Free Undead and Unforgiven by MaryJanice Davidson Page A

goodness. “Never, never, never!”
    Jennifer opened her mouth, but the thunder of a hundred chairs being shoved back while almost everyone galloped for the exits on either end of the food court drowned out whatever she was going to say.
    â€œNever,” I said again, trying to moderate my shrillness.
    â€œFor what it’s worth, you just depressed the hell out of the gals who died in that bachelorette bus crash three days ago,” Marc said, nodding over my shoulder. I looked and, yep, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth even as people surged past us.
    â€œHey, it’s Hell,” I snapped at them. “What’d you expect?” To Marc: “I’m going. Let’s gather up the gang.” I never left any of them in Hell when I wasn’t there. We were all too new to this. I didn’t
think
anybody would mess with them when I was out—assuming anyone here would even know I was or wasn’t in Hell—but wasn’t willing to risk their safety to find out. As often as Satan had appeared to me in the “real” world, I knew she’d probably had some sort of “back in ten minutes!” setup here. Unless she could be in two places at once. Which would be just like that annoying bitch.
    To Jennifer, now cowering behind the counter: “Good talk, thanks. Hope it works out for you.” She cocked her head, puzzled, but I was already leaving.
    Marc fell into step beside me as we headed past the Dairy Queen that was always out of everything chocolate, the Great Steak company that was always out of buns for the sandwiches and lemons for the lemonade, and the Panda Express entrees that always smelled wonderful but tasted like sautéed shit.
    â€œI think you’re overlooking all the people who would find hashtags kind of torturous.”
    â€œYeah, like me. Come on, let’s hit the bricks.”
    â€œ#whateveryousay.”
    â€œCut it out.”
    â€œ#notalldamned.”
    â€œMarc!” I yelled, and if anything, the stampede sped up. Hate to be on the other end of the mall when they got there.

CHAPTER
    EIGHT
    I was still figuring out the whole “now that you’re in charge of Hell you can teleport to and from there even though you were an ordinary human for most of your life” thing. (It sounds totally made up, right? Right.)
    But for whatever illogical reason, it was true. To focus my will, my subconscious obligingly produced Dorothy’s silver slippers from
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
. 3 When I’m wearing them, I just think about Hell and I’m there. Or vice versa. (It sounds easy. It’s not.)
    But the ability was dependent on my mood and my intent. It had taken me five minutes to will myself into Hell for the meeting today, because I just wasn’t keen ongoing. But now I really wanted to go home. And I really wanted to fuck the king of the vampires.
    And like that: I was there. Even better: Sinclair was, too. He was better than there; his six-feet-many-inches frame was stretched out in the middle of our emperor bed, the dark sheets a deep contrast to his pale skin (he’d hated losing his farmer’s tan when he died). He had one hand behind his head, the other on his cock, and he beckoned me closer without moving, which was a wonderful trick. (
He might be hypnotizing me with his dick. If so, I genuinely can’t think of an objection.
)
    â€œI’m back!” I cried unnecessarily. I was already starting to tug at my clothes, stupid clothes, stupid stupid
stupid
clothes, there should be a law, I would
make
a law, Sinclair should only be naked and I should make a law about stupid—
    â€œWait!”
    Eh? Annoyed, I rounded on the voice. “Marc! Can’t you see we’d like some privacy?”
    â€œYou teleported us in here with you, shithead!” Marc kept trying not to stare at Sinclair lolling nudely
    (nudely!)
    and failing. “Bad enough you’re the luckiest shoe