Page 33 of Hell on Wheels

“Oh, the sorrow. The suffering.” He inhaled, shivered, and then lifted his head. His mouth opened as a forked tongue poked out, licking at the air before slithering back inside.

Woah. That was freaky as fuck.

“Your loss has intrigued me.”

My eyes narrowed. “Don’t be patronizing.”

A smirk rode his features. “Yes. Quite so.”

“What do you want?” Why the fuck was he in the desert? I spun around, noticing the absence of my bike. “Where’s my Harley?”

“Not important.”

“I think it is, Satan.”

His head tilted back, and a full-bodied, boisterous laugh escaped his throat. “Lucifer Morningstar. No other name matters at present.”

“You’re still Satan—the Devil. Calling you Lucifer changes nothing,” I wisely concluded.

“Perhaps.” His eyes began to darken in color, swirling with ominous black clouds before burning a bright crimson. “I prefer Lucifer. Grim agreed to it.”

Ha. I bet he did. Didn’t surprise me at all that the Tonopah Bastards also met the dark being who stood before me. I’d always thought there was something different about them. Bet Grim and his Bastards struck a deal with the devil at some point.

Didn’t matter. I needed to return to the Crossroads and bury my dog. Kane deserved a final resting place of honor. Lucifer was distracting me.

“You know,” Lucifer began, “it’s true.”

“What’s true?”

“The old saying.”

I frowned. What the fuck was he talking about?

“All dogs go to Hea—,” he coughed. “He—,” he tried again. “Heav,” he hocked, spitting. “Fuck it. That place full of sunshine and rainbows and worthless sycophants.”

It was so fucking hard not to laugh. If I wasn’t losing my best friend in this world, I probably would have found his inability to say the word hysterical.

“All dogs go to Heaven?”

A scowl morphed his features into a demonic snarl. “Yes.”

“Not much comfort,” I admitted.

“You’re not the first to feel that way.”

So? It didn’t lessen the pain I felt.

Lucifer shrugged. “Kane’s spirit lingers. Foryou.”

What?

“Kane isn’t gone. Not in the way you think.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” I growled. Now wasn’t the time.

Lucifer whistled. “I can bring him to you.”

Oh, fuck no. I wasn’t making some deal with the devil to see my dead dog. What kind of sick shit was he trying to pull?

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