“I’m sorry to hear about your bags. Of course I can help. There’s a wax museum around here? I might have to visit there myself before I’m done.”

Darla gave him a sunny smile. “Oh. Are you here on business?”

The stranger thumbed through the guidebook. “Very much,” he said.

“What kind?” said Christopher.

Darla leaned in. “The reason my husband asks is that you don’t look much like a businessman. More like a fucking bum.”

The stranger looked up. “Do I really?”

“In that filthy coat and shitty shoes? What are you? A junkie? A dealer? Both?” said Christopher.

“I didn’t think my coat was that dirty.”

“Filthy,” said Darla. She cocked her head and looked at him. “Nothing at all like what an actual businessman would wear.”

“Thank you. I’ll have to do something about that,” said the stranger. He flipped to the guidebook’s index. “Now, it was the wax museum you wanted . . .”

Christopher pulled a switchblade from his pocket, snicked it open, and took a step toward him. “Fuck the museum. I know a dirty dealer when I see one. How much are you carrying? Empty your pockets. I want all of it.”

“You don’t need the knife,” said the stranger. He dropped the guidebook and put up his hands. “You can have all of it.” He closed them and when he opened his hands again, gold poured out onto the ground.

“Damn,” said Christopher dismally.

“Fuck me,” said Darla miserably.

The stranger took the knife from Christopher’s hand, broke it in two, and threw the pieces into the bushes. “Is this how you spend your days? Show me your real faces.”

“We can’t,” said Leviathan, his Christopher face turning red with embarrassment.

“We can change our bodies a little, but the only thing real we can show are our teeth bits. Because they scare mortals so much,” said Beelzebub. She grinned, showing hideous gray choppers.

“Wars. Murder. Famine. Cancer. And your contribution to Lucifer’s cause is shaking down hobos?” said the stranger.

“And tourists,” said Leviathan.

“And priests,” said Beelzebub. “And librarians. And bus drivers. And that rude counterman at the tapas place on Fairfax. What was it called?”

“Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue,” said Leviathan.

“Hush,” said the stranger, and they both hushed very quickly.

Beelzebub looked at the ground, dragging her gorgeous white shoes through the debris on the trail. “We do diseases, too, sometimes. Leviathan has tuberculosis.”

“And I cough a lot in crowds.” He put a hand to his mouth and coughed violently a few times. When he was done he looked at the stranger like a mutt that had just learned to fetch.

“Do you really have tuberculosis?” said the stranger.

Leviathan shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.” An old couple went past them on the trail, heading up the hill. The stranger stopped talking to let them pass. The old woman smiled to him as they went by. He smiled back, curious where they were going.