“You son of a bitch,” Satan muttered as he threw his head back and laughed. “My father is the goddamned Enforcer?”
“Guilty,” Bill said with a smile as he held his arms out to his son.
“Do we really have to take my name in vain?” God complained. “I’m standing right here.”
“My bad… not,” Satan muttered to God as he narrowed his eyes at Bill. “So, is this your idea of a joke, Dad?”
“Hardly,” I snapped, exhausted by Satan’s disrespect. “If you hadn’t thrown a huge shit fit when you so rudely barged into our room and set everything on fire, we would have told you. However, since you were such a shit-goblin, we didn’t.”
“For the love of everything unholy,” Satan shouted. “You did not just call me a shit-goblin.”
“She did and you deserved it,” Astrid commented and moved in to hug her grandfather. “Is this your new look?”
“It’s one of them,” Bill said, cryptically.
“Explain the white streaks in your hair,” God said, also going in for a hug.
“I would think someone in drag wouldn’t have the balls to insult someone’s hair color,” Satan drawled.
“Are you always such an idiot or do you simply show off when I’m around?” God shot back.
“Sorry, I didn’t get that,” Satan said. “I don’t speak bullshit.”
“Enough,” Bill admonished the boys. “I am as I’m supposed to be. Period.”
“Am I the only one who didn’t recognize you?” Satan griped as he stomped around and tried to shake off the need to hug his father.
“Looks that way,” God said with a chuckle, still eyeing Bill’s hair with concern. “However, since you lied, Brother… I do believe I get to kick your ass with no retaliation.”
The words that came from the Devil’s mouth were horrifying… horrifyingly funny, disgusting and alarmingly appropriate for my son.
“Fine. Kick my ass, brother. You won. I lost. Again.”
God pursed his lips in thought. “Actually, I believe I’ll take my retribution in a different form.”
“That’s cheating,” Satan accused.
“Your point?” God shot back.
“Touché. Name your desire.”
God was positively giddy. I grinned and waited to see what he would do.
“Mother, I have a favor to ask of you,” God requested.
“Ask and you shall receive,” I replied.
“I’m gonna puke,” Satan mumbled.
“Could you make it rain in Heaven for a few hours? I’d hate to have to forfeit the game to the Saints. I was about to make celestial softball history. A rain delay will ensure that I get to stick around for a bit and watch my brother pay penance. It would be a win-win.”
“My pleasure.” I waved my hands. A bolt of lightning and crash of thunder rumbled through the Universe. In the far, far distance rain began to fall over Heaven in torrents. “Done.”
God nodded his thanks and then turned his attention to his brother. “Hug your father.”
“No.”
“Hug him. That’s what I want,” God insisted. “Now.”
“This is absurd,” Satan snapped, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t hug people. And I most certainly don’t hug people in public. It would gut my reputation. How about if I just… umm… well… spewed out a bullshit apology? Something like—sorry for whatever you think I did wrong even though I didn’t do anything?”
“I accept,” I said with a giggle.
“I accept as well,” Bill added.
“I didn’t apologize,” Satan countered quickly.
“Actually, you did,” Astrid informed him with a laugh. “For you to even consider it is the same as doing it in your case.”
“Does everyone fucking hate me?” Satan bellowed as he set the lovely floral over-stuffed chairs aflame. “This is appalling.”
“Hug. Your. Father,” God commanded.
“You will pay for this,” Satan growled as he warily approached a still grinning Bill.
“I will be quite happy to do so,” God told him, pulling out his cell phone.
With a snap of his fingers, Satan blew up God’s cell phone. The Devil went in for the quickest hug in the history of hugs. And if I wasn’t mistaken—and I wasn’t—he enjoyed it.
Satan then turned around and punched his brother in the nose. “Is everyone happy now?” Satan snarled, putting a safe distance between himself and his father, so he didn’t accidentally go in for a second hug.
“Yep,” God answered, wiping the blood from his nose and giving the Devil a quick uppercut that sent him flying. “Now that we’ve taken care of that piece of business, how about you get me up to speed here? Bill, why are you in this form?”
Bill sighed and shrugged. “I seem to be stuck. Never before have I not been able to shift back and forth seamlessly. I’m not sure why.”
Satan, pulling his shit together and letting his ego take a rest, joined the conversation. “So, you can’t take back your Sprite form?”
Bill shook his head.
“Then there’s a reason,” Astrid said logically. “It has to have something to do with the end times.”
“The end times are not on the schedule,” God reminded everyone.
“The schedule is in pencil,” I whispered, feeling ill. Something was so wrong, but I wasn’t sure what exactly it was. “Pencil can be erased and changed.”
“The spawn of the Antichrist broke the first seal,” Satan said with a grunt of disgust.
“Impossible,” God insisted. “Pestilence has not occurred. There is no fatal epidemic consuming mankind. I would know.”
“Would you?” Satan asked cryptically. “You didn’t think the end times were on the fucking schedule.”
God was silent for a long moment and then his head snapped to Bill in surprise. “No,” he whispered in shock.
“HOLY SHIT ON FIRE! She made a run for it,” Hortense screamed at the top of her lungs as my posse of big-boned, violent buddies came tearing out into the garden like they were being chased by the Devil, which was ridiculous since he was standing right next to me. “The Grim Reaper has gone rogue!”
“What?” I yelled and caused an earthquake in my distress. What else could go horribly wrong right now?
“Not to worry,” Velma squealed in a pitch so high I was certain we’d all gone deaf for a brief moment. “I shoved a homing device up Betsy Cocker’s rude ass when she wasn’t looking.”
“How in the Hell do you shove something up someone’s ass when they’re not looking?” I demanded, wanting to belt Velma in the head. “People know when something is shoved up their ass. And we can test that theory because I’m about to shove a tree up your ass.”
“Finally, something fun to see,” Satan said with relief.
“Zip it,” I growled.
“Velma went teeny tiny,” Joan explained as her green-tinted skin grew greener by the second. “She can crawl undetected into any hole if she’s small enough.”
“Okay, that’s fucking gross,” Astrid said with a gag.
“I’m going to have to agree with that,” God muttered, backing away from the harried, violent gals.
“Run for your Immortal Life,” Satan whispered to his brother in terror as he grabbed God by the collar of his sparkly uniform and yanked him behind a large boulder. “They eat souls.”
“Only on Tuesdays,” Cathy cackled as she watched two of the most powerful beings in existence hide from them. “Oh—and the Grim Reaper says she can’t cook.”
“Are you shitting me?” I demanded. “She’s Bossy Cocksucker. She has to be able to cook.”
“Betsy Cocker,” God corrected me, popping out from behind the bolder with a wince on his handsome face.
“That’s what I said.”
“My bad,” God whispered and ducked back down next to his brother.
“Not to worry. We can find Betsy Cocker and we’ll make her cook. She got seriously pissed off when we to
ld her the end times were coming,” Fran explained, arming herself to the teeth and scaring the Hell out of everyone. “With the device in her asshole and no legs for at least a half-hour, she can’t get far. Cathy, grab the damn laptop. We can track her ass on it.”
“Literally,” Astrid said with another gag.
“Why did you tell her the end times were coming?” I asked with an eye roll.
“We had no choice,” Joan said. “I’d already ripped off both of her legs and we had to have something to threaten her with.”
“Makes sense,” I agreed, happy they hadn’t removed her head. “Do we have enough internet juice to find her?” I questioned as my hair began to blow around my head and peach and golden crystals began to rain down violently over Nirvana.
It made the torrent of rain over Heaven look like child’s play.
“What’s internet juice?” Astrid questioned, confused.
“Don’t ask,” Bill advised.
Hortense grabbed the laptop and threw it at Velma. As Velma went to work, the rest of the lard asses continued to arm themselves. It was positively fabulous—wands, brooms, swords, potions, throwing stars, daggers and a tank.
“A tank?” I muttered aloud.
“A tank,” Bill confirmed with a sigh. “Your friends are insane. You certainly know how to pick them.”
“Thank you,” I replied with a small giggle and a helpless shrug. “They’re horrible, but I’m keeping them.”
“She’s in Kentucky at a grocery store,” Velma grunted as she continued to type away.
“Third and Lime Street?” I asked, feeling clammy.
“Yep,” Joan said, looking over Velma’s shoulder. “You know it?”
“Know it well,” I said as the wind picked up and everyone had to hold on to something so they didn’t blow away. It was the very warehouse of mass confusion I’d visited with Satan. Coincidences like that did not happen.
Shit.
“Tamp it back, Gigi,” Astrid yelled over the roar of the cyclone I’d created.
“Right,” I muttered and counted to seventeen.
Slowly the wind resided. My gals looked like they’d been through the dryer cycle on high. Whatever, I still looked fabulous.
“God and Satan, go home and ready your armies,” I commanded. “Astrid, you will notify the other True Immortals. And Bill…”
Bill’s gorgeous dark hair had gone whiter. It was all connected. I wasn’t sure how, but my main goal was to keep him safe. He was my world. Without him, I had no reason to exist.
“Bill,” I said, swallowing back the tears that threatened to fall. “You shall stay here and wait for my return… please.”
The silence in the garden was not golden. It was loud and wrong.
“We’re a team, my love,” Bill said, cupping my chin and forcing my eyes to meet his. “We have each other’s backs. Always.”
“And we will keep it that way,” I whispered, my eyes pleading with his. “You will stay here.”
“As you wish,” he said without emotion.
My stomach clenched. I needed Bill as much as he needed me, but my gut said to go this one alone. Winging it was seeming less appealing and more dangerous with each breath I took. Losing wasn’t an option, but I still had no clue what was truly happening. Fate had said to go about business as usual. Nothing was usual about this. Nothing. The weight of the world was almost debilitating.
“Are we taking the tank?” Hortense asked.
“No, we are not taking a tank to the grocery store,” I snapped. “Have any of you ever been in a grocery store?”
“Never,” Joan admitted. “I’m quite excited.”
“Don’t be,” Satan yelled from behind the bolder. “Just don’t make eye contact with a wrinkly.”
“That’s going to be the least of our problems,” I muttered as I raised my arms to the sky in preparation to transport the Psycho Six. “I just hope we find Boppy Wanker before Jim Bob Bob-Bob does or vice versa.”
“You think the Grim Reaper is going after the spawn of the Antichrist?” Fran sputtered.
“There is no fucking Grim Reaper,” Satan snapped. “It’s a fucking myth.”
“Can it, shit-goblin,” I hissed at my son. “I have no clue what Bonnie Hocker is up to, but I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“You can’t let her destroy the spawn of the Antichrist,” God said, running his hands through his hair in distress. “That will bring on the end times for certain.”
“Well, there’s some great fucking news,” Satan grumbled.
“It’s solvable,” I said, hoping by saying it, it would be true. “Becca Focker has a device in her ass. We have a computer, internet juice and fabulous outfits. There is no way we can lose. We have three days left and I’m going to fix this shit. Now.”
“You go, Gigi girl,” Astrid said, giving me a thumbs up.
Taking a small selfish moment, I pressed my lips to my lover’s and breathed him in. Bill’s strong arms wrapped me in a tight embrace and he moved his lips to my ear.
“I believe in you and I love you with everything I am. Do what you have to do, lover. And I will do the same.”
Nodding and pulling away, I sucked it up and turned to my little army of insanity.
“You ready to find a legless Belinda Cocksmacker?” I shouted.
“Damn tootin’ we are,” Hortense yelled. “Grocery store—here come the Psycho Six.”
May Heaven and Hell help us all.
For real.
Chapter Ten
“What exactly are we supposed to do with these?” Joan asked, eyeing the wheeled contraption with confusion.
“Roll it through the grocery store and pretend that you’re shopping for food items. Act human and don’t kill anyone. Keep your eyes open for Bunky Casper. Run her over if you have to just don’t decapitate her. She might be a lousy cook and a foul-mouthed idiot, but we need her,” I instructed tersely. “And stay away from the people in blue coats. They’re armed with cheese, crackers and nachos. We have no time for a snack right now. You feel me?”
“Roger that,” Cathy said, picking up a paper flyer and examining it. “Ohhhhh! They’re having a sale on almond milk. I love almond milk.”
“Call me crazy,” Hortense muttered as she opted for a wheeled scooter rather than a metal cart, “but I’m going to say they call it almond milk because no one can say nut juice without laughing.”
Hortense’s observation was brilliant, but I had no time to appreciate my clever comrade’s remark. We had an ass device to track.
“Follow me,” I instructed.
The grocery store was packed with humans. The lighting was still appalling and the music was worse. Movement was going to be tricky without running over shoppers.
“I can’t push the metal basket and find a beeping asshole at the same time,” Velma complained as her voice got higher pitched in her distress.
“Put Velma in the damn cart,” I told Joan.
“Seriously?” Joan asked.
“Very,” I replied, glancing around wildly. “We need to split up. Hortense, Fran and Cathy go the fruit section over on the left side of the store and create a disturbance—a big one. We need to empty this cavernous shit show. It’s bad enough that we’re hunting a legless dumbass with a homing device in her backend, we don’t need to harm any humans in the process.”
“On it,” Hortense said as she pulled Cathy and Fran onto the scooter and took off at two miles per hour.
“Umm… that was a mistake,” Joan said as she threw Velma into the cart and began to sprint.
“Why?” I questioned as I expertly avoided a human family and a pyramid of canned beans.
“Hortense, Fran and Cathy do best with specific instructions,” Joan explained as she maneuvered her cart like a drunk driver on a bender. “If you don’t specify, they like to disrobe.”
“You’re shitting me,” I said with a horrified laugh as I jerked my cart to a halt.
“I shit you not
,” Joan replied and then paused mid-sprint. “Wait for it…”
The gasps came first, followed by terrified screaming. The screaming turned to hurling and then all Hell broke loose. The stampede of traumatized humans was epic. The cement floor of the massive building trembled as humans fled the establishment in droves.
“Take cover,” Joan shouted as at least three hundred people rushed for the exit.
Diving behind a mountain of Twinkies, I quickly unwrapped one and inhaled it as I watched the exodus unfold in abject horror. Images of a naked Cathy, Fran and Hortense flitted across my frontal lobe and I gagged on my stolen goodie. My son God would call that Karma. Satan would have just laughed.
“Coast is clear,” Joan grunted as she dug her way out of a plethora of baked goods.
“Found her,” Velma squealed, pointing at a blinking light on her computer. Her voice caused an entire shelf of pickle jars to explode. “Down the aisle ahead and to the right.”
We hadn’t even used magic yet and we’d practically decimated the grocery store in a matter of minutes. My posse was violently outstanding.
“Lose the cart,” I hissed as bizarre popping noises filled the air. “Stay low and follow me.”
Belly crawling over breakfast pastries and avoiding the glass from the broken pickle jars, we shimmied quietly toward aisle three. Hortense, Fran and Cathy met up with us at the cereal aisle. Thankfully, they were clothed. Seeing them in their birthday suits would have caused a natural disaster that I couldn’t have stopped.
“Just around the corner,” Velma whispered.
“That’s the aisle with her products,” I whispered back.
“Do you truly think she’s the real Betsy Cocker?” Joan asked.
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” I said. “There is a reason we found her. Fate makes no mistakes.”
“Betsy’s fucking nuts,” Fran whispered. “Do we really need her? I mean we could always go kidnap Gordon Ramsay. He’s far more pleasant than Betsy.”
“I’m partial to Bobby Flay,” Hortense chimed in. “I hear he’s hung like a horse.”
We all contemplated that in silence for a moment.
“I like that Paula Deen. She has nice big teeth,” Cathy announced, thankfully taking Bobby Flay’s package off the table.
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