Dear Shelia,

It was a dark and stormy night…

It was a really fucking dark and stormy one today—not sure how much more of this I can talk without incinerating my uncle. Of course that wouldn’t actually kill him, but I can’t see it going over real well. You feel me?

So instead of electrocuting Lucifer, I have to suffer through a little more. I can do this.

Can I do this?

Don’t answer.

You know why.

“We have a deal. The deal is I talk. You type.”

“Nope,” I shot back, sitting on my hands so I didn’t blast the Devil through the wall. “You blackmailed me into writing your autobiography—which is a fucking oxymoron since you should be writing it yourself.”

“Your language appalls me.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Touché,” he said with a chuckle that made me grind my fangs. “Fine. I can’t type.”

“You’re kidding me. You’re the badass of the Underworld. You’re supposed to be able to do everything.”

“I tried, but it’s incredibly boring and not the least bit sexy,” Satan admitted with a careless shrug and a grin. “I did try an online class, but that horrid computer woman, Mavis Beacon, made me have a fit that caused an avalanche. If she were an actual person, I’d treat her to a day in Hell she’d never forget.”

“I feel you,” I groused. “Mavis Beacon is a total gaping butthole. That finger shit is for the birds. I threw a couple of computers across the room trying to please that hard woman.”

“Too bad she’s not real,” he mused, making himself comfortable on the couch. “I’d like to date someone like that.”

“Speaking of…” I prompted. “How’s the love life going?”

“First of all,” he corrected me in a clipped tone. “Love has nothing to do with it. I love no one but myself.”

“Liar, liar, Armani pants on fire,” I said under my breath.

“I’m going to ignore that since I do find your son amusing and making him an orphan isn’t on my agenda today,” Satan shot back with his perfectly arched brow raised high. “Secondly, I tried this love you speak of once and it didn’t work out very well. Almost ended in the Apocalypse.”

“That’s kind of a defeatist attitude,” I said. “I love being in love.”

“Yes, of course you do,” my uncle replied with an eye roll. “You’re thirty years old and not as sexy or in demand as I am. Try living for a millennia. Love is as useless as…”

“As useless as a one legged man at an ass kicking contest?” I offered and then slapped myself in the head. Why in the Hell was I helping the Devil trash love?

Because I couldn’t help myself… I was full of ‘useless’ information.

“That’s good,” Satan said with a chuckle. “But not quite right.”

“Tits on a bull?” I suggested.

“No, that doesn’t explain it correctly.”

“Nuts on a heifer?”

“Nope.”

“A fart in a space suit?” I tried again.

“Now that’s just disgusting,” he chided with a wince.

“True,” I agreed. “But it’s memorable.”

“That it is. How about as useless a limp dick at the Playboy Mansion?”

“How about, no,” I said with a groan. “Try this one… as useless as a four-way yield sign intersection.”

“What an amusing idea,” Satan said with laughing approval. “Your Demon is showing, Astrid. I’m so proud of you. How about as useless as a Vampyre at a bake sale?”

“That’s mean and makes me feel stabby towards you,” I snapped.

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“This is true,” Satan agreed with a grin.

We sat in silence for a brief moment and stared at each other. I couldn’t remember what the Hell we’d been talking about.

“Umm… do you want all this in the book?” I asked, trying to get back on track.

“Sure. But add as useless as Marcel Marceau’s vocal coach as well.”

My laugh burst from my mouth and Uncle Fucker preened at my reaction to his victorious ‘useless’ quip.

“You win,” I said.

“I always do. Now let’s do a chapter on my staying power in the boudoir.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said, letting my head fall to the desk with a bang.

You wanna know what, Shelia? He was serious—totally serious. I need to take a four day shower after that one. Not to mention I’m considering a partial lobotomy to remove any memory of today from my brain.

However, Satan informed me that a lobotomy won’t work. My brain will simply grow back with all the memories in it.

He’s such a dick.

Be careful if you read the staying power in the boudoir part. You’ll want a shower and you’re a book. That would be a bad move on your part.

You have been warned.

xoxo Astrid