“Because when we think of Mexican food we think of Saskatchewan,” said the priest.

Jerry pushed the hood of his robe back, revealing a young man’s face, pockmarked and with an overly optimistic slash of red hair on his upper lip.

“They were the only ones left in the store.”

The priest sighed.

“That’s not really the point, Jerry. What happened to the black boar?”

“It ran away.”

“It ran away?”

“You try holding a full-grown boar in a thunderstorm. Everything is wet and slippery. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. I cut myself with the damned knife. It just happened. I’m sorry.”

A grumbling went through the group. A couple of people muttered “Dipshit” and “Clueless.” The priest sighed.

“I don’t know what to do here. You buy some off-brand potato chip . . .”

“Blue corn chips . . . so they’d be the right color.”

“Points for you, Jerry. You try to slip corn chips past us like maybe Caleximus, who’s a goddamned god, wouldn’t notice. And now you say you lost our boar. Do you know how much boars cost these days?”

Jerry shook his head.

“No.”

“A lot,” someone shouted.

The priest said, “A boar would be the equivalent of a metric ass-ton of corn chips. Did you buy a metric ass-ton of corn chips?”

“No. Just the one bag.”

“Here we are, sending up smoke signals to Caleximus to give him good news, and now there’s none to give him.”

Jerry looked around the room at the other robed figures.

“I’m really sorry.”

Steve, the priest, pushed back his hood. Like the boy’s, his hair was red, but he was older, his face lined and creased. “I don’t know what to do here, son. It’s like you don’t even take the Apocalypse seriously.”

“But I do.”

“Do you want those Abaddonian shitbags in Burbank to invoke their false god and set off their Apocalypse first?”

“No, sir,” said Jerry. “I hate those pricks.”

“Good boy. Because our Apocalypse is the only real Apocalypse and no one gets to offer up the Earth and its nonbelievers but us. Right?”

“Fuck the Abaddonians,” shouted a woman from the back of the room.

The group nodded and mumbled. “Fuck the Abaddonians.”

“All right. Quiet,” said Steve. “The old-folks’ home has a spaghetti dinner going next door. No need to ruin the codgers’ appetites.”

People laughed. Steve Sallis, the priest, turned back to the boy and shook his head.

“Okay, Jerry. You’ve got a lot to make up for.”

“I know.”

Steve looked out at the other worshippers. “For those of you who got here late and missed it, the good news is this: we think we’ve got a line on the Vessel of Invocation, meaning we can finally bring Caleximus to Earth—right here, right now—to us.”

Another murmur, a happier one this time.