Murry could live for the time being.
“Martha and Jane, if you ever wear those outfits again, I will send you to the Basement of Hell and fry you for eternity.”
“Are they too sexy for you to handle, Colossal Peen?” Martha asked in all seriousness. “We could wear bigger pasties.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Jane said, whacking Martha in the head. “She meant to say next time we’ll dress as doctors with assless lab coats. No more sexy nurses, Big Wang. Promise.”
The future of Martha and Jane’s lives was questionable.
Shaking my head, I continued. “Dino, Darby and Dagwood, your cleaning skills are dismal. Astrid said my office smelled like ass. If you don’t remedy that, I will light your assholes on fire this time. You feel me?”
“Yes, Sire,” Dino said with a salute. “I thought it smelled bad in here, but figured it was Dagwood.”
“Or your upper lip,” Dagwood grunted, diving at Dino and punching him viciously in the head.
My Demons could still breathe oxygen until the palace was sparkling. After that, it was up in the air.
Ignoring the bloodshed, I went on and narrowed my eyes at Mammy. “Mammy, the thought of you trimming my son bald during his uterus eviction is enough to make me want to smite you right now.”
Lizard raised his hand and cleared his throat.
“Is this pertinent, Lizard?” I asked, ready to blow a gasket.
“Yes.”
“Out with it,” I said, checking my watch and wondering what else I needed to steal for my son.
“Babies are generally born bald,” Lizard informed me.
“They are?” I asked, thinking I should probably keep Lizard around for a while after Luke arrived. His fount of useless knowledge might come in handy. He might even know how to use some of the stolen baby paraphernalia. Lizard’s life was safe for the moment.
“They are, my liege,” Lizard confirmed as every dumbass in the room nodded their agreement.
“Interesting,” I said, thinking the prospect of Mammy serving as midwife through. “Do they have eyebrows and eyelashes?”
“Forgot about that,” Lizard said.
“Then Mammy as the midwife is out of the question,” I said triumphantly. However, Mammy could live. If all else failed, I’d keep Mammy as a last resort backup. “You will have to find another midwife.”
“As you wish,” Lizard said, looking doubtful. “I’ll do my best.”
“You will do better than your best,” I informed him. “Go at once and find a damn midwife. I don’t care what you have to do to get one. The reward will be high for both you and the Immortal who helps bring the Son of Satan into the world.”
“On it,” Lizard said, choking up on his bat and smashing my priceless collection of Fabergé eggs. “I’ll find you a midwife if it’s the last thing I do.”
“If you destroy anything else in my office, that will be the last thing you’ll ever do,” I hissed.
“Sorry. My bad,” Lizard said, trying to pick up the tiny shattered pieces of the irreplaceable eggs. “I can glue ‘em back together.”
While the thought was appreciated, the outcome would be ridiculous. “No, just find a midwife. NOW.”
“Roger that, Sire,” Lizard said with a salute as he vanished in a cloud of black smoke.
“As for the rest of you,” I said, eyeing the motley crew. “Get back to work. Mammy, you shall make another crock of beans-n-franks for Elle. She still craves them much to the dismay of my olfactory senses. Martha and Jane, you will put on some clothes that do not reveal your sagging privates and get to work on amusing my lover until the birth of our son.”
“Not to worry, Big Boner,” Martha said. “We have a few more chapters of your new book to read to her.”
“We added a lot of verbs so it’s better now,” Jane added.
“I’m sure it is,” I said dryly as the two Vamps scurried from the room. “Dino, Darby and Dagwood, convince the staff to come out of the closet and help you clean. You can tell them Mammy is on a trim break, and their scalps and nether regions are safe. The Dark Palace must be pristine for the arrival of my son and the celebration.”
“Yes, my Dark Lord,” the idiots said and exited quickly.
“I’m still tryin’ to figure out the answer to that there question ya asked me about the fine dining establishment, Red Lobster,” Murry said, scratching his mullet.
Instead of removing the appendages from his body, I sighed. “The answer is irrelevant. You will re-sniff all the female Demons in Hell. One of them is guilty and shall pay. Do you need to smell the letter again?” I inquired, pulling it from the top drawer of my desk.
“Sure,” Murry said. “You want me to read it too?”
“You can read?” Mammy asked, shocked.
“Yep,” Murry said with a wide grin. “Lord of Dark Shit fixed me up good.”
Mammy stared at me with such intensity, I prepared to zap the shit out of her again. I wasn’t sure if she was pissed or delighted about Murry being able to read. I could care less either way, but if she went for me, she was a dead Dragon. I would find someone else to make the damn beans-n-franks for Elle.
“I owe you,” she said quietly, still staring holes into me. “I owe you big time, Devil.”
“Define owe,” I snapped, wanting to make sure she wasn’t going to jump out of a closet and trim me bald.
“I owe ya my life,” she said, sounding old and weary yet humbled. “I’ve tried to teach my boy to read for thousands of years. Never took. You’ve given him the gift of Harry Potter and Fifty Shades of Grey. There ain’t no way to thank ya for such an offering. I’d offer a free trim, but don’t think you’d take me up on it.”
“That would be correct,” I replied.
“You’ll see,” she said with a smile pulling at her lips. “Once ya have yer own boy, you’ll do anything for him. I owe ya my life.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit dramatic?” I questioned.
“Nope,” Mammy said with a chuckle. “You’ll see.”
It was time to end the conversation before Mammy removed her own head to make good on her promise of gratitude. Murry sniffed the letter and read it aloud to the amazement of his mother. They left my office hand in hand with Mammy promising to buy her son a library of romance novels and comic books.
For a brief moment, I felt pride about giving Murry the ability to read. I pushed the weak and sentimental emotion away immediately. Niceties were for my brother to perform. I should probably have Mammy and Murry sign an NDA and electrocute them if they shared my good deed. Quickly adding that to my never-ending to-do list, I smiled.
I was going to be the father of a son.
Life had never been better.
Chapter Twelve
My office was now a damned jungle complete with exotic wildlife. I’d already incinerated six parrots that had crapped on my leather couch. The timing sucked since Dino, Darby and Dagwood had finally gotten the stench of beans-n-franks out of the suite. The clean-up from the parrot shit, foliage, boulders and mounds of dirt would take a week. Of course, the one of a kind onyx flooring would have to be replaced since enormous palm trees had burst right through the marble and destroyed it.
My mother was a fucking menace. Her visits cost me millions in repairs.
“Incoming,” Mother Nature shouted from an opening in the roof caused by the peak of a mountain that sat where my desk used to reside.
A solid gold stripper pole appeared in the middle of the chaos, and my mother came sliding down it in all her glory. About a third of the way in she lost her balance, fell off the pole, and crashed to the ground with a thud and a blood curdling scream. Standing up and pretending she had meant to do that, she smiled and curtsied.
I said nothing.
I was smart.
“Darling, what are you wearing?” she asked, eyeing me curiously.
“I could ask you the same question,” I replied, wiggling my fingers and conjuring up
a pair of sunglasses. My mother wore an outfit—for lack of a better word—made purely of crystal. When it caught the sunlight streaming through the massive hole in the roof, it was positively blinding.
“Oh, this little thing?” she said as she twirled and preened. “Just something I had made for the party. I have to wear it until the evening of the soiree. Damn thing is glued on. You do realize the celebration is in my honor as well since I gave birth to you.”
“You don’t even remember the date,” I shot back.
“Yes, well, since we’re all older than dirt, I think you should cut your mother a little slack,” she snapped as her wild red curls began to blow around her head signaling a natural disaster was imminent.
As if she hadn’t already caused enough structural damage…
“You look umm… lovely,” I lied, hoping she wasn’t planning on performing at the soiree. Positive Steve Perry would not be my BFF if he saw my mother dance, I wanted to avoid the debacle if at all possible.
“I know. I’m exquisite!” she said with a shimmy that made her sparkle like the Milky Way on crack. “So, tell me what the strappy thing is that you’re wearing. Is it something new and hip that I’m unaware of?”
“If you must know,” I said, feeling every kind of superior. “It’s a papoose baby carrier… for my son.”
“So exciting,” she squealed as a few monkeys dropped out of the palm trees and did a spastic jig at her feet. “Where does the baby go?”
Looking down at the contraption that had taken me an hour to put on, I realized I had no clue where to put the baby. All I could see was a plethora of navy-blue tangled straps.
“I shall read the directions and figure it out,” I assured my mother.
That would be impossible since I’d burned the fucking directions to ash after the first forty-five minutes of trying to figure them out. No matter. The fact that I wore it at all was enough.
“Sadie will be here momentarily,” my mother told me. “She’s just beside herself with joy. Where’s Elle?”
“Napping,” I said, glancing over to the bedroom in alarm. My sigh of relief was audible when I realized the jungle had only shown up in my office and not the rest of the suite. If my mother’s crapping parrots disturbed my lover, I’d have Mammy cook the flock for lunch.
“Lucifer?” Elle called out sleepily. “What’s going on? There’s a monkey staring at me.”
“My mother is here,” I yelled back. “Your mother is on her way. Would you like me to smite the monkey?”
“No, he’s cute. I think I’ll keep him for our son. Pets are important.”
Closing my eyes and pressing the bridge of my nose, I tried to figure out how to tell my lover no. I’d give her the world on a stolen silver platter, but I drew the line at furry little bastards who enjoyed flinging feces.
“We have Hell Hounds darling,” I said, hoping that would solve the pet issue.
“I want a monkey,” Elle pouted as my mother clasped her hands together and grinned from ear to ear.
“You will pay dearly for this,” I threatened my mother in a hissed whisper. “A monkey is fine, my love. We can name it Gaia the Poo Slinger.”
“They sling poo?” Elle asked, not sounding as sure about her choice of pet for our child.
“Only for a few hours in the mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Other than that, they’re wonderful,” my mother told Elle.
“Mmmkay,” Elle said, peeking her head out of the door and gently pushing the monkey back to the uninvited jungle. “I think we’ll stick with Hell Hounds. Hi, Gaia.”
“You’re absolutely gorgeous!” Mother Nature pronounced, literally flying over to Elle and laying her head on her stomach. “Ohhhh, I can hear him gabbing away in there. He’s a naughty little one.”
“What did he say?” I demanded.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” my mother said with a trill of laughter. “This little man will be a handful. Much worse than you were, Lucifer.”
I was quite put out that my boy had spoken to my mother and not to me. I’d laid my head on Elle’s stomach for an hour earlier and serenaded my baby with Journey’s greatest hits. He didn’t say a word, only kicked me in the head… or possibly punched me in the head. It was unclear if I was assaulted by an arm, leg, head, elbow or an ass. I didn’t care. It was awe inspiring. My baby already punched like a champion. He was clearly brilliant.
“So, Gaia,” Elle said, looking down at her stomach with an expression that was difficult to decipher. “You’re saying that our son will be a gorgeous, deceitful, lying, cheating, shit?”
“Umm… well… I don’t …ahh… don’t know if I would put it exactly like that,” she stuttered.
My mother’s eyes went huge as she glanced over at me at a loss for words. Mother Nature was never at a loss for words. It was tremendous. Almost as tremendous as the way Elle had just described our boy.
Elle’s power was enormous, and she was pregnant. It was a lethal combination. My mother knew it, and I’d been living through it. Pissing the Keeper of Fate off was a no-no.
“We can only hope,” I said, placing my hand on Elle’s stomach and kissing her cheek.
“You are correct, Devil,” Elle said with a laugh as she rubbed her stomach with glee. “I simply wouldn’t know what to do with a baby who was truthful and sweet.”
“Oh my,” Mother Nature said with a relieved giggle. “Two peas in a pod—soon to be three.”
A gust of wind mixed with lavender glitter gently blew through the room, bathing the jungle in a purple mist as Sadie appeared. Elle squealed with joy at the sight of her mother.
“My Elle,” Sadie said with a delighted little gasp.
The older Siren’s eyes filled with tears as she slowly approached her daughter and touched her stomach with reverence.
“Isn’t she lovely?” Mother Nature whispered as the two women fussed over my lover.
“The most beautiful girl in the world,” Sadie said as she took Elle’s face in her hands and pressed her lips to her forehead. “A miracle. This is a true miracle.”
I stood and watched for twenty minutes as my mother and Elle’s oohed and ahhed over my mate. And then I got a bit antsy. It was my superb swimmers that had helped produce the boy. Didn’t I deserve some of the praise? I was the fucking Devil and we were in Hell for the love of everything illegal.
Feeling slighted and left out, I opened my mouth.
I shouldn’t have.
“Funny thing,” I said with a casual chuckle, walking over to the trio and wedging my way in. “I thought Elle kept trying to behead me because she was having her monthly lady time.”
My mother and Sadie gaped at me like I was a dolt.
“That’s what you were asking advice on when you visited me?” my mother inquired as she began to laugh. “You had no clue Elle was pregnant?”
“Of all the things,” Sadie said, joining my mother in her ridiculous cackling.
“Lucifer, really,” my mother said wiping tears of amusement from her eyes. “Are you that daft?”
“Not so fast,” Elle snapped, halting the laughter with the tone of her voice. “You will not disrespect the father of my child. I’m the only one allowed to do that. Neither one of us knew I was pregnant. Astrid had to tell us yesterday. I thought I had an out of control sweet tooth and gas.”
I grinned with pride at my lover’s defense of me. Elle was simply perfect in every dastardly way.
It also kept me from having to electrocute my mother which would not have ended well.
“You’re shitting me,” Mother Nature said, shocked.
Sadie stood silently and tried to bite back her grin. She was losing.
“We shit you not,” Elle said with a raised brow. “How would we know? A Siren hasn’t been pregnant in millions of years due to our sexual intercourse homicidal issues.”
“Lucifer, you have eight daughters,” my mother pointed out.
I shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly what you w
ould call a hands-on father.”
Elle pulled a dull butter knife from the pocket of her flowing gown and twirled it in her fingers. “But that will not be the case this time,” Elle said sweetly, despite the flashing of her lavender eyes.
“Correct,” I replied swiftly. My lover was still pregnant. Decapitation and possibly castration were still on the table.
“Lucifer will nurse the baby and teach him naughty words while I sleep,” Elle explained. “Astrid gave us some pointers.”
“Astrid might need some anatomy lessons,” Mother Nature muttered.
“What do you mean by that?” I demanded, trying to remember what the Hell Astrid had made me promise to do. I needed to start writing shit down. Babies were complicated.
“Men don’t have mammary glands,” Sadie said.
“And that is where you are wrong,” I shouted. “Lizard are you guarding the suite?”
“I am,” Lizard said, popping his head inside the door.
“Excellent,” I said, giving my mother and Sadie a triumphant glare. “I need you to explain to my mother and Sadie that men do indeed have mammary glands. I can nurse just as well as Elle, and I shall be the best nurser in the goddamned Universe.”
Of course, I had no clue what the Hell a nurser did, but I was the Devil. If I wanted to nurse, I would fucking nurse.
Lizard squinted at me and gave me an odd look. “You sure about that, my liege?”
“Yesssss,” I hissed, certain I heard my mother giggle. She wouldn’t be giggling soon. I adored being right. “Out with it.”
“With pleasure, Sire,” Lizard said, smacking on his gum and shrugging. “All male and female mammals have mammary glands—or in medical terms, hooter nodules. That’s the organ that produces milk—or boob juice to be more scientific. When the hooter nodule matures fully in females during puberty, they develop into a state where a hormonal spike called prolactin can induce lactation—or milk squirts. Now for the persuasion packing a ding-dong, the gland doesn’t generally mature to that level. Hence, those with wieners rarely produce milk squirts.”
The room went silent. I heard a few snickers, but they might have been gags. I wasn’t sure and decided I could live without the knowledge.
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