She raps on the armor with her knuckles, takes my arms, and pins them down to the bed.

“That’s cool. I’m into cosplay. Between the armor and the arm you can be both brothers in Full Metal Alchemist.”

“So, we’re having a three-way with only two people.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

When Candy and I were alone together, we had a habit of wrecking rooms. Once upon a time we practically tore the walls down in here. Tonight isn’t like that. It’s slower and a lot more tentative, like Candy is still trying to convince herself I’m real.

Later, when we’re lying around and the sweat is cooling under my armor, Candy says, “This is weird.”

“Sleeping with a guy again?”

“Don’t be stupid. I keep waiting for someone to yell ‘April fool’ and for you to vanish.”

“The only joke in all this was me leaving. I’m not sorry about why I left but I’m sorry I didn’t come back. Before I left, I should have thought of a way to let you know I was all right.”

“There’s that. So how was it down there?”

“Mean and sad and strange and it ends with me being crowned prom queen of Hell.”

“Sure it does.”

She leans up on one elbow and looks at the clock radio.

“Shit. I should get back. Rinko will be waiting up for me. You know how girls are.”

“Don’t keep her waiting. That doesn’t turn out well for anyone.”

She runs a hand through her messy hair.

“Listen, Rinko is an old friend . . .”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me. Not now, not ever. Whatever you do is okay by me.”

She smiles, gets up, and gets dressed. At the door she tugs up her pants leg and slides my black bone knife out of a sheath on the side of her boot.

“You gave me this to hold for you. Now that you’re home, I suppose you’ll want it back.”

“I stole Mason’s. Why don’t you go ahead and keep that one.”

She smiles.

“For real? No take-backs?”

“No take-backs.”

She slips the knife back into its sheath and pulls down her pants leg.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Talk to you then.”

She blows me a quick kiss on the way out.

Once upon a time I saved the world and lost a girl. Then I saved Hell and lost another girl. This is getting to be a bad habit.

The hotel phone rings.

“Candy?”

The line crackles.

“That was a hell of an exit, Lord Lucifer. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

It’s a man’s voice.

“Were you relieved or disappointed?”

“Relieved. Thrilled even. The worlds below and above would be much more boring without you.”

“Who is this?”

“Not Vetis. But you knew that.”

“You’re not speaking Hellion. You’re either a possessed mortal or a damned soul. I don’t think a soul could call up here even with heavy hoodoo, so my guess is a mortal.”

“Listen to you go, Deep Blue.”

“Did the hounds make it back all right?”

“The ones that didn’t follow you over the edge. More blood on your hands. You’re like death on a bender.”

“Your voice is familiar but so what? You’ll be someone different next time.”

“Chances are.”

“Then what do we have to talk about? Fuck off.”

I slam down the receiver and rip the plug out of the wall.

I should have known the moment I decided not to go back Downtown. I don’t have to. Hell will follow me here.

In the morning, when I start to go out, I reach for a gun and remember that all I have is the Glock. A sleek manly gun. Guys who love Glocks love Corvettes because Dad had one and they’re still trying to crawl out of the old man’s shadow. Glocks: the only guns that come with a side of daddy issues. I hate Glocks. But I take it anyway.

I spend the day just walking around breathing in the perfume of car exhaust, dry air-conditioned air, and greasy Mexican food. I buy a fish taco from a van on the street. It looks like the Mona Lisa and tastes like God’s own Lunchable.

I’m still getting used to a sky. And lost and frantic civilians piling up on the street corners, fidgeting, waiting for the green light. Running at the wrong time on the red and almost getting hit by a bus. They gasp like they’re all gut-punched, never catching their breath from the endless running. If they knew they had a billion billion years of Heaven or Hell to look forward to after their measly eighty on Earth, would they slow down or would they get even more wired?

No one thinks of L.A. as ever being cold, but when it’s winter and the clouds roll in and the temperature drops to sixty or below, it can feel downright chilly. But the armor doesn’t notice. It has its own heat gauge set at body temperature. I could probably go to Antarctica and feed the penguins in nothing but flip-flops and a serape and not shiver once.

On the dying edge of Hollywood Boulevard, another tourist trap is going out of business. I buy a couple of black button-down shirts with HOLLYWOOD spelled with palm trees over the breast pocket. They’re loose enough that they hide the armor without making me look like the Michelin Man.

Back at the Beat Hotel, I take the one peeper I kept with me out of its saline-filled container, pop out my eye, and put the peeper in. Nothing happens. I can’t see into Hell. Not the library, the grounds outside the palace, or through the peepers I put into the hellhounds. Lucifer is blind up here. Something else Samael kept to himself. I take the peeper out and put my eye back in.

Back when Samael was in L.A. and I was playing bodyguard, he told me that he had very little power on Earth. That’s probably why he gave Kasabian access to the Daimonion Codex. Lucifer can’t see it from here but half-dead Kasabian can.

I spend the rest of the afternoon playing around with the armor, seeing what Lucifer tricks I can pull up here. I find a few but nothing that’ll get me a Nobel Prize. As usual I’ve timed things perfectly. I hang around Hell long enough to get all of Lucifer’s power and then come home and lose most of it.

In the afternoon, Candy calls. She wants to meet at the Bamboo House of Dolls around ten. Why not? It’s that or more Brady Bunch reruns, and that’s goddamn depressing for the Lord of the Underworld, even when he’s only operating at half speed.

Before I leave, I unscrew the air vent with a dime. What do you know? Kasabian wasn’t just shining me on. There’s a carny roll of twenty hundred-bills inside. The day just suddenly got brighter. What’s ridiculous is how easy I am to buy off. Two grand out of two hundred and I want to kiss the sky? Don’t let it get around but it turns out Lucifer is the cheapest date in Hell.

Now, this is something solid and real. It smells like beer and whiskey and the sweat of the patrons and the cigarette smoke blown in through the doors by the trailing edge of a Santa Ana, which is just how it should be. It’s a bar’s job to be unambiguous. In a sea of troubles, you can hold on to a bar. The Bamboo House of Dolls is my Rock of Ages.

Everything is where it should be. Old Iggy and the Stooges and back-in-the-day L.A. punk-band posters. Behind the bar, it’s all palm fronds, plastic hula girls, and coconut bowls for the peanuts. The jukebox chips and coos as Yma Sumac warbles through a spooky “Chuncho.” Carlos the bartender is pouring shots of Jack for everyone bellied up at the bar and mine taste best because they’re free. I hold up my glass to toast him for the third time tonight and he holds up his. It’s that kind of night. I’m in my bar with my friends. Now I’m really home.

Vidocq has his arm around my shoulders. He’s hardly taken it off since he got here, like if he lets go I’ll blow away on the breeze.

“At least it wasn’t eleven years this time. You’re doing better,” he says.

“Maybe you should try not going back at all,” says Allegra.

“I signed up with Monsters Anonymous,” I tell them. “Trying to kick the Hell habit one day at a time.”