“Fine, fine. You’re quite a whiner, aren’t you? ‘I want, I want . . .’ Where did they find someone like you?” Eligor made a sarcastic show of sticking his hands in his pockets and looking around like he was really thinking things over. “All right, you win. Enough time wasted on this.” He reached out to the side and suddenly there was a Zipper there, or at least the hellish version, a red glare traced like a vertical slash wound in the air. He reached through the red glare and pulled out another Caz, bound and gagged like the last one, but where the previous model had been strangely passive, this one was fighting to get free.

Eligor held her by the collar at arm’s reach, as if she weighed no more than a polo sweater. Her kicking feet hung six full inches above the ground. “Take the bitch,” he said. “All she ever does is complain, anyway.”

“And this is really her, this time? You swear by the authority of the Highest?”

He rolled his eyes like a bored teenager. “Yes, just like I told you back in Flesh Horse. I showed her to you, and you said you’d give me the feather, remember? This is her, I promise. No, as you wish, I swear by the Tartarean Convention, the authority of the Highest, and my own existence. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To hear one of the lords of Hell give his solemn word? Then listen—I swear by all those things that this is the same woman.”

Sam was slowly moving the God Glove over her head and above her breast. “This one is real, B.”

Eligor set her down. She almost fell, but Sam caught her elbow and helped her find her balance. She ran to me, still gagged, arms still tied, and threw herself against me. I wrapped an arm around her, thrilled beyond anything I can say by the feeling of her heartbeat so close to mine.

“Give him the feather,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Sam was looking at Eligor, who stood with arms folded. Fiddlescrape still had his shotgun pointed at us, but didn’t look quite as eager to pull the trigger as he had a few moments earlier.

“Yeah. Give it to him.”

Sam held it out, but being Sam he stayed where he was and made Eligor take a step toward him to get it. The grand duke took the feather between his fingers, then lifted it up to the weak yellow glow of the garage’s ceiling lights. “It’s a beautiful thing, really,” the Horseman said. “Rather special, too, when you think about what it represents: Heaven and Hell working together. It’s a pity you and the other small-minded folk can’t think of anything better to do with that symbol than blackmail me.”