Chapter 15

15

T he following day, I found myself surrounded by change. I was gently shaken awake by my brother and greeted with a smile when my eyes opened for once. That was different but nice.

"You awake enough to get some stuff done?" he asked me. A glance at the clock told me that, as promised, he'd waited until ten to wake me.

"Yeah," I mumbled, sitting up groggily. A glance to my side told me they'd already put away the other mattress, so they'd let me sleep longer than they had. Faced with the evidence of his kindness, I didn't want to keep my brother waiting, so I dragged myself out of the warm bedding and made my way to the bathroom.

After taking care of business, I stared at the razor on the counter and remembered how I'd be denied breakfast if I didn't arrive at the table clean-shaven.

I rejoined Gabe in the living room without picking up the razor. "Stan's gone to work," he told me, clearly not caring one whit that I wasn't keeping myself to my parents' standards of personal grooming. More of the tension I'd been slowly letting go over since yesterday slipped away. "We'll meet up with him later, but do you feel up to running errands? If nothing else, we really should get you some clothes."

"Yeah, I'm good," I told him as Tempest approached me and leaned against my legs. I ruffled the fur between his ears, and he panted happily. "Where are we going?"

"Well, first, we go down to the parking lot and get in my ride," Gabe said with a grin, and I had to wonder what kind of amazing car he had because he looked like someone who wanted to brag about it but was holding back.

Color me surprised when I found myself staring at a lime green and white golf cart.

"Not what you were expecting?" Gabe asked with a laugh as he climbed into the driver's seat. "Trust me, having Lucifer drive me around in a golf cart was not what I expected of my experience when I first arrived, either."

"Yeah, none of this is what I expected, and you even told me about some of it," I admitted. "But mostly, I was thinking that this reminded me of the song that was playing when I got here yesterday." Gabe looked at me blankly, and I sang, "I'm in a golf cart in Hell," to the tune of the song he'd played on his phone yesterday.

I climbed into the front passenger seat as he laughed so hard I thought he might hurt something. Tempest sighed from the back seat, and I kind of got what he was sighing about, though I had to admit I felt more than a bit of pride at making my brother laugh that hard.

"I'll never hear Highway to Hell the same way again," he chuckled as he started the engine. We puttered out of the driveway and...into a field of yellow snow. I wrinkled my nose.

"Yeah, sorry, it's a little fragrant," Gabe said as he made a similar face. "We won't be in this scene long. Usually, I'd drive you through the molten landscape, but it's in use currently. It was this or the cannibal babies."

I kind of wanted to know what type of punishment would involve cannibal babies. And were the babies themselves cannibals, or were they the children of adults who were? I had so many questions but was also not brave enough to ask them. Thankfully, I didn't have to ponder that for too long as the scene shifted again, and suddenly, we were in a freeway tunnel surrounded by other drivers.

"This is the entrance to the Vampire District," Gabe told me. "So, just another city, though I'm curious to know what you think about it."

"I think a lion is pulling a chariot two lanes over. The driver's waving at you."

Gabe rolled his eyes. "He works in accounting. He has an ego almost as big as my ex's, but he takes good care of the lion. I'll give him that, at least." He put on a fake smile and waved at the chariot. "Jackass," he muttered under his breath.

Tempest made a noise that sounded like a laugh. I reached for the back seat's floorboard and immediately had a fluffy head in my hand. I scritched the hellhound between the ears and looked up to see my brother giving both of us a fond smile. "I should probably be terrified of him, huh?"

Tempest let out another bark of laughter.

"Only if you weren't a good person. Or if you were Stef."

I'd heard of—and seen for myself—the weird animosity Tempest had for the vampire. "What's he got against Stefan, anyway? I mean, yeah, he seems a little weird, but I don't think he's a bad guy." Also, I'd had a crush on him for five years, though I'd thought he wasn't real, so that was awkward.

Gabe cackled. "He is definitely kind of weird, but that's why we're friends. Honestly, I don't know what their beef is. They both change the subject whenever I bring it up, and it feels rude to keep prying."

"I suppose," I allowed, contemplating the wolfish dragon panting at me from the back of the cart. "Do you think I'll ever be able to hear him?"

"Well, you'd have to evolve into a demon for that," my brother said after some thought. "So maybe after you're dead? Assuming you want to be a demon after that. No one's going to force you to."

"I've got time to think about it," I said with a shrug. "It'd just be nice to be able to hear him is all. I suppose we do just fine with body language, though."

"Yeah, I get it."

We lapsed into a comfortable silence, and I watched the scenery around us. We emerged from the tunnel into a city. "It looks like Southern California," I said, surprised.

"The Vampire District is nearly a carbon copy of a particular city in Southern California," he responded, and I looked at him with wide eyes. "I won't tell you which one, though. I'd hate to ruin the surprise."

I snorted. "Like I'd know. The only time I was allowed somewhere other than church, school, and home were the days Abby and I had managed to get permission to go to the library, or the day I escaped to the carnival. I'm amazed I didn't get mugged or stabbed getting to your old apartment, given how clueless I probably looked."

"Well, I suppose you could have done worse. You could have been holding up a sign that said 'please target me' or something," my brother noted with a grin. "But I still won't tell you which city until tonight. You might get it then. And if you don't, no big deal. It'll still be a fun surprise."

"No pop quizzes, then?" I teased with a grin.

"Nah, I'll save those for after we've started having movie marathons every night. I'm thinking we start with Ghostbusters because I appreciate the irony of a dead guy watching it. But there's merit in spending a week binging the entire original Star Trek series, then the movies. Even the first one, because while it's horrible, it's also weirdly hypnotic. But mostly so we can work our way up to the whale movie." He grinned at me. "It's grandma's favorite Star Trek movie. I'm pretty sure she has a crush on Leonard Nimoy, but she's managed to avoid getting banned from his occasional meet-and-greets."

He was talking about things I'd only vaguely known existed at best, but I was excited nonetheless.

"Seriously though," he said, all traces of amusement leaving his face. "Are you okay? I'm thrilled to have you here and spend time with you, but you've kind of been through the wringer. On top of that, I'm aware that Stan isn't wrong when he says I'm overwhelming you." He winced a little and shot me an apologetic look. "Sorry. I'm excited to have you here is all."

"I know," I assured him before thinking about his question. "I don't know if 'okay' is the right word right now, but I'm mostly fine. I've had time to adjust to the reality of what my parents are, and I'm in a place where they can't touch me. Abby is with Beelzebub, so I know she's safe from them too. Like it or not, I'll still probably have to face them in court to talk about where I found the pictures and what kind of parents they were to me, but they can't touch me there, either. They'll be in prison for...well, that depends on the charges. From the sound of it, possession alone doesn't have a minimum sentence. If proven they either distributed or produced it, that changes things. Regardless, I shouldn't have any trouble getting a restraining order."

"Which is great, until they break the restraining order and throw you off a balcony or something," my brother said drily.

I grimaced. He had a point. "How long am I allowed to stay down here?"

"Until you're eighteen, for sure. After that...well, there'll be a meeting about that."

I narrowed my eyes at him. His face had twitched when he said that. "What's wrong with the meeting?"

His face twitched again. "It's not that there's something wrong per se, just... It might break your brain a little. Kind of like meeting Jesus did."

"Oh no."

"Exactly. If you think meeting Jesus was a trip, wait until you meet the man in charge."

My eyes went wide. "Excuse me?"

"Well, he's in charge of our section of the afterlife," Gabe said with a shrug.

"Pardon me if I've completely mistaken what you're trying to say, but are you telling me God will be at that meeting?"

"Yep," my brother said. "The big Sky Daddy himself."

I stared at him, words failing me and brain blank, until I finally managed a feeble "Does He know you call Him that?"

"I can hear you capitalizing those pronouns, you know. And yes, I call him Sky Daddy to his face. He thinks it's hilarious. I've also referred to him as 'The Church's Invisible Friend' and 'People's Sexiest Deity'. He really appreciates that one."

Now it was my face that was twitching. "Why?"

"What, the 'Sexiest Deity' thing? Because currently he looks kind of like Ron Glass. Firefly era, not Barney Miller. Sorry, but your god is an attractive god."

I put my face in my hands and sighed. "I don't even know who that is," I said, though my words were muffled. "But that's not what I mean. Why is He going to be in the meeting? It's not like I'm someone important!"

"You're wrong," Gabe said sternly, and I dropped my hands to see his face had gone stony. "You're extremely important. Maybe you won't cure cancer or end world hunger or something, but that's not what matters. First of all, you're a demi-demon, and we're super rare."

"Great, I'm on Heaven's threatened and endangered species list. That's why God has to come to see me personally?"

My brother cleared his throat, suddenly looking very uncomfortable.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I didn't do anything," he protested before mumbling "...yet."

I glared at him.

"Okay, fine," he said with a sigh. "I may have made it plain that I could and would end Earth as we know it if something happened to you or Abby because of their 'oh, we can't meddle' rules. That's bullshit, and they know it."

I sighed. Tempest let out a consoling noise from the back seat, and I reached back to pet him again. "No global annihilation, Gabe."

"No promises. They're already on the verge of either turning into a giant Instant Pot or triggering the next ice age, depending on which way the ocean temperatures go. All I'd have to do is nudge them a little, thanks to the fuckers who refuse to believe that if their Sky Daddy made everything, he also made science, and maybe they should fucking listen to the scientists."

He was stewing again, and I had a feeling he wouldn't listen to me no matter what I said, so I turned my attention back to the surroundings. After a moment, I blinked and turned my head. "Was that person carrying a giant inflatable T-Rex?"

Gabe rubbernecked to take a look, then pulled the cart over to the side of the road. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, you little blond weirdo?" he yelled at the person behind the dinosaur.

The person paused, and an instantly recognizable head peeked around the dinosaur. "I'm pranking the guy in the apartment below mine," he answered. "Don't ask."

"Sure, but couldn't you wait to inflate it at the apartment?"

"It wouldn't have fit through my door if I'd inflated it there!"

Gabe groaned and looked skyward for a moment. "You could have inflated it outside."

"Yeah, but..." the vampire started to protest, but his words trailed off. After a second, he sighed. "Shit, I could have, couldn't I?"

"Deflate your dino and get in already," Gabe ordered. "I'll help you reinflate it when we get home. But you get to sit in the back with Tempest."

"He can sit in the front," I said immediately, getting up before my brother could stop me and jumping into the back instead. Tempest sat up, making room for my feet, and gave me a grateful look. I patted him in response. Honestly, none of us needed the drama of those two having to sit next to each other, and the thought of him maybe leaning forward to talk to us during the drive and potentially breathing into my ear or something did things to me I didn't want to have to think about while sitting next to my brother.

"Oh hey, thanks," Stefan chirped as he shuffled his way toward us, squeezing the dinosaur to try to speed up the rate of deflation. He managed to move the thing enough to grin at me from over its back, putting his very sharp canines on display.

"Do you ever bite yourself accidentally with those fangs?" I asked, clearly having lost my brain-to-mouth filter somewhere. I blamed his gorgeous eyes for that. They were distracting.

"Yes," he said immediately before I could even think about apologizing. "And it hurts like a son of a bitch. I don't recommend it. But hey, how are you feeling today? Sorry we sort of swarmed you last night, but one moment the summoning circle opened, and the next, Gabe leaped through, and Stan took off toward the portal with Tempest. He'd warned us it would happen at some point, but wow, it made our adrenaline spike."

"I'm...sorry?" I apologized, though it ended up more like a question. "And I got to sleep without fear for the first time in a long time, so I'm feeling better than yesterday. I'll take what I can get."

The blond, now folding the deflated T-Rex, looked at me through narrowed eyes before looking at my brother. "Has he been fed yet this morning?"

"No," Gabe replied. "We have half a dozen different places to go before Beelzebub comes to get him, so we were going to stop somewhere for food after stopping by the apartment."

"Well, hurry it up," Stefan said as he jumped into the front seat. "He looks hungry."

Gabe turned to squint at me. I shrugged. I was used to not being fed, so it didn't occur to me.

"Right," he sighed before getting the cart back into traffic. "Apartment, then food."

We continued the drive, listening to Stefan explain why his downstairs neighbor had earned his wrath. Zombie flamingos were involved, so I was going to have nightmares for weeks knowing that zombies were a thing.

The apartment complex we pulled up in front of looked old, and when we eventually opened the door to what I assumed was Gabe's unit, I was surprised to see that the inside looked even more dated. "Wow, did time stop here?" I asked. "This looks like something out of my grandparents' photo albums." Not from pictures of them, but other family members, who they mocked as they gloated over their wealth, thumbing through the pages of the albums.

"Yeah, yeah. Our grandmother gives me shit about my aesthetic preferences too."

I looked around, taking in the furnishings in style in photos taken over fifty years prior. There was a lot of pale wood, bright colors, and clean lines. "No, really, it's nice. It's not a style I'd want, but it's comfortable and welcoming." I squinted when my gaze landed on a framed photo on the wall. "Is that...?"

"Yeah, that's the picture we took," my brother agreed as I moved closer to see. "There's one in Stan's living room, too, and we both have a copy on our desks."

"They're a little fond of you," Stefan said with a smirk as I felt my face redden. "So what did you need to do here, anyway?" he asked, mercifully turning the focus away from me.

"Mostly check my mail and the fridge," Gabe said, wandering into the next room. I followed to find myself in another retro-looking room, where my brother went for the thankfully modern-looking fridge. "Hopefully, nothing's gone bad."

Stefan broke the silence after a few minutes of watching my brother hum in thought to himself. "So what do you think of Hell so far?" the congenial blond asked as he leaned against the counter next to me.

"No piranhas to chew off my toes?" I asked, trying to channel the same offended tone my mother used if the store failed to keep her favorite brand of margarine in stock. "No acid that will boil my flesh from the bone? This is positively the worst Hell I've ever visited. I'm appalled at your lack of fire and brimstone. I demand to see management."

Gabe raised his hand as he looked in the fridge. "Hi, I'm management."

"I thought you were Stan's assistant," I said, brow wrinkling in confusion.

"If Stan does the same sort of thing a CEO would do, Gabe's job parallels a COO," Stefan told me.

"I was supposed to be an assistant," Gabe sighed. "But here I am. Kind of in charge. What idiot okayed that, anyway? Worst idea ever."

"Stop being good at your job, then," Stefan shot back with a grin. "Or join Lucy's team."

"No. Also, no. And furthermore, no." Gabe straightened and shut the fridge. "Well, nothing's gone visibly bad, but I think we should dump everything—what little there is—and restock the fridge later." He looked at Stefan and grinned. "Good job keeping the contents of my fridge from gaining sentience."

"Wait," I said as something occurred to me. "Nobody dies here, but the groceries still go bad? What the heck is up with that?"

Stefan gave me an odd look. "You know, I think 'heck' is probably the closest thing to profanity I've heard from you. You don't ever swear, do you?"

"I wasn't allowed to," I corrected. "Not if I wanted to be disciplined for it."

The vampire frowned. "Well, that's no fun."

"I don't miss what I never got in the habit of," I said with a shrug.

He narrowed his eyes. "I know. How about I swear for you?"

"Uhh..." I wasn't sure where he was going with this, but I figured whatever he had in mind probably wouldn't hurt. "Sure?"

He nodded. Then he opened his mouth and yelled "FUCK!" at the top of his lungs, startling Gabe, me, and probably the rest of the apartment complex.

"Feel better?" I asked him, feeling more than a little concerned for his sanity.

He thought about it, then nodded. "Yeah. You?"

"Weirdly, yes," I admitted. It was mostly because I was amused, but whatever.

"Anyway, regarding the fridge, I wasn't going to let the leftover lasagna go to waste," Stefan said, sticking his tongue out at Gabe before turning his heart-stopping grin in my direction. "Your brother may not seem it, but he's an excellent cook."

"Stef's got a key. If I'm gone longer than I think the food will survive, he eats the contents of my fridge." He paused, frowning. "Come to think of it, he does that even if I'm not gone."

"Fucker," Stefan laughed, though he didn't deny it. "If you didn't like it, you'd tell me to knock that shit off."

"Did I say it was a problem?" Gabe asked. "I just said you help yourself to my fridge." He narrowed his eyes, and suddenly, the room felt five degrees colder. "Speaking of kitchens..."

"Gabe," I said, trying to get him to stop. He ignored me.

"What is this about you meeting Zeke before I even knew he existed?" Gabe demanded, pointing a finger at Stefan.

Stefan grabbed the finger and pulled, resulting in a vaguely explosive sound that had Gabe's face turning an odd shade of red-purple before they both started howling with laughter.

Tempest sighed, and gave me another look of 'Do you see what I have to put up with?' I patted him on the head in sympathy.

When they'd finally calmed down, Gabe explained about the dream I'd had five years ago, mercifully leaving out the parts that would embarrass me. When he was done, Stefan peered at me, his brow furrowed. I could feel my face getting hot as he stared, and I looked away. "Wait," he finally said, dragging out the word slowly. "You're the kid who astral projected into my apartment?"

"No, I was asleep," I told him, confused. "I figured you were just a figment of my dream until Gabe told me you were real."

Stefan shook his head. "Nah man, you were definitely in my apartment. I was awake when I was baking that cake, and suddenly, some skinny kid with sunken cheeks and his opacity set to 75 percent popped into the room." He made a dismissive gesture, smiling. "Don't feel bad about it. Astral projections happen, usually in people who are kind of flirting with death but not exactly on their deathbed. We just ride it out until their souls go back to their bodies and make them comfortable, kind of like you might do for a sleepwalker. But hey, I didn't even recognize you! You look way better than you did five years ago."

"My parents started feeding us a little better around then," I said as I thought back. "Looking back, I have to wonder if someone said something to them. How was the cake, by the way?"

"We should make another one," Stefan told me, grin widening. "Then you can try it yourself. It'd be fun."

"S-sure," I said, my face getting warmer as I stumbled over the word.

Gabe rescued me. Sort of. "Hey, we have to go get Zeke clothes and stuff. Want to go with? If you think about it, it'll be kind of a replay from when I first got here. It'd be appropriate to join us."

Stefan laughed. "Yeah, kind of is, huh? At least this one isn't likely to have a nervous breakdown in Dev and Alec's bathroom, though."

I looked at Gabe, and he scowled. "I had just died ," he reminded the blond.

"For the record, he told me it was okay to tease him about it," the vampire assured me. "I'm not that much of a jerk. And yeah, he had just croaked. Dropped out of the sky into a creepy forest with no idea what was going on, then got dumped on a stranger and dragged around everywhere. At least you came here voluntarily."

"I don't get why Hell's got a reputation for being such a bad place," I admitted. "So far, everything I've seen has been pleasant, and the people are nice."

"I'm betting your brother avoided places where you'd see things that might traumatize you," Stefan told me, his expression dropping from joviality to something more severe than I thought would be possible for him. "Because trust me, there are places here that would give you nightmares for the rest of your life. Has anyone given you the rundown on how Hell works?"

"I mentioned a little, but I haven't gotten into details with him," Gabe admitted. "At first, because I didn't want to scare him off, and then because I was more interested in getting to know him. But we'll go over all that."

The vampire nodded in response before turning his attention back to me. "Your brother's being careful you don't see anything you shouldn't, but know that Hell is...well, Hell. For the people who end up here for restitution, it's not a nice place."

"Which explains why I'm really looking forward to our mother showing up," Gabe interjected with a wicked cackle. "I want to watch the horror creep onto her face as she realizes exactly where she's ended up and why. Then I'll wave as she's escorted to whatever part of Hell Stan decides to put her in." He glanced at me and shrugged. "I don't want to hurt her myself. I just want to know that she knows what she did wrong and how horrible she is. I want her to deal with that knowledge for the rest of her afterlife, even after she's paid her restitution. That'll hurt her more than anything I could ever do. Does that make me a shitty person? Maybe it does, but I won't apologize for it."

"You don't need to," I assured him. "It's just her getting what's coming to her. You explained enough about the process for me to understand that. She's the one that opened that can of worms, and she's the one who'll have to lie in it."

Gabe and Stefan both gave me a horrified look. "What?" I asked. "It's true."

"You mixed two different sayings," Stefan said. "And while I agree that your mother should have to lie in a pile of writhing worms, the thought is still kind of gross."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You literally work in Hell."

"I may not be human, but I'm still a person," Stefan noted. "And people can be grossed out by crawling things. Or didn't your brother tell you about the potato bugs?"

"I thought we agreed never to mention that again," Gabe muttered.

"Yeah, he told me," I acknowledged, ignoring my brother.

"Come to think of it, though, a pit of worms could be useful," Gabe continued. "Or even better, slugs. Banana slugs."

"Okay, no, no one needs a pit of bright yellow foot-long slugs," Stefan said.

"Hell does," Gabe said with a shrug. "And they only get up to like ten inches."

Stefan and I looked at each other, then both gave my brother an exasperated look.

Gabe cleared his throat, looking chastised. "Right. How about we go get breakfast?"

"Yeah, because all this talk of worms and slugs gets my appetite going," I said, making a face.

Stefan laughed and put his hands on either side of my face, squishing my cheeks a little. "How are you so cute?" he asked, making my face aflame again. Stefan was bad for my blood pressure.

"Do not hit on my brother," Gabe growled at him.

"Too late," Stefan said cheerfully. He let go of my face and sauntered out of the kitchen.

"Dammit, Stef, don't make me end you!"

"We're immortal, doofus," the vampire called back with a laugh, and Gabe chased after him.

Tempest looked up at me, sighed, and shook his head.

"Yeah," I said, not needing an interpreter for once. "I agree completely."