A Chip on Her Shoulder

by RJ Blain

  “Why not just make a new angel, tell your son to deal with it, and if he doesn’t like it, well, he should have made sure his devils hadn’t gotten out of hand. Probably again, the way I figure it.”

  “Again. And they will again in the future, and you will find this element of being his queen rather annoying. If I gave you the choice, you’d make angels out of his devils, and you would throw everything out of balance. Your job is to help maintain the balance, not thoroughly crush it when certain devils and demons annoy you. And they will.”

  “Do new angels come fully formed, or are they little baby angels?”

  “They are as I wish them to be.”

  “I guess I can’t take a little baby angel to his house, can I?”

  “And you wondered why I assumed you would have no problems becoming a mother in the future.”

  Busted. I shrugged. “Is that a no?”

  “You would create much whining should you take an infant angel into my son’s home, and we would have the problem of having to balance even more angels, devils, and demons. The numbers must stay balanced.”

  “It would be a little weird carrying around a headless baby, I guess.”

  “Only a little. How about a kitten instead? I can create a kitten suitable for your new home, and she will stay young, playful, and affectionate towards you for all her days. It would be trivial to create such a small seed, and I will create something similar in my heavens to maintain the balance, perhaps a playmate for your kitten when you come to visit. No, that wouldn’t work. My kitten would simply follow you home. I suppose you must have two kittens of opposite natures to keep you company. Such a tragedy. You are not a solitary creature, and she will keep you company during the days my son must attend to work he does not wish for you to witness. He will want to spare you from discomfort.”

  “You would give me a kitten? Wait, two kittens?”

  “You can consider them a birthday present, and they’ll make adjusting to your new home a little easier.”

  “I’ve never had a kitten before.”

  “I know.”

  “Will the kittens bother Lucifer?”

  “Immensely.”

  I grinned at the thought of yanking the Devil’s tail. “Okay. That sounds reasonable. Is it strange that I’m not really afraid? Shouldn’t I be afraid?”

  “It is not terror that kills a mortal soul upon seeing our faces, Darlene. It is the awareness of everything that humans are and are not, and the beauty of it is too much for a soul to tolerate. You will emerge on the other side changed, but not all change is bad. Change is change. You will understand soon enough. I have prepared you as much as I can. You have nothing to fear, for I am with you.”

  Eleven

  How could someone so beautiful exist?

  The Devil had many forms, and the dark-skinned beast he’d become intrigued me. With black leathery wings sheathed in flame to cloven hooves that burned wherever he stepped, a sane woman would’ve feared him. Add in his long, curved claws dripping a rusty, thick fluid, and fear would have been a sensible response.

  A few scraps of stubborn fabric, charred on the edges, clung to his wrists. Had his beautiful suit survived the transformation before being incinerated from his heat? The loss of his clothes annoyed me.

  How dare he show off his perfect chest to anyone who might come wandering by? Unlike his angelic brothers, he possessed nipples, and the flames crackling around him did a good job of hiding the rest of his physique.

  Damn it. I turned my ears back and lashed my tail at that, and I opted to focus on his face before the mystery of the rest of his body either drove me mad or my temper snapped a lot like his. The lingering remnants of my headache had something to do with my irritation.

  I forced my attention upwards with a slight detour to admire his chest for a few extra moments. Beyond darkening and the presence of fangs and horns, the Devil’s face remained as I remembered. The unbridled fury in his expression promised death.

  If I hadn’t known better, if I hadn’t seen the Devil masquerading as a human already, I might’ve believed the man dumb enough to face off against the Devil was nothing more than a mortal man, handsome enough to turn heads wherever he went. A red gleam in his brown eyes gave him away.

  The urge to get up, unsheathe my claws, and leave some marks across his face as a reminder of why he shouldn’t cross me or the Devil roused. I flexed my hands, and I concentrated on the wild part of me, the one that led to fur over my skin and the manifestation of my perfect, beautiful spots.

  Growing claws hurt, but I accepted the pain and focused.

  The unfamiliar living room irritated me, as did my place on an old, worn, and comfortable couch. Movement in the corner of the room drew my attention, and Belial regarded me through narrowed eyes. I flexed my hands, slid off the couch, and debated how to best tear strips out of my new opponent.

  Belial raised a brow, and at a glare from me, he raised his hands in surrender.

  “You dare to disobey me?” the Devil demanded, and the fires of his many hells crackled in his voice.

  “You allowed a human female to undermine your authority,” the lesser devil countered. “Be rid of her, or I will get rid of her myself.”

  Blue sparks danced over the Devil’s skin, and the flames cloaking him flared white before brightening to an icy blue. His form shimmered, and much like a glass dropped to the floor, something around him shattered, sending a cascade of shards raining down, which sparkled before dissolving away to nothing.

  The beastly visage fell away to a golden skinned man with sun-bright wings, each feather clouded with white and tipped with blue. Something about the Devil’s face had changed. From the gentle curve of his jaw to his eyes, which had shifted in color to the sapphire of a winter sky, I found no evidence of human imperfection.

  My breath caught in my throat and lodged there.

  How could someone so beautiful exist?

  Even if I could have breathed, I wouldn’t have for fear he’d vanish like smoke whipped on a growing wind.

  How could someone so perfect exist?

  How could I compare?

  I couldn’t.

  Mocking laughter rang out, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the Devil’s face. I could understand a moth’s determination to fly close to the flames. I couldn’t compare, but I yearned to touch and discover what perfection felt like.

  Part of my very soul despaired for what I could never be, withering away while my lungs burned for the breath I refused to draw.

  A cold darkness crept in, stealing away the Devil’s golden beauty and leaving me with nothing but shadows reminiscent of his glory. While my eyes could no longer focus or pierce the black shrouding my vision, I could still move my arms.

  The shadows drew closer, and I lifted my hands and smiled at the warmth suffusing my hands, tracing his perfect face with my fingertips in the hopes of etching his image into my memories. I closed my broken eyes, but his visage slipped from my grasp, lost in the relentless dark.

  “Breathe,” a still and quiet voice ordered.

  I obeyed, and the world fell away into nothing.

  “You shouldn’t kill him yet,” Belial stated, and something about his tone annoyed me into growling.

  I was warm and comfortable, and some damned devil was blabbing about not killing somebody? I considered doing my best to kill him, but after a moment of thought, I decided against it.

  Killing useful devils wouldn’t help me down the road, and for all Belial could be annoying, he had his uses.

  “I absolutely should kill him,” the Devil replied, and his growls were a great deal deeper and louder than mine.

  How unfair. There needed to be a rule against that. His voice rumbled in his chest, which was in close proximity to my head, a situation I quite liked.

  His chest and my head needed to maintain a close and personal relationship. I purred, snuggling closer to the source of warmth, which I determined was likely him.

&nbs
p; “In order to kill him, you would have to move her, and I can hear her purring from here. He isn’t going anywhere. I’ll see to that. I will quite enjoy helping with his complete ruination. Your lady seems content where she is at, and you would become more upset should she be disturbed. Perhaps this worm can be the first of her toys. Cats require many toys, do they not? Gift him to her so she can practice her arts, for she has much to learn. You can occupy yourself with building her a dungeon all of her own, filled with toys to keep her from becoming bored.”

  “Who is he and why are we killing him?” I asked, and I cracked open an eye to discover the Devil had taken on a more human form, and to my disappointment, he hid his beautiful chest beneath a crimson shirt partnered with a black suit jacket.

  Belial stood on the back of a struggling man, his suit torn and covered with soot. To all appearances, the devil should have been able to escape, although upon a second, closer look, I realized Belial’s feet had transformed into hooves equipped with curved claws, which impaled his victim.

  “Alloces,” the Devil replied, and his chest rumbled with yet another one of his growls. “He thought he could defy me.”

  “He wanted to kill you, Darlene,” Belial announced with a rather offensive amount of good cheer. “You are delightfully resilient. I am not sure who was more startled by the most unexpected intervention, although Alloces lives only because His Most Sulfurous Majesty turned his attention to you. What would you have me do with him?”

  I eyed the squirming devil pinned beneath Belial’s clawed feet. “Turn him into a cute and harmless fish that can live in one of my tanks, and then I can show him off.”

  “A toy for your amusement?” Belial asked.

  “If I feed him to another fish, can he become a fish again so I can keep feeding him to other fish?”

  The Devil remained tense, although he did chuckle. “Make the concoction particularly hellish, Belial. I’m sure you can make the appropriate arrangements to ensure his punishment is as thorough as possible before he is sent to Darlene’s dungeon to be used as a training tool. Locate the succubus who conspired with him and make an example of her.”

  “Verify she actually played a role first, please,” I requested. “He could just be an idiot who thinks he’s being helpful when he is not. But if she was involved, I will not object to more pretty fish to play with.”

  “I will see it done.” Belial reached down, grasped Alloces’s throat, and vanished in a dark plume of foul-smelling smoke. Unlike before, the stench wasn’t that of brimstone.

  Sniffing, I frowned. “What is that smell?”

  “That would be benzeneselenol. It is a rather toxic acid, and it’s one of Belial’s favorites. He is in a mood, and when he is in a mood, he enjoys warning those around him he is not to be trifled with. I requested he give proper warning to others of his state of mind to keep things somewhat peaceful among the various devils and demons inhabiting my hells.” Without any sign I weighed well over a hundred pounds, the Devil got to his feet, cradling me in his arms while he regarded the bloodied spot on the carpeting with a disdainful expression. “I have changed your plans. I will be having a few of my more trusted devils participating in some games with Gallo, leading him around while you have some time to recover. I will also deal with your brother’s situation at the same time. I intend to bargain with him, and unless he wishes to remain a squeaking rodent, he will become the equivalent of your personal secretary and gopher. That should keep him busy. You can boss him around however you see fit.”

  “Does this change of my plans mean I won’t be walking?”

  “You’re not walking.”

  “Why not?”

  “I said so. That’s why not.”

  “I am disappointed you put your clothes back on.” I thought being separated from his perfect chest justified my pout. “I feel a lot better now. My head doesn’t hurt.”

  “That is only because He intervened when you saw my face.” The Devil’s expression soured. “I killed you.”

  I checked out my hands, which seemed normal to me. To make certain, I plucked at the fleshy bit between my thumb and finger. As expected, it hurt when I pinched myself. Then, to make sure I was truly all right, I shifted enough to cover my skin in fur. To my delight, my coat grew in at its plushest. “I don’t feel dead. Am I a zombie, then?”

  “You are not an undead.”

  “But if I’m dead, how else am I talking? I’d say walking, but I seem to have lost the general use of my legs for the moment.” The cat in me enjoyed being carried around, especially as I could rest my head against the Devil’s chest whenever I wanted, which I did without any shame in my enjoyment of his warmth. I remained comfortable, but exhaustion clobbered me, and I yawned. “You can just dump me on the nearest soft surface. I’ll sleep it off.”

  “The nearest soft surface is my bed, where you will rest. I will handle the matter of your brother while keeping a close and careful eye on you.”

  I could work with that, especially if he was in it, keeping me nice and toasty. To implement my plan to disrupt his plans, I grabbed hold of his suit jacket along with a handful of his shirt. “I’ve been told you’re spoiled, so I am expecting a very comfortable bed.” I yawned again and muttered a few curses over how I’d gone from wide awake to barely coherent. “Do they serve iced coffee in hell?”

  “If coffee is what you want, coffee is what you shall have.”

  “Iced, and like the way they make it down the street from my house.” I wouldn’t tell him it was a rare treat. He might take over the entire shop, as he seemed like the kind to indulge in excess. “But don’t kidnap any baristas or anything like that. If you give them a five dollar bill and ask for an iced coffee, they’ll give you my iced coffee. They’re usually below five dollars. Money is useful for things like that. If you give the right person money, they make problems go away, like my problem of not having iced coffee. My spots are to you like iced coffee is to me, I think.”

  “You underestimate my enjoyment of your spots,” he growled.

  “You underestimate my enjoyment of iced coffee.”

  “We shall see about that.”

  As so often happened in my life, I lost. That I lost my hold on the Devil’s suit, thus preventing him from leaving me alone, made my defeat all the worse. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost my clothes, too.

  Waking up naked and alone in the Devil’s bed needed to be classified as cruel and unusual punishment. I debated voicing my complaint as a feline yowl or getting out of bed, shapeshifting to my fully furred self, and making my displeasure known with my claws.

  I needed to inform the Devil I had no problems with the idea of being naked and not alone in his bed, but he needed to take off his shirt for my enjoyment. I grumbled over my severe case of raging hormones, sat up, and searched the room for something to wear. While he had several dressers, if I wanted to wear something from them, I’d have to steal something of his.

  I bet I’d swim in one of his dress shirts, and who needed pants when his shirt probably came down halfway to my knees? It would classify as gloriously indecent. If I found one of his ties, I would count as mostly dressed.

  Rolling out of bed hurt, and while I spotted a bathrobe tossed onto one of the nearby armchairs, I ignored it in favor of the Devil’s dressers, rummaging through his eclectic collection of apparel in search of a dress shirt. The first dresser included socks, underwear in a bewildering assortment of styles, colors, and fabrics, and his ties, which numbered in the hundreds. I claimed a silky scarlet one, which would contrast nicely with my fur, spots, and the white shirt I’d pilfer once I found them. On the top, I spotted a silver cross necklace, a choker accented with dark purple stones.

  The thought of the Devil wearing the choker cracked me up, and when I found no evidence of ownership, I fastened it into place.

  Finders keepers.

  The second dresser contained more jeans than any one man needed. Huffing, I went to the walls, pawing at them in search
of the magical closets that had to exist or I’d be storming his many hells again to fix the problem. After two rounds of the room, I discovered a button in the corner. When pressed, it popped open a door, which led into a massive closet filled with suit jackets, dress slacks, and dress shirts, all hung properly. A full-length mirror stood in one corner, and I bet the Devil spent a ridiculous amount of time admiring himself in front of it.

  A quick investigation revealed he had a suit for every day of the year and some extra thrown in, and he had a shirt in every color. Sticking to my plan, I went with white, approving of his meticulous hanging, with the cuffs and collars properly settled, and every other button fixed into place to help make certain the shirt kept its shape. I checked the hanger, nodding my approval he hadn’t used a cheap metal one, which had a tendency to destroy dress shirts given enough time.

  As expected, the dress shirt hung halfway down my thighs, standing in for a rather short dress.

  Wearing a tie transformed the shirt into rather indecent apparel, as it drew a great deal of attention to my breasts, which would end the shirt’s days as suitable for the Devil’s wear due to an inappropriate amount of fabric strain.

  Oops.

  He could afford a new shirt.

  Satisfied with my choice of apparel, I cracked open the bedroom door and peeked through the gap to discover the Devil in his sitting room surrounded by a herd of succubi, all of whom had opted to wear slinky cocktail dresses designed to show off as much skin as possible.

  I flattened my ears and my fur stood on end, but before I could do more than hiss at the sex demonesses surrounding the Devil, he stood, strode my way, opened the door, placed his hand over my eyes, and said, “Teach your tricks to the newcomer rather than trying to teach me tricks I taught you centuries ago. Also, do not join Darlene in raiding my closet for my clothes, as I do not have nearly enough shirts to sacrifice to your filthy ways.”