“We have a doctor and a nurse. Why?”
“The EMT they pulled out of here is probably pretty out of it. Someone should have a look at her. Also, can someone come in here to dig around for painkillers? I want to lie in a kiddie pool full of OxyContin.”
She pats me lightly on the shoulder.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
There’s no Oxy or Hellion Vicodin around, but Deumos comes back with someone’s flask full of Aqua Regia. It’ll do. We sit on the shoulder of the road looking back toward Pandemonium. Even falling apart, the place looks enough like L.A. to make me feel homesick.
The side of the hill where we sit crunches under our feet where the vegetation burned. But the place isn’t entirely dead. Scrubs of ghost thistle and even a few asphodel flowers have made it up through the layer of ash.
“You don’t look well,” says Deumos.
“With a month’s vacation, a face-lift, and a crate of Ecstasy, I might work my way up to feeling like shit.”
“General Semyazah isn’t going to be happy about any of this. Running around the hinterlands with weapons. Attacking his troops. And especially you conspiring with me.”
“He’ll be fine. I’ll send him a fruit basket.”
We sit for a minute, neither of us saying anything. There’s the kind of warm breeze that if you didn’t know you were in Heaven’s sewer you might find almost pleasant.
“So tell me, how does someone invent a new church in Hell? You run out of Sudoku?”
“I had a vision.”
“Of course you did. All you prophets do is have visions. And burn heretics. That’s like catnip to you people. Why don’t you take a pottery class or learn Japanese?
She frowns.
“You don’t believe in oaths or revelations. What do you believe in, Lord Lucifer?”
“I believe we’re going to be dead a lot longer than we’re alive, so anything you like you should do to excess. I believe America lost its soul when they took the big-block V-8 out of Mustangs. I believe Hollywood should stop remaking A Star Is Born.”
She looks at me and slowly shakes her head.
“I have to apologize for burning you in effigy. I thought you were our enemy. Now I see that your greatest enemy is yourself.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Mary Magdalen. Aside from a couple of paper cuts I’m doing fine.”
“Of course.”
She pulls a folded piece of paper and a pen from inside her robes and hands them to me.
“Before we left, I took the liberty of drawing up an agreement. There’s nothing in here we didn’t discuss earlier. My church gets its own Tabernacle and funding not less than but not exceeding that of the old church.”
I sign the papers and hand them back to her.
“You’re not going to read them first?”
“You saved my ass. I’m fine with whatever’s in there.”
She puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me toward her. Looks at my scorched armor and the wound on my neck.
“You did that to yourself? You’re mad.”
I shrug.
“I had to be out of it enough that the killers would make their move. It was either the Gladius or a bullet, and I’ve been shot enough for one lifetime, thanks.” I say, “Tell me about your vision.”