Page 9 of Client from Hell

“Why do you think I’m going to get any destructive urges?” I demanded.

“I remember what you did to your swing set when you were five,” she replied on her way out the door.

My father laughed, came over to my bedside, and kissed my forehead. “She’s just worried, although you did have it out for that swing set for some reason I still don’t understand.”

At age five, I’d been obsessed with horses and bananas, so I’d done my best to turn my swing set yellow. I couldn’t remember where I’d gotten the paint, but I’d been successful in my attempts, although every moving part had required extensive cleaning or replacement by the time I’d finished. “It wasn’t yellow, Dad. We’ve been over this before. If it had been presented to me in the one true color, which is yellow, I wouldn’t have needed to steal the paint and turn it yellow.”

“Whatever you say, Sandra,” my father replied before strolling out of my room. “Listen to your mother and stay out of trouble.”

I waited for them to be out of sight before I shook my head and wondered how I, a terror tyrant of a child, had deserved such good parents—or what they’d done to deserve me.

After one of the doctors informed me I had more guests and inquired if I could handle seeing them, to which I declared myself more than ready to escape the boredom of being on my own, the Devil, his wife, and a woman I recognized as a handmaiden—or the handmaiden?—of the Devil stepped into my room.

Yep. I was dead. I was worse than dead. I was about to be escorted to my demise. While deserved, why had the Devil brought his wife and his whatever-she-was? At the courthouse, she’d been introduced as the Devil’s secretary, curtly informing the prosecution she would absolutely take offense if anyone tried to sugar-coat her role in the Devil’s operations.

I couldn’t remember her name, but I blamed the cancer for that. Names had become somewhat sketchy since it had opted to make a mess of my brain. Would the lycanthropy virus help me survive the Devil’s wrath? Would being part of such an experiment pay for my funeral?

Before I could tell the doctor I had changed my mind about having visitors, the man fled.

I couldn’t blame him for bailing, although I worried about my survivability in the face of the worst the hells had to offer. Well, if I was going to end up in one of the Devil’s many hells anyway, I’d do my best to earn the trip. “I know it’s bad of me to forget my doctors’ names, but I wasn’t aware that was a good reason to actually send me to hell. I’d say make yourself comfortable, but if you’re here to flay my skin from my bones, I’d rather make you work for it, honestly.”

The Devil’s wife, who appeared as a human but with a snow leopard’s tail and ears, tossed back her head and laughed. “I have no idea how you came to that conclusion, but you’re adorable. We’re not here to kill you, flay your skin from your bones, or even torture you. If you’d like to learn some torture techniques, I have a dungeon and we have some really nasty fucking assholes we have to rehabilitate. I’d be happy to teach you.”

Wait. What? I stared at the woman, and after some concentration, I remembered her name was Darlene. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. Teaching one of the newbies how to properly torture a fucking asshole makes the time go by—and the fucking assholes tend to clean up their acts faster, as we tend to pull out all the stops when we’re training. Diana here was a quick study. It took her all of about ten minutes to figure out how she might creatively discipline the fucking assholes in her care. Not that she particularly cares about them unless they demonstrate they’ll change their ways. It’s a coin flip with some of them.” Darlene rubbed her hands together. “Lucy, I could spend entire weeks with her in the dungeon.”

The Devil’s patience-tested sigh intrigued me. “My darling, we’re here to discuss the internship, not convert her into a dungeon queen. Don’t I already have enough dungeon queens? I’m not going to be allowed in my own dungeons at the rate you two fiends keep stealing my work.”

In unison, the women shrugged, and according to their expressions, they couldn’t care less if they broke the Devil’s heart.

The Devil’s handmaiden sighed and bowed her head, and her dark hair fell over her face. Huffing, she shoved the long, thick locks out of the way. “Nobody from your school warned you we were coming, Miss Moore?”

I blinked. “From school? What?” I pointed in the general direction of my phone. “It’s been quiet, and I’m supposed to be recovering from barely dodging death, so I’m out of classes for the moment. I mean, I’m in some pretty hellish classes right now—or was before the cancer got me—but this is a little ridiculous. Also, please. Call me Sandra.”

“Diana,” she replied, and she turned a narrow-eyed stare onto the Devil. “Is there something you forgot to do, Lucifer?”

“Forgot? No. Chose to ignore? Yes. This is far more entertaining. Look at how well she’s handling this. Her general assumption we’d come to escort her to my many hells to be one of the fucking assholes amuses me, but she’s tolerant. She needs to be tolerant. When I asked the school for recommendations, I specified I needed someone who had a quite high tolerance for the insane and absurd, and I’ve already created mayhem for her in court once. She survived that.”

Darlene placed her hands on her hips. “I swear, you and Kanika can’t behave yourselves even when you try. I think you like the courts here with how often you make appearances, and you keep dragging our daughter into it. Worse, you actually go to every hearing. You could try to skip at least one.”

“But why would I do that? They’re delightful. Kanika gets so mad at me every time, and you know how I love when my little cupcake gets all bristly. My little candy cane doesn’t bristle all that much, and my little saltwater toffee tries to ignore my posturing because he’s smart.”

Diana flexed her hand, and blue flames burst into life, dancing over her skin. “Your little candy cane wants to punch you so hard you wake up in next week for being a pain in the ass. Why didn’t you call Miss Moore? She has cancer, and she does not need any stupid surprises from you right now.”

“She had cancer,” Lucifer replied. “Past tense. That’s important. She had cancer. Of course, she also had an immune system, but that’s a different matter entirely. Don’t get so wound up. She’ll be just fine. Relax, Diana. Relax. And no, I didn’t do anything nefarious for a change, nor did I recruit anyone to do anything nefarious on my behalf. I kept my word, and I have behaved, much like an angel, for the entire week, just as you demanded.”

“Angels are assholes,” Diana muttered, and she gave her flaming hand a shake. The blue fire winked out. Inhaling, the woman regarded me. “I apologize, Sandra. Please allow me to handle the formal introductions and explain why we’re here. This is Lucifer, whom you would know as the Devil. This is his wife, Darlene. I’m Lucifer’s secretary, and I’ve been cursed with handling most of his important affairs.”

“You poor woman.”

She smiled. “He pays well enough for me to put up with him, so don’t you worry about me, Sandra. Due to some business dealings he has become involved with, he needs a good intern to help handle the workload. After lengthy discussions with the local universities, you were picked as our best option. We come prepared to offer you good financial incentives and schooling opportunities to work with Lucifer. In reality, you’ll be in a secretarial role, handling scheduling, taking notes at business meetings, reviewing various legal documents for potential snares, as well as meeting and coordinating with Lucifer’s contacts when needed. You will be paid an hourly wage, your schooling will be handled, with credits being issued for the relevant work you do, and you will be given opportunities to work with private mentors and professors to maintain your full-time student status, as we’re aware your lodging is dependent on your status due to a scholarship. That said, if you can’t maintain full-time status due to your work, lodging will be provided.”

I opened my mouth to inform the trio someone had lost their damned mind, but I spent a few minutes thinking it through.

From what I’d seen in the courthouse, Lucifer needed all of the help he could get, and I needed him to not destroy the world where I lived, which trumped all of my other general complaints. If he didn’t get the help, what were the odds of my home surviving?

“How on Earth did you jump to that conclusion?” Lucifer blurted.