Praise for Soul Proprietor

“Dante’s Divine Comedy meets Office Space in Vance’s devilishly snarky workplace satire, which proves that hell is other fiends.”

—Alex Shvartsman, author of The Best of All Possible Planets

“Hell, yes! Clever, twisty, and snort-level funny, Soul Proprietor paints a generous layer of hilarity over Vance’s subversive message of rights for humans and inhumans alike. Ambitious but seemingly misanthropic demon Tiffani struggles with what good and evil throw in her way along with a collection of crafty, memorable characters on both sides of the afterlife firewall, each of whom deserves their own novel. As the story hauls readers to hell and back (and back again), each ride is a thrilling road trip you won’t want to miss.”

—Randee Dawn, author of Tune in Tomorrow and We Interrupt This Program

“The best speculative fiction holds a mirror up to the world we actually live in. Soul Proprietor does that and then cracks the mirror and rents it out by the hour. Vance takes the absurdity of corporate culture completely seriously, applies it to eternal damnation, and somehow delivers something far richer than a joke. Imagine The Good Place if there were sales quotas. I finished it and immediately wanted to press it into someone else’s hands.”

—Don Schechter, author of Ascendants

“[A] lively novel about ambition, guilt, and the ugly logic of systems that treat people as units. . . . Soul Proprietor is funny, dark, and brisk. . . . [I]t knows that satire works best when the laughter catches in your throat.”

—Manhattan Book Review

“The story’s fun premise and light, sardonic prose lampoon corporate culture. . . . [A] well-executed twist leads to the revelation of even more earth-shattering secrets and momentous negotiations for the future of reality itself. . . . Soul Proprietor is an engaging satirical novel in which people prove to be more complex than simple designations of ‘good’ and ‘evil.’”

—Foreword Clarion Review

“[This] supernatural romp through the underworld and mortal affairs will draw fiction readers who enjoy tales of demons, deities, and dilemmas; while those who appreciate undercurrents of humor will delight in how Tiffani confronts the forces that overlay her life. . . . Soul Proprietor is at once hilarious, intriguing, unexpected, and delightfully original.”

—Midwest Book Review

“Such a fun, clever premise. Many high-concept books get the ‘what’ part right but fail to deliver on the ‘how’ and ‘why,’ causing their latter acts to stumble. That is not an issue for Soul Proprietor, whose inane world-building and surprising cast of characters come in strong and never stop swinging, keeping you curious and turning pages from beginning to end. Everything I expected to happen didn’t. Everything that did happen exceeded my expectations. Rooting for someone who has been doing nothing but evil for decades has never been so much fun. Fred the hell-dachshund deserves a spinoff.”

—Ken Ziegler, author of The Loudest Place on Earth

“Stephanie Vance has imagined an afterlife that is equal parts corporate bureaucracy, fantasy, and social satire, then populated it with characters whose struggles feel surprisingly human. Soul Proprietor is witty, inventive, and ultimately thoughtful, reminding us that the best speculative fiction entertains while asking difficult questions about ambition, morality, and redemption.”

—Rick Wilber, Sidewise Award- and Canopus Award-winning author, editor, and professor

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2026 by Stephanie Vance

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Without in any way limiting the author’s and publisher’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

Logo: The letters “GFB” encircled.
Published by GFB™, Seattle
www.girlfridayproductions.com
Produced by Girl Friday Productions

Cover design: David Fassett
Production editorial: Alyssa Brillinger
Project management: Kim Kent

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-967510-80-1
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-967510-81-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2026910426

First edition

With profound thanks to everyone who said, “Mortals renting souls from Hell for special occasions? That’s so cool.” I never would have finished this if not for you.

Chapter 1

Tiffani knew, the minute he walked in the door, what kind of soul he would want to rent. Fifty-three years as a salesfiend for Hell’s Soul Exchange had taught her that when a nondescript, underwhelming man shuffled into the store, he’d want something impressive, yet not too braggadocious. A soul who carried himself with confidence yet still managed to exude empathy. Charm. That was what he’d want. Mortals could be so predictable.

She spritzed on some perfume, a musky scent that market testing had shown drove mortal men wild, and prepared to overwhelm him with a barrage of sales techniques. Only one hundred forty-two more sales to go before she hit her target, and she had a full thirty days to make that happen. That, along with her five-star Yelp rating, would all but guarantee her a promotion to demon and a spot in Hell’s C-Suite. She’d missed the target by only five sales last time. She wouldn’t let that happen again, no matter how nice she had to be to however many annoying mortals.

Tiffani rubbed her hands together, grabbed her tablet from the counter, and walked up to the customer before the door shut, noting with pleasure how he jumped and screamed, then tried to pass it off as a cough.

“Hello,” she said in her most seductive voice, which, as a fiend, was pretty damn seductive. “Welcome to the Southeast Portland branch of Hell’s Soul Exchange. My name is Tiffani. How can I help you?”

“Uh . . .” The tall, reedy, sweaty man in front of her clutched the HSE catalog to his chest like a baby blanket. If beige were a person, it would bear a striking resemblance to this man. Everything about him, from his generic white shirt to his generic khakis to his generic sneakers, blended into the background.

“I think I want to rent . . . See, there’s this—”

“High school reunion? Staff retreat? First date?”

His brows drew together, and he took a step back. “It’s a high school reunion. Tonight. How did you know? Is it . . .” He gulped and looked around before whispering, “Demonic magic?”

Tiffani controlled the urge to sneer.

No, it’s because I’ve been doing this for over fifty years, and you’re really not that special.

“Because an urbane man like you would only need to rent a soul for an extremely special occasion.” She gazed into his eyes, glad she’d layered her normally scarlet irises with dark-blue contact lenses to create a shade of violet mortals found “mesmerizing” and “exotic,” as opposed to “gruesome” and “terrifying.”

The man blinked. “There will be a—a girl there,” he stammered. “A . . . pretty—a pretty one. I thought maybe you could . . . I-I’ve never done anything . . . uh . . . evil? . . . Demon-like? I’ve never even been in . . . I don’t even know if I believe—” He shivered and glanced around the store again, shuffling his feet.

Tiffani found his vibe of combined fear, skepticism, and easy-to-manipulate desperation intoxicating. He, like many of her clients, had apparently reached the “I’ll do anything” point, willing to abandon a lifetime of common sense and banal inspirational posters for a solution he’d been taught to treat with disbelief and even disdain.

She gestured toward a nearby shelf of jars and vases, each crafted from a variety of high-end materials: platinum, gold encrusted with gems, exotic hardwoods, and even a couple of human skulls. The jars and vases were only for show, of course. The iSOUL device tucked inside each of them didn’t have the same visual impact.

“I’m sure we’ll have what you want.” She picked up a wooden urn etched with images of warriors brandishing spears, serial number 4159378210. Tapping through the database on her tablet, she found the correct entry and read the description.

“Now this man is in our Titanium tier. He ruled a large country for decades and was adored by everyone he met. It’s a powerful soul . . .” She looked the man in front of her up and down and ran her tongue over her lips, like he was an ice cream cone she was dying to lick. “A man like you . . . What’s your name?” she asked.

“It’s, uh, Joe. My name’s Joe,” he mumbled.

“Joe,” she breathed. “I’ve always loved that name. Not many men could handle a soul like this, Joe, but I bet you could.”

He put down the catalog, took the urn from her hand, and rotated it in his own shaking ones. She took a quick peek at the catalog he’d been clutching and noticed the dog-eared Iron-tier pages. No worries. She could talk him up one tier to at least Copper, if not two more to Bronze. She’d done it before.

“Um—so—if he was so . . . impressive . . . w-why did he go to Hell?” Joe stuttered, handing the urn back and picking up the catalog again.

The question surprised her. Well, not the question itself. It was the fact that such a meek man had asked it. Sure, his voice had trembled, but it was still a bit aggressive, especially when talking to one of Satan’s representatives on Earth.

“Oh.” Tiffani waved her hand as if she didn’t concern herself with such trivial things, then winked. “This and that. I can’t tell you too much. Client confidentiality and all that. Let’s just say he was a little too ambitious for his time. I’m sure, though, that’s something a visionary man like yourself wouldn’t have a problem with.”

In fact, the man had been a warlord and the adoration she referred to had been mandatory for anyone who didn’t want to “accidentally” cut their own throat with a sword.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Like I said, if anyone could manage such a powerful soul, it’s you,” she purred, placing a hand on his arm. She’d learned that approaching mortals like they were terrified puppies yielded excellent results. Joe shivered, but let her hand remain.

“Given these discerning questions, I think this must be your first time, Joe . . . Am I right?” She lingered over his name as if she found it too fascinating to let go of. He nodded and clutched the catalog tighter. “Oh, how thrilling! An HSE virgin!” Her tone hinted that this rental experience might be more exciting for him than losing his actual virginity. “Come with me.”

With the urn in hand, she sashayed over to a seating area with an enticing love seat that looked like it was straight out of a cozy coffee shop, and two intimidating chairs that looked to be straight out of Game of Thrones. The vast majority of customers chose the love seat over the chairs, which told her more than they realized about what she could talk them into. It also allowed her to sit next to them and rub her thigh subtly against theirs. As she anticipated, Joe selected the couch.

“Can I get you anything? Water? Champagne? Tequila?” Studies showed that getting the mark drunk led to a 40-percent increase in sales.

“Just . . . just water.” Stuttering, stammering, sweaty Joe couldn’t possibly be too smart to take the bait. She figured he might not be a drinker, which meant that if he was going to get through his high school reunion, he’d need a soul with some affinity for alcohol. Good to know.

She set the urn on the table, pulled a bottled water out of a small refrigerator, and handed it to him. He accepted it with the tips of his fingers like he thought it might explode. Then she sat beside him, took the catalog out of his other hand, laid it on the pentagon-shaped coffee table in front of them, and flipped through the pages. The catalog was divided into eight sections of four pages each, one for each soul tier HSE rented out. The cover page of each section, from Iron to Titanium, featured an artist’s not-quite-accurate rendering of what a customer might expect from souls at that tier.

She whistled, nodding as if impressed. “I see you’ve done your homework.” She’d learned from used car salesmen that treating the mark as if they were far more prepared than other customers lowered their guard. She flipped to the cover page of the Titanium section, where steely-eyed men and women stood looking into the distance, surrounded by adoring crowds. The image suggested that these strong and powerful people had made the world a better place with the sheer force of their personalities.

“Now, this section describes the type of soul we’ve just looked at.” She flipped the page and ran her finger down a list of occupations. “You’ll see that in life, these were some pretty powerful archetypes. Kings, queens, captains of industry, celebrities—you get the idea.”

In other words, dictators, psychotic rulers, corporate raiders, and reality stars.

“Yeah, but they’re in Hell,” Joe reiterated, mumbling. He pointed with a shaking finger to the next page, which listed the favors required in exchange for the soul rental. “I don’t want to start a civil war in a third-world country, no matter how”—he squinted at the small print—“‘justified’ it might be.”

“You make an excellent point.” Tiffani chewed her lower lip and showed Joe her cleavage as she leaned over to glance at the catalog. “You’re so discerning. Let me tell you what. I trust you so much with this iSOUL that I can give it to you at a Platinum-tier price.” At the Platinum tier, HSE could demand Joe tackle anything from smuggling drugs to starting a pyramid scheme. “We have a very generous payment plan if you’re interested,” she continued. “You could rent now and pay next year.”

Joe took a sip of water, coughed, and shook his head. “That’s a little more than I wanted to . . . uh . . . spend. I just want an Iron. The lowest tier.”

She sighed. “You drive a hard bargain. I can give it to you at a Diamond price.” She ran her fingers along the urn. “I’ve been waiting for someone to rent this one. I hear he’s amazing in bed.” She winked again, hoping she didn’t come across as having a tic, and contemplated what Diamond favor HSE would require of him in exchange for the rental. Embezzling? Blackmail? She leaned in and brushed her lips against his earlobe. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but that’s my tier,” she whispered, and put a finger to her lips.

It was a risk. Some marks found a Diamond tier enticing. Some found it terrifying. Joe came across as a deer caught in headlights.

“D-di-diamond?” he stuttered.

Tiffani jutted out her lower lip in a slight pout, as if hurt Joe would think less of her. “I can assure you that some of these tier ratings are . . . misunderstandings.”

To be fair, hers had been. Hell’s intake staff hadn’t accounted for the fact that her sister’s husband had deserved a good beating with a bag of oranges. Abusing a gangster’s sister had consequences. On the other hand, of the eight campuses the intake team could have assigned a damned soul to at orientation, the fact that they’d put her in Avarice as opposed to Wrath suggested that her money-laundering services for prominent mafia families might have had something to do with her rating. Thank Devil they hadn’t put her in Lust, Gluttony, or Services and Administration. She didn’t have the energy for all that sex, food, and bureaucracy. Deceit, Malice, or Traitors would have equally sucked. They were all assholes.

She set the Titanium soul on the end table. “Hmmm . . . it seems clear you’re not quite ready for a soul like this.” She sighed and shook her head, conveying her disappointment that Joe wasn’t the man she thought he was. After waiting a moment, he still didn’t budge. OK. On to plan B.

She flipped back to the dog-eared, sweaty Iron-tier pages, and moved one section beyond that to the cover page of the Copper section, which featured a sparkling metallic background with images of mischievous Shakespearian Puck-like souls, overlaid with a gauzy filter, implying that Copper-level souls from Hell were little more than playful pickpockets and would never get the mortal renting them into too much trouble.

“Perhaps a high school teacher who dated one of his students would be more your speed? These types of souls are ideal for anyone looking for an illicit relationship.” She frowned. “I’d like to get you something better, though.”

“Yeah, I’m looking more for a ‘licit’ relationship.” Joe skimmed the examples of favors required. Among other things, the page showed people mugging next to a street sign they’d switched or pointing to a ding in someone’s car from a runaway grocery cart. It did not include the images of the clients who wound up in handcuffs. He hesitated with his brow furrowed, tapping the page. Tiffani saw an opportunity and pounced.

“Joe, you’ve heard of bartenders, right?”

He nodded, looking confused.

“I consider myself a soultender, someone who can find the iSOUL that best suits your needs. I can see you’re nervous, but it’s not that bad.” She flipped to the section after Copper. “Do you see this Bronze tier here?” She pointed to a picture of a woman smirking at the camera with her finger to her lips as she lifted a wallet from a man dressed in a six-thousand-dollar suit. “It might seem like a bad thing, but the man she took it from had refused to give money to a homeless man moments before, and besides, she gave it back to him like five minutes later—”

. . . after the police came and arrested her.

“She chose the person she stole from?” he asked.

Tiffani plastered a shocked expression on her face. “Of course! We simply tasked her with stealing a wallet. We believe in free will here at HSE.” She transformed the shocked expression into hurt. “I know you mortals think we’re monsters, but someone has to do Hell’s work on Earth. It’s the only way of keeping the balance with that other lot. You know,” she said, as she swung her head from side to side, then pointed upward and whispered, “Heaven.”

Joe continued to look skeptical, so Tiffani went to plan C. Show the mark the kind of crap he would get for the level of favor he was willing to take on.

“Joe, I can see you’re struggling here, and I’m nothing if not accommodating. If you’re looking for Iron, let’s see what we can get you at that price.”

Glancing around the immense store, her eyes landed on a sales shelf, and she snapped her fingers, emitting a billow of flame and smoke. That finger-snapping thing, courtesy of the Zippo lighter Hell’s medical team had installed in her thumb and forefinger, was one of the few tricks she had up her sleeve, literally. Otherwise, aside from the red irises, skin made from Hellfire-resistant polymer, and an upgraded musculature that allowed her to bring down even the most ’roided-out mortal if necessary, Tiffani looked and felt remarkably like her twenty-eight-year-old self—about five feet seven inches tall, with a luscious figure, California-tan skin, and long, wavy, blond hair.

Not everyone was so lucky. Hell’s medical team, commonly referred to as the “medical whackjobs,” created clones for each newly minted postmortal based on the age when they’d committed their most “Hell-worthy” offense, and Tiffani was eternally grateful she’d been forced into her wicked ways earlier than most people. In fact, the majority of Hell’s newest inmates looked like they’d be right at home in a state-run nursing facility. They spent their early postmortal years begging for upgrades, completely at the mercy of the higher-ups of the lower down, who had a morbid sense of humor. They might grant someone their wish for a younger body but riddle it with teenage hormones for eternity. Or give a raging homophobe conflicting genitalia. Even Tiffani, whose interactions with the cloning team were less traumatic than most, had her share of odd scars and bumps. Only C-Suite demons were safe from the whackjobs’ whims, yet another reason she desperately wanted the promotion.

As she’d expected, Joe stared wide-eyed at the plume of smoke, then grabbed his catalog and clutched it to him again, as if it could somehow protect him from whatever horrors he might find deeper in the store. She gestured for him to follow her toward the yellow “Sales” sign. Tiffani’s strategy posed its own risks. Those Iron sale items were buggy and unpredictable, which reflected poorly on her and often lost her sales. No one wanted an iSOUL advertised as an aggressive Karen-type that turned out instead to be a psychopath. More and more shoddy workmanship from Hell’s factory floor was getting past QA, and no amount of torturing workers seemed to solve the problem. If Joe chose from that stack, she’d have to cross her fingers and hope he didn’t pick a lemon.

“We keep our sale items here.” She pointed to a box with a jumble of urns made of plastic, IKEA packaging, MDF, Styrofoam, and the like. “You might find a former middle manager at a fast-food restaurant? Or a not-quite-successful real-estate agent? Would that be enough to impress this girl?” Her tone conveyed her desire to help while deeply doubting the effectiveness of the proposed solutions. “Why don’t you take a look, and I’ll check back in on you in a minute.” She let him catch a brief glance of both her cleavage and her disappointment at his lack of bravado before moving away, hoping he wouldn’t find anything he liked.

Behind her came the thuds of urns being pulled out of the box and dumped onto the floor. At the sound, a growl erupted from the shadows near the back corner of the store, and the floor shook. Tiffani smiled at Fred’s timing. Her goofy hell-dachshund, sitting in the corner on his asbestos cushion, would never intentionally hurt a fly. The fact that he secreted a poison that clung to his fur, his claws were razor-sharp, and his breath came out in flames gave him his reputation as a “tough dog,” especially in the mortal world. But Fred was a sweetie, more likely to lick and, sure, scar your ankles than anything else.

“Uh . . . wait,” Joe called out, his voice quavering. “Maybe I can go a little higher. Do you have any Copper tiers? I saw in the catalog that it might involve something like shoplifting. I’m not sure I—I mean, can you tell me what I’d have to do before I decide?”

She sauntered back to him. “I’d love to, but unfortunately I don’t even know myself! It’s only after we reach an agreement that I get the task from the higher-ups. Or lower-downs, in this case,” she said, giggling. Tiffani hated giggling, but after decades as a mortal woman, she’d learned men liked it.

“U-um, OK, w-well . . .” This man made stuttering an art. “I heard that the lists in these catalogs aren’t always . . . trustworthy. I read online about someone who rented a Silver tier thinking he’d have to do something like cause a major traffic jam by rear-ending someone, but instead he had to rob a bank.”

You’re literally making a deal with the Devil. What do you expect?

“Joe, Joe, Joe. Would I do that to you? I know some HSE outlets have a bad rap, but we have a five-star rating,” she said, pointing to a Yelp review placard on a nearby table with glowing compliments like “Tiffani at the SE Portland HSE is the best!” She slunk closer to him, pulling the clips out of her bun, and shook her hair loose in a gesture perfected by shampoo companies. As his mistress moved closer, Fred flopped onto his back and whined, begging for belly scritches.

Joe eyed the dog and took a step back. “If I go with Copper, how long would I have to complete the task?”

“Our rentals are for a minimum of a week or a maximum of ten days. It gives you plenty of time to fulfill your requirement!” Then she brightened and snapped her fingers again. Joe didn’t flinch this time, a sign that either he was starting to relax, or he found the fire-breathing dog more intimidating. “I just thought of the best iSOUL for you,” she continued. “It came in this morning. A real prize. It’s not even logged in our system yet!” She skipped to the boxes behind the counter. Skipping and giggling. Ugh. She pulled out a glitzy urn studded with semiprecious gems and read the description off the shipping label.

“He was an actor and stunt double. And he starred in a movie about a high school reunion!”

It was a porno, but . . .

She looked up at Joe, her eyes glowing. “Oh my God, this is perfect for you!” She looked back at the label and pretended to be crestfallen. “Never mind. It’s a Bronze.” She sighed and started to put it back, when Joe cleared his throat, his finger running down the table of Bronze tasks in the catalog.

“I guess . . . I guess I could afford it.”

Bingo! She unleashed her most dazzling smile yet.

“I knew you had good taste, Joe. Let’s get the paperwork going!” She opened the glittery urn and pulled out a leather strap with a bronze-colored disc that looked like a watch, except with words around the edges instead of numbers. The word yes sat at 12 o’clock, with no at 6 o’clock. In the other ten spots were maybe, left, right, check later, one more, go ahead, sexy, that one, play it cool, and buy her a drink. It looked like a Magic 8 Ball, a compass, and a watch had a threesome and created this work of art.

“Have you seen one of these before? Do you know how they work?” she asked.

Joe goggled. “Kind of? I’m supposed to use it to make decisions, right?”

“Oh, you’re so smart. Are you sure you haven’t done this before?” she gushed. “This, my iSOUL virgin, is the Soul Organizer and Utilization Leverager. It’s the system we use to integrate your current approach to life with the approach this exciting and charming man took while alive.” She moved close to Joe and wrapped the band around his wrist, giving him an opportunity to take in her intoxicating perfume.

“You’ll use this device to track what decisions this actor’s soul would make in any given situation. Think of it as what you mortals call a life coach, except it’s really a ‘soul coach’ that you can connect to your phone via Bluetooth. Consult it whenever you face something you’re unsure about. For example, if you’re wondering what to wear, input the options into the iSOUL, and this . . . stylish . . . man will choose the right one! It’s foolproof!”

Joe’s expression suggested he might be the one fool this might confuse.

“Do I have to do this for every decision? Like”—he peered at the options—“should I turn left or right out the door?”

Yes. You might have to do that.

“It’s really just for anything you’re unsure about.” She paused and tapped her chin. “That said, I recommend you follow your coach’s directions whenever you ask for them.”

Joe blinked down at the device. “What happens if I don’t?”

The higher-ups of the lower down will sue your ass off . . . literally.

Tiffani waved her hand as if to dismiss this most important requirement. “We want our clients to take full advantage of their iSOUL’s capabilities! We’ve had to institute some . . . guidelines . . . to prevent . . . litigation. A few past customers sued us for renting out ‘defective’ products, all because they didn’t follow their coach’s directions. To avoid misunderstandings, we require that customers utilize the device as intended.”

“So, it’s more a dictator than a coach?” Joe asked, sounding cautious.

Tiffani patted Joe on the back and steered him back toward the love-seat area, trying to allay any fears. “You’re so funny! But don’t worry. That’s only if you ask it a question. You seem like a decisive man with excellent instincts who needs a simple nudge in the right direction every once in a while. You’ll be fine.”

Given Joe’s flummoxed expression, Tiffani figured he’d be watching the iSOUL like a hawk. He sat back down on the love seat and twisted his wrist around, peering into the crystal face of the device. “Is the actual soul in there? Like, I don’t know, floating around? How does it work?”

“Joe, Joe, Joe. We can’t reveal HSE’s trade secrets!” Hell rivaled Google, Coca-Cola, LEGO, and other secretive companies in hiding details about their entire production process, from ingredients to testing to creation. She sighed and reached for the strap. “It’s OK, though. If you don’t trust the product, I’m happy to take it back. No harm done.” She shrugged. “I thought you wanted to impress this girl, but maybe you can figure out a way to do it on your own . . .” She trailed off as if they both knew that would be impossible. Joe pulled his arm away.

“No, no. It’s fine.”

Tiffani beamed. “Great! Let me just log it into the system and—”

A chime jarred through the shop as another customer entered. Fred barked sparks.

“Yo! Demon lady!”

“Just a moment, I’m with—”

“I don’t have all day,” he shouted. Fred growled, as he did whenever anyone spoke with anything but reverence to Tiffani. “And keep your damn hellhound away from me!”

Tiffani grimaced. A customer being an asshole right up front usually meant they’d already rented a soul and wanted a refund.

She turned her attention back to Joe, whipped out a pen, and grabbed a contract from the pile on the coffee table. Reviewing the written label, she wrote in the iSOUL’s serial number, 8675309, before Joe could change his mind. She’d log it later.

One hundred and forty-one more sales to go!

“Do I sign in blood? Does that make it binding?” he asked.

Tiffani laughed. “Nothing so medieval. Just ink. And don’t worry. Once I sign any contract, I can’t renege. It’s bad for the Devil’s brand.”

And you can’t renege either. It’s bad for your soul.

“I’m waiting here,” the other man shouted. “And your dog’s a menace, by the way.”

Tiffani glanced over to see Fred stalking toward the man on his short, stumpy, dachshund legs. While mortals found that trait amusing in a regular dog no taller than their ankles, in Tiffani’s experience, they found a hellhound with raised flaming hackles and acid dripping from his bared teeth less amusing and more terrifying.

“Fred, down,” she said. Fred huffed and slunk back to his cushion. She sighed. Since most people refrained from being rude to a fiend, this guy must be following the cues of a high-tier soul. She’d have to convince him to do an exchange, not a return. Returns counted against her tally.

She gave the man her sweetest smile, while cursing the branding department for convincing the higher-ups of the lower down that smiting was bad for the brand. She’d have to put on her “helpful salesfiend” face and hope the jerk would be required to do a favor so heinous he’d spend the rest of his life in prison. A high-security prison. With dogs.

After Joe signed, she took his hand, ignoring the other customer tapping his fingers on the counter. To his credit, Joe didn’t flinch.

“One more thing. My higher-ups require us to get Yelp reviews from every customer.” She made her eyes glisten with tears and put on her most seductive pout, complete with quivering lips. “It would really help if you could give me five stars.” She fluttered her eyelashes.

Tiffani loathed the “desperate, helpless woman” act she had to play with male customers almost as much as she hated the “we ladies have to stick together” act she had to play with women. Some of the fiends she’d trained with suggested torture as an alternative. Simpler. Cleaner. Very effective. But even a whiff of torture at one HSE outlet caused sales everywhere to plummet. Good old-fashioned flirting and psychological coercion were the only weapons she had.

“Uh, sure,” Joe said, making to stand. “It looks like you have a customer, though. I’ll do it when I get home.”

She pulled Joe down and handed him her tablet. “No time like the present.”

Chapter 2

Tiffani talked the rude customer into an exchange—a Platinum-tier ex–corporate raider for the scion of a pyramid scheme at the same level. He’d been enough of an ass to ask if they had any serial killers available. They didn’t. Serial killers went straight to Hell’s Ice House, where rabid animals gnawed on them. HSE had its standards. She also made four sales that day: Joe’s Bronze, a Gold to a housewife who wanted to hook up with her trainer, and two Irons to college students looking to cheat on an assignment. Since they were already looking to cheat just a month into the school year, Tiffani had great hopes for those two to be repeat customers. The script for each sale matched her experience with Joe, almost word for word, right down to the song and dance at the end where they asked about the iSOUL manufacturing process, and she pretended to take it away. Only the college students attempted to delve a little deeper, probably because the assignment they were trying to cheat on was for a philosophy class.

“Is there a specter trapped in there? Or, like, a small part of the cosmos associated with this guy?” one of the students had asked, waving in front of her the iSOUL of a man who’d cheated on his bar exam. The student was a hipster whose credit card showed his name was Steve but who went by Gavin for some reason. He wore a monocle and had a wax-tipped “villain about to tie someone to a train track” mustache.

Tiffani did the annoying giggle thing again, then shook her head. “Steve, Steve, Steve—”

“It’s Gavin.”

“Ah, yes. Right. Gavin, Gavin, Gavin . . . that’s a trade secret. The amount of trouble I’d get in if I told you . . .” She trailed off, leaving it to “Gavin” and his tie-dyed buddy Dave’s imagination what betraying HSE’s biggest secret might mean. After a few increasingly snippy questions, they gave up and headed out, iSOULs on their wrists, none the wiser about the nature of existence.

“They should be grateful for my discretion,” she muttered, glaring at them as they left. Had she told them, they would no doubt have had existential crises of epic proportions, crises that would make Sartre’s views seem like passing whimsies.

In fact, there was no “specter” or “spirit of the cosmos” locked in those devices. HSE’s customers walked out of her store armed with a miniature processor and enough RAM to hold a specific postmortal’s “soulcode,” a codebase generated from numeric values of every decision that mortal made in life; left or right, yes or no, embezzle or don’t. A proprietary algorithm assigned them to either Heaven or Hell, and for some, one really bad decision tipped the scales. For others, a lifetime of being a jerk made the difference.

“Stupid mortals,” she groused, as she made her way back to her office on slightly damp carpets. Fred, who had set off the fire alarm’s sprinklers just once that day, a record, woofed in agreement.

She was writing some ideas for sales promotions, eager to take advantage of the alcohol-, pot-, and/or ’shroom-impaired mortals who came out late at night, when her computer dinged, reminding her to check her email. After sifting through dozens of spam messages that she didn’t even try to unsubscribe from because it never worked, she clicked on an email with the subject line “Exciting (and Mandatory) Opportunity!”

Hi! It’s Bob from the training department! I hope you’re doing well! I’m sure you’ve checked your calendar and have seen that it’s time for the bimonthly leadership conference SPARC training for all salesfiends from the Avarice campus! We have your badge waiting for you at Hell’s Hilton tonight! As always, we have a full buffet! So excited to see you there!!

Tiffani rolled her eyes. Although there was no database showing how each postmortal got into Hell, she was pretty sure overuse of exclamation marks was the culprit in Bob’s case. She had forgotten about the SPARC training, one of the worst nontorture-based experiences Hell offered, right up there with jury duty. She’d attended the session 1,452 times and, as a top salesfiend, obviously knew what she was doing.

But in Hell, “mandatory” meant “mandatory unless you’d like to be tortured,” so she started to pack up. Before leaving, she changed her computer passcode, a daily requirement from the IT department. The techfiends insisted on it in the name of increased security. Having entered a 135-letter passcode comprised of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, special characters, and a haiku, she took a fortifying shot of tequila and played a quick game of tug-of-war with Fred, which lasted only as long as it took for the rope they pulled to ignite. Giving him a scritch, she stood, forced him into his asbestos sweater, and grabbed his leash. She didn’t need it; Fred was well trained. But an off-leash, fire-breathing dog made mortals nervous.

“Come on, buddy. I’ll drop you off at home, and then I’ve got to get this damn thing over with.”

Tiffani’s irritation skyrocketed when she stepped out of the store into a Respect Our Souls Enterprise (ROSE) protest. About a dozen fiends, all wearing face coverings ranging from Halloween-style latex masks to masquerade ball–style feather-and-sequin concoctions to stocking caps, loitered on the sidewalk, carrying signs and placards.

Tiffani groaned. ROSE, Hell’s burgeoning union movement, had been a thorn in every salesfiend’s side since the late 1800s, when the mortal fascination with unions began to permeate both Heaven and Hell. In the course of a few years, both realms became inundated with postmortals who weren’t going to let a little thing like death stop them from fighting the good fight.

In Hell, despite every punishment the security types could come up with, from banishment to Rotten Pockets, Hell’s homeless encampment, to stints in the Torture House or Ice House, to straight-up annihilation, ROSE had grown ever more prevalent since Tiffani became a postmortal. As they grew, perpetual threats of work stoppages, bombings, and general mayhem had put management in a bind. Unable to torture the union sympathizers into compliance, they instead turned a blind eye, or at least a cataract-filled one, to some of their activities. Like protests in front of HSE outlets.

“What do we want?”

Tiffani jumped and clasped a hand to her ear. The question came screeching through a bullhorn wielded by a fiend wearing a Spiderman mask, a pink velour track suit, and hiking boots.

“Less torture!” the crowd chanted back.

“When do we want it?” came the booming voice.

“Real soon!” responded the crowd.

“Excuse me,” Tiffani said, as she pushed her way through the throng. She didn’t have time for this crap, and more important, she couldn’t be associated with it. She scanned the area, hoping the protest hadn’t captured the attention of Hell’s Information Agency, or HIA. As much as management tried to ignore ROSE’s exploits up top, signs branded with the ROSE logo and marked “Down with Demonic Greed!” pissed the security guys off. HIA fiends tended to cattle prod first and ask questions later.

“Scab!” shouted one of the protestors. The shouting fiend, who wore a Hello Kitty mask and a necklace of what looked to be powered-down iSOUL devices, came within three inches of her. The scent of rotten eggs and brimstone filled the surrounding air, a sure sign of someone who had been banished to Rotten Pockets. They carried that scent with them everywhere, even when they managed to make their way up top. Tiffani glared, and the fiend stepped back.

“I don’t want any trouble, OK?” Tiffani said. “You’ve got to have something better to do on a Friday at 10 p.m. How did you even get up top anyway?”

“Pfft!” the fiend huffed. The voice came out distorted. This protestor, Hello Kitty mask notwithstanding, was smart enough to disguise their voice. “Like I’m going to tell a corporate stooge like you.”

“You bribed someone, didn’t you?” Tiffani asked. “Some lower-level security fiend at a portal crossing?”

The Hello Kitty fiend sputtered “How did you—?”

“Never mind. Look, I’m willing to forget any of this ever happened if you just move on.”

“You want us to forget the exploitation of workers?”

“Why are you picking on me? I didn’t do anything. I didn’t take any jobs. I didn’t exploit anyone,” Tiffani griped.

Hello Kitty stepped so close, Tiffani’s eyes watered from the sulfur-and-garbage cologne wafting around her.

“The more we shut down the outlets, the more it disrupts the system,” the fiend shouted. “Multiply that by a thousand, and management will have to listen to us!”

“Well, congratulations. You shut me down for the day. Can I go now?”

“You can go when you confess you’re making a living on the backs of every fiend below Bronze!” the fiend shouted, even louder.

Furious, Tiffani took a step forward and jabbed her finger at Hello Kitty, who scurried back and almost fell over.

“I’m sick of all your bullshit, whining about how you ‘didn’t have the same opportunities.’ I started at Level 1, just like you. I worked my way up through the ranks and have become a damn good salesfiend, despite the crappy inventory coming at us lately.”

The fiend seemed to have collected herself and gestured at the Diamond pin on Tiffani’s lapel. “You and your ‘elite’ soul would think that. How long did it take you to get where you are? Forty years? Fifty? And I bet you spent all that time sitting in a chair in front of a computer, assessing soulcode.” Hello Kitty pointed to her own Iron pin. “I’ve been a Level 1 on the factory floor manufacturing these damn devices”—she shook a replica of an iSOUL device in Tiffani’s face—“for three hundred and eighty-two years. I’ve been there since we were tracking soulcode by hand. I’ve been there since it took hours of rituals and days of sacrifices for you salesfiends to rent out just one soul.”

“Geez. You sound like you’re about to tell me to get off your lawn.” Tiffani paused, considering whether to escalate the situation by bragging about her meteoric rise. She’d spent three years learning the ropes with her mentor, a Gold tier named Siobhan Sullivan; two years checking for bugs in the soulcode as a Level 1; five years at Level 2 separating incoming souls into their campuses; three years at Level 3 assigning tiers; four years in Returns and Exchanges at Level 4; then ten years rotating between various upper-level departments to find the best fit for her skills, which had turned out to be sales: her ticket to the ultimate promotion, a C-Suite demon.

Sales these assholes are now thwarting with their bullshit.

A fiend wearing a balaclava and sunglasses intervened between the now snarling Hello Kitty and Tiffani, whose hands were twitching.

“Why don’t you help over there,” a distorted female voice said, directing Hello Kitty toward another group. “I think they need some leadership.”

“Humph,” the angry fiend said, stomping away.

As Hello Kitty marched off, Tiffani caught sight of another protestor, one who made her even more desperate to get ROSE away from her store. Across the street stood an enormous fiend wearing a full Nixon mask, a U of O sweatshirt, ripped jeans, and flip-flops. They carried a sign reading “As in Life, so in Death,” the motto of the Rabble Rousers, a militant ROSE spin-off group. Where ROSE wanted better working conditions for factory workers, the Rabble Rousers wanted nothing less than complete anarchy. In fact, these nutjob conspiracy theorists espoused the crazy idea that fiends could rewrite their soulcode after death. Tiers could change. Fiends could cross the line to become Heavenly spirits. Elite tiers like her could become less valuable.

Tiffani refused to believe it. Doctrine stated that postmortal soulcode never changed. If it did, chaos would reign in the lower down, and Heaven would get a stronger foothold on Earth. Worse, while they claimed to support “free will,” everyone knew that in the end, the RRs wanted to rewrite the code in their own way. No more tiers, no more levels, no more campuses, and no more C-Suite. They had a real Marxist “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” vibe.

She looked away, eager to pretend she hadn’t even noticed the crazy fiend with the sign. The balaclava-clad fiend, after one quick glance and a shiver, also ignored the Rabble Rouser.

“Sorry about Hello Kitty,” she said. “Some of them get overzealous in setting the world to rights.” She paused. “But they’re not wrong about the system and its unfair treatment of all fiends, even you.” She pushed a pamphlet toward Tiffani. “Please, at least take this.”

Tiffani batted the pamphlet out of the fiend’s hand, who shook her head, sighed, and walked back to the group. As she did so, she called over her shoulder. “This dustup is just beginning, Tiffani, and we’re a mighty force. You may want to think about whose camp you’re in.”

Tiffani gaped. Whoever this was, she had way too much information about Tiffani’s inner thoughts. “How the fuck do you know my name?”

The balaclava-clad fiend shrugged. “Just think about what I said.” She turned back to her group. “I think there’s a Fred Meyers down the street with a Soul Vending Machine. We should go protest that.”

Another fiend glared at the balaclava-clad leader. “I’m tired of protesting SVMs,” she whined. “There’s no one to yell at. It feels like busywork.”

“It’s important work! Those machines generate all kinds of low-level mayhem, and you’re really hitting the higher-ups of the lower down where it hurts. They love those things.”

To assist Portland with its desire to “stay weird,” something Portland needed no help with, both Heaven and Hell had installed Soul Vending Machines around the city. Hell found better traffic in dive bars and strip clubs, whereas Heaven found its customer base in churches, synagogues, and temples. Both had prominent booths at Providence Park, where fans of the local soccer team could frequently be heard muttering, “I’ll do anything if you let the Timbers win.” Anyone over the age of eighteen (or when it came to Hell’s machines, had a passing resemblance to over eighteen) could rent a Copper-, Bronze-, or Iron-tier soul without the inconvenience of going to an outlet.

“Come on,” the leader said, patting the whining fiend on the shoulder, “let’s stop some soccer mom who got dinged in the parking lot from buying a Copper soul and keying someone’s car.”

The whiny fiend looked slightly mollified. “And we’re just going to leave her alone?” she asked, pointing to Tiffani.

“No, we’re not. I gave her a pamphlet.”

“Fine,” the fiend groused. “But I get to hold the sign this time.”

Hands shaking, Tiffani picked up the pamphlet and made to throw it in the garbage can on the curb, but paused before letting go. That fiend had known her name, and she had to know why. She glanced over her shoulder and shuddered to see the Rabble Rouser looking straight at her. They waved, then turned and walked down Hawthorne. None of the mortals paid any attention. A crazy person walking down the street with an unexplainable sign was par for the course in Portland. Ironically, the Rabble Rousers scared only the fiends.

Tiffani rummaged through her purse, then sighed, trying to give the impression she forgot something in her office. The HIA might be watching. She walked back and opened the door, hiding her shaking hands. Fred dashed over to his cushion, setting fire to one of the paper “Sale” signs above the less-than-desirable iSOULs.

She doused the flames with water she kept on hand for these situations and reached her back office when she felt the ground rumble. A glance out the window showed a group of HIA-ers storming up, clearly having been tipped off to ROSE and the Rabble Rousers’ presence. Tiffani found herself hoping they had dispersed before the HIA caught up with them. They meant well, even if they were horribly misguided. Well, maybe not the Hello Kitty fiend.

Heart pounding, she looked down at the pamphlet, which was titled “Taking Control of Your Own Destiny.” Under the title was a stylized logo of a rose adapted from a satanic star.

Tiffani took a deep breath and, with shaking fingers, flipped it open.

Chapter 3

Welcome to ROSE!

Did you know:

iSOUL sales are down 10 percent over the last twenty years?

iSOUL recalls and exchanges are up 15 percent in the same timeframe?

The balance of good and evil in the world is at risk of shifting to Heaven?

Hell’s Soul Exchange is struggling, and we know why!

LACK OF RESPECT FOR WORKER FIENDS

Crafting a quality, appealing, effective product begins with the least palatable of Hell’s jobs: the manufacturing process. The higher-ups of the lower down should hold these workers in high esteem.

But is that the case? No, and it never has been. From the days of tracking what is now called “soulcode” by hand-chiseled stone, lower-tier factory workers and their needs have been an afterthought. And this problem has mushroomed in recent years. HSE has grown its offerings, customer base, and distribution channels by over 1,000 percent in the last hundred years alone, and yet the tools we have to meet management expectations remain woefully inadequate.

Who’s to blame when expectations aren’t met? The C-Suite will tell you it’s the “lazy” factory-floor workers, without mentioning the daily torture breaks, hideous working conditions, and grotesque, often painful, cloning “errors,” done to amuse the medical team and management. In reality, factory-floor fiends work twenty hours per day, some hunched over tables soldering circuit boards, with others trapped in vast warehouses with dangerous industrial solvents, ancient steam-powered lathe and milling machines, and faulty conveyor belts.

In fact, the C-Suite will tell you a lot of things:

They’ll tell you this is Hell, not a garden party.

They’ll tell you to stop whining and work your way up.

They’ll tell you everyone starts in the same place, everyone has the same opportunities, and all it takes is a little elbow grease to improve your lot in postlife.

But is that true? No.

93 percent of Level 1 Silver-tier and above fiends are assigned to soulcode assessment and spend an average of only fifty years before promotion to Level 2.

99 percent of Level 1 Iron-, Copper-, and Bronze-tier fiends remain an average of two hundred years longer, stuck with the more challenging task of creating the devices themselves.

This lack of equity has demoralized the workforce and is no longer sustainable. Worse, it impacts our ability to create a product we can all be proud of, which should disturb the HSE community regardless of level or tier.

ROSE believes all fiends deserve to be treated with respect.

It’s time to say ENOUGH to this unfair treatment. It’s time to stand together, everyone from Iron to Platinum, to pressure the fat-cat C-Suite demons.

We have three demands:

Reasonable working conditions for factory workers, including reducing the twenty-hour day to sixteen, one more holiday per year (besides Dante Day in May and the winter solstice), a dental plan, and limiting torture breaks to no more than one per week.

Royalties on rentals, in the form of vouchers we can trade for improved living conditions, including torture avoidance, maggot-free food, and clone-enhancement surgeries.

Investments in improved factory-floor technology.

The C-Suiters will tell you this isn’t possible. They say these measures will slow down production and are inconsistent with HSE’s mission statement. They say we’ll be out of jobs and into the Torture Houses!

And their fearmongering has worked—so far. It’s true Hell doesn’t have a good social safety net. The consequences of no employment are dire. This is why their threats work—and why we must fight back.

They need us to keep their factories going.

They need us to remain competitive with Heaven’s product.

They need us to maintain Hell’s status on Earth.

We have power. We have leverage. And we have the right to be respected, regardless of tier.

WE URGE YOU TO JOIN ROSE TODAY!

Tiffani frowned, surprised to find herself almost sympathizing with Hello Kitty and her ilk. She’d spent all her time as a Level 1 in front of an ancient computer and dot-matrix printer, which formed her own opinions about the need for HSE to invest in the product-development process. More automation and AI. Up-to-date computer software. Laptops that didn’t need rebooting every three hours. She chastised herself for never realizing they had similar problems on the factory floor.

Looking back at the pamphlet, she reviewed the first two demands—reasonable working conditions and royalties on rentals—and all her empathy disappeared. While she understood the desire for better equipment, they’d lost her at vacation time, bonuses, and dental.

“When I get to the C-Suite, I’ll push for more investment in production, but vacation time isn’t a thing in Hell,” she muttered. The thought somewhat assuaged her niggling guilt about the plight of the Level 1 lower tiers. She handed the pamphlet to Fred, who was begging for a snack and would eat anything. It flamed as he scarfed it down.

Chapter 4

After work, Tiffani usually went to her studio apartment in HSE’s corporate housing on NE Broadway right off I-84. As a senior-level salesfiend, she’d been granted an up-top room in a derelict building so covered in graffiti that even Portland’s most prolific taggers thought it a bit much. The running water often came out brown, the windows leaked cold air and rain in the rainy season, which in Portland felt like most of the time, and sitting on any of the HSE-issued furniture made sessions on the rack seem comfortable. Nevertheless, it beat the commute back to her room in the Avarice campus of Hell, where the circumstances weren’t much better. Sure, she didn’t have to deal with the rain there, but only C-Suite demons had access to things like consistently clean water and chairs that weren’t actively designed to maim them.

Tonight, though, she had to leave Fred in her up-top apartment and go back to her office in the headquarters building on the Avarice campus before heading to the leadership conference at Hell’s Hilton. Although it irritated her, the summons had one advantage in that she’d be able to show her face. Tiffani had noticed that the fiends who came in and kowtowed to the boss got better cubbies.

After dropping off Fred, she headed over to the nearest gateway between the mortal world and Hell’s campuses, a parking lot infested with cigarette butts, cracked pavement, and weeds at the corner of SE 50th and Hawthorne. The Fraternal Order of Crows once owned the prime real estate, and neighbors always assumed it stayed vacant due to landlord neglect. The vast emptiness of the space, combined with its proximity to one of the biggest pot and ’shroom distributors in the city, gave an otherworldly vibe to the place. Portlanders rarely batted an eye when fiends popped out of the asphalt. It was one reason Hell’s denizens really wanted to keep Portland weird.

As many mortals suspected, accessing Hell required going below the surface of the Earth, so Tiffani headed straight toward a large grate in the center of the lot. She lifted it, then lowered herself fifty feet down a ladder to an enclosed landing with access to a large lobby housing dozens of elevators. A series of arched gateways that looked like airport metal detectors barred access to the elevator lobby, and muscled fiends waving cattle prods and heavy batons stood to the side, ready to deal with anyone trying to bypass security. Tiffani stayed as far away from them as possible. Since no one ever tried to break into Hell, except that one time with Dante, the guards got bored easily, and she’d been “accidentally” shocked more than once.

The crowd trying to get back into Hell for the evening were the usual sorts: upper-level salesfiends like Tiffani who worked in HSE outlets, a few social-media influencers, and lower-level fiends who slaved away in the online fraud factories that the higher-ups, impressed with the quality and quantity of the torture, had outsourced to mortal organized-crime syndicates. These fiends spent their days running cryptocurrency frauds or digital arrest scams, or engaging in plain old theft through online apps, all without ever having to directly interact with their victims.

Screens above each set of elevator doors displayed multiple chyrons from The Demon Dispatch of Hell’s top news stories of the day, descriptions of new tortures being developed, the times and destinations of the various elevators, and, at the top of the hour, in a nod to the state-run propaganda strategies used by many mortal regimes, an inspirational quote from the Devil himself, followed by an all-caps rundown of Hell’s top five commandments.

The fact that Hell had commandments was the single-most shocking thing Tiffani had discovered when she became a postmortal, and none were more shocking than the first: “Thou Shalt Not Recruit, Consort with, Corrupt, or Murder Mortals.” Even after all her decades in Hell, Tiffani still marveled at how wrong mortals had it. Years of torturous day-long Sunday-school sessions had taught her that the Devil and his minions spent twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week plotting to recruit innocent young women like herself to a life of sin.

It turned out HSE management hated it when Hell’s denizens became too chummy with mortals, because the value of a mortal’s soulcode decreased if they were directly coerced or corrupted into a bad decision. They had to make those sinful decisions of their own pesky free will. Of course, the higher-ups didn’t mind indirect contact and, in fact, had been ecstatic when social-media influencers had started arriving in Hell. But spending one-on-one time with mortals to act as a bad influence? That was absolutely forbidden. Fortunately for HSE salesfiends, the decisions mortals made while under the influence of another soul had no impact on those mortals’ soulcode, as long as they performed the agreed-upon favor. In fact, iSOUL rentals were the perfect work-around for both Hell and Heaven; good and evil could be done on Earth without undue interference.

Once again marveling at the convoluted ethics of soulcode and free will, Tiffani walked through the detector without incident and waved her Diamond lapel pin over a sensor, which opened a gate allowing her into the lobby area. She perused the timetable and joined a crowd in front of an elevator destined for the Avarice headquarters. Like regular commuters, everyone looked determinedly at the floor, walls, and ceiling, eager to avoid eye contact. A visible sigh of relief ran through the group when an Automated Rapid Colossal Hell-Inspired Elevator, or ARCHIE, car arrived just a few minutes later.

The ARCHIE, named after Archimedes, who was in Hell for his contribution to the invention of calculus, was the cornerstone of Hell’s high-speed rail system and kept the ride to Hell’s campuses down to about an hour. Some ARCHIE cars led to the dorms on the various campuses, and others led to the headquarters. Tiffani hit the button for the 1,112th floor of the Avarice HQ building and crammed herself in, much like a commuter would on a crowded subway train in New York City. It smelled about as delightful.

When she arrived at her floor, she stepped off the ARCHIE into a reception area, where a bored-looking demon sat at a desk, filing her scarlet-red talons, with a tasteful display of stock photos behind her depicting fiends pointing at charts in meetings, looking serious over papers on tables, and laughing while torturing other fiends. Stock photos had been invented in Hell, so these were particularly compelling. An organizational chart sprawled across the opposite wall showed the headshots, names, and titles of the heads of Hell’s eight campuses—Lust (LU), Gluttony (GL), Avarice (AV), Deceit (DE), Wrath (WR), Malice (MA), Services and Administration (SA), and Traitors (TR)—along with the C-Suite demons for each level within those campuses.

Although she was in a hurry, Tiffani ran her fingers over the empty box for the C-Suite demonic president of North American sales for the Avarice campus. The previous president, Barbara, had violated Hell’s Second Commandment by renting out a recalled iSOUL. According to The Demon Dispatch, she was enduring the psychological and physical tortures of Hell’s Torture House for two thousand years, then moving to the Ice House, then being straight-up annihilated, the worse punishment Hell offered.

As with the First Commandment about staying away from mortals, management hadn’t been at all forthcoming about why this Second Commandment about recalled souls existed. The remaining three—the Third Commandment about not doing favors for mortals, the Fourth about not sleeping with angels, and the Fifth about not questioning the HIA—made sense. But no one knew why renting out a recalled soul warranted an entire commandment to itself, and no one asked more than once. Tiffani had made that mistake and, after a week in the Ice House, had decided it didn’t matter. All she knew was that if she stuck with the rules, she’d be the president of North American sales before long. Once there, she’d have all the perks of being a demon, not just a fiend: a nice cushy office, unlimited spa treatments, and a buffet of treats and fireproof toys for Fred. More important, though, she’d be able to shake things up at HSE. Boost sales numbers. Improve the process. Get rid of those damn password requirements. She had a million ideas.

“One hundred thirty-eight more rentals, and I’ll be there,” she muttered.

“Hey, Tiffani, someone called,” said the receptionist, snapping her gum and admiring her stiletto-sharp nails.

Tiffani startled out of her reverie, stepped to the desk, and held out her hand. The receptionist still relied on pink message slips.

The receptionist looked at her hand. “What?”

“The message?”

She shrugged. “Oh, I didn’t take a message.”

Tiffani resisted the urge to report her. This receptionist was far better than the previous one, who had screamed obscenities and spewed pea soup all day long.

“OK. Next time maybe take a message, OK?” she asked, knowing it would never happen.

“Sure thing!” said the receptionist.

Tiffani walked down the hall to her desk, where her cubicle mate, Arthur Beagle, sat sipping coffee with his Birkenstock-clad feet up on his desk.

Tiffani and Arthur had been cubicle mates for the last few decades, and after an initial period of the usual fiend-to-fiend lack of trust, they’d formed a solid friendship. She liked Arthur, despite his hipster tendencies. He favored knitted hats and a full-on beard. Like Jesus. Or ZZ Top. He talked nonstop about how much better “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” sounded on vinyl, and had a Kerouac or Thoreau quote for every occasion. Portland suited him to a T. On the positive side, their cubicle always smelled of artisanal coffee, and Arthur taught Tiffani how the latest gadgets worked. So, all in all, a win.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said. “What’s happening? Ready to go out with me?”

Tiffani laughed. “Are you hitting on me? I think you have me confused with someone in Lust.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry. You’re not my type. Not enough patchouli. Or Y chromosomes.” He handed her a cup of coffee. “Drink up. You’re going to need it.”

Tiffani groaned and looked down at the glossy conference program on her desk. She picked it up and flipped through it. “I’m the number-one salesfiend,” she groused. “I have a five-star rating on Yelp. Why do I need to go? I don’t think I can sit through this SPARC bullshit for the one thousand four hundred fifty-third time.”

“That’s awfully specific.”

“The first three were helpful. After that, the only interesting thing to do was to keep track of how many I had to go to.” She threw the program down in disgust. “That’s one of the first things I’m going to do when I’m in the C-Suite.”

“What?”

“Change the whole SPARC thing and leave those salesfiends who don’t need it alone.”

Arthur shrugged. “If you didn’t want to go to one thousand four hundred fifty-three SPARC sessions, you should have gone into another track when you hit AV5. You went into sales. That’s on you.” He toasted her with his coffee cup.

“Yeah, but now that I’m so close to the C-Suite, shouldn’t I be able to do something more interesting?” She looked at the sessions. “Like ‘Mortals: The Dos and Don’ts.’ Or”—she flipped through again—“‘Soul Vending Machines: The Next Wave?’” She tapped her chin with her pencil. “I mean, those things are going to put salesfiends like me out of business!”

“You find the oddest things interesting,” Arthur said.

“I’m serious! What mortal is going to talk to a scary fiend when they can interact with a marginally less terrifying machine?”

“Please don’t tell me you’re surprised the higher-ups find automation intriguing.” Arthur laughed. “That has ‘Hell’ written all over it. Besides, I thought you liked new ideas.”

Tiffani thought back to her interaction with Hello Kitty. “If we’re going to look at new ideas, we should do a panel on bringing our manufacturing process into the twenty-first century. If we can have high-speed elevators, state-of-the-art servers for all that soulcode, and top-tier cloning facilities, we can upgrade our hardwired computer desktops, hard-copy tickets, and factory equipment from the 1950s.”

Arthur snorted. “The C-Suite demons invest in things that benefit them. They like going places fast and having pretty clones. Everything else is incidental.” He shrugged. “I kind of admire that.”

Tiffani ignored the comment. “That can’t be all they do.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows. “Really? Can you name anything else?”

Tiffani pondered for a moment, then dismissed his comment with a wave. “Sure, they’re secretive. But they keep this place running—sort of. They just need a fresh voice straight out of the field. I mean, if there’s going to be a session on”—she flipped the page again—“‘Crypto or Favor? New Payment Options,’ why not something on how to improve sales with a product that doesn’t glitch out all the time!”

Arthur chuckled. “You know that crypto session is just punishment for the crypto-bros in Hell . . . get them salivating to talk about blockchain or whatever, then shoot them down. I wish I’d done more with crypto, though. It would have been very helpful to hide . . . er . . . protect my assets,” he said, ignoring Tiffani’s diatribe and looking wistfully into the distance. “Alas, I was just a simple businessman who owned a simple video-gaming company—”

“Illegal gambling empire.”

“—with only a few employees—”

“Three thousand employees and $2.6 billion in gross revenues.”

He scowled. “—who made a teensy mistake—”

“Held-IRS-servers-hostage-with-malware,” Tiffani coughed.

“—and somehow wound up here,” he said, waving his hand around.

“I think leaving your investors to deal with the mess and moving to a Caribbean island without an extradition treaty might have had something to do with it.”

Arthur grinned. “OK, fine. At least I didn’t make millions as a gangster—”

“We prefer gangstress, thank you very much.”

“—hire a hitman,” he continued, “and have him beat someone within an inch of their life.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

“You misunderstand me,” he said. “I totally would have hired you back in the day. And you probably wouldn’t have wanted to start a union, like my guys did.”

Tiffani flipped through the brochure some more. “Yeah, I guess I should be glad I don’t have to go to ‘Eradicating Union Sentiment,’” she said, recalling the ROSE instigator calling her by name outside her store. Out of curiosity, she read the description.

Want to protect your HSE outlet from ROSE strikes? Wondering how to combat the hydra of union sentiment? Frustrated by the crazy rantings of the Rabble Rousers? We must cut off the head of the beast by targeting ROSE and Rabble Rouser leaders, instead of wasting our time and resources on the poor, brainwashed fiends they’re taking advantage of. Security-track fiends are welcome to join this session to discuss our top-ten strategies for identifying instigators and bringing them to justice. Hear from Wrath 9 Lewes Dolan from the HIA, and Avarice 9 Siobhan Sullivan from the Intake division.

Tiffani raised her eyebrows. Why was her old mentor, Siobhan, involved in this? She’d never shown any interest in ROSE, and hadn’t come across as the union-basher type. She’d mainly seemed interested in mouthing off, losing patience with everyone, and bemoaning the fact that embezzling millions from her employer had yielded her only a Gold tier. But Tiffani hadn’t seen Siobhan in decades.

Things can change on the crawl to the top, I guess.

Lewes Dolan, on the other hand, gave her, and every fiend she knew, the heebie-jeebies. He was a Platinum-tier Wrath 9 who wound up in the HIA’s cybersecurity department. When alive, he’d hacked fifteen high-security databases, released all the data to the dark web, and had it all trace back to Delilah Danish, a woman on the tech team in his office who’d spurned him. He’d hidden the evidence cleverly on her laptop, so despite all her protestations of innocence, she’d gotten fifteen years to life, and he got her name tattooed on his bicep, not in remorse but as a reminder of his power.

Tiffani had had a few run-ins with him over the years. He thought she was “going native” in the mortal world, an Ice House or even annihilation offense, and had brought her up before the Wrath C-Suite tribunal a couple of decades before. Fortunately, her strong sales numbers, impeccable loyalty record, and Diamond status had kept her out of the Torture House, which seemed to make him even more determined to bring her down. His mere presence on the panel eliminated any desire she might have to go to it. Or especially to admit that a ROSE instigator had known her name.

She pointed out Siobhan’s name to Arthur. “She was my mentor! A Gold tier.”

He peered at her headshot, which showed a petite young woman with long, straight black hair, pale skin, and large eyes, one blue and one brown, that took up half her face. “Pretty. Except for those crazy eyes. Cloning screwup?”

“No. Happened when she was a mortal. She told me her employers hadn’t appreciated her embezzling ten million dollars, so they sent a message.”

“Which one’s real?”

“The light-blue one. She also has a Dungeons & Dragons die for a pinky toe.”

“I guess she pissed off the medical whackjobs?”

Tiffani laughed. “She wasn’t happy they didn’t fix her eye. Fortunately, she has a thick Irish brogue, so they didn’t understand half the insults. She would have wound up in the Torture House for sure if they had.” Tiffani tapped Siobhan’s picture thoughtfully. “Maybe I should track her down so she can help me figure out how to get the ROSE-ers to stop picketing outside the store. I even saw a Rabble Rouser across the street today. This whole thing’s gone much further than the other union uprisings in the past. Something’s up with this new crowd. They’re more fanatical and craftier.”

Arthur leaned back. “Do you know what they want?”

“Better working conditions, royalties on rentals, and better factory equipment. I kind of get that last one.”

Arthur spewed kombucha out of his nose. “There’s zero way management will agree to that,” he said. “Besides, what would fiends do with royalties? They have everything they need.”

“They’re looking for vouchers they can barter with. Cigarettes. Burn balm. Band-Aids. Coupons for maggot-free food and cloning enhancements. That sort of thing.”

Arthur laughed. “Like they do in prison?”

“How would you know? You escaped extradition.”

He nodded and smirked. “One of my proudest moments.”

Tiffani looked around and leaned in. “What ROSE wants is nothing to the Rabble Rousers. Are you following this at all?” she asked.

“No. After dealing with all my workers’ bellyaching in my mortal days, I hate even the whiff of a union activist. Plus, if it’s not in The Demon Dispatch, I figure it’s not relevant to me. I stay away from all of it.”

“It was in The Demon Dispatch. Some former tabloid reporter had to write an entire article about it. The RRs think soulcode can change after death, and they want to rewrite it their way. No more tiers, no more levels, no more C-Suite, and no more campuses.”

Arthur snorted. “Idiots. Chasing a fantasy. We ‘wear the chains we forged in life,’ as our friend Dickens would say—”

“—in way too many words,” Tiffani interrupted, thinking back to the mortal torture of trying to get through Oliver Twist. Fortunately, she’d sat next to the class brainiac and passed the test with a little help from her peripheral vision. “I hope he’s enjoying the Gluttony campus.”

“And,” Arthur continued, ignoring her commentary on English literature, “those chains don’t change after death.”

“Yeah, well, the Rabble Rousers think our soulcode can change and that the higher-ups on both sides are covering it up.”

Arthur barked out a laugh. “Idiots,” he repeated. Then he turned thoughtful. “Actually, I bet some of the lower tiers would want to change. You have to admit you’ve had some advantages—”

“Hey, I worked hard,” Tiffani said indignantly, fingering the Diamond pin on her lapel. He sounded exactly like the ROSE activist who’d yelled at her.

He put a hand up. “No one’s denying that. But fiends at the lowest tier have it rough. The possibility of change might appeal to them. They might even want to atone for the sins that brought them here.”

Tiffani stared wide-eyed at him. “Do you have any idea what happened the last time the Rabble Rousers started spouting all this crap? A little thing called the Great Flood?”

Arthur patted her hand. “Don’t tell me you buy into that conspiracy theory! The Great Flood was all about the Big Guy Upstairs”—he discreetly pointed up—“being pissed off at humans.”

“But it happened right when—”

“Coincidence doesn’t equal causality, my suspicious friend. Anyway, the Rabble Rousers are nutjobs. No one will believe them.” He looked down at his watch. “Shoot, I’m late.”

Tiffani pointed to the program. “We still have thirty minutes.”

“Oh, my torture for today is different. I’m heading up top for a meeting with one of Portland’s finest and sketchiest real-estate agents. We’re tracking down a location for a new AI data center.”

“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Management can get all excited about AI data centers, but the manufacturing process remains antiquated.”

“As I said, the C-Suiters like things that benefit them, and data centers are perfect. Not only can they spend all day chatting with their AI boyfriends, but they can also torment mortals from afar by gobbling up Earth’s resources. It’s a win-win.”

Tiffani shrugged. “I suppose so. So, how did you get this cushy gig?”

Arthur raised his hands, palms up. “I’m not sure. I ran the idea down the flagpole, turned on my charm, management agreed, and here we are!” He glanced at his watch, then jumped up and pulled his flannel jacket off the back of his chair. “And I better get going. I’m supposed to meet up with the estate agent at a site on Chavez in a couple hours.”

“Don’t they ever wonder why you’re meeting with them in the middle of the night?”

“What, the mortal real-estate agent who specializes in wire fraud? I think they know better than to ask questions.”

Tiffani laughed. “Good point. Well, good luck!”

Arthur winked. “I don’t need luck!” He stood, kissed her cheek, and strolled down the hall. “I have the aforementioned charm!” he called over his shoulder.

Tiffani rolled her eyes, then looked at the conference program again and sighed. A leadership conference. What a waste of time.

Chapter 5

Hell’s Hilton was housed on the services campus, which also included the medical facilities, uniform depot, and intake and training center. Tiffani was as familiar with the place as she was with the Avarice campus, having spent a lot of time in the training center learning the ropes, at the uniform depot getting new uniforms as she moved up in the ranks, and, at her promotion to AV8, spending a week in the medical center getting numerous scars and burns removed from her body. Having visibly damaged demons up top was bad for business.

She now stood in the buffet line in front of the hotel’s grand ballroom, trying to choose between attending the SPARC session or “accidentally” stabbing herself in the eye with a spork and being sent to the medical whackjobs. The spork was made of biodegradable, organic, non-GMO, gluten-free cornstarch, and having it in her eye would suck. But a whole hour of “SPARCing the Light of Change Within: HSE’s Guide to Sales” might suck more. The tortured use of C instead of K for the word SPARK spoke to how lazy Hell was with its acronyms.

Deciding not to put the spork in her eye, she stabbed instead at a slice of fat-laced ham that smelled way past its expiration date. The neon-orange cheese next to it sweated under the lights of the heat lamps. With her plate now half full of what was likely salmonella, she headed toward the desserts, where she found Lewes Dolan, the Wrath 9 HIA guy, lurking near the deep-fried cannelloni and gelatinous mystery tarts.

“Is that you, Tiffani Lutatio?” he whispered, causing her to jump. He was a short, thin, weasel of a man who moved as stealthily as a vampire on a dark night. If the current age of his clone was any indication, he must have committed his most atrocious sins in his early thirties. He had practically no scent, paired with the eerie glow of an HIA tech who’d spent so much time in front of a computer that the screen light had leached into him. He held a tart in his hand, and bits of blood-red jelly dribbled down his chin.

She gulped. “Lewes,” she said, trying to sound unconcerned.

“How are your sales going? Is it true you have one hundred thirty-eight more to get to the C-Suite?”

Lewes had a habit of turning every statement into a question he pretended he didn’t know the answer to, like a therapist. Or a lawyer. Or an active member of the Spanish Inquisition. Tiffani shuddered at the idea that a psychopathic demon knew so much about how close she was to the C-Suite, but tried not to show it.

“I didn’t think the HIA monitored lowly sales-track demons so closely. Counting my sales? Is it possible you have a crush on me?”

Lewes laughed. “Do you really think you’re my type?”

“I really hope I’m not. And don’t you have a panel to be on somewhere? Or somewhere else? Anywhere else?” she asked, thinking back to the description of the “Eradicating Union Sentiment” session on the program.

He leaned toward her, close enough that the red jelly would have dripped on her plate if she hadn’t moved it. “Don’t you know that the HIA is everywhere?” He shifted his attention to a tray of dainty shot glass–sized containers of melting chocolate pudding. Skimming the layer of muck off the top of one, he poured it into his mouth, then smiled at her with teeth covered in brown goo.

His minion, a large, burly woman with the air of someone who didn’t bother with the tedium of thinking for herself, snorted. She was the exact opposite of Lewes—outwardly threatening, not so bright, and far less intimidating.

“Hey, Org, how’s the minion business?” Tiffani asked.

“It’s Organza,” the woman snapped. “And I’m not a minion. I’m Mr. Dolan’s executive assistant, and a Malice 5 on the security and intelligence track.”

“Once again reminding the world that intelligence really stands for authorized thug.” Tiffani snorted.

Org cracked her swollen knuckles. “I don’t see you with an assistant. Another reason to envy the boss.”

“You think I’m envious? Of Lewes?”

“Everyone’s envious of the HIA,” Lewes said, sucking down his fifth pudding. As he took a step closer, she quelled the urge to step back, even in the face of the overwhelming musty scent of chocolate pudding past its prime. “Don’t you agree everyone’s scared of us too?” he whispered.

Tiffani tamped down her fear and laughed. “Geez, Lewes. Gluttony and Pride? Save some for the closing reception.” She turned her back on Lewes, Org, and their passive-aggressive—or really just aggressive—game, and walked toward the ballroom. On her way, she noticed a beautiful, dark-haired fiend coming toward her. The fiend’s blue eye focused on Tiffani, while her brown eye skewed to the side, causing passersby to flinch.

“Ah, sure, look who it is. My favorite mentee!” Siobhan called.

“You say that to all your mentees,” Tiffani called back.

They met in the middle of the hallway and hugged.

“No, I don’t! Manfred, do I say that to all the mentees?” Siobhan directed the question to a fiend who stood six feet behind her juggling three notebooks, a PalmPilot (part of his torture), and a box of what looked to be moldy donuts. He had at least seven pencils tucked behind his ears, and a giant snake wrapped around his neck.

“Umm, no, Miss Sullivan,” he whimpered as the snake squeezed his throat.

“Are you a fan of snakes now?” Tiffani whispered to Siobhan.

“Hate the feckin’ things,” Siobhan whispered back. “It’s part of his torture.” She nodded toward the door to the session. “I see you’re ‘SPARCing the light of change within.’”

“As usual. And I see you’re ‘eradicating union sentiment.’”

“Yeah, given my background as a factory worker when I was mortal, they figured I could be helpful, especially in describing the ‘perils of unions,’” she said, louder than strictly necessary, and complete with air quotes. She widened her eyes at someone lurking behind Tiffani. Lewes. “And this lucky bastard will be joining me!” Siobhan hooked her arm through his. “Well, how’s the craic, my moody friend?”

Lewes glared and shuffled his feet, but didn’t rip his arm out of her grasp. Siobhan had a way of putting people in their place with her folksy Irish sayings, unflappable attitude, and eerie glass eye.

The chimes went off, indicating the start of the SPARC session.

“I’ve got to get going,” Tiffani said. “I’d love to see you at some point, though!”

Siobhan hesitated for a moment, brow furrowed. Her blue eye flicked toward Lewes, and Tiffani realized she didn’t want him to invite himself along. When he didn’t say anything, her expression cleared.

“Yes, of course. We’ll set something up. I’ll have my people call your people.”

“I don’t have people,” Tiffani said.

Siobhan laughed. “That’s right, I forget my mentees are built-in minions.” She nodded to Manfred. “Add ‘Call Tiffani for lunch’ to your to-do list.” The fiend adjusted the snake draped around him, flipped through several pieces of paper in one of his notebooks, and wrote it at the end of a long list. Then he tapped it into his PalmPilot.

“All part of the fun.” Siobhan laughed. “Keeping paper and electronic to-do lists coordinated. Impossible.” She beamed at Tiffani. “Except for you!”

Tiffani had been one of the few able to finish her to-do list, which had seemed to sprout two new items for every one she checked off. And she’d coordinated it with the PalmPilot she’d been forced to carry around. Her success got her promoted faster than anyone in her cohort.

Siobhan gave her a squeeze, then turned to walk toward her session, Lewes still in tow. “Gotta run. See you soon!”

Tiffani waved after her, then turned to her own room, where beyond the yawing maw of the entrance, folding chairs sat locked together in rows and microphone feedback screeched through the speakers. It smelled of the horror and embarrassment built up over decades of team-building exercises. As she stepped in, Ronnie, an obese and recently minted Gluttony 8 who had already attended two hundred trainings, ran out, his hands flailing.

“No!” he screamed. “Not another sales meeting. I can’t—”

The bouncer working the door sighed and spoke into the company-issued iWatch on his wrist. “We’ve got a runner. Send one of the horsemen.”

Apparently, Conquest, War, Famine, and Death were busy, because it was the fifth horseman, Sarah from the meetings department, who materialized and dragged Ronnie back.

He squirmed in her clutches and would have screamed, except she covered his mouth with duct tape. She hog-tied him and left him, bound and gagged, at the front of the room.

“Idiot,” Tiffani muttered. That kind of behavior resulted in ongoing subjugation to the worst of what Hell had to offer at its conferences. Better to keep your head down, play solitaire on your phone, and sit in the back.

She’d completed one game at a personal best of 843 points when Mr. Reaper, the CEO of World-Wide Sales Operations, stepped up to the podium and cleared his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a great speaker for you today. He’s here to help you turn souls into sales with the SPARC technique. Without further ado, let me introduce the Get-It Guy!”

Get-It Guy jogged onto the stage, pretending to rock-out to “Highway to Hell.”

“Thank you so much for that great introduction, Mr. Reaper. And it’s a pleasure to be here at Hell’s Hilton with you fine demons.” He raised his hands to quiet the tepid applause. Sweat stains already showed under his arms. Only the top of his balding head peeked out over the podium. But he’d strapped on a wireless lavalier microphone, which allowed him to prance around onstage like a crazed leprechaun. “I’m sure we’re all dying to dive into the material, so let’s get straight to the SPARC technique HSE relies on to make sales.” He rubbed his hands together.

Dying. Tiffani wished she had that option. As this was the 1,453rd time going over the exact same material, she could say, without a doubt, that she knew what SPARC was. She’d applied it today in her sale to Joe.

Get-It Guy pulled up the first slide. A gigantic S swirled onto the screen in 1,982-point font. A one-word description followed.

S =

“SEDUCE!” all the demons shouted. It sounded like a demonic Sesame Street episode.

“The S equals SEDUCE.” He said it like he was talking to a bunch of backward eighth graders who hadn’t just yelled it out and who couldn’t read the gigantic word in front of them. “You need to seduce the mark. Find out what that mark likes and play that up.”

Tiffani yawned. Seduce: High-end call girl outfit. Hair shake. Perfume. Check.

The next letter swirled up.

P =

“PRETEND!”

“The P is for PRETEND! You must pretend they’re amazing.” Polite chuckles slithered from about ten demons. Ronnie, still bound and gagged at the front, let loose a muffled cry and thrashed around.

Pretend: I found Joe the most alluring man in the world. Check.

Another swirl, then:

A =

“ADJUST!”

“The A is for ADJUST. By this, I mean you should find a way to understand and adjust their mindset on what they’re willing to pay.”

Adjust: I showed Joe the cheap souls and got him to level up. Check.

R =

“RAVE!”

“Then you’ll R—rave about a particular soul at this higher level that is ‘perfect’ for them.”

Rave: I danced over to the counter and gushed about a perfect soul from the new inventory. Check.

Finally, a C swirled onto the screen.

“And lastly, there’s C.”

“CONFIRM!”

Tiffani yawned again. Confirm: I . . . I . . .

She stiffened. Crap. Crap. Crap. She’d attended 1,453 sessions, but in her hurry to get her asshole next customer off her back, she’d passed over one of the most important steps. Accidentally renting out a recalled soul had put the former demonic president of North American sales for the Avarice campus in the Torture House. The soul she’d rented to Joe had arrived that morning, and she hadn’t yet confirmed it. Her fingers started to tremble as she closed the solitaire app and pulled up the inventory on her phone.

The leprechaun beamed at the crowd. “That’s right. You want to confirm with the central office that the soul is cleared for rental. You definitely don’t want to rent out a recall, am I right?”

All the demons in the room except Tiffani laughed.

“Not unless you want to be permanently demoted! Or banished!” someone shouted.

“And don’t forget the Ice House,” the leprechaun said, waving his finger.

Calm down. Breathe. It’s going to be fine.

Tiffani found the entry and took a deep breath before tapping on serial number 8675309. She stared down at her phone in horror.

8675309—Geoffrey Johnson—Recall for Categorization Review

She closed the entry and looked up to see Org staring at her. Org tapped Lewes on the back, pointed at Tiffani, and whispered in his ear. He glanced at her with a speculative expression, then nodded at Org.

Tiffani pulled herself together and thanked the Highest-Up of the lower down that she hadn’t turned in her sales numbers for the day. She walked sedately toward the door, taking care to avoid Lewes and Org. It wouldn’t do to let anyone see her fear.

“It’ll be OK,” she muttered, heart pounding. “No one needs to know. I’ll find Joe, get the soul back, and offer him something else. Maybe a charismatic actor who wasn’t a porn star. Easy peasy.”

Chapter 6

“I hate porn-star souls,” Tiffani griped to her frenemy, the angel Barry Quinn. It was 11 p.m. the day after the leadership conference, and they sat in a booth in the back corner of the Purgatory Bar & Grill in East Portland’s Hawthorne neighborhood. Barry ran the SE Portland branch of Heaven’s version of the SOUL exchange, where mortals rented souls to suppress some metaphorical inner demon—to avoid bloodshed at a family holiday when their racist, misogynistic asshole of a brother-in-law started in on politics or religion, for example. Or to keep their mouth shut in a corporate meeting when the assistant VP of whatever mansplained something for the hundredth time. In exchange, those who rented from Heaven usually performed some sort of sacrifice, like missing an important meeting by saving a homeless puppy. Or throwing themselves on a hand grenade. That sort of thing.

She and Barry always met up at Purgatory because the drinks were decent and the mortals never asked questions. As one of Portland’s premier dive bars, the place gave off the vibe of a frat house after an all-night rave. The Soul Vending Machine in the corner housed a variety of Copper-, Bronze-, and Iron-tier souls for rent from both Heaven and Hell, right next to the standard machine offering stale candy bars, condoms, and Dungeons & Dragons dice. The SVM occasionally clanked and trembled, something Ken, the barkeeper, owner, and mortal who had a crick in his neck from looking the other way, assured everyone was “perfectly normal.” Pot smoke wafted from a spot near the pool table, where, to comply with county-wide smoking restrictions, Ken had chopped a hole in the wall and called the space a patio. Patrons smoked wherever they wanted, of course. But they had a designated smoking area, and that was what mattered.

In fact, Ken took pride in obeying the law. If asked, he could point any city inspector to all required placards. The one prohibiting dogs could be found behind the front door, an inch or so above the baseboard, where the dogs could see it. The one prohibiting anyone under eighteen was posted under the counter behind the bar. And anyone could see the certificate noting the kitchen’s close-to-passing health grade if they squinted through the shaded windows. Purgatory catered to a crowd proud of its unwavering compliance, and government authorities quickly learned not to notice the teenagers and fire-breathing dachshund who frequented the place.

Fred sat at Tiffani’s feet, licking the sticky residue of thousands of tater tots off the floor. Once done with the sticky floor, he jumped up on the bench next to Tiffani and nudged her hand for a scritch, setting her napkin aflame. Tiffani doused the fire with a splash of water.

“You’re too needy,” she growled. Fred licked her hand. A small scorch mark showed on her skin for a moment before disappearing. Hell’s medical whackjobs had perfected heat-resistant polymers.

“We’re not too fond of porn stars up top, either, but I thought they were perfect for you guys,” Barry said, sipping his candy-flavored cider. Tiffani had grown out of her disgust at Barry’s drink choices, especially since she’d convinced him, despite Heaven’s strictures against alcohol, to stop asking for big, fruity, tropical virgin cocktails at a dive bar. At first, management had questioned how much time she spent with an angel—and a salesangel for Heaven’s Soul Exchange, at that. She justified their relationship by pointing out what a bad influence she had on him. After two years of hanging out with Barry, though, Tiffani had been horrified to find she considered him an actual friend, something that would get her in major trouble with the HIA.

She gulped down her whiskey, an exceptionally smoky, high-end brand that Ken kept on hand for her, and gestured at him for another.

“Yeah, well, porn stars are arrogant and pushy, and won’t listen to reason,” she said. Her bad mood was exacerbated by the fact that between the sales conference and her conversation with Joe, she’d made only two sales that day, leaving her with one hundred thirty-six to go.

“I think that’s in the job description,” Barry said, laughing, brushing back his shoulder-length cornrows, and preening at his reflection in the window. He flexed his biceps, flashed a dazzling smile at two girls passing by, and winked. Like all angels, Barry was gorgeous. At six feet tall with skin the color of dark mahogany, hazel eyes, and the kind of spare yet muscled physique any male model would love, he turned heads everywhere he went.

“Stop acting like you’re posing for the cover of one of those bodice rippers.”

“What? You don’t think I’d look good on the cover of An Angelic Love?” He pursed his lips at her, widened his eyes, and shook out his hair. Bits of glitter shimmered around him before settling on the bench and table.

Tiffani glowered. “Please stop getting your angel dust on everything.”

Barry sighed and slouched down, batting away the glimmering dust with a napkin. “Who’s got you pissed off today?”

“Who hasn’t? I’ve got a wimpy guy wandering around with an arrogant soul who won’t take a necessary replacement due to a”—she waved her hand and hoped Barry didn’t notice it shaking—“clerical error.” She tossed back the second whiskey and nodded for a third. Her enhanced demon body metabolized alcohol extremely fast, and it would take at least five before she could get a comfortable buzz for more than a few minutes. “I started the negotiations with the promise of rather acrobatic sexual favors, but Joe kept taking cues from the porn star iSOUL, and was surprisingly uninterested.” Tiffani frowned at her drink, wishing she hadn’t stressed to Joe the importance of following the iSOUL’s directions.

“Maybe it was too much like a day at the office?” Barry said, grinning.

Tiffani glared at him. “I even offered up a better soul at the same rate. A Gold iSOUL at a Bronze cost.”

“And what are those costs again? Inquiring Irons want to know,” Barry said, tapping at his own Iron pin. Tiffani had always wondered what he’d done to get where he was. Heaven’s tiers worked the opposite of Hell’s. The more benevolent or whatever you were as a mortal, the higher your tier. As an Iron, Barry couldn’t have been too namby-pamby. He’d have just eked in. Maybe that was why she liked him.

“Nice try. You know I can’t talk about Hell’s work on Earth with you. You might be a spy.”

Barry saluted. “Yes, ma’am. Point made.” He gulped more cider. “So why didn’t this guy take the deal?”

Tiffani shrugged. “Joe’s following the iSOUL’s directions, and he’s a suspicious son-of-a-bitch. When I upped the stakes, his spidey-sense went off and he refused to give it up for anything less than a Titanium soul and no payment. Stupid porn star and his stupid confidence,” she grumbled.

“How bad is this ‘clerical error?’ Can’t you wait until his term ends?”

“Joe rented the soul for a week, and the higher-ups of the lower down will find out my . . . error . . . way before then.”

Fred nudged Tiffani’s calf in sympathy, stabbing her in the leg with his studded collar.

“Ow,” she yelped. The cut healed within a few seconds—one benefit of being a clone. But it would leave a mark, and it still hurt.

She turned back to Barry, dallying with the idea of telling him about a shocking proposal Joe, or rather the diabolical porn star, had made. On the one hand, sharing too much with an angel ruined the “spying on each other” facade. On the other, she needed some advice, and she had no one else to talk to. She didn’t want to get Arthur in trouble, and Siobhan was the only other fiend she’d ever respected. But Siobhan’s new collaboration with Lewes showed she’d changed, and not for the better. Besides, as an angel, Barry might have ideas on how to convince a mortal to stop being such a pain in the ass. Plus, with all the alcohol she’d convinced him to drink, she had enough on him to get him in plenty of trouble with Heaven’s own equivalent of the HIA.

“This guy did say, though, that he might give me the soul back in exchange for a deal of our own,” she continued.

“And?”

She took a deep breath. “He wants me to do him three favors.”

“Oooh. Anything good?”

“Sorry, I should have been clear. Three as-yet-undefined favors. Three to-be-determined favors. Three ‘I can ask for anything and get you sent to the Torture House’ favors.”

Barry leaned back, looking thoughtful. “An interesting idea. Are you considering it?”

Tiffani glared at him. “Uh, no. We have commandments in Hell just like you do. ‘Don’t do favors for mortals’ is a big one. The Highest-Up of the lower down hates that shit. He says it’s bad for the brand. Plus, I have no idea what he’ll ask for.”

Barry cocked his head. “Didn’t I read something by Faust about the Devil doing a favor for a mortal?”

“In exchange for damnation. So, you know, not so much a favor as a really, really bad choice by Mephistopheles.”

Barry laughed. “And the other commandments?”

Tiffani scoffed. “I’m not giving even more proprietary information to an angel.”

“Please?” Barry asked, flashing a grin.

Tiffani flinched. “Do you have to sparkle like that when you smile? It’s like a toothpaste commercial. And if the feds couldn’t break me in 1933, none of your glittering charm will work now.”

“Sorry. Occupational hazard.” He took a sip of his drink. “So, what are you going to do?”

Tiffani gulped down some of her own drink. “I honestly don’t know,” she said glumly. “And I don’t need this right now. I’m so close to getting my promotion, I can taste it.”

Barry furrowed his brow and pursed his lips, tapping on his chin.

“Well?” Tiffani asked, hopeful that he had thought of something.

“I’m struggling with a moral dilemma.” He looked at her. “Part of the territory, I’m afraid.” After a moment, he shook his head, finished his drink, and stood. “I’m sorry, I’d like to help you, but as an angel, I don’t think I should get involved. Plausible deniability and all that.”

“Fat lot of good you’re doing,” Tiffani groused.

“Sorry. Gotta get out there. Those do-gooder souls won’t rent themselves!” He reached out to pet Fred, who leaned into his hand. Barry picked up the napkin dispenser on the table to check out his reflection, nodded, and blew himself a kiss. Tiffani groaned and gestured to him as she glanced toward Heaven.

“Really?” she asked. “This is what you’re looking for?”

Barry sniggered. “They can’t hear you, you know.”

“It’s still fun to reflect my dismay at their standards.”

Barry blew a kiss to Tiffani, who pretended to catch it and throw it away. He scritched Fred again, wiped the dog’s poisonous secretion off his hand with a napkin, and walked out.

After he left, Tiffani stared into her whiskey and considered her options, which were growing increasingly limited. If she did nothing, the higher-ups of the lower down would discover her error, and a panoply of tortures would await her. Unfortunately, torturing or “disappearing” Joe, as she’d seen done in her gangstress days, violated Hell’s strictures on murdering mortals. Any whiff of fiendish involvement in an unexplained death captured the attention of the HIA, and, sometimes more frightening, the branding department.

The three-favors route, although still a violation of a commandment, offered a much lower risk of discovery, and hence a lower risk of . . . a panoply of tortures. The choice was obvious, and she tried to resign herself to what she had to do. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Joe was just a mortal, and not a very bright one at that. He’d probably ask her for something easy, like getting his boss in trouble, or destroying his neighbor’s lawn. Mortals liked petty things like that. And who was he going to tell?

As she mused, the door opened. She looked up, then froze. Lewes stood there with Org at his side. He smirked and made a beeline for Tiffani, sliding into the booth seat across from her before she could say “Go away.”

As much as Tiffani tried to stand up to Lewes, as she had at the conference, she had to tread lightly. Their previous altercations had shown that Lewes would face his own consequences if he tried to run roughshod over top salesfiends like her. But as a smart, psychotic, vindictive, merciless fiend, he could make her life miserable. When he got something into his head, he made Fred’s mindless devotion to food seem like a hobby. She needed to strike a balance between pissing Lewes off and pretending he didn’t scare her. Which he did.

Fred growled deep in his throat and started to stand up.

“Down, boy,” she said, resisting the urge to set the dog on Lewes, as she wasn’t sure who’d win that fight.

“Slumming it?” she asked Lewes. “Isn’t the Driftwood Room more your style? More hidey-holes? Or maybe donut shops? I understand you like Danish.” The reference to Delilah Danish, the woman he’d framed and sent to prison for life, popped into her head unbidden, and she’d blurted it out, hoping to show she wasn’t afraid of him. If he found her bravado intimidating, he didn’t show it.

“Dives are good places to find rebels—ROSE leaders, Rabble Rousers, angel sympathizers, mortal lovers, the lot. They like the everyman thing.”

Behind him, Org laughed. “Good one, boss.”

He waved her off like an annoying gnat. “Apropos of nothing, what were you doing with that angel?” he asked Tiffani, nodding toward the door Barry had just walked out of.

“It’s illegal to spy on competitors now?” she asked. “I thought that was supported.”

He looked at Org. “Did it seem like she was spying? Or did it seem like she was asking his advice about something?” He turned back to Tiffani. “Fraternizing with angels is no bueno,” he said.

“No bueno?” Tiffani scoffed.

“Would you like me to intimidate in a different language? Nyet, non, nein, nej—”

Tiffani waved her hand. “I get the point. Anyway, looks can be deceiving. For example,” she said flippantly, trying to take the attention off herself, “Org looks like an independent fiend, but it doesn’t seem like she thinks for herself.”

“I think,” Org snarled.

Tiffani waited a moment more to see if Org would provide evidence of that statement, which Org didn’t supply.

“Got it.” She stood. “Well, as scintillating as this is, I have to get back to my store and make some sales. Once I get into the C-Suite, I won’t have to deal with your bullshit anymore.”

Lewes whispered something, and she had no choice but to sit back down and lean in to listen. Lewes was never more menacing than when he was whispering.

“What?” she asked.

“Do you think I didn’t see your face when you left the conference earlier?” he hissed. “And now I see you in a friendly conversation with an angel. I don’t know what you’re up to—is it the union? Rabble Rousers? Mortal fraternization? All of the above?” He reached out and tapped her Diamond pin. “This won’t always save you, you know. I’ve got my eyes on you.”

“Yeah. We’ve got our eyes on you,” Org said, gesturing with two fingers toward Tiffani, then back to her own eyes, which she poked. “Ow.”

Tiffani laughed, glad for the comic relief. She stood up again, threw down the rest of her whiskey, and waved at Ken.

“Put it on his bill,” she said, pointing at Lewes. She called Fred to her, who rubbed against Org on his way out, sending the message that he had his mistress’s back. Without a backward glance, Tiffani strode out the door, ready to make her deal with Joe.

Chapter 7

After leaving Purgatory, Tiffani considered going back to her office but decided against it. Shady business—and agreeing to such a deal with a mortal definitely fit that category—had to be conducted in more discreet locales. She went instead to the nearest all-night coffee shop, located conveniently in a strip club. Portland had the highest number of strip bars per capita in the country, many of which frequently doubled as coffee shops, restaurants, and event venues. In fact, the city boasted the nation’s only vegan strip club, which had a better menu than many traditional restaurants.

As she went to sit in a booth in the back, she passed another ubiquitous vending machine. Among other things, this one contained glitter pasties in a rainbow of colors, edible underwear, and, as usual, Dungeons & Dragons dice. She ignored the gyrating strippers on the stage, and they ignored the fiend with the fire-breathing dog who’d just walked in. She was a regular, tipped well, and occasionally let Fred set unruly customers on fire. Everyone considered it a fair trade.

“What can I get you today?” a waitress in a G-string, high heels, and a crop top asked.

“The usual.”

“Got it. Dirty chai, almond milk, and a dash of Amaretto, right?”

“Yep.”

After the waitress left, Tiffani pulled out her burner phone, a Motorola-esque device with an incomprehensible Chinese name, a limited memory, and, most important, an app that would emit an alarm if anyone tried to tap in. Lewes would no doubt have her own lines monitored, so she used a series of ghost phones whenever she did something shady. After employing dozens of different strategies to discreetly deliver confidential messages during her gangstress days, she could appreciate these phones more than an average fiend did.

She dialed the number Joe gave her during their first discussion, and it rang several times before he answered it.

“Who is this? What’s the emergency?” His groggy voice suggested he’d been in the middle of a REM cycle.

“That’s not exactly polite,” Tiffani said.

“Tiffani? It’s two o’clock in the morning!”

Tiffani clenched her teeth. Mortals and their need to sleep. Maddening.

“Yes, you have a grasp on the time,” she snapped. “Look, I want to talk about this favors idea. I’m in.”

“And you called me now? Couldn’t you just text?”

“No. All fiends call instead of text. It’s a Hell thing. Anyway, can you meet me now?”

Joe sighed. “You were mortal once. Do you remember sleep? I can’t go traipsing off to see you right now.”

“Saying no to a fiend? Does that seem wise?”

There was a pause, then, “It seems like you need me more than I need you, sweetheart.”

Great. The porn star soul.

Tiffani clenched her teeth. “Joe, I’d love to talk to just you, without the benefit of your porn star mentor.”

“Hey, you were the one who told me I had to follow its directions. Are you calling to take me up on my offer? Three favors seems a small price to pay for something you seem to really want.”

Tiffani glanced around nervously. “I’m not talking about this on the phone. How early can you meet?”

“Seven.”

“Perfect!” Mornings were slow for sales. “I’ll see you at seven a.m.”

“No. I mean seven o’clock in the evening. Since someone called me at a ridiculous hour, I need more shut-eye before I can go to work.”

Mortals.

“You can’t possibly do something so important that you need to be fully awake for it.”

A small huff ghosted through the phone line. “I’m a data engineer, I’ll have you know.”

Tiffani snorted. Of course, the man who resembled the paint color International Tan worked in a cubicle farm. “Can’t that data engineer itself for a few hours?”

Another pause while Joe undoubtedly consulted the porn star soul. “Nope. It’s seven p.m. or nothing, sweetheart.”

“OK,” she grumbled. “Let’s meet at Purgatory. Do you know it?”

“Purgatory is a fine institution. See you there, sweetheart,” he said, hanging up the phone with no sign of being intimidated. That porn star was getting on her nerves.

She spent the rest of the night musing over whether she’d made a mistake in agreeing to the three-favors idea. It didn’t help that she had zero customers at her HSE outlet. Studies had proved that once the harbingers of the holidays started showing up in the marketplace, which seemed to happen earlier and earlier every year, people wanted to rent from Heaven. Suffering through family dinners and corporate outings took a level of saintlike forbearance Hell just couldn’t deliver. As a mortal, she’d even toyed once with the idea of renting a Heavenly soul to give her the patience she needed to get through a family holiday meal without incident, but found that the potential sacrifices required in exchange, even for the lowest-tiered souls, too daunting. Volunteer at a soup kitchen for a month? Donate her favorite outfits to charity? Participate in a blood drive? All to keep things civil with her ass of a brother-in-law? No, thank you. If she was going to do something nice, it would be on her own terms.

At eight o’clock in the morning, as she was coating the lower-priced items in the back with dust, the door chime rang and she turned, ready to be perky.

“Welcome to Hell’s . . .” She trailed off. Lewes and Org were standing at the threshold. Her heart sank. Would this be his strategy for bringing her down? To follow her around nonstop? She’d never be able to get out of the mess with Joe. She took a deep breath.

“We talked last night. Now today. Don’t you have someone else to bother? I feel like I’ve had enough of your company to last a postlifetime.”

Lewes raised his eyebrows, and his expression shifted to speculative.

“You’re not questioning me, are you? Didn’t you learn in orientation that violates Hell’s Fifth Commandment?”

“Yes. ‘Thou Shalt Not Question Official Actions Of The HIA,’” she said, placing her hand over her heart. “Asking you questions and questioning your official actions are two different things.”

Lewes ignored the dig. “Are you sure you don’t know why I’m here? Anything you’d like to confess?”

Tiffani knew better than to volunteer any information, so she crossed her arms and waited. Their staring match lasted until Org said, “She was insubordinate, right, boss? She turned her back on you at the conference. And I don’t think you liked her sarcasm at the bar either.”

Tiffani relaxed her stance. This wasn’t about her agreement with Joe or her relationship with Barry.

Lewes glared at his minion. “Don’t ever play cards, Organza,” he snarled. After a moment, he turned back to Tiffani. “Those are the transgressions we know about, although there are more, aren’t there?”

As intimidating as he was, she knew that if Lewes had anything truly damning on her, they wouldn’t be having this “pleasant” conversation at the store. It would be an unpleasant conversation in the Torture House.

“What do you want?” she asked, raising her chin and trying to appear brave and defiant.

“Did you know that insubordination to a member of the HIA is a punishable offense?”

Tiffani frowned. She’d heard that lower-tiered fiends sometimes faced punishments for smart-mouthing the HIA but had never dealt with it herself. Tiffani’s status as an upper-level salesfiend protected her from the HIA’s more spurious and capricious accusations. Nevertheless, with enough elbow grease and obsession, Lewes could make her life miserable. She’d hear what he had to say before deciding if she’d take this to another level.

Lewes smirked. “I guess you didn’t know it applied to all fiends, did you? And I have the perfect punishment for you. I use it with all insubordinate fiends.”

“And what’s that?”

Lewes’s smarmy smile suggested the punishment he had in mind would be horrific. Tiffani held her breath. Had he somehow received approval from the higher-ups of the lower down to counter her “insubordination” with a little torture?

“Jury duty.”

Tiffani groaned. Yes. Torture. “You have got to be kidding me. When?”

“Right now.”

“But it’s Sunday! And I’ve got stuff to do!”

“You’re surprised that fiends don’t get to enjoy weekends? And what ‘stuff’ do you have to do anyway?” Lewes asked, his voice sickly sweet, fishing for any hint of wrongdoing on her part. “Perhaps meet with your angel friend? Or is it a mortal?”

Tiffani stared into his bloodshot eyes, deciding she would let her eyes dry into husks before she blinked.

“I need to get my next promo ready.”

“Ah. Yes. Your sales target. What do you have, one-hundred and thirty-six sales left?”

“You’re paying a lot more attention to me than you probably should be.”

“Does it seem like you’re slowing down?” he continued. “Losing your touch? Busy with other things?”

“No. In fact, I’m spending a lot of time dealing with your nonsense. You know how much upper management hates it when their salesfiends are harassed,” she said. “Can’t I do this another day?”

“Tiffani, it’s Hell. You can be called for jury duty at any time, it’s compulsory, and we don’t really care if you have other ‘stuff to do.’ Plus, I think you’ll like this trial. It’s special.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I guess you’ll find out.”

“Fine,” she snapped, hoping it wouldn’t interfere with her meeting that evening with Joe, but knowing she couldn’t raise the issue. “Let’s go.”

They took the express ARCHIE to Hell’s justice building on the Services and Administration campus, which housed Hell’s court system, the HIA offices, and a rabbit warren of cubicles known as the Paperwork House, which offered what some considered more dreadful tortures than either the Torture House or the Ice House combined. Lower-level fiends pushed papers all day, all connected to the astounding bureaucracy Hell was known for. Want a new appendage after losing one in the intake center? File a form in quintuplicate to the clone department, expect it to be lost, file a new one, and on and on until you’ve demonstrated a sufficient degree of desperation. Lost your computer passcode? Be prepared to wait decades before someone offers a temporary code that doesn’t work. ID badge stopped working? That was at least a year of having your picture taken, having it rejected, having it taken again, and on and on until you’re begging for a stint in the Ice House. It was where the mortal term “death by a thousand paper cuts” originated.

The outside of the building matched the hell within. Animated stone gargoyles representing the seven other campuses perched on the roof. Wrath gnashed its teeth and growled, eyes glittering threateningly at everyone entering the building and occasionally throwing sharp objects. Lust moaned while wearing a blindfold and an ecstatic expression. Gluttony chomped on a never-ending diet of unrentable souls, undulating and oozing into the other gargoyles’ spaces. Malice wore a smirk every mean girl in high school dreamed of, and rolled her eyes nonstop. Deceit dashed around to the other gargoyles, pointing at fiends entering the building and whispering. Traitor buddied up to any fiends stupid enough to access the roof, then chopped off their head. And Avarice frolicked in the jewels and gold of sinners who believed the Highest-Up of the lower down when he’d told them they could buy their way out of punishment. As a homeless encampment, Rotten Pockets didn’t have its own official gargoyle. Instead, a grimy gnome wearing a cardboard Burger King crown and a ripped T-shirt emblazoned with RPers Do It in the Street wandered around the perimeter of the building, claiming to represent Rotten Pockets, all while muttering, cursing, and urinating on the sidewalk.

The courtrooms within continued with the general theme of justice gone bad, reminding Tiffani of the old-school courtroom dramas she’d seen on TV, but not the nice shiny ones. Rather, they had dim fluorescent lights, a jury box that smelled like the flatulence of previous jurors, and a hovering sense of soon-to-be quashed hopes that the charges would be dismissed. The higher-ups liked to pretend they had a reasonable system for assessing guilt and innocence, whereas in reality, management had decided on the verdict before the defendant even walked in the door. It was another of Hell’s tortures: Offer hope. Then take it away.

Tiffani entered the jurors’ anteroom and prepared herself for a day, or perhaps several years, of misery. Like the dozens of other fiends in the room, she sent down a silent prayer that she wouldn’t get called for the voir dire process, where lawyers would ask inane questions to flesh out any prejudices. The difference in Hell was that they specifically wanted people with prejudices, so it was always a good idea to be as bland as possible. Tiffani excelled at being bland, mainly because the only thing she really had an opinion on was that she wanted to get to the C-Suite. Oh, and that she hated Lewes. And that she needed to get that porn star soul back. OK. Three opinions. Unfortunately, whether through Lewes’s intervention or her obvious frustration, she was selected for a jury.

Resigned to her fate, Tiffani sat in the box and looked around at her fellow jurors.

“What do you think it is?” asked the large woman next to her who was seeping over the sides of her chair.

A man leaned down from the top row. He wore a rubber vest with nipple rings and assless chaps and carried a whip.

“I hear it’s a sexfiend who broke into the medical center to create their own sex doll.” He stroked the whip. “I’m voting for acquittal.”

“I hear it’s someone who attacked a securityfiend with a steak knife,” said a man with a sour expression and a sword. “Anyone who attacks securityfiends should be annihilated.”

The chatter in the box stopped as a chorus of trumpets rang out, and the judge entered. She sat on the dais, appearing pleased with the attention, though puzzled as to what she should do with it.

“The court is called to order,” she said, waving the gavel in the air with a giggle. Tiffani recognized her as Betty, a C-Suiter from Deceit who appeared to have no more understanding of what happened in a court than what she got from American television shows. Anyone in the C-Suite could be a judge. It was one of the perks of being promoted to demon.

Betty gestured to the courtroom artist from The Demon Dispatch sitting below the dais on her right. “Move,” she barked. “My left side is better.” The sketchfiend grabbed his easel and moved to the other side. After ten minutes of primping to be sure that the artist got the right tones for her skin and that the light hit her hair exactly right, she turned back to the courtroom.

“And what’s on the docket for today?” she asked.

Two security officers came through the door, dragging a kicking and screaming fiend between them. The fiend wore a hood covering their eyes and nose and had a bullhorn crammed halfway down their throat. Lewes followed, looking smug. He glanced at Tiffani and grinned. Confused, she glared at him, then directed her attention back to the struggling fiend.

“We grabbed this one off the street at a ROSE rally. They were leading a chant.”

The fiend let out a deep-throated cry, which came out like a goose honking. One of the officers laughed.

“Oh yeah, we stored the bullhorn there. We figured it could be evidence?”

The other officer jumped in. “Or just fun.”

The judge, whose glittering eyes and inane cackle suggested she considered the bullhorn both, clapped her hands in delight. “Ooh! It’s one of our example cases, is it? I love those. It’s so fun to think of torments that will make those other ROSE-ers think twice.” She nodded at the man on the jury with the sword. “You’re Wrath, right? Get ready to be creative!”

In the mortal world, one lawyer or another might have objected to the idea of a juror being asked to come up with the punishment. In Hell, they looked thrilled by it. The juror from Wrath started scribbling on his paper, jabbing and scratching until the paper tore. Whatever he had planned would be emphatic.

“Drag the prisoner over here,” said the judge. “And take off that ridiculous scarf.”

As the security officer dragged the fiend to the box, Lewes sauntered behind them, his gaze still fixed on Tiffani. When the officers finally got the hood off, a quantity of familiar straight black hair cascaded down the fiend’s shoulders. She turned and Tiffani gasped. The woman had one dark-brown glass eye and one light-blue regular eye.

It was Siobhan.

Knowing that Lewes was still watching her, Tiffani tried to school her expression to remain passive. The whole thing must have been a setup. Siobhan had been on that panel about eradicating union sentiment, she . . .

With a groan, Tiffani realized how stupid she’d been. When mortal, Siobhan had embezzled money from her employers because they’d “disagreed about changes to the production process.” Tiffani had never cared enough to know what that was, but now it seemed clear—her employers had stopped her from starting a union! Of course Siobhan would be a member of ROSE. In fact, she would be a leader, and smart enough to hide in plain sight.

Lewes had caught enough of Tiffani’s consternation to widen his grin. She couldn’t quite manage the slavering anger expressed by the other jurors.

“Your honor,” said Siobhan’s defense lawyer. “I’m here to . . . defend, I guess? My . . . um . . . client?” He was a weeny of a man who sounded like he’d been picked off the warehouse floor and told, “Surprise—you’re now a lawyer!”

Tiffani knew this farce of a trial was a waste of everyone’s time. Her gangstress days had taught her more than enough about how crooked judges and those accusing innocent people colluded to either lose or make up evidence. She knew where Siobhan was headed. The jailers were eager to move those accused of crimes from the relative safety of a prison to one of the three main areas convicts wound up: Rotten Pockets, the Torture House, or the Ice House. Or, of course, annihilation. Or all of the above, sequentially.

No doubt Siobhan would face the worst of what Hell had to offer.

The trial went about as expected, which was to say terribly. Lewes told the jury how he had suspected Siobhan was a ROSE sympathizer while they served on the conference panel together. He said it was obvious she’d been hiding in the open, because she knew just enough about ROSE tactics to twist the truth when sharing how to spot a leader. In fact, he hinted, she might even be a Rabble Rouser. He hadn’t found concrete evidence of that yet, but there might be ways of . . . extracting information out of her.

He nodded over at Tiffani. “Coincidentally, did you know she mentored one of your jurors? Tiffani, do you have anything to say to your mentor? When was the last time you saw her? Any thoughts on seeing her condemned?”

Tiffani opened her mouth to say, well, she didn’t know what. She looked over at Siobhan, who shook her head. Sitting back, Tiffani tried to calm her breathing. She wouldn’t give Lewes the satisfaction of seeing her distress.

At the end of the prosecution’s case, Siobhan’s lawyer directed his attention to the judge. “Um, should we keep going?”

Siobhan tried to speak, but it came out as honking. The judge shook her head, looking gleeful.

“Let’s get it over with,” she said. “I have an appointment in the C-Suite spa in five minutes.”

The lawyer nodded and stood. “Your honor, my client pleads guilty.”

Siobhan thrashed, still honking through the horn and struggling with the handcuffs.

“I don’t think she does,” muttered Tiffani. Lewes tilted his head at her.

“What was that?” he asked.

Tiffani shook her head. “Nothing.”

The judge looked over at the jury. “You can go now.” She turned to the juror from Wrath. “And can I have that list of punishments?”

Everyone around Tiffani started gathering their belongings.

The foreman, a fiend from Malice, stood. “Do we have to go back to work?”

The judge frowned. “Do you want to go back to work?”

“No!” they all shouted.

“OK. Then you have to go back.” At their disgruntled looks, she continued. “This is Hell. What did you think was going to happen?!”

The jury grumbled, and Siobhan finally managed to cough up the horn.

“Yeh don’t have to take it,” she yelled. “We just need to throw in together and—” She crumpled to the floor as one of the guards tased her. Tiffani was surprised to see a few of the jurors stop and consider Siobhan with interest. Then they glanced at the guards and moved on.

“Oh, you’re going to be sorry you said that,” threatened the judge.

As they filed out of the room, Tiffani overheard the judge’s verdict.

“Siobhan Sullivan. As a leader of ROSE, an unpleasant fiend, and the reason I’ll be late for my spa appointment, you are hereby conscribed to one thousand years in the Torture House, followed by one thousand years in the Ice House, followed by annihilation.”

Tiffani shuddered. Two thousand years of being tortured, with only annihilation to look forward to. The Highest-Up of the lower down was trying to send a message. But based on the reactions of some of the jurors to Siobhan’s pronouncement, Tiffani wasn’t sure if everyone was receiving it.

She got to the door, and Lewes stepped out from the shadows. Damn. How did he do that?

“And do you think your mentor got what she deserved?”

She stalked past him without answering. The powers that be clearly weren’t playing games anymore. Punishments for any infraction would only get worse. She needed to get this Joe business done as soon as possible and put the whole thing behind her.

Chapter 8

In a stroke of luck, the “trial” had lasted only four hours, three of which had comprised waiting impatiently in the juror room. Tiffani spent the afternoon at the store ruminating over her meeting with Joe that evening. To her dismay, the whole situation had her off her sales game. By the time she was locking up to head to Purgatory, she’d made only three sales in six hours. With just twenty-eight days left, she’d have to get her act together.

“Come on, Freddie-pups,” she said, almost tripping over the dachshund. He was winding between her feet as they walked, as if sensing her frustration and trying, in his own way, to help. She picked him up and carried him the remaining three blocks down Hawthorne, knowing that in a city where a man dressed as Darth Vader frequently rode down the street on a unicycle while playing the bagpipes, no one would bat an eye at someone carrying a fire-breathing hell-dachshund.

Her mood didn’t improve when her phone buzzed with a text from Joe the moment she got to Purgatory.

Running a little late.

She looked around as she set Fred on the floor and spied Barry at a booth, admiring himself in the mirror over the bar. After a moment’s hesitation, in case Lewes was lurking in the shadows watching her, she decided to act as though his words didn’t scare the crap out of her, even if they did.

She walked over and slipped into the seat across from the angel. Fred followed her and dropped down at her feet, licking the floor as usual.

Barry turned away from the mirror. “What brings you here?” he asked.

She sighed. “I’m trying to . . . solve . . . my little problem from the other night.”

“What did you decide to do?”

“I seem to remember someone saying they shouldn’t get involved, so I decided that’s none of your business.”

“Always so secretive,” he said, laughing.

Ken dropped a drink off in front of her without her needing to ask, which was why Ken was one of her favorite people in the world.

She turned back to Barry. “Let me ask you something.”

“Shoot,” Barry said.

“Do you guys get in trouble for hanging out with fiends? Or even mortals?”

Barry shook his head. “It really depends. When it comes to fiends, we’re supposed to be spying on you sort,” he said, clinking her glass with his cider bottle. “With mortals, they like us to encourage those already Heaven-bound, but not get too close. It’s kind of a weird rule. I mean, who wouldn’t be persuaded to join Team Heaven when presented with this?” He flexed his biceps, thrust out his chest, and literally dazzled her with his smile.

“It’s certainly an enticement,” she commented, blinking away stars and injecting as much sarcasm as she could in her tone. She paused, leaned in, then started back and coughed, almost choking on the wave of aftershave he wore. Lowering her voice, she gasped, “Are you sure you’re not demonic?”

Barry glared, and she laughed.

“Anyway, have you ever wondered why we aren’t out there getting our hands on every mortal we can? Like by being fascinating”—she pointed to herself—“or, you know, by doing whatever boring thing you guys do to get them to want to be Goody Two-shoes?”

Barry shrugged. “I guess? Why do you ask?”

Tiffani hesitated, on the verge of confiding in him about Lewes’s accusations and the extreme danger this agreement with Joe put her in, then decided against it. Although she couldn’t say for sure, Barry seemed like the gossipy sort.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Some of the less reasonable members of management on our side have noticed me spending time with mortals. And you, incidentally. I’ve told them it’s because I’m trying to be a bad influence. It’s not a big deal.”

Barry raised his bottle to her. “Check.”

Tiffani spun her glass on the table, trying to figure out if she should confess that she’d accepted Joe’s terms, when the door opened and Joe himself walked in, fifteen minutes late. He blinked and peered around, then waved a hand in front of his face when someone at the bar blew cigar smoke in his face.

“Great timing,” she muttered, gesturing for him to stop dilly-dallying and get over there. Barry turned and looked over his shoulder.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“That,” mumbled Tiffani, “is the porn star slash most boring mortal I’ve ever met who we were talking about yesterday.”

“You’re doing the favors!” Barry cheered. Fred barked in response, and the other patrons jumped at the flames shooting out of the dog’s mouth. Tiffani poured a glass of water on Fred and threw a napkin at Barry.

“You’ve got to shut up, or I won’t be around to buy you drinks anymore,” she huffed.

Barry raised his chin and smirked. “I’m going to take that as a win for me. You convinced me to drink alcohol, and I convinced you to do something nice for someone.”

“You didn’t convince me to do anything. I was blackmailed. Totally different. And he can’t know you’re an angel, OK? I’m already in enough trouble for being too ‘friendly.’” Barry snorted cider onto the table, and Tiffani glared. “Too friendly,” she repeated, “and if those less reasonable fiends find out you’re both here, they’ll think I’m colluding.”

“To do what?”

“I have no idea. But they’ll make something terrible of it.”

Barry nodded. “Got it.” He looked somber. “Is this a good mortal face?”

“It’s not quite dire enough, but it will have to do. Just don’t do that glitter thing or the sparkling teeth bit, and you’re golden.”

A brief halo of golden light flashed above his head as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Like this?”

“Stop it,” she hissed.

Joe swaggered toward them with the confidence of, well, a porn actor in a dive bar. All conversation stopped as he walked to her table. It wasn’t a welcoming silence. It suggested the patrons were planning what to do with the body. Tiffani was glad to see that despite Joe’s constant consultation of the iSOUL, his confidence began to fizzle the closer he got to her. By the time he reached the table, it was completely gone.

“Why are you late?” Tiffani asked curtly.

“Where are your manners?” Barry tutted. He reached out and shook Joe’s hand. “Hi. I’m Barry. I’m mortal. Just like you. Really. I am.” He patted the seat next to him on the bench.

Tiffani kicked him under the table. “Stop talking and leave,” she mouthed.

“Umm, OK.” Joe glanced at his wrist to consult that damn porn star iSOUL and took the proffered seat. He looked at Tiffani and smiled. “So, you’re seeing other mortals, are you?” he said, raising his eyebrow.

Tiffani raised her own eyebrow in surprise. “Was that a joke?”

Joe looked at his wrist. “I guess so.”

Barry laughed. “You’re funny, Joe. I like you. Listen, I’m new to town and trying to make friends. I know this is weird, but any chance I can get your contact info?” He held out his phone.

Tiffani glared. “What are you doing?” she mouthed. Barry grinned back but kept the sparkling in check.

A bemused Joe looked at his wrist, then at the phone. “OK. Sure, you’re a very attractive man, I’m a consenting adult—”

“Oh, that’s not what I mean.” Barry laughed. “I’m just thinking that any friend of Tiffani’s—”

“Joe and I aren’t friends.” She turned to Joe. “You don’t have to give him anything,” she said. “He’s just leaving.”

“No, it’s fine.” Joe typed his cell into Barry’s phone and handed it back to him.

Barry put it in his pocket. “I’ll let you guys get back to it!” he said. “I’m off to go do laundry, shop—you know, mortal things.” He stood, winked, and then walked toward the door.

Tiffani turned back to Joe, who appeared dazed. “Never mind him,” she said. “He’s odd.”

“I noticed,” Joe said, then winced when a bit of Fred’s slobber fell on his shoe and sizzled.

“Oh, don’t worry about Fred. He had a raw steak for breakfast. He won’t be hungry for another hour or so. Can I get you anything?” she asked, expecting him to request what seemed to be his standby. Water.

Joe made to look at his wrist, but Tiffani grabbed it. “Make a decision on your own, can’t you?”

Joe glanced down at her hand and gulped. “I’ll have sparkling water, please. Do they have ice here?”

Oooh, taking it up a notch with the sparkling water.

Tiffani cocked her head and perused him. Instead of the beige she’d come to know and hate, he wore a muted red sweater and jeans. Although not quite the gaudy wardrobe she’d expect from the porn star iSOUL, it was a step toward high fashion for Joe. She almost regretted her role in turning him back into the bland guy who’d walked into her store a couple of days ago.

“We’re in a bar, not Hell. Yes, they have ice.” She let go of his wrist and called the order over to Ken. Then she turned back to Joe and slid a piece of paper over to him. “Here’s the contract all written up like you wanted. I agree to do the three favors, and you’ll give me that”—she pointed to the device on Joe’s wrist—“now.” She held out her hand.

Joe paused. “Yeah, I need to read the paper first.” He pulled it to him, careful to keep his arm with the iSOUL out of her reach, and flipped through the pages. His eyes focused on a couple of questions.

“What’s this under ‘exceptions’? You can’t make someone fall in love with me?” he asked.

Tiffani shook her head. “That’s Heaven’s purview. I can make people fall in lust, but it doesn’t last very long and ends badly. But that’s not a problem, right? Didn’t you hook up with someone at your reunion? That was the whole point.”

Joe shook his head. “Turns out she has a boyfriend.”

“Hmm . . . I know you want this girl—I want to say Emily?”

“You want to say Edith.”

“—Edith to fall in love with you. But don’t you want it to be natural and real? You can use one of your favors to have me help you become the man of her dreams.” She looked him over again. Given his current state, that should be counted as two favors, unless Edith liked dorky, gangly men with inexplicable jobs. What was a data engineer anyway?

He looked doubtful. “I’m not sure that will work. She’s pretty into Vincent.”

“Vincent is the boyfriend?” Tiffani grinned. “We can put an end to that. Breaking people up is totally allowable. So, do we have a deal?”

Joe hesitated, signed the paper, then handed over the iSOUL. “Yes.” Although the change wasn’t immediate, Tiffani expected that he would soon be making decisions that would be more Joe than porn actor. How had this mild-mannered, water-drinking mortal gotten her into this position? It couldn’t have been just the actor’s soul. Most mortals didn’t rely on the iSOUL for every decision. The mortal’s true personality usually shone through—at least a little. Perhaps Joe was such a dud that he’d been completely subsumed.

“So, what’s this first favor you want?” she asked bluntly. “We’re offing a boyfriend?”

Joe shook his head and pulled out a piece of paper. “No. I have a list. I put it together so that . . . you know . . . I’d still be able to explain what I want, now that I don’t have my soul coach anymore.”

Tiffani sat back, impressed.

He cleared his throat. “I have a different problem I have to solve now, or I might go to jail.”

Tiffani rubbed her hands together. “Awesome. What’s up?”

“That ‘soul coach,’ as you call it, turned out to be quite a handful. He got a DUI on the way home from the reunion. I need to get that off my record.”

Tiffani nodded. After years as a gangstress, she was used to getting the police to forget that they’d stopped someone. It was harder these days with body cams and such, but she was sure she could figure it out.

“OK, give me the details.”

“It started when I rented a Porsche to impress everyone at the reunion and was stopped on my way home for going ninety in a forty-five-mile-per-hour zone.”

“What color?” asked Tiffani.

“Huh?”

“What color Porsche?”

“Red. Is that relevant?”

“I mean, a red Porsche? I’d have been going at least a hundred ten. But ninety in a forty-five should be an easy enough fix. How did the cop know you were drunk?” Surely the porn actor would have been smart enough to refuse a Breathalyzer.

“There’s a little more to the story than that.”

Tiffani raised an eyebrow.

“When I rolled down the window, I asked if this was a drive-up cocktail bar and ordered a mojito,” Joe continued.

She snorted.

“And then when she had me step out of the car to walk in a straight line, I tried to tango with her.”

Scotch spewed over the table, and even Joe managed a weak chuckle. Fred barked, and his tongue lolled out as if he was in on the joke.

“I’m impressed!” she said. “So, I guess I’ll—”

He shook his head. “It gets worse. When my dancing wasn’t doing the trick, I told her I was a porn actor and proceeded to show her my appendage.”

More scotch wound up on the table and some on the floor, which Fred tried to lick up. Fire flared, and Ken brought over the fire extinguisher.

“Sorry,” Tiffani said. Ken shook his head and fetched another glass.

“How on earth did you stay out of jail?” she asked, turning back to Joe.

“I didn’t! I spent the night at the downtown courthouse facility. I wired bail money from my account the next day. Thank God for overcrowding, or they might have left me there.”

“Don’t thank God. That’s our doing.”

“That tracks,” Joe muttered.

“OK, so the report has got to be in a computer somewhere. We need to find it and wipe it.”

“Can you expunge that cop’s memory as well? Her name is Officer Hanson.”

“No. It takes a lot of paperwork on our end to get a memory-wipe authorization. But that’s OK. It will drive her nuts. Should be fun!” She stood. “I should be able to get this done by tomorrow. I’ll report back.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nope. My methods are none of your business. All you need to know is that it will be taken care of.”

Joe stood, too, looking uncertain. “Do we shake hands or something?”

“Do you want to shake hands?”

“Not really.”

“Maybe a hug?”

Joe’s face turned pale. Tiffani laughed.

“Don’t worry. I have as much interest in that as you do.” She took the paper, signed her name, then snapped her fingers, and it burst into flames.

“Is that legit? It’s binding?” Joe asked, looking at the ashes on the floor. He shook his head. “Do we have to file it with some authority? How do I know you won’t renege?”

She sighed. “Remember what I told you about HSE salesfiends? When we sign on the bottom line, we’re committed.” To put an end to that line of inquiry, she picked Fred up and started to hand him to Joe. “Do you want to give Fred here a nuzzle? Maybe play a little fetch?”

Joe shook his head and backed away. “I’ll . . . umm—”

Fred also shook his head from side to side, his long dachshund ears flapping and his tongue hanging out.

“—go,” Joe said, scurrying out the door.

Fred’s ears drooped, and Tiffani booped his nose. “It’s OK, buddy. I’m sure it wasn’t you.”

She looked at her phone to check the time. There, she found a text from Lewes—an emoji of two eyes. She spun around, peering into dark corners, trying to see if he was really there.

“Time to get going,” she muttered, eager to get the favors done as soon as possible.

Chapter 9

Tiffani had lied when she’d told Joe she had a plan. In fact, her experiences with doing favors for mortals, even as a mortal herself, were nonexistent. She couldn’t quite get the hang of it. It was much easier to either pay them off or convince them, through means best not discussed, that they really didn’t want what they thought they wanted. But rumor had it that handing cops a hundred dollars and a case of bootleg whiskey didn’t work anymore.

She’d need a fiend’s help to fulfill Joe’s request, and the only one she could think of was Arthur. As much as she didn’t want to drag him into this, and as much as she doubted her ability to get him to do something for anyone but himself, she’d need to get into a police database. And the man who’d extracted millions from the federal government after holding their servers hostage could probably break into the database of traffic violations with no problem.

Tiffani and Fred tracked Arthur down at the new facility he rented for his AI data center. It was a cavernous warehouse-style space, and he hadn’t wasted any time moving equipment in. After just one day, he’d managed to install a bank of computers on one side, a large table in the middle of the room, and a reading nook and library shelves on the opposite wall.

Arthur stood in front of the large table, sorting cans of spray paint into colored piles.

“Spray paint?” Tiffani asked. “Going low budget on the office decor? I suppose it doesn’t really matter if you’re just going to have a bunch of servers in here.”

Arthur jumped and dropped a can of Lucky Green Rust-Oleum. Fred barked and ran over to grab it, but Arthur got there first. “Hey, keep that dog away,” he said, nodding at Fred. “No open flames around here.”

Tiffani gestured for Fred to move to the far wall. “I think the green is a very Portland color,” she said. “It’ll look nice on the walls.”

“It’s not for the—you really shouldn’t be here—” Arthur stumbled over his words in a most un-Arthur-like fashion. Someone at the far end of the room giggled, and Tiffani froze, her heart racing. Were Lewes and Org following her? Had they somehow figured out what she needed help with? Turning, she readied herself for a battle of wits with Lewes, or just a regular battle with Org.

Three teenagers sat near the bank of computers, each dressed in a rock-concert T-shirt, ripped jeans, and motorcycle boots. Metal protruded from ears, noses, and, as revealed by the crop top one of the girls wore, belly buttons. They gawked at her, and the one who had giggled, a girl with fiery-red hair and a cute sneer, waved.

Tiffani faced Arthur, wide-eyed. “Who are they?”

Arthur paled “They’re, uh . . .”

Tiffani had never seen him this uncomfortable. “New hires for your data center?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s it,” he said, seeming relieved she’d come up with an explanation.

“They don’t seem old enough to be out of school,” she said, skeptically. Corrupting school-age mortal children by hiring them and keeping them out of class would be a clear violation of Hell’s First Commandment. The higher-ups of the lower down preferred kids to make their own stupid choices, without the benefit of direct demon intervention.

“They’re—uh . . .”

Tiffani held up a hand. “You know what?” She surveyed the group again. “I don’t want to know about it.” She could think of no good reason why Arthur would be hanging out with mortal teenagers, and she wanted to maintain her plausible deniability. She shifted resolutely away. “Is there someplace private we can talk? I need your help.”

Arthur glanced nervously at the kids, then Tiffani, then back at the kids. He placed the can of spray paint he’d been fiddling with on the table and pointed at a door at the opposite end of the room, away from the computers and the mysterious mortals. “Let’s go in there.”

After growling at the giggling teenage girl, who promptly sobered up, Fred trotted after Tiffani and Arthur to the doorway and into a small office space, outfitted with two chairs, a desk, and a desktop computer. A one-cup Keurig coffeemaker sat on a bookshelf against one wall. Tiffani stared at it.

“Are you feeling OK? That’s a Keurig. Where’s your fancy French press?”

Arthur shrugged. “It’s temporary. So, how can I help?”

Tiffani glanced toward the door, resisting the urge to ask again about his guests.

Plausible deniability.

“I’m hoping you can help me with a . . . database-related problem. But you have to keep it hush-hush.”

Arthur’s eyes lit up. “I love that kind of project! What’s up?”

Tiffani hesitated. Now that she was here, her resolve was wavering. If Arthur helped her, he’d be complicit. She knew he had a rebellious streak. But would he really go as far as to violate one of Hell’s Commandments by corrupting teenagers? That said, she needed his help, and if she could trust anyone in Hell, it was him. She took a deep breath.

“Don’t freak out,” she started.

“You do know that’s a sure way to get me to freak out,” he said.

“It’s really not a big deal. It’s just a teensy bit . . . sketchy.”

“As much as I like sketchy, I’m getting the sense this is more than that.”

Tiffani took another deep breath. “You have to keep this a secret, or I’ll get in serious trouble.”

“I can add it to the list of secrets I keep for you. Spit it out. I don’t have all night.”

After appraising him for a moment longer, she blurted out, “OK, so I’m doing a favor for a mortal, and—”

He put up a hand. “Back up. You’re doing a what for a who now?”

“A favor. For a mortal.” She waved her hand. “It’s a long story, and I need no questions asked. Are you in?”

Arthur paused for several moments before whispering, “You’re doing a favor”—he looked around as if concerned someone would hear them—“for a mortal?”

“Yeah, I mean I know it’s unorthodox, but—”

Arthur threw up his hands in a gesture of exasperation and began striding around the room. “It’s more than unorthodox. Don’t you know what you’re doing?”

“I realize it’s frowned upon.”

He gaped at her. “Frowned upon? Try one hundred percent forbidden. Remember Commandment Three? Thou Shalt Not Do Favors For Mortals? What in the hell would have you even considering such a thing?”

Tiffani looked pointedly at the door. “We all have our reasons for doing things,” she said. “Sometimes it’s best not to know why, am I right?”

Arthur started, as if just remembering that he, himself, was in a bit of a sticky situation. His tone softened. “If you’re doing something that might keep you out of the C-Suite and put you in the Torture House or Ice House, or even be annihilated, you’ve got to have an astonishingly compelling reason. I, on the other hand, don’t have any kind of reason. And I’m sorry, but that trumps whatever you’ve got going on.” He frowned. “You know you’re my second-best friend in the world. But my first best is me.”

Tiffani turned to leave, her heart pounding. Once a selfish sociopath, always a selfish sociopath, she guessed.

“Fine. I thought that maybe the man who could hold the IRS hostage would have a little more moxie . . . but . . . well, could you at least promise not to tell anyone I asked?” she muttered, looking down at the ground. She called for Fred, hoping that he might have a plan B to somehow miraculously articulate, because she had nothing.

She heard Arthur huff behind her, then felt his hand on her arm.

“Wait, come back.”

Tiffani looked up at him, batting her eyelashes and willing her eyes to well up.

He scoffed. “You’re so bad at this. Fine. I’ll help you.”

Well, that was easy.

“Are you sure? What happened to all that drama?”

“I can’t watch you flail about on your own. Plus, as your best friend, they’ll probably blame me anyway.”

“How do you know you’re not my second-best friend?”

“Because that’s not how you roll. Hit me.”

She told him what had happened with the iSOUL rental to Joe and how she’d gotten into the three-favors situation. By the end, he’d covered his face in his hands, and his shoulders shook.

“You’re not crying, are you?” she asked, aghast.

He moved his hands from his face and rocked with laughter. “Oh, my Devil. That’s hysterical. Completely worth the price of admission. OK, fine, let’s do this,” he said, still chuckling. “Is the first favor nefarious?”

“Yes.”

“Illegal? I mean besides the whole thing about violating a commandment?”

“Most definitely.”

Arthur’s expression turned from amused to interested. “Illegal and nefarious are two of my favorite things in the world. What do you need?”

“This should be super easy for you—I need you to break into a police server.”

Arthur hesitated. “A server, you say? For Portland’s finest?” He glanced at the slightly ajar door and then at the computer on the desk. He frowned and tapped his fingers on the surface, as if contemplating where to start.

“I know it’s not as glamorous as the IRS, but it should still provide you with a few minutes of fun,” Tiffani said, confused by his sudden reticence.

He looked at her, sighed, then stood, walked over to the door, and opened it slightly so Tiffani could get a better view of the main room. “OK. Since you’ve shared your big secret with me, I guess I should tell you something.”

Tiffani jumped up. “No! If it has something to do with those kids”—she pointed out the door—“I don’t want to know about it.”

“I’ll need their help. Plus, if I tell you, you’ll have some really good dirt on me,” he coaxed. “We could make a mutually assured destruction pact.”

“Mutually assured destruction wasn’t on my bingo card for this year,” Tiffani said.

“Was ‘doing a favor for a mortal’?” Arthur asked.

Tiffani crossed her arms. “Fine. Give it to me.”

“OK. To be honest, I’m doing a little commandment violating myself,” Arthur said. “Those kids out there,” he jerked his thumb out the open door toward the three teenagers, who were sitting at the far end of the other room out of earshot, “are three of the most brilliant mortal hackers I’ve ever come across. I just had to learn more about them and their strategies.”

Tiffani goggled. “You’re learning hacking strategies from a bunch of teenagers? How did you meet them?”

“Maggie, there,” he said, pointing to the girl with the fire-red hair, “is the daughter of the real-estate agent I’ve been working with. Turns out, she’s the one committing the wire fraud. And she’s exceptionally talented at it. I mean”—he made a chef’s-kiss gesture—“perfection.”

“So, what, they’re tutoring you now?”

“To be fair, I didn’t start it. I met Maggie at my agent’s office where she was interning. She recognized my name and later told me that she’d written a paper on me for a computer class. She was outraged because the teacher had failed her, something about being too sympathetic to a felon.” Arthur sounded offended and Tiffani stifled a laugh. “She goes to PATHS—you know, the Portland Arts and Technology High School—and wanted me to speak at her school’s career-day assembly. She wanted more hackers represented.”

“You didn’t!” Tiffani said, horror-struck.

“Of course not! The HIA would have found out about that for sure. I told her I couldn’t, but that I’d be happy to talk privately with her and a few of her friends if she was interested.”

Tiffani looked around and, even though the kids clearly weren’t within hearing distance, lowered her voice. “Does she know what you are? I mean, if she wrote a paper about you, she must know you’re . . . postmortal.”

“She does. And she’s pretty excited by it. In fact, I guess that’s a big part of my appeal. She’s dying to learn more about postmortal existence and particularly HSE. She’s even set us up as a sort-of hacker club. She and her friends have started calling themselves the Devil May Care Delinquents, or DMCDs for short.”

Tiffani shook her head. “And you’re going along with all this? This is such a bad idea.”

“Look, she already knew way too much. The DMCDs broke into a Soul Vending Machine months ago, pulled out an Iron iSOUL, and tried to figure out how it works. They didn’t succeed, but it won’t be long before they do. And I want to be there when it happens. If you like, you can pretend that I’m watching out for Hell’s interests.”

Tiffani scoffed. “You? Looking out for anyone else’s interests?”

Arthur looked slightly hurt. “Hey, I’m looking out for yours, aren’t I?”

Tiffani nodded. “I guess we have to look out for each other now. Thanks for telling me something I can’t unknow,” she grumbled, then stood. “All right, let’s get this over with. Time to meet your team.”

Arthur went to the door, passed through it, and made his way back to the middle of the room. Tiffani hesitated before following, with Fred hovering behind her. She could still walk out. Tell Lewes everything. Stay out of this whole mess. But then she thought about Joe, the favors, and the fact that Arthur now knew the whole story. Mutually assured destruction. She sighed and walked into the room.

“Maggie, Jonah, Emily, come over here,” Arthur called.

The three walked over to where Arthur and Tiffani stood. They looked like they could collectively be about thirty-five.

“Yes, boss?” asked the five-foot-nothing girl with fiery-red hair and a cute sneer. She’d have to work on that. Make it more sinister.

Arthur nodded toward Tiffani. “Tiffani, meet Maggie. And that’s Emily,” he said, pointing to the girl with long, dark hair who would have been beautiful if she got it out of her face, “and Jonah.” He pointed to the tall, gawky guy with tousled dark-brown hair and a severe case of acne who was unable to meet Tiffani’s eyes.

“This lady needs your help. You’re to do whatever she asks for, got it?” Arthur said.

All three nodded. “Where do we start?” asked Maggie.

Tiffani explained the situation: She needed to get a DUI expunged from someone’s record.

“And I need it done fast. Like today, if possible.”

Jonah laughed and Emily snorted.

“What?”

Maggie shook her head at them, frowning. “Remember, she can disembowel you as easily as you can hack a school’s records database—”

“Actually, there’s paperwork involved in disembowelments,” Tiffani said. “It’s kind of a pain.” The revelation apparently didn’t help. Emily and Jonah jumped back, crashing into the table. Maggie, to her credit, stood her ground. She’d make a great fiend one day.

“Emily and Jonah are being rude because that’s a really easy request,” Arthur said. He looked over at Maggie, and Tiffani noticed him gesturing at something at the other end of the room, eyebrows raised.

Maggie shook her head. “Won’t work.”

“What won’t work?” Tiffani asked.

“Does she know . . . ?” Maggie directed the almost question to Arthur.

“Not now. Bigger fish. Let’s get this done.”

“Do I know what? What fish? Let’s do what? What’s going on?” Tiffani hated being out of the loop.

Arthur shook his head. “I’ll tell you later, but now’s not the time. Maggie, the floor is yours.”

“Great!” Maggie grabbed a phone at random from a pile of what looked like burner phones sitting in a cubby in a bookcase on the wall, then turned to Jonah. “What’s the number for the Fourth Precinct?” she asked.

“503-555-5246,” Jonah muttered.

“Who should I ask for?”

“Officer Letson.”

“And who am I?”

“Captain Irene Elderhouse. Badge MPR7983.”

Tiffani started. “What the—”

Arthur shushed her. “Watch.” He turned to Maggie. “Put it on speaker.”

A surly voice came on the line after several rings.

“Fourth Precinct, Multnomah police. Officer Hanley.”

“Officer Letson, please.”

There was a pause, then the surly voice came on again. “Officer Letson isn’t on duty today.”

Maggie took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her voice held an authority that intimidated even Tiffani.

“This is Captain Elderhouse from the Multnomah County Central Hub, and you better find Officer Goddamn Letson. We have a major cybersecurity situation here, and I’d hate for you—it’s Officer Hanley, isn’t it?—to get in the middle of it.”

Tiffani looked round-eyed at Arthur, who held a finger to his lips.

The sound of papers furiously ruffling came through the line. “I have Letson’s home number here. Shall I connect with you?”

“No, you won’t connect me! You will check my badge number to see if I am who I say I am! It’s badge MPR7983.”

Maggie, Jonah, and Arthur looked nervous for a moment. Apparently with whatever was going on, this was a turning point. Everyone relaxed when Officer Hanley came back on.

“Yes, Captain Elderhouse. I’ve confirmed your badge. Shall I connect you?”

“Yes, you better Goddamn connect me,” Maggie barked in a tone that rivaled Fred, who looked up from where he sat in the corner, chewing on his asbestos dragon, and thumped his tail.

A few clicks later and a voice came on the line. “Hello?”

Maggie nodded at Emily, who sat at the keyboard and cracked her knuckles.

“Officer Letson,” snapped Maggie.

“Who’s asking?”

Maggie’s voice of doom again. “Captain Goddamn Elderhouse from the Goddamn Central Hub. You have ten seconds to change your attitude.”

Tiffani could practically hear the salute on the other side.

“How can I help you, Captain?”

“I’ll tell you how you can help me. Someone in the Goddamn precinct didn’t change the passcode at the last update. Now we’ve got the Russians or the Chinese or some damn kids in the western United States trying to get into our server. I need you to get on your computer and fix it. Now.”

“But I really did—”

“Are you questioning me?” Maggie bellowed.

“No, Captain.” A few seconds later, during which Tiffani imagined the poor man sprinting from his bed, Officer Letson came back on the line.

“Are you at your computer?” Maggie asked.

“Yes.”

Emily hit a few keys on her keyboard, then stared at the screen, her eyes darting back and forth. Maggie made a hurry-up motion with her hand. Emily gestured to the screen with an annoyed expression and made a stretch-it-out gesture.

“Captain?” came Letson’s voice over the phone.

“Yes. I’m here. So, here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re going to tell me the current passcode,” Maggie said.

There was a pause. “With all due respect, Captain, I can’t do that.”

Maggie looked at Emily, who continued to make the stretching motion.

“Are you sure? We’re talking about a major security issue here.”

“I can’t, ma’am. I’ll need to call Sergeant Anderson. I can get him on the line right—”

Emily gave the thumbs-up.

Maggie grinned. “Good for you, son,” she said in a more conciliatory voice. “Of course you shouldn’t give me that passcode. Excellent adherence to protocol. You’ll need to change it.”

“What should I change it to?” asked Letson.

“And now you’re screwing up again. Is this your first time in security?!” screeched Maggie. “Don’t ask me for a passcode. I could be anyone!”

Jonah covered his mouth to muffle a snigger.

“No, of course not, ma’am.” The furious slap of fingers on a keyboard came over the phone. The gesture seemed to be a sign for Emily, who started typing.

After a few moments, Maggie snarled, “Are you done?”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the frightened voice over the phone.

“Good. Don’t let it happen again.” Maggie ended the call with a flourish, then high-fived Arthur, Emily, and Jonah. She tried to high-five Tiffani, who kept her arms crossed.

“What. The. Hell?”

“You’ve never seen a brilliantly executed social-engineering scheme before?” Maggie asked.

“A what now?”

Maggie cocked her head at Arthur. “Is she for real?”

Arthur laughed. “Consider her a techno-muggle. She has no idea what social engineering is.” He turned back to Tiffani.

“Hacking isn’t just people sitting at a computer, like you see in the movies. About ninety percent of it involves some sort of social engineering, where the hacker manipulates real live people into taking an action or divulging confidential information. What these brilliant kids have done”—he waved with pride at the team—“is get an admin for the Multnomah police to change a passcode on a computer Emily had access to. She was able to capture the keystrokes, and here we are!”

“But how did you know who to call? Jonah, you had those numbers down pat.”

“This is what we train for,” said Emily. “And Jonah has an eidetic memory.”

“Wow,” said Tiffani. “Just, wow.”

Jonah shuffled his feet and shrugged. “A lot of things could have gone wrong,” he said. “It was lucky Letson’s cell was on his home wireless network, not cellular. Emily could get the IP address that way. And it’s lucky his own antivirus program didn’t catch Emily’s keylogger.”

“And it’s lucky Maggie has such great acting skills!” Maggie said. She shrugged. “Sometimes you have to go for it.”

“What’s next?” Tiffani asked.

“Easy,” said Arthur. “With the passcode, Emily can get you into the Portland PD servers in thirty seconds.”

Emily harrumphed. “Twenty.”

“Fine, whatever. Let’s do it,” Tiffani said.

Emily cracked her knuckles again and leaned over the keyboard. Her hair formed a curtain around her. Jonah set a timer on his phone for twenty seconds.

“Now that we have the passcode, it’s easy to install a RAT and get into the system,” Maggie said.

Tiffani nodded, trying to look wise. “How are you going to get a rodent into the Portland PD headquarters in twenty seconds? It’s way across town.”

Emily took a moment to glance up from her keyboard and roll her eyes, all evidence of being afraid of a fiend gone. They were in Emily’s element now, and she knew it.

Maggie patted Tiffani’s arm condescendingly. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. A RAT is a Remote Access Trojan. It’s malware that will get us over any barriers and give us access to the whole database.”

Tiffani looked down at where Maggie was touching her arm, then at Maggie, who apparently received the “if you want to keep your hand, take it off my arm” message. If these kids did eventually go to Hell, their souls would be pretty hard to rent, unless someone wanted an annoying, self-aggrandizing nerd who would probably spend an entire date talking about cybersecurity.

To Tiffani’s delight, Emily had the database up a half second before the timer went off. She stood, and Jonah sat in her place.

“Now that we’re in,” Maggie said, “it’s Jonah’s responsibility to analyze the system architecture and see where and how they might store arrest data.”

Jonah huddled over the keyboard. He typed at a furious pace for about a minute. Emily and Maggie leaned over his shoulder, both biting their lips. The light of the computer washed over all of them, making them appear almost ghostlike.

“And that’s why they call them ghost hackers,” Tiffani muttered.

“No, we’re ghost hackers because we jump in and out of a system without leaving any sign that we’ve been there,” Maggie said, not looking away from the screen. She sighed and looked wistful. “I can’t wait to become a politically motivated hacker.”

Jonah stopped typing, stood, and waved Maggie into the seat. It was like the three of them had a secret crypto language. If they stuck together, Tiffani knew they could make a lot of money. Three people with their skills working as one? This was the start of an empire right here.

“What’s the case file we’re looking for?” Maggie asked.

“It’s for Joe Felix,” Tiffani said.

Maggie scrolled for a moment. “Got it. What do we need to do?”

“Can you just erase everything?”

Maggie shook her head. “I recommend against that,” she said, with the professionalism of a financial advisor talking to their client. “There will be awkward questions if it completely disappears. How about we make a few changes that will make it look like the arresting officer made a big mistake.” Her mouth twitched as if holding in a laugh. “It will have the added benefit of making life a little miserable for”—she squinted at the name on the file—“Officer Hanson.”

Arthur whooped. “That’s my girl! Exactly the kind of strategic thinking we need for this group.” He turned to Tiffani. “You’ve just seen them work in perfect tandem. Emily executes, Jonah analyzes the infrastructure, and Maggie makes strategic decisions about how to achieve goals. It’s a great team.” He beamed like a proud father.

Tiffani hesitated and contemplated asking for another way to do it. She didn’t know this Officer Hanson. She probably wouldn’t deserve this.

You are a fiend. Not a girl scout.

“Awesome!” she said. “Let’s make life miserable for everyone.”

Chapter 10

Tiffani and Fred arrived at the store the next morning to find Arthur sitting on the curb outside, smoking a joint and wearing the same grunge-band T-shirt and ripped jeans he’d worn the night before. Since fiends didn’t usually waste their time on pot because they couldn’t get high, and since Arthur usually swapped out his outfits twice a day from his seemingly inexhaustible wardrobe of I-don’t-care-how-I-look clothes, Tiffani knew something must be up.

“Hey, what’s—”

Arthur jumped up and grabbed her arm.

“Not here. Come with me. Now,” he snapped. He spun and began striding down the sidewalk, pulling her stumbling behind him. Fred followed, growling, his eyes in slits. Tiffani shushed him before he jumped on Arthur and tore all the skin off his ankles.

“Hey, where do you get off—” she started.

Arthur didn’t pause in his march down the street. “This is serious. Get going.”

She broke off a heel as she tripped over a root poking out from the concrete sidewalk. Portland’s strictures favoring the wellbeing of trees over people left many pathways and roadways hazardous. Righting herself, she wrenched her arm out of Arthur’s and stopped.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s up,” she hissed. Fred stuck by Tiffani’s side, glowering at Arthur and maintaining his vigilant posture.

“Not here. Look natural,” he hissed back.

“Look natural? I’m wearing a stiletto and what is now a slipper and being dragged down the street by a pot-smoking fiend who won’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Yeah. Blend in. Why do you think I’m smoking pot?”

“Hold on a sec.” From her purse, she pulled out the roll of fiberglass duct tape she used to wrapped around Fred’s new toys to stall the inevitable burst into flames and Fred’s subsequent dejection. She ripped off a piece and reattached her heel. Unless they were walking to Vancouver, it would hold.

“Can I at least get some coffee on the way?” she whimpered.

“No.”

Arthur keeping her from getting coffee? This was serious.

They marched west down Hawthorne to Chavez, where Arthur turned south toward the data center. Once there, he jammed his keys into the lock, shoved open the door, and waved for her to enter, all while glancing up and down the street as if he expected the HIA to pop up any minute. Tiffani didn’t even have time to do more than glance at the new “DMCDs Rule” graffiti on the side wall, crafted in tasteless tones of neon green, orange, and purple.

He pulled her toward the back of the center, arriving at a bank of what Tiffani counted to be about a dozen computers.

“What—”

“Remember yesterday, when Maggie asked if you ‘knew,’ and I said, ‘Not now, bigger fish’? And you freaked out, and then I said I’d tell you later what that was all about?” he asked.

Tiffani nodded.

“It’s later.”

He toggled the on-off button on one of the computers and waited for a moment. A monitor on a different device came to life, booting up to a login screen with a picture of a cat hanging off a branch and the words Hang in there!—a viral “inspirational” quote straight from the Deceit management team. Arthur typed in a series of numbers and hit enter. The monitor’s screen went dark as a plinth rose from a hidden recess at the far end of the wall. He scurried over and slammed his fist on the button.

The wall swung away to reveal three gray, unremarkable doors with a numeric keypad and what looked like an iris scanner.

“I seriously can’t with this right now,” Tiffani said.

“Pick up Fred,” Arthur said.

“Why?”

He scowled at her.

“Fine, fine.” She complied. Fred, who loved to be carried around, licked her face and whined.

Arthur went to the door on the left, hit three buttons on the numeric keypad, and then looked into the iris scanner. The door clicked open. He turned to Tiffani.

“I’m going to open this and go through. You’re going to wait twenty seconds, type 6-6-6 into that keypad, look into the iris scanner, and follow me.”

“6-6-6? Isn’t that a little on the nose?”

“Which is why the HIA probably won’t think of it. Too simple.”

“What does Fred do?”

“Fred stays in your arms unless you want to destroy the building. And maybe the city. Possibly the planet. I don’t think you want that, do you?”

“You’re annoying me enough that I might,” Tiffani muttered.

Arthur ignored her and grabbed the door handle. “What did I tell you to do?”

“Twenty seconds, 6-6-6, iris scanner. Got it. You’re really starting to freak me out here.”

“Good. You should be,” he said, walking over the threshold.

Tiffani spent the next twenty seconds whispering calming words to Fred, who whimpered and shook. When the time was up, she did as Arthur said: 6-6-6 and the iris scan. The door clicked. She opened it and stepped into a room that any villain seeking to conquer the world would die for.

The DMCDs were stationed around a conference table upon which sat three computers, several monitors, a mass of wires, a small device that looked like a remote, and a projector. A smaller table next to the door held a coffeepot, several mugs, a bean grinder, and an array of syrups that would make any barista drool. The room smelled of coffee, sugar, and, with Fred’s entrance, smoke. He tended to belch fire when nervous, as he was now. The space made the smuggling dens Tiffani had used in her speakeasy days look like hovels.

Maggie glowed, practically bouncing up and down in her chair, presumably with the excitement of being part of a demonic secret. Jonah lurked at the far end of the table. If he were a jerk, he could give Lewes a run for his money in the skulking department. Emily’s sheet of dark hair obscured her expression, which, given Tiffani’s limited experience with her, would probably be bored. They, too, wore the same things they’d worn the night before.

Maggie pointed at a box of donuts on the table. Portland’s favorite breakfast food. “Want one? Do fiends eat?”

“We do eat, but I’ll pass.” Donuts were too close to Danish, which were too close to Lewes and his threats. The situation was already stressful enough; she didn’t need to be thinking about the guy who happily put the love of his life in federal prison for a crime she didn’t commit.

“Did you guys have an all-night rave and not invite me?” Tiffani asked.

With a huff, Arthur slammed the door Tiffani had just come through. “It’s not always about you, you know. Although in this case, it is.”

“Can I put Fred down?” she asked Arthur curtly.

He nodded. “Yes, only one person is allowed through at a time. I wasn’t sure how that would impact Fred.”

Maggie jumped up. “Hi! Welcome to our secret lair and all our cool stuff!” she said, waving around as if proudly showing off her Barbie collection.

Tiffani glanced around, dazed. “What the—”

“No time to explain. We’ve got a DEFCON 5 situation here,” Arthur said. “Is the room fully secure?”

Maggie shook her finger at him. “DEFCON doesn’t work that way. DEFCON 1 is the worst. And yes. It’s secure. You know the SCIF that Congresspeople use to review sensitive materials? Like when we’re at war or impeaching someone?”

“Isn’t a skiff a kind of boat?” Tiffani asked.

“Bless your heart,” Maggie said, with a superior smile. “Yes. But it also stands for sensitive compartmented information facility. It’s a hypersecure government facility designed to store, process, and discuss sensitive information.”

Arthur’s shoulders relaxed, and he went to grab a cup of coffee. He deigned to get one for Tiffani as well and directed her to a seat at one of the fiercely ergonomically correct chairs at the conference table. The SCIF thing seemed to put him at ease.

“Good. Great. It’s secure. Fabulous. Now tell me what’s happening!” Tiffani shrieked. Fred curled up at her feet, his way of attempting to comfort.

Maggie looked devastated. “But I wanted to tell you . . .”

Tiffani could see Maggie wanted to brag about their security measures, and to be honest, she wanted to know a little more. Understanding this level of technology would serve her well when she got to the C-Suite and tried to modernize HSE’s production process. “OK, tell me all about it while I try to get enough coffee in me to fortify myself,” Tiffani said.

Maggie perked up. “SCIFs are limited to people with really high security clearances, and the computers operating in the facility have to meet TEMPEST emanations specifications.”

Tiffani turned to Arthur. “When did we get in the middle of a Shakespeare play? Is it a comedy? A tragedy?”

“It’s a fucking disaster. Now shut the fuck up,” Arthur snapped.

Jonah spoke up from his spot at the end of the table. “It means we’re blocking sounds and electronic emanations,” he muttered. “TEMPEST was designed by the National Security Agency.”

“And our system goes way beyond it!” Maggie exclaimed. “There’s no way anyone is going to be able to hear or see us.”

Arthur nodded. “Tech geek time over. Let’s talk.” He started pacing in front of the screen at one end of the room, back and forth through the projector light. Bright light. Shadow. Bright light. Shadow. It added an even more sinister feeling to the situation. “We have a problem—”

“So I surmised,” Tiffani said, with palpable sarcasm.

He ignored her commentary. “As you know, the team here has expressed a great deal of interest in knowing more about iSOULs, so they . . . uh . . . hacked into Hell’s database last night.”

Tiffani sputtered, spilling coffee onto the table. “They hacked into—”

“Yes. I would like to stress that it was all their own idea,” Arthur said, looking severely at Maggie, who smirked.

“Do I want to know how they did it?” Tiffani asked.

Arthur ran a hand through his hair and tugged at his beard. “Social engineering, of course. They somehow got onto the tech teams’ Discord channel and got in touch with a tech-track fiend—”

Maggie barked out a laugh. “Maybe don’t leave your computer unattended, boss,” she said to Arthur.

Tiffani glared at him. Arthur was the most suspicious person she knew. He changed his passcodes every five minutes and had multifactor authentication on everything. He’d obviously let them get into the Discord channel. He was eager to see what they could do.

“Who did they talk to?” Tiffani asked.

He grimaced. “A guy named Leonard from the Avarice campus. They pulled a play similar to what they did with the police department.”

“Ooh, poor Leonard.” Tiffani envisioned the torture he’d endure if anyone found out.

“Don’t worry about him. We’re in much bigger trouble.”

Tiffani huffed and Fred barked, mirroring her frustration. “All this cloak and dagger isn’t a good look on you, and I’m not above torturing a fiend for information. Spit it out.”

“Well, they naturally wanted to look at your soulcode because they liked you so much.”

Tiffani snorted.

“No, really. They did. The girls especially liked to see a lady fiend in charge.” He nodded at Maggie and Emily. Tiffani felt a small surge of pride at being a good role model.

“And?” she asked.

“You know how your iSOUL is Diamond tier?” he said.

“Yes.”

“And you know how soulcode isn’t supposed to change?”

“Yes,” she answered, confused.

“And you know about those Rabble Rouser conspiracy nutjobs out there who believe soulcode can change after death?”

“Yes,” Tiffani whispered. Unidentifiable dread creeped over her, as if Lewes and the hulking Org were somewhere nearby. She half expected a text with the unsettling two-eyes emoji.

Arthur sighed. “Do you really not see where I’m going with this?”

“I honestly don’t . . .” She trailed off and gazed at him in horror. “You don’t mean . . .” She crossed her arms, hugging herself to try to stop her uncontrollable shaking. This couldn’t be possible. She was a Diamond. That was her value to the company. Any changes would . . . actually, she didn’t know what would happen. This was uncharted territory.

Arthur nodded his head vigorously. “Yes. Last night, you were showing up as Gold.”

Tiffani closed her gaping mouth and bit her lip. “How is that possible?” She shook her head. “No, your guys must have made a mistake. You’ve got the wrong fiend.”

Maggie looked affronted. “How many AV10 sales-track Tiffani—with an i, I might add—Lutatios do you think are down there?”

Arthur pulled an outdated tablet out of his pocket and pointed to it. “Once we saw what happened to you, I asked the DMCDs to dig further.”

Tiffani was momentarily distracted by the tablet. “What’s that?” she asked.

“Burner tablet on a closed circuit. Another layer of protection. No one can see this information,” Jonah muttered. He’d stepped out of the shadows to look over Arthur’s shoulder.

“Wow. You guys are good at cybersecurity, aren’t you?” Then a thought occurred to her. “Wait. If you had all this, why didn’t we use it while doing the favor the first time? I mean . . . seriously?” These people were supposed to be smart. She whirled on Arthur. “Is that what you and Maggie were being all secretive about yesterday?”

Maggie nodded. “But we couldn’t use it. The only way to keep this place secure for our conversations is to keep everything on a closed loop. Phone calls are harder to encrypt than computer communications.”

“Lesson in cybersecurity over. Moving on. Take a look at this list.” Arthur shoved the tablet into Tiffani’s hands.

Abarams, Aaron: Bronze to Copper

Abaratski, Charles: Diamond to Gold

Abasat, Yolanda: Silver to Iron

Tiffani scrolled down the screen, taking in the thousands of names on the list and the notes about the changes in their tiers. From Aaron Abarams to Zyla Zyx.

“Zyla? Who names their kid that?” Maggie asked, snooping over Tiffani’s shoulder. Tiffani ignored her.

“Shit. Does this happen every day?” she asked.

“YES!” Arthur shouted. “There are thousands of fiends every day whose souls are becoming devalued.”

“Why . . . why . . . why—” She could barely breathe. “Why did this happen to me?”

“I have a theory,” Arthur said.

“Do tell.”

“As mortals, we ‘write’ our soulcode over our lifetimes based on the decisions we make, right?”

“Like the time you ditched your business partners, embezzled all their money, and moved to an island with no extradition treaty?” Tiffani reminded him.

“Or like the time you had your sister’s husband beat into a coma with a bag of oranges?” he responded, raising an eyebrow.

“Fair,” Tiffani said.

“When we got to Hell, we were told our soulcode wouldn’t change anymore, no matter what choices we made.”

“Yeah, it’s locked down.”

“What if it’s not?”

Tiffani stared at him. “But it is.”

“What if it’s not, though?”

“But it is,” she repeated.

Arthur frowned. “We can keep doing this all day, if you’d like.”

She moved to sit, and Arthur swung a chair under her before she hit the floor.

“If the soulcode isn’t locked down, then our choices can cause our tiers to change even now. The Rabble Rousers are right.” She started gasping. Her lungs didn’t seem to be working. Fred ran over to her and sat next to her, whining.

“Put your head between your knees,” Arthur said, taking her hand. “I’ve had to do that three times today.”

She leaned over, put her head in her hands, and tried to draw deep breaths. “It makes no sense,” she said, her words muffled. “We do things for each other all the time. Just the other day, I got you a cup of coffee. And I wasn’t even on my way to the kitchen!”

Arthur made a seesawing motion with his hand. “Erasing a DUI. Grabbing a cup of coffee. I don’t think the two compare. The thing is, I think it happens only when we’re making decisions that help mortals. You can get me all the coffee you want. But do something big for a mortal? Don’t even think about it.”

“And so that’s why they don’t want us to do favors for mortals, or even spend too much time with them . . .” She lifted her head.

Arthur cocked his head at her. “Was that sentence finished?”

“I can’t believe it,” she muttered. “It can’t be that simple.”

“If it helps, you’re making no sense to me,” Arthur said.

“I mean, it explains everything!”

“What explains everything?” Arthur’s tone turned cranky. “Use your words.”

“Don’t you see?” Tiffani asked, dazed at the enormity of her realization.

Arthur sighed. “Are you having an epiphany?” he asked. “I hate it when you have epiphanies.”

Tiffani ignored him. “Don’t you see? The higher-ups came up with this mysterious First Commandment about hanging out with mortals not because they’re worried about the quality of the soulcode. It’s because they don’t want mortals to influence us. They think mortals might, I don’t know, Stockholm us or something.”

Maggie spoke up. “Are we trying to get to Stockholm? I can get going on fake passports.”

Tiffani waved her off. “No, no, no. The Highest-Up of the lower down must think mortals might be a bad influence—or a good influence, from the outside world’s perspective. If we get too close, we might want to help them . . . maybe even do favors for them . . . and our soulcode will change!” She blinked, stunned.

Fred nudged Tiffani’s shin, but even the resulting acid burn didn’t catch her attention. She gazed around the room, feeling like she’d entered an alternate universe and wondering if she could trust it or not.

“Huh,” Arthur said, stroking his beard. “Given your situation with Joe, it seems like they’re right. You did one nice thing, and your tier changed.”

“This is a disaster. The HIA can’t find out we know,” Tiffani insisted.

“Ya think?” Arthur glared at her. “Like I said, I hate it when you have epiphanies. I can’t unknow this random, universe-altering fact you just sprung on me.”

“We have to figure out how this happens,” Tiffani said, her volume rising as she became more frantic. “Exactly why does the tier change?”

Maggie moved closer to the tense conversation, her eyes alight with the excitement of answering a question. “Have you heard of event-driven programming?” she asked.

“Is that when magic gremlins in the computer do things on their own?”

Maggie put her hand over her eyes and slowly shook her head. “I don’t see how you can function. I really don’t.” She removed her hand and reached to pat Tiffani’s shoulder. Fred growled, and Maggie pulled her hand away. “Anyway,” she said, taking a step back, “coders sometimes create programs where specific actions will trigger changes to the code. We think that’s what’s happening here.”

Tiffani shook her head. “That makes zero sense. The higher-ups of the lower down would never let that happen.”

Maggie shrugged. “It could be a bug? Sabotage? User error by the techfiends? Whatever it is, no one’s fixed it.”

“Why haven’t we noticed?” Tiffani waved at the tablet. “It’s happening all the time.”

“As far as we can tell, it’s because these changes happen automatically. The algorithm just . . . updates. None of this is reflected in the outside-facing numbers. Everyone appears as though they stay the same. And as for those it’s happening to . . .” Arthur gave a curt nod to Maggie, who waved her hand, and a large chart appeared on the wall. She directed a laser pointer over some figures.

“We ran a calculation matching annihilations and unknown disappearances with these changes and found that 99.9-to-the-nth-power percent of souls that changed disappeared,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Disappeared?”

“Yeah. It means gone.”

Tiffani ignored the sarcasm and scrolled through the list again. She abruptly stopped scrolling when she came to one name. Geoffrey Johnson. “But he was recalled,” she whispered. “They’re reevaluating him.”

“Nope. We can’t locate him anywhere,” Maggie said.

Arthur stepped in. “That means either annihilation or the Ice House,” he said, unnecessarily. Tiffani had already grasped the implications. She glanced over at Maggie, Emily, and Jonah.

“Ixnay on the Ice Housenay,” she said. “They don’t need to know about that.”

Arthur guffawed. “That’s what you’re worried about? They’ve hacked into Hell’s database. That particular cat is way out of the bag.”

“Someone higher up knows about all this, right? That the code changes?” she asked, both knowing and dreading the answer.

“As far as I can tell, it’s only a small group of C-Suiters and the HIA who see this going on behind the scenes,” Arthur said.

“They must get some alarm notification if someone’s level changes,” she wailed, hyperventilating again. She hadn’t known her clone body could do that, but apparently it could.

“They do,” Maggie said.

Tiffani jumped off the chair, and spun around in a 360, ready for the HIA to pounce. No matter how protected the “communication emanations,” or whatever the hell Jonah had called it, were, most buildings, even those with admittedly awesome secret lairs, couldn’t withstand a hundred fiends armed with a battering ram and every weapon known to mankind since the dawn of time. Mankind had invented a lot of weapons. Fred jumped up with her, ready to defend her against any ankle-high threats.

Maggie waved her off. “As soon as he saw it, Jonah turned yours off and sent a false-alarm message. Then he turned you back into a Diamond.”

Tiffani slumped in relief and patted her overworked heart. She walked over to the teenager who had just saved her from a horrible fate and gave him a hug. “Wow. Thanks, Jonah,” Tiffani breathed. “I probably would have disappeared, too. I owe you.”

Jonah shuffled his feet, looking at the ground. His ears were a bright red. “Not a problem.”

Tiffani sat back down and looked at the chart projected against the wall, stunned. “I can’t believe no one’s discovered this.”

“Oh, they probably have. They just weren’t around to tell anyone,” Maggie said cheerfully, pointing to the chart showing that 99-to-the-9th-or-whatever-power percent of fiends who disappeared. And that would be Tiffani’s—and Arthur’s—fate if anyone found out they knew. No one could learn their secret. Not management, not other fiends, not . . .

“Shit. Can you imagine what will happen if the Rabble Rousers get this information?” she asked Arthur. “If they get evidence the code really can change? They’ll tell everyone. Chaos will reign. Tiers will change. Fiends might be sent to Heaven—”

“Cats and dogs will be living together!” Maggie cried out, laughing.

Tiffani gave her a look. “I’m going to be generous and give you a do-over.”

“Sorry,” Maggie mumbled.

Tiffani turned back to Arthur. “Eventually, the RRs will figure out a way to exploit it and rewrite everyone’s code. I don’t know about you, but I’m not eager to be demoted to Iron, live in shared housing, and go back to factory work.”

His expression showed that he’d already thought of this, and he had no intention of giving up his artisanal coffees and enormous wardrobe. He squatted in front of her. “It wouldn’t be good, which is why we have to keep the secret.”

“What am I going to do? I still have two more favors to do, and I signed an ironclad agreement. If I don’t do them, I’m totally screwed!” she cried, barely able to breathe. “I mean, it’s great that you were able to fix my code this time before anyone found out, but if I do any more favors and we don’t catch it, I’ll wind up just like all those other fiends who disappeared!” And now she knew what a panic attack felt like. Great.

Arthur tightened his lips in a grim smile. “I have an idea to fix that.”

Maggie chimed in. “Whatever it is, we better do it quickly. Some security track–fiend almost chased Jonah down. He barely got out.”

“Did they know what he was doing in there?” Arthur asked, cutting her a sharp glance. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Maggie shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal. Jonah had already made the change. They didn’t know what part of the architecture he’d accessed.”

“Do we know who it was?” Tiffani asked.

Please, please, please, not Lewes.

Maggie squinted at the screen. “Screen name ‘DelilahDanish15toLife.’ Kinda creepy if you ask me.”

Tiffani groaned. Only one fiend would have that username: Lewes. Things had gone from bad, straight through worse, to absolutely horrific. She could almost smell the brimstone and sulfur awaiting her.

Chapter 11

Arthur’s idea was neither guaranteed, practical, or possibly doable. He’d suggested that she add a codicil to the favors document making Joe responsible for the sins Tiffani committed on his behalf.

“What good will that do? I’m still doing him favors,” Tiffani had asked.

“But are you really? Maybe by purposely adding to his sin tally, you might balance out the algorithm,” Arthur said.

“That makes no sense,” she pointed out, “especially if the higher-ups are worried that fiends interfering with mortals will impact the quality of their soulcode.”

“But haven’t we figured out that’s not really what they’re worried about? Based on what we saw happening to your code, I think they’re more worried about Joe having an impact on you. Look, if you have another idea, I’m all ears. In the meantime, I think you have to try this,” Arthur said.

Despite her skepticism, Tiffani knew Arthur was right. She had to try it. And she had to do it in a way that hid from the higher-ups of the lower down that she had this friggin’ arrangement in the first place. There was only so much paperwork she could have Fred send up in flames. In addition, Tiffani was pretty sure even Joe wouldn’t be stupid enough to sign something like that. She decided to ask the wisest entity around her for advice.

“Freddie, what do you think I should do?” she asked, while they wandered around the dog park right near her store.

Tiffani made a practice of taking Fred out for a good romp three times a day, a lesson she’d learned after the dachshund’s hellfire built up so much he almost burned down her office. The park was the only place where mortals and immortals could walk their pets together, and as long as she made him wear his asbestos sweater and followed him with a jug of water to douse any fires, Fred could have some playtime without setting off a major wildfire. It was right across from a dispensary, and most of the Portlanders wandering around with their normal pets assumed the fire-breathing dog was part of their personal psychedelic show. She’d seen someone walking a pig with a pink ribbon there the other day, something she only noticed from the bacon smell that wafted through the area after Fred tried to play tug-of-war with it.

Fred barked, and a puff of smoke came out of his mouth.

“No, I don’t think smiting him is going to work,” she said.

The hellhound sprinted on his stubby little legs toward a squirrel, which avoided becoming hellhound chow by scrabbling up the tree to an acorn. Fred stood at the bottom, yowling, until Tiffani shooed him off.

“You’re right. I need to figure out what he really wants and get him to sign something related to that. But what?”

Fred ran over to another dog and sniffed its butt. The dog yelped and scrambled to its owner, who shook his fist at Tiffani. She called Fred back and glared. The other owner picked up his dog, a two-hundred-pound Mastiff, and ran. She watched Fred unwittingly scare off the remaining dogs in the park, and he came back to her with his tail between his legs and ears drooping, a sure sign of dejection. He hated when other dogs scrambled to get away from him. He just wanted to love them.

“That’s right! The reunion girl! Joe’d sign anything to get her,” Tiffani exclaimed. She tapped her lips. She’d need to get around that little problem of not being able to force the girl to actually fall in love with Joe.

Fred gave a muffled bark of joy when he saw the one dog, a goofy Labrador retriever, who was too dumb to be scared of him. He ran over and began gallivanting, to the dismay of the owner. Tiffani snapped her fingers.

“Got it!”

She called Fred to her. He came unwillingly, glancing frequently back at his friend.

“We’ll come back later, I promise,” she said, as she put on his leash. She started making her way toward the exit, then stopped in horror.

At the gate stood the same burly Rabble Rouser she’d seen outside her store two days ago, wearing the same Nixon mask, U of O sweatshirt, ripped jeans, and flip-flops, and carrying the same sign: “As in Life, so in Death.” The Rabble Rouser’s eyes twinkled through the Nixon mask.

“Tiffani,” they said in a disguised voice.

Tiffani, who had been planning to brush by and mind her own business, stopped. It had been one thing for the secret ROSE leader, Siobhan, to know her name. How did this Rabble Rouser know it?

Fred, always ready to fight his mistress’s foes or exuberantly welcome her friends, stalked toward the fiend, growling. Watching a dachshund stalk must have amused the Rabble Rouser. They chuckled. As if confused that his stalking wasn’t inspiring more fear, Fred sat. The fact that he wasn’t rushing as close to the fiend’s throat as he could get made Tiffani feel even more nervous for some reason.

“How do you know my name?” she asked, her voice shaking.

The Rabble Rouser shrugged. “It’s my job to know things.” They pointed a finger ominously at Tiffani, much like the Ghost of Christmas Future, except that it was thick with knuckles that looked well-suited to punching someone’s jaw. She took a step back. “And I know about you,” they said.

Tiffani’s heart hammered, and she gulped. “Know what?”

The Rabble Rouser chuckled, turned, and began to shuffle away, resting their sign on their shoulder.

“Know what?” Tiffani called out, desperate to know.

The fiend continued to chuckle and kept walking without looking back.

Later that day, Tiffani sat in a booth at Purgatory, waiting to sell Joe on Arthur’s codicil idea. After her experience at the dog park with the Rabble Rouser, she was well into Ken’s bottle of Scotch by the time Joe arrived. Although she was usually glad her cloned body metabolized alcohol quickly, today she’d hoped to slow everything down so she could get rip-roaring drunk. Like the good old days when she and her coworkers would sample the moonshine she purchased for the speakeasy. These days, she managed a pleasant buzz for only about ten minutes.

When Joe slid into the booth across from her, she was momentarily distracted by the fact that he wore a plaid flannel shirt, which was not unusual for Portland but definitely unusual for Joe, whom she’d never seen in anything with the slightest pattern or color. It put the terrifying Rabble Rouser on the back burner for a moment.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked.

“Actually, you just—”

“If you say ‘You just did,’ I will smite you,” she snapped.

“Smite? Is that a thing in Hell?” he asked.

“Technically, to smite simply means to strike with a firm blow. That’s really more our deal than anyone else’s.”

“Ah, OK.” He looked thoughtful. “Thank you, Merriam-Webster.”

Surprised, Tiffani laughed. “A little snarky there, for a guy talking to a fiend.”

“You don’t seem all that fiendlike sometimes. So, what did you want to ask me?”

“Why do you live in Portland? It’s just about the weirdest place on the planet, and you have to be the most normal being, mortal or not, I’ve ever met. I don’t even know what to do with the fact that you’re wearing a shirt that isn’t monotone.”

“Look at it this way—how will people know what weird is if they don’t have a contrast?”

After a moment, Tiffani laughed again. “Did you make another joke?”

He nodded. “Intentionally, too!”

Tiffani kept grinning, while feeling a twinge of regret that the only way out of this mess was to talk her way through a minefield of half truths to trick Joe into signing this document. For a mortal, he was . . . refreshing. Surprising, even. If their paths had crossed when she was mortal, she might even have considered him a friend.

She smiled sweetly at him and batted her eyelashes. “Well, I think the shirt looks great!”

He cleared his throat. “That look makes me nervous,” he said.

“What? This look?” She positively glowed at him as she shoved a piece of paper in his direction.

He frowned. “What’s this?”

“It’s something I think you’ll really want,” she said.

“Which you’re giving me out of the goodness of your heart?”

“No. There’s a teensy-weensy thing I need in return.”

Suspicion radiated off him. She picked up the paper and flourished it.

“What if I could promise you that I can get that girl from the reunion . . . I want to say Elizabeth?”

“Again, you want to say Edith.”

“Sure, Edith. What if I could get her to utter those three little words you’re so eager to hear? Would that count as one of your favors?”

Joe grabbed the paper. “Get her to love me? I thought you said that wasn’t possible.”

“I found a loophole.”

Her scheme was brilliant, if she said so herself. She’d just have to get Edith to say “I love you.” Not necessarily directly to Joe. Not necessarily about romantic love. Just say “I love you.”

“Plus, I’m a fiend,” she continued. “You can’t trust anything I say. Unless I sign on the dotted line.”

“Great! Why do I need to sign anything? I’ll have it as one of my favors.”

Now was the time for Tiffani to bluff. “I’m not a genie, you know. I don’t have to do whatever you want. I could refuse to do this.” She took the paper from him and made to offer it to Fred. “I’m only trying to help. But if you don’t want it, we can do something else. Do you have a coworker you’re mad at, maybe? A neighbor?” She shrugged, holding her breath. He had to believe she really didn’t need this.

“No, wait,” he said. “Don’t let your dog incinerate it before I decide. What else does this dotted line say?” He grabbed the paper and squinted at it.

“You can read,” she said.

“It’s in point-zero-three font.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Thirty seconds ago, you said I couldn’t!”

“Fine.” She handed him a magnifying glass.

All sins committed to achieve the goals in this contract will be applied to Joe Felix’s soul.

“What?” Joe sputtered, spitting white zinfandel, the Devil’s favorite drink, out of his mouth, then stirring the remaining wine with a cocktail straw. He had impressed Tiffani with his order of something with actual alcohol. Sure, he’d been drinking at the high school reunion, but that was exclusively the porn star’s proclivity. He, as plain old Joe Felix, had moved from water to sparkling water to wine in the course of a few days. She didn’t want to point out that stirring it with a cocktail straw was weird, even for a mortal.

As she looked him over, assessing his alcohol choices, she noticed that besides the plaid shirt, he wore jeans and motorcycle boots, and had attempted to coax his hair into a bedhead style. With product. Had he rented another iSOUL? She glanced at his wrist. Nope.

Wow. I might really be a bad influence on him!

“Look,” she said, prepared to address his concerns, while guilt nagged at her. “I know this sounds like a big deal. But you’ll have decades to bring your score back up. Help a few old ladies cross the street. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Adopt a rescue dog. You’ll be fine.” She waved her hand, dismissing his fear of eternal damnation.

“You don’t know that.”

“You don’t drink much. You don’t smoke. You get plenty of rest. You don’t come across as stressed out. Do you have any genetic conditions?”

“Not really.”

She scrutinized him. “And I promise I’ll do the least amount of harm to achieve this goal.” The fact that she meant that surprised her.

Joe gave her a wry look. “Again with the promises?” But he sounded like he was wavering. Tiffani pounced.

“How much do you want this, Joe?”

Joe grimaced. “Pretty bad.” Then he cocked his head at her. “Why do you want to do this? Why are you helping me?”

Tiffani shook her head. “Joe, Joe, Joe. I found this loophole, and I’m willing to exploit it because, believe it or not, I’m not a terrible fiend. It’s good for business if I keep the customers happy.”

“Do you promise she’ll stay in love with me? Like she won’t think she is and then stop when this is all over?”

Tiffani paused. She’d expected this question and needed to word her response carefully. “I can’t promise she’ll be in love forever. What if you turn out to be a jerk? All I can promise is that when she says ‘I love you,’ it will be true. But you have to do your part, OK? This will only work if you avoid getting permanently friend-zoned. You’ll have to believe in yourself.” She handed Joe the pen. “Come on, my friend. Have I steered you wrong yet?”

Joe sighed. “I know I’m going to regret this.”

You probably will.

With the ink dry on the contract, she tossed it to Fred, who caught it in his mouth, where it burst into flame.

“OK, so, I suppose that’s the next favor?” she asked, readying herself for Joe’s request that Edith fall in love with him. He surprised her.

“Actually, it’s not about having Edith fall in love with me. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I still want that. But I’ll have to wait. My second request is about helping her stay out of jail.”

Tiffani was taken aback. “Cool. So, she’s a bad girl?”

“Not exactly.” He plunged into the story. “Edith had too many glasses of spiked punch at the high school reunion and told me about a big mistake she’d made with the balance sheets at a small company called Nexora, which was looking to sell out for a ridiculous amount of money to a much larger, well-known company. She’d been baffled because it was the kind of mistake she would never have made. It made Nexora appear much less valuable than it really was, and as a result, the deal fell through. The larger company bought a different company, and Edith was to blame. Now she’s in danger of going to jail!” Joe moaned.

“What reason do they have to arrest her?” Tiffani asked.

“Her boyfriend, Vincent”—he sneered the name in a most un-Joe-like way—“works at the company that the larger company wound up buying. Nexora is suing and is saying Edith and Vincent were colluding.”

“Is he in trouble, too?”

“He might be, although I suspect he’s willing to throw her under the bus. That’s the kind of loving boyfriend he is.”

Tiffani laughed. “That doesn’t look great for her. Are you sure she didn’t do it?”

Then, mild-mannered, nervous Joe glared at her. It was the first time a mortal had ever done that.

“No shit it doesn’t look good for her, and yes, I’m sure she didn’t do it,” he hissed. Tiffani drew back in surprise.

“Are you feeling OK?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“You’ve never snapped at me like that.”

Joe shrugged.

“A shrug is not an answer. Remember, I can smite you with one snap of my fingers.” In truth, the First Commandment strictly prohibited doing so, but Joe didn’t know that. Fred, sensing her tone, growled, and Joe peered down at him nervously. At least he had the sense to be scared of the dog.

“Well . . . uh . . . I don’t know how to put this in a way that’s not insulting to a fiend”—he nodded to Fred—“or her dog, but you don’t seem as scary as when I first met you. You have mortal friends. You’re nice to your dog, which by the way is a dachshund—not exactly terrifying. It’s all so . . . normal.”

Tiffani reached across the table, grabbed his shirt, and pulled him halfway across the space toward her. “Take that back.”

Joe put up his hands in surrender. “OK, OK. You’re terrifying. And really strong.”

“That’s better.” She nodded, letting him go. But a traitorous smile appeared on her face, and Joe chuckled as he scootched back in his seat and straightened his shirt.

“Back to Edith,” she said.

“Back to Edith. I’ve analyzed the data, and I think we can fix it if you could arrange to get the books fixed and have another company buy them,” Joe said.

“Ah, so that’s what a data engineer does,” Tiffani said.

He bowed his head, looking at the table, not meeting her eyes. “Well . . . not exactly. I might have . . . gotten hold of information in a way that wasn’t strictly legal,” he blurted.

Tiffani leaned back. What the—?

“I might not seem as terrifying to you as when we met, but you’re kind of freaking me out,” she said.

He lifted his head and laughed. “I think you’re a bad influence on me.”

Tiffani frowned and glanced around. All she needed was Lewes to overhear this, and she’d be on a one-way trip to the Ice House. The sooner she stopped hanging out with Joe, the better. A fleeting feeling of nostalgia ran through her, like the time she’d had to end her relationship with her teetotal cousin in her speakeasy days. She’d liked the cousin, but her fellow gangsters and gangstresses hadn’t. Staying in touch would have been a bad choice for them both.

Stop being all mortal-y about this, she admonished herself. You’ve got the C-Suite to consider. Focus on that.

She tapped the table as she considered her options for fixing Edith’s problem—quickly.

“What about some corporate espionage? We could plant something in the accounts of the company that was bought and get the IRS to audit them. I mean, a couple people would probably go to jail, but it would be a white-collar facility. Practically a country club. In fact, the other side”—she pointed up at the ceiling—“is in charge of that sort of thing. It’s too boring for us.”

“I don’t know how I feel about sending someone to jail,” Joe equivocated. “That goes on my sin tally, right? Unless it’s Vincent. That might be worth it.”

To be honest, Tiffani wasn’t sure how she felt about putting Joe in that position either. She found him less annoying than most mortals—a high honor.

Joe cleared his throat. “Is there something we can do that’s less dramatic?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. The whole IRS-slash-jail combination seems more like a fiend thing than a mortal thing.”

“Uh, you have us all wrong if you think fiends are less dramatic than mortals.”

“I’ll settle for nefarious.”

Tiffani grinned and stood. “That I can do.” She clapped to get Fred’s attention. He stopped crunching on his charcoal and belched. A plume of smoke came out. To her surprise, Joe didn’t even flinch.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I have some teenage delinquents I need to talk to.”

Chapter 12

Tiffani headed back to work, planning to call Arthur and ask him to send the DMCDs over to help with her new project, when she found the answer to her problems waiting for her.

“I have a pretty sophisticated lock-and-alarm system. You guys are taking this hacking thing to a new level,” Tiffani said to Maggie, Emily, and Jonah, who had clearly picked the lock to her shop and were lounging in the client area. “Arthur will be impressed.”

“Will you tell him we had to get past a Verkada smart lock?” Emily asked, holding up a tool belt with a variety of tools, from the simple lockpicks Tiffani remembered from her gangstress days, to laser pointers, to a device with a screen running lines of numbers. “We’re trying to convince him to let us use the computers at the secret lair to hack into NORAD.”

“The secret lair?”

“That’s what we’re calling Arthur’s data center,” Jonah mumbled. “Has a nice ring to it.”

“Absolutely. Right after you do this one job for me,” Tiffani said, amazed to find herself outright violating Hell’s First Commandment for the second time in as many days.

“Yay!” Maggie enthused. “A project!”

They moved to the back office, where Tiffani told them about Edith’s situation and what she needed to do. The DMCDs’ shoulders slumped simultaneously.

“What?” she asked.

The three grimaced at each other, and Maggie gave Tiffani an aren’t-you-special look. “It’s just really easy,” she said, sitting on the edge of the desk.

“Really?” Tiffani asked. “Should we go back to the secret lair?”

Maggie looked at Emily, who shook her hair and pulled out her own laptop. “Not necessary. Getting into a bank without being traced is child’s play. Where does Nexora have its accounts?” she asked Jonah.

“Silicon Valley Bank,” Jonah responded, without pausing to think about it. Of the three of them, Jonah freaked Tiffani out the most, as she imagined what a truly evil person could do with an easily manipulated and brilliant mind like his.

“If we can get a keystroke logger onto one of the tellers’ computers, we can get into their mainframe,” Emily said.

“We could use the Snuffleupagus protocol,” Maggie said.

“And then we can get around any firewalls with the whosie-whatsit.”

Tiffani watched, bemused, as this many-headed hydra figured out how to commit grand larceny in about three minutes. They weren’t, of course, describing their work with words like Snuffleupagus and whosie-whatsit. That was just what Tiffani heard. Although she’d learned some coding as an AV1 and 2, this was entirely different. And she preferred to hack into banks the old-fashioned way: with threats and guns.

After listening to them talk with increasing enthusiasm and decreasing understanding of her own, Tiffani called a halt to the proceedings.

“Explain it to me like I’m five.”

“OK, so, as you know, the Java coding language is far superior to C-Sharp—”

“I mean a normal five-year-old.”

Maggie shook her head and raised her eyes Heavenward, as if to say “Give me patience.”

“Fine. We go into bank accounts using computer,” she said in a baby voice. “We find out who has a lot of money. We take money and dump into Edith’s company. Do you understand?”

Tiffani glared. Maggie laughed.

My Devil, this child is arrogant.

“We can do it without leaving a trace,” Emily said.

Tiffani pondered the idea. Theft on this scale would definitely be at least a Diamond-level sin, and Tiffani had Joe’s immortal soul to think about here. What if it went wrong? Between the hacking, the wire fraud, and the theft itself, the resulting criminal consequences could mean a long prison sentence if the DMCDs were caught.

“Is there another way to do it that wouldn’t mean twenty-five to life in prison?”

“Some fiend you are,” Emily scoffed.

Tiffani walked over to her, grabbed her by the shirt collar, hoisted her over her head, flipped her over, and held her upside down by the ankles. Emily yelped.

“I didn’t quite catch that,” Tiffani cooed. “Were those words in the right order?”

Emily shook her head, her face turning red, as one’s skin tone was wont to do when hanging upside down.

“Cool,” Maggie said, watching the scene unfold with enthusiasm. Tiffani groaned inwardly. This girl was way too excited about being a fiend and not excited enough about saving her friend from torture.

“What did you mean to say?” she asked Emily.

“I meant to say, ‘You are some fiend’?” Emily asked it like a question.

Tiffani nodded, turned her right-side up, and dropped her on the floor, where she sprawled, rubbing her ankles.

“That’s better. Anyone have a better idea?”

Everyone except Maggie gazed at the floor.

Then Jonah muttered, “We could find another company to buy Nexora. Update the financial records? Make it look like a computer glitch? Maybe get their board involved?” He had Lewes’s habit of making everything sound like a question, but it came from a place of insecurity, not psychosis.

“That sounds like it will take a long time,” Tiffani said, thinking of how much she needed to get these favors over and done with.

“What exactly does Nexora do?” Maggie asked.

“I honestly have no idea,” said Tiffani.

Emily tapped on her keyboard. “According to their latest financial reports, they have proprietary software that connects larger companies to amateur radio operators in times of emergency. They’re like a back-up generator for a company’s telecommunications system.”

“Dang,” whispered Jonah. “That’s big. We should buy it. How much were they asking?”

Emily typed some more. “Looks like they were going to get eleven million dollars for it.”

“That’s it?” he exclaimed.

Maggie examined Jonah with narrowed eyes. Apparently, he rarely exclaimed. “We could try to liberate eleven million dollars ourselves and—”

“No,” Tiffani said. “Let’s find someone else who actually has the money to buy it.”

Maggie pouted. “But—”

Tiffani made to grab for her ankles. Maggie danced out of her way.

“Fine. There has got to be someone out there who’d be willing to sign an MOU in the next few days based on that premise alone.”

“MOU?”

“Memorandum of understanding,” Jonah muttered. “We need to find a company or individual who will sign an MOU agreeing to buy Nexora pending due diligence.”

Tiffani again thanked the Highest-Up of the lower down that this boy genius was on their side, not Heaven’s. He was formidable.

Maggie nodded. “Good. Then we’ll make sure all the financials are in order. If we find the right mark, we can offer it as a pocket purchase. Should take a couple days. Easy peasy.” She waved Tiffani off. “Now leave us alone while we get to work. We need to review Nexora’s financials, check out their corporate 1040s, review their bank statements, et cetera. Lots of hacking to do now. Run along.”

Tiffani quelled the urge to smite Maggie, who, after all, was doing her a huge favor, and took the opportunity to get to work on making sales. With all the drama over tier changes, possible torture, annihilation, and meetings outside the store, Tiffani had made only six sales between yesterday and today, the best of which was a Copper iSOUL to someone who wanted to decimate his soon-to-be ex-wife in divorce proceedings. She had one hundred thirty-three to go, still, and only a few weeks to do it. At this point, she’d need to average five sales a day. Definitely doable, if she could be done with these distractions.

Leaving the DMCDs in the back area, she sat at the reception desk up front, focusing on the signage for a buy-one-get-one (or in this case rent-one-get-one) promotion. Her idea was to upsell customers into more expensive souls with the tantalizing promise of a same- or lower-tier soul for free. She’d picked up the idea from the Nordstrom Rack at the Clackamas Town Center. She noticed that mortals often bought something they didn’t need or even really want merely because they would get another item free.

To apply the same principle to her iSOUL sales, she needed to position everything in the store very carefully. As was always the case, the sales items went in the back so customers would have to walk through the whole store to get to them. Tiffani had done her best to weed out the faulty products, but she could only do so much. All the aisles straight through to those sales items were loaded with compelling and not-too-expensive full-priced iSOULs.

Tiffani also did some careful arranging of the area at the front of the store, where she usually hosted the seasonal iSOULs. For example, on Valentine’s Day, a mortal with no idea of romance could rent a Casanova. With the holidays just around the corner, a mortal who didn’t want to argue with her family might rent the soul of a rich, miserly man who didn’t mind telling people that Christmas was an overcommercialized waste of time. She found that mortals often didn’t know that they needed to rent a soul for the occasion—until they walked by her display.

For this promo, she arranged an array of Copper-tier souls right near the cash register. Customers could choose one of these as their “free” rental, as long as they rented Copper or higher. As she contemplated where to put an urn housing a soul that had stolen a car, caused two accidents, ran into two parked cars and a bus, then fled the scene, she glanced outside and gasped.

She almost dropped the urn. It was the same damn Rabble Rouser in the Nixon mask, carrying their “As in Life, so in Death” sign. They waved, then did that spectral pointing thing.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Tiffani breathed.

Freddie, perhaps sensing something in her voice, trotted over to her, peered through her legs at the enormous fiend, and started wagging his tail.

Tiffani frowned at him. “This is a growling situation, not a tail-wagging situation, you idiot,” she said. She turned and pointed to the back of the store. “Go back to your cushion.”

Freddie slunk back, and Tiffani turned to look back out the door. The Nixon-masked fiend had disappeared.

“That fiend is stalking me,” she murmured, walking back into her office.

Emily was, as usual, surrounded by an eerie gray light as she leaned over the keyboard and tapped away. Maggie sat across from her, playing with her phone, and Jonah sat in a corner, reading a book. It was Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Apparently, he was trying to get the hang of this demonic thing.

“How’s it going, guys?” she asked.

“The IRS site is pitiful,” Emily said.

“I suppose Arthur gave you some pointers?”

Maggie shrugged.

“We’re analyzing the partner’s K-1s for Ama—”

Tiffani held up a hand. “Don’t tell me,” she said.

“Don’t tell you what?” came a rasp behind her. She turned to see Lewes leaning against the doorframe of her office, hands in his pockets.

“You,” she huffed. “Where’s your sidekick?”

“Do you miss Org? Don’t worry. She’s meeting me here.”

Lewes’s eyes flicked toward the front door, and Tiffani caught a fleeting expression of irritation.

“Trouble in paradise?” she asked. At that moment, the bell tinkled, and Org strode in, slightly out of breath.

“Where have you been?” snapped Lewes.

“Sorry, boss, I got lost.”

“You’ve been here dozens of times,” Lewes groused.

Tiffani started. Dozens? “It sounds like you spend a lot of time here,” she said, keeping the tremor out of her voice.

Lewes chuckled. “Org, what do you think of Tiffani’s astute observation? Should we write it down?”

“Sure, boss,” Org said. She made to pull a notebook out of her coat pocket when Lewes grabbed her hand.

“I’m joking,” he said.

Org furrowed her brow for a moment, then her expression cleared. “Oh, I see. We’re trying to make her feel bad.”

“And you’re not succeeding.” Tiffani moved to walk out of the office, finding to her surprise that she wanted to protect the DMCDs from this psychopath. He stood in her way.

“What do you want, Lewes?”

“Nothing at all! This is a friendly check-in. I see you spending a lot of time with that mortal, Joe. And now I see some kids here in your office. Strange company you keep.”

Maggie, ever the forthright one, stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Hi! I’m Maggie, I—”

Org stepped up and swatted Maggie’s hand away. “No one touches Mr. Dolan.”

Tiffani stepped in. “I was having a problem with my internet, and this is who Comcast sent to fix it.” She widened her eyes at Maggie, trying to convey she’d better go along with the ruse.

Lewes cocked his head and nodded at the screen. Tiffani peeked over to see . . . a video game. At least they’d had the sense to change over to something more benign than the Silicon Valley Bank’s internal servers.

“And they’re playing video games?” he asked. “Seems odd that Comcast would send out teenagers to play video games on your computer.”

To Tiffani’s surprise, Jonah spoke up. “We’re testing the bandwidth. And we’re not teenagers. We just look young.” He turned to Tiffani, who tried to look as though she believed the lie. “We haven’t been able to replicate the problem you reported. We’ll have to keep investigating.” He hoisted the official-looking tool belt Emily had held up earlier. Tiffani hoped Lewes didn’t realize he was looking at a bunch of lockpicking tools. “We’ll need to check the speed at the gateway. Could be a while.”

“Sure, we’ll get out of your way.” Tiffani tried to shepherd Lewes out of the office, but he remained maddeningly interested in what the girls were doing.

“How long have you worked for Comcast?” he asked.

Maggie, for once, kept her mouth shut, and gestured for the others to do the same. Lewes raised his eyebrows. “Seems odd you wouldn’t want to tell me that.” He turned to Tiffani. “Apropos of nothing, did you know that someone broke into the Northwest Portland HSE server last night?” he asked. “Perhaps that’s related to whatever problem you’re having.”

She tried to look surprised. “Really? I didn’t hear anything about it.”

Lewes licked his lips like a frog about to zap a tasty fly. “We don’t like to talk about these things.”

“Things? Plural? This is a common occurrence?”

“It has been attempted in the past. Without success.” He sighed. “I wish people wouldn’t try. It’s always very . . . messy.”

Tiffani gulped. Lewes’s definition of messy probably made the Spanish Inquisition seem like child’s play.

“So why are you telling me?” she asked.

Lewes shrugged. Maggie and Emily fidgeted, clearly having picked up on the fact that Lewes was not to be trifled with. “Just wondering if you can be helpful to the investigation. I have some ideas on who they were and why they did it that I’d like to run past you.” He looked significantly at Emily, who had enough sense to stop typing at this point. “Perhaps we should leave these . . . technicians . . . to their work and talk about it privately.”

Tiffani nodded, gesturing toward the store’s front door. “Or we could skip talking altogether, and you could just leave.”

Lewes licked his lips again and smiled at each of the DMCDs in turn, his look vacillating between creepy uncle and doting father. “Nice to meet you all.” Maggie, Emily, and Jonah nodded back, eyes wary.

Tiffani walked to the front door, hoping Lewes had finished with his psychological torture for the day and would be willing to just go. But alas . . .

“So, these hackers I mentioned came away with some secrets the higher-ups of the lower down would rather remain secret,” he continued. “Secrets that could be of interest to some of our more . . . disgruntled fiends.”

“Such as?”

“ROSE, Rabble Rouser, that sort. It’s almost like the hackers were digging for information to share with dissenters.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and isn’t it a big security risk to tell me all this?” Tiffani asked.

“Why? Do you think you’ll disclose this information?”

She saw he was trying to trip her up with the vague reference to “this information.”

“If you mean what you’ve told me about the break-in, then no. If you mean whatever secrets these hackers came away with, then also no. I can’t ‘disclose’ anything because I. Don’t. Know. Anything.” She crammed as much authority as she could into her tone.

Lewes shrugged and, maddeningly, didn’t say more. Instead, he smirked and walked to the door. Then he stopped with his hand on the handle. “By the way. Have you spent any more time with that angel? What’s his name, Barry?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m wondering what that’s all about?”

“As I’ve said before. I’m spying. Just like every fiend who hangs out with angels.”

“Are you sure it’s not more?” Lewes asked. “We have evidence that suggests you two are kind of close.” He snapped his fingers at Org, who gaped at him. “The evidence, you idiot.”

“Oh, yeah.” Org pulled out her phone and turned on a projection app. An image of Barry and Tiffani, toasting and laughing together at Purgatory, popped up. Based on the grungy rainbow versions of the American flags on the tables and the fact that the sun, often a stranger in Portland, was out, it must have been around the Fourth of July.

“That looks much friendlier than a regular spy-to-angel relationship,” Lewes said. “You should at least be tequila-boarding him, don’t you think?” He snapped his fingers again, and the image morphed to a video of fiends shrieking in pain in the Ice House. “Did you know that this is what happens to fiends who become friends with angels?” Lewes stepped closer, with Org right on his heels. “I wouldn’t be too arrogant, missy.” He leaned in farther, then whispered, “We’re closing in.”

Tiffani shuddered but stood her ground. “I have nothing to hide,” she said. “Close away.”

Chapter 13

The next morning, Tiffani sat in her office shaking her head in frustration as she read the business section of The Demon Dispatch. iSOUL recalls were up. Rental rates were down. iSOUL manufacturing facilities were crumbling. ROSE had temporarily shut down several HSE outlets, and the RRs had burned down a plant in Singapore earlier in the week.

“Damn it,” she said, pounding her fist on her desk. “What the hell is the C-Suite thinking? It’s like they get in there and all they can think about is spa appointments and caviar service.”

Fred woofed in agreement.

“Right, Freddie? If we just upgraded our soulcode testing protocol, or installed a few safeguards and quality-control measures in the factories, or integrated some AI into our analytics, our product would be a thousand times better. It would sell itself!”

Fred snorted, and Tiffani laughed. “You’re right, that is a lot to ask. But seriously, even small things would help. Like, I don’t know, having written procedures for matching code to specs. That would be nice.” She got up, set her coffee cup down on the counter, and reached for the sugar shaker. Arthur wasn’t there to see her adulterate her brew. As she tipped it over the cup, the top of the shaker fell off, and sugar flew everywhere.

“See, that’s one reason we don’t put regular sugar in our coffee,” Arthur admonished from the doorway. “Put down your cup and come with me. You’ve got bigger problems.”

Tiffani slammed down the cup, sat in her chair, and crossed her arms. “No, I don’t,” she said, although she had an uneasy feeling what this might be about.

Arthur took the chair across from her, rested his elbows on her desk, and leaned in. “You know the thing that happened two days ago?” he whispered.

Tiffani’s heart sank. “Not again?” How could she have dropped another tier? She’d been so sure that sticking Joe with the sins she committed would work.

“The DMCDs texted me this morning. They’re waiting for us at the secret lair.”

Tiffani sighed and called Fred to her. “Let’s go.”

The DMCDs, Arthur, and Tiffani sat at the conference table in what everyone now called the DMCD Secret Lair. Fred sat at Tiffani’s feet, alternating between burping, growling, and gnawing on a piece of asbestos-treated rawhide, a new treat Emily had created just for him. Turned out the girl who came across as a perennially bored teenager loved animals.

“Where on earth did you get asbestos?” Tiffani had asked. “I’m pretty sure mortals don’t just have it lying around. And isn’t it illegal in the United States?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Emily said. “It’s legal other places.”

Tiffani wanted to point out they weren’t in other places and, furthermore, mortals probably shouldn’t be handling asbestos, but decided to let it go. They had bigger concerns.

A mangled pink box of donuts emblazoned with the words Voodoo Doughnut, Portland’s premier donut-er, sat in the middle of the table, looking like it had been mauled by a demon from the Gluttony campus. Tiffani leaned over, picked through the mess, and found a mostly intact Bacon Maple Bar. She pulled it out, broke off a small piece for Fred, and then set the rest on a napkin in front of her, hoping the treat would fortify her for whatever crap was about to come.

Maggie pulled up a report on her monitor, which was projected to the screen at the end of the room. It was a long list of times from the night before, with several highlighted in yellow. Next to the numbers were other number-letter combinations and words like refactor, commit, and module.

“After dealing with the corporate-takeover issue yesterday, Jonah suggested we jump back into HSE’s database and check your tier, just to be sure nothing bad happened.”

Tiffani gave Jonah, who was, as usual, lurking out of the way, a grateful smile. He blushed and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“How did you get back in?” she asked.

“Leonard never cleared the keylogger from his computer, and for some reason, no one else did either. It was all so ridiculously easy, almost like someone wants us to go muck about in the code.”

Tiffani raised her eyebrows at Arthur. “Do you think that’s true? Are they setting a trap?”

Arthur shrugged. “If they are, they’re doing a bad job. They had plenty of opportunities to spring it, and nada.”

Maggie huffed and shook back her red hair. “I find your lack of faith in our brilliance insulting. Before we did anything, we looked at the syslogs and didn’t find any signs of a trap. Obviously,” she said, in the time-honored way teenagers did of verbally rolling their eyes and making everyone around them feel a hundred years old. And stupid.

“Obviously,” Tiffani echoed.

“Anyway,” Maggie continued, exaggerating the word as if she didn’t have time for this chatter. “We looked at the git logs and associated timestamps.” She picked up a laser pointer from the table and aimed it at one of the highlighted areas of the report. With a small pop, it burned a hole right through the screen. Fred raised his nose at the scent of smoke, then went back to his toy. “Oops. Wrong pointer.” She grabbed another one on the table and pointed at the screen again. A small red dot appeared next to a line that read:

commit f4e8c3a2c57b9a65a2e1d8f9e0732d4f4c19d8c2,

“Why do I feel like I’m in a Mission: Impossible movie?” Tiffani asked.

“Anyway,” Maggie said, again exaggerating, this time with a look suggesting she just couldn’t even with Tiffani. “Everything was going great until right here.” She swirled the red dot around the incomprehensible “commit, etc.” line, then continued, “When you decided not to add grand larceny to Joe’s tally—”

Tiffani, in the middle of biting into her Bacon Maple Bar, choked. “You don’t mean—”

Arthur nodded. “Silver,” he mouthed.

“But that’s not possible,” she shrieked, standing up.

Arthur glanced around. “Take it down a level,” he said. He kept his voice to a whisper.

She glared at him. “Are you kidding me with that?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Poor choice of words.”

“It’s not possible,” she repeated in a whisper.

“Yeah, well, I asked the kids to tell me everything. They said you had a chance to engage in some good old-fashioned larceny, and you decided against it. And, it gets worse,” he said.

“How in hell does it get worse?”

“Even though HSE hadn’t fixed the keylogger, they improved other parts of the systems security,” Maggie said. “It took Jonah longer to restore you to a Diamond and turn the alarm off. He really tried, though. You should have seen him typing away, trying to outrace this DelilahDanish15toLife.” She leaned toward Tiffani and whispered, “I think he has a crush on you.”

Tiffani would have been amused at how adorable that was. Now, though, all her mental faculties were being taken up by images of badgers gnawing at her limbs for thousands of years. She looked at Arthur, and her panic must have shown. He reached out and put an arm on her shoulder.

“You’re exceptionally lucky, though,” Arthur continued. “The monitoring system experienced some sort of glitch, and we managed to erase the alarm before anyone saw it.”

Despite her worry, Tiffani gave a slow smile. “A ‘glitch’? Was that you?”

Arthur shook his head. “I swear it wasn’t. Between that and the keylogger situation, I think you might have another admirer out there.”

Tiffani sat back, chewing her lip. The only fiend she could think of who might be looking out for her was Siobhan, and she was in no position to help. She looked around at the group.

“Could someone be helping us?” she asked.

Maggie shrugged. “I mean, it’s not impossible. But I think it’s unlikely.”

“Right. I need to get this crap over with,” Tiffani said, pulling a burner phone from her purse. “I need to talk to Joe, find out the third favor, and get it done.”

Arthur pursed his lips. “But do you think that will get DelilahDanish15toLife off your back?”

“I have no idea, but it’s better than waiting around for the HIA to find out and wind up with rodents gnawing on my feet.”

Arthur nodded sagely. “Most things are.”

Chapter 14

The next day, Joe confirmed what he wanted for his third favor, the thing Tiffani had promised she could do when she had him sign the codicil—have Edith fall in love with him. Tiffani knew enough about her own skills to realize she was the last person in the world to come up with a scenario to set the stage for love, or even manipulate someone into talking about love. After asking Barry (who suggested going to a church sermon) and Freddie (who thought sniffing butts might be the answer), she turned to Arthur, who came up with the worst, most prosaic idea ever to get everyone together.

“Game night? You want me to host a game night?” she asked.

Arthur shrugged. “I hear mortals like that sort of thing. Plus, it’s a Portland tradition!”

“Why does it have to be at my up-top apartment?”

“Where else is it going to be?” Arthur waved around the data center, with its tagged walls and array of military-grade computer-hacking equipment. “Here? Or on the Avarice campus?” he asked, tossing a can of spray paint into a bin of empties.

“Point taken,” Tiffani muttered, glancing around. She sat on a stool at a counter in the downstairs “non-evil lair” space of the data center, watching the DMCDs argue over who would win in a hackathon: Arthur, Kevin Mitnick, or the notorious Anonymous. Arthur gazed at them, then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand before turning back to Tiffani.

Someone’s gotten all fatherly about this group. If I weren’t here, Tiffani thought, he’d be bawling.

He scowled at her amused expression. “I guess that means you’ll have to work on turning that morbid, decrepit Extended Stay America square box you call an apartment into a welcoming home,” he said.

“Hey, it’s not my fault management didn’t spring for fancier up-top apartments,” Tiffani said. “And I spend so little time there, I never really saw the point of decorating. But I guess I can’t exactly invite mortals to my apartment in Hell.” She frowned and fiddled with a pair of thermal-imaging glasses on the counter. Arthur grabbed them from her.

“I don’t think you want your fingerprints on these.”

“I’d ask for more information, but I don’t want to know.” She tapped her finger on her chin, contemplating the issue at hand. “How are we going to hide from the higher-ups of the lower down the fact that we have mortals coming over? It might look like Joe and Edith are, I don’t know, friends. And a game night? If that doesn’t say ‘Mortals are a bad influence on me,’ I don’t know what does.”

“Your use of the word we has me concerned. I’m in deep enough. I’m not risking my tier by joining you in doing a favor for a friggin’ mortal.”

“You’ve been helping me this whole time, and it hasn’t impacted you at all!”

“No, I’ve been occasionally interacting with the DMCDs this whole time. Not doing a favor for a mortal. This crazy scheme has nothing to do with them.”

“Crazy scheme?” Tiffani shrieked. “This game night was your idea!”

“Which is why I know it’s crazy. I’m happy to be the ideas guy. I’m not happy to be the implementation guy. I like being a Diamond tier, and I like all my appendages.”

Tiffani patted him on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t worry, your tier and appendages will be just fine. I haven’t told you my brilliant idea. I promised Joe I’d get Edith to say ‘I love you.’ I didn’t promise it would have anything to do with romance. It’s not really a ‘favor’ at all!” She tried to sound enthusiastic, but her tone must have been off.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Absolutely! Why not?” Again, with the fake cheeriness.

Arthur stroked his beard. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you might feel bad tricking Joe.”

“Humph,” Tiffani said, leaning down to rub Fred’s belly. “As if.”

“You’re going to be the second death of me,” Arthur groaned. “OK, I’ll help. I’d like the record to reflect I’m doing this under duress. If Lewes gets wind of this . . .”

“So noted,” Tiffani said, smiling. “And we’ll have to figure out how to keep Vincent away.”

“Vincent? Edith’s boyfriend? Hasn’t she dumped him after the whole, I don’t know, accusing-her-of-insider-trading thing?”

“Apparently, he made up some excuse. Said he’d been misunderstood. Yadda yadda yadda. Maybe Maggie can come up with something to keep him away?”

Arthur nodded. “Excellent. He won’t have a chance against her.”

Eager to be done with the favors and back to focusing on sales, Tiffani set up the game night for as soon as she possibly could, which was a Thursday about a week later. Arthur came over early to help Tiffani with the frozen pizza, platter of crudites, case of craft beer, and box of pinot noir she’d bought at Target earlier in the day. Actually, helping was a generous word for what he was doing. He was lounging against the counter in the small kitchenette space, eating Chex Mix out of a bowl, and making snide remarks.

“What did Maggie do to keep Vincent away?” Tiffani asked.

Arthur laughed. “It’s friggin’ brilliant. She had Jonah hack into the computer in his car and run it off the road. She’d shorted out the onboard assistance, so he’s been trapped there for the last three hours.”

Tiffani nodded, impressed. “She’s going to be a great fiend.”

“She always brings her A game.” He set down his bowl of Chex Mix, wiped his fingers on a napkin, and gave her a disapproving look. “Which I can see you don’t. When I suggested you update your decor from ‘depressing corporate long-term housing’ to something more welcoming, I probably should have been more specific,” he said, waving around the space.

During her trip to Target, Tiffani had bought a few things that appealed to her, in a decorating style that could be described only as “demonic eclectic”—kind of The Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Crate & Barrel. She’d added her new purchases to the few decorative items she already owned, including two posters of creepy babies whose eyes appeared to follow the viewer wherever they went in the apartment. Siobhan had given them to her as her Secret Satan—Hell’s take on Secret Santa—at Hell’s last Dante Day, which they celebrated with a kick-ass party every May. Ironically, Dante himself had wound up in Heaven. His trip with Virgil must have scared the crap out of him.

“I think it sends the right I’m-a-fiend message,” she said.

“I think it sends an I’m-a-teenage-girl-getting-into-emo message.”

Tiffani threw the knife she’d been using to slice a baguette at him. He dodged and put up his hands.

“OK, OK. Next question. What games are we playing?”

“Pictionary? Trivial Pursuit? Dungeons & Dragons?”

Arthur laughed. “Going old school, I see.” Then he scrutinized her. “Are you wearing sweats?” he asked.

Tiffani perused her outfit: a ratty sweatshirt and pair of sweats. “What, not right?”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “We’re casual in Portland, but not that casual.”

“Fine,” she said, stalking over to the closet and pulling out a sequined cocktail dress. “This?”

“Nope. Too glitzy for game night.”

She went over to the dresser and pulled out jeans and a plaid button-down shirt. “This?”

“Perfect.”

A high, piercing tone shrieked through the apartment as smoke billowed out of the oven.

Arthur laughed. “You used to be mortal. Did you never have people over for dinner? Or, you know, any interaction with other human beings at all?”

“Hey, if I were microwaving something, I’d be all over it. And the last time I cooked something in an oven was literally decades ago. They’ve changed. It’s a lot of buttons and knobs. I can’t even get the damn clock time right!” she screamed over the screeching of the fire alarm, waving away a plume of smoke. She wrestled the fire alarm, a device invented in Hell, off the ceiling and dumped it in a pan of water in the sink.

“You’re not going to get your security deposit back,” Arthur said, laughing.

She glared at him. “I’m going to get changed. Make yourself useful, and help get the smoke out of here,” she snapped, as she pulled the husks of the pizzas out of the oven and threw them in Fred’s crate. He snarfed them down with enthusiasm, then curled up in the corner with his asbestos dragon, where he crunched on the remaining charred bits Tiffani scraped off the oven racks.

Arthur opened the window and let the cool breeze of a rainy Portland evening course through the room. He glanced over at Fred.

“Aren’t you going to close the crate door?”

“He’s trained. Once he’s in there, he won’t come out until I call him.”

Arthur shook his head. “Oh, the irony. You have the best-behaved dog I’ve ever seen, and he’s literally from Hell.” He reached through the bars and scratched Fred behind the ear. Fred’s back leg thumped.

Tiffani frowned at her oven. “Stop playing with the dog, and tell me what I’m supposed to do now.”

Arthur pulled out his phone. “This is what delivery is for. What cuisine should we go for? Mexican? Indian? Thai? Swedish? Russian? African—?”

“I don’t know. Pick one. And why are there so many?”

“Food carts!” Arthur said. “And if we don’t know what they like, we can get one of everything.”

“Whatever,” she muttered, as the doorbell rang.

She opened the door to find Joe standing next to a petite young woman wearing a dark-blue quintessentially Portland waterproof coat. Although the rain had wreaked havoc on her curly, dark-brown hair, with her big blue eyes and angelic expression she managed to carry off “cute” with no problem. She didn’t come across to Tiffani as someone anyone, much less Joe, would risk his immortal soul for. But she’d never really understood mortal men, even when she was a mortal herself.

Edith put her hand forward to shake Tiffani’s. “Hi! I’m Edith. Thanks so much for having us over.”

“Of course, I’m happy . . .” She trailed off, noticing someone standing behind them.

It was Barry.

“What are you doing here?” she growled, still shaking Edith’s hand while directing her question to him.

“Manners!” Arthur yelled from the kitchen.

Tiffani took a deep breath. How was she going to explain Barry’s presence to Arthur? Although they could fool mortals, fiends and angels recognized other postmortals. She already thought Arthur, with his concerns about actually joining in doing a favor for Joe, a flight risk. Introducing an angel to the equation might send him running for the door. She practically dragged Edith in, then dropped her hand and considered slamming the door shut before Barry could come in.

“What are you doing here?” she repeated to him in a hiss.

“Joe told me about it,” he said, looking abashed. “We exchanged contact info at the bar. I’m new to town, remember?”

“Uh-huh,” she said. She stepped aside, deciding that freaking out and punching an angel in front of her guests would only make things worse. As soon as Barry entered the room, she turned to Joe, who wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“You’re inviting random people to my house?”

“He and I met up at the Cartopia food carts. I mentioned tonight’s festivities as an aside, and—” Joe nodded over at Arthur, who was awkwardly shaking hands with Barry and gaping at Tiffani. He leaned in. “I’m glad I did. I think there’s some chemistry there. It’s sweet.”

Tiffani pulled him into the hall. “Do you know how much trouble I can get into if my bosses find out I’ve had an ang—another mortal over for game night? It’s bad enough you and Edith are here,” she whisper-screeched.

“Everything OK out here?” Arthur called, opening the door.

Tiffani grimaced and waved her hand. “It’s fine. It’s fine. You can go back to the party.”

Arthur stepped into the hall. “Joe, can I talk to Tiffani for a minute?”

Joe went back into the apartment while Arthur came to stand close to Tiffani and whisper in her ear. “What is up with having an angel here?”

“I have absolutely no idea. He and Joe met, and I guess Joe invited him.”

Arthur glared at her. She stared defiantly back.

“First you’re doing favors for mortals,” he said. “Now you’re hanging out with angels? What’s up with you?”

“He’s a salesman for Heaven’s Soul Exchange. I’m trying to learn something about what they’re up to,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “You know, a little corporate spying. Let’s keep our eyes and ears open, and maybe we’ll learn something.”

Arthur’s expression remained skeptical, but he nodded and went back to the party.

Tiffani leaned against the wall outside her apartment, taking some deep breaths and trying to figure out next steps.

“I can do this,” she muttered to herself. “I’ll get through it as quickly as I can. And in the middle of all this crap, I’ll need to get Edith so excited about something, she’ll say she loves it.” She straightened and squared her shoulders.

Let’s do this.

As she was reaching for the door handle, the elevator chimed. She glanced back out of instinct, then her mouth opened in shock as Lewes and Org walked out.

“Hello, Tiffani. May we join you?” he asked. And without being invited, he opened the door and walked in.

Chapter 15

Arthur turned horrified eyes on Tiffani when Lewes and Org walked into the room.

“What the hell?” he mouthed.

Tiffani shook her head behind Lewes’s back.

Barry raised an eyebrow at Tiffani.

“I’ll tell you later,” she mouthed back.

Lewes turned to her, his face a smooth mask, except for a smirk that scared the bejeezus out of Tiffani.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?” he asked.

The calm question scared her even more than the smirk. What was Lewes playing at? He’d caught Tiffani red-handed, hanging out with mortals and an angel in a nonwork setting, an almost cut-and-dried violation of at least two of Hell’s commandments. Why wasn’t he arresting her and taking her away this minute?

“I don’t remember inviting you,” Tiffani said defiantly, while her insides quivered.

“And yet here I am,” he said, without further comment. He walked over to Barry. “Hello, I’m Lewes Dolan. And you are?”

Barry glanced quickly at Tiffani before shaking Lewes’s hand. “My name’s Barry Quinn.”

“How do you know our Tiffani?” Lewes asked.

Barry glanced at Tiffani again, clearly unsure how to respond. Fortunately, Org, in her clueless way, jumped in. “He’s the angel Tiffani hangs out with at Purgatory.” Lewes glared at her.

At the word angel, both Joe and Edith started. Tiffani recalled that Barry had introduced himself as a mortal, albeit a weird one. Edith’s furrowed brow suggested she was doing the math in her head: She knew there was at least one demon (Tiffani) and now one angel (Barry). And given how everyone was reacting to everyone else, Edith had to have figured out this wasn’t the mundane almost-everyone-here-is-a-mortal gathering she thought it was.

“Oh, I’m here as Joe’s guest.” He nodded at Joe. “I’m afraid I wasn’t invited.”

“Actually, I met Barry through—” Joe started.

Tiffani stepped on his foot.

“Ouch,” Joe cried, glaring at her. She widened her eyes and shook her head. Joe seemed to get the hint.

“Through . . . ?” Lewes queried.

“Umm . . . I-I guess I should have said ‘at.’ I meant ‘at Purgatory.’ Tiffani and I had met—er—ran into each other there . . . er . . . briefly, to discuss—er—a product she thought I might like. I bumped into Barry, who was there with other . . . friends.” Joe’s stammering seemed to escalate with every word. “He’s new to town, you know,” he said, hopefully.

“Is that so?” was all Lewes had to say. Tiffani groaned inwardly. This interplay made the whole thing seem more suspicious.

“And you’re Joe Felix, am I right? One of Tiffani’s customers?”

Joe gulped. “Um . . .” He clearly understood that Lewes’s knowing his name was a bad thing.

Lewes peered around him. “And who is this lovely creature?”

Edith stood still, like a rabbit caught in a den of . . . well, fiends. She glanced at Barry, as if she thought the angel could help her. Tiffani decided now wasn’t a good time to tell her that good didn’t always triumph over evil, and in this situation, good was way outnumbered.

“She’s Edith,” Joe said, moving to stand between her and Lewes.

Lewes cocked his head with a pleasant smile, as if waiting for more.

“And who are you?” Edith asked, stepping out from behind Joe and squaring her shoulders. Tiffani blinked. Apparently, the rabbit wasn’t as meek as it appeared to be. Tiffani had misjudged her.

Lewes laughed. “I am being rude, aren’t I? I’m one of Tiffani’s colleagues.”

“Me too,” Org said. “Right, boss? I’m a colleague?” She’d wandered over to the table, which groaned under an array of food-cart choices, and had started nibbling on a samosa from the Indian Spice Kart at the Hinterland food pod.

Instead of screaming and running away as Tiffani had expected, Edith’s eyes sparkled like a kid in a very bizarre candy store as she upped her assessment of the number of nonmortals in the room.

Lewes turned to Arthur to complete the inventory of people whose lives he planned to make miserable.

“And you’re Arthur Beagle, am I right? I understand you and Tiffani have known each other a long time.”

Edith laughed, which Tiffani found an odd reaction to the idea of yet another nonmortal. She glanced speculatively at Joe, which amused the hell out of Tiffani, as he was, without a doubt, the most mortal mortal she’d ever met.

Arthur nodded.

“You’re on HSE’s technology team, am I right? Something to do with servers?” Lewes asked.

“Yes,” Arthur said, with less of a quiver than Tiffani would have expected. What was with all the bravery in the room? He shrugged. “But I’m not really an expert.”

“The man who broke into the IRS servers and held the US government hostage isn’t an expert? Does that seem likely?”

Arthur had the sense to stay quiet.

“It’s interesting to talk with someone who has such valued expertise,” Lewes said. “I’d love to get your opinion on a pesky hacker we’re dealing with. They keep burrowing into the same highly confidential system. In fact, they did so last night.”

Years of lying to the IRS had apparently schooled Arthur well on how to keep a straight face. “Do you have any specific suspects?”

Lewes glanced between Arthur and Tiffani, keeping the same enigmatic expression on his face. “Yes. A few very tech-savvy Rabble Rouser sympathizers.”

Tiffani resisted the urge to clarify that this had nothing to do with unions or soul autonomy or whatever the hell else the dissenters wanted. She was just a regular fiend stuck doing favors for a mortal, not trying to bring down the system.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“Just stopping by, but I didn’t expect such an . . . entourage. We can talk later,” he said in a tone that made Tiffani sure whatever he had to say would thrill him and devastate her. He turned to Joe, Edith, and Barry, and bowed. “It was a pleasure to meet you all. I’ll let you get back to whatever this is.” He waved around the room.

He turned toward the door, then spun back around.

“Ah, yes. I got so tangled up with the pleasantries that I forgot.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I’m here with a kind of . . . invitation, you might say.”

Tiffani took the paper, read it, then looked up in horror.

“It’s an invitation to a disciplinary tribunal tomorrow morning.” Lewes grinned.

Tiffani’s hands started to shake. “I’m being disciplined? For what?”

Lewes raised an eyebrow and looked around the room. “Oh, I can think of a few things.”

Tiffani followed his gaze, taking in Joe and Edith chatting with Barry like old friends, and Arthur handing around Chex Mix like the consummate host. “I know this looks odd, but I swear I’m just trying to make another sale.”

“You certainly go all out, don’t you? Anyway, don’t you think the details of tomorrow’s meeting would be more fun as a surprise?” Not waiting for an answer, he beckoned to Org, who grabbed one last tater tot from the spread on the table as she hurried toward him. He shooed her into the hall, then let himself out and shut the door with a soft yet somehow ominous click.

No. This would not be more fun as a surprise. This would not be fun at all.

She turned to Arthur. His eyes mirrored her dread.

“That was mysterious,” Barry said. “Everything OK? What did he mean by—”

Tiffani tore up the paper and tossed it in Freddie’s cage. “It’s no big deal. Lewes harasses us for no reason,” she said airily.

Barry scrutinized her for a moment. “Are you—”

“—yes, I’m sure. Can you get Joe and Edith started on the games? Maybe charades? I need to talk to Arthur for a sec.” She gestured Arthur toward the kitchen. He followed her and shut the door behind them.

“That was—”

“Terrifying? Intimidating? Inspiring me to buy a parka in the latest Ice House fashion colors?” asked Tiffani.

“All of the above. He suspects us of collusion!” Arthur whisper-shouted. “And having a friggin’ angel here isn’t helping. What’s that all about?”

“Hey, like I said. Joe invited him. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Still doesn’t look good.”

“I know, I know,” Tiffani moaned. “And we can’t exactly explain what’s really going on.” She tapped her finger on the counter. “I mean, it never even occurred to me to share this information about soulcode devaluation with anyone. I just want to put it all behind me.”

“I wonder why he didn’t include me in all of this,” Arthur mused.

“He probably wants to keep watching to see if any more hacking occurs.”

“Which it won’t because you have a plan, as I recall?”

Tiffani sighed. “Yes. Let’s go extract those three little words out of Edith and end this before Lewes can get even more evidence.” But she had a sinking feeling that Lewes had all the evidence he needed.

Between her fear of whatever awaited her at the tribunal, Barry’s inability to draw anything legible when they played Pictionary, and the absolutely disastrous round of Trivial Pursuit’s Heaven and Hell edition, Tiffani considered the game night a complete bust. And no matter what game they played, she hadn’t been able to manipulate an “I love you” out of Edith. When they played Jeopardy!, Tiffani cheated and said, “This is a Paul Rudd movie from 2009 about his lack of a best man.” The answer was “What is I Love You, Man,” but it was too obscure. Then she tried, “This is a song by Billie Eilish.” The answer was “What is ‘i love you.’” Again, nothing.

Joe, however, seemed thrilled with the evening and so enthralled he didn’t even notice Tiffani’s stratagems. He and Edith paired up in every game, and even Tiffani could see the light in her eyes when she gazed at Joe. Maybe she could fall for him without fiendish assistance after all.

Meanwhile, Arthur kept glancing at Barry over and over again. It was so frequent that Barry commented on it when he followed her into the kitchen, ostensibly cleaning plates.

“What’s up with Arthur?” Barry whispered. “He seems twitchy.”

“I think he’s nervous about being here. This kind of mortal-fiend-annoying-angel gathering isn’t common.”

“I take that personally,” Barry said, scrubbing one of the plates.

“Good. You got the hint.”

Barry gave her one of his glittering smiles and put the plate on the drying rack. “So, do I want to know what that Lewes guy and his gargantuan bodyguard wanted?”

“Not really,” Tiffani said, biting her lip.

“Does it have to do with that promotion you were telling me about? How’s that going, by the way?”

“Why?” Tiffani asked, suspicious. “Are you looking for sales tips?”

“No. Just curious how much longer I’ll be able to enjoy your delightful company.” He laughed.

A vague feeling of unease came over Tiffani. With her focus on getting sales and staying out of the Ice House, she hadn’t realized that this promotion would put an end to her friendship with Barry.

He’s an angel. You’re a fiend. It’s not a friendship!

“If Lewes doesn’t get in my way, I have only ninety-eight sales to go in the next two weeks,” she said. “We’ll have time for another drink or two at Purgatory before then.”

“Sounds great. We’ll toast to your success.”

“What are we toasting to?” Arthur asked, strolling into the kitchen.

Tiffani gave a sharp shake of her head. “Nothing that concerns you.” She pulled the dishcloth out of Barry’s hands and waved him toward the living room, marching along behind him. It was time to put this painful evening to an end.

“It’s been lovely,” she said, addressing Barry, Edith, and Joe. “But it’s time to go.”

Arthur called from the kitchen. “You do know that’s not proper hostess behavior, right?”

“I guess I’m not a proper hostess.”

Edith stared down at her gloves while she pulled them on, not meeting Tiffani’s eyes. “Did we do something wrong? I know we’re”—she gestured between herself and Joe—“mortals and you’re”—she waved between Tiffani, Arthur, and Barry—“umm . . . not. I don’t really know the protocol here.”

Barry came up behind her and patted her shoulder. “You were great. I’m sure Tiffani means she had a lovely time.”

Tiffani gave a tight smile. “Absolutely, lovely time. Now leave.”

Edith, Joe, and Barry gathered their coats while Arthur stayed at the table. “You guys go ahead. I’ll help Tiffani clear up.”

As the table was already spotless and Arthur had his hand over Tiffani’s resting on the table, this seemed to give Edith a different view of the situation. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I guess . . .”

Arthur smiled.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Joe said. Barry lingered a moment, a slight crease of worry on his face.

“You good?” he asked.

Tiffani gave the A-OK sign and Barry left.

Tiffani sighed and leaned against the door. The night had been a disaster. She had been caught by the fiend accusing her of collusion in a room full of people she shouldn’t be hanging around with. And worse, she hadn’t been able to extract “I love you” out of Edith and put an end to this nightmare.

Tiffani cracked the door open, stuck her head out, and listened in on Joe and Edith’s conversation as they made their way to the elevator. Perhaps she could get some intel for her next attempt. Then, as she was about to give up, she heard the most amazing, glorious, astonishing, serendipitous words come out of Edith’s mouth.

“I’ve never hung out with postmortals before. It was so fun! I love you so much for taking me there!”

Tiffani froze in shock. Had she really heard that? The words had clearly been just her appreciation, but . . . it had been three. Little. Words.

Joe turned to look at Edith, and Tiffani noticed a wide grin on his face. She realized he didn’t understand the significance of what had happened. He hadn’t paid close enough attention to the contract. He didn’t know Tiffani had fulfilled her obligation without leaving him much better off with Edith than he had been before.

Tiffani pulled back and shut the door, surprised at the feeling coursing through her. She shut her eyes. She’d expected joy, and there was a little of that. But for the first time in her life, she regretted making this deal, not because someone had taken advantage of her, but because she had taken advantage of a friend. Joe.

She jumped when she opened her eyes to see Arthur right there.

“Did I hear what I think I just heard from Edith?”

Tiffani nodded.

He peered at her. “Why don’t you look thrilled?”

“I’m worried about tomorrow. Listen, I’m sure my rating will be fine since this whole evening was based on a lie. But can you ask Jonah to keep an eye on it?” Tiffani asked.

Arthur snorted. “Oh, he’ll probably do that anyway.” Then he scrutinized her again. “Be careful with Barry,” he said. “It would be too bad if we did all this work to keep you out of trouble only to have you accused of consorting with angels.”

“Sure, sure,” said Tiffani, practically pushing him out. She slammed and locked the door behind him, then walked over to Fred’s crate, laid down on the floor, and crawled halfway in with him. She liked joining him in his hidey-hole, and his allowing her into his home felt special. Especially since she didn’t come bearing gifts.

Fred was resting his head on his asbestos dinosaur pillow and, at the noise, opened one eye sleepily and licked her hand. He gave a faint woof and went back to sleep.

“Oh, are you tired?” she grumped, scratching his ear. “It must have been exhausting sitting there and watching me squirm. Why couldn’t you have belched some flame or something? Burst out of your crate and latch on to Lewes’s leg? Anything?”

Fred snored, and Tiffani shook her head. “It’s a good thing you’re cute,” she said. She laid there for a moment more before sighing, standing up, and going to her closet to find an outfit that conveyed complete innocence of any transgressions Lewes accused her of, and unwavering loyalty to the lower down. It was a lot to expect from an outfit, but she had at least eight hours to get it right.

Chapter 16

The next morning, Tiffani took Fred back down to her apartment on the Avarice campus and gave him a long hug. She had no idea if she would be back and couldn’t leave Fred in her up-top space without access to food, water, or his favorite asbestos snacks.

“Wish me luck, buddy,” she said, rubbing his ears. “Uncle Arthur says he’ll stop by to take care of you.” She kept her voice light. “No matter what happens.”

Fred snuffled against her hand.

She smiled. “Thanks.”

She found Lewes waiting for her as she stepped outside her building. He fell into step beside her, followed by the omnipresent Org.

“I’m not going to make a run for it, you know,” Tiffani said. “I have nothing to fear.” She kept her voice from quavering because she did, indeed, have something to fear. No one had told her what this was about, so it could be anything from “You talk to angels too much” to “You’ve violated several of our commandments, you’ve discovered a major secret, you’re sharing that secret with dissenters, and it’s time for you to go.”

“Don’t you?” he hissed.

She straightened her shoulders and walked on. To her annoyance, he kept up with her.

“I’m sure you have things to do and other fiends to annoy,” she said. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“Have you ever considered I might spend time with you because I like your company?” he asked.

Org snorted. “Good one, boss.”

Lewes frowned at her. “Some fiends should be seen and not heard,” he said. “Guess who’s one of those?”

“Her?” Org pointed.

Lewes shook his head.

“If you’re going to insist on being here, at least you can tell me what I’m being accused of,” Tiffani said. “The invitation said ‘disciplinary tribunal’ with no additional details.”

Lewes’s expression suggested he enjoyed keeping her wondering, but apparently Org didn’t get the memo.

“Ha! How funny is it that she doesn’t know the tribunal isn’t really disciplining her for anything yet? Don’t they just want to know more about why she hangs out with mortals and angels?”

Despite the severity of the accusations, Tiffani breathed a sigh of relief. So at least at the time they issued the invitation, they didn’t have enough to convict her of violating the First Commandment. Whether their views would change after Lewes and Org had found her in the company of mortals and an angel remained to be seen. No matter what he suspected, though, Lewes didn’t have enough about her soulcode devaluation issue to bring a case. Besides, that kind of thing would probably warrant a private “trial.” Or maybe they went straight to punishment.

Lewes and Org followed her all the way to the justice building on the Services and Administration campus. The securityfiends at the front desk led her to a courtroom very different from the one she’d gone to for jury duty. That one had looked like a courtroom in a mortal court, with the jury sitting to one side, limited space for an audience, and a judge’s dais high enough to allow the C-Suiter in charge to look down on everyone. This one was laid out in a circular pattern, with a ring of C-Suiters seated around a chair in the middle that made the Iron Throne look like a comfy recliner. The decor suggested that the Services and Administrative team had handed the room over to a former medieval torturer with the direction to make it look as intimidating as possible. It worked. Tiffani paused at the door, her heart hammering, wondering if running and being tased would be less painful than being grilled, possibly literally, by this assembly.

With a smug look, Lewes grabbed one of her arms to lead her to the dock, where Org made to push her down into her seat and grumbled when Tiffani summoned the courage to sit all by herself.

“Oooh, there she is,” said a dangerously beautiful demon. Tiffani, who had researched all the C-Suiters, recognized Evangeline Eros from Deceit, who tricked no less than twenty-three wealthy men to marry her, all of whom wound up dead in the course of a year. She hadn’t actively murdered them. She used her wiles to convince them to engage in risky activity—scuba diving, skydiving, unprotected sex—so they died of “natural causes.”

A man leaned down from the top row, where he was sitting in a custom-made sex swing. He wore red leather lingerie and nothing else. Tiffani gasped. It was the actual Casanova. She must rate.

“I heard she’s sleeping with an angel.” Casanova winked at her and licked his lips. Tiffani noticed a tongue piercing with a small spike stuck through it. It didn’t seem to bother him, but she could imagine how unpleasant it would be for any demon or fiend he was . . . having relations with.

“I hear she went on an unauthorized murder spree,” said a man with a scimitar strapped across his back. Alfonso. A captain in the Spanish Inquisition. “Excellent.”

“The tribunal is called to order,” announced the woman sitting on the highest chair in the circle, waving the gavel in the air, then pounding it onto the desk in front of her with such force it made a dent. It was Greta Johnson from the Gluttony campus, rumored to be five-hundred-plus pounds. Her worst sin, which she’d committed in the fifth century, had been to murder and then eat the children of one of her rivals. Medea-style.

“So, Miss”—Greta looked down at her paper—“Lutatio. What are you here for?”

“I really have no idea,” Tiffani said, trying to keep the snark out of her voice.

Greta squinted and pulled the paper closer. She was too vain to wear the glasses she clearly needed. “Huh. I don’t know either.”

“That’s going to make things difficult,” Tiffani said. She started to stand. “Maybe we should—”

Lewes, who’d moved to the back, stood. “Madame Chair, Ms. Lutatio is here for violating a number of rules in the demon code.”

“What fun! Such as?”

“She’s ‘consorting’”—his air quotes suggested it was more than friendship—“with mortals and angels.”

Casanova leaned forward. “Do tell,” he said with a lascivious grin. Greta glared at him.

“Sure, I spend a limited amount of time with them.” Tiffani shrugged. “Joe’s a customer. He introduced me to another potential customer.”

“And the angel?” Lewes asked.

“Barry’s . . . a gate-crasher.” She turned her attention to Evangeline. “Madam Chair, I’m just trying to find innovative ways to make more sales. Isn’t that an activity all salesfiends are encouraged to engage in?”

Mr. Abernathy, a Malice C-Suiter who looked like everyone’s meanest teacher in high school, frowned at her. “It’s ‘in which every salesfiend is encouraged to engage.’”

Tiffani suppressed an eye roll. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a Malice fiend dead set on unrelenting grammar correction. His real crime, though, had been beating the principal of his high school into a coma with a bulletin board because the principal had forgotten the apostrophe in “It’s time for the Spring Fling.”

“This wasn’t just innocent sales activity! She hosted a game night at her apartment, with two mortals, an angel, and a fiend!” Lewes cried.

“Ooh, what games? Hide the Mortal’s Salami? And how did that go?” asked Casanova, practically salivating.

“Keep it in your pants, Casanova,” giggled Evangeline.

“I can’t say for sure,” Lewes said. “But does it matter? We have rules. Some interactions with angels and mortals here and there are fine and, I agree, even necessary for a salesfiend. But a dinner party where everyone plays charades and board games is not!”

“Is that all they played?”

“Casanova, one more word, and I’ll send you to the Torture House.” Greta looked him over. “Although you might like that.” She turned back to Lewes. “Tell me more.”

“I have reason to believe it goes beyond that. I have reason to believe she’s a Rabble Rouser sympathizer.”

Everyone in the room gasped. Tiffani went for a shocked-and-hurt vibe. She fluttered her eyelashes, let her lips quiver, and reached up to wipe her cheek as if swiping a tear.

“How can you?” she whispered, her voice shaking. “I can’t believe you’d make up—”

“And she’s not alone. Arthur, the other fiend who was there—” Lewes started.

Tiffani bowed her head, hoping Arthur had done all he could to disassociate himself from her. Maybe he’d been smart enough to agree to testify against her if this moved forward. She hoped he would. She hoped he’d understand that it was OK with her.

“And she served way too much food,” Organza said before Lewes could finish. “Chex Mix, wine. Ten different kinds of cuisines from a bunch of different food carts.” She nodded at her boss. “It was a real waste of HSE’s resources.”

Tiffani whipped her head around to scrutinize Org. She’d interrupted Lewes’s accusation of Arthur with a bogus statement that would capture everyone’s attention, especially a judge from Gluttony. Where was this stuff about “way too much food” coming from, and why did she think the C-Suiters would have a problem with it? Did she think she was helping? Was she that stupid?

Org had a hand up, trying to high-five Lewes as if she’d helped his case with her spurious accusation.

OK. That stupid.

Greta beamed at Tiffani and clapped her pudgy hands with enthusiasm. “Excellent! I love a good feast.”

“That’s not the point,” Lewes said, trying to recapture Greta’s attention while glaring at Org, whose vacant expression suggested she didn’t understand her ploy had backfired. “I demand you listen to me. Tiffani is a well-known collaborator. As is her friend—”

Evangeline stopped filing her nails and focused her attention on Lewes, frowning. “Did you say you demand we do something?”

“Yes. I-I need to tell you about—” Lewes spluttered.

“That’s too bad for you, because none of us need to hear anything.”

Tiffani covered her mouth with her hand, trying to hide her smile. It was the first time she’d seen Lewes nonplussed.

Mr. Abernathy looked down his nose at Lewes, while Alfonso pulled his scimitar off his back and began running the blade along his thumb. “No one makes demands of the C-Suite,” said Mr. Abernathy.

“But—”

Greta’s glower shut Lewes up. She squinted down at her paper. “The punishment for collusion is two hundred years in the Ice House.”

Tiffani spoke up, heart pounding. “Are you going to send your number-one salesfiend to the Ice House? Especially one who . . . appreciates the value of a good meal? I’ve always admired Gluttony’s commitment to . . . exceptional cuisine.”

She glanced over at Org, who was staring at the ground, pouting, apparently having figured out how she might have screwed things up for Lewes’s case.

Greta pushed her way out of her chair and waddled into a back chamber, with the other members of the tribunal following her. Tiffani fidgeted with her Diamond pin while waiting for them to return, sneaking glances at Org, who refused to look at her. After ten minutes, Greta shoved her way through the too-narrow doorway, followed by the other C-Suiters, and eased back down into her throne. She had crumbs on her robes and marmalade dribbling from her chin. While licking bits of donut off her fingers, she said, “Tiffani Lutatio, you are free to go.”

Behind her, Lewes sputtered. “What—what are you doing? That’s not—”

Greta looked over at Lewes. “You, however, are not free to go, and you’re making it worse with your drama.”

“Wh-what?” he stammered.

“Raising such spurious charges against one of our most upright fiends. It’s a disgrace.” She turned to the securityfiends. “Take him to the Torture House.”

“No, you’ve got it wrong. I’m not the bad guy here.”

Evangeline looked up from her mirror and gave him a mean-girl look. “With that weasel-vampire thing you have going on, you look like a bad guy.”

“And you’re making me hangry with all this whining. I haven’t had a full meal in at least a half hour,” Greta said.

“But the Torture House? For how long?” he cried.

“As long as I feel like it,” Greta responded, crumbs flying from her mouth.

Securityfiends came to take him away. He ripped his arm out of theirs. “I can go on my own, gentlemen.” He glared at Tiffani. “You’ll be sorry about this,” he hissed, as two burly fiends brandishing cattle prods escorted him out with Org on his heels.

Forty-five minutes later, Tiffani burst into her apartment, pulled Fred out of his crate, and hugged him close. He belched a little fire, then, as if he’d understood the stakes, nuzzled against her neck and licked her cheek.

“Thank the Highest-Up of the lower down,” she murmured. Not only had she escaped, but Lewes had gone down as well.

She started at a rap on her door and went to open it. Arthur stood there, wearing a worried expression.

“What was the tribunal about?”

“Lewes tried to bring me up on charges of collusion, both with angels and mortals, and even Rabble Rousers.”

Arthur gasped. “Did they—?”

“I’m out of the woods,” she said. “Org mentioned some bullshit about me wasting HSE resources with so much food. In front of the Gluttony judge! She’s so dim that I think she thought she was helping Lewes. He was furious.”

Arthur sank into a chair. “Did I come up at all?”

Tiffani shook her head. “Lewes mentioned you were there, but Org intervened before he could say anything. You’re safe. But what about me? I assume you’d say something if I went down a tier after that game night?”

Arthur shook his head. “You’re fine. I think that tortured loophole you created about saying ‘I love you’ really helped. And the fact that Joe bought it didn’t hurt either.”

Tiffani breathed out a shaky laugh and ran a hand through her hair. She flung herself onto the couch, elated. After days of worrying, it was all over. Favors done. Tier restored. And she could finally focus on the ninety-eight sales she needed to get to the C-Suite instead of running around doing ridiculous favors. It had been close, but she’d gotten away with it all.

“There’s just one thing,” Arthur said.

“No, there isn’t,” Tiffani said, stubbornly.

“Yes, there is. I promised Maggie I’d mention it.”

“Why do you need to promise anything to Maggie? Who’s in charge there?”

“They do have the keys to the kingdom, you know. Literally.”

“Yeah, you should put an end to that. Give yourself some extra credit with the higher-ups by telling your techfiend friends there’s a vulnerability. I’m sure you can keep the DMCDs out of it.”

“I plan to. But in the meantime, the DMCDs have the leverage.”

“So, you made a promise to help a mortal? Haven’t we all learned our lesson?”

“Having a mortal blackmail me is very different from me doing them a favor.”

“Fine. So, what do they want?”

“It’s about Joe.”

“I do not want to hear Joe’s name ever again. I don’t have anything against him, but I’m done with all of that.”

“Good,” Arthur said. “Just let me get the words out, and we’ll be done.”

Tiffani gestured for him to go forth.

“Edith has put Joe in the friend zone. She ‘loves spending time with him.’”

Tiffani felt a small pang of guilt, which turned to relief when she remembered this was why her tier hadn’t changed. “And?”

“Maggie et al. don’t think that’s fair. They like Joe, and they want you to do more to get them together . . . to really fall in love.”

Tiffani thought about how Edith’s eyes glowed when she talked to Joe. It wouldn’t be that hard. Only a little more effort on her part to show Edith what a catch Joe was. Maybe if she went on a pretend double date—she and Arthur with Edith and Joe. They could have a nice dinner, go to a show, maybe even do a little karaoke . . . She hated all those things, and yet she found the idea of helping Joe out tempting.

Good grief. Have I decided mortals are . . . tolerable?

She shook her head. Tolerating mortals and getting a spot in the C-Suite were mutually exclusive activities. With ninety-eight sales in two weeks, it would be tight, but she knew she could do it. She might as well start measuring a new office for drapes and polishing her “Demonic President of North American Sales” nameplate. Nothing would stop her, especially not Joe the mortal and his crazy antics.

“What will they do if I say no?” she asked.

“They’re not stupid. They recognize backing a fiend into a corner is a bad idea.”

Tiffani sighed. “I don’t want to disappoint them, or Joe. But I can’t risk it. The answer is no. Can you let Joe down gently?”

Arthur sat back. “Oh, Joe doesn’t know I’m asking. In fact, he blames himself for the friend-zone thing. He told me he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain by being charming enough to capture Edith’s attention. He still considers you a friend.”

Sucker.

The thought was a knee-jerk reaction, however. She didn’t think Joe was a sucker. She didn’t think the DMCDs were suckers. In fact, she considered them all friends, a dangerous situation for any fiend. Maybe the higher-ups of the lower down were onto something about mortals being a bad influence.

Chapter 17

Over the next two weeks, Tiffani brought in the big guns. BOGO was for amateurs. It was time to establish a credit line. Tiffani had the idea a long time ago, but recent events had left her with little time to implement it. When renting a soul, she would now give mortals more time to perform the required favor—for a fee. Interest built up on that favor until customers found themselves performing ridiculously high favors for ridiculously cheap souls. True, many mortals saw through the ruse. But not all.

Between the new ploy and her newfound ability to focus her attention 24-7 on work, her sales picked up to pre–mortal drama levels. At 4 p.m. on October 31, she had only two more sales to go. And although she’d wanted to put the whole experience with Joe behind her, she knew he was her only option to ask for help. One last time.

“Can you do me a favor?” she asked Joe in a panicked phone call. She pushed aside the realization that she was taking advantage of a friendship based on a lie.

This is not a friendship, she admonished herself. It’s a necessary evil. The cushy C-Suite and the promotion to demon would keep Lewes at bay. More importantly, she’d be able to make a real impact on HSE operations. Her desire for the role of demonic president of North American sales for Avarice outweighed her twinge of guilt at manipulating a mortal, even one she grudgingly, and illegally, kind of liked.

“If you want me to rent another iSOUL, you’ll need to give me a privileged customer discount,” Joe said, anticipating her request.

“You do know you’re bargaining with a fiend, right? Where’s that weak guy I met a few weeks ago?”

“You’re a good mentor.”

Tiffani shivered. “Whatever. Just get over here. And bring Edith.”

“Umm . . .”

“What?” Tiffani snapped.

“I think Edith is out with her boyfriend right now.” Joe sounded dejected.

Ugh. Vincent. Tiffani found herself wishing she could fix the whole situation, but that was impossible.

“Can you at least text her and see? I need two people here.”

Joe and Edith screeched up with ten minutes to go before the end of the day. Tiffani ran to the car and dragged them out of it.

Joe nudged Tiffani as they strode to the store’s door. “I got Edith to come!” he whispered.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good for you. Now come in here. I have to get these signed in the next ten minutes.” In the seating area of her shop, she handed both Joe and Edith an Iron soul and held out the contract. She’d picked the most innocuous souls she could find, certain that the cost would be minimal, like talking during a movie or mansplaining a sporting event.

Edith hesitated. “What am I signing?”

“It’s OK,” Joe said, glancing up at Tiffani. “We can trust her.”

That uncomfortable feeling of disloyalty jolted through her. She pushed it aside. Again.

Joe gave her a long look. “If we do this, we won’t get to see you anymore.”

“How do you know that?” Tiffani asked. She didn’t remember telling him anything about her C-Suite ambitions.

“Barry told us. It’s the only reason I dropped everything and came over right away. He thought you might need some help but told me I shouldn’t offer until you called.”

Tiffani sat, dumbfounded for a moment. She’d seen Barry a couple of times since the tribunal. Hanging out with him had been easier without Lewes breathing down her neck. And he’d given her some good ideas about reaching her sales goals, including, now that she thought about it, calling in Joe for one last favor if needed.

Tiffani thrust a pen at him. “Yes? So?”

“We’ll miss you. Won’t you miss us?”

“Fiends don’t miss mortals,” she said, not entirely convincingly.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?” Edith asked. “We promise we’ll host any future game nights.”

Tiffani tried not to smile and failed. “Of course I’ll notice, every now and then, that you’re not around, which is one definition of missing.”

“If you say so.” Joe put the contract on the coffee table and signed it with a flourish. “But I think you’ll be surprised at how much you’ll notice we’re gone.”

The contracts were signed at 4:59 p.m. Tiffani submitted them and checked the sales counter on the Soul Exchange employee website. After pounding the refresh key several times, she jumped up in the air, hands raised in victory.

“I hit the target!” The vista of the C-Suite stretched before her. Fred ran out from the back and started barking, down as usual for whatever everyone was excited about. She scooped him up in her arms and nuzzled his neck.

“Get ready for all the cat liver you can eat, Freddie-pups,” she crooned, booping him on the nose. “This is it!”

Joe and Edith glanced at each other, and Joe pulled out his cell phone.

“It’s time,” he said to someone on the other end.

A minute later, Barry, Arthur, Maggie, Emily, and Jonah walked through the door. Barry was carrying a big cake.

“Congratulations!” they all called.

Tiffani gaped at the group of . . . friends—friends who were happy for her, even if her decision didn’t benefit them. That was a strange concept, one she’d never run into as either a mortal or a fiend. Everyone usually wanted something. These people didn’t.

She stared at the cake. Joe laughed.

“I think it’s possible we’ve rendered you speechless,” he said. “Come on. Come over here, and light the candles. I know how much you like setting things on fire.”

Tiffani finally found her voice. “Actually, I’m going to let Fred do that.” She called the dog over to her, had him sit, picked up a paw, and placed a claw on each candle one by one. They burst into flames.

“I think Fred should get a little piece of cake for that,” Maggie said.

“He probably won’t like it. It’s not a charcoal cake,” Tiffani said.

“Good thing I brought a charcoal patty,” Joe said, pulling it out of his pocket.

She pressed her lips together, worried she might say something sappy. Her mortal friend Joe had remembered to include Fred in the fun.

The surprise party went well into the night and wound up at Purgatory, of course. The trip served two purposes. Not only was it the perfect way to end the celebration, but it was also the perfect way for Maggie, Emily, and Jonah, who were fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen respectively, to test their newly minted fake IDs. Arthur preened like a proud father.

Even Ken had gotten into the spirit of the party. He’d decked out the bar with paraphernalia from dozens of religious icons—from lights shaped like bunches of grapes for Dionysus, to thunderbolt blacklight posters for Thor, to a keg tap with four arms representing Vishnu. Although the establishment was frequented by mortals, fiends, and angels, he liked patrons to know that Purgatory supported all religions. He also created a special drink he called the Lutatio—three fingers of Scotch instead of two. He presented her with a bottle while muttering that he probably wouldn’t need it anymore since the only person in town who drank Scotch like it was going out of style was leaving.

Barry agreed to drink one and, after coughing as he swallowed it, gasped, “Not bad.”

Arthur handed him a napkin. “Don’t want to drool Scotch all over that pretty face.”

Barry took the napkin, smiling, and Arthur blushed. Tiffani glanced between the two of them.

What’s that about?

Shrugging, she put the bottle on the table with the other presents her friends had brought her. Joe and Edith gifted her a framed photo of the three of them laughing over Joe’s pathetic Pictionary attempt. Arthur and the DMCDs had given her a USB flash drive with a military-grade program that could break most passwords in under a minute. Barry surprised her the most. He’d brought her a snow globe for her desk that, when she shook, had the equivalent of rain pour over the Portland skyline.

“That’s perfect,” she said, smiling in thanks as she took it.

He gave her a sad smile. “I’m going to miss you, you know.”

And Tiffani yearned to say it back. But missing people, especially angels, was dangerous for any fiend.

“Fortunately, you have this crazy crew to keep you occupied,” she said, waving at the others.

He must have understood her strategy of keeping it light. “Yes. I don’t think I’ll be as effective at keeping them from complete disasters as you are, but we’ll see.”

Joe leaned across the table. “See what? I caught only the end of that sentence.”

“See how well I can keep an eye on you guys.”

Joe’s expression shifted from celebratory to somber. “I really won’t see you again, will I?” he said to Tiffani, his voice as plaintive as Fred’s when he was begging for a treat. He even had the same soulful eyes.

“C-Suiters don’t go up top. They don’t like it up here.”

“Are those rules? Or guidelines?”

“They’re more guidelines. But they expect you to be flexible, especially when you first arrive, and they stretch you out on an iron maiden until all your joints pop out.”

Edith shivered. “Oh my God, is that what they do?”

Arthur sniggered, and Tiffani looked around the table at the others. “That’s really what you guys think happens?”

“Isn’t Hell never-ending pain?” Emily asked. “Like being burned and stabbed and stuff?”

“Sure, some people are set on fire or stabbed or vivisected over and over,” Tiffani said, waving the comment off like it was no big deal. “It’s the psychological tortures that get you, when the punishment for a minor infraction is to force you to relive your worst moments over and over again. But after a while, that part ends, and you can start getting jobs and going to parties and building networks and all that stuff.” She decided to leave out the part where the jobs were in a factory; the parties were fun, but young fiends only served at them rather than actually attended; and the networks they were building usually started out with those who had tested as the most boring people in Hell. She’d already been tricked by the party mood and camaraderie to give out way too much information.

The three DMCDs cocked their heads in unison. “Actually, that doesn’t seem so bad,” Maggie said.

“I feel obligated to put it out there that we don’t do that in Heaven,” Barry interjected. “You get to relive all the best things.”

Emily, Maggie, and Jonah looked at each other. Tiffani figured they were such a unit that they could now speak telepathically and were trying to assess where the others stood on this Hell thing.

Arthur must have seen it, too, because he rapped on the table and cleared his throat. “Of course, it’s pretty tough to get into Heaven. They’re not all that forthcoming about the criteria. It’s kind of like being picked for Global Services on a United flight.” He scrutinized Barry, who stared down at the table. “Sometimes I think they make it up.”

Barry frowned. “We don’t exactly hand out a list, that’s true. But if you avoid doing bad things, you’re more likely than not to get into Heaven.”

“And what are the odds?” Emily asked.

Barry didn’t meet her eyes. “It’s hard to say. Maybe seventy-thirty?” he mused.

Emily scrutinized him as well for a moment longer, then turned back to Arthur. “I think I like your odds better.”

Chapter 18

The next day, any residual feelings Tiffani might have had about missing her mortal and angel friends disappeared when she passed through the main gate of the C-Suite campus. In the middle of a sea of bubbling lava stood a castle-like structure clad in black rocks. It glittered with every kind of precious metal and jewel that mortals spent so much time trying to hack out of the Earth. An iron drawbridge extended over the magma to accommodate the lucky few who’d made it to the C-Suite, along with their employees. Everyone both lived and worked in the massive building, which looked like Disney World had thrown up on Camelot—gaudy, gorgeous, and terrifying at the same time.

When she and Fred arrived at the headquarters building, the security guard at the front desk gave both her and Fred their IDs, along with a glass of champagne and a dish of caviar for her and a charcoal biscuit for the hellhound. She moved to pick them up, calculating how to carry both without spilling, but the guard laughed and clapped his hands. A younger fiend popped up right next to her and scooped up the items.

“Horace here will escort you,” the guard said.

“Welcome, Miss Lutatio. Or I guess I should say Demoness Lutatio now,” Horace said, bowing to her. “And Mr. Fred.” He bowed to the dog. Then he picked up the champagne and caviar and set it on a tray strapped around his neck. He looked like the cigarette girls Tiffani remembered from her days running the speakeasy—everything except for the skimpy skirt and fishnet stockings.

“Do you have your ID?” he asked.

Tiffani nodded and showed him the card hanging from the lanyard around her neck.

“Excellent. You’re going to want to keep track of that. Security guards can ask to see it at any time, and if you can’t show it, they disembowel you.” He shivered. “The clasp broke on mine once, and it fell off somewhere. It’s a disgusting and painful job to get all the entrails back in. I’ve duct-taped mine to my chest.”

“The entrails? Or the badge?”

“Both.”

Tiffani laughed until she saw he wasn’t kidding. “Why are they so freaked out about it?”

“ROSE and Rabble Rousers, of course. We can’t have them infiltrating this level,” he said, as if it were obvious. Then he whipped out two thick, heavy pieces of paper of the quality one might find for a wedding invitation, the kind that cost more than most people’s entire wedding. “Now, let’s review your run of show for today.” He handed one of them to her.

Agenda

11:00 a.m.: Brief tour of main facility

12:30 p.m.: Lunch in executive dining room

2:00 p.m.: Office selection

3:00 p.m.: Accommodations selection

4:00 p.m.: Spa appointment

6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.: High tea or happy hour (your choice)

8:00 p.m.: Dinner in one of the castle’s seventeen Good Year–star restaurants

“Good Year star?”

“We leave the Michelin stars to the mortals.”

“Because it has to be a tire company?” she asked.

“We tried a mortuary, but we weren’t getting the kind of quality we’d hoped for,” Horace said. He looked at his watch and tsked. “It’s 10:30 already! We better get going. This way, please.”

Tiffani followed him to the elevators, where he pressed the button for the 2,145th floor, a trip that took only a few minutes. The doors opened to a shimmering space with fluffy white carpet, gold wallpaper, and frosted-glass walls. It was the exact opposite of what she expected to find in the middle of a hulking medieval-style castle.

“Uh, are you sure we’re in the right place?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s surprising,” Horace said. “Everyone expects a lot more fire and brimstone. But the higher-ups of the lower down prefer this. They think it’s a giant middle finger to those in charge of Heaven’s decor.”

As they walked down the hallway, Tiffani felt the urge to tiptoe across the rug, worrying the ash from her journey would damage it. But looking behind her, she saw no signs of dirt. Fred’s sooty paw prints didn’t show up either.

Horace saw the surprise on her face and smiled. “Scotchgard. Heaven’s invention.” He put a finger on his lips. “Don’t tell them we have it,” he said, winking.

A door opened in front of them, and a demon wearing a suit and carrying a highball glass sauntered out.

“Demon Michael!” Horace called. “Let me introduce you to our newest C-Suite member, Tiffani Lutatio. Demoness Tiffani, this is Demon Michael Bentley. He’s the CEO of North American sales for all campuses. You’ll be reporting to him.”

The demon named Michael reached out his hand. “Very nice to meet you, Tiff.”

Ugh. He’s a name-shortener.

“Good to meet you, too, Mike.”

“It’s Michael actually,” he admonished.

She waited for him to understand the irony of that little interaction, but he continued to smile at her, oblivious.

“Michael? Like, uh, the angel?” she asked.

He laughed. “Ha! Yes, I get that a lot. My very Catholic parents named me that in an attempt to keep me on the straight and narrow.” He leaned in and winked. “It didn’t work, as you can see.”

“I see.”

“Where are you from? I’m crossing my fingers it’s Lust.” He smirked.

“I’m the new president of North American sales for Avarice,” she said, stressing the title, which he ignored.

“Avarice is kind of like Lust. Are you perhaps greedy for men? Or women would be fine with me, as long as you let me watch.”

Tiffani willed herself not to smite her new boss. “It was nice to meet you,” she said between clenched teeth.

“You, too,” he said. As she turned to walk down the hall, she could practically feel his eyes on her butt. The growl that came from Fred confirmed Michael was being less than respectful. She grinned. Fred was going to be very useful in this new world she’d entered.

Chapter 19

Tiffani found life in the C-Suite as cushy as anticipated. Instead of her previous fare of weird cheeses and ham, they dined on gold-dusted foie gras, wagyu beef, truffles, and the leftover organs of the worst of the sinners, like child molesters. With a little salt and pepper, they weren’t half bad. Chocolate fountains replaced water fountains in the hallways, and the air smelled like Cinnabon’s most decadent concoctions. The seventeen Good Year–star restaurants produced unspeakably excellent food. And if none of those appealed, the 24-7 room service, which boasted every cuisine from Afghani to Zimbabwean, could generate anything anyone desired.

Horace had been assigned to her as an assistant, and as assistants went, he wasn’t bad. In his previous life, he’d been chief of staff to a tyrannical leader and had landed in Hell for his sins of omission. He hadn’t done enough to stop the demented guy from nearly destroying one of Earth’s biggest democracies. But his exceptional organizational skills and people-friendly approach had him rising through the ranks at a speed almost equal to her own. A political background was a plus in Hell.

During her first few days, Horace helped Tiffani navigate through the labyrinth of offices, cafeterias, spas, fitness rooms, movie theaters, and boutiques that dotted the headquarters. He tossed her pathetic furniture the moment it arrived from the Avarice campus and helped her furnish her new condo, which had views of the Hellfire. He directed her to the best dog parks, where Freddie could run with the dogs of the most elite of the C-Suite. As a dachshund, he didn’t fit in. Any C-Suiter with a dog usually had a chihuahua. Most had cats.

The one thing Horace couldn’t do for her was tell her what a president of North American sales for Avarice did. No one seemed to know or care. No one ever assigned her anything. No one ever asked for her input. No one gave her a job description. No one even gave her any office equipment, and the fiends in something called facilities management laughed when she’d tried to requisition a computer. When she asked why the C-Suite’s level of technology was as bad as that on the factory floor, especially when they had people like Archimedes and other brilliant sinners around, Horace laughed.

“C-Suite demons don’t really focus on creating tools for easing the corporate workload. They ease the corporate workload by not doing any work.”

Frustrated, she tried the when-in-Rome approach but found she didn’t mesh with any of the C-Suite’s myriad cliques. She never even considered going to the weekly orgies held by C-Suiters from Lust and Deceit, despite the racks of skimpy lingerie she’d received from an anonymous admirer. The Gluttony folks always took all the tables at the cafeteria during lunch, leaving her to sit with the few non-Gluttony demons who were able to snag a seat. The Wrath, Traitor, and Malice demons bullied everyone else, something she couldn’t condone. Even her own Avarice crowd left her alone. Horace told her they’d heard rumors about her friendships with angels and mortals and wanted to stay out of the way of any potential crossfire.

To her relief, Michael sent for her a few weeks after she arrived. Finally! An opportunity to start the conversation about her ideas for improving HSE’s bottom line. Wearing a professional pantsuit that downplayed her curves, cleavage, and shapely legs and, she hoped, emphasized her intelligence, she followed Horace’s directions toward Michael’s palatial suite in the luxury-headquarters building for CEOs and above. His offices were at the end of a long, gilded hallway plastered with portraits of him in dozens of different outfits: an oil painting of him on a throne wearing a crown; photos of him in business suits, sports attire, and casual wear; a blacklight velvet poster of him in a leather corset, holding a whip. It was like being trapped in a funhouse built by a psychopath.

When she walked in, she found herself in a 1960s ad-executive-style office, decorated in a mundane, mid-century-modern style. Michael sat on a leather-upholstered swivel chair behind a live-edge wood desk with a glass top and hairpin legs. On the desk sat nothing but what looked like a humidor, a remote, and a copy of Kama Sutra, which he’d apparently been perusing. The desk matched the coffee table in the seating area to the side, which featured a modernist couch upholstered in bright orange leather with white fur-covered throw pillows. It looked both uncomfortable and expensive. A credenza against the wall appeared to be an ordinary table until Michael clicked a button on a remote on his desk and a full bar rose from the top. It included two of her all-time favorite things: alcohol and glasses.

“Greetings, Tiff,” he said, gesturing to the bar. “Want a drink?”

She hesitated. She needed to be on her best game, and even a slight buzz could be a problem. But she also needed to show she was a team player, and nothing said that like drinking with the boss.

“Sure,” she said. She moved toward his desk to sit in the chair across from him but had to detour when he said, “Great. Grab me a whiskey and soda while you’re at it.”

Instead of saying, “I’m not your bartender, get it yourself,” she smiled and walked over to the bar.

“I’ve got some white zinfandel in the fridge for you,” Michael said. “I know the ladies like that.”

No. The “ladies” do not like it. The seventeen-year-old girls do.

Gritting her teeth, she poured two glasses of whiskey and soda and brought them back to his desk. He picked one up and clinked glasses with her.

“To drinking in the middle of the day!” Then he glanced down at her hands. “Why aren’t you carrying a notebook?”

“Is that a required accessory?”

“It is when you come to my office. How are you going to take notes for me?”

She frowned. “Why am I taking notes for you?”

He stretched his legs out on the desk, pulled a cigar out of the humidor, clipped off the end, and lit it with a flick of his finger.

“Didn’t they tell you? All the newbies work as secretaries for the first century or so,” he said, grinning.

“That can’t be right. I worked my ass off—”

“Thank goodness that’s only figuratively,” he said, with an appreciative smirk at her.

“—and now I’m your secretary? Is that what happens to everyone?”

“Of course not.”

“How do people get out of it?”

“They’re men.”

Tiffani clenched her teeth and balled up her fists, reminding herself that sucker punching her boss wouldn’t help her achieve any of her goals.

“I worked too hard for this crap,” she muttered.

“Pardon me?” Michael said.

“You heard me,” she snapped, standing up and heading to the door.

“Get me a coffee,” he yelled after her.

She made her way to Horace’s office, pounded on his door, and entered without a response.

“I need to talk to someone in HR. Michael is—”

“Is it the secretary thing? Sorry, I should have warned you about that. It’s actually a compliment. He saves his sexual-harassment activities for demons he finds particularly attractive.”

“I’m honored. Who do I complain to?”

Horace shook his head. “Hell doesn’t have an HR office. But Michael’s just being a dick. No one expects you to be his secretary.”

“So, what am I supposed to be doing?” she cried, throwing up her hands in frustration.

Horace furrowed his brow. “You’ve been doing it. Meetings, lunch, after-work drinks.” He patted her arm. “And I hear you’re great at it.”

Tiffani huffed. “You’re telling me that my job is to go to meetings to talk about the work lower-level fiends need to do? It’s like any mortal corporate environment?”

Horace shrugged. “The phrase Hell on Earth is more apt than people realize.”

Chapter 20

Despite the setback, Tiffani kept going as if nothing had happened. Michael had made his play. She had shut him down. End of story. She would focus on her main purpose for pursuing the C-Suite: fixing a broken production process and sales system. If she went to Michael with a solid plan, he’d have to listen.

She started by using a combination of sweet talk and threats to track down a laptop that worked, a version of a Windows operating system that wasn’t from the 1990s, and a printer that required new print cartridges after every ten pages or so, which was state-of-the-art for C-Suite technology. Her slick PowerPoint included all the business buzzwords demons would appreciate: leverage, synergy, pivot, scalability, and low-hanging fruit. In the notes she planned to use for her narrative, she circled back, took a deep dive, and thought outside the box. She created charts, graphs, and photoshopped images of a sparkling clean factory floor featuring smiling fiends. She even included a series of Venn diagrams, which were invented in Hell, highlighting HSE’s ideal group of customers—those at the intersection of need to impress, need to deceive, and need to let loose. That was where Joe had been. The perfect customer.

I wonder what he’s up to.

She banished the thought. She was a C-Suite demon now, not a salesfiend worried about what was going on with some random mortal.

After a long week of battling equipment, people, and software, she’d created a kick-ass presentation. Armed with two three-ring binders and a laminated one-pager, she made her way back to Michael’s suite, where she found the door of his inner sanctum ajar. She knocked softly.

“Who is it?” he called.

“It’s Tiffani.”

“Come on in.”

Tiffani inched the door open and was both surprised and not to find him with one of his secretaries on his lap.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked, trying to ignore the wiggling blue-eyed blond with her arms wrapped around Michael’s neck.

“I think I’ll need more than a minute with my friend here, if you know what I mean,” he said, pinching the woman’s cheek. She giggled. Bile rose in Tiffani’s mouth at his lascivious grin.

“Is there a better time?” Tiffani asked.

He sighed and glared at her. “No, but I have a feeling you’re going to be a pain in the ass until I hear you out, so let’s get it over with.” He scooted the demon off his lap, stood, and walked her to the door. As he opened it, he patted her butt.

“Run along, Suzie. We’ll get back to it later.”

“It’s Sarah, actually—”

Michael had already pushed her through the door and shut it.

You must not smack your boss. You must not smack your boss, Tiffani chanted to herself.

“Make it quick,” he said, returning to the leather chair behind his desk. “That Suzie—”

“Sarah,” Tiffani corrected him.

He waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever her name is, she’s a terrible typist, which is a Torture House offense here. I’d like to hit that before she’s sent away.”

Tiffani clenched her teeth.

Forget smacking. You must not smite your boss.

She handed him the one-pager and put one of the notebooks on his desk. “I didn’t have a chance last week to share my ideas on improving HSE’s bottom line.”

Because you’re an asshole.

“I think you’ll see that what I’m proposing here can make a difference. Plus, I’ll do all the work, and you can . . . spend your days as you normally do.”

He read through the document, muttering.

“Interdepartmental task force . . . sales, tech, and facilities . . . new factory equipment . . . quantum-based computing . . . sales apps . . . AI . . .” He set the page down and rested his elbows on the desk, furrowing his brow at her. It reminded her of the time she’d proposed modernization strategies for a mafia family’s bootleg business. The don had not been impressed. She picked up the notebook and plunged ahead anyway.

“As you can see in section two,” she said, turning the notebook toward him and pointing to a colorful timeline she’d put together, “the task force will review current production procedures and sales strategies to help determine what improvements we can make. I suggest we use George T. Doran’s SMART process for outlining our broad objectives and then delving into some innovative solutions.”

“SMART process?” he asked, smirking. “Is there a DUMB process?”

Tiffani chuckled at the terrible joke.

“I’m serious,” he said. “What’s SMART?”

She quelled the urge to scoff. How in the lower down did he get to be CEO of sales for HSE without knowing such basic business strategies?

“Uh, yeah. It’s big in the business world. It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Doran came up with it in 1981 in his article ‘There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives,’ although he did use different words for the acronym. What I’ve laid out here is the more modern interpretation . . . achievable instead of Doran’s assignable, realistic instead of relevant, and time-bound instead of time-related,” she said, realizing, as she took in Michael’s amused expression, that in babbling on about the intricacies of Doran’s process, she sounded more like a nerd than a sage.

Michael nodded. “That explains it. I’ve been in the C-Suite since 1563. I kind of stopped paying attention to trends then.”

Tiffani gaped. No wonder the equipment, procedures, and strategies weren’t up to date. The people in charge of the company were beyond ancient. She had never felt more sympathy for ROSE than she did at that moment.

“And no one keeps track of innovations in the mortal world? There’ve been a lot since 1563,” she said, trying to keep her tone even.

Michael shrugged. “We have a few demons who’ve championed some changes. Why do you think we bought those desktop computers, dot-matrix printers, and fax machines?”

“But what about the tech team? Don’t they have ideas? How to use AI, for example?” Seeing his blank expression, she prodded, “Artificial intelligence?”

“The techies stick to managing the soulcode databases. They don’t have anything to do with building, configuring, and testing the iSOUL devices.”

“And you don’t see a problem with that?” Tiffani almost screeched.

Michael leaned back. “Should I? It doesn’t impact my life.” He tossed her memo back at her. “Here’s the thing: That seems like a lot of work, and work isn’t really our vibe here in the C-Suite.”

Tiffani grabbed the memo and shoved it into her notebook. “I can see that,” she snapped. She stood and stomped toward the door.

“Great! Then we’re on the same page,” he called as she opened the door. “Send Suzie in here on your way out.”

Tiffani spent the next few days fuming. She tried to find ways to implement her plan on her own, but the lazy C-Suiters blocked her at every turn, making it clear that they wouldn’t stand for her making them look bad. After ten days of this fruitless endeavor, she tried to stop caring about making a difference. Life in the C-Suite was everything most demons dreamed of. She “did lunch” with other C-Suiters, went to the spa, attended raves (but still drew the line at orgies), took Fred to doggie meet and greets, and shopped. But two weeks of facials, massages, partying until dawn, playdates with stuck-up purse dogs, and gossip (both on the receiving and participating end) proved that sitting around and doing nothing wouldn’t work for her. She went back to Michael, ready to force him to give her something to do that didn’t involve sitting on his lap.

“Come on, you have to give me a project,” she whined.

He gave her an exasperated look. “Why is doing something so important to you?”

She threw up her hands. “Because otherwise it’s boring!”

He grinned. “Good. Boredom is the psychological torture we C-Suiters must endure.”

She looked around his office. “You seem to be bearing up pretty well.”

“I’ve been here longer. I’m used to it.”

“Please?” she asked. “I can be helpful. I know I can.”

He sighed. “OK. Maybe you can update the sales training.”

Something like excitement bubbled up in Tiffani’s caviar-and-champagne-addled brain.

Eliminating SPARC? Yes, please.

“You know, maybe come up with a new acronym,” Michael continued. “FIRE or BRIMSTONE. Actually, BRIMSTONE would work—it would extend the time demons have to spend at sales conferences.”

“What does BRIMSTONE stand for?”

“That’s the point! You can come up with whatever you want. Just make sure it uses something kind of like the SPARC techniques. Solicit, pretend, and, you know, the rest of it.”

“You don’t even know what the SPARC technique is? How did you get to be CEO of sales?”

“Look, little lady, I’m really good at forgetting things that have no relevance for me anymore. You might consider trying it.”

“Little lady? You’re really taking it up a level with the misogyny here,” she snapped.

“You’re welcome,” Michael called, as she stomped out of his office.

BRIMSTONE proved a challenging acronym, and Horace proved surprisingly helpful. His stint in politics had given him an affinity for creating useless yet amusing acronyms. He bragged that he’d been single-handedly responsible for the Department of Government Goals and Innovative Excellence Statistical Treatise on Yearly Level Efficiency—or DOGGIE STYLE—admitting that none of the department’s ten thousand employees had any idea what the agency did. He didn’t either.

Even with Horace’s innate abilities, Tiffani found the amount of brainstorming it took to come up with something viable maddening. Two seconds with an AI program would have yielded dozens of different options. But she played by Michael’s rules and came up with:

Begin the discussion

Review the mark’s needs

Instigate a discussion

Motivate toward an upgrade

Substantiate the benefits of the upgrade

Traumatize (if necessary)

Organize your thoughts

Negotiate (upward only)

End with a sale

Proud of her accomplishment, she sent Michael a memo and was told they’d review it “soon.” Horace looked at her with pity when she asked how long it would take.

“Bless your heart,” he said, reminding her, jarringly, of Maggie. “Maybe fifty or a hundred years? That’s another C-Suite torture. Boredom followed by frustration.”

In this case, though, boredom gave way to intense rage. Two days after she submitted her proposal, she picked up The Demon Dispatch, went to the business section, and found an article titled “C-Suite Demonic President of North American Sales Michael Bentley Develops Brilliant New Sales Strategy” and the subheading “BRIMSTONE to Become New Standard for Salesfiends Across the Lower Down.”

After decades of painstaking research into the work of business luminaries like George T. Doran, Henry Ford, and Tim Cook, Michael Bentley, president of North American sales, has developed a new sales strategy that is expected to at least quadruple sales in the next fiscal year—or else. During a thoroughly thought-provoking and charming interview with this reporter, Michael outlined the reasoning behind his work.

“There have been a lot of innovations in business sales, management, and operations since my becoming a postmortal in 1563,” he said. “I wanted to take the best ideas and incorporate them into a winning new strategy. I have no doubt that the use of BRIMSTONE will bring on a sales renaissance! In fact, we are so enthusiastic about this new strategy that we are offering prizes for the first one hundred sales made using the BRIMSTONE method. Prizes include cloning upgrade packages, vacation vouchers, get-out-of-torture-free cards—”

Disgusted, Tiffani read no further and threw the paper into Fred’s cage, where he matched her irritation by shredding it with his teeth. It burst into flames. She slammed open the door to her apartment and stormed down the hall, through the foyer, down another hall, over a bridge, past an indoor water park, past the spa and cafeteria facilities, and finally to the front door of the luxury headquarters for C-Suite CEOs and above, where she was stopped by the same security guard who’d welcomed her on her first day.

“How can I help you, Demoness Lutatio?”

“I need to see Michael right now,” she said, trying to keep her voice even.

She shrunk back as he looked her over with a disapproving expression. She’d stormed out of her apartment in her sweats with her hair in a sloppy ponytail, still wearing her dachshund slippers, and with coffee stains down her shirt.

“Can I see your ID badge?” he asked, putting a hand on the bowie knife at his belt.

“Uh . . .” She’d been in such a hurry to confront Michael she hadn’t even thought of her badge. She paused, unsure whether to run away or to risk disembowelment and insist on seeing Michael. The guard scrutinized her, then sat back.

“Tell you what. I’m going to assume you’re here in this state because Demon Bentley acted less than respectfully toward you—”

“Damn straight. He—”

“I don’t need to, nor should I, know what it is. I’m going to be a gentlefiend and allow you to turn around and make your way back to your apartment without insisting on seeing your badge. I suggest you take me up on this, and I suggest you do it quickly.” He used suggest much like she remembered from her gangstress days. She complied and ran back to her apartment, her slippered feet thudding in anger the entire way.

Outraged by Michael’s usurpation of her work, Tiffani dressed in her most impressive business suit and stomped into her office with Fred on her heels, ready to plan her next steps, the first of which was to slam the door and scream. Everything she’d worked for had been a lie. She wasn’t going to improve HSE’s product. She wasn’t going to boost sales. She wasn’t even going to make life marginally better for the beleaguered factory-floor workers using ancient equipment. Her sympathy for them had grown after her weeks in the C-Suite, with its outdated facilities. She sat down, put her elbows on her desk, and buried her face in her hands.

Maybe annihilation wouldn’t be so bad.

As she lifted her head, she noticed a pink message slip tucked under her “I’m #1 and You’re Not” coffee cup, a standard issue for the C-Suiters.

To: Tiff L

From: Some guy named Alfredo Poodle

Re: Call him. Some ex-porn star wants to talk to you.

Alfredo Poodle? Tiffani tapped her pen on her chin, then laughed and sat up.

Arthur Beagle!

It was Arthur, and he was telling her that Joe wanted to talk to her.

“Fred? Want to go on a trip to the up top?”

Fred woofed and jumped up, wagging his tail. It didn’t take a genius to see he wanted to visit their friends as much as she did.

Chapter 21

Fred had become accustomed to life in the C-Suite, where he could let his hellhound colors fly by bursting into flame whenever he felt like it. But because mortals didn’t have the same tolerance for that kind of behavior, Tiffani made a quick stop at her apartment to pick up his asbestos sweater.

“Sorry, bud. You’ve picked up some bad habits in the last few weeks,” Tiffani soothed as she wrestled him into it. She laughed at his world-weary sigh and handed him a piece of charcoal. “Stop being a drama queen, and let’s get going. Adventure awaits!”

Tiffani met Arthur and Joe at Purgatory, after ascertaining that Lewes was still in the Torture House. Even with her C-Suite status, the HIA could still get to her with enough probable cause, which she felt certain Lewes would have no trouble fabricating if he saw her hanging out with mortals and angels again.

Ken and the crowd at Purgatory were happy to see her and Fred, and she was happy to be there, even though Ken didn’t have any of the expensive Scotch around.

“I thought I wouldn’t see you anymore,” he said, setting a glass of Cutty Sark in front of her.

“Ah, did you miss me?” she asked him, pleased not to have been forgotten by her favorite bartender.

“I’m sure he did, and so did I,” Arthur said, dropping into the seat across from her. Then he nodded toward the door. “And so did this guy.”

Joe crossed the threshold, and Arthur waved to get his attention. He slumped over and joined Arthur on the seat across from her. She did a double take at his outfit. He wore a Pink Martini T-Shirt, which shocked the hell out of her.

“What’s up with the shirt? It looks like something Arthur would wear,” she said.

“I guess you’re a bad influence on me,” he said.

She scrutinized him as he refused to meet her gaze. “Uh-huh. So. What’s Edith’s favorite band?”

He slumped further. “Nothing gets past you, does it? Anyway, I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“For what?” she asked him, mystified.

“You did all that work to get Edith to tell me she loves me, and I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain,” he wailed, burying his head in his hands and digging his fingers through his hair as if unable to face her disappointment.

Tiffani took a sip of her drink and coughed.

“Smooth,” she sputtered. The liquid felt like molten lava in her esophagus, which she attributed to the lack of quality, not a welling of emotion at Joe’s pain. If she didn’t know better, it was almost like she wanted to help him.

“I don’t think it’s that you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain,” she consoled him. “I just think this boyfriend of hers has some strange hold on her.”

Joe gulped. “He’s an ass. I should have been able to manage it.” He exhaled heavily. “But maybe . . .” He lifted his head and gazed at her with big puppy dog eyes that put Fred’s to shame.

“Maybe?” Tiffani said, warily.

“Maybe you could help?” He sounded both eager and tremulous. “I mean, we did have an agreement, and technically . . .” He trailed off, as if hoping she’d get the point without him having to say more.

Tiffani groaned. “Are you trying to guilt me into something?”

“I mean . . . ,” he said, shrugging and raising his hands.

“Let me get this straight. You’re trying to guilt a fiend—wait, not even a fiend . . . a demon now—into something?”

“Does the fiend-slash-demon thing make a difference?”

“Demons have a little more . . . flexibility when it comes to managing mortals who attempt to manipulate them. Just how flexible are you?” she asked, as she made a show of cracking her knuckles. But she kept the smile on her face to show she was kidding.

“You wouldn’t harm your favorite mortal.” Joe laughed. “Plus, I have a fiend on my side.” He gestured at Arthur, who chose that minute to focus on a smudge on the cuff of his plaid shirt.

Tiffani sighed. “OK, what have you two cooked up?”

Joe nudged Arthur. “You tell her. You’re more fireproof than I am.”

“Fine,” Arthur grumbled. He leaned toward Tiffani. “We think the best way to get Edith to fall in love with Joe for real is to get her away from this Vincent guy.”

Tiffani sighed. “OK. Lay it on me.”

Arthur and Joe exchanged a nervous glance. “We want you to go to a party.”

Tiffani crossed her arms, suspicious. “A party?”

“Yeah. You like parties,” Arthur said, with a fake used-car salesman smile that made her even more skeptical.

Tiffani stared at him, then turned her attention to Joe.

“Details?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Umm . . . yeah. It’s a . . . uh . . . my office Christmas party,” Joe stuttered.

“You want me to go to your office Christmas party?” she shrieked.

“Yes,” Joe said. “I invited Edith, and she took that to mean Vincent was invited as well. He’ll be drinking. It’s the perfect place to show her what an ass he is.”

Tiffani turned to Arthur, wide-eyed. “And you’re OK with this? You have to know I can’t go to a Christmas party.”

“Umm . . .” Arthur stared down at the tabletop and refused to meet her eyes.

“Why can’t you go to a Christmas party?” Joe asked.

She raised her hands in frustration. “It’s right there in the name, dude.”

Joe cocked his head and furrowed his brow, wearing a confused expression that made Tiffani want to shake some sense into him. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and blew out a deep breath. “Christ? Like, you know, Christ? It’s celebrating the birth of one of Hell’s sworn enemies.”

“One of? Who are the others?” Joe asked.

Tiffani gave him a wry look. “Nice try. I’m not going to a Christmas party.”

Arthur jumped in. “Look at it this way. Turns out they scheduled it for the winter solstice, which is a pagan festival, right? Some might even say the Christians stole it and we have an obligation to reclaim it.”

Tiffani opened her mouth to protest, then stopped to consider. “It’s true that whole thing with the winter solstice pissed the pagans off. I’ve talked to a lot of them about it.”

“Pagans are in Hell?” Joe asked.

“They’re sure not in Heaven. They have a special section where they do their thing, most of which is going back and forth between Hell and up top to inhabit trees and such. I try not to hang out with them too much. They use crystals for deodorant. It’s not pleasant.”

Joe shook his head. “The more I learn about Hell, the more I’m surprised. I always thought it was brimstone and torture and fire and such.”

“Oh, there’s that. But, believe me, there are worse tortures. There’s an entire section devoted to making people wait at the DMV. They take a number, and they’re always ‘next.’ This goes on for years. It’s hilarious.”

Joe raised his eyebrows. “Your humor confuses me.”

Tiffani considered more, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think we can get away with this solstice thing. You don’t understand the situation I’m in. While it’s OK to host Christmas-based promotions, getting involved in any other way is off-brand for HSE. The Highest-Up hates that. They watch everyone extra close around the holidays.”

Joe’s shoulders slumped, and he looked down at his hands. Tiffani glared at Arthur.

“And demons aren’t supposed to do favors for mortals,” she mouthed.

Arthur cocked his head, widened his eyes, and clasped his hands together in a gesture that looked like he was praying.

Damn it, when did he decide to get so involved in this?

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered. “OK, I’ll think about it.”

Joe looked up, eyes alight. “Really?”

She raised a finger. “But I need to work something out before I can commit.”

“Anything I can help with?”

She scowled at him until he looked away.

“I’m going to take that as a no.”

“Good call. Now I need to yell at Arthur, so go away and, I don’t know, pick out an outfit for the party.”

Joe scooted out of the booth. “That sounds like a yes.”

“It’s a maybe. Arthur and I have to talk through some demon stuff to see if we can make it work.”

At the words demon stuff, Joe raised his hands and stepped toward the door. “I definitely do not want to get involved with that. Keep me posted, OK?”

Tiffani waved him off. “Go. We’ll talk soon.” She watched him until he crossed the threshold, then whirled back to Arthur, who was cringing against the bench.

“Do you recall that we’re not supposed to be doing favors for mortals?” she hissed.

Arthur leaned across the table. “You’re a C-Suiter now. You can do anything you want, right?”

Tiffani shook her head. “No. I’m bound by the same rules as everyone else in the lower down.” She tapped her chin for a minute as an idea brewed. Something that would both deal with the Vincent issue and, possibly, gain her more respect with the rest of the C-Suite. “OK, here’s a thought. What if I wasn’t really doing a favor for Joe? What if I was doing it to test out this new BRIMSTONE protocol? I could even win a prize.”

And maybe a little respect.

Arthur smiled. “That’s good. Plus, everything in Hell is closed on the winter solstice. No one will even notice until you come in with a great sale.”

Tiffani frowned at him. “To be clear, if I do this, it’s only because I want to use the BRIMSTONE method to get this Vincent guy to rent a soul. I don’t care at all what happens with Joe and Edith.”

“Of course not,” Arthur said, smiling.

“I mean it. This is all about getting Vincent. Nothing else.”

Arthur nodded.

“And it’s only the one party,” she said.

“Got it.”

“And then we’re done.”

“Absolutely. And if it helps, they call it a ‘holiday’ party. They don’t want to belittle other religious faiths.”

Despite herself, Tiffani chuckled. Fred gave a muffled bark in response, panted, and rolled onto his back. Arthur reached down and scritched the hellhound’s belly. Fred sighed.

“Traitor,” Tiffani said. The dog nudged at Arthur’s hand, unashamedly, demanding more attention, and gave Tiffani a look that clearly said, “I like this guy. Let’s help him out.”

She glared at Arthur and huffed. “OK. Fine. Your ‘holiday’ party it is. What’s the plan?”

“I think you’ll like it. It involves you at your demonic best,” Arthur said.

Tiffani nodded. “That has promise. Tell me more.”

Chapter 22

As he and Tiffani strode into the party, Joe stood about two inches taller than normal, absorbing all the street cred he’d gained having her on his arm. She’d done her best to dress in a way that danced the line between classy and slutty. Too classy, and people would suspect a paid arrangement. Too slutty, and she’d spend the evening fending off horny assholes. She wore a simple, form-fitting black dress with red heels, and her blond hair in a sleek updo. The large sapphire on her necklace matched the eye color she created with navy-blue contacts over her red irises. In a nod to the holidays, she’d added some glitter to her eyeshadow, and her earrings were shaped like snowflakes.

When they entered the conference room, every head turned—both male and female. Tiffani scanned the room for Edith, eager to see her jerk of a boyfriend, who would make such an excellent fiend. On spotting him, she wasn’t disappointed. Between his polyester-blend suit that tried (and failed) to mimic silk, the excessive amount of hair product, the fake tan, the proprietary attitude, and the fog of cologne wafting off him, he exuded a level of self-confidence that would have been inappropriate for a far better man than he.

“There he is,” Joe muttered, as if it wasn’t obvious that the man standing with his arm slung around Edith’s shoulders was her boyfriend.

Just then, Edith saw Joe and, after a moment of gawking at Tiffani, waved them over. Tiffani was pleased to see Vincent doing more than gawking at her. He was practically salivating. This would be easier than anticipated.

“Hey . . . uh . . . Edith, i-it’s . . . uh . . . g-good to see you,” Joe stammered.

What the hell? When in the presence of a creature from Hell, it had taken him only a week to go from stuttering fool to normal human who could string words together coherently. But with Edith, who appeared to be an ordinary human and who he’d already spent an evening playing Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit with, he sounded worse than he had when Tiffani had first met him.

“Good to see you, too, Joe.” Edith gave a curt nod to Tiffani. “And you.” Her confused expression suggested she wasn’t sure why Tiffani had come as Joe’s date and wasn’t sure how she felt about that. An inkling of jealousy. Good. It boded well.

“Who’s the pretty lady?” asked Vincent, looking Tiffani up and down with unfocused eyes and lingering on her breasts. Given his glassy gaze, he had what had to be his third or fourth martini in his hand. How. Friggin’. Cliché.

Joe raised his chin. “That’s Edith. Your date.”

Tiffani snorted, and Edith giggled, looking gratified. Vincent laughed, but it was the laugh of someone who didn’t understand the joke.

“I meant your date, dude. Not the ‘little woman’ here.” He slapped Edith on the butt.

Joe scowled. “Tiffani, meet Vincent. Vincent, meet Tiffani.”

Tiffani licked her lips and smoldered as she reached out her hand, ready to implement the BRIMSTONE protocol. Time to “begin the discussion.”

“Any friend of Joe’s . . .”

Vincent took her hand and brought it to his lips. With any other man, it might have been chivalrous. With him, it was predatory. He reluctantly let go of it, only after she’d run her finger along his palm.

“Do you want to join me for a drink?” he oozed. “They have an open bar.”

“Review the mark’s needs.” Check.

Tiffani continued gazing at him as if he overwhelmed her with his sex appeal, even as she felt bad for the poor woman stuck with this creep.

At least I’ll be helping her get rid of him.

“Absolutely, but won’t Edith mind?” she asked. Talking about Edith in the third person when she was standing right there must show her what a loser Vincent was.

“No, she won’t,” he said. He smacked Edith’s behind again and extended his arm to Tiffani. “Let’s go.”

Vincent’s sweaty hand rested on the small of her back as they walked over to the bar, and it stayed there even after she had the drink in her hand. Faced with the foggy way he slurred his way through the word martini and the way he slipped when trying to sit on the barstool, she felt a small pang of doubt. “Instigating a discussion” would be challenging.

“So, where are you from, beautiful?” he asked.

Hell, asshole.

“Oh, you know. Here and there. What about you?”

He squeezed her back and pulled her a little closer. “I like a mysterious woman. I can play that game. I’m from here and there, too. Which do you like better? Here”—he grazed his thumb along her spine—“or there?” He set down his drink and placed his other hand on her hip.

You have got to be kidding me. What does Edith see in this guy?

She let his hand remain, even though she wanted to grab it and twist until his wrist dislocated. “So, how did you meet Edith?”

“We met when our company bought one of her clients. She’s cute enough and good with numbers. She’s not bad in bed. I figured I could use someone like that. She’s actually been exceptionally helpful with these deals.” He winked. “A good fall guy,” he whispered. Then he looked chagrined. “But you can’t tell anyone I said that. It’s a secret.”

What a delightful way to describe your “little woman,” whom you framed for embezzling.

“My lips are sealed.”

“Speaking of,” he continued. “I know some other things those lips could do, if you know what I mean.”

How on earth do you think I wouldn’t know what you mean?

“What did you have in mind?”

He leaned in close enough for her to feel his moist breath on her cheek. “What does five hundred dollars get me?”

She pulled back. “I beg your pardon?”

He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her close. “I think you know what I mean.” She could feel the pitiful hardness he was trying to impress her with.

“You think I’m—”

“Is there any other way you’d be with Joe Milquetoast over there?” He gestured to where Joe and Edith were standing together at an awkward distance, talking. Tiffani could tell from her expression that Edith enjoyed talking to Joe. She lit up in a way that she didn’t with Vincent. With Vincent, she looked more awestruck, like she couldn’t believe such a good-looking, suave man showed any interest in her. Clearly, she had no douchebag radar. Tiffani hoped Edith wound up with Joe. A trusting soul like that deserved someone less reprehensible.

Tiffani gave Vincent a slow, seductive smile. “You’d be surprised at the size of his . . . intellect,” she purred. “He’s pretty amazing. He doesn’t need to hire a hooker, and I’m definitely not one.” Time to instigate a discussion about buying an iSOUL. “In fact, I’m in sales. For Hell’s Soul Exchange. You know, you seem like the kind of man who could handle a truly powerful soul.” She licked her lips.

Vincent looked taken aback, but wasn’t one to give up. “Sales, huh? To tell you the truth, I kinda prefer bartering. Maybe I’ll rent one of your souls if you’ll . . .” He leaned in and whispered something in her ear that would have made Casanova blush.

Tiffani looked him over. According to the BRIMSTONE protocol, she still had to motivate toward an upgrade, substantiate the benefits of the upgrade, traumatize, organize, negotiate, and end with a sale. But at this point, all she wanted was to get Vincent the hell away from Edith.

She leaned toward him so he could glimpse her cleavage. “Meet me in the bathroom in five minutes,” she whispered in his ear. Her tone suggested she found him so attractive she couldn’t help herself. That always turned guys on even more. “Give me a minute to tell my date I have to powder my nose.”

Disentangling herself from his clutches, she winked and walked over to where Joe and Edith stood. Then, she fake-sobbed as she told Edith how Vincent had come on to her and told Edith to go to the bathroom in a few minutes to see for herself.

When Tiffani strode into the bathroom, she posed herself on the bathroom counter, leaning back and gripping the edge, as if to give the impression that she’d love nothing better than to be taken against the cold marble tile. Vincent walked in and nearly took his pants off right then.

“I guess we’re doing this, yes?” he asked as he walked over to her. He took her hand and placed it on his sorry excuse for an erection.

“What do you think?” she asked, batting her eyelashes in the way she’d seen actors do on the Telemundo soap operas so many mortals watched.

She turned toward the mirror. “I like it this way. Is that OK?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely.” He leaned over and started kissing her neck while he grabbed her boob and pulled it out of her dress. “I love it when women aren’t wearing bras. Makes it so much easier.” He started hitching up her skirt, and she fake moaned, hoping the door would open soon so Edith could walk in on the scene. Otherwise, she’d have to rip his arm off, and she hated doing stuff like that. While fiends and demons were allowed to protect themselves from mortals threatening physical harm, it involved a lot of blood and paperwork.

“Oh, Vincent, I—”

The bathroom door swung open, and Edith stood on the threshold, right on time. Tiffani pulled down her skirt, turned around, and raised an eyebrow at him.

Vincent jammed his shirt back into his pants and stepped away.

“Edith, babe. She came on to me,” he whimpered. “She begged me.”

Tiffani was relieved to see that Edith looked furious, not devastated. In the end, it turned out that Vincent’s behavior was the one thing that would have turned Edith off with little to no regret. The way was now cleared for Joe, and he didn’t need to worry about taking advantage of someone suffering through a painful breakup. Edith was primed for a relationship with a nice guy.

“And assuming Vincent doesn’t mend his ways anytime soon, I’ll see him again when he gets to the Lust campus,” Tiffani muttered under her breath. “Maybe I can help come up with some torture ideas for him.” The thought warmed her more, even, than one of Fred’s cuddles.

Chapter 23

Vincent, both pissed and embarrassed, stumbled toward the door mumbling things like “I was set up” and “That bitch made me do it.” Meanwhile, Edith decided to head home, where she could fume in peace. Joe, after much prodding from Tiffani, offered to make sure she got there safely. Edith had the grace to ask Tiffani if she minded.

“Or,” she said, snarling at the spot where Vincent stood, trying to put on his coat, which seemed too complicated for him to master in his inebriated state. “Is Joe abandoning you? Is this room full of asshole men who betray women?”

“No! Joe is amazing,” Tiffani said, “but we already decided we work much better as friends. He’s too caring and considerate for me.”

Edith cocked her head to the side, looking both amused and confused. “And you don’t go for that?”

“I like the bad boys,” Tiffani said. “But not that bad.” She jerked a thumb toward Vincent, who seemed to be having difficulty understanding how his scarf worked. “Joe, on the other hand.” She sighed. “Sometimes I wish I liked cute guys who send me flowers, take me to dinner without expecting sex, and can hold an intelligent conversation without mansplaining.” She sighed again, hoping she wasn’t laying it on too thick. “He’s so confident and caring at the same time.”

Edith turned to peer at Joe as if trying to imagine life with a man like that. Over her shoulder, Tiffani widened her eyes and pulled her lips up at the corners, trying to get Joe to return Edith’s look with a confident and caring smile. Joe responded with a grimace that didn’t quite capture that vibe, but he didn’t appear sweaty and terrified, so Tiffani counted it as a win.

After a few more minutes of fending off leering men at the party, Tiffani went back to her up-top apartment to pick up Fred. She sighed in delight and relief as she opened the door, ready to let Fred out of his crate, head back down to her luxury C-Suite condo, and snuggle with him while watching a Hallmark movie, her secret vice.

“What. The. Hell. Did. You. Do?”

The voice came out of the shadows, and she dropped her purse with a gasp.

“Arthur?” She turned on the lights, and there he stood, tapping his foot, with his arms crossed. His eyes bulged under his askew knitted cap, and his meticulous beard was tangled. He looked like he’d spent three days on a mushroom high.

“What the hell did you do?” Arthur repeated, throwing his hands up in the air. Fred paced in his crate, growling and belching fire. He never responded well to anyone, fiend or no, arguing with Tiffani.

“Says the fiend who broke into my apartment,” she snapped. “What is your problem?”

“Oh, it’s not my problem you have to worry about. It’s yours.” He held his iPad in front of her face and pointed at her tier. Tiffani grabbed it out of his hand and goggled. She had gone from Diamond to Iron.

“I reiterate for the third time. What. The. Hell. Did. You. Do? How did you screw this up?” he screeched.

Tiffani crossed to Fred’s crate, unlocked the latch, and grabbed him by his asbestos doggie jacket as he tried to rush out and go for Arthur’s throat. Fred could only reach Arthur’s kneecap, but the damage might send him to the medical whackjobs. And she needed his help more than ever.

“Fred, you’re to leave Arthur alone, OK?”

The dachshund grumbled but stopped his lunging. She let go of him, straightened, and threw herself on the couch. Fred joined her and wrapped himself around the back of her neck, licking her ear.

“Fred, I love you, but I can’t have second-degree burns on my ear,” she said, pulling him down and settling him on the couch next to her.

She turned back to Arthur.

“I did what we said!” she cried. “I tried out the BRIMSTONE protocol on Vincent, then left the party.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow, and Tiffani ran her fingers through her air, trying to appear nonchalant while a freight train of dread ran through her. If she was being honest with herself, she hadn’t gotten past B-R-I before deciding that she had to get Edith out of Vincent’s clutches. Definitely not part of the demonic game plan.

“Shit. What am I going to do?” Tiffani wailed.

“I have the DMCDs on it right now,” Arthur said. “It might take a little longer, though, because Hell is closed for the holiday, and the servers are on high alert. I’m not sure—”

His phone pinged.

“That’s probably them now,” he said. He read the text out loud.

We’ve got a problem, Boss. Whoever this delilahdanish15tolife is, he’s really good. We couldn’t make the change before he found it.

Tiffani stared at him, trying to grasp what she’d heard. “It can’t be Lewes; he’s still in the Torture House. I made sure.”

“It appears he isn’t,” Arthur said, grabbing her arm. “OK, let’s figure out what to do. Can you hide anywhere? I’m sure the kids can change it back. Then it would be a ‘he said, she said’ situation. I’ll bet you can outcharm Lewes in front of a judge.”

“Are you sure about that?” a voice hissed as the door creaked open.

There stood Lewes, followed by Org and five securityfiends.

“Both of you, come with me.”

Chapter 24

Whereas Arthur went with Lewes quietly, they had to carry Tiffani out scratching, biting, and screaming, in part because she didn’t want to go to a demonic prison, which she assumed had to be worse than the lockups she’d experienced during her speakeasy days, but mainly because she was terrified about what would happen to Fred. He’d lunged at Lewes and almost sank his teeth into the snarky jerk before Org grabbed the asbestos jacket and dragged the furious dog to his crate.

“Please, what’s going to happen to him?”

Lewes shrugged, an evil grin on his face. Tiffani growled and bared her teeth in an excellent imitation of Fred.

“If you do anything to my dog—”

Org shocked Tiffani when she said, “I’ll take care of Fred.” She looked down at her hands as if she was about to admit something shameful. “I like dogs.”

Lewes, in his unerring ability to find opportunities for psychological torture, said, “They are tasty, aren’t they?”

The horror of Lewes’s words squelched all of Tiffani’s fiery protests.

“Please don’t hurt him,” she whimpered as she pulled herself together. “I’ll go quietly.”

Org cleared her throat. “No one will hurt him. I’ll feed him and walk him and stuff. Don’t, you know, worry.”

“Whose side are you on?” Lewes snapped.

“Fred’s,” Org muttered. She walked over to the crate and reached in, bravely, Tiffani thought, to pet the angry dog. To Tiffani’s surprise, Fred took the snarling drama down a notch and allowed Org to give him a scritch. Tiffani stared at the tableau in shock. Org apparently wasn’t the mindless, evil automaton Tiffani had always pegged her as. Dogs always knew.

More confident now that Fred would be OK, Tiffani relaxed a little, until she started thinking about what she was facing herself.

The prison they took her to was on level forty-two of the Avarice section of the Torture House, and her cell consisted of a six-by-eight-foot space. Screams of those being subjected to all kinds of punishments, from drawing and quartering to burning to being trapped in a room with a rabid weasel, assaulted her. As she paced, which was a strong word for what she could do considering the size of the cell, her thoughts fixated on if, or when, she might become weasel chow.

The cries from a new torture—finding yourself naked in a classroom to take a test on a subject you know nothing about—increased, and she heard a voice that sounded both familiar and unimpressed.

“Feck off, you eejits. I’m not saying a damn thing about ROSE, and you think you’d be sick and tired of wasting everyone’s time.”

Siobhan!

Tiffani sprang over to the bars and grabbed them, craning her head as far as she could in either direction.

“Siobhan! Is that you?”

“Tiffani?” came the response, then a thud and a grunt of pain and coughing. “The only impact you’re having with that truncheon is to piss me off,” Siobhan huffed. “It’s a British weapon, and we Northern Irish hate that.”

Tiffani held a hand up to her mouth to stifle a laugh.

A frustrated sigh came out of the cell next door. “I don’t see why we can’t use some of our more persuasive tools. I’d love to get her in the dentist’s chair,” said a gruff voice.

“I’m still trying to get authorization, but you know how bureaucracy works,” said a second demon.

“Or doesn’t,” sniffed the first demon.

After some shuffling and a couple of ows, not all from Siobhan, the door from the cell next door opened, and two fiends wearing Torture House guard uniforms stormed out. A shoe was hurled after them and smacked one of them on the head. He threw it back through the bars with a grunt.

“See you tomorrow, boys!” came Siobhan’s voice.

After they left, Tiffani tried to lean out between the bars but had to satisfy herself with glimpses of the side of Siobhan’s cell.

“You’ve been here all this time?” she called.

The bars next door rattled. “Yeah. There’s a paperwork issue, I guess, or they’re trying to intimidate me with this waiting. Which isn’t going to work!” she said, raising her voice at the end. The words echoed back at her. “Damn. They must not be here anymore.”

“But—but Judge Betty was so angry at your trial,” Tiffani sputtered, thinking back to Lewes’s attempt to intimidate her by putting her on the jury for Siobhan’s trial.

“Apparently, once she got to the spa, she forgot all about it. I’ve been languishing here while someone somewhere gets some form filed to someone else. No one has any idea what form is needed and how long it will take. Turns out it’s a standard practice. Adds to the suspense.”

Tiffani sent down a silent prayer that this would be the same for her, then started at the sound of a new voice.

“Isn’t this cozy?” Lewes and Org appeared. Lewes wore a smug expression, while Org . . .

Tiffani frowned. After Org’s whole interaction with Fred, Tiffani wondered if Org’s heretofore dimly threatening expressions had been for some show she didn’t know about.

“How’s Fred?” Tiffani asked.

“He’s fine,” Org said. “He’s—”

“Does now seem like the time for a cozy catchup, Organza?” Lewes leaned against the bars and shoved his hands in his pockets, grinning at Tiffani. She gave Org a short nod in thanks and acknowledgment, then glared back at Lewes.

“Are you enjoying being next to your mentor?” he asked.

“Feckin’ right she’s enjoying it!” called Siobhan.

“Shut up, you,” said Org, with a warning look.

“Now, is that the way to treat one of our favorite prisoners? Don’t you want to hear what she has to say?” Lewes purred.

Org didn’t respond, but Siobhan seemed to have had enough of acting rebellious for the time being. Lewes turned back to Tiffani.

“Any thoughts on going from C-Suite to Torture House in just a few weeks? Are congratulations in order?” Lewes cocked his head at her. She remained silent. “Org, give us a minute,” he ordered after a moment. “Go play with the dog or something.”

“The dog’s back in her apartment,” Org said. “Should I—?”

“Do I look like I care where you go? What part of ‘get out of here’ do you not understand? And take Siobhan with you,” Lewes snapped. “This is a private conversation.”

“Sorry, boss.” But before Org shrugged her shoulders and walked away, an expression flashed across her face that Tiffani, in her new assessment of Org’s character, thought might be anger or disgust. Org took a key out of her pocket, opened Siobhan’s door, and pulled her out.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, you big oaf,” Siobhan said, trying pointlessly to pull her arm out of Org’s grasp.

“Shut it,” snarled Org, as she dragged Siobhan away.

Lewes waited until they were out of hearing range. Then he stood straighter and faced Tiffani. “We both know you have information that, if known, would be very damaging to our organization. Let’s talk about that.”

Tiffani cocked her head. “And what is that?”

Lewes tapped rhythmically on the bars. It sounded to Tiffani like a death march.

“How far did you go down?” he asked. “Was Iron the lowest?”

Tiffani had expected the attack and had even practiced maintaining an innocent expression. She hoped it held up now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lewes waved his hand. “Oh, please. Do you think the HIA doesn’t know that soulcode can change?”

“It can?” Tiffani asked, wide-eyed. “That is brand-new information.”

Lewes snorted.

Tiffani stared at the ground. “Well, I guess I am a liability now that you’ve been stupid enough to tell me.” Then she grabbed the bars and stared straight into his eyes, trying to relay a sincerity that she did, in fact, feel. “But I would never tell anyone,” she breathed.

“You’re right about that. We’ll have a very short and very secret tribunal, and then it’s annihilation for you.”

Tiffani let go of the bars and fell onto the cot. “But—”

“But nothing. You are now privy to one of the biggest secrets we have. Can you imagine if the Rabble Rousers, with all their ‘as in life, so in death’ bullshit got ahold of this?”

“I would never tell—” she repeated.

“And now you have others involved in your drama. Arthur and those kids of his, for example.”

“What are you going to do with Arthur?”

“Not your concern.”

“And Maggie, Emily, and Jonah?”

“Don’t worry. We have a whole ‘tragic accident, concussion, possible death, possible coma, definite brain damage’ plan for them. And if we can manage it, we’ll be sure they remember they were smart. That should be entertaining to watch.”

Tiffani imagined the trio of brilliant teenagers subjected to possibly the worse punishment ever. Given the option, they might prefer the coma.

“What do you want from me?”

“Maybe if you told us how you fixed your tier back up to Diamond after it changed the first couple of times, and we found a way for you to keep that information to yourself, we could help your friends.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ms. Lutatio, do I look like an idiot? Two hacks occurred in October, both into the same part of the database, both mucking around with your code. I didn’t catch the perpetrators then, but I think I now have a pretty good idea of who they were and what they were doing there. Arthur, for example, is very handy with computers. I bet he won’t mind being annihilated. He doesn’t have much going on.”

“You can’t! He had nothing to do with this.”

Lewes raised an eyebrow. “We both know that’s a lie, and actually, I can do whatever I want. The only reason you’re getting a ‘trial’”—the air quotes made it clear exactly how fair the trial would be—“is because we want to show the higher-ups of the lower down how effective we are. Funding and all that. But if you’re not interested . . .” He turned as if to walk away.

Tiffani groaned. Arthur annihilated. Maggie, Emily, and Jonah losing what they cared about most—their intellect. They may have wanted to be the “bad kids,” but they didn’t deserve this.

“Wait,” she said.

Lewes stopped but didn’t turn. “Yes?”

“I can tell you how w—I . . . beat your system.” She hoped he hadn’t noticed that she’d almost said “we.” “But I want immunity for anyone who might be implicated.”

“Now why would we give anyone immunity?”

“If you don’t, I won’t tell you anything, and”—she thought of a brilliant bluff—“and I have people on the outside . . . people you’re not aware of . . . who also know how soulcode can change. You won’t be able to track them down before they tell everyone. I don’t think you want that.” Sure, Barry and Joe had no idea about any of this. But Lewes wasn’t aware of that.

Lewes turned and narrowed his eyes, appraising her.

“We have Barry under surveillance right now. I assume that’s who you’re talking about? Or maybe it’s Joe? Or both?”

“I guess you’ll have to find out.”

Lewes paced back and forth. “It seems that we’re at a bit of an impasse here.”

She held his gaze. “Agree to immunity for others involved. Release Arthur. Stay away from Maggie, Emily, and Jonah.” She hesitated. “And Fred. Don’t harass Barry or Joe. And in exchange, I’ll tell you how I beat the system. And . . . and you can prosecute me.”

Lewes looked thoughtful. “Or I could torture it out of you.”

Tiffani lifted her chin. “You could try.”

Lewes considered her for a moment, clearly trying to assess how serious she was. Then he shrugged. “The whole torture thing might take some time, and we need answers now. All we want to know are the weaknesses in the system. We’re not out to punish anyone besides you.”

Tiffani snorted. The idea of an HIA agent not salivating to punish everyone was absurd. “If we make this deal, I want it in writing. In a contract. A real one. One that even the HIA can’t break.”

He nodded again. “Yes. That can be arranged.”

She took a deep breath and reached out her hand. “OK. You have a deal.”

After he left, while Tiffani waited for Siobhan to come back and return to her mentor role for this crappy new world, she closed her eyes and began calculating the best way to write an ironclad contract even the HIA couldn’t get out of. Something that protected everyone from wrongdoing. And she’d have to prepare herself for what was to come. Annihilation. That was what she would have to look forward to. Would it be worth it?

Yes. To save her friends.

Chapter 25

Lewes returned a short time later with a contract that, much to Tiffani’s surprise, suited her needs exactly. Complete exoneration for Arthur; no harassment of the DMCDs, Joe, Edith, or Barry; and ongoing protection for Fred. He must want to get this over with, and quickly. After she signed, Lewes sat in a chair in the hallway outside her cell with a notepad and a triumphant expression.

“So, what’s the vulnerability in the system? Which demons in IT do I get to annihilate?”

Tiffani frowned. “We have an ironclad promise that you won’t harm anyone.”

Lewes grinned. “We have an ironclad promise that I won’t touch your friends. But they can’t be the only ones involved, can they? Someone somewhere in my department must have screwed up, and can you imagine how much I look forward to having a chat with them?” His faraway expression suggested he could already hear their screams.

Tiffani considered throwing Leonard, the IT fiend on the Avarice campus who accidentally let the DMCDs in twice, under the bus, but decided against it.

This being nice thing is getting out of hand.

“Actually, it had nothing to do with anything your IT people did or didn’t do, or at least not knowingly,” she said. “The DMCDs outsmarted a few fiends using social engineering.”

“Social what?”

“Yes, I know the term social is something demons struggle with. Basically, the kids talked their way into the system. Fiends lower down the flagpole were tricked into giving up their passcodes. Before anyone figured it out, it was too late.”

Lewes pressed the paper in front of him so hard, the tip of his pencil broke. “You mean to tell me that my security fiends just handed over valuable information?” he growled. He started doodling in the margins of his notebook.

Probably jotting down his designs for new torture devices, Tiffani thought.

She tilted her head and looked at him. “Do you really want to punish all of them? Word might get out. Do you think the higher-ups would be happy if they learned that three teenagers talked their way into your fancy security system? You might have the satisfaction of torturing a few underlings, but I bet your punishment would be equally horrific.”

Lewes threw the pencil on the ground and crushed it under his boot. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath through his nose, and exhaled. His shoulders relaxed and his hands stopped shaking. He picked up the dregs of the pencil and smiled, his expression going from furious to pleased.

“Actually, I’ve thought of an ideal punishment for every single securityfiend with access to the computer system that will inflict extensive pain on them without giving away too much of what really happened. And what do you think that is?” he asked.

Tiffani wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking what it was, but her inquisitive expression, or perhaps the desire to boast about his own cleverness, must have inspired him to share his plan anyway.

“I’m going to set up a ten-hour interactive training course on computer security. And I’m going to make anyone with any access to any passcode take it over and over again for the next decade or so.” His gleeful expression suggested he already had ideas for how to make the training truly torturous, and Tiffani imagined ten years of role-playing, trust exercises, and PowerPoints.

She shuddered. Maybe she hadn’t helped Leonard and his colleagues as much as she’d hoped. But it was better than physical torture and annihilation.

Lewes stood, moved his chair back to the wall, and smiled. “Thank you for the information. And do you think you’re of any more use to me?” he asked.

Tiffani shook her head. With no more information to give him, her own punishment was imminent. Lewes made that clear by reaching through the bars, taking her hand, and kissing it. She yanked it away.

“My colleagues will come for you tomorrow morning. Goodbye, Ms. Lutatio.” He smirked, bowed, then turned to saunter past the guards and out the door.

A few hours later, as she was trying to prepare herself for whatever awaited her, Tiffani was surprised to see Org walking down the hall, carrying a squirming mass of cloth. She stopped in front of Tiffani’s cell.

“I talked your guard into letting you have five minutes with your dog.”

Tiffani gawked. “How? And why?”

Org shrugged. “The guard has a thing for me. I . . . Well, let’s just say you better enjoy your time with Fred.”

Tiffani stared at her. “Why would you do this for me?” she asked.

“It’s for Fred.” Then she sighed. “I know you think I’m a monster—”

“—to be fair, you once threatened to rip off my appendages and eat them while I watched. Lewes seemed pretty proud of you for coming up with that unique threat.”

Org nodded in agreement. “Yes, that’s true. But I have a mind of my own, you know. Lewes doesn’t always run the show. Plus, like I said, I like dogs. And I know he wants to see you,” she said, unwrapping the cloth covered in asbestos tape. Right on cue, Fred began to whine at the sight of his mistress.

“You’ve got five minutes. And you have to make sure he doesn’t bark,” Org muttered.

Tiffani held a finger to her lips. “Shh . . . Freddie. You have to be quiet.”

Fred immediately stopped whining and, instead, licked her through the bars.

“Can I pick him up for a minute?”

Org looked around. “I’m not supposed to let him in your cell.”

“What am I going to do? Rush you? Come on, please?”

Org sighed, then she walked over to the guard, spoke to him for a moment, and left him admiring the knife Org had given him.

“I told him it was for safekeeping, since the prisoner might decide to grab it and hold us hostage. He laughed at that—said you couldn’t hurt a mosquito—but he took it anyway.” Then she pulled out the keys she’d picked from the guard’s pocket. “Are you going to try to escape?” Org asked.

“I wouldn’t tell you if I was,” Tiffani said.

“Good answer.” Org chuckled. She opened the door and shoved Fred through. “Five minutes.”

Five minutes. That was all she’d have to say goodbye to this dog who’d been her companion for so many years. For they both knew it was goodbye. Fred was a smart pup.

She snuggled him close while her tears fell and sizzled on his coat. He curled into her and shivered, as if he was just as scared for her as she was.

“What’s going to happen to him?” She sniffed.

“I’m going to take care of him,” Org said. “I think he likes me.” She reached in to scritch him under his collar. Fred leaned into her hand.

Tiffani sighed, both in sadness and relief. “I guess he does.” She pulled him close and whispered in his ear.

“You be my good Freddie-webby, OK? Pay attention to your aunt Org.”

Fred whimpered quietly, and Tiffani nuzzled his neck. She felt something scratchy under his collar, right under the buckle. It was a small envelope made of asbestos. Inside was a piece of paper. Puzzled, she looked up at Org, who put a finger to her lips.

“Read it,” she mouthed.

With a pounding heart, she unfolded the piece of paper.

Be ready. Midnight.

Arthur

Startled, she glanced up at Org, who shook her head and made a zip-it gesture, just as the guard whistled.

“Hey, time to get that dog out of here.”

Org grabbed Fred and the piece of paper. She touched the paper to the dog’s fur, and it burst into flames. She plastered a sneer on her face as she turned away.

“I hope you enjoy the Ice House.”

Tiffani stared after her, shocked, confused, and for the first time in a few weeks, hopeful.

Chapter 26

Be ready. Midnight.

Tiffani paced the confines of the cell, pondering this surprising turn of events. She had six hours—thank the Devil she’d been allowed to keep her watch—to figure out if Org was for real, or if this was some elaborate ruse to . . . to what? What worse thing could happen to her? The only thing she could think of was that Lewes was definitely cruel enough to let her last night in prison be filled with hope, only for it to be dashed.

But was Org that cruel? Before tonight, Tiffani would have answered that question with an emphatic yes. After her visit, though, Tiffani wasn’t sure. Org could have found another way to get her the note. Instead, she’d known how much Tiffani would want to see Fred and made it happen. Most important, though, Fred liked Org. That had mystified Tiffani in the past. Now she better understood why.

At 11:59 p.m., she was standing by the bars, trying to look “ready,” whatever that meant. At midnight, she heard a distant boom—it sounded at least two floors up—followed by screams and the rat-a-tat of gunfire. Even though gunfire didn’t kill fiends, it definitely hurt and could put them out of commission.

In a couple of minutes, the knob on the guard door exploded, and Org and Arthur burst into the room, followed by . . . Joe.

Org knocked the guard out with the butt of her gun and left him slumped against the wall. She fished keys out of his pocket, then rushed over to the cell.

“A little confused here,” Tiffani said.

Arthur came up behind Org. “No time to give you the long version. Org’s a leader of the Rabble Rousers, and I’m a newly minted member because the HIA pissed me off.”

Tiffani stared at him, then at Org, then at him again. Org smiled down at Tiffani. “Do I need to wear my Nixon mask and University of Oregon T-shirt?”

Tiffani gasped. The Rabble Rouser who had been following her and saying cryptic things like “We know.” That had been Org. All along. Hiding in plain sight.

“Yeah,” Arthur said. “She’s been spying undercover to find out what the HIA knows. When she learned the Rabble Rousers were right, she took it up a notch.” He leaned in to whisper to Tiffani, “It’s kind of terrifying, to be honest.”

Tiffani nodded. This, at least, wasn’t news. “And him?” She pointed to Joe.

Arthur shrugged. “He insisted.”

Tiffani looked at Joe with incredulity. Mild-mannered Joe had insisted on being part of a rescue mission? In Hell?

Joe squared his shoulders. “Someone needed to keep Org from burning the whole place down, and it sure wasn’t going to be him,” he said, pointing at Arthur, then continued, “I know it seems weird. But, I promise, Org is the real deal. Why would she go through all this trouble to get you out of prison?”

“Good question.” Tiffani looked pointedly at Org, but it was Arthur who answered.

“First of all, you don’t deserve whatever awaits you in the Ice House.”

“And second?”

“And second, you can be useful to us,” Org said.

Tiffani considered. Org’s comment that she could be useful sounded ominous. But more ominous than what she was facing? It was hard to tell.

“Anything else?”

“You’re not the only one we’re rescuing.”

Siobhan was sitting on the cot in her cell, sporting two black eyes and a snarky expression. Org popped open the lock, and Siobhan stepped out, hugged her, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss her hard on the lips.

“It’s about feckin’ time.”

“Hey, you’re lucky I could delay your paperwork for so long, love,” Org said with a smile.

Tiffani thought she’d expelled all her surprise on the revelation that Org was a Rabble Rouser. But this?

“Uh . . .”

Siobhan turned away from Org and grabbed Tiffani’s hand. “I know it’s confusing,” she said. “Suffice to say that once Org found out soulcode really can change after death, ROSE and the Rabble Rousers started collaborating.”

“OK. How do two groups with such different goals collaborate?”

Siobhan gave her a pitying look. “Do you really think we’re that different? We all just want fiends to be treated better.”

“Yeah, but you want better working conditions, and they”—she waved at Org—“want to upend the entire system.”

“And we both know upending the entire system is a nonstarter,” Siobhan said. Org huffed and Siobhan sighed. “At least for now. The first step to any real change is to get management to make some concessions. We can move forward from there.”

“Humph,” Org grunted.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unionizing 101. Whatever,” Tiffani said, waving between them. “I’m more interested in whatever this is.”

Org looked down at Siobhan, and her softened expression told Tiffani everything she needed to know. Meanwhile, Siobhan gazed up at Org in a very un-Siobhan way. “I guess I like big, galumphing eejits,” she said.

Someone cleared their throat. “Enough with the sappy reunions, people . . . er . . . fiends and . . . demon, I guess?” Joe asked, looking at Tiffani. “We’ve got to get going.”

Tiffani turned to him in surprise and looked at his wrist to see if he’d rented a different, more take-charge kind of soul. Nope. This was Joe 2.0.

“Yes, sir.” She saluted with a grin. “What next?”

Org pointed down the hallway. “The exit is through here.”

“How did you make this happen?” Tiffani asked Joe, as they ran out the door.

“Org has access to every part of this building, so we knew we could get in. Maggie, Emily, and Jonah shut down this section’s security cameras by posing online as securityfiends hired by Lewes to create a new training program. When the IT staff checked with Lewes’s office, Org answered the call and vouched for them. After that, it was a matter of feeding a loop relay of the security cameras showing a perfectly innocuous, boring day on the forty-second level of the Avarice section of the Torture House,” Joe said, panting as they ran.

“What about fiends trying to access the elevators from up top?”

“Barry’s up there causing a distraction,” Arthur explained. “It’s some kind of naked bike ride.”

“How is that a distraction? It’s perfectly normal for Portland,” Tiffani said.

“Angels don’t usually show up, especially gorgeous ones like Barry.”

She glanced over and was surprised to see Arthur blushing.

“We’re going to talk about whatever this blushing thing is when we’re out of here,” she said.

“You won’t talk about anything if you don’t pick up the pace!” Org called. She led them through dozens of corridors with identical gray flooring, walls, and ceilings, while the sounds of running feet and gunfire approached from behind. A beast of indeterminate size, type, and disposition bellowed, and the clip-clop of racing hooves catching up fast captured Tiffani’s attention.

“What the hell is that?” she shrieked.

“Minotaur,” Org grunted.

“Like, the actual Minotaur?”

Org spared her a derisive look. “Don’t be ridiculous. Theseus killed that one. The higher-ups in Wrath created this new one for fun. It’s worse.”

“Got it,” Tiffani gasped, picking up the pace.

They wound through the maze of hallways, always on an upward trajectory. Tiffani noticed that Org directed them without hesitation and wondered just how often she’d come down here on the sly to visit Siobhan. She smiled at the thought. True love showed up in the oddest places.

After about twenty minutes, during which the off-brand Minotaur and cadre of HIA securityfiends grew ever closer, they burst through a door at the end of the last corridor. They emerged into what looked like a sewer, with puddles of Devil only knew what on the ground, pipes hissing with steam above, and dark corners rustling, which Tiffani attributed to unknown animals that she fervently hoped were normal old rats.

“Where are we?” Tiffani asked, gagging and rubbing at a stitch in her side. “And why does it smell like everyone on the planet died in here?”

“We’re under the Services and Administration campus. This is where the medical whackjobs conduct clone experiments.”

“Experiments?” Arthur whimpered.

“They get bored sometimes and like to get their Dr. Frankenstein on. It’s”—Org waved around the space—“messy.” She pointed down one of the tunnels. “There’s a ladder at the end of that tunnel that will lead us to a manhole cover. It comes out right next to the elevator.”

Everyone jumped as something crashed into the door behind them, then howled. The door bowed inward, and the hinges creaked.

“Can that thing get through the door?” Joe screeched.

“Let’s not be eejits and find out,” Siobhan admonished, taking off down the tunnel Org had pointed them toward.

They reached the end to find a rusty iron ladder attached to the wall, extending up as far as they could see. Tiffani thought she caught a glint of metal at the top.

“We have to climb all the way up there?” she moaned.

“Stop yer whining and go,” Siobhan said, already up a few rungs.

Tiffani grabbed the first rung, which was wet and slippery with whatever liquid seeped from the medical facility above her.

“I am so going to wash myself in Purell when this is over,” she muttered.

Faintly, the sound of a door crashing open and the thunderous stomping of a half-fiend, half-bull, and fully pissed off beast inspired Tiffani to grab the next rung and start scurrying. Siobhan led, with Tiffani, Joe, and Arthur following. Org brought up the rear, occasionally cursing and grunting as some of the rungs cracked under her weight. After fifteen minutes of climbing, they reached the top, where they slipped through a hole and crawled onto a ledge. Tiffani wrung out her sore hands. The light had become increasingly dimmer on the way up until they were in almost total darkness.

Org shuffled around to get under the grate and pulled a wrench out of her jacket.

“Wait,” Tiffani cried out. “They have to know where we are. How can we be sure the HIA hasn’t sealed this off?”

Arthur touched her shoulder. “It’s OK. The DMCDs are on it. The plan was to have them cut off the power in this area, which, if the dim lighting is any indication, they did!”

Org opened the grate and helped everyone lift themselves out onto a platform with two elevators that Tiffani had never seen before.

“This is the freight-elevator area,” Org said, in response to her quizzical look.

“Why do they need a—” Tiffani started, then thought back to the medical-whackjob experiments. “Never mind. Let’s just go.”

They pressed the up button, and nothing happened.

“Crap,” Tiffani whispered.

“Wait a minute. The kids will get it open,” Arthur said. As he spoke, the elevator lights came on, and the door opened. A figure emerged from the shadows.

It was Lewes.

Chapter 27

Tiffani watched as a look of horror spread over everyone’s faces, a look she knew mirrored her own, except for Org who, after hesitating for a moment, stepped forward.

“I’m glad you’re here, boss! I found these prisoners escaping!” she said, in a passable imitation of her usual obsequious demeanor.

Lewes pursed his lips and brought his hands together several times in a slow golf clap. “Do you think you’re that good an actress, Organza?” he asked.

Org frowned, but stayed silent.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice the amount of time you spent on level forty-two, visiting this one?” He waved at Siobhan, who snarled at him. He pulled a cattle prod out of his pocket and directed it at her. “I’d put the wrench down, Org, if you don’t want your girlfriend here to get a nasty shock.”

Org threw the wrench on the floor near Lewes’s feet.

“Temper, temper,” he cooed. “I knew you’d try something like this. But I do have to give you some credit. Do you know what for?”

She didn’t move, watching him warily.

“I didn’t realize the extent of your treachery.” He turned his attention to Tiffani while still addressing Org. “I should have realized when you became obsessed with Tiffani’s dog that you had some sort of connection with her. It’s not a throuple, is it?” he asked.

Siobhan took a step closer to Org and took her hand. “No,” she said. Then she looked over at Tiffani. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Tiffani whispered automatically, unable to focus on anything other than the fact that she’d dragged her friends into this, and they were all going to suffer. Literally.

Lewes started to circle Org and Siobhan, who both, Tiffani was impressed to see, kept their heads high and held his gaze. “So, what is it? Are you both ROSE leaders? Or is one of you”—he took Siobhan’s chin in his hand—“a Rabble Rouser?”

Org made a move to grab Lewes’s hand, but Siobhan held her back.

“Don’t let him have the satisfaction,” she said.

He smiled his smarmy smile and dropped her chin. “Whichever one it is, I assume everyone here now knows Hell’s biggest secret, which will need to remain a secret.”

Tiffani expected him to ask sneering questions about how they thought he might convince them to keep the secret, but to her surprise, his tone shifted from amused to something more serious, and his expression took on an almost religious fervor. Tiffani came to the sudden realization that Lewes wasn’t an everyday garden-variety psychopath. He was a psychopath with a higher cause.

He began pacing in front of the elevator, pausing occasionally to slam his fist into his hand.

“Our entire existence, from Heaven to Hell to the mortal plane, will descend into chaos if I allow you to reveal these cosmological secrets.” He turned his fanatical expression toward Joe, who, wide-eyed, took a step back. “If mortals had confirmation that they are writing their own eternal destinies with their decisions in life, Heaven would win the battle between good and evil on Earth.” He looked over at Arthur. “If current fiends knew their soulcode could change whenever they do favors for mortals, they’d become besties with every mortal they meet, and possibly even change enough to meet Heaven’s criteria.” He shrugged. “Whatever that is. And if the Rabble Rousers had the evidence they needed to convince everyone of what they already believe, they’d revel in the anarchy, and it would start Hell on a slippery slope toward the equality you so desperately want,” he said, looking at Org. “Am I right?”

His triumphant smirk showed he knew he was right and rejoiced in it, and Tiffani had to give him credit for understanding the situation much better than she had up to this point.

He raised his finger and tapped his temple. “Only I know how to fix this. Only I know the danger we face. And only I know that the five of you are privy to all of this as well. What do you think I should do about that?”

Tiffani looked to Siobhan for some sort of defiant comment that included the word eejit, but, once again, Joe shocked her.

“Let us go?” he asked.

Lewes turned to him with an appraising look. “You’re an odd one, Mr. Felix. I might take some time to get to know you better.”

Joe shuddered as Lewes took a step toward him, then stumbled as the platform shook unexpectedly. The second freight elevator landed with a thud, and Tiffani was momentarily blinded by a piercing ray of light as the doors burst open. Recovering his footing, Lewes jumped at a figure stepping out.

Org took advantage of his distraction. She shoved Siobhan aside, grabbed the wrench she’d thrown to the ground, and whacked Lewes on the side of the head. He collapsed, and she whacked him several times until it became clear he’d need a trip to the medical whackjobs before he could harass them more.

Tiffani blinked away the gray spots in her vision and peered at the figure in front of the elevator. It was a tall, gorgeous, and very naked angel.

“What is taking you guys so long?” Barry asked.

Tiffani’s rescuers took her to Edith’s apartment, reasoning that her pursuers wouldn’t look for her there—at least not at first. Plus, according to Joe, Edith had been dying to join this ragtag group of rebels. Score one for Edith’s bravery, if not her sanity.

Tiffani was thrilled to find Fred there, who rushed over and started salivating all over her shoes. He was covered in duct tape, and Tiffani realized that Org or Edith had tried to render him fireproof so he wouldn’t burn down Edith’s apartment. The scent of burned carpet, a few scorch marks on the beige walls, and a readily available fire extinguisher suggested they hadn’t been as successful as they would have liked.

Tiffani turned to Edith and waved around the room. “Um. Sorry. I’ll pay for the damages.”

Edith grinned. “No problem! I’m having a great time.”

Tiffani shook her head, surprised, once again, at Edith’s enthusiasm over hanging out with a demon, a bunch of fiends, an angel, and a human who must be slightly unhinged if he was dashing into Hell rescuing people. How could Edith have been so cowed by that Vincent guy?

Tiffani squatted down and picked Fred up before he could set anything else on fire. “Were you a good boy for Auntie Org, Freddie?”

“He was great,” Org grunted. She looked at the dog with a tender expression that almost matched the look she gave Siobhan when they’d rescued her.

“I put some treats in the kitchen for him,” Edith piped in.

Tiffani walked over to the small galley kitchen and found Barry there, still stark naked, admiring his reflection in the refrigerator. She averted her eyes and groaned.

“Was all that manscaping necessary? And isn’t the naked bike ride over?” she asked, then added grudgingly, “Excellent diversion, by the way.”

He laughed. “It’s called angelscaping.” She glanced up to see him do one last flex and purse of his lips. He winked at someone over her shoulder, then pulled clothes out of a bag sitting on the kitchen table and put them on.

Tiffani turned to see Arthur blushing and looking everywhere but at the not-yet-fully clothed angel. She took pity on him by grabbing a treat for Fred and dragging the dog and the embarrassed fiend into the living room.

Edith pointed to a dog bed with fireproof shielding in the corner. “Fred likes it there,” she said. She picked him up, her hands wrapped in thick towels, and plopped him on the cushions, where he spun in a circle and sighed as he lay down.

Tiffani faced the group around her. Joe had moved to stand next to Edith, who was on her knees making kissy noises at Fred and handing him treats.

“WTF is going on here?” Tiffani asked. She glared at Org. “And what does ‘You can be useful to us’ mean?”

“Well—” Org started.

Siobhan went up on tiptoe to kiss Org on the cheek, then took her hand. “Ya better let the boys explain this. It’s their daft idea.”

Tiffani raised an eyebrow at Arthur, who sat surprisingly close to Barry on the couch.

“You’re probably going to need to sit down,” Arthur muttered.

Tiffani crossed her arms. “No. I will not sit down. What the hell’s happening here?”

Arthur sighed and nodded at Barry. “You better explain.”

Barry brushed back his braids, looking contrite. “I guess I should start by saying that fiends aren’t the only ones who’ve been deceived by management. Like you, we angels have been told all along that our soulcode doesn’t change after death.” He patted his Iron pin lovingly.

“Why would Heaven’s higher-ups care?” Tiffani asked.

“The same reason yours cares. They don’t want our souls to become devalued. If angels know they can do the occasional bad thing and not have anything worse than a tier demotion happen, they might find ways to have a little fun. Everyone will be a Brass tier, and all the ‘good’ done on Earth would be helping little old ladies cross the street and giving money to the unhoused. We think the balance of power would shift to Hell in a second.”

Tiffani groaned and put her hands over her face. “And Lewes thinks it will shift to Heaven. Maybe we can have a focus group or something? Get to the bottom of this?”

Barry snorted.

“Fine,” Tiffani continued. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

Barry took a deep breath. “We have some leverage, right? I mean, if we told fiends and angels their soulcode can change after death, there’d be a lot of chaos. Mortals might find out. The metaphysical implications alone . . .” Barry trailed off, raising his hands and shrugging in a things-happen gesture.

Tiffani stared at him, astonished at his cavalier attitude toward the end of the world. “Uh-uh. No way. Absolutely not. I’m not getting involved in some crazy Rabble Rouser scheme to foment anarchy.” She looked at Org. “No offense.”

“Offense taken,” Org snapped. Siobhan made soothing noises, and Org quieted down.

“I’m sorry some fiends get the short end of the pitchfork,” Tiffani continued, “but there is no friggin’ way I’m agreeing to any plan that has even a slight chance of bringing on Armageddon. Or even Armageddon lite.”

Arthur shook his head. “No one wants that—”

Org huffed and crossed her arms. Tiffani turned to her.

“Hey, if you’re so gung ho to bring on the end of the world, why don’t you go ahead and do it?” she snapped. “You have the information you need right now.”

Org took a step closer to Tiffani, who stood her ground. Fred jumped up between them, clearly unsure if anyone needed protecting and, if so, whether he should get involved. Siobhan grabbed Org’s arm.

“Don’t think she hasn’t thought about it,” Siobhan said. “But we talked about it, and she’s willing to see how this plays out. The RRs know they have a tough slog. Achieving some of ROSE’s goals might be a first step.”

Org gave Arthur a dirty look. “Right. So long as he knows that some of us do want to reveal the truth and we’re being very restrained, which, frankly, is not something most RRs react to very well.”

“Right,” Arthur said, gulping and moving closer to Barry. “I’ll rephrase. No one believes revealing the truth will achieve everyone’s goals right now.”

“But we do believe the fact that we know this gives us some leverage with the higher-ups,” Barry added. “They have to know what it would mean for it to get out.”

“And that has to do with me how?” Tiffani asked.

Barry gestured at the chair across from Edith’s couch. “Are you ready to have a seat?”

“Yes. If you’re willing to use your words to explain this shit show,” Tiffani said, taking the proffered seat and glaring at Barry.

Surprisingly, it was Org who offered a coherent analysis of the situation. “No matter how many skulls we crack,” she said, “neither ROSE nor the Rabble Rousers are getting anywhere. The Highest-Up of the lower down has convinced everyone we’re crazy. He has The Demon Dispatch under his cloven hoof, forcing them to publish rubbish about what nutjobs we are.”

Tiffani raised an eyebrow. “I’m not unconvinced of that position.”

“Anyway,” Org said, ignoring Tiffani’s attitude, “we think we can get further if we attack the problem from the other side.” She pointed up at the ceiling.

Tiffani snorted. “I’m sorry, what?”

“We need to get a demon into Heaven. Tell the right people what you’ve learned. Build up support. Get them to bring management to the table.”

“The ‘right people’?” Tiffani asked.

“Yeah,” Barry said. “Our equivalent of the Rabble Rousers. We call them the AAs, for Avenging Angels.”

Tiffani raised a hand to stop him. “If I’ve read my Old Testament correctly, which I have, by the way, the Avenging Angels sound like they’d be on management’s side.”

Barry pursed his lips. “They claim it’s ironic. I think it’s confusing. Anyway, we also have our own chapter of ROSE.” He paused and looked down at his hands. “I’m kind of part of it.”

“He’s pretty high up,” Arthur said, pride in his voice.

Silence as loud as a trumpet of doom filled the room. Tiffani finally broke it. “What the fuck are you talking about? Why does Heaven need a union?”

Barry waved his hands in exasperation. “Why is this so hard to believe? Lower-level angels have some of the same problems fiends do, you know. Long hours, no royalties, bad equipment, etc. . . .”

“I hardly think—”

“And, just like the lower down,” Barry continued, talking over her, “it’s the leadership of Heaven’s ROSE and the AAs you need to talk to. Once you have them convinced, we can use this leverage with the Highest-Up of the higher up.”

“And you, my vain, self-centered, not-that-bright frenemy, are in charge of Heaven’s ROSE?”

“I take offense to that.”

“Good.”

Barry sighed. “I may not be the brightest bulb in the universe, but I’m a good front man. I’m even prettier than most angels.” He glared around, daring anyone to deny it. “And I think every angel at every tier should be treated with more respect. It’s a good cause.”

“And supporting a good cause incidentally makes you look good. I get it.”

Barry blushed. “That helps.”

“If you’re so into this, why don’t you talk to your people? Why do I have to do it?”

“You’re the one with the detailed story and data to back it up.”

“Data?”

Arthur held up a USB flash drive. “After Org . . . convinced . . . me how important this was, I had Jonah reconstruct the details of how this happened.”

Barry nodded. “They’ll believe it, coming from you.”

“No. This is crazy. They’re not going to want me,” Tiffani said, in one last bid to be done with this plan. “Who ever heard of a demon going to Heaven? That’s kind of the point.”

Barry looked down at his hands. “I’m going to tell you about something that only a handful of postmortals know.”

“Ugh. I hate being in the ‘handful’ of anything. It’s never good.”

“Well, here it is. There’s an asylum program in Heaven.”

“There’s a what in where now?”

“An asylum program. A place where worthy demons and fiends can request asylum.”

“Uh-huh. And what constitutes a ‘worthy demon’? Good deeds? Remorse?”

Barry looked uncomfortable. “Umm, yeah. Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

He refused to meet her eyes. “Bear in mind that Heaven is really trying to do some good, and we need to incorporate people who are, you know, good at their jobs.”

“Which means?”

He sighed. “Which means that my bosses will consider you worthy because you’re a really good salesperson . . . er . . . demon.”

Tiffani leaned back and guffawed. “You’re telling me Heaven will let me in on the equivalent of an H-1B visa?”

Barry nodded, looking defensive. “Hey, angels aren’t really good at making the hard sell. We’re in search of important skills that will help us achieve our goals.”

Tiffani waved him off, still laughing. “You guys are as bad as us. OK, let’s imagine I agree to do this. What’s next?”

“I’ll get you into Heaven through the side door, where you’ll be met by our training coordinator. She’ll take it from there.”

“Once I get through this side door—I’ll want more information on that, BTW—and I’m in this training program, what am I supposed to do? How do I find these friends of yours?”

“Don’t worry. I have a contact in the training program who’s part of ROSE. Her name is Zoe.”

“You’re telling me I’m looking for a Zoe the angel? What do I do, just ask around? Do you guys have some sort of directory?”

“She’ll be looking out for you. But bear in mind, she’s a member of Heaven’s ROSE, which is as afraid of the Avenging Angels as Hell’s ROSE is of the Rabble Rousers. She’ll think you’re there to help with union activities and will be able to set up a meeting. But she probably won’t help if she thinks something else is going on.”

Tiffani nodded. “Got it. Find Zoe the angel. Tell her I’m there to help with Heaven’s ROSE. Don’t tell her about the whole soulcode-changing-after-death thing until she gets us a meeting with Heaven’s union organizers.”

“Wow. I never thought I’d hear those words put together in quite that way,” Joe said.

“You and me both,” Tiffani grumbled.

Chapter 28

Tiffani once again bid Fred goodbye, leaving him in Org’s hands, whom she now trusted to take good care of him. In fact, Tiffani hoped Fred would be willing to leave Org and come back to her once all the crap ended. She donned a suit that made her feel like a faux flight attendant on her way to a porn shoot. Barry flew her up to Heaven, where they bypassed the Pearly Gates and went straight to a set of plain copper gates, verdigris from time, around the corner. The gates opened into an area that looked like the back lot of a Hollywood studio, with large boxy buildings surrounded by movie sets. Barry led her farther in, weaving past sets straight from Jane Austen novels, where angels lounged in an English manor house; Hallmark Christmas movies, complete with a wholesome holiday fair; and a science-fiction setting, where angels capered on the surface of Mars.

Tiffani turned to Barry with a questioning look. He laughed.

“This is one of our recreational areas. Angels enjoy wandering around and experiencing different eras and settings,” he clarified.

She shook her head. “And you guys think we’re strange.”

They walked past a windswept Scottish moor and a Caribbean beach before they reached a “You Are Here” map posted on a sign at the entrance to a facsimile of New York’s Central Park, which was surrounded by smaller-scale models of some of Earth’s most stunning houses and castles, from Fallingwater to Edinburgh Castle and beyond. She spied the Pearly Gates at a much larger entrance to her right.

“Everyone in Heaven lives in a large park?” she asked Barry.

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is where our archangels live. They’re Heaven’s top management. Like your C-Suite.”

“And are they just as useless?” Tiffani asked.

“Of course not!” came a voice behind them. Barry winced.

An angel stepped out from behind a topiary of a set of enormous wings and extended her hand. “I’m the archangel Priscilla,” she said. “You must be Tiffani.”

Tiffani shook her hand, then flexed her fingers after Priscilla let go. The angel had a grip like a longshoreman.

“Wait here,” Priscilla said. “I’m going to track down a golf cart.” She turned to Barry. “You can go.” She waved him away as she walked down the path toward a row of bright pink golf carts.

“Are archangels always this rude?” Tiffani whispered to him.

“Now you see why we need a ROSE, too,” he whispered back.

“Hmm . . . does she know you’re ROSE?”

Barry laughed. “Of course not. It’s as taboo here as it is in the lower down.”

“What about the lower down?” Priscilla asked. She’d returned driving a Barbie’s Dreamhouse–style golf cart. “You’re not missing it already, are you?”

“Nope. All good.”

“Great! Then get in,” she said to Tiffani. Her commanding presence rivaled Maggie’s, and Tiffani didn’t dare disobey.

“See you later,” Barry called, as Priscilla put her foot on the gas.

“We’re so glad to have you as part of the asylum program. Here’s your postmortal junior angel ID,” Priscilla said, steering one-handed down the center thruway of the park. She handed Tiffani a badge edged in fourteen-karat gold with her name spelled out in diamonds. “You’ll start here by interning in Heaven’s northwest-region Soul Exchange office.”

“Wow,” Tiffani said, turning the badge over in her hands. “This is pretty impressive. How did you get so much bling when the gems have to be mined? That’s kind of our thing.”

“You wouldn’t believe the number of people who make sacrifices in the form of jewels and money. When nearing the end, a lot of people think they can buy their way into Heaven, so they give up their worldly possessions. As if that’s going to make up for a life of debauchery and evil.” Priscilla scoffed.

“Yeah, I know the type you mean. I’ve met them.” Tiffani grinned.

Priscilla grinned back. “I bet you have.”

“Interesting that you still take the money, though,” Tiffani said.

Priscilla gave her a look that said, We invented smiting, by the way. Tiffani shut up.

They turned off the path to drive down a street lined with expensive stores, theaters, and a host of other features that made Tiffani feel like she was riding down a combination of Rodeo Drive, the Million Dollar Mile, and the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

“What’s all this?” Tiffani asked, awestruck.

Priscilla waved her hand around dismissively. “This is the low-rent section of town.”

“Low-rent?” Tiffani blurted.

“I mean, it’s just Coach and Gucci and such. High-rent areas tend to have designers so exclusive that normal people don’t even know their names.” Priscilla’s oblivious expression showed she had no idea how ridiculous and, frankly, uncharitable her words sounded.

Tiffani shook her head. “And I thought we were hedonistic,” she muttered.

Priscilla’s face turned prim. “We’re not hedonistic. These treasures were gifted to us, and now we let those who have made their way into Heaven live a life of luxury.”

“I thought you guys thrived on lives of penitence and giving.”

Priscilla shook her head. “We thrive on that on Earth. Here, we reap the rewards of that.”

“It sounds very transactional.”

“Says the woman who literally sells souls in exchange for favors.”

“Hey, you guys do it, too. Our residents wind up in our realm because they couldn’t get their act together, or they were real assholes. I always thought that people wound up as angels because they’d been good mortals.”

“If the only way people get into Heaven is because they are nothing but nice, we’d be pretty lonely. We all judge people the same way, right? It’s about the net good or bad they’ve done in the world, not what’s ‘in their souls.’ No angel is one hundred percent good, and”—she looked Tiffani over—“I suspect no demon is one hundred percent bad.”

Tiffani shrugged. “I suppose so. How did you wind up here? You don’t seem like the naturally good type.”

Priscilla made a face. “Gee, thanks.” After a moment, she said, “Actually, I was a nun.”

If Tiffani had been drinking something, she would have done a spit take. “I highly doubt that.”

“Why does no one believe me?” Priscilla asked. “It was 1543, my dad wanted to sell me to someone awful, so I ran away and joined the nunnery. It was either that or prostitution. I didn’t have many options.”

They continued winding through a mall area that looked as though Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany’s, and Hermés had all thrown up on each other, until Priscilla pulled up in front of a towering glass office building.

“This is Heaven’s HQ,” Priscilla said.

The building was a cliché: dazzling bright with rainbows and sunbeams bouncing off the windows. It was taller than the tallest skyscraper Tiffani had ever seen—taller, even, than Hell’s C-Suite headquarters. Fluffy white clouds floated around, and smiling angels flew in and out of various windows, carrying leather briefcases and messenger bags. Something that smelled strongly of cinnamon buns wafted through the air. It was like being stuck inside a five-year-old’s perception of Heaven in a snow globe with a cinnamon-bun air freshener.

Like Hell, Heaven categorized incoming souls into campuses, although they referred to them as “spheres,” specifically Lover, Wisdom, Warrior, Faith, Just Ruler, and Contemplation. As Tiffani walked toward the headquarters building behind Priscilla, she gazed at the animated angel statues representing those spheres perched on the parapet above the expansive door, all jostling for attention as if atop a gaudy Christmas tree. The Lover angel blew kisses at passersby with pursed lips and a pious, chaste expression Lust would have laughed at. Wisdom leaned against a column in a tweed jacket with his fist under his chin and his eyebrows scrunched, nodding at the crowd. Tiffani couldn’t decide if he looked smart or constipated. Warrior held up a flaming sword and looked off into the distance with a stern expression, while Just Ruler graced a throne, holding a scepter and wearing a crown and a haughty expression. A jester gamboled about, seeking the attention the Just Ruler wanted but would not deign to pursue. Faith piously shook a finger at those she considered, with little to no evidence, to be lacking in belief, and tossed down pamphlets. Tiffani picked one up.

“‘How to Make Peace with the Highest-Up of the Higher Up,’” she read. She looked at Priscilla. “Highest-Up? Why don’t you guys say Go—”

Priscilla clamped a hand over Tiffani’s mouth and looked around. “We just don’t, OK?” After a moment she pulled her hand from Tiffani’s face. Tiffani gawked at her.

“Because?” she asked.

“It’s just . . .” Priscilla scrutinized her, then turned away. “Whatever; you do you.”

“‘You do you’?” thundered a voice from above, and Tiffani shrunk back, wondering if she’d somehow captured the Highest-Up’s attention.

Priscilla rolled her eyes and waved her hand. “That’s just Contemplation. He has his own views on things and thinks”—she looked up at the angel wearing monastic robes and a stern expression, and exuding asceticism from every pore—“wrongly, I might add,” she shouted, then turned back to Tiffani and continued, “that it’s his way or the highway. Nothing ever pleases him except when the Big Guy notices him. Plus, he doesn’t drink. He’s a real buzzkill.”

Priscilla strode to the main doors, and Tiffani thought she’d have to pass under these manifestations of virtue, but Priscilla turned right, toward a side entrance. As they walked to it, a smaller, meeker, almost Dickensian angel came into view.

“Can I give you directions?” she asked.

“We’re good,” Priscilla said, not unkindly.

The angel scurried back. “Sorry, I was just trying to help,” she said, wringing her hands. She tripped over a rock and fell in front of Priscilla, who had to hop to avoid stepping on her.

“That’s Well-Meaning,” Priscilla said in response to Tiffani’s questioning look. “Everyone feels a little sorry for her. She tries to help, but”—she waved at the angel on the ground—“it doesn’t always go that well.”

As with Hell, Heaven’s personifications of the seven virtues stood on mantels over the doorway with their names emblazoned on their tunics. Fortitude posed with his chest thrust out and a faraway expression. Temperance held a thermos marked with the word tea and wore a pious expression that, in many ways, mirrored Malice in Tiffani’s own realm. Prudence stood next to Temperance, and they occasionally whispered to each other and giggled, pointing to one angel or another below. Piety, Hope, and Charity stood huddled together holding hands, their heads down and staring at their folded palms, giving the distinct impression they didn’t want to be involved in all the surrounding ridiculousness. Justice kept checking a notebook in her hand.

“What’s she doing?” Tiffani asked.

“Marking who’s naughty and nice.” Priscilla took a deep breath in. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she cooed.

Tiffani also took in a deep breath, gagged, and coughed. “It’s great. Really different from the whole brimstone thing.” Then she looked up at the building and the angels flying in and out the windows and realized something.

“Wait, you don’t have an elevator?” she asked.

“It’s OK. We have one for non-angels. It’s called Eden.” She led Tiffani around to the side of the building in a more dimly lit area. Priscilla gestured toward some rather dirty steps.

“Your elevator is downstairs?” Tiffani asked, feeling suspicious that maybe this was a ruse to get her back into Hell’s prison.

“We don’t use it much, so it’s kind of in an out-of-the-way space. Non-angels don’t usually come to the front door.”

Tiffani laughed. “Have you seen Upstairs, Downstairs?” she asked.

Priscilla cocked her head, looking confused. “No, what’s that?”

“It’s a mortal television show about rich people who live upstairs and servants who live downstairs. It’s . . .” She took in Priscilla’s expression, hoping to see that she understood Tiffani’s point and was mad. She was clearly only confused. “Wow. OK, never mind. Let’s go.”

The elevator looked like something straight out of an old hotel. It was operated by an angel wearing a bellhop uniform. Tiffani nodded as she walked in.

“Hey.”

The angel looked shocked as he closed the door, and Tiffani realized he must not be used to seeing demons. Then Priscilla spoke up.

“That’s Nigel. He’s new here and learning the ropes through important jobs like this. You like it, right, Nigel?”

Nigel nodded, but Tiffani could see that he most certainly did not like it. Priscilla, however, didn’t appear to notice. Between Barry’s comments and Priscilla’s condescension, Tiffani was starting to understand why Heaven wanted a ROSE chapter of its own.

“Floor seventy-five thousand,” she said, without the hint of a please.

As they made their way up, Tiffani took in Nigel’s sour expression and contemplated her first impressions of Heaven. It was like a caricature of what she expected. It was glittery and clean, the servants’ entrance notwithstanding, and it smelled good to anyone who liked that sort of thing. But the very fact it was like that spoke to its lack of authenticity. Tiffani was beginning to discover an elitism and caste system that wasn’t based on anything more than how much money you were able to donate to good causes. It looked like the same system of putting newer arrivals into the most menial jobs played out here as well. It was no wonder that recent postmortals like Nigel might be disillusioned.

On the other hand, new fiends were probably pleasantly surprised by what they faced in Hell. Sure, it had its pits of scorpions and psychological torture and such at first. But an enterprising fiend could work their way out of there quickly, as Tiffani had done. After that, it was exactly like corporate America.

Tiffani was alone with these thoughts for quite a while, as the trip up to the seventy-five-thousandth floor was surprisingly slow, considering it was Heaven. When they finally arrived, the elevator opened onto a floor that looked like the C-Suite in Hell, and Tiffani let out a chuckle.

“What?” asked Priscilla.

“Nothing. Nothing. I was just wondering who your interior designer was.”

“Michelangelo,” Priscilla said. “The Big Guy really liked the Sistine Chapel.”

Priscilla led her to a bullpen with about twenty other interns.

“Everyone,” called Priscilla. “This is Tiffani. She’s our newest postmortal junior angel, on asylum from H-E-double-toothpicks! Let’s give her a warm Heaven’s Soul Exchange welcome.”

They all stared at Tiffani as if she were some deadly animal in a zoo. Apparently, a demon was rare, if not unprecedented.

“Boo!” she said to the nearest angel. He fell off his seat.

Priscilla gave her a reproving look. “Be nice,” she whispered.

Tiffani grinned. Priscilla led her to a painful-looking, ergonomically correct chair and had her sit. The desk in front of her was clear glass, and the computer on top had little hearts and flowers painted all over the outside. Tiffani swallowed down bile, figuring that throwing up would make a terrible first impression.

Priscilla clapped her hands. “Jennifer?” She pointed at one of the angels and crooked her finger at her. Jennifer looked like she had been asked to walk across hot coals, which, as it was a standard introduction in Hell’s Soul Exchange, intrigued Tiffani. Would there really be something like that here? Then she realized that Jennifer was terrified of her, not hot coals.

Tiffani smiled, trying to be nice. She couldn’t alienate these angels if she was going to track down this Zoe and do that dissident thing, whatever that was.

“Hi!” she said, in her calmest voice, the one she used to placate nervous customers like Joe had been. The thought of Joe and the rest of the gang hit her with a nostalgic sledgehammer.

Her calm voice must have encouraged Jennifer, because she approached Tiffani’s desk, albeit with the look of a frightened doe approaching a grizzly bear. Or a human hunter armed with a big gun.

“Hi,” Jennifer said.

Priscilla leaned toward Jennifer. “I’m going to ask you to help our friend Tiffani get acclimated, OK?”

The look on Jennifer’s face amused Tiffani. She realized that Jennifer was as scared of Priscilla as she was of Tiffani.

“Yeah, sure. Absolutely,” Jennifer said.

“Great,” said Priscilla. “I know the Big Guy will really appreciate it. Well, I’m out of here. I’ve got a Botox appointment.”

Tiffani stared at her. “Botox? Do your clones really need it?”

Priscilla looked abashed, which stunned Tiffani, since Priscilla hadn’t looked anything but haughty, confused, or superior the whole time they’d been talking.

“Heaven focuses on beauty on the inside, so we all start with similar, rather dowdy clones. We have the ability to change our appearance through a variety of beauty, diet, and exercise treatments, all free. We just have to put the work in.”

Tiffani almost burst out laughing. Here she’d always considered Heaven full of selfless souls who weren’t vain or looking for outside validation at all—Barry aside. Boy, had she been wrong.

“So, you’re not all naturally thin, young, and beautiful?”

“Every angel must decide for him or herself how much work they want to put into their appearance. As a C-Suite archangel and a member of the sales team, I have an image to uphold,” Priscilla said, haughtily. “You’ll find plenty of angels who prefer a less . . . refined . . . appearance, especially in places like the Faith and Wisdom spheres. They’re all about ‘do unto others’ and ‘philosophy.’” Priscilla shuddered.

“Wait. If you were a nun, aren’t you from the Faith campus?”

She heard a snigger behind her back. Priscilla glared over her shoulder, and the sniggering stopped.

“What are you, a detective? Not all nuns wind up in Faith,” she snapped at Tiffani.

“Especially not those who broke their vows,” someone muttered. Priscilla whirled around. All the angels wore expressions of determined innocence. She turned back to Tiffani.

“If you must know, because of a small mortal dalliance with a rather attractive monk, I was initially assigned to a part of Heaven that’s outside the traditional sphere system,” she said.

“It’s-a-mobile-home-park,” someone coughed. Priscilla sniffed but ignored the dig.

“Yeah, we have that. It’s called Rotten Pockets,” Tiffani said.

“I’ve heard of Rotten Pockets. This is nothing like that. We just had to work a little harder to make our way here at Heaven’s Soul Exchange.” Priscilla glared around at the room. “Which I have done, and it’s why I’m in charge of this lot. Now, enough chitchat. I’m late.”

She turned and started striding toward the door.

“When will you be back?” Jennifer asked, still sounding terrified. At this point, though, Tiffani couldn’t tell if it was because she didn’t want to be left alone with her or because she didn’t want to have anything more to do with Priscilla.

“I have lunch after Botox, and then Pilates,” said Priscilla. “I might not be back before the end of the day.”

Tiffani could have sworn she saw relief pass over Jennifer’s face.

“OK, we’ll hold down the fort, boss,” Jennifer said sheepishly.

“You better,” Priscilla said with a toothy smile that made a shark’s teeth look like something Tiffani would prefer to find this close to her.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Tiffani said, feeling an odd desire to help the poor, quivering Jennifer. “Go off, and enjoy your Botox and lettuce.”

Priscilla gave Tiffani a look that said she didn’t appreciate the sarcasm, which Tiffani really didn’t care about.

“Ta-ta!” Priscilla called on her way out. “And be nice to Tiffani, hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the angels responded in unison, as Priscilla walked out the door.

As her footsteps faded away, another angel, a handsome one with a name tag labeled Chad, walked over to her. He had more swagger than an angel really should have had. Perhaps he was another transfer from Hell.

He put out his hand. “Hey, pretty lady. I’m Chad.” She recognized his voice as the one that had made the snide comments behind Priscilla’s back.

Tiffani took his hand. “Uh, hi.”

He sat on the edge of her desk and shook his shock of black hair out of his eyes. Tiffani wondered how much time he spent on facials, hair care, and personal trainers. She looked closer and noticed his eyes were a shade of teal that could only come from tinted contacts. Behind him, Tiffani noticed that Jennifer, who had looked so sheepish before, had gathered with a couple of the female angels and was shooting sharp glances at Tiffani, who was reminded of the mean girls in high school.

“So, what brought you over to our side?” Chad asked. His seductive voice would have put the Lust demons in Hell to shame, particularly those who liked to hit on her and whom she shot down immediately.

Tiffani leaned toward him and batted her eyes. “I heard about all the really hot guys,” she whispered.

He grinned, clearly used to being told how handsome he was. Jennifer and her clan frowned. Then Jennifer walked over.

“Hey, sorry about him.” She jerked a thumb at Chad, who winked at her. “He hits on everyone new here.” All signs of the contrite, nervous, cowed angel she’d been in Priscilla’s presence were gone. Angels appeared to be good at subterfuge. That shouldn’t have surprised Tiffani, given the fact that Barry had been lying to her for years.

“It’s OK,” Tiffani said, letting her eyes linger on Chad before she looked back at Jennifer. “So, are you supposed to show me the ropes?” she asked.

“Absolutely!” She gestured toward the small cadre of girls standing on the other side of the room. “Come over here, guys.”

The three angels bounded over. Tiffani immediately picked up on the dynamic. It was straight out of high school. Jennifer was the queen bee. Chad was the handsome star of the football team. This gaggle of girls was Jennifer’s posse.

“Tiffani, meet Ashley.” She pointed to an angel with a round and—there was no other word for it—cherubic face. “Heather.” She pointed to a brunette with sharp features and puffy lips. “And Zoe.” She pointed to the last girl, half hidden behind Heather.

Tiffani stifled a laugh. Zoe. Barry’s contact. What a perfect cover. The shy one. The outsider who’d somehow clawed her way into this group.

Chapter 29

Overall, the angels in the internship program were about as friendly to her as one might expect—or, rather, as Tiffani had come to expect. Her experiences during her first few days destroyed her preconceived notions about Heaven. Sure, there were your Mother Teresas and Gandhis, but they were few and far between. In fact, Tiffani got the impression that Heaven had had to lower its standards to keep the population at a viable level.

To be fair, Tiffani thought, they weren’t actively evil. Most were simply passive aggressive, petty, or oblivious to the existence of others. Heaven had had to bend the parameters of the whole be-kind-to-your-fellow-man criteria. They were more guidelines than anything else. And Tiffani was surprised how many got into Heaven simply because their sins had been forgiven just by saying a few words.

For example, the stuck-up Chad had died not in some heroic way she’d always assumed angels died. He hadn’t pushed a little girl out of the path of a moving train or gotten the plague while tending to the sick. No, he’d been out on prom night, drank a little too much to celebrate his being crowned the prom king, and had the good sense to refrain from driving home. He prevented his girlfriend, the prom queen, from doing so as well, so they called an Uber. Unfortunately, the Uber driver hadn’t refrained from drinking, so there he was. Like any good prom king, Chad was most attracted to bad girls like Tiffani who had probably smoked behind the bleachers when alive. In fact, Chad followed her around like an aggressive, lovesick puppy. She found him everywhere she went—in the cafeterias, the studio apartment she’d been given in one of the castles in the park, while shopping—really anywhere she was allowed to go in the C-Suite section of Heaven. And he was somehow always there ahead of her. Like he knew her schedule. Or her thoughts. It freaked her out.

Jennifer, on the other hand, had been hit by a car as she was walking out of her church after saying the ten Hail Marys that had cleansed her of the sin of having sex with her boyfriend. Since everything else she’d done (putting together a bake sale for community credit, joining a protest to get near a cute boy, etc.) had balanced out for the better, she’d wound up at the Pearly Gates.

After a day or two of figuring out where the coffee machine was and how to avoid Chad’s advances, Tiffani turned her attention to getting Zoe alone to talk about setting up a meeting with Heaven’s ROSE. It proved challenging, and given how uninterested Zoe seemed in finding a way to do it, Tiffani wondered if Barry had made a mistake. Then she realized that the Jennifer entourage operated as a unit. She never saw any of them separated, which made it impossible for Zoe to get to her. Finally, her chance came after about a week, when Priscilla handed her the program for the sales track at Heaven’s leadership conference.

“Here’s your first assignment!”

“My first assignment is to go to a leadership conference? Are you sure I’m in the right realm? I already know how to sell!” Tiffani whined.

“Yes, but you need to know how Heaven does it. How else can you help us improve it? The Big Guy knows we need it.”

Tiffani saw an opportunity. “I’m not going to be able to help at all unless I’m able to do some one-on-one mentoring. Given what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think a group training is going to be enough.”

She wasn’t lying. Although she’d focused most of her attention on trying to get Zoe alone, she couldn’t help but notice how little these angels knew about selling. Chad and the Jennifer clique had only a rudimentary understanding of basic sales techniques. Just because Tiffani was there under false pretenses didn’t mean she couldn’t try to move the needle from abysmal to bad.

“I’ve even been toying with an ANGEL sales acronym,” she said. “Adapt, as in adapt to the specific sales situation. Need, as in understand the customer’s needs. Gratitude, as in . . .” She trailed off.

Wait. Am I really figuring out how to help Heaven sell more souls?!

Priscilla tapped her Montblanc fountain pen on her chin. “Interesting. You may have a point. Who do you want to start with? We can pair you up at the conference. You’ll room together, and you can take some time to tutor them.”

Perfect.

“I’ll start with Zoe.”

When they pulled up to the conference venue in Priscilla’s limited-edition Bugatti, Tiffani almost laughed. It was the mirror of Hell’s Hilton. Or, at least, Hell’s Hilton if it were cleaned up and in good repair and didn’t smell like brimstone.

They walked into the lobby and up to the reception desk, where they were greeted with a hot towel, a glass of champagne, and a bellhop who practically tore Tiffani’s bags out of her hand in his eagerness to help. She and Zoe were given keys to a presidential suite, which Tiffani was excited about until she learned that every room in the hotel was a presidential suite, unlike in Hell, where most hotel rooms were one-hundred-square-foot cells with a desk, a dresser, a sink, and a bathroom down the hall. Fiends from Lust could request rooms with beds and/or sex swings, but overall only Silver-tier and higher fiends had access to the better rooms, and Diamonds at a high level like her had their pick of what Hell’s Hilton had to offer, which wasn’t much.

“And here’s your complimentary swag bag,” said the hotel clerk, handing her a bag brimming with makeup samples, electronics, clothes, and jewelry. As she grabbed it, Tiffani noticed a look of longing on the clerk’s face and an almost downtrodden quality that reminded her of Nigel.

She smiled. “Thank you”—she squinted at his name badge—“Hank.”

He looked astonished and gave a tentative smile.

“You’re welcome, miss.”

She wondered how many angels had addressed a thank-you to him. And here was a demon doing it, which made her wonder. Did they know she was a demon? She certainly didn’t have the same carefully curated look as the angels around her.

“Do they know I’m a demon?” she asked Zoe as they went up the elevator.

“Umm . . . yes. In fact, you’re kind of a celebrity.”

“Oh, no,” Tiffani groaned. “I hate that kind of attention.”

“Maybe we should tell everyone Chad is a demon,” Zoe whispered, as if saying something sacrilegious. “He’d like it.”

Tiffani laughed. “I think you’re on to something there.”

After getting off on the 115th floor, they walked down the hallway to their suite. When Tiffani opened the door, she gasped.

“What the fuck?”

Zoe gasped in turn and whirled around. Tiffani looked in the same direction and saw an angel wearing a uniform materialize. He handed Tiffani a piece of paper.

“You have thirty days to make payment,” he said. Then he disappeared.

Tiffani looked at the piece of paper.

Infraction: Use of the f-word

Fine: $50

$100 for each infraction thereafter

“You have got to be fu—”

“Don’t say it!” Zoe said, clapping a hand over Tiffani’s mouth.

“—fudging kidding me,” Tiffani finished. “What is that all about?”

“They’re the cuss police. But don’t worry. It’s your first infraction. You’ll put the money in the cuss jar, and everything will be fine.”

Tiffani stared at her, incredulous.

Zoe laughed at the look on her face. “Oh, you need someone to show you the ropes, don’t you? I should have known Priscilla wouldn’t do it.”

She gestured for Tiffani to follow her across the threshold into the room, which looked to be straight out of a House Beautiful over-the-top edition. Gold-flecked wallpaper featuring angel-wing patterns covered three walls, while the fourth boasted a television that took up the entire space. Images of frolicking puppies and kittens danced across the screen, and a melody issued from the speakers that made elevator music sound hip. Tiffani moved further into the room and spied a bathroom with fixtures so glitzy and gaudy they almost blinded her.

Zoe used a remote on the table to open the curtains with the press of a button. Brilliant light poured into the space.

“Oh, good! We have a view of the Pearly Gates! You must rate.” Opening the curtains revealed an enormous covered patio with a barbecue and three fire pits surrounded by lounge chairs. Hammocks swung from posts on both ends. Zoe walked over to a small kitchenette and opened a mini fridge. “And mocktails! I’m hanging out with you more often.”

Tiffani dumped her suitcase onto one of the couches and sighed.

“Your enthusiasm for mocktails makes me sad.”

No wonder Barry was so corruptible.

As she assessed the space, she noticed a bedroom beyond the kitchenette decorated in bubblegum pink.

“Why a bedroom?” she asked. “Angels don’t sleep, do they?”

Zoe blushed. “These conferences can get a little wild. There’s some pretty hardcore cuddling,” she whispered.

Tiffani snorted. “This is so fu—”

Zoe lunged and put her hand over Tiffani’s mouth. “Don’t do it!”

“—fudging weird,” Tiffani said. “What is up with that?”

“Any use of the seven cuss words will incur a ticket, but I’ll give you a little secret,” she said, pulling a notepad out of her pocket and handing it and a pen to Tiffani. “You can write them down.”

Tiffani flipped open the cover of the notepad to find a short sentence on the first page that had no cuss words at all.

I’ve scheduled the meeting Barry requested for later tonight. Will you be ready to talk to everyone?

Startled, Tiffani glanced up at Zoe and opened her mouth to say yes, but Zoe put a finger to her lips and pointed to the notepad.

Smiling, Tiffani wrote:

I sure as shit am.

Zoe giggled.

Chapter 30

Tiffani and Zoe headed to the lobby bar for the opening reception, where instead of sweating cheddar, fat-laced ham, and gooey brown pudding, Heaven’s buffet consisted of equally unappetizing celery and carrot sticks, as well as strips of red pepper and a thin gruel-like substance that was maybe supposed to be a dip of some sort. The ultrathin angels prowled around the table like vultures picking at the remains of a healthy roadkill.

“So, we just have to make an appearance, and then we can bounce, right? I need to plan what I’m going to say tonight,” Tiffani muttered to Zoe as she loaded up her plate with celery sticks, then found a table to sit at.

“Well . . .” Zoe sat next to her and held out her conference program, pointing to the ten-to-midnight slot.

Late-night team-building exercises.

A sense of dread swept over Tiffani. “That sounds straight from a Hell’s Soul Exchange leadership conference. What team? What exercises?”

Zoe sighed. “How well do you sing?”

“Terribly.”

“You’ll fit right in for the . . . karaoke tonight, then. Despite popular belief, mortals have totally misinterpreted the phrase voice like an angel. It was originally meant in a sarcastic way. Most angels are tone deaf.”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’ll have to do it without me,” Tiffani said. “I. Don’t. Sing.” She felt a presence behind her and jumped a bit when Chad came over, sat in the chair next to her, and slung his arm around her shoulder. She quelled the urge to set that arm on fire.

“Did I hear you say you weren’t going to sing?” he asked. “I hate to tell you this, pretty lady, but you’re going to have to. It’s required.”

“Fine. I’ll go to the karaoke bar, but I’ll burn down the place before I actually sing.”

“Why am I not surprised to hear our demon friend talking about burning things down?”

Tiffani shuddered as Priscilla appeared out of nowhere.

“Tiffani here was saying that she isn’t going to sing,” Chad said.

Priscilla gave Tiffani “the look,” and Tiffani understood why even mean-girl angels like Jennifer found her intimidating. That look rivaled some of the evilest creatures in Hell.

“You’ll sing,” she said.

“But I—”

“How much do you want to stay in this internship program?” Priscilla asked.

Not at all, Tiffani thought. But I have to stay at least until I talk to the dissidents.

“Fine,” Tiffani groused. “But I want to sing with Zoe.”

Angels singing karaoke was possibly the most terrifying thing Tiffani had ever seen. Zoe had been right when she said that “voice like an angel” was a total misnomer. They all were, in a word, terrible. Jennifer and her posse did a version of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” with the lyrics “Put a Halo on It.” Jennifer was the lead singer, and Ashley and Heather served as her backups. When setting up the group, Ashley looked over at Zoe, then said something to Jennifer, who shook her head. Clearly, Zoe’s place in the group was slipping away fast.

Zoe looked unfazed. Her eyes appeared to have opened to the bitchiness of the clique. And she seemed to be focusing on achieving ROSE’s goals, now that Tiffani had arrived.

After hearing Chad and Jennifer screech their way through “Endless Love,” with Jennifer gazing at Chad and Chad making eyes at Tiffani, Tiffani nudged Zoe and pointed to a song in the book.

“How about this one?” she laughed, indicating the Rolling Stones’s “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Zoe snorted and covered her mouth with her hand. “I don’t think anyone in Heaven knows that song.”

“Why is it on the playlist?”

“I think angels like to pretend they’re going to be rebels, but no one ever is.”

“Come on. Let’s be rebels. It would be fun!”

Zoe looked over at the trio of mean girls who’d excluded her. They were giggling and pointing. She squared her shoulders and nodded at Tiffani. “OK. I’ll try it.”

Tiffani punched in the number, and the room hushed as the name of the song splashed across the screen.

“I know this is a little unusual,” Tiffani said. “But I thought I’d give you all a taste of my world.”

A few angels laughed nervously.

“And here we go!” Tiffani cheered.

The music pulled up, and she started to sing as poorly as advertised. Zoe stood next to her with a microphone in her hand, trying to follow the music and the bouncing ball that led them from lyric to lyric. Tiffani smiled and nodded, encouraging Zoe to sing out.

Suddenly, right at the point in the song when Mick Jagger croons about Jesus Christ, the music came to an abrupt stop, and everyone around them looked horrified. Zoe cringed against the wall, as if expecting a death blow at any moment.

Tiffani glanced around, startled. “What?”

A shining light surrounded them, and a voice boomed out, “Did someone say my son’s name?”

Chapter 31

With tears in her eyes, Zoe grabbed Tiffani’s arm. “Didn’t anyone tell you? Every time we say the G-word, or mention any of the Holy Trinity, like JC and the HS, he hears it and calls us into his office,” she gabbled, near hysteria.

“What’s going to happen to—”

An iridescent lavender mist that smelled of the ocean whirled around them, and when it cleared, Tiffani found herself standing at the front door of a modern McMansion, all clean lines, blond wood, and glass. The glass front door allowed visitors to see straight through the living room to the ocean, with no pesky trees or other houses obstructing the view. Its elegant simplicity reminded her of mansions she’d seen on reality TV shows, which suggested she’d find a lot of drama behind the scenes. A yacht was moored a few yards off the shore and bobbed in the mild swell, boasting an American flag that fluttered in the mild breeze.

“OK. That happened,” Tiffani muttered. Zoe huddled behind her, whimpering.

“So . . . God lives on Earth?” Tiffani asked her, eyeing the flag.

“I-I’d heard rumors,” Zoe stuttered. “Maybe that’s what that song ‘One of Us’ is about.”

Just then, the door opened and a striking man with blond hair, blue eyes, and a jaw sharp as a Ginsu knife gestured for them to come in. He wore a pinstripe suit in muted charcoal with a bright purple tie. When he raised his hand, Tiffani noticed his French cuffs had angel-wing cuff links.

“God?” Tiffani asked.

“No. I’m God’s butler. Steve.”

“God has a butler named Steve?” Tiffani asked, trying to hide her amusement.

“Do you have an issue with that?” His voice took on an echoing, thunderous tone Tiffani assumed he used with the rest of the staff.

“No, sir,” said Tiffani. Zoe nodded in agreement as she hid behind Tiffani.

Steve nodded. “Good. This way, please.”

Tiffani paused, unsure how to play this. The original plan had been to meet with Heaven’s ROSE sympathizers and tell them about soulcode changing so they could use that information as leverage to get a meeting with God. On the other hand, she wasn’t supposed to be directly involved, she wasn’t prepared, and she was pretty sure that if she revealed what she knew, all evidence, including her, would be annihilated today, before she had a chance to tell Heaven’s supporters.

Steve must have noticed her hesitation. “Problem?”

“If there was, would it matter?” Tiffani asked.

“What do you think?”

Tiffani sighed.

Improvised plan it is.

“Fine. Lead on.”

He walked them through a series of long hallways, each depicting a different era of mortal history, from after the common era started, of course.

“This is amazing!” Zoe said.

Steve nodded, a slight smile on his face. “We like to think so,” he said. “God has a different interior designer for each room in the house.”

Tiffani expected the eras to be presented in order, so it surprised her to step from a gem-and-gold-encrusted room that Louis the XIV would have considered over the top into a replica of New York’s Studio 54, a space most of Hell knew about because of the high percentage of fiends who had patronized the place at one time or another. Poles covered in multicolored, flashing lights reflected off dozens of mirrored balls strung from the ceiling, and disco music blared. The pounding bass line thumped through Tiffani’s body.

“I didn’t know they had a disco club at Versailles,” Tiffani shouted.

“He likes to put the eras together by vibe, not timeframe. Versailles and the 1980s were both decadent,” Steve shouted back.

To Tiffani’s relief, they stepped out into a quiet hallway. Steve pointed down it toward a gate that looked like the entrance to a coliseum. “The great Roman Empire is there.”

“And where are we going?”

He turned the other way. “To God’s favorite room in the whole house.”

They walked for what seemed like hours through themed areas, from the innovations of the industrial age and the twentieth century, to the refinement of the Georgian and Victorian eras, to the conflicting ideas of discovery and colonialism, which depicted explorers like Columbus finding cool new territories and taking them away from those who already had them.

They finally reached a plain door with a flap at eye level.

“What is this? Some kind of church?” Tiffani asked.

Steve’s stoic expression suggested he either didn’t know, didn’t care, or didn’t have any plans to enlighten them.

“What’s the password?” The same booming voice that had accosted them on the karaoke floor thundered through the door.

Steve sighed and muttered something.

“Again?”

“God in all his glory is straight-up gangsta,” Steve grumbled.

Tiffani snorted, and Zoe stifled a giggle.

The door creaked open. “Damn straight I am. Enter.”

Tiffani and Zoe walked into a room that mimicked a speakeasy in every way, and as a gangstress in the 1920s, Tiffani knew her speakeasies.

“What the hell?” she asked, before Zoe could slap a hand over her mouth. She stared around the room, waiting for a curse enforcer to show up and give her a ticket.

A chuckle came from the other side of the room.

“Don’t worry about it. You can curse all you want here.”

A man stepped out of the shadows. He was a handsome man, but not in a traditional way, like Tiffani had expected an angel might look. He had a shock of silver hair, gray eyes, and a goatee. His nose was a little too long, his eyes a little too deep set. He was a little too tall. In fact, if Tiffani didn’t know better, she would have thought he was the grim reaper.

“Come in. Come in,” he said, waving his hand. “Can I get you a drink?”

With a baffled look at Zoe, Tiffani walked farther into the room. Zoe stood poised on her toes, as if prepared to turn and run, but Tiffani took her by the hand and dragged her in.

“Scotch?” God asked, handing Tiffani a glass.

Tiffani sniffed it. It smelled exactly like what Ken sold in Purgatory.

“How did you know?” she asked, suspicious.

“I’m omniscient, you know,” he said, with a laugh.

The thought made Tiffani’s blood run cold. If he was omniscient, he knew what she and her friends were up to.

God laughed again. “Don’t look so worried. I’m not really omniscient. When I heard you were joining Heaven’s asylum program, I asked your recruiter, Barry, what you might like. I anticipated we might meet at some point.”

He turned to Zoe. “And you, you adorable little angel, must be Zoe.” He said “adorable little angel” like a proud and incredibly misogynistic uncle. “Where’s your posse?”

“Who?”

“Jennifer, Ashley, and Heather. The rest of the mean girls.”

“I think they’re still at karaoke?” Zoe’s voice quivered.

“Good. They’re a bad influence. Ah, karaoke. It’s become more sophisticated since the old days of hymns. Not quite as satisfying, though,” he reminisced.

“Do you have a go-to song?” Tiffani asked, purely out of curiosity.

“Why, yes, I do!” He gestured toward a door on the other side of the room. “There’s a room dedicated to karaoke bars in Koreatowns across the world on the other side of that door. Want to hear? Or maybe sing? It’s a duet.”

Tiffani shook her head. Angel voices were bad enough. What would God’s be like?

“No, I’m not really in the mood for a duet. In fact, I was having a great time at that conference, and it would be great if I could—” Tiffani knew she needed to get back to the ROSE meeting Zoe had organized.

Zoe tugged on her shirt.

“If we could,” Tiffani amended, “maybe . . .”

“Go?” God asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Tiffani said.

God stared down his long nose at her, then gestured for her and Zoe to sit on the enormous leather couch. They remained standing as he moved to sit in the chair across from the couch.

“Why would you want to go? We’re just getting to know each other.”

Tiffani looked at Zoe, eyebrows raised. She had no idea how to manage this situation.

“I mean, we know how busy you are and—” Zoe started.

“Oh, I have people who do most of the work these days. I expended a lot of energy in those first six days. I can take a lot of time off now.” He scrutinized them. “Besides, I’m not entirely sure I want to let you two leave.”

“Why?” Tiffani asked, trying to appear innocent, even though that had never worked with her.

God pursed his lips and continued to gesture at the couch. “Please. Take a seat. I won’t ask again.” His calm tone hinted at a menace that reminded Tiffani of the rumors about devastating floods and earthquakes and such. She sat and pulled Zoe down with her. A tacky paint-by-numbers-style mural of the Garden of Eden covered the wall across from her. God must have noticed her staring.

“Do you like it? I did it myself.”

“Uh . . . s-sure . . . ,” Tiffani stuttered, looking at Zoe with wide eyes. Zoe was staring down at her hands, which were clamped together as if praying. God smiled at her indulgently.

“It’s OK, dear,” he said. “You don’t have to pray to me. I’m right here. You can just talk.”

Zoe glanced up, then back down, and nodded but didn’t pull her hands apart, and Tiffani realized she was trying to keep herself from shaking.

God crossed his legs and cocked his head at Tiffani. “You were a tough one, you know.”

“Pardon me?”

“To be honest, I was surprised when the algorithm put you in Hell. I thought you had a chance to be here with us.”

Tiffani frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I know the mitigating circumstances behind your having that thug beat up your brother-in-law. You were protecting your sister.”

Tiffani nodded. “And?”

“Personally, I thought that reasoning should have been included in your soulcode. Unfortunately, the algorithm did not agree.”

“And you couldn’t do anything about that?” She was more curious than angry. Having seen what postmortal life was like in Heaven, Tiffani wasn’t too sorry she’d wound up where she had.

God shrugged but didn’t say anything. She scrutinized him.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” he said.

“Why do you exist?”

God laughed. “You get to talk to the Almighty and you ask why I exist? Wouldn’t you prefer to know why you do?”

Tiffani shook her head. “I’m dead. Doesn’t really matter much to me. But if everything is all done by algorithm, why do we even need you and”—she pointed to the floor—“your colleague?”

God shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Well . . .”

After a moment of watching him squirm, a realization struck Tiffani that destroyed ninety-five percent of every philosophical construct about Heaven and Hell she’d ever had. “You guys don’t make any real decisions, do you? You’re glorified administrators.”

He stood, strode over to the liquor cabinet, and splashed more Scotch into his glass. “We’re more important than that,” he said, not facing her. “We’ve taken a bunch of computer code and built it into the fine operation it is today.”

“Ha! You’re pouting!” Tiffani exclaimed in wonder, while Zoe gasped.

He spun around, and Tiffani shrank back at the expression on his face, knowing she’d gone too far. Philosophical insights aside, this guy still held a great deal of sway over her postmortal existence and that of her friends. He confirmed her fear with his next words.

“This epiphany must be enjoyable for you. What you haven’t realized is that as a ‘glorified administrator,’ I still have considerable power over all postmortals, as well as your friends on Earth. And I have a responsibility to protect our enterprise, which is why I’ve been trying to track down these union dissidents—”

Zoe shifted in her seat, and God considered her.

“—these dissidents,” he repeated, “and I think I might finally have an idea of who’s involved in all the unrest.” He gave Zoe a piercing glare.

“I-I don’t know what you’re—” Zoe stuttered.

“Please, do you think I’m an idiot? I’ve had my suspicions about Barry. I see he’s taken an interest in you, and then this demon shows up whom you immediately become best pals with,” he said, waving at Tiffani.

Zoe moved closer to Tiffani, as if she could protect the angel from whatever punishment God handed out.

And suddenly, Tiffani, who was getting exhausted with all the epiphanies, realized she had one way to do that, a way that didn’t make her at all happy. With backing from both Heaven and Hell’s ROSE chapters, and armed with secret information, she had leverage. God couldn’t destroy or punish her without hearing her out. She leaned over the coffee table and willed herself to remain calm, with the appearance of being in charge, even though she was talking to a being who considered himself a “straight-up gangsta.”

“OK, let’s cut the crap. You know union dissidents aren’t your biggest concern, am I right? We both know that, despite what management on both sides has to say, our soulcode can change after death.”

Zoe grabbed Tiffani’s arm. “What? You didn’t tell me—”

“Later,” Tiffani muttered under her breath, while God watched the exchange with an amused expression.

He nodded. “Go on.”

“And we both know you don’t want everyone to know, am I right? Because of the chaos and maybe Armageddon and your belief that maybe Hell will take over the world and such?”

God took a sip of his drink and leaned back, surveying her. “Go on,” he repeated.

“We aren’t the only ones who have this information. Perhaps we can make a deal.”

God scrutinized her, then laughed. “You’re blackmailing God?”

“Blackmail is a strong word. Let’s say I’m trying to make a business arrangement.”

After another long stare, God called out, “Do you hear that, son?”

Tiffani whipped her head around as a door opened behind them, and the Devil walked through.

“Hear what?”

God smiled at Tiffani, showing more teeth than anyone, even the Almighty, should have. “Tiffani wants to make a business arrangement.”

Chapter 32

God walked over to the Devil and shook his hand. “Good to see you, Lucifer.” Lucifer clapped God on the shoulder in return.

“You too, Dad.”

Tiffani had never seen the Highest-Up of the lower down, and his appearance surprised her. While she hadn’t expected a stereotypical beast with horns and a tail, she also hadn’t expected a six-foot-tall auburn-haired man with hazel eyes and a full beard. Had he been wearing a plaid shirt and suspenders, she would have pegged him as a lumberjack, but his T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops outfit showed both sleeves and leggings of intricate tattoos, including on his neck and his feet. From what Tiffani could make out, the tattoos reflected some of the more “exotic” tortures Hell had to offer; a crow pecking the eyes out of a fiend trapped in ice decorated his forearm, while a tattoo on his other arm depicted a multistep process of a fiend being drawn and quartered, put back together, then drawn and quartered again. Tiffani shuddered and heard Zoe gagging.

So, more biker than lumberjack.

God tut-tutted when he scrutinized his son’s outfit. “Really? Can’t you at least throw a jacket on?”

“It’s hot at my house,” the Devil responded. “Besides, it’s not like you gave me a lot of time to deal with whatever this is.” He nodded at Tiffani and Zoe.

“Yes. Let me make introductions. I believe you know Tiffani Lutatio,” God said. “She was a member of your C-Suite, I believe. And this is someone from my team, Zoe.”

The Devil leered at her.

“Paws off the little angel, son. She’s not your type.”

The Devil laughed and sat in the middle of the couch between Tiffani and Zoe, stretching his arms across the back and manspreading his long legs so wide they had to scoot to the very ends. He gestured toward the bottle of Scotch as if to say, Do you mind pouring me a glass? God waved over at Steve, who had been standing silently by the door the whole time. He poured one and gave it to the Devil, who held the amber liquid up to the light and peered through it. He took a sip, then looked back at Tiffani.

“The good stuff. You must rate.” He propped his legs up on the coffee table, giving Tiffani a view of a flame tattoo interspersed with tortured faces, reminding her of Munch’s The Scream. “What’s up?” he asked, his eyes not moving from Tiffani’s.

God cleared his throat. “We’ve been talking about Tiffani’s revelation that soulcode can change after death.”

The Devil glanced away and took another sip. When he looked back at her, his eyes had darkened from hazel to black. “How did you find this out?” he asked, his voice husky.

OK, so not the happy-go-lucky guy he appears to be.

“Does it matter? I know, and I’m not the only one,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “There’s no way for you to keep this information from getting out unless we can make some kind of arrangement, and you don’t have a lot of options.”

The Devil took another sip, then cocked his head at her.

“Do you know what an allegory is?” he asked.

She furrowed her brow, confused at the non sequitur. Knowing the Devil, this wasn’t going anywhere good. “Uh, yeah. And that’s relevant how?”

“Humor us.” He looked over at God with a hint of annoyance. “You better explain. It’s kind of your fault.”

God frowned. “And you remember what happened last time you talked to your father like that?” he grumbled.

The Devil put his hands up in surrender. “Whatever. I think you should tell her the story so nothing is misinterpreted, but I can do it if you want.”

God shook his head, then turned his attention to Tiffani. While his father’s gaze was focused elsewhere, the Devil made a rude gesture that God either didn’t notice or chose to ignore. Zoe, to Tiffani’s surprise, giggled. The Devil chuckled back.

“I assume you’ve heard of the Garden of Eden and the snake and Eve and all that?” God asked Tiffani.

“Sure,” she said, while Zoe nodded emphatically from the other end of the couch.

“People have argued about what the snake represents. It’s temptation. It’s evil. It’s a test of free will, yadda yadda yadda. But I can tell you what it really is.”

He paused for dramatic effect, as if anticipating she would be excited to learn one of the major mysteries of the world. Instead, she felt queasy.

“It’s a computer worm,” he said.

“A what now?” asked Zoe. Tiffani was glad she was contributing words to this conversation.

“A computer worm,” the Devil interjected. “Whenever anyone died, we planned for their soulcode to stay the same. It makes inventory management so much easier. But this guy”—he hooked a thumb over at God—“wasn’t paying attention one day and allowed the malware to enter the system.”

“It was my day off,” God mumbled.

Tiffani was caught between wanting to laugh and to shriek like a maniac. She forced herself to stay as calm as a mother trying to get her toddler to stop having a meltdown.

“Did you try turning off the main server and turning it back on again?” Tiffani asked. She remembered that as the first step the DMCDs always required everyone to take when asked for computer support. And it worked 99 percent of the time.

God and the Devil looked at each other conspiratorially, and Tiffani couldn’t read the unspoken message that passed between them. After a moment, God spoke up.

“The virus was set to kick in when we had around a hundred billion souls backed up, which happened about a century ago. We had no idea about the malicious worm until that point,” he said, defensively. “Rebooting the system now would be catastrophic. Hundreds of billions of souls would be wiped out, and we can’t have fiends, angels, and mortals wandering around with no souls. We’d have to wipe the slate clean and start over again. It would take forever to rebuild.”

Tiffani shuddered at the idea of mass annihilation on that scale. It didn’t feel like a decision she should get to make.

“And I think we can all agree that having mortals and postmortals everywhere know about their soulcode, and that it can change after death, isn’t ideal either,” said the Devil.

Tiffani thought back to Barry’s metaphysical implications of mortals knowing the secret. He’d suggested it would change life on Earth irrevocably. At the same time, Org and her ilk weren’t as worried about mortals knowing the secret.

“Not everyone agrees that’s a problem,” she said.

God scoffed. “What do you think would happen on Earth? Evildoing would explode. Mortals would assume they could fix their sins after death. Hell would be overrun. Heaven would become a wasteland. The balance on Earth would forever shift, not to mention what it would do to the infrastructure of Heaven’s Soul Exchange.”

The Devil cleared his throat. “Who knows what mortals will do? They’re maddeningly unpredictable. They were supposed to become more predictable after death, but someone had to take a nap.”

This argument over human nature reminded Tiffani of her own experiences with her crotchety father at Thanksgiving. Had she not been talking to God and the Devil about the existence of Earth, she would have found the father-son dynamic amusing.

God humphed. “Whatever. I assume we can agree on one thing: We can’t have the Rabble Rousers—”

“Or the Avenging Angels,” the Devil interjected.

“Will you let me finish my sentence?” God snapped.

“It’s just that my siblings are such pains in the ass.”

“They wouldn’t be if you weren’t such a bad example.”

The Devil stood and walked toward God’s chair, his fists clenched. “They started running around with flaming swords and spreading the plague on their own. I didn’t tell them to.”

Tiffani whistled. “Guys. Focus.”

God looked at Tiffani as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Right. The point is that we can’t have either the Rabble Rousers—or the Avenging Angels—using this information to try to make everyone equal. This talk about treating workers better is bad enough.”

After glaring at his dad for another moment, the Devil directed his attention back to Tiffani. “So, my dear misguided little fiend, it appears we’re at an impasse. None of us want the system to be rebooted, do we? And yet we’ll be forced to if you reveal the truth.”

“Yes, my son and I,” said God, clearly trying to reassert his control over the conversation, “think turning everything off and back on again is the lesser of two evils.” He grinned at the Devil. “Pardon the dad pun.”

The Devil raised his eyes and shook his head. “Don’t quit your day job,” he muttered.

“Why?” Tiffani asked.

“Why what?”

“Why do you think rebooting is better than revealing the secret of soulcode?”

The Devil grinned, showing sharp teeth. “We can rebuild. It would take time, but we have all the time in the world. Literally.”

Tiffani chewed on her lip, thinking it over. She agreed that revealing the secret would create chaos. But she hadn’t realized the Highest-Ups of both realms had this “rebooting” solution in their back pocket. Or did they? She shook her head. Rebuilding surely couldn’t be as easy as God and the Devil made it sound. She smelled a bluff.

“Who created it?” she asked.

“Hmm?” God said, trying, and failing, to appear nonchalant.

“The computer worm. Who created it?” she persisted.

God and the Devil looked at each other, again with enigmatic expressions. “It’s not information we share with postmortals,” God finally said.

Tiffani scrutinized them. “You don’t know, do you?”

“There’s a lot of speculation here. The best we’ve come up with is that the big bang had something to do with it. Let’s just say it will go away if we reboot,” God said.

Tiffani laughed. She’d learned from the DMCDs that any smart coder could create a virus that easily survived a reboot. “But you don’t know that for sure, do you?”

The Devil growled and lunged at her. God put a restraining hand on his arm.

“Now, let’s be reasonable,” God said.

“Actually, let’s be terrifying,” the Devil said. His demeanor made it clear he was done playing and that he fully intended to send Tiffani and all her friends to the Ice House.

“I’ve been there,” Tiffani said, guessing his thought and trying to portray a bravado she still didn’t feel. “It’s not that bad.”

“Oh, I’ll invent a new torture. Just for you,” he snapped.

Great. The Highest-Up inventing a torture just for her. She gazed beseechingly at God, who squeezed the Devil’s arm, quieting him.

“I have a counterproposal,” he said. He leaned toward Tiffani and Zoe with a Santa Claus–style smile, apparently trying to appear fatherly.

“It seems that we’re all in a tough position here. If you tell people their souls can change after they die, we’ll have no choice but to reboot the system and hope that it will fix the problem. None of us wants to take that risk, right?”

Tiffani and Zoe shook their heads in unison.

“So, what do you want?” God asked.

Tiffani paused, considering her options. It was now or never. She’d never have this much leverage against God and the Devil again.

“There’s always ROSE,” she said.

The Devil snorted Scotch onto the coffee table. God wiped it up with a wave of his hand.

“Behave,” he growled.

“You know their demands, right?” the Devil asked.

“Reasonable working conditions, royalties on rentals, and upgraded equipment,” Zoe piped up. Tiffani started, surprised at the little angel’s bravado. She gave her an encouraging smile.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Tiffani agreed.

“Absolutely not,” said the Devil.

“Hold on, let’s think about it,” God said.

“What? Are you crazy?” shouted the Devil.

“Not crazy. Practical.” God began pacing around the room. “OK, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page here. ROSE wants to unionize the factory-floor workers, am I right?”

Tiffani nodded.

“And the first contract between management and this union would have to involve angels and demons getting some sort of recompense for any rentals of their souls.”

“And better working conditions,” Zoe said.

“And updated equipment,” Tiffani added, glad for the opportunity to push for her own priority.

God nodded. The Devil snarled.

“And how do we make this happen?”

“I propose a summit.”

Chapter 33

Before Tiffani could even start negotiating with management, she had to get her own people together. Despite Org’s efforts to get the Rabble Rousers to be reasonable, most were for all-out war, until they learned about the rebooting option. Even they had to admit that they couldn’t achieve their goal if every angel and fiend were annihilated. In the end, they grudgingly agreed that pursuing ROSE’s original goals would be the only way to accomplish anything—for now.

They sat across from each other at the secret lair’s conference table in Arthur’s data center—God, the Devil, and top management, including Priscilla the archangel and Michael the demon on one side and Barry, Siobhan, and Org on the other. Each side had their security team, with Lewes representing the Devil, and Chad, who’d turned out to be a surprisingly effective spy for Heaven’s version of the HIA, on the angels’ side. His constant presence in her life while in Heaven’s C-Suite made sense now, and she had to give the pretty boy credit for hiding his true purpose. The Rabble Rousers and Avenging Angels, represented by Org, were arrayed around the room, glowering. Everyone had left their smiting instruments at the door, although the security teams were allowed to keep a few items, and everyone agreed to be on their best behavior. The rules of conduct for the meeting included strictures against physical and psychological torture—unless absolutely necessary for self-defense—name-calling, and blowing up Earth or even small parts of it.

Tiffani sat at the head of the table, with Joe, the only mortal in the negotiations, right behind her—whether to support her or be protected wasn’t clear. She’d opposed having Joe there at first, mainly for his own safety, until Arthur and Barry, working together, finally convinced her they needed someone to represent mortals, who, after all, would be at risk of annihilation like everyone else. Having him at her back was oddly comforting, as was having Fred curled around her feet, seemingly ready to defend her, or run away in terror, depending on the circumstances. The DMCDs had wanted to join in, but Arthur, leaning into his perplexing role as their surrogate father, wouldn’t let them, pointing out that teenagers not technically old enough to vote shouldn’t be deciding the future of the known universe.

After everyone had grabbed coffee and a Voodoo Doughnut, which the angels—constantly starved on a diet of celery and carrot sticks—ate with more relish than did the fiends, Tiffani cleared her throat and started.

“Let’s begin with what I hope we can all agree on: No one wants to reboot humanity, am I right? Not only will all mortals and postmortals be annihilated, but management will have to spend the next three hundred thousand years to build back.”

Everyone nodded, even the Rabble Rousers and Avenging Angels, albeit without enthusiasm.

“Great. Now, let’s put our cards on the table and discuss options for preventing that from happening.” She pointed to Arthur, who stood next to a flip chart, armed with a Sharpie. “Arthur will write down everyone’s ideas, and we’ll put them in order of what’s doable. Does anyone want to start?”

“Yeah. Write down ‘Management stops being such assholes,’” muttered Org, glaring at Priscilla, who glared back.

Lewes guffawed. “You’ve managed to piss off everyone with your treachery, haven’t you, Organza?”

Tiffani looked over her shoulder at him. “Shouldn’t security be seen and not heard?” Org laughed, and Tiffani pointed at her. “And you . . .” She made a zip-it gesture. Org crossed her arms and continued glaring.

“Let’s be clear,” said Priscilla. “We’re not negotiating with terrorists.” She pointed at Org and the RRs and AAs behind her. Org lunged forward. Tiffani put up her hand to hold her back.

“OK, we get it. You’re not negotiating with terrorists. You’re negotiating with the less . . . intimidating members of ROSE.” She waved at Siobhan and Barry, who cleared his throat.

God smiled and gestured at him as if encouraging him to speak.

“You don’t get to say who speaks in this meeting,” spat Org.

Siobhan stepped in, putting her hand on Org’s shoulder. “Chill the beans, babe,” she said. “Don’t forget we’re on the same side.” Org frowned, as if this idea had only now occurred to her.

Tiffani raised her hands. “I’d say this is a great start to the negotiations, but it’s not.” She turned to Barry. “Since the demons have more to gain in seeking changes, I believe it makes sense for the demon leaders to speak first.”

Barry nodded and gestured grandly at Siobhan, who shuffled some papers in front of her and stood.

“First, let me say how pleased we are that you both”—she nodded to God and the Devil—“have been convinced to meet with us,” she said.

Org snorted. “Took long enough.” Tiffani and Siobhan glared at her. Org leaned back against her chair and closed her lips.

“We’re glad to gain a better understanding of why our workers, who get free room and board, by the way, aren’t happy with their jobs,” God said.

“Yeah, especially since losing their jobs would mean an eternity in the Ice House—or nowhere,” the Devil sneered.

“Are you threatening us?” Org shouted, lurching forward again. Lewes laid a hand on the cattle prod on his belt. Org didn’t flinch. “You wouldn’t be able to do anything without us.”

“Org,” Tiffani admonished. “Don’t make me send you out of the room.” She turned back to the Devil.

“Uh, Lucifer—can I call you that?” she asked. He nodded stiffly. “Let’s get things on track here. No one is threatening anyone.”

Lucifer grinned at Org, showing all his teeth. She scowled.

“I think all anyone is trying to say is that we have a mutual need to find an agreement, OK?” Tiffani prodded.

Everyone nodded. Some enthusiastically. Some begrudgingly. And some, like Org, who had to be threatened into it by their girlfriends.

God, Lucifer, and Priscilla pulled in some of their C-Suite negotiation teams, while Siobhan and Barry pulled in more of theirs and Org pulled in more threatening figures. They debated for the better part of three days. Several times, Tiffani had to intervene and get everyone to walk it off for a beat.

After a contentious and sometimes violent few days, during which Arthur got carpel tunnel from his role as secretary and Tiffani hadn’t been able to convince Org not to punch Priscilla, they came to an agreement. Siobhan, Barry, and their teams agreed, grudgingly, that it was a good start, and God, Lucifer, and their team agreed it was as far as they would ever go. The Rabble Rousers and Avenging Angels even more grudgingly agreed it was the best they could get—for now. Everyone was equally unhappy, and that made for a great compromise.

Tiffani focused on the paper in front of her, which outlined the final deal.

“OK, so let’s be sure we agree on the parameters. You”—she pointed at management’s negotiators—“will provide any fiend or angel whose soul is rented a royalty to be determined as is appropriate within the realm.”

“Even if that means that HSE might go bankrupt,” Lucifer muttered. God kicked him under the table and held a finger to his lips. “Quiet, son.”

“You will also improve working conditions for Brass through Copper and Level 1 through 4 workers.”

“Which means twelve-hour days—” said Siobhan.

“—and no unscheduled torture breaks,” Org interjected.

“Not an issue on our side,” Priscilla huffed back at her.

Get a room, you . . . three? Is this a fiend-fiend-angel throuple forming here?

“We’ll upgrade the factory-floor equipment,” Tiffani continued, pretending she hadn’t heard the exchange.

“Sure, fine, whatever,” the Devil said.

“Finally, neither Highest-Up will oppose the formation of a postmortal safety court where workers from either side can file complaints and be heard,” finished Tiffani.

God and Lucifer crossed their arms almost simultaneously.

“I think it’s ridiculous that angels and demons want to work together, but whatever. It will crash and burn,” Lucifer said. Tiffani ignored him.

“And you”—Tiffani pointed at Siobhan’s team—“will cease and desist all work stoppages, strikes in front of outlets, and protest activity.”

Now came the hard part.

“As for the idea of postmortem soul growth.” She looked at Org, who had her arms crossed and a frown on her face. “We agree that demons whose tiers change due to the proven violation of a commandment, such as doing favors for mortals, will face a maximum of one hundred years in the Ice House.” Tiffani cleared her throat. “We also agree that we will not make this phenomenon public to anyone, mortal or postmortal, upon pain of annihilation, and to destroy any evidence of its existence.”

Tiffani waited a tense moment for Org, any of the other Rabble Rousers, or any Avenging Angels to once again protest this stipulation. It was the best they’d been able to do.

No one said anything.

“Good,” she said, setting the paper in front of her aside. Then she cleared her throat again. “And now I want something.”

Everyone turned to her, looking surprised and wary.

“I haven’t asked for anything during these negotiations, and I think we can all agree that it wasn’t an easy task for me.”

God gestured as if to say, “You have the floor.”

“I want you to wipe Joe’s memory.” She refused to look at him. “For that matter, I want you to do the same for Edith and the DMCDs. I want it to be as if none of this ever happened to any of the mortals involved.”

Joe’s mouth gaped open. “But . . . but . . . why?” he sputtered.

“I think we’ve all agreed that knowing about all of this”—she waved around the space—“will change your life. With every action you take, you’ll be thinking about it. You need to have a normal life. So does Edith.”

“Are you kidding? You’re trying to get rid of me? I have friends here, and some I even consider family,” he said, nodding at Arthur and then looking back at her, as if he included her in that group. She was both honored and sad. “You know I would never tell anyone.”

Tiffani took a deep breath. “You know you don’t belong here. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for him arresting me.” She pointed at Lewes, who stood behind the Devil’s chair. Lewes grinned in a completely unrepentant way.

Joe shook his head, stepped away, and crossed his arms. “I can’t go back to being boring old Joe Felix.”

She took his hand, and he didn’t flinch. “Even though you won’t remember it, you’ll still have broken a demon out of jail and helped create unions in both postmortal realms. You’ve changed. And that change doesn’t disappear just because you can’t remember what happened. That’s kind of the point—the choices you make impact who you are.”

Joe’s expression suggested he was having none of that crap.

She addressed God. “You can do that with mortals, right? Take away his memories?”

God nodded. “In those rare circumstances when a mortal has entered or gained knowledge of one of our realms, we can erase their memories. We don’t like to do it, because it impacts their soulcode, but we had to figure out something after that whole debacle with Dante. No one wants to foist another epic poem on the world.”

Tiffani gaped. “How often does this sort of thing happen?” she asked.

“Ha! Wouldn’t you like to know.” Lucifer smirked.

Siobhan snorted. “You guys suck,” she said.

Lucifer grinned. God looked annoyed.

Tiffani stood. “I sincerely hope we’re done here, and it’s time for Freddie and me to get back to my store.” She walked toward the door, stopped, and glanced at Joe. She walked back over and gave him a hug. He didn’t flinch. “I’m really sorry about this, but it’s for your own good.”

Chapter 34

Tiffani’s high from getting through the negotiations fizzled about thirty seconds after they were over. She and Fred left the data center with nowhere to go. She couldn’t go back to the C-Suite, where she clearly didn’t fit in. Lewes had ended the lease on her up-top apartment once she’d been arrested. The passive-aggressive angels in Heaven’s asylum program pissed her off. In the end, she went to where she’d always been most comfortable—her HSE outlet. She’d heard from Barry it hadn’t been opened again, and she hoped her key still worked. If not, she’d break a window. What were they going to do, arrest her?

When she pulled up to the door, she found a full-on party happening on the curb. A band played in the middle of the street, and demons from all tiers were dancing and drinking from a keg they’d placed in front of the door. Brave and/or wasted mortals joined in the fun. Fred howled along with the music, as off-key as the singers.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

A demon came up and grabbed her around the waist to hug her. “We got the memo! Thank you!”

Tiffani, now confused as to how they’d connected her to the events of the week, grabbed the piece of paper.

“They work fast,” she muttered.

To: The Demonic Community

From: The Highest-Up of the Lower Down

Re: Changes to HSE policies

After much consideration, the C-Suite here in Hell has decided, out of the goodness of our hearts and not at all in response to worker activity, to start providing royalties every time your soul is rented to a mortal.

Further, we’ve decided that a twelve-hour workday and cessation of unscheduled torture breaks will increase productivity. We’re also going to upgrade the equipment on the factory floor, even though we think you’re being big whiners.

Finally, we’ve decided that if you want to make some sort of unfounded complaint to a useless tribunal, we’ll let you.

Although this hasn’t been a negotiation and we have made these changes because we are benevolent and want to improve morale, we do have some requirements associated with these changes.

First, you’ve got to do your work in a timely manner and correctly.

Second, no more standing around in the street in front of stores, waving signs.

And third, no more being general dickheads.

If we can all agree to the terms, everything will be copasetic. If not, the Ice House has infinite room.

Sincerely,

Beelzebub

PS If you have a problem with any of this, and I’m sure you do, complain to Tiffani Lutatio. It’s all her fault.

Tiffani groaned. It was ungracious, braggadocious, and full of lies. And the bit about contacting her would, without a doubt, make her the last thing she wanted to be—a celebrity.

Gritting her teeth into a less-than-gracious smile and ducking around grateful demons, she made her way to the store and was relieved to find her key still worked. Slamming the door in the face of a demon wearing a loincloth and a crazed expression, she ran back to her office, where she plopped on her chair and leaned back, lacing her fingers behind her head. It surprised her that she wasn’t happier about how everything had turned out. Everyone had what they wanted. ROSE was being chartered. The Rabble Rousers and Avenging Angels were quiet—for now. Both Arthur and Barry had new street cred. Siobhan and Org were happy. She wasn’t sure what Joe was up to now, but he was probably fine.

But how had she, Tiffani, benefited? She’d had a small hand in bringing better tech to Hell, but overall her career was failing—she couldn’t go back to Heaven’s asylum program, and none of the higher-ups of the lower down would ever promote her, no matter how successful she was as a salesperson. When it came to it, she was back where she started—actually, even worse than where she started.

“Well, Freddie, I guess this is it for us now,” she said.

Fred gave a light snore and cuddled with his asbestos dragon.

Tiffani rubbed behind the hellhound’s ears. His eyes opened and his leg twitched. He gave a faint woof. She smiled.

“Could be worse, I guess.”

She set up camp on the couch in her back office, because she decided there was nothing for it but to keep working until someone told her not to. The partying ROSE-ers were back in Hell and Heaven, plugging away happily at their twelve hours of work. She snorted and wondered how long that would last.

As she was rearranging iSOULs in a New Year’s Eve display, the front doorbell chimed, and someone walked in. To her surprise, Fred’s nose shot in the air, and he sniffed deeply.

“Just a moment, I’ll—”

She turned and gasped. There stood Joe. She shook her head at the irony of his coming there, even though his memory had been wiped.

Of all the gin joints in all the land.

She sighed, nearly devastated at the turn of events. If he was here, he wanted to rent a soul, which meant he hadn’t really embraced the new person he’d become. Well, she’d be sure to talk him down to the least offensive and expensive soul she could. She strode forward.

“Hello, welcome to the Soul Exchange. Can I help you?” she asked.

Joe startled and peered at her. “Tiffani?” he asked.

She stopped and stared at him. Then rage coursed through her. After everything she’d done, the Devil and God couldn’t do this one little thing for her?

“You know who I am?”

Joe grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, for some reason, the memory wipe didn’t work.”

Or this is some kind of trick Lewes is playing on me.

“Tell me something only Joe would know.”

“Uh, you offered me tequila the first time we met.”

“I do that for everyone.”

“You have a hellhound named Fred.”

“He isn’t exactly discreet.”

Joe furrowed his brow and pondered for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “I got it. You’re terrible at Pictionary.”

Bingo.

“Why didn’t the memory wipe work?” she snapped. “You’d think God and the Devil, working together, could get one thing right. If they tried.”

“Oh, they tried,” Joe said. “But I told them not to.”

“Wait, what? Why couldn’t they force you?”

“Ever heard of a little thing called free will?”

“Yeah. I figured you wouldn’t get to exercise that in this particular scenario. That was kind of the point!”

“He had help,” came a voice behind Joe, as Barry stepped into the shop. Fred came rushing off his cushion and leaped on him in greeting. Barry laughed.

“Get your hellhound off me,” he cried in between guffaws. “He’s going to lick me to death.”

And, indeed, Tiffani could see great streaks of burned flesh where Fred’s tongue had scaled up and down Barry’s face. She pulled a demon treat out of her pocket—liver of cat. Fred loved that sort of thing.

“Here, boy,” she called.

Fred lifted his nose and sniffed the air again. He came bounding toward Tiffani and sat in front of her, salivating. She held out the treat, which he wolfed down.

She leaned down to admonish him, shaking her finger. “Go to your corner,” she said sternly. He slunk away.

Tiffani turned back to Barry, who was in the midst of a bro hug, which had been perfected in Hell, with Joe. “What the—?”

Barry smiled. “Joe was really pissed that you wanted to get rid of him, so we talked to the Big Guy and Lucifer. The whole point of all this was that the choices we make impact our soul and where we wind up. If they wiped his memory, that choice would be taken away. He got Org and the other Rabble Rousers to say that it was unacceptable and a violation of the agreement. He really wanted to stay part of the Tiffani entourage.”

Tiffani glowered. “Please don’t call it that.”

“OK, I’ll make it up to you with a trip to Purgatory. Drinks are on me.”

Chapter 35

Joe decided to pass on the trip to Purgatory.

“I’ll talk to you after you’ve cooled off,” he said, giving Tiffani a quick hug.

“What does that mean?” she asked. “I’m fine.”

“You are not. I know you well enough to know you’re pissed. Barry went behind your back to help me. And he’s not exactly been truthful with you for a while. You and he need to talk things through, and you don’t need a mortal around to do it.” He grinned and waved at Barry. “See you later!” he said.

“You’re leaving me with her?” Barry had the wisdom to look a little frightened.

“You’ll be fine,” Joe laughed.

When Barry, Tiffani, and Fred arrived, they took their regular table, and Tiffani gestured to Ken, who came over with a resigned expression.

“I don’t have any Scotch. I gave that last bottle to you.”

Tiffani was crestfallen. What would she drink? Appletinis?

Ken laughed. “Just kidding. I knew you’d be back.” He went behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of Lagavulin.

“Jerk,” Tiffani said, when he put it on the table. But she said it with a smile. She turned back to Barry.

“So, what do you want?” she asked, trying to sound hostile. He’d been lying to her about his involvement in ROSE, but it was hard to hate him. This was her friend Barry she was talking to.

“OK, I know you’re mad, but—”

“—you lied to me about being in ROSE—”

“—technically a sin of omission, not a lie.”

“Fine. Over the three years I’ve known you, you failed to mention you’re part of a union takeover of Heaven—”

“—that’s a little dramatic. We didn’t exactly take over.”

She glared at him. “I will speak. You will listen.” She continued, “Then you guilt me into negotiating that agreement—”

“You were really the obvious choice.”

Tiffani glared at him. “Is that zipping it?”

Barry grinned. “You can’t stay mad at me. I have a proposition for you.”

Tiffani raised her eyebrows. “If you’re suggesting some sort of romantic entanglement, I don’t think we’re quite that far along in demon-angel relations. Plus, you’re not my type, and I’m mad at you.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not my type either. TBH, that’s more someone like Arthur.”

Tiffani laughed. “Awesome! I knew that wasn’t a sin. Take that, fundamentalists.”

“I know, and what’s so frustrating is that they never believe me,” Barry said. “What’s that syndrome? Where you support a certain position more and more, even as you get more and more evidence that you’re wrong?”

“I think it’s called being human,” Tiffani said. “Anyway, what’s the proposition?”

Barry picked at a splinter on the table and wouldn’t look up at her. “You never finished that internship, you know.”

“I think that maybe whatever my goal was has been achieved,” Tiffani said.

“Yeah, but you were doing really well! Priscilla loved you!”

“I find that highly unbelievable.”

“Believe it. She said you were far more interesting than any of the other interns.”

“I’m sure I was. They’re angels. I’m a demon. We are, by definition, more interesting.”

“Anyway,” Barry said, clearly not wanting to get into a debate. “She’s starting up a new Heaven-Hell exchange program, and you impressed her enough that she wants you to be an early adopter.”

“Like, what kind of job?”

“She’s always admired your sales skills,” Barry said, suggestively.

Tiffani laughed. “She wants me to be a salesangel. For Heaven’s Soul Exchange? That’s ridiculous.”

“She’s willing to put you up in a cushy apartment, never make you sing karaoke, and let you smuggle alcohol in as long as you promise not to force it on the angels.”

“Force it on them?” Tiffani snorted. “Like I’ve done with you?”

“Whatever. So, what do you think? I know your career at Hell’s Soul Exchange has kind of come to a dead end. In Heaven, you’d have a whole career ahead of you! You’d get to do what you love and get paid well.”

Tiffani took a sip of her Scotch.

“And you’d still get to drink Scotch! In fact, some of the finest distillers in the world are in Heaven, even though they don’t ply their trade anymore. We’ll turn a blind eye to any arrangements you want to make with them. Just like in your speakeasy days.”

She snorted again. “You guys are such hypocrites.”

“Come on, we’re not so bad. Will you think about it?”

Tiffani sighed. Barry was right. She didn’t have much in Hell. And maybe if they let her be more herself, Heaven wouldn’t be that bad. A new adventure.

“OK, I’ll think about it.”

Barry clapped his hands. “Yay!”

“I’m just thinking about it,” she said. “Don’t get all hot and bothered.”

Just then, Arthur walked into the bar, and Tiffani laughed.

“Speaking of hot and bothered.” She nodded at where he stood in the doorway.

“Oh, crap,” Barry said, standing up.

“Hold on, I thought you liked him!” Tiffani said.

“I do. But I can’t let him see me like this.”

“You look fine.”

“I’m wearing jeans, for God’s sake.”

Tiffani waved him off. “Whatever. I’ll make your excuses.”

“You won’t tell him I’m worried about how I look, will you? I don’t want to seem shallow.”

“Of course not,” she said. He scurried out through the other door.

Arthur grabbed a drink at the bar and sat in the seat Barry had been occupying. “Was that Barry? Why did he leave?”

“He’s worried about how he looks.”

Hey, he shouldn’t have trusted a demon.

“So, how are you?” Arthur asked.

“Fine. You?”

“A little overwhelmed, to be honest. Heading ROSE has been a nightmare. There are so many different personalities, and I’m no diplomat.”

“You can say that again,” Tiffani said. “But isn’t heading ROSE something Siobhan should be doing?”

Arthur made a face. “Siobhan has always been more of an agitator than an administrator. I think she’s looking for the next thing to protest. She even refuses to keep Org under wraps, whose solution to any disagreement is smiting, which, frankly, is starting to get on people’s nerves.”

“I like Org,” Tiffani said. “She’s honest.”

“Yeah, she’s a little too honest. I’ve had to put her in a time-out three times this week.”

Tiffani sipped at her Scotch. “I’m sorry to hear it.” She nodded at his daiquiri. “Seems like you should be drinking something harder.”

Arthur spun the glass on the table, wiping off the condensation and fiddling with the umbrella. “No, it’s OK. I wanted to be somewhat sober when I came to talk to you.”

Uh-oh.

“Why does everyone want to come talk to me? Why don’t people just want to drink with me?” she groused.

“Why? What was Barry talking to you about?”

“He wants me to go work in Heaven. Cushy office, great apartment, high salary. The works.”

“Are you going to do it?” Arthur asked, suddenly sounding tense.

Tiffani paused mid-sip. “Why do you care?”

“Well, I have a counteroffer.”

Tiffani sighed. “Of course you do. When did I become so popular?”

“When you, you know, saved the world.”

“And one would think I could have a little rest. God did.”

“And look how that turned out.”

“Yeah, well, it got sorted out eventually.” She took the last gulp of her Scotch and gestured to Ken for another. Arthur started to speak, but she waved him down.

“I need more alcohol before I listen to whatever ludicrous idea you have.”

Ken came over and put the Scotch on the table.

“I’ll get tater tots, too,” she said. “And he’s buying.” She looked pointedly at Arthur, who handed over his credit card. “OK. I’m partially fortified. Hit me.”

“I want you to run the Hell’s branch of ROSE,” Arthur said in a rush. Tiffani didn’t think she’d heard that right.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You. Run Hell’s branch of ROSE. Please.”

“Just adding please doesn’t make it any more appetizing,” she said. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Everyone saw how great you were at doing the negotiations. You called the bluffs and got way more than anyone anticipated for both sides. We need that kind of support on Hell’s team.”

Tiffani pondered Arthur’s words. It was flattering, to be sure. She’d never seen herself as much of a negotiator. But then she realized that she really was. Wasn’t that what sales were about?

“So, what do you say?”

Tiffani thought through the offers. An adventure in Heaven. The comfort of Hell. Both were tempting.

But she didn’t want just tempting anymore. She surprised herself by realizing she really wanted to make a difference. And with everyone approaching her, she’d finally figured out how.

“Arthur, let’s get everyone—Barry, Joe, the DMCDs, Org, Arthur, and Siobhan—to the data center. I have an idea.”

They all showed up at the data center, Barry resplendent now in a nice suit with his hair carefully styled and wearing cologne. Surprisingly, Arthur had also spruced up. He went over to stand next to Barry.

Well, well, well. Joe and Edith. Barry and Arthur. Org, Siobhan, and Priscilla. Aren’t I quite the unintentional matchmaker.

“I’m glad you were all able to join me,” Tiffani said.

“Did we have a choice?” Maggie asked.

“You? No. Everyone else? Well, no. Not if they wanted to find out my plans.”

“And those plans are?” Barry said, drawing back and crossing his arms as if preparing to be affronted.

Tiffani smiled. “I want to thank you for offering me that job in Heaven.” She turned to Arthur. “And I want to thank you for offering me that job in Hell. But I have a better idea, and I need all of your help.”

Epilogue

Tiffani thought she knew, the moment he walked in the door, what kind of soul he would want to rent. He had the hangdog, exhausted look of someone at the end of their tether, now willing to try anything to solve their problem. Given how he clutched what looked like a wedding invitation in his hand, she hazarded a guess that an ex was getting married and he wanted revenge of some sort. But she couldn’t be sure. Mortals could be so unpredictable.

Someone tapped her shoulder. “I’ll take this one, boss.” Joe stood there, looking sharp in a luxury suit, silk tie, and loafers shiny enough to catch a reflection. His carefully coiffed bedhead and subtle five o’clock shadow made him look almost . . . sexy. He’d come a long way from the International Tan disaster she’d met a year ago.

“OK, but do you think he’ll want one of ours? Or theirs?” She jerked a thumb toward the other side of the former data center’s communal space, where Zoe stood, chatting with a woman Tiffani had overheard talking about her need to get through a work conference without clocking someone for telling her to “smile more.” Personally, Tiffani thought one of Hell’s Iron- or Copper-level souls with a propensity to lead with their fists would have been a better bet, but the customer had decided to go with Heaven’s Soul Exchange instead and selected a very patient Bronze soul.

Joe scrutinized the man who’d just walked in. “No, I recognize that look. I think he’ll need something from our stock.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I know we need all the sales we can get today. I got this,” he said, as he strode over.

Tiffani left Joe to it. In the last several months, he’d shown a surprising ability to empathize with potential customers and really understand their needs. And now that the store offered souls from both Heaven and Hell, they could almost always find something that matched the situation at hand. Sure, it had been hard for Barry, Zoe, and the other Heaven’s Soul Exchange staff to sit back and watch as someone who wanted to do something terrible rented a soul from Hell, but Tiffani pointed out that the mortal might wind up doing the terrible thing anyway, and then their soul really would be lost. Better to let them do evil by proxy. So Barry and his team looked the other way when customers started prowling through Hell’s iSOUL inventory, just as Tiffani did when those customers looked at Heaven’s.

Tiffani walked over to the former secret lair, which had been converted into a comfortable office area with separate spaces for both her and Barry as comanagers of the HHSE, or the Heaven and Hell Soul Exchange. Knocking on Barry’s door, she found Arthur sitting in his desk chair, looking at the computer screen.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve hacked into his system.”

Arthur gave her a sour look. “His passcode is passcode1234. It’s not exactly hacking.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I just want to know what he’s getting me for our anniversary,” Arthur said.

“You sure you weren’t looking for the sales numbers for this quarter?” Tiffani said.

Arthur glanced at the screen, then the floor, then his shoes; anything to avoid looking at her. “I mean, if they happened to show up on the screen, I wouldn’t look away, but I know you’re keeping those under wraps.”

“I am,” Tiffani said, severely. “In a ledger. A paper ledger. In a locked file cabinet guarded by Fred. Only Edith and I have access. No amount of computer hacking is going to help you.”

“I know that. I swear I’m really just interested in what Barry’s getting me.”

“Wow. You guys are really taking advantage of the special dispensation we got to work together, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely! I mean, we don’t know how long this will last, right? If we can’t meet our sales quota this year, we’ll get shut down. Barry was being all squeamish at first, whining about how the exemption was just supposed to be for work-related interactions, but I talked him round.”

“Talked?”

Arthur grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

Tiffani held up a hand and moved to sit in the chair on the other side of the desk. “Wait. Don’t tell me more. So, did you find out?”

He frowned. “You tell me,” he said, swiveling the monitor toward her. On the screen was a gif of Barry blowing a kiss and the words Nice try, Arthur. Tiffani laughed.

“I know he couldn’t figure that out on his own. One of the DMCDs must have helped him,” Arthur groused.

“That does look like Maggie’s work,” Tiffani said. “Maybe we shouldn’t have let them set up our network.”

Arthur shrugged. “They would have just hacked in later and possibly done some damage. It’s easier this way.”

“Is that what they’re telling all the other companies hiring them now? How many customers do they have, like fifty?”

“Fifty-five. With this whole ‘trusted by both Heaven and Hell’ motto, we really helped put them on the map. And they just signed up the Portland police department. Seems that someone noticed a hack that happened months ago. After ‘ferreting out the problem,’ the DMCDs came up with a whole new security protocol, and the city hired them to implement it.”

“Wasn’t that their hack?” Tiffani laughed.

“I don’t think they mentioned that.”

“Wise.” Tiffani stood. “Anyway, can you let Barry know that Edith and I need to talk to him about the year-end sales numbers when he gets back? In fact, we should probably set up a meeting with everyone, as it impacts all of us.”

“Is it happy news?” Arthur asked, sounding a little nervous.

“You’ll need to wait and see,” Tiffani said as she opened the door and walked out.

Joe, Arthur, Barry, Zoe, Siobhan, Org, and the DMCDs all sat around the conference table, working their way through a box of Blue Star Donuts and chattering away. Siobhan and Org had been called in from Hell’s C-Suite, where they were codirectors of the new division that made HHSE possible.

A hush fell when Tiffani opened the door and walked in, followed by Edith and Fred. Edith sat next to Joe and took his hand, all while maintaining an even countenance. Tiffani directed Fred toward his cushion, where Emily had left an asbestos-coated rawhide. He happily started crunching away, oblivious to the tension emanating from the others, who stared at Tiffani with wide eyes, waiting to see if this grand experiment in working together would continue or if they’d crashed and, perhaps literally, burned.

Tiffani took her time setting up an easel and organizing the charts she’d brought on the table in front of her as she kept her back to them. After a few moments, she turned, trying to keep her expression steady.

“As you all know, we began this experiment a year ago. We wanted to show the higher-ups of both realms that having fiends and angels working together could generate higher sales than either realm working alone.” She flipped to a chart showing the first-quarter sales, which were abysmal. “We were not successful.”

Barry groaned, and Arthur patted his arm. “It’s OK. Things picked up, I’m sure.”

Tiffani nodded. “They did. Somewhat. As you know, in the second quarter, we brought in the DMCDs to create our website, set up our internal network, and help with quality control on the iSOULs we received from corporate.” She put up the next chart, which showed a big increase. Everyone cheered. Fred barked, emitting a burst of flame and small flecks of rawhide.

“Unfortunately . . .” She layered another graph over the chart. “While we made more sales and reduced the number of returns, we still did not match either Hell’s or Heaven’s Soul Exchange sales in this region.”

The cheering abruptly stopped. Arthur rubbed Barry’s back; he was looking dejectedly down at the table, angel dust fluttering around him.

“Look, boss,” Maggie said. “We can always hack into the official sales database. Improve the numbers.” Emily and Jonah nodded in agreement, looking anxious.

Tiffani held up a hand. “Let me continue.” Arthur nudged Barry, who looked up. “Then, after reviewing our strategies, we made a big decision for the third quarter. We hired mortals”—she nodded at Joe—“to lead our sales team and to help with operations management.” Joe’s knuckles showed white where he gripped Edith’s hand on the table. “As a result—” She placed another chart on the easel. Gasps erupted around the room. “Not only did sales triple, but we improved our internal tracking and inventory management, giving our teams more time to sell, sell, sell. It was a tremendous improvement. But was it enough? It all comes down to this last quarter.”

Everyone was on the edge of their seats now. The final chart held the answer to all their fates. Would they be able to continue and expand this crazy collaboration? Had they proved that in working together, they were creating a more marketable, more sellable, more . . . balanced product? Or would the traditional black-and-white good-versus-evil approach win again, as it had for millennia?

She flipped the last chart over and stood back. On it was written:

Celebratory party at Purgatory.

Tonight at 8:00 p.m.

The drinks are on me.

The room went wild. Joe jumped up and hugged Edith, who beamed and winked at Tiffani. Barry kissed Arthur full on the lips while Maggie and Emily wolf-whistled. Zoe blushed when Jonah, who had taken a liking to the little angel, gave her a quick peck on the cheek, then looked away, abashed. Fred dropped his rawhide and wound between everyone’s legs, barking and belching flame. He ended up flat on his back in front of Org, begging for a scritch. Both she and Siobhan rubbed the dog’s belly, laughing.

Tiffani took in the scene, filled with a quiet satisfaction. Just over a year ago, all she’d wanted was to get in the C-Suite, achieve her goal of becoming a demon, and put her iSOUL sales days behind her. And now, all she wanted was to face with her friends whatever challenges the future might bring.

Acknowledgments

What started as wry speculation about how a hellish-corporate environment might monetize souls after death morphed into a surprisingly hopeful story about redemption, free will, and friendship. Believe me, I’m as surprised as anyone.

In thinking about this journey, I came to realize that this book, more than any of my others, connects to all aspects of my life. From my early interest in the what-ifs of speculative fiction, to my years working in the political and corporate arenas, to my retirement years in Portland, Oregon, Soul Proprietor brings together everything I’ve found lovable, absurd, and downright weird about this existence. Even my irrational love of dogs is reflected through the character of Fred, the amazing fire-breathing dachshund who sticks by Tiffani through thick and thin.

So many people and groups helped bring this project to fruition. My teachers at the Taos Toolbox, Walter Jon Williams and Nancy Kress, as well as my professors at Western Colorado University, including Russell Davis, Kevin J. Anderson, Rick Wilber, Michaela Roessner, and J. S. Mayank, gave me the skills I needed to take on this challenge. My Paradise Icon writing group, chaired by the amazing Catherine Schaff-Stump, reviewed pieces of this in short-story form and encouraged me to think more broadly. Beta readers like Kelly Horn, Doug Engstrom, Shannon Ryan, Chris Bauer, Kaytee Yakacki, and others provided valuable insights into what was working, what wasn’t, and what could be done to make it better.

With their help, I was able to get the manuscript in good-enough shape to capture the attention of the Girl Friday team, including Christina Henry de Tessan, Kim Kent, Adria Batt, Alyssa Brillinger, and their team of editors and artists, specifically Tiffany Taing, Phyllis DeBlanche, and Clete Smith, who helped shape Soul Proprietor into the full story it is today.

Most important, though, is the support I receive all day, every day, from my family: my husband, who shows his love and respect by not reading my books (I don’t think our marriage could survive his discerning tastes); my mother, who long ago taught me I can do anything I set my mind to; and my cousins and Aunt Cindy from my father’s side of the family, who reminded me at every step that an absurdist speculative satire about heaven and hell is precisely something my father would have loved to read were he still with us.

About the Author

© 2020 Aaron Clamage

Stephanie Vance is the author of the Washington Post bestseller The Influence Game (Wiley, 2012) and Across the Aisle (Entangled, 2022). A lifelong lover of speculative fiction, she has also authored many fantasy short stories, some of which have appeared in anthologies and magazines including Andromeda Spaceways, Bark, One Star Reviews of the Afterlife, As Told by Things, and Enter the Apocalypse. She holds a master’s degree in legislative affairs from George Washington University, a master’s degree in liberal studies from Georgetown University, and a master of fine arts degree from Western Colorado University. She’s a transplant from Washington, DC, to Portland, Oregon. Soul Proprietor is her second novel.