As he had described it to Cranswell the night before, the balance thing was key. Which was why every major city and locus of metaphysical importance was monitored by both sides, all the time. A dedicated operative was stationed at each point to keep an eye on the equipment that measured disturbances in reality. “If anything had come through recently, it would have registered,” Fastitocalon said. “And been summarily dealt with. No, I think that this is definitely supernatural, but nonbinary.”
She was still trying to picture these monitoring stations, and getting a sort of vague mental image of geology postdocs watching seismographs, which didn’t at all gibe with her mental image of Hell. The idea that there could be anything supernatural that wasn’t associated with either of the major players was just as difficult to fit her head around. Flickers of barely remembered Lovecraft came to mind: things that dwelled in the darkness beyond reality, blind idiot gods dancing endlessly to maddening thin flute music, shuffling and stamping on and on as the wheels of eternity ground toward the heat death of the universe.
Some of these thoughts must have been too loud to ignore, because Fastitocalon tipped up her chin with a thin, warm finger and looked earnestly at her. “Don’t worry,” he said, and then made a face of his own. “I mean, don’t worry unduly. I don’t think you need be concerned that the universe is going to implode, or be overrun with nameless horrors of polysyllabic description. This situation is … awkward and objectionable, but I don’t believe either Sam or Above is incapable of handling it, should matters get that far.”
She looked at him steadily, thinking, This is my friend, my father’s friend, whom I have known all my life, and he is on first-name terms with the Devil. “I’m having real trouble thinking of the Adversary and Great Beast that is called Dragon and so on being known as ‘Sam.’”
Fastitocalon smiled, that odd little unexpected smile that lit his whole face. “Samael. Translates as something like ‘severity of God,’ which has a nice ring to it. He likes being an enormous white snake when he isn’t being the terribly beautiful androgynous wingèd et cetera. I mean, large. Probably thirty feet long, about so big around. Black eyes with red pupils. Not what you’d call subtle.”
His voice was warm, fond. Greta thought he must have enjoyed working for this Samael, and she wondered again exactly what had happened to drive him up here to live full-time in freezing garrets doing other people’s accounts for them. “Especially when envoys from Above are visiting,” he continued. “Being eyeballed by a thirty-foot-long snow-white snake tends to knock a lot of the insufferable out of angels.”
She just bet it did. “How does he talk when he’s a snake? Their mouths aren’t built for it.”
“How does he turn into a snake in the first place? How does Ruthven change from sixty or seventy kilos of bipedal humanoid into a few grams of regrettably adorable bat?” Fastitocalon shrugged. “It’s not a meaningful question. I could go into the metaphysics, but you complain at me when I talk about sums.”
“I do not,” Greta retorted, and then had to look sheepish. “Okay, maybe I do. Never mind the how, then. Tell me more about Samael.”
“Other manifestations include a pretty convincing human male of astonishing physical beauty, a cloud of floating eyeballs, and a point of light about as bright as a welding arc. The androgynous wingèd creature is his default setting.”
“No red socks?”
“No red socks. Nor has he got a tail or cloven hooves. Or horns. A lot of demons do, you know. Really big curly ones are considered ostentatious, but a neat, well-kept set of horns is quite within the realm of respectability.”
She was feeling more and more as if this had to be a dream, that her old friend and the bus around them were going to fade out and turn into something else any minute now, but Fastitocalon just nudged her with his elbow and she jerked out of the daze. “This is our stop.”
Thoughts of Heaven and Hell were driven right out of her mind by the tiresome logistics of arranging for the Mini to be towed to a garage and have them see if the interior was salvageable. It was drizzling again, that thin, icy drizzle that went right down your collar and drained away all enthusiasm or motivation, and her damp hair stuck to her face and neck.
Fastitocalon was doing that thing where he was really, really difficult to notice at all—not invisible, not missing, just … remarkably easy to ignore. He had his eyes closed and was apparently paying no attention whatsoever to her struggles with the insurance company.
“Yes,” she told the phone. “Fine. Finally. That works for me. Have them call this number with the report, and leave a message if I can’t pick up. Right. No. Thank you.”
She hung up and gave the Mini’s front tire a kick on general principles before squinting up at the sky. “If you want to get anything done in this country you’ve got to complain till you’re blue in the mouth, as I believe John Cleese once pointed out. C’mon, my flat’s not palatial but it’s at least warm, I’ll make us a cup of tea …”
She realized she was having to do all the work in the conversation, and looked sharply at Fastitocalon, or where she knew Fastitocalon to be, even if he wasn’t strictly all the way visible just at the moment. “Fass? What is it?”
He held up a hand, slipping back to his ordinary greyish self, eyes half-closed; he looked like a man trying very hard to remember something, or to follow the faintest thread of a musical phrase. Despite her immediate instinct to ask him what the hell he was doing, Greta kept quiet, just watching as he turned slowly, searching for something she couldn’t sense. He turned a little farther, and then went still, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, the pupils were little round dots of brilliant orange light, as if the insides of his eyes were on fire, and she took an involuntary step back. The effect was very horrible indeed.
He blinked, and the orange glow cut off. “Sorry,” he said. “You’ve gone a funny color. Sit down for a minute, will you?”
It was one thing to know that her old friend wasn’t human—she was fine with that, most of her friends weren’t actually human at all—but every now and then the essential strangeness of him came through and flicked the distant switch in her hindbrain that said run. Greta shivered, once, violently, and then control came back. “I’m all right,” she said. “Just … how about you warn me next time you’re about to do that. What is it? What have you seen?”
“I know which way he went, after you were gone,” Fastitocalon told her, looking anxious. “It’s faint but distinctive. Look, you get a bus back to Ruthven’s, where it’s safe. I want to follow the trail a little way, see what I can find out.”
“Balls,” said Greta. “I’m coming, too. He ruined my car, tried to cut my throat, and said a lot of things a well-bred gent ought not to say to a lady. I want to be there when you find him.”
He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t suppose it’s worth trying to convince you it’s too dangerous?”
“Not in the least,” she said, and took his arm. “Come on, the sooner we find him the sooner you can get in out of this cold weather. The damp’s not good for you.”
He looked down at her. “You’re impossible,” he said.
“It’s a human thing,” she told him, and tugged at his arm. “Let’s get a move on.”