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“My problem is that that isn’t an ordinary knife. You’re part of a conspiracy with Death. That’s my problem, trickster.”

“I’m supposed to fight you with a sharpened Popsicle stick? You have the best sword you can, I have the best knife I can. Calm down and let’s fight.”

“Have it your way. But when you’re dead, I’m killing all your friends myself.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For this whole thing we’re doing right now. Between Hesediel, Alice, and Vehuel, I’d forgotten for a minute how much I hate angels. You’re a billboard for everything wrong with your kind.”

“Aren’t you wondering why I’m not dead?” Michael says.

“Yeah. I am actually.”

He slaps his fist against his chest.

“This isn’t angelic armor. If you had any brains at all, you would have recognized it. It’s Father’s armor from the first war. And it’s immune to Death’s touch.”

Samael says, “To be fair, I didn’t recognize it either. It isn’t filled out. You simply don’t have the physique for it.”

“Now I’m going to kill you, too.”

“I said you were boring.”

While the two brothers bicker I rummage around in my foggy brain trying to come up with any way I can get the knife close enough to Michael to slip around his armor. The problem is that he’s right. Aside from being deathproof, the armor covers every square inch of his body except his face. What are the chances of him letting me get close enough to poke my chopstick up his nose?

That’s it, then. I have nothing. All I can do is play for time and try to give everybody a few more minutes of life. Even if I can return the knife to Samael, he can’t get through the armor any more than I can. Sorry, everybody. I blew it again.

Sorry, Candy. At least this is the last time I’ll ever disappoint you.

I lower my center of gravity and move into a fighting stance. I look ridiculous with my useless knife sticking out like the antenna on a thirty-year-old cell phone.

Michael manifests his Gladius and runs at me. I stand my ground hoping to get in a shot at his face. When he’s a few feet away, he lets the Gladius go out. I thrust the knife at his eye, but miss by a mile. Instead of finishing me, Michael pulls back a big armored fist and punches me over my chest wound.

I think I must have blacked out for a second from the force of the blow because when I look around, I realize I’m floating in limbo.

This is going to be a humiliating way to die. There’s no gravity and nothing to grab on to. I pump my arms and legs trying to get some traction, but nothing happens. I know that everybody by Heaven’s gates can see me. That’s going to be their last memory of Sandman Slim: him flailing away like a bloated tick trying to roll himself off his back.

I don’t know what the hell Michael does next, but a moment later I’m rocketing back to the golden gates. The Colt slips out of my waistband and tumbles into empty space. Big deal. A lot that would have helped against an archangel. I feel around my boots and coat. The na’at is long gone and now the gun. All I have is Doris’s butcher knife and the amber blade. The only other thing I find is the pinkie-size piece of the Li

ght Killer in my pocket. I don’t think he’s going to let me shove that through his face either, so I do the only thing I can think of. I eat it.

A second later I’m back at the gates and Michael is holding me off the ground by the front of my shirt.

“We can’t keep meeting like this,” I say. “People will talk.”

Michael looks back at his troops.

“Am I done here? Should I just kill him and finally rid creation of the Abomination?”

Lots of cheers and hoots from the cheap seats. I blow them a kiss.

Michael manifests his Gladius.

“Wait. I should do this so Alice can see.”

He turns and I wave to her.