Lizard nodded. “I can see how that could be confusing. Really, it’s simple math. He started with one asshole, then I ripped him three more. Hence, four fuckin’ assholes.”
“I get it,” Jane said.
“Me too,” Martha agreed.
“Unfortunately, I do as well,” Satan said, shaking his head.
I just nodded. Not only was I hung up on the fact that Lizard shopped at Costco, I was also alarmed that he ate mayo on bagels. But the kicker… I was now picturing Wipe, a Vampyre I’d never met, with a baseball embedded in his armpit and four buttholes. It was entirely too much after all the food I’d eaten.
Lizard took a bow. I clapped for him. So did Satan. Martha and Jane hooted and hollered for their man. As insane as Lizard was, he was also brilliant. He’d stopped Uncle Fucker and me from going to the point of no return. There was a method to the Demon’s madness. I wasn’t sure I had enough gray matter to dissect it. I’d just have to trust the crazy.
We all stood in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t loaded or uncomfortable. It just was.
And then the next bit of weird hit.
“Sir? Good sir?” an old woman called out from the end of the alley. “Is that you?”
The voice of a human knocked us back into reality. The Devil’s eyes returned to normal and my hands stopped sparking. I shoved them into the pockets of my Armani suit to be safe. I was pretty sure I heard Satan mutter, ‘oh fuck’.
A homeless woman and a goat waddled down the alley. She smiled broadly at Satan aka me. She took in our motley crew, but her focus was on the Devil who was in disguise.
“I thought that was you!” she said, hugging my uncle.
He looked like he was about to implode. Physical affection wasn’t his thing unless it was from Elle or Luke.
“Now, now,” Satan ground out, gingerly disengaging from the woman. “None of that is necessary. At all. Ever.”
She giggled. “Oh, kind sir, but it is! With the generous amount of pound notes you gave me, I had a lovely roast chicken dinner with a tasty jacket potato, bought a goat off a mime in front of Buckingham Palace and then tripled the money playing poker at the Empire Casino!”
I squinted at her. Had she just called Satan, sir? He was me. I looked nothing like a sir. There was a chance she wasn’t right in the head, or possibly vision impaired.
“Wonderful,” Satan said through gritted teeth. “Off with you, then. Tut tut.”
“As you wish, sir,” she said, curtseying to him. “I’m off to play snooker with my friends Rick and Steve! Have a good evening.”
Everyone exchanged surprised glances. What were the odds?
“Not so fast,” Satan said gleefully, stepping in front of the old woman. “Yourfriends… Rick and Steve… do they happen to have prefixes to their names?”
My stomach tightened. Stuff was never this easy, and I didn’t believe in coincidence. Were we being set up somehow?
She appeared confused. “Not that I know of.”
It was my turn to step in. “Hello,” I said. “My name is umm…” Crap. I couldn’t say Satan or Lucifer or Lord of the Underworld. If this was a trap, I wasn’t going to play right into it. “My name is…”
“Blade Inferno,” Satan supplied smoothly, using his ridiculous penname before I could come up with something that might make him lose his debatably sane mind.
“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. Being called Blade Inferno was going to make me yack and I had a lot of semi-digested ammunition to yack up. “Yes. Blade, but you can call me Pussycat. All my friends do.”
The glare I got from my uncle should have struck me dead where I stood. I smiled and winked at him. He then smiled back at me. It was terrifying.
“And my name is Cockina,” he told the old gal. “But my friends call me Dickie.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Dickie and Pussycat,” she said with a warm smile. “My name is Lady Cred. My friends call me Cred.”
“Cred?” I asked. It was an odd name, but then again, so was she.
“Yes,” she replied with a giggle. “Cred.”
