“Third floor,” said Angelo. He was just over six feet tall, had smooth, tan skin, dark hair, and hazel eyes that meant she wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he did some Instagram modeling on the side. After having met him, she felt much less guilty about Wendy’s long-standing obligation to date men so that she could afford their legal services.
“I’m going to screw it up,” she said as they got off the elevator on the third floor.
“No, you’re not.”
“I am.”
Wendy yanked her so they faced one another. “With God as our witness, I’m telling you. You are not going to screw this up. Do you know how much time and energy I’ve put into you and your life? Do you know how much I’ve done behind the scenes without ever telling you because I didn’t trust that you wouldn’t find a way to mess it up? A lot. A whole hell of a lot. So much. You’ve kept me on because you trust my judgment. So, are you questioning my judgment when I say that you are about to go in there and slay the Devil?”
Jessica blinked. “No, ma’am.”
“Damn right. Now take a moment, pull yourself to gather, and then let’s do this.”
YOU GOT THIS, HONEY.
Are you sure?
THE LORD BELIEVES IN YOU.
That seems backward.
But it was nice to know that God wasn’t freaking out. Maybe She wouldn’t have to drop another heavy object on anyone. Was that possible? Could God simply drop a giant anvil on the Devil? That seemed like an easy solution that should have happened a long time ago, so there must be a rule or universal law forbidding it.
Or maybe God just loved the drama.
Angelo held open the door for Jessica, and she entered ahead of Wendy.
Dolores Thomas sat at the table facing them as they entered, a fissure of a smile on her plump, stupid, evil face. She was flanked by two male lawyers with rigid postures. They looked like they were related, but one was significantly older, so she concluded they must be a father-son team.
Angelo approached and shook hands with both of them, introducing Wendy and “his client.” Dolores remained seated, continuing to smile at Jessica unblinkingly.
Jessica did her best to meet the eye contact without breaking it, but she found that if she did that for more than a handful of seconds, a spot behind her eyes began to burn acutely.
Angelo opened his briefcase and pulled out a stack of documents, and the men conversed in civil tones while Jessica did as she was coached and kept her mouth shut.
TELL HER I HATE HER GUTS.
Now’s not the time.
NOW’S EXACTLY THE TIME. TELL HER GOD HATES HER.
Why don’t you just smite her then? Why didn’t you do it ages ago before I was born? Before Jesus was born?
BELIEVE ME, I TRIED.
And?
AND IT DOESN’T WORK. EVERY TIME I TRIED IT ORIGINAL MISTAKE GOT IN THE WAY.
Original Mistake kept you from ending the Devil?
YES. I WOULD TRY TO SMITE HER, AND SOMETHING WOULD ALWAYS INTERFERE.
And it wasn’t her? She wasn’t the one stopping you?
SHE LACKS THE POWER. IT WAS ORIGINAL MISTAKE. I COULD SENSE IT.
But why would Original Mistake want to keep the Devil around?
NO CLUE. NEVER HAD THE CHANCE TO ASK IT.
“Any questions?”
Jessica blinked. She’d been staring at an imperfection on the marble tabletop as her conversation with God had taken place, and now Angelo was looking at her in a way that made it clear he did not have the confidence in her ability to follow the plan like Wendy did.
“Yes,” she said. She steadied herself and looked at Dolores. “Why are you doing this?”
This was not part of the plan, and while the Devil’s advocates began to protest, Satan shushed them, saying it was all right. “I did all of this because I wanted you to face me, Jessica.”
“I’m facing you. Are we done? Will you end the lawsuit?”
Dolores giggled. “No. I wanted you to face me so I could see the look in your eyes when I crushed you.”
It was as if Jessica had never fully believed it until that moment. A small part of her, well out of range of her intellect, had still clutched to the belief that this was a misunderstanding, that Mrs. Thomas wasn’t the Devil. Maybe she was merely hurting from Jessica’s financial betrayal. Maybe this was all one big mistake.
But that shit sealed it.
“You’re the Devil.”
“Yes. I’m glad you’re catching on. Only took you, what, seventeen years?”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to ruin me? I’ve never done anything to you. I was just an innocent kid when you first locked onto me. I was eight years old when you sent a demon to molest me at the zoo, for fuck’s sake. I’d never done a single thing to you.”
Dolores laughed again. “Typical, Jessica. You’re right, of course. You haven’t done anything to me. Despite your clear belief that everything is about you, this has never been. This is between me and God.”
“He hates you.” Balls. “She hates you.”
“The feeling is mutual, I assure you. He screwed me. I did everything for him, and he cast me out, vilified me, acting high and mighty and all that. And everyone believes it. Everyone thinks he’s perfect and wholly good, but you and I know better, don’t we? I can see it in your eyes that you don’t buy the wholly good nonsense everyone hawks. He’s just a blundering fool who lucked into what he has. Unqualified, overconfident, and a danger to all humankind. He thinks he knows best for everyone, doesn’t he? But just how well have his plans worked out for you, Jessica? Are you feeling blessed? Because if you, his so-called daughter, are miserable, imagine what the rest of the world around you feels. He could make this place Heaven if he chose, he could have created all people with a strong heart and a sense of connection and loyalty to one another, but he didn’t. Ever ask yourself why? It couldn’t be that his power depends on conflict. Certainly not that.” Jessica could feel her certainty slipping and had an impulse to reach out and grab Wendy, or anyone, as an anchor. These were all questions lodged deep in her own soul, and hearing them voiced left her mildly nauseated.
“And yet,” the Devil continued, “despite all his self-serving behavior, I’m the bad guy. I’m the one responsible for every evil of man. I didn’t even create them! I’m just the scapegoat like Eve. I won’t rest until I expose him for the hypocrite he is.” An image of Jimmy Dean in all white with his arms raised toward the heavens as the weighted ends of his hog-hoof stole jiggled and bounced around his waist took hold of her, and she felt like this might be it, that Dolores was just one more sentence away from pulling sympathy, and then the whole game would be over. Everything would be lost.
But that didn’t happen, because the Devil made a misstep. “Meanwhile, he sticks it to your slut mother and thinks he has a good shot of redeeming his image through you. His first child almost worked, but things have since gotten a little iffy with his creation. Time to try again!”
“Jesus Christ,” Jessica said, causing Dolores to flinch. “Who cares what he does? Look at you. You’re the Devil! You almost had me, I admit it. I almost felt sorry for you, and if you’d been anyone else, I would have. But you’re you. You’re the goddamned Devil, and you deserve whatever comes to you, you crazy bitch!”
Dolores’s face was tight like a rubber band, and it was unclear whether the downturned corners of her mouth and the taut wrinkles around her eyes were a symptom of fear or merely contempt. Perhaps it didn’t matter, since the two emotions were essentially kissin’ cousins.
The room was thickly silent. And from that silence:
YOU HAVE SPOTTED THE LIE.
Which one?
THE LIE OF VICTIMHOOD. IT IS DEADLIEST OF LIES, BECAUSE IT IS THE MOST CONVINCING FOR THE GOODHEARTED.
What do you mean?
IT IS THE DEVIL’S GREATEST WEAPON: SYMPATHY. SHE FEELS NONE FOR OTHERS, SO SHE USES THEIRS AGAINST THEM. SHE WAS CAST OUT OF HEAVEN FOR A GOOD RE
ASON. SHE SIMPLY COULD NOT REMAIN WITHOUT CORRUPTING THE REST. YET, SHE PLAYS THE VICTIM AND RALLIES GOOD MEN AND WOMEN TO HER SIDE THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN.
Remind me what she did to get cast out? She betrayed you somehow?
THE BOOMERANG REBELLION.
Shut up.
THE LORD WILL NOT. SO JEALOUS WAS SHE OF GOD’S SKILL WITH A BOOMERANG, THAT SHE DECIDED TO TURN MY OWN CREATION AGAINST ME.
What did she do?
SHE PRACTICED FOR MILLENNIA IS WHAT SHE DID. THEN, WHEN I WASN’T EXPECTING IT, SHE HIT ME WITH A ME-DAMNED BOOMERANG, KNOCKED ME RIGHT ON MY HOLY ASS. THEN SHE TRIED TO CLAIM THE THRONE… FORGETTING, OF COURSE, THE HOLY TENET OF THE BOOMERANG.
Which is?
WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND.
Like… Karma?
I BELIEVE I’VE ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT SUCH A THING DOES NOT EXIST. THERE IS NO KARMA. ONLY THE HOLY BOOMERANG.
I really hope you’re making this up. I don’t want this to be part of the creation story.
NEITHER DID THE ORIGINAL SCRIBES. IT DID NOT MAKE IT PAST THEIR EDITORS. BUT IT IS TRUE. LATER, THE BOOMERANG THAT LUCIFER HATH LOBBED DID COME BACK AROUND AND KNOCKED THE DEVIL CLEAN OUT OF HEAVEN.
I thought you kicked him out.
NO. I JUST LOCKED THE DOOR BEHIND HIM, AND WE MADE A NEW SECRET PASSWORD THAT WE WOULDN’T TELL HIM.
You … you use secret passwords for Heaven?
YES, AND THE BEST PART WAS THAT THE PASSWORD WAS “BOOMERANG” AND LUCIFER COULDN’T GUESS IT.
Okay. I think I’ve heard enough.
As Jessica tuned back into the present, the table was still silent as the lawyers looked at one another. Perhaps they were wondering about the legal precedent for a do-over.
Had Jessica’s heart ever raced so fast? Someone needed to speak, so it might as well be her. She hurried to remember where she’d left off before the Boomerang Rebellion nonsense. “You want to stop God because He—She—was onto you and your scheming. Stop making this about you being a victim. You’re not a fucking victim. You’re a predator, just like your minion Randy McAllister. You sent him off with me at the zoo that day to break me before I even got started, but it didn’t work. And I bet you were even behind the assassination attempt on Jameson Fractal, though that just occurred to me now and I’m not really sure what your strategy was there. But I know you were behind that scathing article about me that Thornton News published. Your name was even in it.” So many things, so many wrongs she’d almost forgotten. But remembering them steadied her.
Dolores grinned. “And now Eugene Thornton is dead. People might start to suspect it wasn’t a coincidence.”
“It wasn’t.”
Angelo said, “Jessica, as your legal counsel—”
“It was two tons of his own Karma”—Boomerang—"catching up with him. But if you want to make the case that I was somehow behind that dumb hipster dropping a giant decorative typewriter on Eugene Thornton’s stupid fedora-ed head, go for it.”
“No,” Angelo said firmly, addressing Dolores’s attorneys, “Don’t go for it. Might I remind you that’s not why we’re here.”
“We’re here to settle a lawsuit,” Dolores replied. “And I have everything I need to win it.”
“Except case law,” Angelo replied, and Jessica thought that was an especially brave thing to say. “There’s no precedent for taking someone’s personal brand as your own. You have an uphill battle there.”
“Not if I happen to personally know the judge assigned.”
Jessica turned to Angelo. “She probably does.”
“It is Risen is mine until the end of time,” Dolores continued. “I think you’ll find that the contract is airtight, and there’s plenty of case law leaning in my favor.”
“Great,” Jessica said. “It’s all yours. Keep that pile of yeast. I have better things to do.”
Wendy set a hand on Jessica’s wrist, right around where her hand clutched the armrest. Oh right. She wasn’t supposed to be talking.
PROUD OF YOU, HONEY.
“I didn’t want to sue Jimmy Dean,” Dolores said, interrupting the attorney’s latest attempt to negotiate. “He does such a wonderful job of making your life miserable, I wish he were one of my own. But compliance was never one of his strengths, so I simply sat back and watched it all unfold. Churches like his are my greatest ally. They start with a spark of personality and turn into a raging fire in the blink of an eye, gobbling up media attention, gaining popularity among the elite through the promise of an executive suite in Heaven. And just when everyone gets comfortable warming themselves by the fire, it spreads. Then everyone remembers that fire destroys, fire harms. Then they stop trusting fire. They stop trusting everything.” She giggled. “Jimmy Dean has done more to make God look bad in the last twenty years than I have, truthfully. I hate to put a stop to it, but I can’t let you win. If I don’t enforce my ownership of your personal brand evenly, it hurts my case.”
“I would never ask you to stop torturing Jimmy in any way, shape, or form.”
Wendy’s grip on her wrists was making the tips of her fingers tingle, so she shut up again and leaned back in her seat. The Devil added no further interruptions as the attorneys went over the terms.
It was another half hour before the meeting came to a close. Angelo looked browbeaten, and Wendy lacked her usual swagger as she stood and smoothed her hand over her A-line skirt.
Dolores’s lawyers didn’t look much better.
The only person who appeared satisfied was the Devil herself.
Jessica’s crew exited the small room first, and as they stood in the elevator, she saw the others approaching. She had never punched a door close button so hard or rapidly in all her life.
Dolores made no attempt to jump on, but as the doors began to close, she managed get one last punch in. “Tell Courtney Wurst I said hello.”
SHE’S JUST TRYING TO RATTLE YOU.
I know.
So, before they were completely cut off, Jessica threw her own right hook. “What goes around comes around. Karma’s a boomerang.”
She may not live to be one hundred, or even thirty-four, but she would savor that brief look of horror on Dolores’s face until her dying breath.
Chapter Thirty-Four
190:07:16:47 until Doomsday
The intercom buzzed, and Jessica tore herself away from the copy of the Bible her mother had smuggled her the day before (she couldn’t be seen buying it in public for herself). Genesis was really something. And not a single mention of boomerangs. A more fractured mind might have suspected it a conspiracy, but Jessica knew it to be one.
She crossed the room and looked at the low-pixel intercom screen that showed the doorstep of the building. It was … a woman in a black burka? Had the woman meant to ring Jessica’s unit? She had no problem with Islam, or not a problem much different from the one she had with Christianity, but she didn’t know any Muslims.
Or perhaps she did without realizing it.
But she definitely would’ve noticed if they were the kind to wear a burka in public.
She decided the buzzer wasn’t for her and went back to the couch. But just as she found her place, the intercom buzzed again.
Rather than buzzing this unknown person into the building, she spoke into the microphone, “Who is it?”
A strange falsetto voice replied. “I am an admirer of Jessica”—she pronounced it Yessica—“and I have traveled far to ask for a favor.”
What the fuck accent is that?
This was a hit, wasn’t it? Had the Devil hired someone to kill her?
More importantly, did it matter? God wouldn’t let her be assassinated right now, would She?
No matter, if someone saw her turning this woman away, it would undoubtedly make the news that she hated Muslims. There was only one thing to do.
She looked around her condo for something weapon-like before remembering she could smite.
“I’ll be down in just a second. Let me get some shoes.”
As she stepped out into the hallway, Jeremy peeked his head out of his front door. “Jess, do you have a moment?”
“Not now. I think there’s someone here to murder me.”
He held up a hand. “Ah. Say no more. I’ll talk to you afterward.”
She rotated her wrists, limbering them up for a smiting if need be and steadied herself before opening the frosted-glass front door. “What can I do for you?”
She couldn’t see the visitor’s eyes behind the mesh veil, and that alarmed her more than anything.
But when the woman reached up, grabbed the veil and pulled it back, her alarm turned to annoyance. Those blue eyes. She would have recognized them anywhere. Who knew you could grow to hate blue eyes so much?
“God dammit, Jimmy—”
His hand shot up and covered her mouth. “No one can know I was here.” She nodded and he dropped his hand from her mouth, which she wiped off with the back of her hand.
“What do you want?”
“I’m here to help you.”
“I doubt that.”
He lunged forward, reaching for her shoulders with both hands, but she sidestepped and shoved the door in his face.
“Gah!” He grabbed his nose, glaring at her once she opened the door again. “I promise. You’ll want to listen to me.”
“Fine. Talk. But no touching.”
“Since our fates are now intertwined—”
“They’re not.”
“—I wanted to advise you that you would do well to find a strong alibi for Thursday evening. The stronger, the better. Use the paparazzi to your benefit on this.”
Dread filled her gut. “What the hell are you up to, Jimmy?”
“Nothing. Just trust me.”
“I will not.”
“You must! Jessica, you absolutely must find a strong alibi for Thursday evening from, say, seven to eleven. I know I’ll have one myself.”
She opened the door wider. “What are you up to?”
“You have nothing to lose by following this advice. Please take it.”
“Just tell me why.”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
And then he replaced the veil, bowed his head, and hurried off down the street.
The End Is Her Page 20