“Maybe not,” Billy says.
“Maybe not,” Lucifer says, his voice down to a soft hiss, almost drowned out by the rumbling traffic nearby. “But don’t you think you would be able to find someone better? Do you think you don’t deserve someone better?”
“I like Denver,” Billy says. He does not say love.
“Think, though, Billy, think about other women. Think about the women you didn’t pursue in the past because you thought they were out of your league. Think about being in the league that they’re in.”
“That’s—” Billy says. “That seems creepy and wrong.”
“Wrong? You deserve it, Billy. You deserve to be up a notch by now.”
“I don’t,” Billy says. “I don’t deserve it. I didn’t do the work.” He remembers the speech he gave himself yesterday. “If I want that? The future you’re describing? With the book, and the — the women and stuff? If I want that future, I have to get there on my own.”
“No one gets there on their own, Billy,” Lucifer says, his normal tone of voice returning. He draws back from Billy, hooks his thumbs into the heavy lapels of the peacoat. “That’s not how it works.”
Billy considers this.
“Besides,” Lucifer says. “If you do this, you’ll have saved the world. I would hope that you could categorize whatever ancillary benefits might emerge as things you had earned.”
“Maybe,” Billy says. “But what exactly would I be doing? I still don’t get that part. How exactly would I be getting the thing from the dude?”
“Let’s get off the street,” Lucifer says. An expression of deep appetite spreads across his features. “Have you had breakfast? I know a place.”
They end up taking a quick cab to an Algerian creperie. They settle in on tufted ottomans and a lean man with the most impeccably groomed mustache Billy has ever seen brings them an octagonal tin samovar of what Billy can immediately tell is really good coffee. After his first sip, Lucifer begins speaking with more animation than Billy’s ever seen in him.
“Until Ollard dispels all the seals,” Lucifer says, “the Neko still, in some real sense, belongs to me. I can sense it. I can’t tell you exactly where it is, but I can tell you that it is likely underground.”
“Like buried?” Billy says.
“Not buried,” Lucifer says. “More like in a basement. So you won’t need to waste time going through the upper levels of the tower. You get in, you go down.”
“How am I even going to get in in the first place? If I were, in fact, to actually agree to go in.”
“What do you mean?” Lucifer says. “You’ve seen through the cloak. You go in through the door.”
“Okay, but, seriously, am I crazy to think that Ollard might just not, you know, be a hundred percent cool with me just walking in there and taking his cat?”
“My cat,” Lucifer says. “But no, he probably won’t be.”
“So what do I do? When he tries to stop me?”
Lucifer shrugs. “You fight him.”
“I fight him?”
“You fight him like the fate of the world depended on it.”
“You have the wrong guy,” Billy says. “I haven’t thrown a punch in, like, ever.”
“This might help,” Lucifer says. He reaches into the pocket of his coat and takes out a little cylinder of self-defense spray, which he slides across the table. It has a key ring on it.
“This?” Billy says. “Is it magical?”
“No,” Lucifer says.
“So, really? That’s the entire plan? Walk in the front door, pepper-spray Ollard, grab the cat and run?”
“Billy,” Lucifer says. “It is dangerous to overplan. Plans, by definition, are rigid, and it is to our advantage to remain as fluid as possible. Thus, as you said: you walk in the front door. You find the Neko. If you need to, you fight Ollard. If you encounter any difficulties, simply retreat, and you and I will make a new plan that accounts for whatever difficulty we have encountered. That is the plan. Simplicity, Billy. The great virtue of a simple plan is that it leaves one with fewer, far fewer, things to fuck up. You can do this. Now: eat.”
Billy’s savory lamb crepes hit the table, and he wolfs them down. They are the best thing he’s eaten in days, weeks maybe, and he feels a sudden swell of gratitude. He remembers Anil’s gag from the other night: a small, good thing in a time like this. But there’s something to that. Good food: that alone maybe makes the world worth saving. His mood picks up a little. Maybe the Devil is right; maybe he can do this. He stifles a belch with his napkin.
“Okay. Okay,” he says, in a very small voice. “I have to tell you, though: I’m scared. I saw that tower. It’s scary.”
“Well,” says Lucifer. He takes a sip of coffee. “It’s designed to look scary. It’s an illusion.”
“It’s a really fucking good illusion,” Billy says.
“Yes,” Lucifer says, “because Timothy Ollard is a really fucking good illusionist.”
Billy frowns, tries out an alternate wording, frowns again. He takes the tiny pepper-spray canister into his hand.
“You’re afraid,” Lucifer says, after watching this for a minute, “that Ollard is going to kill you.”
“Yes,” Billy says, a little relieved to have it out there, on the table.
“The You Getting Killed part,” Lucifer says. “You see? I remembered that.”
“Awesome?” Billy says.
“Ollard will not attempt to kill you. It’s a delicate time for him; while he works on the Neko he needs to lie as low as possible. Using magic to take a human life is — attention-getting. Disruptive. Sloppy.”
“But what if he doesn’t use magic? What if he uses, like, a shotgun?”
“Even sloppier,” Lucifer says.
“Sloppy but possible.”
“Not possible,” Lucifer says. “You have forgotten the details of our arrangement. You will be provided with a ward that will leave Ollard unable to harm you, by magical means or otherwise. Speaking of which.”
Lucifer downs the last of his coffee, and then reaches into the inside pocket of his peacoat and draws out a cigar tube.
“Here,” Lucifer says, unscrewing the end of the tube. He draws out the cigar and steers it firmly into Billy’s mouth. Billy sputters a bit around it, pulls it out and weighs it in his hand. It’s hefty, like something a billionaire might light with a bundle of money. It has no band or other identifying mark.
“You’ll want to smoke that,” Lucifer says, rising, using the edge of his hand to smooth the front of his shirt.
“What, why?” Billy says, looking from the cigar to Lucifer and back again.
“The ward requires a variety of herbs and other assorted components to be transmuted by fire, the ceremonial smoke entering the body of the individual to be warded. The traditional swinging thurible is a little conspicuous, as I’m sure you’d agree.”
“A giant cigar is conspicuous. It’s illegal for me to smoke that in a restaurant; maybe you didn’t get the memo.”
“This place has a back room we can use,” Lucifer says. “That’s part of why I wanted to come here.” He drops some bills on the table and calls to the proprietor: “Hadadj! Back room?”
“For you,” the lean man replies drily from the front counter, “anything.” He is punching numbers into a calculator. He does not look up.