Page 31 of Client from Hell

I considered his question, trying to step into the Devil’s shoes for a few minutes to contemplate my answer. My professors had tried to grill into me that an attorney invited trouble with certain answers to questions, but without any other honest answer, I replied, “That depends.”

“On what?”

“How much you annoy me, how much he annoys me, how much I’m paid to keep him, and how good of a bed buddy he is? That’s only the beginning of the considerations, Lucifer. Or you can be happy I’ll take him as a bed buddy until I get bored of him. If he does a good job of being entertaining, it’s unlikely I’ll get bored of him, and then I’ll keep him around as my bed buddy for however long he wants to stick around. But I would like to remind you of one thing. I’m not the only player in this game. What does the bed buddy want?”

“To have people use my name for a change,” Jonas muttered.

Poor Jonas. “But you’re a pretty bed warmer, and you look like you’ll be such a good bed buddy.”

The incubus sighed. “Well, that’s something.”

“I’m sure your ego will survive until I can do my share of the bed buddy work. You’ll be okay, Mr. Incubus. Lucifer, Jonas is an adult. While I’m a fairly young adult, I’m an adult, too. We can decide how best to ruin our lives without any help from you.”

“The idea isn’t to ruin your life, but to make it better,” Lucifer muttered.

“What part of having a bed buddy I don’t have to otherwise worry about isn’t better? I mean, I’m coming out of this smelling like roses and happy every night—and possibly happy every morning, deciding how we decide to approach our bed buddy benefits. I don’t have to like or love him to enjoy his company in bed. He just has to perform.”

Jonas tossed back his head and laughed. “You’re going to fit in just fine, Sandra. That was just ruthless along with evil.”

“You’re going to be a harder nut to crack than I thought. Very well, Miss Moore. If you want to play, let’s play.” Lucifer hung up on me.

Joining him in laughing, I gave Jonas his phone. “Your brother-in-law is certifiable.”

“As what?”

“A matchmaking busybody and a lunatic.”

“He really is. Shall we get this show on the road? And if you become too tired to finish the errands, I’ll tell Lucifer to go fuck off, and we’ll finish the rest later.”

Grinning, I gathered everything I would need for an adventure into the outside world for the day. “That’s how you get invited to become a permanent bed buddy who might be allowed to see other parts of my day, Jonas. I just thought you should know.”

“However much fun it is to take an enemy to bed for a wild fling, there is something to be said about the enhancements only affection can bring to a shared bed experience. Personally, I prefer the unique foreplay of wagering on some form of game before retiring for the night. I find this to be relaxing and tempting.”

“We can experiment with that after we survive the Devil’s errands.”

Eight

I thought Atlanta had been completely wiped out.

When the Devil went down to Georgia, trouble happened—and cities burned. Rather than send us to a dealership in Athens, his directions took us to Atlanta, a drive that should have taken a little over an hour but took three due to the deteriorating roads and traffic.

While I’d been aware of the city being razed after some idiotic corporation had tried to end the world, I hadn’t realized Atlanta, much like a weed creeping up through a crack in concrete, struggled to be reborn. The outskirts of the city thrived, and construction crews worked to restore what the dragon had destroyed.

“Does the rental company know we’re taking their vehicle to no man’s land?” I asked yet again, unable to believe we could actually take the fancy SUV into the site of a mini armageddon.

Jonas chuckled. “It’s fine. Not only do they know, we won’t be taking the SUV back to Athens. We’re picking up a car, remember?”

“While I remember, I’m struggling to believe that’s actually happening. Also, I thought Atlanta had been completely wiped out.”

“It was. It’s been years, Sandra. A lot of residents actually survived. Kanika forced the Devil’s brothers to teleport out those who could be saved. Really, she’s a penny pincher because she’s spending all of her money on the rebuild. That one just never gets over her guilt, no matter what we tell her.” Jonas sighed as traffic ground to a halt yet again. “Do me a favor. Call Lucifer and tell him this is a really shitty idea of a joke.”

I grabbed my new phone, dialed the Devil, and held it to my ear. Then, on second thought, I put the phone on speaker so I wouldn’t strain my arm holding the damned thing.

“You again?” Lucifer complained. “Didn’t I give you enough work to keep you busy for a while?”

Grinning at having annoyed the Devil, I replied, “We’re stuck in traffic on our way to Atlanta. Jonas thinks you have a really shitty sense of humor, and that this is a really, really shitty idea of a joke.”

“Oh. Right. The dealership in Atlanta. I got lucky. The car was being showcased in the United States, and it happened to be in Atlanta for another month before being sent to a different dealership. It was available for sale, so I bought it. You treat that little lady good, okay? She’s hard to get, and there are only four others of her kind currently available, and they’re over in Europe right now, and nothing is quite as annoying as having to drive a new car through several layers of my many hells to relocate it from Europe to the United States in a few hours rather than shipping it—or worse, trying to find a plane that’ll take it.”