Beelzebub and Leviathan looked around at the carnage and the bickering angels, feeling as frustrated and disgusted with the planet as two salaried demons could.

“Those two aren’t going to stop, are they?” said Leviathan.

“Doesn’t look like it,” said Beelzebub.

“Still. It doesn’t sound like the world’s going to end right away.”

“True. Lucifer will be pleased.”

“Pleased enough to let us off this shit assignment and come home?” said Leviathan.

Beelzebub looked at his friend. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Arm in arm, they disappeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke.

The other angels, Heaven’s good angels, just kept on arguing into the night.

THIRTY-FIVE

THE WELCOME-HOME PARTY TOOK PLACE AT MORTY’S apartment exactly one week later, when Coop was released from the DOPS special clinic. To his surprise, they’d actually done a pretty good job on him. Under his bandages they’d attached several extraterrestrial parasites to his shoulder. The parasites ate skin flakes and injected a carefully controlled combination of bone and muscle into his bullet wound. It was only creepy when he thought about it, so Coop went to great effort not to think about it. It wasn’t all that hard with so much going on.

Morty had come through his first kidnapping with only a minor twitch whenever anyone stood behind him. He spent most of the party positioning himself with his back to hard surfaces—walls, doors, the refrigerator—anything where he had a clear view of the room and its exits.

“How are you doing?” said Coop.

“Coming along. Coming along,” said Morty. “Tell me, as someone who’s been kidnapped more than me, how long does it take to get over one of these things?”

“I’ll let you know when I do.”

“You’re useless,” said Morty, and he and Coop clinked their bottles of beer together.

Giselle popped into sight with her own beer. “See? I told you my head’s back on straight. I can cloud minds with the best of them.”

“You always could,” said Coop. He looked across the room and saw Sally and Tintin in an intense conversation. Over the last week, Coop had grown used to the idea that he’d taken the DOPS job and that it would keep him close to Giselle. Still, he was going to miss clandestine meetings with Sally and Tintin. Now when he planned a job they’d want him to fill out forms in triplicate. Not that that was ever going to happen.

“I know how you feel,” said Giselle.

“You reading my mind?” Coop said.

“With you it isn’t that hard. You’ll get used to the straight life. I did. And not looking over your shoulder all the time isn’t such a bad feeling.”

“I like being paranoid. It makes even the most boring things interesting. I was once convinced I was being followed by a whole Yakuza army while doing my laundry. It made the spin cycle fly by.”

“Why the Yakuza?”

“It’s a long story.”