The Magistrate moves his head from side to side. “We shall see,” he says. “Now that you’re feeling better, are you still Mr. Pitts in here or can we start off on a friendlier footing?”
“Are you still the Magistrate in here?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’m still Mr. Pitts.”
Traven gives me a look, but I give him one right back.
“As you wish,” says the Magistrate. “What were you doing on the mountain?”
His speech is clipped, like English isn’t his first language. But I can’t identify his accent.
I say, “I have no idea.”
He cocks his head.
“You weren’t spying on us?”
“Until you stopped I thought you were a dust devil come to pick my bones clean.”
“Who else is on the mountain?”
“No one that I know of. I told you that when I fried your friend.”
I hear Daja move behind me, but she stops when the Magistrate holds up his hand.
“How did you get onto the mountain? Where did you come from?” he says.
“I was busy getting murdered on Earth.”
“You’re dead?” blurts Traven.
I hold up my left arm to show him that it’s my old human arm again and not a biomechanical Kissi prosthetic.
The Magistrate looks to him, then me, then back to Traven and his big goddamn mouth.
“Why would Mr. Pitts being dead surprise you, Father?” he says. “Hell is a place of the dead.”
Traven mumbles, “It’s just that . . .”
“This isn’t my first time in Hell,” I say.
The Magistrate leans back.
“I see. Another mortal foolish enough to make a deal with the Devil. Did he send you back with promises of immortality? How did it feel when you realized you’d been tricked?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I say. “In fact, Lucifer and me are pretty simpatico these days. The old Lucifer. The retired one. He’s the one who thought it would be funny to leave me on the fucking mountain.”
The Magistrate continues to lean back, but he doesn’t look so smug anymore.
“You mean the Lucifer who has become Death?” he says.
I upend the glass and get a few more drops of water.
“Do you know a bunch of other Lucifers?”
He leans forward and rests his arms on the table.