‘Ribbit.’ He turns and flicks out his tongue at me. It’s blue.

My eyes widen. ‘You dyed your tongue too?’

Dee smiles. ‘Nah. It’s just Gatorade.’ He lifts up a bottle half-full of blue liquid. ‘Gotcha.’ He winks.

‘“Hydrate or Die,” man,’ says Dum as we turn onto El Camino Real.

‘That’s not Gatorade’s marketing,’ says Dee. ‘It’s for some other brand.’

‘Never thought I’d say this,’ says Dum, ‘but I actually miss ads. You know, like “Just Do It.” I never realized how much of life’s good advice came from ads. What we really need now is for some industrious soul to put out a product and give us a really excellent saying to go with it. Like “Kill ’Em All and Let God Sort ’Em Out.”’

‘That’s not an advertising jingle,’ I say.

‘Only because it wasn’t good advice back in the day,’ says Dum. ‘Might be good advice now. Attach a product to it, and we could get rich.’ He turns and arches a brow at his brother, who turns and arches an identical eyebrow back.

‘So does anyone have a good survival strategy, or is there no hope for getting out of this nightmare?’ asks the Colonel.

‘We came up with a big, fat zero. I don’t know how we’re going to survive the blood hunt,’ says Dee.

‘That wasn’t the nightmare I was referring to,’ says the Colonel. ‘Death by stupid comments is what I was talking about.’

The twins look at each other and make an O with their mouths like little boys telling each other they’ve been busted.

I grin in spite of it all. It’s good to know I can still smile, if only a little.

Then we get down to business.

‘What’s going on with that angel plague you were working on, Doc? Any chance we could go pandemic on their asses?’ asks Dee.

He shakes his head. ‘It’ll take at least a year, assuming that we could get it to work. We don’t know anything about their physiology and don’t have anyone to test it on. But if we’re lucky, it’ll take a few of them out soon anyway.’

‘How?’ asks the Colonel.

‘The angels were creating another beast for the apocalypse,’ says Doc. ‘The instructions were very specific. It had to have seven heads that were a mix of animals.’

‘The sixer?’ I ask. ‘Yeah, I saw it.’

‘If it has seven heads, why do you call it a sixer?’ asks Sanjay.

‘It has the number six-six-six tattooed on its foreheads.’

Dum looks at me with a horrified expression.

‘The angels called it the beast,’ says Doc. ‘But I like your sixers name better.’

‘The seventh head was human, and it was dead,’ I say.

‘Was the sixer alive?’ asks Doc. ‘Did any of the angels around it look sick?’