The Wrong Goodbye

beautiful as ever, her long red hair spilling down over alabaster shoulders to a scant silk dress the color of blood, of lust, of sin. Her long legs gleamed faintly in the evening light, and her bare feet did not disturb the grass beneath. By the smirk that graced her gorgeous face, I’d say her entrance had its intended effect.

“Jesus, Lily —can’t you wear a bell or something? You scared this meat-suit half to death!”

Her perfect nose crinkled with distaste at my chosen epithet. “Watch your tongue, Collector. I’ve no patience for your insolence today.”

“That implies that there’s a time when you do.”

“That’s precisely the sort of comment it would be prudent to avoid,” she said. “I assure you I’ve not come here to trade witticisms.”

At that, she extended a slender, elegant hand to help me up. I took it, and she lifted me from the ground as easily as a parent might a fallen toddler. For a moment, we stood nose to nose. I was achingly aware of her breasts pressed tight against my chest beneath the thinnest wisp of claret-colored silk, and her scent was so intoxicating, I couldn’t speak, or think, or even breathe. On legs unwilling, I took a couple backward steps. The fog cleared, but just a little.

“Then why have you come here?”

“Why else?” she asked. “I came about a job. Or, to be more precise, I came about two jobs —the one I’m to assign you, and the one you’ve as yet failed to do.”

Ah, so that explained the grumpiness —she was pissed about the Varela job. See, every Collector’s got a handler —someone who gives us our assignments, and cracks the whip when we step out of line. Lilith is mine. Near as I can tell, she’s an oddity among handlers in that she’s not a demon —at least, not exactly. See demons —or the Fallen, as they prefer to be called —are angels who have turned their back on God, and Lilith is nothing of the kind. As to what she actually is, that’s complicated. If you’re inclined to believe the books, Lilith was the first woman on Earth, and she was cast out of Eden for refusing to be subservient to Adam —well, for that and her voracious sexual appetites. Now, they say, she rules the night. The southern wind. That she’s a lover to all demons, and mother to all incubi and succubi. That she is seduction itself. Whatever else she is, she’s my connection with the demon realm, my only formal contact to the hell in which I live. Since Collectors are forbidden from fraternizing with one another, and no demon not assigned to us would deign to associate with such lowly creatures as us, a Collector’s handler is all he’s got —his boss, his confessor, his corruptor, and his only friend, all rolled into one. You ask me, I think it’s hell’s way of keeping us docile and in line. Or at least their way of trying.

I tapped a cigarette out of my pack and lit it behind cupped hands. “I haven’t failed to do anything,” I said, exhaling a blue-white plume of smoke in Lilith’s direction as I spoke. “The job just took a little longer than expected.”

Lilith shot me a withering look from behind the veil of smoke. A sudden breeze kicked up from the south, and the veil lifted, scattered to the wind. “A little longer than expected? Is that what you call this? It’s been two weeks, Collector. Two weeks since you were tasked with collecting Varela’s soul. And in that time, I saw neither hide nor hair of you. I heard nothing by way of update —nothing I could pass along to explain your delinquent behavior. That is simply unacceptable.”

“What can I say? Turns out Varela’s a hard man to find. Was, anyway,” I corrected, nodding at the fresh mound of earth that sat beside us at our feet. “Besides, the way I see it, taking a couple extra days to get the job done is a hell of a lot better than crawling back to you with my tail between my knees and telling you I couldn’t hack it.” I knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it sure as hell beat the truth. The way I figured it, all delays aside, I’d gotten the job done, so any dressing-down I got for dallying was nothing compared to the shit-storm that would ensue if I told her it was a rogue Collector who’d mucked things up —one I’d been in covert contact with on and off for going on sixty years.

“I might accept that from some fledgling Collector, but it is shameful for someone of your talents to hide behind so paltry an excuse.”

“Why, Lily, I do believe that was a compliment,” I said, an amused smile breaking across my face.

Lilith colored, and screwed her face into a scowl. “I assure you, it was not intended as such. Tell me, Collector, in the two weeks that you’ve spent gallivanting around this country, have you perchance laid eyes on a newspaper?”

“Can’t say as I have,” I said. “If you recall, I’m not so good with the Espanol.”

“Oh, I think the pictures would have been quite sufficient.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Pictures of what?”

“The commuter train that derailed in Osaka, for one. Or the as yet unidentified plague that wiped an entire Bantu village off the map. And, of course, there was the explosion at the Vatican…”

“What’s your point, Lily?”

“My point, Collector, is that ever since New York, the detente between heaven and hell has been crumbling around us. These petty skirmishes between the Fallen and their Chosen kin have only gotten worse of late, and both sides are itching for an excuse to escalate into all-out war. Even the mortal world can sense that something’s wrong, though of course they’ve no idea what that something might be. So you see, now is not the time to stray from the straight and narrow —now’s the time to keep your head down and do your job. Maybe in so doing, you’ll spare the both of us a world of hurt.”

“Keep my head down and do my job? That’s pretty fucking rich, coming from you. You think I’ve forgotten that it was your private little war on God that got us into this mess in the first place? That it was you who orchestrated the damning of an innocent girl in an attempt to jump- start the End Days? Just because the bureaucrats on both sides are convinced the insurrection died with So’enel doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten. So why don’t you save your good little soldier speech for someone who doesn’t know it’s full of shit.”

Lilith’s eyes gleamed with rage, and for a moment, I thought she was going to hit me, but instead she took a breath, and the anger drained from her face. “Even if what you say is true —and I’m not granting that it is —your actions in thwarting the MacNeil girl’s erroneous collection attracted no small measure of attention. Attention toward you, and by extension toward me. It seems to me that, all thoughts of revenge aside, only a fool would try to fan the flames of war while under that kind of scrutiny. Tell me, Collector, do you think me a fool?”

“No,” I admitted. “I don’t think you’re a fool.”

“Nor I you,” she replied. “Which means that for the moment, at least, our motives are aligned.”

“I suppose it does.”

“I am glad you see the logic in my position,” she said. “But let me offer you a word of warning: should

I ever suspect that your motives and mine are no longer aligned, I assure you my response will be as swift as it is final.”

“Of that, Lily, I have no doubt.”

“Good. Now, let’s get down to business, shall we?”

5.

“Hey.”

The pale man’s eyes fluttered for a moment, and then were still.

“Hey, buddy —wake up!”

His head lolled to one side, and his limbs twitched as if in a dream. A thin stream of drool extended from the corner of his mouth to the white tile floor below.

“I said wake up!”

“Hurm,” he muttered, though his eyes remained closed. “Grah.”

I looked down at my naked torso, at the stab wound an inch above my navel. Though I held my hands as tight to it as I could, blood seeped red-black between my fingers. The wound was muscle-deep, and burned hotter than the bile that still scratched at the back of my throat. The blood loss was making me woozy —if the pale man didn’t wake up soon, it was going to be nap time for me as well, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like how