Allegra doesn’t say anything. She tries to pull the door closed. I don’t let her.

“When I’ve done what I have to do, I’m coming back and I’m going to see Candy whether any of you like it or not.”

I let go of the door. She pulls it closed and locks it.

“It’s nice to see you’ve still got the magic touch with people.”

The voice is behind me. I recognize it because it’s mine. I turn around and look at me.

Saint James is dressed in tan khakis and a blue pullover with an off-brand logo over the pocket. He looks like me if I was eleven years younger and a Mormon kid on my missionary work. I’d never admit it but I feel strange and it even hurts a little seeing myself without all the scars. The guy I was before I went Downtown has been gone so long I don’t even remember him but I’m looking at him and that’s bad enough. What’s worse is that Saint James, patron saint of traitors, cowards, and general pricks, knows it.

“How’s Heaven, pal? I mean Blue Heaven. What the hell is that? Some kind of time-share hideout with D. B. Cooper and Ambrose Bierce?”

“I was about to pull you out of Vidocq’s way but as usual you solved the problem with your fist. You’re punching friends these days. It’s good to see a man broaden his interests.”

“The only reason you’d save me is because half my skin is yours.”

“True enough, but you didn’t have a shred of common sense up here, and Hell hasn’t helped you gain any perspective.”

I take out a Malediction. Sit on the hood of the Volvo and light it. I don’t offer Saint James one. No way this milquetoast smokes.

“You’re wrong. I have plenty of common sense. I’ve hardly killed anyone since I’ve been back. Okay, maybe those ten guys at Blackburn’s. But I’m the injured party here. Everyone’s gunning for me because of something you did.”

He shakes his head. Clamps his jaw angrily before speaking.

“I didn’t kill the mayor’s son and you know it. It was the ghost. I was trying to stop her just like I tried to stop her before. I was there when the boy was killed, so it was easy to pin it on me. I think someone is protecting the girl.”

“If I’m supposed to be impressed with your detective skill, you’re going to have to try harder. I know all that and I know who’s doing it.” It’s a lie but I’m not about to let this asshole in on how in the dark I am. “All I need to figure out is why. You know, even if you showed up with all the pieces of the puzzle and a carton of Carlos’s tamales, it doesn’t change the fact that you left me to clean up Mason’s shit. Now I have to clean up yours and I’m supposed to swoon over a happy reunion because you finally stepped up?”

“Right. Like you never left me holding the bag. Running wild up here and down below. Getting us backed into corners so that I had to figure a way out.”

I puff the Malediction and blow smoke in his direction but the wind carries it away.

“All that’s what’s changed. Being on my own Downtown, I learned to think more before I break things. I did some bad things as Lucifer but not nearly as many as I could have. I saved the place from imploding and taking a whole lot of souls down with it.”

Saint James smirks. He isn’t buying it.

“I saw you playing cowboy with Great-Granddad. How is Wild Bill?”

“You were there spying on me?”

“Checking up on you. Believe it or not, I was concerned.”

“I bet you were. You found out it’s lonely out here on your own and you want back in my head. That’s why you’re here. Forget it. I’m done with the Three Faces of Eve routine. I don’t need you.”

He looks me over. Another shirt ruined. I need a tailor or at least a clothes fairy. I wonder if Manimal Mike can make one for me.

“Are you going to wear that armor forever?” says Saint James. “You’ll never be more than half a person without me.”

“I read books when I was Downtown. I learned about the Greeks. ‘Loss is nothing but change and change is Nature’s delight.’ Marcus Aurelius said that.”

“Marcus Aurelius was Roman.”

“I know. Ain’t that a bitch?”

This time, when I blow smoke, I get him. He steps away, waving his hand at the cloud.

“This armor is why I don’t need you. I have all the power I had when we were together and even a few new tricks.”

“The armor hasn’t improved your thinking.”

“The only thing you have on me is the Thirteen Doors Key and I can live without that.”

“Really? How much longer can you ride that beast of a motorcycle before the police catch up to you? How many more cars can you steal? The police aren’t fools. Julie Sola told me they have a whole task force looking for the car-theft ring. You’re a whole criminal conspiracy.”

“A task force just for me? I’m flattered as hell. I’ve never been a gang before.”

“You realize that if you’re captured, they’ll take the armor. And since you don’t have the key, you’ll be stuck in jail. Just another mortal fool in a sea of monsters.”

I flick the cigarette butt at him and burn a small hole in his pullover before he flinches out of the way.

“You left me to the monsters when you blew Hell. Let me change what I said before. It’s not that I don’t need you. I don’t want you. Have fun in Blue Heaven.”

I get off the Volvo hood and start around to the driver’s side.

“You mean it, don’t you? This isn’t just the anger talking. You really intend to give up half of yourself forever.”

I pull up my shirtsleeve and show him the Kissi arm.

“Remember this? I lost part of me already and I learned to get along without it. I can do it again.”

“Can you honestly say you don’t miss the Room of Thirteen Doors? The quiet. The perfection. Knowing you’re at the still silent heart of the universe and that no one can touch you.”

“I miss it like a junkie misses the needle. But it’s like Herodotus said—and that guy I know is Greek: ‘Very few things happen at the right time and the rest do not happen at all.’ ”

“How does that even apply?”

“ ’Cause you’re a day late and a dollar short, so fuck off.”

He leans on the top of the Volvo.

“Without the Key you can’t get to Blue Heaven and you’ll never see me again.”

“You can travel with the Key but I have people who watch my back. What do you have besides frequent flier miles?”

“Everyone who watches your back gets shot, stabbed, or punched. How long will they put up with that?”

I get in the car. Talk to him through the open window.

“Good-bye. Say hi to Amelia Earhart for me.”

Saint James steps into a shadow and is gone.

“You know, I had to kill myself a little in Hell a few days back.”

“Maybe you’ll get it right this time,” says Kasabian.

When someone asked Willie Sutton, the safecracker, why he broke into so many banks, he said, “Because that’s where the money is.” When you want to find a ghost who tried to kill your girl (okay, not technically mine but I like her a lot), you go to the Tenebrae because that’s where the ghosts are.

I stick the tip of black blade into my arm until the blood flows.

“This is the funniest thing you’re going to see all day.”

Kasabian looks at me and turns abruptly away.

“Jesus. Give a guy some warning. Why are you doing that? You don’t have enough pain in your life?”

“It’s not the cutting that’s funny. It’s that I’m cutting the nice clean stitches the hotel doctor just put in. I need some blood.”

“What for?”

Don’t think for a second that just because I’m hard to kill, getting hit or burned or cut doesn’t hurt. It feels the same to me as it does to anybody else. It’s just that I get over it faster. When it’s happening, though, I feel every little twitch and twinge of pain. Cutting into a recent wound is an especially interesting experience. There’s a lot of internal “What the hell are you doing?” screaming.

“Remember when you tried to shoot me with that booby-trapped weapon? The Devil’s Daisy that Mason gave you?”