Happy Hour in Hell

interlude

CAZ WAS asleep. I was lying beside her, too buzzed to do anything except think, think, think. God knows, I should have been sleeping too, after the day I’d just had—ambushed while trying to auction off something I didn’t actually have, shot at, chased by an ancient supernatural monster, several minutes under extremely cold water breathing through a tube, then a couple of hours of vigorous sex with a she-demon. I should have slept for a hundred years like Sleeping Beauty. Instead, Not-Sleeping Bobby lay in Caz’s curtained bed with his hands laced behind his head, watching the translucent fabric sway gently in the air-conditioning. The curtains were red, bright yellow, and several shades of earth tones. It seemed odd to me that she would choose such flamelike colors, but the entire apartment was like that, a cross between a grand opera about the Middle East and a Dutch prostitute’s red-light flat.

I was thinking, but not about anything important. I couldn’t afford to think about anything important, because at that moment I couldn’t do anything about anything. I could have closed my eyes and tried to force myself to sleep, but that never works with me. So instead I just lay there, listening to Caz’s quiet breathing and fantasizing about an impossible day when we could be together like this without threatening the entire balance of Creation. But any attempt to imagine a future for us quickly fell apart. Even assuming we weren’t vaporized for our crimes by her bosses or mine, where would we live? What would we do?

Before that night, I would have immediately recognized the stupidity of even thinking about an angel like me living a normal, human life. I would have shaken my head, laughed ruefully, then gone out with Sam for a couple of drinks to soak the ashes of the extinguished dream and render it harmless forever. But I wasn’t sure that was going to work this time. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to work.

But what was my alternative? This one night, as Caz kept saying, and then nothing? Only memories? I’d been born into my angelic existence without any real memories at all, so I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have memories that were better than the rest of your life could ever be. How could someone live like that? How could someone keep any kind of faith that the universe made sense?

Then again, whatever made me think the universe should make sense? I worked for God Almighty Himself, the Highest, and I was just as confused as every other thinking creature.

Was this really the end? Would I never see this beautiful woman, demon, whatever she was, after tonight? Or, even worse, would I see her again but be unable to do anything except watch her walk past, she condemned to her business, me to mine?

I felt so cold at that sudden vision, so empty, that for a moment I thought my soul might actually be dying.

As though she sensed it, Caz opened her eyes and looked at me. She didn’t say anything, just spread her arms as if welcoming me back from a long, hazardous trip. I moved in close until I felt the cool length of her against me from chest to shins, the chill pressure of her cold little feet and her cold little breasts.

We held each other in silence, because there really wasn’t anything left to say.