’twantto go back, so you’ll have to yell and be forceful with them. You can get a little dramatic if you want.”
Oh, I fully intended to get dramatic. Satan promised I’d eventually learn to do this and then put his hand on my shoulder and yanked me through the cosmos. I hadn’t pooped right since Kujo did this to me in my bathroom, so unless this was like eating extra fiber and I needed to get used to it, I didn’t think I’d be doing this that often when I learned how.
We were in the bum fuck middle of nowhere. I was pretty sure a tumbleweed just blew by. Mom was my horror movie buddy, and it looked likeChildren of the Cornout here. I didn’t see any type of hospital or morgue nearby. Just a whole bunch of corn. Satan was at leasttryingto be helpful.
“So, do you feel anything strange?”
“Like some creepy kids are going to come out and sacrifice me to save their crops.”
“Not exactly. What you’re feeling is the unnaturalness of the bodies that are possessed. You’ll want to move towards that. You’ll know them because there’s a slight, sickly glow around them. It’s the soul not being in the right body. Where should we go?”
Fuck me.Children of the Cornwas part of the reason I wasn’t all that broken up when I got told I couldn’t have kids. Because it would be just my luck my kids murdered me to appease some deity for a super rare Labubu. I couldn’t believe I was walkingtowardsthat feeling.
Nero and Celix were flanking me. I’d always been fairly tall, but both of them dwarfed me. Nero’s hand brushed mine, and I ended up snatching it. Yes, I was a strong, powerful woman with a black belt, but right now, I just wanted the big demon to hold my hand. Nero gave me a small smile and started stroking my hand with his thumb. There was just something about this demon that calmed me.
The sense of unease was growing as I walked towards the center of town. It wasn’t triggering my fight or flight and it should have been. It felt completely unnatural, and I was walking straight towards it.
We eventually came upon a hospital. This was a small town, so the hospital wasn’t huge. I pointed.
“They’re in there. In the basement. Shouldn’t they be making a run for it? If I just escaped Hell and found a fresh body, I’d get away from the other bad people I escaped with so I didn’t draw attention to myself. Do you get stupid when you die?”
“Not stupid,” Satan grinned. “It’s a corpse. They don’t jump into it the way you’re thinking. Some of these bodies are damaged or too frail to move quickly. They basically have to jump in one or fade to nothing. Basically, they could escape Hell by ceasing to exist altogether, but they won’t. Even if they’ve jumped into a powerful body with no damage, they still have to learn how to animate the body because the brain is dead.”
“Gross.”
“I’ve actually always wanted to go on one of these calls, but everyone thinks since I’m a Cambion, I should go on the Cambion calls,” Kujo said.
“Hrm, there are a lot of demons we’ve pigeonholed and are not using to their potential because of the system we’ve built here. Let me do the talking since I’ve done this before and have the documents.”
We strolled up to the hospital, and I didn’t take Satan for aSupernaturalfan, but he whipped out a fairly realistic-looking FBI badge and introduced himself as Agent Osborne. Yeah, if his fake FBI documents weren’t Agent Ozzy Osborne, I was never going to let him live that down.
A very terrified morgue attendant escorted us down to the basement.
