LITMIR.BIZ

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little guy annoyed me. Anyway, we need signs or warning labels or something on the discs. I don’t want to keep having that conversation.”

      “If it’ll calm you down I’ll print out something.”

      “Yeah, it would.”

      Kasabian has lost more hair in the year since I’ve been back. His face is still as round as it ever was. Must be the hoodoo keeping him alive. He eats plenty, but the food drops right through a tube in his mechanical body, so it’s not like he’s taking in any calories.

      “You’re in a mood,” he says. “You and the other Johnny Laws have a busy day arresting jaywalkers?”

      “It was a funny day, now that you ask. I cut off a guy’s head, and when he died I followed him into limbo. Sound familiar?”

      Kasabian touches his throat.

      “You and cutting people’s heads off,” he says. “You’re like an alcoholic, only with a guillotine.”

      I think about getting a drink, but the moment has passed. I don’t want it anymore. I’m worried about Candy.

      “You notice anything about Candy recently?” I say. “She wasn’t feeling well at work.”

      “Was she there when you started lopping heads off, because regular people aren’t exactly used to that?”

      “Candy isn’t regular people. She’s seen a little blood in her time.”

      Candy is a Lurker. A Jade. They’re kind of like vampires, only scarier. More like spiders, really. They don’t drink their victims’ blood. They dissolve them from the inside and drink them dry. Candy has been clean for years. Doc Kinski came up with a potion that curbs her appetite for human milk shakes. After he died, Allegra stepped in and took over his practice and has been giving Candy all the Jade methadone she needs.

      “How’s the swami biz?” I say, wanting to change the subject.

      “This is how it is,” says Kasabian, dropping a pile of printouts on the counter.

      “What are these?”

      “Requests from potential clients.”

      Kasabian started a little side business a few weeks back and it’s taken off like a bottle rocket out of a carny’s ass. He can’t go to Hell like I can, but he can see into the place. He set himself up as an online seer. For a fee, he’ll tell you how the dearly departed are getting on in the Abyss. Seeing as how most people seem to end up down there, he doesn’t lack for clients.

      Kasabian riffles the pages with his pointy hellhound claws.

      “All these people have family or friends Downtown. And all want more than I can give them. Paying clients don’t want to hear about sweet Aunt Suzy up to her eyeballs in a river of shit.”

      “And this concerns me how?”

      “Most of these people want to, you know, talk to the departed. Hear a story about redemption, maybe. Mostly, they want to know where they hid the good silver or did they really love them. You know. Normal family bullshit.”

      “And you want me to go Downtown and play twenty questions with damned souls because they don’t have enough problems.”

      “Yes. That’s what I always want. Come on, man. Look at the streets. This city is going to be empty soon. Empty and underwater. It’s no-shit Ragnarök. People want to know what to expect on the other side.”

      I shake my head. Push the papers back across the counter.

      “Not my problem. And I told you. Mr. Muninn is still pissed at me for stealing Father Traven’s soul. He doesn’t want me back in his petting zoo playing with the animals.”

      “It doesn’t have to be all of them,” says Kasabian. “Just for a few of the high rollers. We need the money.”

      That much is right. We are severely on the rocks. Kasabian squirreled away a few grand from a payoff I got from the Dark Eternal when I put down some pain-in-the-ass zombies. But we blew the last of that fixing up Max Overdrive so we could live here and reopen the store. The special video section is bringing in cash, but barely enough to pay for beer and utilities.

      “Okay. Cash is a good incentive, but seriously, Hell is kind of off-limits for me right now.”

      “What about Samael? Would he do it if you asked nice?”

      “You think you’re going to bribe Samael with money? He’s a fucking angel. He doesn’t carry a lot of pocket change.”

      Kasabian picks up the paper. Taps it on the counter to straighten the edges.

      “Maybe Muninn would be happier to see you than you think. Hell isn’t looking too pretty right now.”

      “What’s going on?”

      “Nothing, that’s the problem. All the public-works projects, fixing the place up after you broke it …”

      “That wasn’t my fault. Samael fucked it up when he was still Lucifer. I just let it get a little worse when I was running the place.”

      “Whatever you say, man. Well, it’s all stopped. They’re not even pretending to put the place back together again.”

      “That doesn’t sound like Muninn.”

      “You so sure he’s still in charge?”

      “I’d know if anything changed.”

      “How?”

      “I just would.”

      “Okay, Cassandra, there’s something else. Did it rain much when you were down there?”

      “No. I don’t remember it raining at all.”

      “Well, it is now. Raining cats and dogs and little imps with pitchforks. I mean, there’s doomed. There’s screwed. And there’s monsoons-in-Hell fucked. And we’re at fucked o’clock.”

      Suddenly I want a cigarette. I take out the Maledictions. I go to the back door and open it, blowing the smoke outside. Candy doesn’t like me stinking the place up with cigarettes that smell like a tire fire.

      “I don’t get it. Could the Angra be doing it?”

      “Who cares? It’s happening and whoever’s in charge down there can’t stop it. What makes you think I can?”

      “You were the Devil,” says Kasabian.

      It’s true. I got stuck with Lucifer’s job for three miserable months. And what do you know? I wasn’t good at being a bureaucrat or a diplomat. I fucked Hell up worse than it was when I got there, and barely made it out with my hide intact.

      “You know God,” Kasabian says. “Get him off his backside. Or better yet, hide us in your magic room. You’ve always said that nothing can get in there. It’s the perfect fallout shelter.”

      I puff the Malediction, cupping it in my hand so the rain doesn’t put it out.

      “So your solution to the end of the universe is to hide for the next billion years in the Room of Thirteen Doors? A room with nothing in it and nowhere to go.”

      “Okay. It doesn’t sound great when you say it like that. But we could fill it up with food and water and movies. Everything we need.”

      “There’s no electric outlets in the Room, and more important, no toilets. Get the picture?”

      Kasabian comes over to the door and sticks his fat face into the rain, looking up into the black sky like maybe if he stares long enough God will part the clouds and give him a thumbs-up.

      “If we can’t hide, then fix this shit. My business is going to fall apart when people realize they don’t need me to find their relatives because they’re going to be Downtown soon enough themselves.”

      He

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