Cat's Claw by Amber Benson Page B

might eat us.”
    The girl only snorted at her friend’s stupidity.
    “You heard him, Raphael; we’re already dead. So who cares if he eats us? Like, duh .”
    I had to admit that the girl did have a point—even if her acid-laced tongue was extremely annoying.
    “But . . .” Raphael babbled.
    “Just, like, shut it , Ralphy.”
    The boy glowered at her.
    “Hey, don’t call me Ralphy. You know I hate that name.”
    The girl snickered. “But it’s your name, Ralph .”
    “ENOUGH!” Snarly head bellowed, its large yellow eye raking over them like a searchlight.
    “Sorry, sir,” Raphael né Ralph said meekly, his legs quaking underneath him like a little schoolboy’s. The girl, Chanduthra, wasn’t at all cowed by old Snarly head’s outburst.
    “Look, mister, it was, like, an accident, you know. No one kicked the candle over on purpose or anything,” she said matter-of-factly. Her pale blue eyes looked up imploringly at the three-headed dog.
    “If you, like, have to, you can keep Ralph and Richard,” she continued. “I won’t tell a soul.”
    I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was the Goth girl really trying to sell out her friends for her own freedom? What a ballsy chick. I looked over to where Ralph and Richard stood cowering together, shock at Chanduthra’s offer clearly apparent on their faces.
    “Are you trying to bribe me?” Snarly head said, watching the girl intently. The two dumb heads moved away from their balls, transferring their attention onto Chanduthra. Immediately, they started drooling.
    I wondered what that meant.
    “No,” Chanduthra said, “not bribe really, just, you know, like, making an observation.”
    “And how did you die?” Snarly head asked, moving its great bulk closer to the girl so that the two dumb heads could sniff her better. Chanduthra didn’t flinch; just let the dumb heads sniff her up and down without protest.
    When they were done with “smell and tell,” Chanduthra turned back to glare at the boys, just daring them to contradict whatever came out of her mouth next. She cleared her throat and yanked at the hem of her dress before wiping the sweat off her upper lip with her cape. For a heavy girl, there was very little perspiration going on.
    I, on the other hand, was sweating like a stuck pig.
    Just another reason why I hated Hell so much . . . the oppressive heat .
    “Well,” Snarly head said, starting to look bored now. “Go on.”
    I was very interested as to what old Snarly head’s next move would be. I had a feeling he didn’t get too many souls sassing him right outside the Gate to Hell— or maybe I was just naïve and this stuff was business as usual. I had no way of knowing what the protocol was for entering the interior of Hell, so I just stayed put, my curiosity more than piqued as I tried to guess what Snarly head would do with this ragtag bunch of Goth kids.
    “We were calling forth the demon Abalam, and Ralphy had a little accident with the candles—”
    “I did not ,” Ralph cried out indignantly.
    “Shut up, Ralphy,” Chanduthra said, licking her lips. “Like I was saying, we had, like , just laid the pentagram and were chanting and stuff. Ralph knocked the candle over and, like, everything just started burning. ”
    The other twin, Richard, opened his mouth to say something, but another look from Chanduthra silenced him. I couldn’t tell which creature the brothers were more scared of: Cerberus, the three-headed Guardian of Hell, or Chanduthra, the Goth Bitch.
    “That’s not what happened,” Richard said, sticking up for his brother finally. “Why are you lying, Sandy? She was the one who accidentally kicked—”
    Without warning, Chanduthra walked over to Richard and punched him in the gut, hard. The slender young man fell forward, clutching his belly and gagging as he gasped for air. Chanduthra raised her fist high in the air, then pointed it right at Ralph, shaking it in his weasely face as a reminder that she was not