The Wish List by Eoin Colfer Read Free Book Online Page B

question, and a cyber demon would search the implants for hits. Like having a compu-geek in your head. Just as it should be. Let the real men do the real work, and the nerds play with their toys.
    The Devil himself had dropped in to the departure lounge to see Belch off. For the first time since the Mettallica concert, Belch was impressed.
    Satan was wearing his Rough Beast form and wasted no time filling the new arrival in on the urgency of this mission. He grabbed Belch by the throat and pinned him to the cave wall.
    â€œGo back. Find the girl. Make her bad. Quickly.”
    The Devil’s eyes were round and red. Screaming souls swirled in the irises. You had to admire effects like that.
    Grandstander, thought Beelzebub, quietly.
    â€œMake her bad?” inquired Belch respectfully.
    Beelzebub winced. The Master didn’t do questions.
    Satan’s grip tightened on Belch’s windpipe and the canine in him whimpered involuntarily. Sparks sizzled around the Beast’s sinewy frame, singeing Belch’s matted fur.
    â€œBad!” Satan growled. “Make her bad.”
    â€œFine,” gasped Belch. “Make her bad. Got it.”
    â€œHurrggh,” grunted the Devil doubtfully, dropping Belch to the marble floor.
    â€œIf not . . .” Satan left the sentence unfinished, vaporizing a passing spit turner to make his point.
    Belch swallowed. That was clear enough.
    â€œYes, Master,” bobbed Belch. “Consider her baddened.”
    â€œHurrggh,” grunted the Lord of Darkness again, and you’d be amazed at the amount of expression he could pack into that single syllable. Then, in a flash of crisped flesh and ozone, the Beast was gone.
    Beelzebub crossed to an elevator door and pressed B for basement. Belch followed in his strange half-and-half lope.
    â€œTechnically, you don’t have to make her bad , as the Master so eloquently put it,” explained Beelzebub. “You just have to stop her being good. The target will have been sent back to help the old man. Your mission is to make sure her efforts fail. That way we get a red aura, blah-blah-blah. The Master gets his precious soul, I keep my job, and you escape an eternity in the barbecue section. And—it ain’t beef bein’ cooked down there, cowboy.”
    Beelzebub liked to think of himself as humorous. Black humor, naturally. He was, after all, a demon. He chuckled gently at his own joke. Belch was encouraged to join in the laughter by the sparks jittering around the teeth of Number Two’s trident.
    â€œThere’s one thing I don’t get in all this,” ventured Belch.
    â€œOnly one?” sniggered Beelzebub, on a roll now.
    â€œThat guy . . .”
    â€œThe Master?”
    â€œYeah, him. Well, he’s got me, hasn’t he? What does he want that girl for?”
    Beelzebub had an answer for that one, but he could-n’t even think it this close to the inner chamber. Suffice to say it contained the words stubborn and mule.
    â€œThe Master believes Meg Finn to be special. Real potential. She did something to her stepfather apparently.”
    Belch swallowed. “Oh, that. Nasty stuff.”
    The elevator doors dinged open. Belch stepped in gingerly, half expecting some collapsing trapdoor– ha-ha–you’re-not-really-going-back-at-all type of thing. But no, just solid floor. Carpeted with some pinkish hairy material. Better not to think about that.
    â€œHow long have I got? To make her bad.”
    Beelzebub shrugged. “It depends. Take it easy on the possessions, don’t call home too often, and you’ve got enough juice for a week.”
    Belch whined.
    â€œAny problems, check the virtual help. Myishi assures me every eventuality is covered.”
    â€œOkay, boss,” said Belch compliantly, thinking that he’d be off like a bullet as soon as this elevator spat him out on planet Earth. Sayonara, hell, and farewell, stumpy demon in the girly