Hell Inc. (41 page)

I sighed and brushed a sweaty arm across my forehead.
Why did it have to be so damned hot around here? Nobody else seemed
to mind it though, and I tried to make myself a mental note to stop
acting like I was in a sauna. It would only attract undue attention.

Finally, I reached the counter. The girl behind the
glass partition had eye-blindingly bright yellow skin and a mean
scowl. The perfect customer service representative.

“What do you want?” she snarled at me, as if
I had just disturbed her at a very inopportune moment.

“I need to get an order of honey cake.” She
stared at me, blinking with just one set of I-didn't-know-how-many
eyelids. “Please.” Maybe a little added politeness
would help. She still continued to stare.

“We don't have any
honey cake,
” she
snapped back at me. I frowned.

“But it says right there on the menu that you
do.
”

“We're out. Next.” I slammed my hands onto
the table and elicited several stares from my fellow employees.
Don't piss off fairies. Don't piss off vampires. Don't piss off
demons.
I ignored myself.

“Check the case again.” She narrowed bright
green eyes at me, and a frown pulled the corners of her black lips
down. She bent down and rummaged around inside the display case for
a moment. I felt a surge of triumph. I had stood up for myself and
succeeded. Go Ginger. When she came back up however, she was
grinning, the corners of her lips pulled back all of the way to her
ears. Dia could say all she liked about demons being humans with a
lot of magic, but I didn't believe it for a second. At least not
that second anyway.

“We're out.” The next customer in line
elbowed me rudely out of the way, and I stood, stunned for a moment.

“
Crap
.”
At first I thought it
was just my inner monologue, but when it kept going unbidden, I
realized that it was actually Dia.
My friend, Liberswek, is here.
I didn't comment on the name, but wow.
“He says he's been
down here for three weeks. Can you believe that? So it's not like
Liam and Nathaniel were alone in their whole kidnap the genies
routine. Terrence got started even before they did. All of this
just to drive Hell Inc. out of business. Gods, businesses sure are
corrupt nowadays, girl. I remember back when I was just a kitten, we
– ”
Dia paused, and I waited, hoping she'd lost her
nostalgic train of thought.
“You get that honey cake yet,
girl?”
I couldn't respond so I waited. I don't how Dia
knew what she knew, but I could hear her frown when she next spoke.
“Well, you're just going to have to fight your way down?
You got a weapon on you?”

I did. Levie had given me a replacement dagger, twin to
the one that had been blown up in the limo with me. But I wasn't
going to use it. Not against a Cerberus. Not unless I wanted to
die.
“I can't get out of here without you, girl. There's
some sort of spell on the cells that's keeping me in. I can't even
access your magic. You have to get down here. You don't want to
fight, you figure out your own way. Got it?”
Silence.

“Dia?” I whispered aloud, once again
eliciting strange stares. These coming from people whose eyes took
up half their face or who were sporting racks of antlers bigger than
my entire body. Go figure.

I retreated back to my office for a planning session.
Nothing ever seemed to go right with me. If it could go wrong, it
would go wrong. Such was my pathetic excuse for a life. I leaned my
butt against my desk, ignoring the three new stacks of profile
papers, and tried to think.

I could try to find
Terrence's office.
What? And try to fight him off with
the dagger instead. I think not.
My legs and arms were already
moving on their own, scooping up a giant stack of papers and hustling
them out the door and back into the main office. It only took me a
moment to find Teranopolopalis printed on a plaque next to the door.
I wasn't going to fight, just observe. I opened the door slowly,
using my hip to keep it moving as I struggled to maintain my grasp on
the pile of paper.

The man sitting behind the desk was Terrence alright.
Albeit a gray skinned, winged, red eyed version of him. My body
reacted instantly to the unleashed power in the room. Luckily for
me, I was being politely ignored. Terrence was on a phone call.

“Absolutely. Certainly. Of course.” This
was the same man who'd shot an innocent girl in the head. And stolen
a boatload of genies. Of whom Levie was afraid of, even if he
wouldn't admit it. And I wanted to leap on him right then and there.
It was rather disconcerting. I ignored my pulsing girl parts and
stacked the papers onto the corner of his desk. He smiled at me, and
it was still the same, pleasant, nice guy smile. Creepy.

I took a quick survey of the room, but it was basically
the same as my office, if a bit fancier. There was a rounded, black
desk carved at the corners to look like weeping maidens and
bookshelves jam packed with the same sort of expensive tomes that the
Devil had in his office. The pictures on the wall were the same,
too: folks being tortured. How nice.

I was so busy studying the décor that I didn't
see Terrence reach for the top paper on the stack. And then the
next. And the next. I didn't notice until he grabbed my shirt and
jerked me forward against his desk.

“You're the new girl, aren't you?” he asked,
voice dripping with malice. It certainly was a 360 from his attitude
a moment ago. I swallowed and tried to nod. “Well, new girl,
what is this?” He released me and snatched one of the
printouts. He gestured it around in the air in front of me like a
flag.

“These applications haven't been approved. Have
you even
looked
at them? Why
on earth would you bring them to me if you haven't even
looked
at them.” I waited
patiently while he ranted, trying desperately to play off his already
firmly held notion that I was an idiot. Meanwhile, my right hand
crept down to my left side, my fingers sliding just an inch or so
beneath my jacket. I didn't think the dagger would really do much,
but if it came down to a fight, I would at least attempt to give him
one.

It wasn't until my fingers brushed the skin-warmed metal
that the enchantment took hold of me. Levie had said the dagger was
spelled to assist me in combat. I just didn't realize exactly what
that had meant. I had never before tried to touch it with my hand
while in a sticky situation. That's all it took.

My fingers clamped around the hilt of the knife of their
own accord, and I flew at Terrence. He seemed just as shocked as I
was. Shocked enough that when I crashed through the mountain of
papers and landed on him, my knife found purchase in his throat. Hot
demon blood spurted out across my face as my arm slashed back and
forth, completely unrestrained by me. It was too much to ask though
that he would be knocked down by such a minor wound as having his
throat slit.

Teranopolopalis (it was getting harder and harder to
still think of him as Terrence) grabbed my wrist with crushing force
and flung me across the room. I hit the wall hard, my breath
escaping me in a sibilant hiss. I attempted to push myself to my
feet, only to be stopped by an absolute searing agony in my wrist.
From the way it was flopping around, I was pretty sure it was broken.

The incubus stood up, wings stretching wide, the tips
knocking the portraits off the wall, and sniffed his hand. His face
broke into a grin.

“Ginger, is that you?” he asked, as if we
were long lost friends having a chance meeting on the street
somewhere. “My, my, that is one powerful glamour.” He
sniffed his hand again and then wiped it along the smooth lines of
his black slacks. “I can't believe Hell Inc. is so desperate
that they're relying on a human to infiltrate my place of business.
Don't you think that's pathetic?” he asked me as I cradled my
arm and tried to catch a breath. The knife was lying about three
feet from me, but I neglected to pick it up. I didn't want my body
to fling itself at him again.

The door opened and we were both greeted by the Hanes
girl, a cup of coffee in one hand an orange folder in the other. I
decided it was a now or never sort of a moment and snatched the
knife. The demon girl froze for a moment as she took in the scene,
and I forced my aching body up and out the door. Terrence's laughter
followed behind and gave me the very disturbing feeling that I was
working on borrowed time.

The rainbow line of genies parted easily for the bloody
girl with the floppy wrist as I staggered and tripped my way down a
narrow hall and a short flight of stairs.

The Cerberus wasn't exactly what I had expected. From
the legends, I'd thought he'd be eight feet tall with black wiry
hair, red eyes smoldering with an inner rage, six inch fangs
glimmering with saliva. He wasn't. Not even close.

The Cerberus of legend was actually just a three headed
white poodle.

To be fair, it was a mean looking poodle, despite the
little poofs of white at its ankles and sides. It glared at me with
its soft, brown eyes and bared teeny, tiny fangs.

“What the fuck?” I said it without thinking
and was greeted to a triple scowl.

“What's your problem?” they snapped in
unison. “You look like you've been through the wringer once or
twice.” I stared back and did the only thing my pain riddled
mind could think of. I pulled a pack of spearmint gum from my pocket
and flung it at it. Honey cake. Spearmint gum. Same difference.

The poodles glanced down at the white and green packet
with disinterest and maybe just a hint of annoyance. I made as if to
run past them when they stood and slammed into my knees with an
intensity that I couldn't quite believe, given their size. I fell to
the floor hard amidst a chorus of snickers from the milling genies
and their kidnappers/Guardians. The Cerberus stood over me growling.

“Look,” I said, attempting to appeal to its
sensitive side. If it had one. “I'm being chased by a crazy
incubus and – ” The head on the far right, the one with
the biggest, most sensitive eyes, yipped, causing the other two to
pause and turn to look.

“Teranopolopalis?” it asked. “The Big
Boss?” I hadn't yet heard him referred to by that term, but I
nodded. The heads looked at one another and then back to me. They
stamped their tiny, left front paw at me causing the black chain
around their ankle to jangle. The center head leaned down next to my
ear. Her breath smelt like grass and kibble. Dogs will be dogs, I
guess.

“Listen here, little human girl.” I was
ready to protest and pretend that my facade was real, even if
Terrence already knew that it wasn't, but the dog shook her head.
“Oh come now, you can't fool a dog's nose. Now listen to me,
I'm making you an offer.” They stamped their foot again,
drawing my attention first to their pink painted toenails and then
again to the black chain. “Just cut the chain off and we'll
let you pass. You scratch my rump and I'll scratch yours.”
Their poof ball tail wagged ecstatically.

The knife was still clutched in my one good hand. I
pushed myself up to a sitting position and turned to look back at the
stairs. The genies looked pissed. Apparently they were about as
happy to be here as I was. Nobody moved to stop me. Not even the
Guardians whom I had expected were all in on the operation. Maybe
we'd been wrong, maybe they were captives just as much as their
counterparts. Either way, I still saw no sign of Terrence, and it
was only a matter of time. He wasn't going to let me just run around
his place of business causing mayhem. The fact that he hadn't come
looking for me yet spoke volumes about how threatening he thought I
was. Which is to say, not at all.

I grasped the knife as tightly as I could and wedged the
blade behind the chain, being careful not to cut the delicate looking
little leg behind it.

“Don't worry about us,” said the third head.
“A little cut won't make the difference. Just get the damned
chain off.”

I jerked the knife
forward with all of the strength I had in my arm. It wasn't
much, but the chain fell away as if it were as thin as cloth. A
magical knife is a magical knife I supposed. I definitely needed to
thank Levie for this later. The three heads yipped in unison, and I
was subjected to thrice the usual amount of doggy saliva as they
licked my face in gratitude.

“Thank you,” they said together as they gave
me one last sloppy kiss and resumed their seated position several
feet closer to the stairs. I took that as my cue to leave and used
the cement walls to stand up. My hand had gone completely numb. I
had a thought that maybe I was in shock, but it didn't really matter.
If I didn't get my ass moving, I'd have bigger things to worry
about.

The cells were really just cushy hotel rooms with bars
separating them instead of walls. The genies inside didn't look all
that unhappy. Just bored. I passed several rooms where the pairs
inside were uh, getting to know each other better. I blushed and
tried not to look as I stumbled down the walkway. Dia wasn't far
down and was sitting on the edge of a queen sized bed, filing her
nails. She grinned one of her shark-toothed grins when she saw me.

“Girl!” she shouted, apparently still unable
to remember my name or at least unwilling to use it. She stood up
sauntered over to the bars. Her roommate, the aforementioned
Liberswek, didn't even budge. He lay silently on the bed reading a
copy of some weird genie magazine that this time featured two half
naked guys. Once again, I pretended not to notice. “I didn't
think you were gutsy enough to get yourself down here. I was half
expecting you were dead by now.”