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THIRTY-NINE

"Why? Why, Beetlejuice? That&039;s really all I want to know before we do what you want us to do Why?"

"Beelzeb-"

"Stop it Why?"

She sniffed "I can neverI&039;ve had a head full of how superior you are and hoorreat and powerful asshat? Before you killfor the last sixI won&039;t"

She spread her hands, and in one of those weird why-aain how beautiful her hands were "What do you want to know? I&039;ll do what I can"

"Fine Thank you" I took an unnecessary breathfunny how soo That was probably aand then there was God and He uys and that&039;s all there was for a while, just Hiels, and then He made us

"So you were never hu about our pathetic stupid lives, right? And even if you were ever human, you&039;ve been around for five billion years, so any perspective you ever could have had would have gone kaput ages ago, so you&039;d never understand anything about our pathetic stupid lives, anyway It&039;s like you&039;re watching a bunch of grasshoppers and they&039;re so outside of your experience it&039;s not even worth trying to be their king, trying to even explain you&039;re their king; it&039;s just easier to do your own thing with theht?"

Satan shrugged her elegant shoulders "Right"

"So hy?" I cried I realized I was al, and hoped the devil wouldn&039;t notice "Why even bother? Why the tricks, why the sneaking? Why are you still trying to get people to be their worst, do their worst, all the tiet out of it? It can&039;t still be interesting It can&039;t dofor you after all thisyou&039;ve seen every bad thing in the huo youto be any surprises It&039;s gotta all be just sofuckingboring So what&039;s the point?"

"Well," the devil began Then she paused, thinking it over Finally: "If there was one, I forgot all about it a long tio"

"No"

"Yes"

"No It&039;s not that easy You don&039;t get off that easy" I was pretty sure I was gonna faint Things were definitely getting swie-and-terror-induced unconsciousness for the nanosecond "No"

"Yes That&039;s all The reason is there is no reason The reason is you don&039;t know and I don&039;t care The reason is green The reason is number twenty-seven There was no point, is no point, won&039;t be one no matter how much you shrill and whine and bitch So live with it, or die with it"

Yes

That was just right

I took another unnecessary breath "Laura&039;s watching the shop, huh?"

"Yesss"

"So no one&039;s gonna notice if you gofor a while, I bet"

"What in the worlds are you-"

I launchedabout the devil: she&039;s really strong She&039;s really smart She&039;s really fast

And she&039;s really old

And tired

She was still giving off heat, but it didn&039;t hurt me Either it wasn&039;t real heat-the stuff in s like ive a shit Or it was so about Yeah, it was probably the last thing

We sla and snarling and clawing and punching and kicking I could hear walls cracking, furniture breaking A snap that was prob&039;ly a couple of ers Maybe one of her ribs? Nope, one of ritted teeth

"Don&039;t need His help to kick your ass all over this mansion"

She seemed to think that over, which was exactly what I hoped she&039;d do The devil was a bitch, but she was a s, come on! You don&039;t want to do this here You want to do it on your turf!

ELIZABETH!

Shit! Sinclair, knowing I was up a creek sans paddle and coeous idiot could really screw this up for me Us Okay, me

"If you won&039;tprayfor youwill you prayfor ritted back Also: WTF? Don&039;t tell ht I&039;d just wanted to do soht

Also: I should be paying attention No sooner had that occurred to h the here my head had just been Were there any dentists for the undead? If the devil knocked row back, like a shark&039;s?

(The things you wonder when you&039;re trying not to be beaten to death)

We had to leave We had to get out of here My stupid plan wouldn&039;t work here And then, of course, there was Sinclair to worry about

ELIZABETH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I&039;M COMING KEEP HER THERE KEEP HER THERE WHATEVER YOU DO DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT LET HER TAKE YOU KEEP HER IN THE HOUSE KEEP HER IN THE HOUSE DO NOT LET

"Tie the venue," she muttered, and the world fell away

FORTY-ONE

Yes! We were in hell!

(This hat h a hole in the world and plop into hell, wherefor the devil Oh, and the devil was trying to goad , in which case the devil was gonna squash ing my fist And then my kick But my other kick landed-ha! A perfect day to wear my pointiest leather boots Take that, Satan! And that! And-

"Ow!" She was pretty fast for someone at least five billion years old What had I been thinking?