“He’s all right,” says the other me.
Mason is on his back where the other me dropped him. I go for him, but I’m still a little limp, so I don’t so much attack him as fall on him like a cow thrown from a blimp. The other me pulls me to my feet.
“I know who you are,” I say to the other me. “It’s quiet all of a sudden. You’re the Boy Scout who’s been squatting in my brain. You owe me back rent, fucker.”
“Why don’t you take it out of Kasabian’s beer money? Or yours.”
I look at Alice.
“Is this real? Or am I back in Mason’s hallucination?”
She shakes her head and comes over like she wants to put her arm around me but remembers she can’t and ends up standing a few feet away looking awkward.
“It’s real. He appeared the moment you died and took the key back from Mason.”
“Is Mason still alive?”
“Unfortunately. He’s playing possum now,” says the angel. “First he was afraid of me and now there are two of us.”
“What just happened?”
“You died. The mortal part. But I’m not mortal. Cutting us like that wasn’t going to kill me, so I brought you back.”
“How?”
The angel smiles and picks up something small and black from the floor. It’s about the size of a robin’s egg and smells like cordite.
“It was Lucifer’s stone. That stupid white rock we’ve been carrying around for months. It’s a soul trap. When Mason killed you, it released me and sent your soul into the stone.”
“He put it in your chest and touched your heart with his Gladius,” says Alice. “It released your soul back into your body.”
“And then you spackled me shut. You’re a lot better roommate than Kasabian.”
I go over to Mason and kick him a couple of times.
“Where’s his knife?”
“Over here,” says Alice.
I go over and pick it up.
“Good. I think it’s time to wrap things up. Don’t you?”
“The faster the better.”
Angel me gestures at Mason.
“He’s wearing Lucifer’s armor. He can’t die as long as he has that on.”
“Get him out of it, will you?”
“My pleasure.”
While angel me strips Mason, I get Mason’s desk chairighs desk and roll it to the middle of the room. I get a chair from his worktable and set it facing the other.
“When you’re done, bring him over here.”
The angel drops Mason into his chair and I spin his knife in my hand.