Page 23 of Another Underworld

Cher giggled. “That pecker is so big it came in first, second and third in a weenie contest.”

Abaddon scrubbed his hand over his face and tried not to smile. He only partially succeeded. “Seriously? Dick jokes?”

Cher patted him on the head. “I always find laughing relaxes me before battle. Good for the soul.”

“Oh yes,” Fifi agreed. “And I’d like to say, no matter where you take that statue, the joy stick always arrives first! Your turn Pandora.”

Pandora gave her a blank stare. “I don’t do jokes.”

“No time to start like the present,” Cher told her. “Wouldn’t want anyone to think you were a narcissistic fucking psychopath.”

Pandora rolled her eyes so hard they should have gotten stuck in the back of her head. “Fine. That shlong is so big, it has to use a hula hoop as a cock ring.”

I slapped my hand over my mouth so I didn’t cackle. It wouldn’t do to get discovered. However, a dick joke coming from Pandora was unexpectedly hilarious. Everyone’s eyes were wide and we all softly laughed. The shocked surprise and delight from Pandora made my heart hurt. It was probably the firsttime, in a very long time, she’d been accepted by others. It was insane that it took a dick joke, but whatever worked.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked her.

She flipped me off.

Good times. However, the time for jokes was over.

There was no shelter for the prisoners. The only building was a one-story guard hut at the only entrance and exit to the camp. My loyal Demons were emaciated, weakened and downtrodden. I felt sick to my stomach.

“They treat the innocent like animals,” Fifi growled.

“I will destroy them,” I ground out through clenched teeth as I zoned in on the Demon who appeared to be in charge. The guards weren’t in human form. In human form, a Demon looked like a regular person. In Demon form, not so much. The searing heat coming from their hulking eight-foot bodies stank like sulfur that was pungent even at a distance. The green fire with icy blue sparks that covered their bodies danced on their skin like snakes. They were hideous. “Good thing is that it’s easy to delineate the bad guys from the good ones.”

I was fully aware thatgood Demonswas a relative term, but I firmly stood by my statement.

“True,” Pandora said. “Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, I know most of the evil bastards down there. They used to be loyal to me.”

It appeared that Pandora’s Demons who didn’t shift their fealty to me had gone with thewell-hungGod. Stupid choice. If you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes—like death for example.

“I have an idea,” Pandora said with a smile that made me a little itchy. It reminded me too much of the woman I’d gone up against in the past.

But the past was the past. I’d carried her inside me and went toe to toe with the Higher Power to save both of us. She’doffered to stay on that horrible plane and let me leave. Granted, I’d done the same for her. I’d seen the hope in her eyes. She’d absorbed it from the box. Pandora was as aware as I was that if there weren’t two Goddesses of the Darkness, the end would come. I was going to choose to believe that we were fighting for the same cause.

I just hoped my choice didn’t get us killed.

“Tell me,” I said.

I listened and agreed without hesitation. I may be crazy. But in the words of the brilliant Billy Joel, it just may be a lunatic I was looking for. I wasn’t sure if I was the lunatic or if it was Pandora. However, it was safe to say we were both in the running for the title.

As we made sure we were all armed and ready, Abaddon leaned in. “You trust her?”

Sucking my bottom lip into my mouth, I nodded. “My first and only instinct was to say yes to the plan. Candy Vargo told me not to overthink the fuck out of everything. I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Abaddon raised a brow. “It’s about to get very ugly.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Ugly was an understatement.

Pandora did not screw around. Her plan was dangerous—mostly for her. When I’d battled the Goddess in the past, she’d had others do her dirty work while she’d escaped the fight. When she had tried to kill me, she’d ended up killing my mother. To say her aim was good was misleading. I hoped to hell and back that she could truly fight. I was about to find out. What I knew was that I would cover her like all our lives depended onit—which they did. There had to be two of us, and we had to be worshiped, or we’d cease to exist. If she pulled this off, she’d be on her way to redeeming herself. My fingers were crossed hard.

We split up. Abaddon and Cher covertly went down the hill on the left side. They were crouched and waiting. Cher’s downy white wings had burst from her back in excitement when Pandora had explained the plan. Thankfully, their arrival was silent. Of course, her power-suit jacket, silk shirt and bra had been shredded in the process, so she was silicone tits to the wind. No one cared, and no one commented.

Fifi and I approached from the right. Pandora stayed in the middle. Fifi had bolt cutters in her coat and gloves that would keep her from getting electrocuted when she disabled the fence. Her coat was kind of like Cher’s bottomless Prada bag and Candy Vargo’s pockets. The discovery of the bolt cutters had been music to Pandora’s ears when she’d laid out her plan. It solved a multitude of issues—like all of us getting fried.

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