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“I didn’t say that. Let’s hear your plan. Also, I’m going to need some incentive.”

He comes back.

“Like what?”

I point my cigarette at him.

“First off, that pack of Maledictions in your pocket.”

“Is that all?” he says, not making a move to give me the pack.

“No, but it’s a start.”

He takes out the pack and tosses it to me. I put it in my pocket and feel the pistol I took from my road rage pal. Having the damn thing annoys me, but I’ll deal with it later.

“Okay,” I tell him. “Let’s hear your plan.”

“There is no plan,” he says. “Just a few scattered thoughts.”

“Now you’re being coy. You always have a plan.”

He starts walking again.

“Have you ever heard of an angel named Zadkiel?”

“Nope.”

“The angel of mercy, benevolence, and forgiveness?”

“Sounds like a lot of laughs, though. What’s their story?”

“A millennium ago, give or take, Father gave her the keys to eternity. Dubbed her the Opener of the Ways. She can do something even Father can’t do at the moment.”

I look at him.

“Open the gates of Heaven?”

“Conceivably. Honestly, I didn’t know her that well. She was always more of Father’s crowd. Always fluttering about Earth. A bit of a shirker, which was the one thing I liked about her.”

“What was she shirking?”

“When I said she was the Opener of the Ways, that was a bit misleading. Her main job was keeping doors closed so that things didn’t bump into each other. Heaven, Hell, and Earth for example. But she also held apart different dimensions and realities. For a long time, she held the Kissi at bay.”

Hearing the word “Kissi” makes me mad.

“You’re saying this Zadkiel asshole could have kept the Kissi locked up, but she didn’t?”

Samael nods.

“Exactly. A shirker, and a dangerous one at that. But on the other hand, if she can open the gates of Heaven, it makes the war moot. All the angels who want Heaven to remain pure can fuck off down to Hell and turn it into the priggish wonderland they so desperately want.”

For the first time in what feels like a long while, I’m excited about something.

“Then all we have to do is get Zadkiel to do her key trick. How do we do that?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

And now I feel shitty again, but I don’t want him to know that, so I get angry.