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Chapter 15

Lucifer's new lieutenant, Garafanal, stood at his lord's left hand in the throne room, after the last of the newly damned were led out and sent to their stations. Lucifer sensed that some new envy ate at Garafanal, but he couldn't quite guess what.

He turned to the fallen angel, who stood stiffly, staring straight ahead, and said, "All day there has been something you've wanted to say to me. All day. It's impinged on your performance. Yet you haven't said anything to me."

Garafanal nodded. "I doubted that you would care to hear my concerns."

"You're probably right. Nevertheless, tell them to me."

"I wonder at Scumslag's ability to run the North Carolina mission."

"Do you?" Lucifer tapped on the armrest of his red-lacquered seat with long, pointed talons. "And why is that?"

"He's only a devil, Your Loathsomeness."

"I noticed."

"I mean, even if he is a Devil First Class, how could he possibly be as competent as one of the Fallen?"

"Bucking for a trip upstairs?" Lucifer asked.

"Me? To Earth? No, O Mighty Foulness. I never want to leave your presence. I'm just concerned that the mission be successful."

Lucifer laughed. "You don't know anything about Scumslag, do you?"

"Not really."

Lucifer leaned back. "We got him after he died of old age. He was a businessman in a small town—at one time had a wife and three kids. He murdered his wife after her obstetrician told her she couldn't have any more children, then systematically began abusing and molesting the kids. When his oldest, a boy, turned eleven, he threw him down the stairs and killed him because he threatened to tell. The other two shut up. Neither of them ever came forward. The middle child, a girl, ran away when she was thirteen, became a prostitute in Richmond, Virginia, and died of a drug overdose at fifteen. The youngest boy also ran away, but he found help. I'd hoped he would turn out like his father, but he's been such a disappointment."

Garafanal shrugged "I could pick out fifteen thousand damnedsouls with stories just like his."

"Could you?" Lucifer smiled. "With his youngest son gone, this man started collecting young boys, runaways mostly, but the occasional child from the town. He molested, tortured and murdered the boys and buried them in the backyard. The family who bought the house and lives there now has no idea. They're considering putting in a garden next spring, though—I'm looking forward to their first crop." Lucifer chuckled.

"Fine. He was evil—"

"Evilness Index of nine hundred sixty. One of the highest we've ever received."

Garafanal stubbornly kept going. "—But surely one of the Fallen would be better in the administrative role in which you've placed him."

"He has an MBA. He built up his own business from nothing. And even more importantly, he spent his entire life mixing with the people of the small town where he lived his whole life. He was a Jaycee and later a Shriner; he raised money for the Children's Christmas Fund; he belonged to the country club and lived in a good neighborhood and drove a nice car. No one ever suspected him of anything. He knows the rules of the game they play up there better than anyone." Lucifer rested a hand on Garafanal's shoulder and smiled down at him. "The Fallen lack that sort of practical Earthside experience. You're theoreticians, and I've had evidence that your theories don't always hold up terribly well in practice."

"Agonostis was weak."

"Agonostis held the job you now hold for millennia. He wasn't weak. He simply wasn't right for the job. I've learned," Lucifer said, letting go of Garafanal's shoulder, and noticing absently the charred handprint he left behind, "that I must set a thief to catch a thief."

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