Samael sets down his glass and tries for the funny bone again. He misses.
“You’re not a regular human any more than we are.”
I look around the cavern piled high with junk from every earthly civilization that ever was. Everything from cave paintings to a Higgs boson trapped in a magnetic bottle.
I turn to Samael. He raises an eyebrow.
“I went to my enemies.”
“And how did that work out?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s the downside of working with enemies. You seldom do.”
Mr. Muninn brings me a glass of Jack Daniel’s. He has to put it in my hand. I can’t move it.
“Cheers,” he says, and clinks his glass against mine.
“I think I’m just dreaming and all this is me talking to myself. Except it’s a little like a phone call I got. It didn’t make too much sense either.”
Muninn shakes his head.
“I’m afraid we can’t help you with those,” he says.
“Let me at least ask Samael a question.”
“Of course.”
“All I’ve done down here is shuffle papers, try not to get killed, and now I’ve completely fucked myself up. When do I get to do the Devil stuff?”
He leans back in his chair.
“This is the Devil stuff.”
“I was afraid of that. I need the rest of your power. Where is it?”
“Exactly where it should be.”
“Don’t riddle me, you bastard. Tell me where it is.”
“East of the sun. West of the moon. Right in front of you. Stop looking. Sit down and you’ll see.”
“I can’t stop. I have to get out of here.”
“Then that’s where it will be,” says Muninn.
“Fuck you. Fuck you both.”
I open my eyes. Standing over me is a girl with too much skin. It’s in piles around her neck and hangs like dirty laundry from her arms. Her eyes are thin slits under a curtain of flesh.
She’s dressed in a lizard-green Hellion EMT uniform. She adjusts an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. I’m breathing, so I must be alive. Or this is another dream. But if it’s a dream, why does it feel like Mike Tyson has been pounding on my chest with a bulldozer?
The EMT moves quickly. Her expression and gestures alternately resemble a cool medical professional and a nervous babysitter who just caught the cat’s tail in the refrigerator door. Maybe she has a hot date waiting back in Pandemonium. Or she’s never worked on the Lord of the Underworld before.
There are other people standing around. Some of them look worried. Others puzzled. A couple more EMTs. Some soldiers. From the guard station probably. Filthy Hellions in clothes like grimy rags. Some of the ones who lit out for the hinterlands. A few others I recognize from Deumos’s procession through the marketplace.
It takes me another minute for my sluggish brain to put it all together. Someone besides my assassins saw me go down. None of them would imagine Lucifer would hurt himself. To them I’m the victim of an unsuccessful attack. Perfect. Word will get out that I’m vulnerable. If my killers are ever going to move, it’s now.