Now Playing On The Jukebox In Hell Part 9

"Weenie," she declared. "You want to sneak out now, Devvy?"

Yes, but I didn't think we could. Everyone in the ballroom had either seen or heard, and we were the absolute center of attention.

"What the h.e.l.l's going on over there?" Walt shouted.

There wasn't time to explain. Jack was advancing on Ca.s.sie, snarling something about the wages of sin, and the world went bright-red again. The next thing I knew, Jack was flat on his back next to Abner with cartoon stars flying around his head, and I was holding my right hand, which hurt like h.e.l.l. But it felt good in a way, too.

"Devvy," Ca.s.sie said urgently, "we need to get out of here."

I grabbed her head, kissed the top of it, and stepped over the bodies to pop Kurt in the snout as hard as I could. He dropped like a rock. d.a.m.n, this was fun. Now, where was Jenner?

Just as I saw one of his shoes disappearing under a banquet table, Chip and Troy skidded to a stop right behind me and grabbed hold.

"Hey! I'm not done!"

"We appreciate it," Troy told me, "but we're getting you out of here. Now. Chip? You got Ca.s.s?"

"I've got myself," she said icily. "You just get her out to the car."

Annoyed, I wrenched loose from Troy and yanked Abner's vest open. A sheaf of pink slips fell out. I managed to stuff most of them into my jacket pocket before Troy pulled me away, this time for good.

Through all that, no one in the room had moved. They seemed mesmerized by the violence, as though they were home in their underwear, watching TV.

"Excitement's over!" Chip yelled. "We're leaving!"

Still no reaction. Chip shook his head. Then he and Troy dragged me out of the ballroom, with Ca.s.sie covering our escape from the rear. We may have looked a little conspicuous going through the lobby that way, but no one challenged us, and we got to Ca.s.sie's car without incident.

Troy shoved me into the pa.s.senger seat maybe harder than necessary. "You're a real piece of work, Dev. Did you have to do that?"

I smiled thinly, dug into my jacket pocket for the pink slips, and gave him the one with his name on it. As soon as he figured it out, Chip had to grab hold of him.

"I take that back," he said. "I owe you one. Want me to go back in there and kill them all?"

Before I could answer, we heard a weird clicking/clopping headed in our direction. The source turned out to be Heather, who'd broken a heel but was still making good time. "Dev! Ca.s.sie! Wait up! I want to help!"

Ca.s.sie had started the car, but she started laughing at that and put the transmission back in park.

"For crying out loud," Chip complained. "What is with you guys tonight? Why do I have to be NATO?"

Silently, I riffled through the pink slips and pulled out his and Heather's. They took them, puzzled...and then the light dawned. This time, Troy and Heather had to hold Chip back.

The stripes on the roadway were starting to look like a solid line. Ca.s.sie was driving like a maniac even for her, which made me uneasy. "How fast are we going?" I finally asked.

"You don't want to know," she snapped.

Surrept.i.tiously, I leaned over to check the gauge -- and winced. She was right.

"We're not going to jail, Devvy. I don't care if we have to drive to Trinidad."

"We're not Bonnie and Clyde," I reminded her. "And we can't drive to Trinidad."

"Why not?"

I couldn't help smiling just a bit. "Caribbean Sea."

"I hate it when you get literal."

"Exactly what I always told her," Monica said from a few inches behind us.

We both spun around -- not a good idea on Ca.s.sie's part, considering that she was driving. Both our demons were parked on the back seat, as far apart as they could get and still be in the same car. Even for demons, they looked crabby.

Well, tonight that made four of us. Grimly, I turned Ca.s.sie back around to make her watch the road and then leaned over the back of the seat. "A fine time for you two to finally show up. Where were you when all that business with Abner started?"

Monica gave me one of her nastier smiles. "Are you saying you wanted my help?"

"She meant both of us," Vanessa corrected.

"You shut up. This is all your fault anyway, you halfwit."

"My fault?" Ca.s.sie's demon tossed her head haughtily. "Don't blame me. I didn't start this."

"You babysat the old goat while he was home in bed watching TV all day. You got him started on the G.o.d Channel. You gave Abner an opening."

Vanessa didn't like that. "I did not. I kept putting the TV on 'Gilligan's Island' reruns. Can I help it if he figured out how to use the remote?"

"What's the point in making a person watch 'Gilligan's Island'?" I asked, curious. "I'm a.s.suming it has something to do with the shortest path to d.a.m.nation, or at least insanity, but..."

Monica showed me her fangs. Seeing the wild red light in her eyes, I decided it might be best to stay out of the discussion.

"I tried 'Green Acres,' too. And 'Petticoat Junction,'" Vanessa added.

"This isn't about prehistoric TV," Monica insisted. "You were supposed to keep him out of the way of people like Abner. I wasn't done making Devlin's work life miserable yet. And you hadn't even started, you pathetic human-loving..."

"That's not my job."

"No, but Blondie's your job. And she's in charge of making the rest of Devlin's life miserable."

Ca.s.sie, who had been listening with relative patience, stomped on the brakes. "Hey!"

Only my seat belt and a hand on the dash kept me from going through the winds.h.i.+eld while we skidded out of traffic and slammed into a curb. It was deja vu all over again, except that I wasn't driving this time. Fortunately, Ca.s.sie's BMW was newer and st.u.r.dier than my MG; the car rocked violently but stayed on the ground.

"She's your human," Monica said venomously, to which Vanessa flipped her hair in unconcern.

"Everybody shut up," I demanded. "Ca.s.s? Are you OK?"

A little dazed, she nodded. Not quite rea.s.sured, I leaned over to kiss her. Then I turned back on the demons. "You two are responsible for this. If she'd been hurt, I'd have taken this out on you personally. I'd have found a voodoo doctor to put a curse on a chicken for me. Then I'd have cursed you with chicken parts. I'd have..."

"Cursed us with chicken parts?" Vanessa raised an eyebrow at Monica. "She didn't learn that from you, did she?"

Monica hissed at her.

"Quit interrupting while I'm threatening you. If you two were any use at all..."

Vanessa laughed. "That's so cute. She's threatening us. Should I turn her into something? How about...oh, I don't know...a bunny rabbit?"

"You mind your own business," Monica told her.

"She is my business. As long as Ca.s.sandra loves her..."

"Count on it," Ca.s.sie said fiercely.

"...the two of them are a package deal. You should know that, for Lucifer's sake. Didn't you learn anything in Malediction 101?"

Monica defended herself briskly, but I didn't pay any attention. Package deal, were we? It was an oddly appealing concept. Apparently Ca.s.sie felt the same way; she reached over to squeeze my hand and didn't bother to let go.

We're in this together, she'd said a few weeks ago. I couldn't let her be in this getting-fired thing together, but just for this evening, it wouldn't hurt to pretend it was true.

The sudden cessation of argument in the back seat distracted me. Suspicious, I turned to see what was going on with them and almost banged heads with the demons, who were leaning forward avidly to see what was going on with us.

Vanessa smirked at my demon. "Told you. They're a twofer."

"We'll see," Monica said ominously. "Now, who takes care of this business back at the party? You? Or me? You started it, so..."

"Tosh. You started everything before that. You fix it."

Ca.s.sie and I exchanged glances. "What do you mean, 'fix'?" I asked Monica.

"I'm busy, Devlin," she growled.

"I don't care. What is she supposed to fix?"

"The firings," Monica said, aggrieved. "They weren't supposed to happen. Goldilocks here needs to turn everything back 24 hours."

I was interested against my better judgment. "Can she do that? I saw Superman do it in a movie once, but he had to spin the Earth backward."

This time, Monica hissed at me. Ca.s.sie gave her an evil look and pulled me forward.

"I'm not doing it, Monica," Vanessa insisted. "And you can't make me."

"I can make you wish you had."

"You don't scare me. Anyway, you're losing your touch. You couldn't..."

She never finished. There was a little squelching sound, and then her black gown collapsed. Startled, I leaned back over the seat. Monica was smirking, and Vanessa was a toad.

"Not very original," I remarked.

My demon, in no mood for criticism, raised her hand. But just as she did, the toad sprang from the seat into her face. Cursing in a language I didn't recognize, Monica tried to swat it away, but it hopped down into her cleavage. Her eyes met mine in shock for a split-second just before her gown collapsed, too.

Ca.s.sie fought over my restraining arm to see what was wrong. "What are they doing?"

"Fighting," I reported. "Vanessa was a toad a second ago. I think she just got even."

Then we saw something wriggling in Monica's gown, and a snake poked its head out of the neck opening. Ca.s.sie recoiled, horrified. But the toad, which had jumped to safety on the armrest, hopped up and down meaningfully a couple of times, and the snake turned into...

"What is that?" Ca.s.sie whispered.

"A hedgehog. I think." Frowning, I leaned over to get a better look. "It was a lot cuter in the Beatrix Potter books."

The hedgehog didn't appear to like that remark, but it had other things on its mind. It pulled out one of its quills and speared the toad with it, and the toad turned into a c.o.c.kroach.

I'd seen enough. "Duck," I told Ca.s.sie.

"No, honey, I think that's a bug."

There wasn't time to argue. The combatants were going at it hammer and tongs now, turning each other into things at a furious pace. There might have been an actual duck in there somewhere, but it was really hard to keep up with what was what, let alone who was who. Finally, one turned the other into a pigeon, which caused a violent fit of flapping and screeching.

"No birds in this car!" Ca.s.sie shrieked, hitting the power-window b.u.t.tons. "Not on this upholstery!"

The pigeon shot out of the BMW, hotly pursued by a robin. They both did a couple of circuits around the car, flying close enough to the winds.h.i.+eld that we saw the tiny fangs in their beaks. Then they lighted out, disappearing into the night.

When the shock had worn off, I reached over Ca.s.sie to roll up the back-seat window. "Everything OK, sweetheart?"

She thought about it for a long time. I half-expected her not to answer. Finally, she drew a shaky breath. "Which part of 'everything' do you mean? The part where we're both fired, or the part where we have more time to spend with your family at Christmas?"

"Never mind," I said quickly.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson To Part 9 The Devil's Workshop (c) 2000, M.C. Sak Disclaimers, Credits, & E-Mail: See Part 1.

CHAPTER 9.

Three Days Before Christmas *

Finally, there was nothing to do but go home.

Ca.s.sie and I had done all we could about the job thing. We had a lawyer all over it; charges were flying back and forth, and our lives would get very unpleasant soon. But the unpleasantness would keep until after the holidays. Lawyers were human, too, our lawyer explained.

An old joke occurred to me (Q: What do you have when you have a hundred lawyers up to their necks in sand? A: Not enough sand), but I was just able to resist repeating it. Chances were that he'd heard it anyway; a lawyer had told it to me in the first place.