“That doesn’t help,” Satan groused as he watched me polish off a chunk of cheesecake and wash it down with a root beer float. “If I’m fat by the time I get my body back, I will make your life miserable.”
I laughed and burped. Root beer did that to me. “Dude, Immortals have fast metabolism. A few extra calories will not extend your ass.”
He shook his head and made a sound of disgust. “This is the sixth establishment we’ve… I mean,you’veeaten in. After the pasta, pizza, hamburgers, shrimp curry, thirty-two spicy salmon rolls, fish and chips, fried rice and now this sugar fueled disaster,” he ground out pointing to the rather large array of desserts in front of me, “I’d say you’ve eaten at least fifty thousand calories.”
“And delicious calories they were,” I said, spreading jam on an apricot and white chocolate scone and taking a bite. “Okay,back to the random ass clues. I know those dates are important. They have to be. Immortals are ridiculously cryptic.”
The arcane and mysterious way of people who lived forever drove me nuts. Even after a decade or so, I was still trying to get used to it.
“Welp, Bosom McBooby, maybe you shouldn’t have ghosted Connie,” Martha pointed out. “She was the one who brought it up.”
I swallowed the bite and sighed. Martha was correct, but Connie Raven Enid Delacroix was shady. The woman was able to cast a spell on my son—one of the most unique and powerful Immortals in existence. Unheard of. Something was off with the witch and I didn’t trust her. Neither did Satan, and it was our lives—so to speak—on the line.
“I could summon her,” Jane volunteered.
I squinted at her. “You can summon a human?”
“Nonsense. Absolute rubbish,” Satan added.
“She’s a witch,” Martha reminded us. “All you gotta do is say her name three times and do the secret fuckin’ handshake. And POOF! Connie Raven Enid Delacroix shows up with her broom ready to party.”
I laughed. I shouldn’t have. The scone went down the wrong way and Lizard had to Heimlich me. Not my best moment. Still coughing, I thanked my Demon buddy. Choking would not kill me. I was Immortal, but there were still a couple of scones left and I wanted them badly.
Without any warning, Martha and Jane prepared to prove that Connie Raven Enid Delacroix could indeed be summoned and began chanting her name. I choked again and dove over the table to stop them. Unfortunately, Satan was all over it. Uncle Fucker, clearly forgetting we were surrounded by humans, electrocuted the daylights out of the idiots. That move caused an explosion, screaming and a mass exodus of the bakery.
“Shit,” Satan growled as he picked up the flaming Martha and Jane and made for the door. “Run for it. This isn’t exactly explainable.”
He was correct. The customers and staff had hightailed it out of the bakery. To find all of them and wipe their memories could take days. We didn’t have days to waste. We needed to figure out how to appreciate each other before we accidentally destroyed London. I didn’t exactly appreciate Satan at the moment since my remaining scones had also gone up in flames, but Lizard had my back. He grabbed a bag and shoved ten tea cakes and fourteen scones into it before we made our escape.
“This way,” Satan insisted, still carrying Martha and Jane. He’d doused the flames on the gals and now the two old bags were just smoldering and cackling. Lizard held their canes that had survived the blast and used them and his bat to gently move pedestrians out of the way. I was busy running and shoving food into my mouth. It was not a good look for any of us.
“Avoid the bobbies,” Satan warned tersely.
“The what?” I asked with a mouthful of almond tea cake that almost brought a tear to my eye.
“Coppers,” Lizard translated.
“Got it,” I replied, polishing off the remaining treats.
As we rounded a corner, Uncle Fucker took a hard right into another deserted alley. The relief was real. Running and eating wasn’t easy. I mean, I’d do it again in a pinch, but it was far preferable to sit in a restaurant and shove food into my cakehole.
Satan dropped the dumb-dumbs to the cobblestone pavement and straightened his Prada dress. “Under NO circumstances will you call on that witch,” he snapped. “She’s batshit nuts.”
“Roger that,” Martha said with a chuckle.
Lizard handed his women their canes helped them to their feet. The boobs were a problem. I wondered if they were permanent or if the spell would eventually wear off. Did it really matter? No. But looking at them was definitely more difficult than usual.
“Oh my God! Crap,” I shouted, realizing we’d left a burning building behind and we’d been the cause of it. Technically, Uncle Fucker had caused it, but that was irrelevant. I’d been ready to fistfight the dummies in public and would have done it if Satan hadn’t detonated the place. We were all to blame. Our behavior was beyond unacceptable. People could die. “The fire!” I began to sprint back to the scene of the disaster. Of course, on the up side, I’d grab a few more sweet treats if any were left.
“Not to worry,” Lizard said, stopping me in my tracks. “Satan put it out as we left.”
“What?” I asked, turning around and making sure I’d heard him correctly. “Repeat.”
Uncle Fucker rolled his eyes, or rather mine, so hard they should have gotten stuck in the back of his head. “The fire was extinguished and the building was restored to pre-fire condition,” he snapped, wildly annoyed to have to share the information. “And if any of you imbeciles repeat what I said or talk about it in or out of my presence, I shall be forced disembowel you with flaming pliers.”
I grinned. If the jackass disemboweled me, he’d be disemboweling himself. He was too vain to go there. “That was nice of you to put out the fire and restore the building.”
“It was notnice. I don’t donice,” he snarled. His eyes narrowed and glowed dangerously.
