Why did that bastard Maury let the bad souls out? All those nasty beings she’d worked so hard to collect were now roaming free in the underworld or returning to Earth in fresh new baby bodies. Meanwhile, it was like a ghost town down here—minus the ghosts.
“Cimil, sit your ass down. I’m tired of watching you walk back and forth,” growled Votan, God of Death and War.
She looked over her shoulder at her brother in his black cargo pants and T-shirt. Votan was a large deity, at seven feet in height, with long blue-black hair and a scowl that made most mortals wet themselves.
Today, however, Votan looked like he might implode. Balled fists, perma-frown, and one giant vein bulging smack in the center of his forehead. I bet his butthole is tighter than a mosquito’s belly button. He looked that wound up.
Cimil flicked a dismissive hand through the air. “I can’t sit. I’m too busy listening in and thinking.”
“What are the dead saying now?” Votan asked.
That was the problem. She wasn’t sure. As Goddess of the Underworld, her special gift was listening in on all the chatter from the souls of the dead from the past, present, and future, and deciphering how different events played out. Billions of voices. Billions of different outcomes.
“I think…” Cimil tilted her head toward the moldy, dripping ceiling and closed her eyes, allowing the strongest voices to float to the surface of her mind:
“Ahhh! Why is everyone so naked?”
“McDonald’s is the only restaurant left in the world now.”
“The internet is out permanently? You mean I’ll have to talk to people face-to-face again? The humanity!”
Cimil’s eyes went wide, and she looked at Votan. “It sounds like we are facing a massive demon takeover.”
“Wonderful. We go from one apocalypse to another. Then the Universe sends us an immortal plague, only to be cured by an explosion that basically removed all immortal life from the Earth. Now we’re stuck here, and the demons are taking over the human world. Anything else?”
Should she tell him that she also saw a possible future where Earth turned into a giant meatball and was consumed by a Godzilla-like creature wearing an Adidas tracksuit? Or was that just the dream I had last night? Hard to know.
“That’s it for now,” she replied, “but I do foresee a one percent chance of the demon king’s plan taking an unexpected turn.” However, that turn came with a big price. Demons were sore losers, and if the king was unsuccessful, he would take others down with him.
Dammit. Why did I have to let him out? No one knew her dirty little secret, but in her defense, she’d done it because the world was heading to a very dark and bad place. The plague they’d been living with, which had only affected unmated immortals, had seemed fairly harmless at first, if not downright entertaining. Basically, the Universe had gotten pissy with everyone, and as a punishment, she decided that any good immortals would become bad and vice versa.
Cimil thought it might be a temporary situation—a little cosmic temper tantrum—but the longer it went on, the stronger the possibility became of everyone heading toward yet another cataclysmic extinction event with zero solutions. Vampires, demigods, incubi, chupacabras, and even the clowns would unleash unimaginable chaos on humans.
Ah, but one path led to a different outcome, to a cure. And that future started with letting Maury discover a few forgotten demon portals that had “accidentally” been left open after the gods banished their kind. One such portal led just down the hall to the janitor’s closet and then continued on to a very small hot spring just outside Vegas.
How had that stopped the plague? Well, she might have also “accidentally” told Maury about the repercussions of hellhound-unicorn fornication.
Or, as I like to call it, unifornication.
Cimil knew the solution sucked, but she was doing her best to keep the wheels on this dazzling bus of whimsical surprises called life!
And life isn’t perfect. Sometimes people died. Sometimes fish-people died. Sometimes Twinkies started having secret longings to be filled with passionate love juices instead of fake whipped cream. That was life! One had to roll with the punches. Or flow with the love juices? Potatoes, patatoes.
Now all she had to do was listen carefully to the dead and find another chain of events leading to a future where Maury failed at exacting his revenge on her brethren over the Great Demon Banishment of Oh-Eight.
Why can’t I ever find solutions that don’t create new disasters? It’s so exhausting! “Almost like the time I had to shave Roberto’s entire body because he thought he was having an allergic reaction to his hair,” she muttered.
“What the hell are you mumbling about now, Cimil?” griped Votan.
“Oh, I was mad at my hubby for sassing me, so I put poison oak in his bodywash and told him he was allergic…to…” She noted the look of imminent explosion in Votan’s eyes. “Never mind.”
Votan rose to his feet, towering over her menacingly. “Cimil, listen to me and listen good. You have done many horrible things over the millennia, but I can take no more. I have been separated from my mate and children for weeks.”
Wrong. Try months. Almost nine of them since he’d last seen Emma and his little Votanitos, but time didn’t really exist here in the underworld. It was similar to toppings on a pizza. Pizza could have pepperoni, olives, or onions, but it was still a pizza without them. In this realm, time simply gave existence more flavor and texture, but it wasn’t a key ingredient.
Just look at those assholes. Cimil glanced at the velociraptors in the jail cell across from them, playing strip poker. They didn’t give a shit about time. Or the fact they had no clothes.
“No toppings.” Cimil shook her head, staring at the naked creatures holding their cards with tiny little hands, velociraptor junk hanging out. “Just seems wrong that they don’t own pants.”
“Enough!” Votan shoved an angry finger in Cimil’s face. “I have to get back to my family. I need to know they are safe. So, whatever is going on, Cimil, fix it. Because I know you had a hand in this.”
“What! How dare you?” Cimil gasped, placing her palm over her heart. “I had nothing to do with this. Nada, zero, zilch, ling. Nope. Not me.” She shook her head back and forth. “Okay, maybe? Fine. Yes! It’s all my fault again! But I’m trying to fix it, brother. I truly am.”
“You call wearing a hole in the floor ‘trying’?”
“What else can I do? And do you honestly think I want to be here, away from my nine children while Roberto struggles to feed, clothe, bathe, and educate them on the ways of being evil all on his own?”
“Yes.”
“And you would be right! It’s exhausting, thankless work. Still, I do miss them.” She sighed. “And I don’t want to spend the rest of my existence in the underworld, not seeing their unnaturally pasty little faces or making Roberto miserable because I enjoy withholding sex until he pampers me to my liking!”
Votan gnashed his white teeth. “I should know better than to try to reason with you. You’re insane!” He plunked down on his cot, sending roaches scattering from under the sticky brown covers.
“Your point, cowboy?”