Hell's Kitty (Welcome To Hell) (16 page)

Striking a pose, Lucifer eyed his latest outfit in the mirror with a critical eye. He was still torn as to what to wear.

Pirate apparel replete with billowy white shirt adorned with hanging ruffled sleeves, breeches, a faux peg leg and eye patch?
Colonial commander with heavy brocade jacket, large tricorn hat and powdered curls? Navy style with full admiral gear and a full array of medals—awards he’d given himself over the centuries for valor and other brave acts?

Or should he go completely
badass and dress in black, which had a slimming effect and meant he could wear his cool black cape and tungsten-toed black Hessian boots?

Decisions. Decisions. Half the battle was making a daunting impression on the enemy. Then crushing them. And once crushed, he needed to look his best for the reporters sure to swarm him after.

His hellphone rang, the tone a special one titled “The Cat Came Back,” done by a cool jazz group who played in a disreputable club in the seventh ring.

About time
Felipe reported in. He’d wondered when the damnable feline would call. The overland travel when the portal in the Amazon village malfunctioned—a problem he’d secretly manufactured to give his latest dating duo more time to spend together—had delayed the arrival of his new minion. Problem was he’d had a difficult time tracking them in between the towns they pit-stopped in. His spy network apparently needed a major overhaul. He knew they’d finally made it to the second ring, not that he let on he knew. Let the minions think they could act as they wanted and he was more likely to catch them misbehaving.

“If it isn’t my mangy
feline finally deigning to report in. Where in the nine rings are you?” he barked.

“Right outside the bloody castle where your fucking guard is refusing me entry.”

“Of course they are. It’s what I pay them to do. No entry to anyone without my say-so. We are in lock-down mode.” A precaution given the portents his seers kept bitching about. End of Hell as we know it, blah, blah. They screamed death and destruction. Lucifer called it about time he had some fun.

“Problems in the capital
, boss?”

“Not yet, but my horns are humming
, which means it’s coming. A demon can never be too prepared. I will relay orders for my guards to allow you in along with the girl.”

Felipe cleared his throat.
“Uh. Yeah, about that. We have a slight problem.”

“What do you mean
a slight problem?”

“I don’t have Jenny anymore.”

“What do you mean you don’t have her anymore? My spies said you hit the edge of the second ring last night and booked into a tavern with lodgings.”

“Didn’t your spies tell you what happened next?”

Probably, but Lucifer hadn’t read the reports yet. He’d spent a busy evening chasing Mother Nature around his garden and then deflowering her. She’d left him not long after, citing pressing business, and he’d spent the rest of the night catching up on the latest episodes of
Game of Thrones
. Now there was a bloody show with a cast he could admire.

“
I don’t have time to watch over every single foolish minion. I’m a busy man. So get on with it, cat. Tell me how you fucked up.”

“
I got taken by surprise by mermaids. They showed up in disguise, and while I did my best to fight them off, there were too many. They took Jenny.”

“You lost
your mission objective.” Lucifer’s voice dropped into a low, ominous growl.

“She was taken, no thanks to your fucking damned souls and lazy demons who watched the whole thing happen without lifting a finger.
Not to mention, how did the mermaids make it past so many of your guards in the first place?”

“A
re you making excuses? Trying to shift blame? Not taking responsibility? All admirable sins, but don’t think you can placate me with your refusal to take responsibility.”

“How about I atone by promising to get her back.”

“You know where she is?”

“Not quite, but I can guess.”

And so could Lucifer. He eyed his nautical outfits and saw his mind had already peeked ahead to the future. “Meet me at the docks.”

He hung up his phone and sent out a few directives with just a snap of his fingers.
As people jumped to do his bidding, he dressed until there was only one thing left to do.

“Gaia!” He bellowed her name. This time she didn’t make him wait but arrived in a rose
-perfumed cloud.

“You bellowed, my randy lover?”

“How would you like to go on a fishing cruise?” he asked.

It was time for this demon to become king of the Darkling Sea and show certain
fishies what happened to those who attacked on his turf and took what he considered his.

Nerves stretche
d taut and his kitty snapping and snarling in his head, Felipe paced the ancient stone dock jutting from the first circle into the Styx.

Not so long ago, he’d stood
in this very same spot, a feline getting its paw slapped by his boss. He’d returned a different man. Now, instead of looking for an excuse to flee Lucifer’s machinations, he wanted to be a part of them. He needed his Lord’s help in going to the rescue of the one person who’d come to mean more to him than even his own lives; someone he loved.
Ack.
Damned hairballs.

Choking on the admission o
r not, it was time for him to embrace the truth. He loved Jenny, and if it meant readjusting some of his views and practicing monogamy and coming home to the same place and woman every night, he would because he’d found something worth the collar and leash. A woman who engaged him on all levels—and made him fucking purr.

Despite tardiness being a sin, Felipe
didn’t have to wait for long. His Lord stepped from a temporary portal onto the dock, dressed in black combat gear from head to toe, which would have proven much more impressive if not for the yellow rain slicker he wore overtop.

At Felipe’s arched brow, Lucifer said
, “It takes a confident demon to pull this off. I thought the rubber duckies added a playful touch.”

Playful or insane?
Not a debate he’d verbalize given Felipe preferred to keep his head.

“So how
are we getting to Jenny, boss? Military sub? Special forces scuba team? Going to part the waters and choke the bitches? Take a direct portal to their hideout and wipe them out with your army?”

“We are going by boat
, of course. Damned portals won’t work over water.”

“Boat?”
Felipe was about to ask what boat since there was nothing anchored when, from the mists of the Styx, appeared a familiar shape. A robed Charon poled his flatbed vessel to the dock.

A smart kitty would have held his tongue. Apparently, he
’d lost some of his intelligence with his last life. “You aren’t fucking serious, are you? We’ll never catch them in that rickety old thing.”

“Rickety?” Charon drew himself to his full height, which was remarkably impressive. “I’ll have you know this vessel is extremely reliable. I’ve ferried millions of souls with it.
Fought off beasts. Engaged in battles.”

“Took the animals two by two,” Felipe added sarcastically. “We get it. The thing’s a relic.”

“Shut it,” Lucifer commanded, stepping onto the deck. “If you want to save your lady and your skin, I suggest you get your furry ass on board.” Lucifer took a place in the prow and tucked his hands behind his back.

Trusting his boss had a plan, Felipe followed, resisting an urge to body check Charon
, who oozed smugness and amusement.

Using his long pole for propulsion, Charon pushed off, the
only sound the slapping of the water against the dock. No fanfare. No announcement. No media. How strange. Lucifer was usually more of the grandstanding type.

Gray mist encircled them almost immediately, a pea soup
that didn’t allow for any visibility. Felipe didn’t like it at all, the moisture clinging to his skin especially irritating his inner feline, which couldn’t help but remind him that the last time they’d trusted a vessel to take them on water they’d ended up in the drink.

He didn’t let his fear send him swimming back to shore. Jenny needed him. Thankfully, t
hey didn’t have to go too far.

Charon muttered, “We’re here,” and rapped his pole against the side of
a large shape which suddenly appeared on their starboard side. A reply came from the fog, the low trumpeting of a horn. As if a signal, the heavy mist parted, and Felipe stared up, then up some more at the gigantic metal monster floating on the Styx.

This is more like it!

The massive military ship, outfitted with a machine gun turret, old style cannons, several harpoons and more, was painted a flat black, except for the prow where red flames zigzagged from bloodshot eyeballs. Its name? The
S.S. SushiMaker.

“Big enough for you, cat?” Lucifer asked, flinging his yellow slicker over one shoulder as they came alongside.

“It’ll do,” was his nonchalant reply. He scrambled up the ladder after his boss, who, despite his age, proved more agile than expected.

Swinging himself onto the deck,
Felipe did a double take at the robed figure already waiting there. “How did—” Felipe halted himself as he stared down at the empty waves slapping against the ship. Welcome to Hell, where strange shit happened.

And fashion sense was skewed. In the seconds it took Felipe to realize Charon was indeed on deck before him, he’d acquired an admiral’s cap, black of course, with gold braid across it. It should have looked odd sitting on Charon’s head given he still wore his
hooded robe—which now bore admiral’s stripes on the sleeves—and yet, it didn’t.

With a floating gait—did the guy not have feet
?—Charon led Felipe and their boss to the upper deck into the command center. Demons manned the controls, a distant thump and hum making the whole vessel rumble. Hell’s navy about to go kick some mermaid ass.

“Hold on tight, kitty,” Lucifer advised, “because this
suped-up warship is about to go seriously nautical.”

Felipe would have laughed, except the ship lurched, threw him off balance, and then he was scrambling to find something to hold on
to as the
S.S. SushiMaker
didn’t just ride the waves, it sliced them, diced them, and moved at a ridiculous speed.

When he did finally gather a breath, he shouted, “What kind of engine does this thing have?”

“Engine? You know that shit can’t be relied on in Hell. This sucker is powered old school, with oars,” Lucifer boasted. He tapped at a button, and the sonar screen flashed to a scene below deck.

Gaping, Felipe stared at the hundreds of rowers, a good number of them Vikings.
And happy as shit. The sound he’d taken for an engine hum? The rowers chanting while a drummer kept the beat.

“
Row, row, row the boat, toward the Darkling Sea.

And there we’ll find some fucking fish, and have a killing spree.”

Each time they sang a verse, they cheered. A berserker army on its way to glory.

Felipe began to feel a little more optimistic, especially since he doubted the mermaids had access to such speed. Perhaps there was hope they’d catch them in time. In time for what though, no one seemed to know.

The mermaids came prepared, which in one respect boded well for Jenny
since they needed her alive. When she regained consciousness in the murky water, it was to find a mouthpiece taped to her jaw, feeding her oxygen. On the other hand, though, not dying quickly probably meant they wanted something from her. Given they weren’t exactly gentle in their handling of her as they dragged her underwater, their powerful tails propelling them, it meant they just needed her alive long enough to reach their destination and then…

That was what she didn’t know. Why did the mermaids want her so bad? Why did Lucifer?
Let’s not also forget that scary entity in the portal. And how come the one person I want to want me is the only one willing to let me go?

Given a choice between dwelling on her depressing forced breakup with Felipe and her probable impending death, she chose neither.
Her siren aunts hadn’t raised her to mope around and lament her fate. Strong women decided their fate. Just because she couldn’t charm the pants off anything with a penis didn’t mean she didn’t have other skills. But how to sing her way to freedom when she not only wore the amulet still but her hands were bound and her mouth taped to a regulator?

She’d have to find a way. Given he
r captors didn’t pay her much attention, only occasionally adjusting their grip on her hair, which they used to painfully tow her, Jenny tried to work on the knots binding her wrists.

Hours later, she’d almost managed to get the final knot undone when someone finally noticed. Or so she assumed when
she awoke to another throbbing headache and her hands once again firmly tied.
Argh!

On a positive note, she wasn’t in
the water anymore and her mouth was free. Licking her lips, she peered around, the light dim but not so much that she didn’t recognize the spot. Her shoulders slumped.

Welcome home.

Kind of. She found herself in her old living quarters. Well, cave. A ten-by-ten cell with a moldy pallet and a few broken toys covered in a layer of lichen from disuse. It seemed the place she’d called home for the first few years of her life hadn’t hosted any new occupants or a cleaning as the scratchings on the walls, pictures she’d drawn, still decorated it.

How Jenny had loved
the crayons smuggled to her, a present from an anonymous donor. She’d used their brightness to adorn her cell with pictures she’d seen in the few books she’d owned. Childish renderings of sunshine and trees. Stick figures and flowers. A sad attempt by a child, punished for her birth, to bring color to her life.

A life she wasn’t ready to give up
, no matter how dire the situation.

Struggling to her feet,
Jenny staggered to the wall and found a ragged stone edge. She sawed at her tethers, ignoring the pain as she occasionally abraded her skin in her haste. She’d have worse things to worry about than a few drops of her blood if she didn’t escape.

When the last tendril snapped, she wasted no time ripping the amulet from around her neck
and stuffing it in a pocket of her toga. Let the mermaids come. She’d greet them with a song.

Crouching by the wall, she took up watch, eying the lapping edge of the sea against the floor of her cave, not letting her mind wander. She couldn’t afford to.
I need to save myself.
No whiskered kitty would come bounding to her rescue. No singing blonde sirens would yodel her abductors into submission.

She was well and truly alone.
But not defeated.

Without a window to the outside, s
he couldn’t gauge the passage of time, but she would have guessed a few hours passed before Mommy Dearest finally dared to pop in her seaweed-covered head. From the ripples in the water, Mother rose, her eyes unblinking, her lips unsmiling.

Jenny met her
cold gaze with an even icier grin. “Hello, Mother.” Then she sang a little ditty, “Step on a crack, break the bitch’s back. Sing a happy spiel and merrily she’ll keel.”

She should have known
the woman who’d birthed her and hated her would have protection from her voice. Still, it had been worth a try.

Rising from the water until only her tail remained submerged,
her mother’s lidless black orbs perused her. “Just as deformed as ever I see. I should have let you drown at birth.”

Imag
ine that, her mother was still as hateful as ever. “Why didn’t you? You’ve always despised me.”

“Yes. You’re an abomination. You should have
never been born, especially of my body,” she hissed.

“Any guess
as to who’s not getting a nomination for mother of the year?” Jenny muttered.

Hatred made her mother ugly as she spat
, “I might have birthed you, but I am not your mother. You are no child of mine, abomination. Merely something I had to suffer.”

“
So why didn’t you give me away at birth? I’m sure you could have foisted me upon some fisherman’s family. Instead, you kept me here. A prisoner.”

“
I was given no choice because of the prophecy.”

Okay, that wasn’t expected. “What are you talking about?”

Colorless lips curved into a smirk. “You didn’t think I let you live because I wanted to, did you? I wanted you to die. But you were needed. Or, should I say, your voice was.

“For what?”

“Why, to awaken and free the one who was unjustly imprisoned.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t need to know. Just sing when you are told.”

Hold on a second. The mermaids wanted her to sing?
Because of a prophecy? That couldn’t bode well. “I’m not doing anything for you.”

“You will.” Her mother, who refused to acknowledge her even now, made a gesture
, and from the water, mermaids rose, four of them, along with four Undines.

Jenny sucked in a breath and sang a few notes, to no effect.

Her mother laughed. “Oh please. We might have misjudged your voice during our early attempts, but we know better now. These worthy volunteers won’t fall victim to your mutant power.”

Indeed they wouldn’t. It horrified Jenny to see the scars where once they’d born ears. The crazy fanatics had rendered themselves deaf in order to escape her power.

Her sense of dread deepened, especially as they pinned her and taped another regulator to her mouth before dragging her into the cold Darkling Sea.

They didn’t have far to go
. Ringed by a coral reef, carved over time into an amphitheater, the large ceremonial clearing was where rituals were performed and where they dumped her.

Swimming away wasn’t an option, not with the dozens of mermaids swimming circles around the sacred spot
, not to mention the air bubble they encased her in was tethered to the sea floor. But then again, once Jenny saw who else shared the space, she couldn’t have moved anywhere.

In good news, Aunt Molpe had survived the storm
that had capsized their boat. The bad news? The mermaids had her.

And when the choice was given,
“Sing or the siren dies,”
Jenny didn’t hesitate. She opened her mouth and sang.