Ant’s desk (hell didn’t supply Post-Its, I noticed) and they shook. “I just wanted you to know, Mud Bar—um, Antonia, that though I understand Baal is my mother, you carried me for nine months and—”
“Then dragged my dad to the altar, had sex with him, then bit off his head and devoured his still-twitching body.”
“Oh, Betsy, really!” Laura frowned at me. “Grow up.”
“See? You’re already turning evil. This place is gonna be a bad influence on you; I can already tell. I sense it, as I sense the Ant needs a makeover.”
“When I heard you would be visiting us,” the Ant was yakking, “of course I asked the Morningstar if I could help. I just didn’t think I’d be able to so soon. I hope you understand you are foremost in her thoughts—”
“Vomit,” I said to the ceiling. Interesting that there now was one. And it looked like every waiting room ceiling I’d ever seen: a yawn-inducing popcorn ceiling, pitted with little holes from where people tossed pencils at it. “And again, I say vomit.”
“—even though she was called away. But I’ll look after you.” I felt a narrow-eyed glance. “Both of you. I guess. Hmpf Meanwhile, if I can answer any questions, please just come right out and ask.”
“Excellent. Because I’ve got lots of questions. When you decided to whore yourself in order to break up my mother’s marriage, did you do it because you were an amoral slut, or because you didn’t get enough of Daddy’s attention when you were a little girl? Or some weird pervy combo of both? And when you’d do it with my mother’s husband, did you talk to him about all the bad clothes and bad hair treatments you wanted him to buy, or just grunt like animals?”
“Betsy!” mother and daughter shrieked in unison.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I yawned. “So are we getting a tour or what?”
Chapter 26
W e followed my stepmother as she gave us a tour of hell. Laura was staring around, wide-eyed and fascinated, but I was mostly annoyed. I knew hell was going to be awful, but nobody warned me it’d be chockful of clichés.
There were pits of boiling oil, complete with screaming souls trying to do the breaststroke. There was the whole rolling-a-boulder-uphill-only-to-have-it-squash-you-when-it-rolls-all-the-way-back-down thing. (I guess this was also hell for dead ancient Greeks.)
There were people getting whipped, burned, and shaved. There were people who fell, again and again, into pits filled with snakes, lizards, mice, gummy bears.
There were people running, only to be run over by chariots, horses, tanks, RVs.
There were people drowning and people being buried. There were people being attacked by wild dogs, bears, eagles, ferrets, whippets. Oh, and—gross!
“Otters?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “Were those otters?”
I expected to feel a lot of things in hell, but I never expected boredom. (Although the otter thing was sort of unusual.)
It scared me, to be truthful about the whole thing. Seeing suffering and finding it anticlimactic. I hadn’t been a vampire long, but I was beginning to see how the old ones, the ones even older than my husband ... they were bored by everything; screams and pain and despair and horror left them pretty unmoved. They ended up causing tons of trouble because at least that was something different.
I wasn’t scared to be in hell. I was scared that I wasn’t scared to be in hell.
But I was here, and I vowed to pay attention and learn what I could. Then I could go back home and spend the next fifty years repressing this entire week.
I pondered, then decided that was as good a plan as any. Pay attention, learn, get what needed to be done done, have the devil pay up what she promised, then get the hell, no pun intended, back home.
That was my plan, and I was sticking to it.
Yes, of course I didn’t think it’d be that simple. I’d never been a Mensa member, but that didn’t mean I needed to read the directions on a
“Then dragged my dad to the altar, had sex with him, then bit off his head and devoured his still-twitching body.”
“Oh, Betsy, really!” Laura frowned at me. “Grow up.”
“See? You’re already turning evil. This place is gonna be a bad influence on you; I can already tell. I sense it, as I sense the Ant needs a makeover.”
“When I heard you would be visiting us,” the Ant was yakking, “of course I asked the Morningstar if I could help. I just didn’t think I’d be able to so soon. I hope you understand you are foremost in her thoughts—”
“Vomit,” I said to the ceiling. Interesting that there now was one. And it looked like every waiting room ceiling I’d ever seen: a yawn-inducing popcorn ceiling, pitted with little holes from where people tossed pencils at it. “And again, I say vomit.”
“—even though she was called away. But I’ll look after you.” I felt a narrow-eyed glance. “Both of you. I guess. Hmpf Meanwhile, if I can answer any questions, please just come right out and ask.”
“Excellent. Because I’ve got lots of questions. When you decided to whore yourself in order to break up my mother’s marriage, did you do it because you were an amoral slut, or because you didn’t get enough of Daddy’s attention when you were a little girl? Or some weird pervy combo of both? And when you’d do it with my mother’s husband, did you talk to him about all the bad clothes and bad hair treatments you wanted him to buy, or just grunt like animals?”
“Betsy!” mother and daughter shrieked in unison.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I yawned. “So are we getting a tour or what?”
Chapter 26
W e followed my stepmother as she gave us a tour of hell. Laura was staring around, wide-eyed and fascinated, but I was mostly annoyed. I knew hell was going to be awful, but nobody warned me it’d be chockful of clichés.
There were pits of boiling oil, complete with screaming souls trying to do the breaststroke. There was the whole rolling-a-boulder-uphill-only-to-have-it-squash-you-when-it-rolls-all-the-way-back-down thing. (I guess this was also hell for dead ancient Greeks.)
There were people getting whipped, burned, and shaved. There were people who fell, again and again, into pits filled with snakes, lizards, mice, gummy bears.
There were people running, only to be run over by chariots, horses, tanks, RVs.
There were people drowning and people being buried. There were people being attacked by wild dogs, bears, eagles, ferrets, whippets. Oh, and—gross!
“Otters?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “Were those otters?”
I expected to feel a lot of things in hell, but I never expected boredom. (Although the otter thing was sort of unusual.)
It scared me, to be truthful about the whole thing. Seeing suffering and finding it anticlimactic. I hadn’t been a vampire long, but I was beginning to see how the old ones, the ones even older than my husband ... they were bored by everything; screams and pain and despair and horror left them pretty unmoved. They ended up causing tons of trouble because at least that was something different.
I wasn’t scared to be in hell. I was scared that I wasn’t scared to be in hell.
But I was here, and I vowed to pay attention and learn what I could. Then I could go back home and spend the next fifty years repressing this entire week.
I pondered, then decided that was as good a plan as any. Pay attention, learn, get what needed to be done done, have the devil pay up what she promised, then get the hell, no pun intended, back home.
That was my plan, and I was sticking to it.
Yes, of course I didn’t think it’d be that simple. I’d never been a Mensa member, but that didn’t mean I needed to read the directions on a
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