Cooper.
“This isn’t exactly the progress I was hoping to find,” he says.
“Get out of here, man. Someone’s going to see you.”
“So? Do you think any of the mob out there would be willing or able to do anything about it?”
“My point is, I don’t want to find out. No loose ends. Remember?”
I sit up and lean my back against the wall. Josef looks at my empty sleeve and shakes his head.
“You’re ridiculous. Crippled. Locked up by idiots and robbed by a dead psychopath.” He kicks some loose rocks from near his feet and uncovers a pair of crushed reading glasses. “We’re tired of waiting. We’re coming in now.”
“Be my guest.”
He picks up the glasses and holds them over his eyes, squinting through the lenses. They must not be his prescription. He makes a face and tosses them out over the wall.
“Aren’t you going to try and talk me out of it?”
“No. Be my guest. Pandemonium is that way and ighhat wayso are about ninety percent of Hell’s legions. If you and your friends think you can take on a million or so Hellion soldiers all by yourselves, be my guest.”
He leans in close, bringing his stink with him.
“You don’t think we can handle these Hellion idiots?”
“Maybe when there weren’t enough in one place for a decent tailgate party, but these boys have just about put the original rebel angel legions back together.”
“So? They lost their war in Heaven and now even Lucifer is gone. They’re weak.”
“Yeah, but there’s the other thing.”
“What?”
“Do you have a cigarette?”
He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a pack of regular human cigarettes. Never count on a Kissi to give you what you really want. I light the cigarette with Mason’s lighter and pull the smoke deep into my lungs. It’s better than nothing and it helps cover up Josef’s smell.
“You said there was something else,” Josef says.
“Do you ever watch the Discovery Channel? They had a show on where a colony of little tiny red ants all got together and killed a full-grown wolf. See my point?”
“No.”
“Just because you’re the wolf at the top of the food chain doesn’t mean you’re bulletproof. You and your pals might be able to wipe out the Hellions, but they won’t go down easy, and by the time you’re done, you’re going to be blind and crippled. That doesn’t sound like the big win to me.”
Josef takes a deep breath and turns his head to the sounds from the street.
“How much longer are we supposed to wait?”
“Just a few more hours. I need to get up this hill and then get General Semyazah. He’s the one guy who can turn this whole thing around.”
“He’s in Tartarus.”
“I know.”
“You think you can help him? How?”
“I’ll tell them I’m the pizza delivery boy. They’ll never suspect a thing.”
“Don’t be cute. No one’s ever returned from Tartarus.”
“Maybe they were going the wrong way.”
His expression changes to genuine interest.
“You know a secret way out?”
I drag off the cigarette. After Maledictions, regular human cigarettes are like inhaling the steam off a cup of herbal tea.
“If you’re so concerned about winning this thing, why don’t you go and do your job and let me do mine? If I’m not back in Pandemonium in, say, twelve hours, you’ll know I’m stuck in Tartarus and I’m not coming back. After that, you can do what you want, but give me the time to do this the smart way.”
He gets closer, picks a bit of lint off my shoulder, and tosses it away.
“This is the last time. The tide is rising and you can’t hold back the sea. Besides, you’re not an easy man to trust.”
“Yeah, but nobody else wants to play our reindeer games, so we’re stuck with each other.”
Josef fingers my empty coat sleeve.
“How are you going to pull this off with only one arm?”
“I’ll manage.”
