Chapter 33
All right,” I said, tapping one of the doors. “You
wanna make with the teleporting, or should we find out how awful
the restaurants are in hell?”
“I guess we’d better.
The first one, I mean.” Laura looked and sounded doubtful. And who
could blame her? Never had an office waiting room looked so
sinister to me, and that included the time I had to go to the DMV
two days in a row to pass my driver’s test. “So ... I’ll just ...”
She stretched out a hand and turned the knob. Which didn’t
move.
I tried it myself,
which was as dumb as hitting the elevator button when I’d just seen
someone else do it. It’s like we all think our magic fingers will do the trick.
“So. Make with the
strong physical contact.”
Laura reached toward
me with tented fingers. She rested them on my chest and sort of
eeeeeased me back, then tried the door again. No luck.
“Strong physical contact,” the devil reminded
us.
“You’re supposed to
let her figure this out for herself, so back off. C’mon, Laura. You
can do it.” But I wasn’t sure I wanted her to. If she couldn’t pull
this off, if she was too human, we
could go home! Before more death and weirdness! I’d be able to give
Tina a good laugh by describing hell.
For that matter, if I
could have gone back to the mansion and grabbed someone to bring
with us (assuming Satan would have obligingly played
interdimensional taxi cab), it’d be
Tina. She was supersmart and she didn’t rattle, two qualities I
didn’t have, and thus admired.
“Um ...” Laura gave
me a friendly chuck on the shoulder. No joy.
“I think I’m going to
leave,” the devil said, sighing. “If I have to watch any more of
this, I may vomit. Or kill one of you.”
“Quiet back there.
Laura, have I mentioned those nightmares you’ve been suffering have
wreaked havoc on your complexion? You have serious bags under your eyes.”
“Oh, I believe it.
That’s one of the reasons we’re here. I can’t thank you enough for
being here with me.”
Well, great. “And your clothes don’t match. And your
shoes are dead to me.”
“Really? I know you
don’t think I should buy shoes at Target, but they’re very pretty
and inexpensive. What’s wrong with my clothes,
though?”
She glanced down at
herself: conservative long-sleeved navy T-shirt, faded blue jeans.
A wide, beat-up man’s leather belt, I assumed one of her dad’s (her
adopted dad, I meant), made her waist seem even smaller than it
was.
I would have looked
like Owen Wilson if I’d tried to pull that off. But the masculine
touch at Laura’s waist just made her seem more beautiful and
feminine. I pinched my nose and shook my head. Some days, it really
didn’t pay to get out of bed. Maybe Laura could master time travel
really quick and take us to two days ago, and then I wouldn’t be in
hell trying to goad the Antichrist into socking me in the
eye.
“I admit the jeans
are a little big, but then Dad said I could borrow—”
“There’s nothing
wrong with them,” I sighed. “You look beautiful.” Damn the luck.
“But ... your midwestern accent! You sound like a cross between
Frances McDormand in Fargo and Ed
Rooney’s secretary in Ferris Bueller’s
Day Off.”
“Wasn’t she terrific
in Fargo? So earnest and nice, but
really smart, too. She’s soooo
talented. Did you see her in North
Country?”
“Hells yeah! Can you
believe that was based on a true—dammit! Let’s try to
focus.”
“Okay.”
“You have bad breath.
And ... your hair ... is stupid.”
She looked shocked
and covered her mouth with her long, tapering fingers. This was
getting us nowhere. I’d known my sister was good-natured bordering
on comatose, but this was just stupid. Which was how I felt right
now.
“Do you think I
should switch toothpastes?”
“Fuck it,” I said,
and hauled off and slapped her face. The sharp crack seemed to fill the room. There was an even
louder crack as her fist crashed into
my nose.
I think I just got my second concussion of the
night, I thought, observing that the room was getting wavy
and ... was that right? Yes. The room was going away.
Good-bye, weird office lobby in hell, good-bye
...
Satan’s laughter was
the last thing I heard before the hell fell away from
us.