Hell's Kitty (Welcome To Hell) (17 page)

The brisk and briny air felt good against his face. How long since Lucifer sailed the Darkling Sea? He really needed to take more time to enjoy himself. Working too hard, while sinful because it forced him to neglect other matters, was at the same time a good deed as it showed his dedication. Blech. He couldn’t have it said that the great lord couldn’t slack off with the best of them.

H
is feline minion paced the deck, so worried and in love it made Lucifer both happy and nauseous. On the one hand—six-fingered, which came in handy when strumming his girlfriend—his plan to pair the cat with Jenny worked.
Fist pump to Hell’s greatest matchmaker.
But on the other hand—four fingered and tipped with claws more deadly than a certain mutant—what was it about love that turned perfectly disreputable men into pussies?

Thank fuck I haven’t fallen victim to that emasculating emotion.
Sure, he liked Gaia, but you didn’t see him changing himself into someone else. Okay, so he didn’t screw around anymore or visit the titty bars, and he’d toned down his belching at the dinner table and no longer came to bed wearing the blood of his enemies, but he did those things for sex. Not out of affection. And anyone who dared say otherwise would make a great lampshade for his office.

“Lord Lucifer! Giant clam, starboard.”
For a moment, he visualized a hairy clam between creamy thighs. Ah for the seventies before shaving became the norm.

But wait, the lookout meant an actual shellfish.
Starboard? Which fucking side was that? Probably the one where a white ribbed shell bobbed on the waves. Strange because didn’t those things usually sit on the bottom of the ocean?

“Demons to the harpoons.
Goblins to the cannons. If I give the order, turn that overgrown mollusk into pink slime.” He’d never been a chowder kind of guy. Shrimp, on the other hand, he gorged by the bucket.

With h
is yellow slicker protecting him from the spray coming off the waves—and ensuring his visibility to those who heeded his orders—Lucifer strode closer, one hand on the hilt of his great sword—his forged one, not his mighty fleshy one.

The seashell inched open
, and he held his hand in the air, holding all fire as he waited to see who or what would emerge. Giant pearl? Enemy crab? That Venus chick, who would so get her ass spanked if she popped out while Gaia was here. Mother Nature wasn’t too understanding when his ex-girlfriends came around.

What the mollusk revealed wasn’t on his list
, and his eyes widened in surprise.

“
Well, I’ll damn myself, Muriel, what in the nine fucking circles are you doing here? I thought you were on vacation with your harem of men and your daughter?”

Stepping forth from the shell
, alone, which was rare, was his daughter by Gaia. Muriel shrugged as she took his hand and hopped onto his deck.

“Yeah
, well, you know how it is. My beachside holiday turned into a clusterfuck. New lover. New threat to Hell. Story of my life. So once again, I’m here to save the day and your hairy ass.”

“I’ll have you know I had it waxed earlier this week.”

Muriel wasn’t the only one to groan at this revelation. “Too much info. Anyhow— Hold on a second, is that a ducky with horns on your slicker?”

Thrusting his shoulders back, Lucifer grinned as he showed off.
“Yes. Do you like it?”

“Only you could hope to carry it off,” was her reply. “And is that
Gaia standing on the prow of the ship with her arms spread wide? What is she doing?”

“Don’t ask. Someone has watched
Titanic
one too many times. But forget about Gaia and her obsession with a certain movie. What are you doing here on my boat?”

“
We’ve got a problem. It seems some big bad entity, who was locked away like eons ago, wants back into our plane of existence.”

A
nother attack by some faceless entity? Awesome, so long as it wasn’t another broad. Lucifer was an old-school chauvinist. Was it too much to ask that some power-hungry males come after him for once? “Well, too fucking bad. Whoever it is will have to find another dimension to crash in because I’m not letting it cross over.”

“You might not
want to, but I don’t know if you’ll have a choice. Apparently there’s a key to unlocking the doorway between our world and whatever plane of existence this psycho power is on. The good news is we can destroy the key. It took us—”

“Us
? Us as in who?”

An irritated sigh blew past Muriel’s lips.
“My newest addition to the family. You’ll meet him later. Anyhow, it took us a little while to figure it out, but apparently there’s a chick who can cast a spell to open some mega doorway that will call this thing and let it in.”

“Who is she? We’ll rip her vocal cords out before she can shout
‘Boo!’”

“According to all indications,
in other words some fish guts spread on some weird psychic’s beach, she’s somewhere around here. Maybe you’ve seen or heard of her. Name’s Jenny. Apparently she’s got a killer voice.”

Cue the dramatic music. Lucifer should have known the mission would get interesting. Muriel’s arrival had
drawn an audience, and one in particular perked his ears at the mention of a certain name.

“
Jenny is who we’ve come to rescue,” Felipe announced.

Muriel shook her head.
“Forget rescue. She needs to get taken out before the mermaids use her to let the big bad in.”

Fists
bunched at his side, Felipe growled. “You mean kill her? Like fuck.”

Even Lucifer frowned. “I kind of agree with the cat here. Surely there’s a better way. I’ve got my own prophecy
, and it says she’s going to help in the battle that’s coming.” As well as give him killer baby minions for his army.

“A battle we can avoid if she’s dead before she starts it.”

And ruin the only fun he’d had in a while? Women! Always trying to stop wars instead of letting a demon have some bloody fun.

“I won’t allow it.”
Felipe positioned himself in front of Muriel, every line in his body promising aggression.

Uh
-oh. Bad idea. Only fools defied his headstrong daughter. Good thing he wore his slicker. Blood might soon splatter.

Muriel
fixed Felipe with a hard stare, something she’d gotten better at as life kept tossing her calamities and she fought back, each time emerging stronger and stronger. “Excuse me, but who in Hell are you?”

“I think the better question is who the fuck do you think you are?”

Had Lucifer forgotten to make introductions? Excellent. It seemed he hadn’t lost his bad manners.

Indignant, his daughter huffed,
“That’s it. I’m calling the PR department. As
Lucifer’s daughter
,
I demand more respect!”

His daughter might
have looked more intimidating if she’d dressed for the part. However, wearing a skimpy bikini, flip-flops, and with tangled surfer-girl hair, his daughter appeared more ready for a swim model photo shoot than ass kicking.

“I don’t care who
your daddy is,
princess.
  You’re not killing Jenny.”

“And who’s going to stop me?” she
asked with a smirk.

“I will.”

Before anyone could fathom what Felipe meant, he took off running, his form morphing into his Hell kitty, sending his clothes scattering. When he hit the side of the ship, he perched on the rail, a giant feline about to sacrifice another life. Or not. He seemed to hesitate, probably as he realized there was nowhere to really go. Felipe cocked his head, as if listening to an invisible voice—also known as Lucifer’s meddlesome girlfriend—before he launched himself into the swirling whirlpool forming alongside the ship.

Whirlpool? Uh-oh, that didn’t bode well
, but it tied with what else Lucifer saw emerging from the frothy waves.

His daughter
, less concerned about the oceanic catastrophe happening and more about the insult to her person, let out a screech. “I am so going to skin that cat and use him as a rug when I get my hands on him.”

“Mind rerouting that murderous impulse to something a little more pressing
?” Lucifer asked.

Eyes glowing, a
s a spark from the fires of Hades lit them from within—a chip off the old block—she faced him and snarled. “What could be more important than making sure your minions respect me?”

Usually Lucifer would have sided with her
desire to kill someone for respect, even given her a knife. However, the lookout shouted a damned good reason why everyone needed to focus on the bigger dilemma emerging. “Krakens!”

As plans went, this probably ranked as the dumbest. Felipe heard the broad
—who was apparently related to his boss—claim they needed to kill Jenny, and Felipe lost his furry mind. It was the only explanation for why he dove into the whirling maelstrom forming in the sea.

Why he chose that spot he couldn’t have quite said. Instinct drew him—oh
, and the whisper from Gaia and ghostly shove saying, “Go, she’s down there. Only you can help her now.” How Mother Nature accomplished that when she stood at the prow arms outstretched, laughing in the wind and sea spray he didn’t care to wonder about, not when he was caught in an epic swirly.

Around and around he spun, soaked
and yet miraculously not drowning, even if he was plenty dizzy. A funnel formed, leading him down. Much like a bobbing piece of flotsam, he let the current take him. He didn’t bother to fight the suctioning whirlpool. He saved his strength because it soon became evident it was taking him where he needed to be—the bottom of the ocean where a water-free clearing formed a sandy-based amphitheater. Standing alone and bedraggled in the center, Jenny sang. Tone-deaf or not, it didn’t take a music connoisseur to recognize the magic forming.

Whether this Muriel chick liked it or not
, and good or bad for Hell, whatever she feared had already begun, and Felipe chose his side. There was never any question actually. He chose Jenny.

In spite of the roaring water, the distant sound of can
non fire, and even the screams, Felipe couldn’t help but hear as Jenny’s voice weaved a spell. A mighty one. A terrible one. And yet, the most captivating sound he’d ever heard. Even he could appreciate the haunting beauty of each powerful note. He could practically see them float past him, colorful swirls of esoteric force pulled up the vortex of the whirlpool to a grey sky full of whirling clouds.

When he hit the sandy bottom, littered with the twitching sea life left behind, he lay there gasping for air
, trying to regain his wits. However, much like a king cobra, the music held him in thrall, as did the woman uttering the notes.

In the center of the whirlpool’s eye
, Jenny stood, hair whipping around, the tendrils dancing as if alive. Her toga, a shredded rag barely covering her flesh, fluttered, offering teasing glimpses of her flesh. In her eyes, the wild blue waves danced, and from her mouth, the terrible, beautiful melody poured, growing in sound, expanding in volume. The spell reached its peak.

He staggered to his four furry feet. A part of him recognized he should stop the music. But he didn’t need to kill her to do so
, just silence her before she could finish. As he went to move in her direction, arms reached from the wall of water ringing the space and grasped at him.

The scrabbling fingers missed.
Whirling, he noted the milling school of mermaids, their seaweed hair trailing around them as they thrashed back and forth in the water, their black orbs challenging him to enter their oceanic domain. As if. He snarled at them, inviting them instead to meet him on solid ground, yet none dared cross the watery threshold. He batted at their feeble flails and, when he realized they posed no threat, turned to face Jenny.

Except an obstacle stood in his way. It seemed not all the mermaids feared meeting him. One stood with her seaweed hair streaming down her back, her lips peeled back over gums revealing a vicious snarl. Forget the cute cartoons of mermaids. This aquatic hybrid was the stuff monster legends w
ere made of, and she apparently wanted to kill him.

It wasn’t just the long knife she stabbed his way but the uttered, “Die, feline spawn!” that tipped him off. He dodged her first lunge and swiped at her leg, his claws leaving bloody furrows in her skin.

It didn’t slow her down. With a scream of rage, she came at him again. However, in her mad dash, she left herself open, and he took full advantage, his teeth ripping through flesh and tearing a major artery. Down to the sand, she slumped, limbs twitching but still spouting vitriol.

“You are too late to stop the abomination. At last my shame will be my triumph. My body and soul will be cleansed of the foul thing done to it.”

Too late? Shit. Felipe ignored the dying mermaid to refocus on Jenny and maybe still manage to stop the song.

But he was too late.

Everyone was too late.

The last note rang with a clarity that
raised every hair on his body. Up rose the last clarion treble of the spell, a mote of light so stark against the dark sky. It hit the swirling clouds and flashed, leaving in its spot a hole, no, make that a portal, a portal that widened and widened…

Would no one stop it? Jenny had fallen to her knees
, panting. Felipe did not have the skills to close it. But what of the others, those who rode the waves?

At the lip of the whirlpool,
so far above his head, Felipe could see Lucifer’s battleship, a tiny toy tossed and rocked not only by the tempestuous sea but by tentacles. Big tentacles. Holy fuck, were those kraken attacking the ship?

Even at a distance, h
e could see the zaps of power as the magic users on board shot at their foes. Specks of bodies leapt from the vessel and drove matchsticks into the limbs, the Viking berserkers having a grand old time. However, while everyone was engaged with the danger at hand, no one was paying attention to the massive hole in the sky. And something approached. Something big. Bad. Powerful.

He held his breath. The whole realm probably did. Time seemed almost
to stop for a moment, or at least slow down, for he could see everything with such clarity. The ugly rip in the sky, the ringing storm clouds, the blinding flash of light.

He blinked
, just for a second, and when he opened his eyes again, the hole in the sky was gone. Vanished without a cloud to be seen. Not a monster in sight. Nothing except the lingering sense the world had changed, but in a way he could not immediately perceive.

His
fur stood on end as if electrified. When a hand brushed it down, he whirled with a snarl and snapping jaws.

Jenny snatched back her hand.
He immediately calmed down and changed shapes. He crushed her to him. “Thank all the souls in Hell you’re safe,” he murmured against the top of her head.

“You came for me,” she whispered against the bare skin of his chest.

“I will always come for you.”

“But you hate the water. You said you’d never sail again.”

“Yeah, well, love makes a man do stupid things.”

She froze in his arms. “What did you say?”

Too much. “So, I hear your singing is supposed to bring about some kind of apocalypse.”

The twitch of her lips was probably a smile against his chest as he less than deftly changed the subject.
“I wasn’t given much choice. They had my aunt. It was either sing as the mermaids ordered, or they would have killed her. I would rather die than see any of my aunts come to harm.”

“
You know Lucifer hates altruism.”

“You think he’ll be mad?”

“Nah. Because, lucky for you, he loves a good war. If you ask me, he wanted this to happen.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just a funny feeling.”

She tilted her head back and peered at him, anxiety clear in her expression. “But
what
just happened? Where’s the big baddie? Did I miss its arrival?”

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “
I don’t know. Maybe it’s a girl, and it changed its mind.” Jenny stepped on his toes, and he grinned through his wince. “Or the doorway closed before it got through. I don’t know. All I know is we’re both still alive. And I, for one, am totally good with that.”

“S
o what happens next?”

T
he whirling waves slowed their circular motion, and the circle of sand drew smaller and smaller, much like the hangman’s noose, except instead of snapping their necks, they’d drown. Not a better alternative if you asked him. “I don’t suppose you know how to fly?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Got any scuba gear hiding around here?”

“Nope
, and there’s no way we can swim that far up before we both run out of air.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. Then I guess we’d better pray.”

“To who?”

“To me, I hope
,” boomed a voice.

What the hell was it lately with fucking people sneaking up on him! Felipe whirled to face the newcomer, some big
, muscled surfer dude wearing a crown and sporting, of all things, a trident.

“
Who the hell are you?” he snapped, not at all pleased at the tiny loincloth the tanned jerk wore.

“Most know me as Neptune, but Jenny can call me father.”