point! A person can’t sue me!”
“You are a legally recognized entity,” Nero said. “And as such she can sue you. She is, in fact, suing you.”
“I’m not responsible for every goofball who claims to be me.”
“She’s stating, quite unequivocally, that it was you. She alleges that you had sexual intercourse with her in the form of a bat, a serpent and a, uh, large poodle with a Continental clip. Her attorneys are pursuing the case under laws regarding crimes against nature.”
“Is the gas back on, at least?”
“We can’t find anyone to clean the lines. Tomorrow, Minos is going to drive by some Home Depots and round up a crew of Mexicans to see if they’ll do it. I’d suggest you finish up your business in Minnesota and return as quickly as possible.”
“Tell him to hire twice as many Mexicans,” Satan said. “Death’s minions are on strike and I need scabs.”
“I don’t think Mexicans will cross Death’s picket line,” Nero said. “They’re scrupulous about worker solidarity. Maybe you should go see Death and straighten this out.”
“I’d rather eat glass,” Satan snapped.
“Is that a productive attitude?” Nero asked.
“All this stuff is happening at once,” Satan said. “Couldn’t it happen throughout the year at well-spaced intervals?”
“It’s especially unfortunate that it all seems to be happening on the eve of the Ultimate Death Match,” Nero said.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Satan said. “If she says I was changing my shape how can she prove it was me who did it?”
“Well, sir, she claims that your penis is...very distinctive.”
“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Satan said.
“Like a pitchfork,” Nero said.
“I’ll be home soon,” Satan said. “I’ve just got to go kill this nun.”
Sister Mary felt panic rising in her chest as she wondered for the five hundredth time what was going to happen to her. She had been a nun for fourteen years, being obedient, making lists, doing chores, avoiding overstimulation, being chaste, humble and kind. She had done it all so that she could avoid ending up exactly where she was right now: sitting in a Red Roof Inn out by the airport, pregnant and alone.
“This must be how floozies feel,” she thought to herself.
As soon as Sister Helen’s death had been reported to the archdiocese, the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women had sent an utterly useless grief therapist and the Catholic Finance Corporation had sent a scarily competent assessor to repossess the monastery. Before the day was over, Clergy Services had assigned Sister Barbara to a Nicaraguan school for colorblind children and while she hadn’t been able to find the time to say goodbye to Sister Mary before she left she had managed to find the time to tell the Director of Priestly Life about Sister Mary’s “condition.” The Director arranged for a discrete ultrasound technician to drive out to the monastery and examine Sister Mary. The technician was brusque and businesslike and Sister Mary tried her best to endure the examination. The technician hadn’t spoken, she had merely scanned Sister Mary’s stomach in surly silence. After a few minutes, however, the technician uttered her first and only words:
“Holy fuck.”
Sister Mary had reeled as if slapped: no one had ever said the f-word in front of her before. She was a nun. You didn’t say the f-word in front of a nun. Even worse, the word was being used to describe the contents of her womb. She began to cry. The ultrasound technician was no comfort whatsoever because she immediately ran outside, got on her cellular phone and called the Director of Priestly Life who called the Chancellor for Canonical Affairs who called the Vicar General and told him the bad news: they had a pregnant nun whose hymen was intact and whose baby seemed to be, inexplicably, ten weeks along. It was their worst nightmare. It was Agnes of God all over again.
Before Sister Mary had even stopped crying, a van with tinted windows arrived at the monastery and she was bundled inside and taken to a Red Roof Inn out near the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. The Vicar General called her on a secure cellular phone and told her that if she valued the work of the Church and the reputation of the archdiocese then she must not speak to anybody about her condition and she must only leave her room to go to the snack machines down the hall. Sister Mary valued the work of the Church and the reputation of the Archdiocese and so she agreed, but after