This isn't the first time Vidocq has been mad at me, but it's the first time he's ever gotten physical. Good job. I'm about to lose one of the few friends I have on this rock.
When I don't get up he says, "Don't play with me. I didn't hit you that hard." Then he must see the blood. "What happened to you?"
"You hurt me bad, Pepe LePew," I say.
"You child," he says, and helps me to my feet. The bullets are rattling around inside me like gravel in a tin can.
Muninn looks like a little kid on Christmas morning when Vidocq hands him a small golden box with what looks like delicate grasshopper wings on top.
"Perfect. Beautiful," he says over and over. He takes the box over to what looks like solid rock. But with a few touches and turns to specific stones, the rock face swings away, revealing an enormous vault in the side of the cavern. Muninn takes the golden box inside, comes back out, and seals the vault so that it's invisible again.
"You've done a splendid job, gentlemen." He gives me an indulgent smile. "Well, one of you has been splendid. The other has ruined his suit. Don't worry. I have a million of them. Literally."
"You didn't tell us that they were using magicians as security at Avila," I say.
"Are they? That's new. But you rose to the challenge and completed your mission. I look forward to doing more business together."
"What else do you know about Avila? You know what they're hiding in that blank spot in the blueprints. Don't you?"
Muninn looks troubled.
"You don't want to know about these things. I don't want to know about them and I've seen whole civilizations turned to salt or buried in ice."
"What's in there?"
Muninn shakes his head.
"A bordello. The secret one. A celestial bordello full of creatures seldom seen here on Earth. But the real reason those so inclined go there, risk their lives and their souls, is for the pleasure of abusing captive angels. These are the injured ones who fell to Earth during Lucifer's uprising and new ones that they've captured since, though I have no idea how one goes about capturing an angel." Muninn looks at me. "There. Are you happier knowing? Will you sleep better tonight? Young man, there are some things in the world so profane that their only real value is in not knowing about them."
I wipe blood off my lips with my tuxedo sleeve while Muninn brings over a bottle dusty enough to have been on Noah's Ark. He pours three drinks in three crystal glasses. When he raises his, Vidocq and I follow.
"To God above," he says, and tosses the drink over his right shoulder. Vidocq and I do the same. He pours three more drinks.
"To the devil below." He tosses the drink over his left shoulder. So do we.
Muninn pours three more drinks, each twice as full as the first two.
"To us. The ones who did real work tonight while those other two were off playing tiddledywinks with poor fools' souls." He raises his glass and knocks the whole thing off in one gulp. The stuff burns like rose-flavored battery acid, but I don't taste blood anymore.
Muninn sets down his glass, takes a blue bottle from the end of the table, and sets it in front of Vidocq.
"Spiritus Dei, my friend."
Vidocq beams. "Thank you. That's more than I was hoping for."
"If you have extra, can I have some?" I ask. "I want to put it on my bullets. I might have to shoot things that don't die easy."
Muninn goes to a shelf and comes back with a smaller version of the bottle he gave Vidocq.
"On account," he says.
"Thanks."
"And I owe you some cash, too, I believe."
"That would be nice. Do you have an ATM down here under all these clocks and bones?"
Muninn walks to a corner of the room piled twenty-feet high with boxes of bills and chests overflowing with gold and silver coins. The little man pokes through the pile like an old codger trying to choose just the right ripe peach at the grocery store.