Chapter One
On the docks by the River Styx…
“You’ve been a bad kitty.” Lucifer shook his head at the hellcat in question, wearing a pained expression that his daughter, Muriel, would probably recognize. That chit knew how to push his buttons too.
Felipe, the minion in trouble, sat on his furry haunches alongside his catch—a thirty-foot-long sea serpent currently being measured by the local butcher. He hung his giant feline head, whiskers drooping.
“Don’t try that innocent look with me. It might soften that witch who took you in, but it won’t work with me, you rascal.” Wearing his sternest expression—practiced often in front of a mirror to ensure he achieved the right effect—Lucifer berated the incorrigible cat. Not that it had any effect. Again, just like his mischievous daughter, the hell kitty thrived on driving him crazy. But at the same time, how could he stay mad at the minion who, in his youthful exuberance, sinned?
Still though, there was breaking the rules, and there was disrespect. One would get rewards—and kitty treats from Lucifer. The other needed curbing.
Shifting shapes until he stood as a man, with his hands covering his man parts, Felipe wore a sheepish expression on his face. “Would it help to say I was sorry?”
“No, but I appreciate your attempt to lie.” Lucifer paced in agitation on the quay and stabbed his finger at the cat. “What have I told you about playing with the Styx monsters?”
“Don’t.”
“And what did you do? Don’t answer that. I’d say that part was obvious. So what do you have to say for yourself?” Crossing his arms over his chest, Lucifer fixed him with a stern glare.
Felipe rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “I was hungry.”
“Then you go to the market.”
“But it’s not as fresh.” The handsome hellcat pouted, and Lucifer fought not to smile.
The shape-shifter truly had the gift of charm, and he knew it. It was why he did so well with the women, the lucky bastard. Unlike some of us stuck in a monogamous relationship. Blech. Even thinking the word made Lucifer feel ill. The things he did for great sex—and Mother Nature’s apple pie, the baked kind, not the one between her legs. That one was pure honey.
His old friend Charon, who stood alongside watching the exchange from the dark depths of his cowl, threw up his gloved hands. “Hungry? Too fucking bad. That’s the second one you’ve killed this month. How am I supposed to properly awe the newly damned I’m shipping across the river if we don’t have any impressive specimens to scare the pants off them?”
“I think you should worry more about your son and his reputation of screwing up than my fishing habits,” Felipe retorted. “Or did you not tell our lord about his latest mishap?”
Not another one. Lucifer fought to not bang his head off a hard object. “What did Adexios do this time?” Lucifer demanded. “Did he overturn the boat again? Lose his oar?”
“I’d rather not say,” Charon mumbled.
A smirk on his lips, Felipe didn’t have a problem tattling. “He let one of the newly damned pilot his boat while he took a nap. The damned one immediately turned the boat around and poled it back to land.”
Counting to ten didn’t make the news any easier to bear, but Lucifer reined in his temper instead of blasting the bearer of the tidings into meaty chunks. He had better uses for the cat. “Are you trying to tell me I’ve got some newbies running around on the mortal plane instead of down in processing?”
Given the number of souls arriving daily, Lucifer had only enough time to meet the special or most intriguing cases. However, no one could think to accuse him of slacking on the job, even if he didn’t meet or greet each damned one by name, because he ran a tight administration. Every soul that arrived got its just desserts. No bad deed went unpunished, or unapplauded.
“The good news is they’re still more or less in the pit.” Felipe wore a gloating grin, and Lucifer just knew he wouldn’t like the rest of his news.
“I hear a big but coming.”
“They’re just not within the nine circles. While Adexios snoozed, the temporary boatman dumped him and then managed to steer the boat with its passengers to Siren Isle. So the damned ones are contained. The bad news is it won’t be easy getting them back.” Felipe snickered as Charon groaned.
“Bloody Hell. You know how I hate dealing with those women.” Not to mention Mother Nature had banned him from visiting their isles. Apparently she didn’t trust him around gals who could sing a man into doing anything they wanted. As if that sexy bunch needed to enchant him to get him to drop his pants. All he needed was a come-hither look, and he was ready to go. Or he used to be until he got a girlfriend who insisted on monogamy. Ah for the good old days when the witches used to dance around bonfires, naked, and invite him over to the mortal realm for orgies.
Folding his robed arms over his chest, his hands hidden in the voluminous sleeves, the full-time boatman of the Styx sighed. “I’ll send my lad to get them back.”
“And have him fuck something else up?” Lucifer snapped. “No, thank you. I think it’s time I reassigned the boy to something a little less strenuous, and a lot less enjoyable. As for you—” Lucifer turned his mighty glare on the hellcat, who seemed entirely too pleased with himself. Time to rip the canary eating grin from his face. “Since you also disobeyed, don’t think you’re getting off scot-free. I’ve got a job for you. Get those souls back.”
“But they’re on Siren Isle.”
“And?”
“Those females ensnare males and keep them as slaves.”
“Then you’d better be careful.”
“But—”
Drawing himself up, and letting the fires of Hell glow in his eyes— a neat trick he’d learned eons ago—Lucifer spoke. “NOW!” He might have yelled it. It sure did echo impressively, and it had the required effect. Felipe held his cocky tongue and nodded.
Inside, Lucifer chuckled with glee. As usual, things were going along as planned. His plan. His hellcat minion was about to meet the mother of his future litters. Or get enslaved by a bunch of sirens and turned into a stud.
Either way, his will would be done. And the ranks of his demonic legion would swell. For what purpose, he didn’t yet know, but he had a sneaky feeling he’d have need of an army, and soon.
With a pout on his lips, Felipe shifted into his feline and bounded away to ready for his trip.
Charon shook his covered head. “He’s trouble that one.”
Perhaps, but a trouble Lucifer could understand and even admire. Fighting, wenching, and building a reputation. How he missed the old days, a time when he didn’t have so many responsibilities and souls to care for—and torture. “Not as much trouble as your boy. What are we going to do with him? He’s obviously not cut out for the job of ferryman.”
“He just needs more time.”
“Time?” Lucifer snorted and smoke curled from his nostrils. “The boy’s a bloody idiot who couldn’t find his way out of a room with an open door. There’s got to be something he’s good at other than creating paperwork for me. Doesn’t everyone know my time is too valuable to waste on such trivial matters?” He could be shining his newest golf trophy, practicing his surfing for the upcoming king of the waves competition, or getting his knob polished by one talented earthshaker.
“Numbers.”
“Say what?” Lucifer shook his head of the stray thoughts cluttering it.
A pained sigh escaped Charon. “I said Adexios is good with numbers. A useless skill, I know.”
Lucifer rubbed his chin. “Numbers, eh? Actually, that might come in handy. I’ve been meaning to do a census.” If trouble truly did approach, then he needed to know exactly where he stood.
“A census? I thought that’s what the Hellacious Bureau of Statistics already did. I just about lost my mind filling in their latest one-hundred-page survey.”
A chuckle rumbled in Lucifer’s chest. “The minions running that department do enjoy their jobs a tad much. Damned bureaucrats. But, no, the census I’m speaking of has to do with the demons not on my radar, those born off the books and in the wilds.”
“Wilds? You can’t send my boy out there. He’d get eaten in a day!”
“Indeed he would.” And if the boy belonged to any other minion, Lucifer wouldn’t give it a second thought. However, he considered Charon a friend. “Still, the boy needs to earn his keep. Let me think about it more, and I’ll get back to you.”
“You’re not going to kill him, are you? Not because I care,” Charon hastened to mention. “But his mother would make my life an even worse Hell than the wondrous one you’ve created.”
“Never fear, old friend. Death is too kind. Character building, though, in the form of adventure, danger, and mayhem, that’s another thing.” Not to mention Adexios was yet another person Lucifer could torture in his version of the matchmaking game. However, first, he had a hellcat in need of a leash and a collar, and he knew just the woman to snare him—and help him as an added bonus.