“And how’s the store? Still in business, I see.”
Kasabian sighs.
“It’s doing good. Alessa had the idea to sponsor movie nights every month and Candy lets bands play here sometimes. We put the floor shelves on wheels so we can push them out of the way.”
“That really is good thinking. Are you still getting those special movies?”
“All the time.”
A witch friend used to use her hoodoo to find us movies in other realities that were never made in this one. Then she’d snag us a copy and we’d rent them for a fortune.
Kasabian hands me another disc.
On the front is a drawing of a burning giraffe holding a butterfly net and wearing a cowboy hat. I hold it under the light to make sure I’m seeing it right.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Giraffes on Horseback Saddles,” he says. “Screenplay by Salvador Dalí and starring the Marx Brothers.”
“This is what’s keeping the lights on?”
He takes the disc back and hands me another.
“Right, I forgot you have no sense of humor. This is more the stuff that’s keeping us going.”
There’s a horned red guy smoking a cigar on the front. The cover says, Hellboy 3, directed by Guillermo del Toro.
I hand it back to him.
“That makes more sense. I’m glad you didn’t all lose your minds while I was gone.”
He turns around and gives me a look.
“Don’t worry about us,” he says. “We’re doing fine and making more money than ever.”
“Don’t stab me in the heart so quick. I’m not ready to die again.”
“Okay. But sometimes you have a high fucking opinion of yourself. I mean, if you came back to save us, we don’t need it.”
“Understood.”
I look around the store, feeling like it was a bad idea coming here. The place looks great. Clean. New posters on the wall. And unless Kasabian was lying, they’re making money, which we never did when I was here. It makes me wonder if I was the thing holding the store back. Candy and Kasabian, too. Maybe it’s more than them getting over me. Maybe it’s that I was the problem in the first place. If that’s true, I’m not really sure what I came back for. It’s sure not to fuck up everybody’s lives again. I’m going to have to think about it. See if there’s some small place I can still fit in.
Kasabian is wiping his cigarette ash into a trash can when he says, “So, who brought you back?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do. First time you came back from Hell you were alive. This time, I don’t know. I saw you die. We all did.”
I look at him.
“Wormwood. It was Wormwood who brought me back.”
He frowns.
“Those crazy Illuminati bastards? Why would they do that?”
“I’m working for them. But only for one more day.”