Bang.

The buzz of conversation died as Gaia slapped her hands down on the tabletop and drew all eyes to her. Quite a few people had gathered around the solid wooden table that rose from the garden soil, the bark smooth to the touch, and warm too. In her special garden, trees weren’t murdered for paltry reasons like furniture. But when she did require the niceties of society, her plants loved to give a helping frond.

“Thank you all for coming,” she began, only to find herself immediately interrupted.

“Oh no. Not more freaking manners,” Muriel grumbled aloud. “Bad enough I’ve got Dad being all courteous and polite. Don’t you start too.”

“I’m with the princess. If I hear the words please and thank you from the Dark Lord one more time, I might go on a murderous rampage,” Psycho Katie announced.

“Like that’s anything new,” Xaphan stated in a low tone that nevertheless carried. “Or did you not notice the pile of bodies this morning in the coffee shop?”

A wicked grin lit Katie’s features. “Totally justifiable homicide. The barista put two pumps of cocoa in my java when I specifically asked for three.”

“Grounds for rampaging,” someone muttered.

“Totally agree,” piped in another.

“We should firebomb head office.”

The agreement came from just about everyone there. They were minions of Hell after all. Sin was a virtue they all coveted, but not the point of this meeting.

Bang. “Shut up and listen!” Gaia dropped the niceties. Muriel had a point. Everyone in Hell was sick of saying their please and thank-yous, and the culprit behind that was the reason they were all here. “As you are all aware by now, Lucifer isn’t quite himself.”

“If by not himself you mean a freaking prat,” griped Niall. “Never thought I’d say I preferred him better as a prick.”

“We all preferred him as a prick,” Gaia agreed. Some of us preferring his prick more than others. “But obviously there is something majorly wrong with him since Ursula gave him that blasted kiss of peace.” A kiss she should have never allowed. Gaia’s fault for not succumbing to a jealous rage. It wouldn’t happen again. Next time any woman tries to lock lips with my man, I will ensure they’re pushing up daisies. Her little blooms did so thrive on decomposing flesh.

“I still can’t believe my magic didn’t cure him.” Muriel pouted. Her poor daughter had made an attempt to drive the curse on her father out. She brought a new man into her harem for extra mojo then went on a sexual escapade that blasted a wave of insanely powerful magic meant to erase all spells. It worked ridiculously well, wiping the glamor on Lucifer that made him seem older, erasing all the spells, new and old, layering his body. But it didn’t take care of the curse plaguing him most. The curse of niceness.

Nefertiti, currently in her nubile form and shape of an Egyptian beauty, drummed long, lacquered nails on the table. “As I keep mentioning, none of my scrying has managed to find any curse or spell on the Dark Lord.”

“So it’s buried deep,” Ysabel, his longest enduring secretary, stated. “Keep looking. It’s got to be there somewhere.”

“It would help if the Lord of Sin would return to my laboratory for more tests.” Nefertiti pinned an accusing gaze on Gaia.

She raised hands in a don’t-blame-me gesture. “I’ve tried. He insists there’s nothing wrong with him and that your skills would better serve the public. For free.”

Dark eyes flashed as Nefertiti spat, “Philanthropic blasphemy. Magic should always have a price.”

“And warning labels,” Marigold piped in as she twirled a fluorescent green strand of hair. For every concoction Marigold managed to produce correctly, three others went sideways—and, in one case, had escaped into Hell’s sewers.

“If it’s not magic, what else could it be?”

“Body snatchers.” The odd suggestion came from Jenny.

Gaia blinked at her. “Are you suggesting aliens took over his body?”

A red hue invaded Jenny’s cheeks. “Not quite. I guess I should explain. See, Felipe made me watch some mortal realm movies. Body Snatchers was one of them. It got me thinking. What about if, when Ursula kissed the devil, she passed on some kind of parasite? Something that wasn’t magic-based but organic, which is why nobody can detect it.”

The suggestion, while met with a few raised brows, had merit.

“You know, I never even thought to check for a bug, but still, my initial scans should have shown something.”

“Unless it was an alien microbe,” repeated Jenny. “Seeing as how Ursula escaped her banishment to another dimension, maybe she returned contaminated.”

“It’s possible she brought something through with her.” Nefertiti tapped her chin as she mused aloud.

“I’d say more than probable. I mean just look at SWEETS and the other monsters inhabiting the new Wildling ocean. It’s not farfetched at all to conjecture the Dark Lord is infected with something from another dimension, given it’s nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Adexios said. The fellow sat at ease on a polished rock about chair height. Boney knees—he took after his father, Charon—peeked through the worn holes in his jeans, and his T-shirt stated he hearted Star Wars. Behind him, Valaska, dressed in leather straps and not much else, stood at attention, ready to kill anything that might attack. Amazons did so love a good fight. They were also known to start some if bored.

No fighting in her garden. Gaia kept strict control on who was allowed into her secret garden, and she also governed what happened in it. Anything that might crush her delicate plants under clumsy warrior feet was strictly prohibited.

“Sweets?” Katie frowned at Adexios. “You have alien candy and didn’t share? I feel a murderous rage coming on.”

Xaphan slapped an arm in front of her before Katie could launch herself. “Relax. He means SWEETS, as in his pet sea monster.”

“It stands for She-who-eats-exquisitely-tasty-screamers,” Muriel’s new beau, Tristan, added. “My father is quite jealous of Adexios. The alien sea monsters he’s encountered have all ended up as dinner instead of pets. Dad is most put out.”

And probably tugging his beard. The man did own a lavish one, usually braided with seashells, for he was Neptune, god of the sea. Although more recently, folks referred to him as the disgruntled ex-husband now that Ursula had returned to Hell. Neptune now fought a never-ending battle to keep control of the Darkling Sea. However, the new Wilding Sea kept encroaching onto his territory.

“We are getting off topic,” Muriel reminded. “Daddy would be so proud. I mean, would have been.” Lucifer’s daughter burst into noisy tears. “I want my daddy back!”

David patted her on the back while Auric shrugged. “She’s been doing that a lot since she took over as interim Dark Lord.”

It wasn’t easy taking on the sins of the world. Gaia’s daughter tried since Gaia’s lazy stepson, the antichrist, refused to. But Muriel was feeling the effects.

“Let’s return to the idea of a parasite,” Gaia said to bring the focus back on the problem. “How would we go about testing for it?”

“Full body exam,” Nefertiti suggested. “Bring him to my lab.”

“Any ideas on how to get him there willingly?” Gaia asked with a grimace.

“Use your feminine wiles. Shake those tatas.” Katie winked as she rolled her shoulders.

“Tell him you baked some cookies and get him to follow. Always works for my wife when I work too much,” Charon suggested, his voice floating from within the cowl of his robe. The man had the mystery aura down to a science.

In the end, she went with Ysabel’s suggestion. “Since the Dark Lord no longer believes in violence, then I say we jump him. Chances are he won’t fight back and we can drag him to the crone’s lab.”

“That’s evil crone,” Nefertiti snapped.

“Whatever.”

It took a few more arguments, name-calling, and a fistfight Gaia quickly broke up before they were in a wicked enough mood to go jump the former Dark Lord.

He helped matters when he looked up from the book he was reading—featuring a rainbow on the cover—and said, “I am so happy to see all of you. Group hug!”

They hugged Lucifer all right and dragged him, politely complaining all the way, to the deepest, darkest bowels of the castle.

He didn’t once try to set them on fire.

Never even tried to have them confined to hard labor and lashes.

Lucifer did worse than that; he forgave them.