aspirations, Legate. Even my father didn’t want his fate.”
Jane stared hard at Jim, wondering how much he knew, and wondering whether it was true that Azazel hadn’t wanted his throne.
“Poetry!” the Legate hissed. He composed himself again.
“Who knew that the titles of the head of the Infernal Council were poetic?” Twitch laughed skeptically. “The Infernals, anyway, seem to take them very seriously.”
“It might have been the title,” Jim muttered to the fairy, “or it might have been the fart jokes.”
Jane felt as nonplussed as the Legate looked.
The man in the mantelletta shook off his confusion. “Forget the Bible. Here’s the point. Each of you is carrying a bargaining chip. I will not deceive you or play the coquette—I want what you have, and I will pay.”
“We want,” Raphael corrected him, but the Legate ignored the angel.
Jane looked around at the Swordbearers, gigantic and fiery, immobile in the clouds of smoke that their burning threshed out of the sorghum around their feet. “In other words,” she said with deliberate impudence, “you want to kill me, and in exchange, you’ll let me torture and kill Raphael first.”
The Angel-Deputy chuckled, but turned a little pale. Jane stared him down with an eye full of thousands of years of constantly nurtured hatred.
The Legate fixed her with a stare. “I want the Calamity Horn,” he said. “The gun capable of killing even immortals.”
“Except me,” Jane pointed out. “To my grave disappointment.”
“Forgive the pun,” the fairy snapped out reflexively.
“I never forgive puns,” Jim grunted. “They remind me too much of what I’m missing by holding my tongue all the time.”
The Legate smiled patiently. “So you don’t need to fear handing it over. Besides, you already know that your death is within my gift.” He waved the letter at her. It was so close that Jane could smell the parchment and the sealing wax.
Jane’s crow settled beside the Legate on the metal box.
Within his gift. That sounded right; the Legate wasn’t trying to kill her outright, but was offering her the chance to be able to die. He was doing more than offering—he was selling it, pretty hard.
“I don’t fear much of anything at this point. Still, I’m curious.” Jane squinted at the big singer. “You must be invading Hell, right? I mean, there are precious few beings this gun is capable of hurting that you couldn’t just take down with the Swordbearers. But even the Fallen, they can be beaten with flaming swords.” She glared at Raphael, remembering the obliteration of Ainok. “So why the gun?”
“And seven priests,” the Legate said in answer, “bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord went on continually, and blew with the trumpet.”
Jane snorted. “You don’t need to quote me chapter and verse on this stuff. I was there for most of it.”
“There for what?” Twitch asked. “I don’t know either the chapter or the verse. I’m not much of a reader.”
“Joshua’s priests blew seven horns and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.”
Jim looked at her with a curious smile. “What was that like?”
“I was on the wall.” Jane shrugged. “It hurt like hell, but I survived.”
“And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.” The Legate’s eyes twinkled.
“Back to Revelation? Seven priests with trumpets before the ark, seven seraphim with trumpets before the throne.” Jim shrugged. “Sort of a match, I guess, but lots of things come in sevens. Seven sages of Greece. Seven colors in the visible spectrum. Snow White and the seven dwarfs. So what?”
A long spate of gunshots ended in an abrupt equine scream.
Jane frowned. “Seven bullets in my gun is so what,” she realized out loud.
“The first angel sounded,” Raphael quoted, “and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you son of a bitch?” Jane remembered the fields of her youth, the moist, firm feeling of earth between her fingers. She almost yanked the pistol out and started firing.
“You think the seven bullets in her gun,” Jim pointed at it to underline the insanity of the idea, “are the seven trumpets of the apocalypse? This is what I’m hearing from the Legate of Heaven?”
“Ah, I hate this stuff,” Twitch muttered. “Jehoshaphat begat Arad who begat Shem, gobbledy-gobbledy, can’t we just skip to the part where we start shooting? Why is life on this side