Tilt
“You can’t do that!”
I wasn’t sure who sounded less happy—Haures or Barbas. I was quite sure I really didn’t give a damn. “Do what?”
“What you just did!” Haures was clutching his head. Barbas-Jack was … what Barbas-Jack was doing was looking worried. Concerned. Or, to put it another way, terrified.
When someone tells you something can’t be done, and it’s something you just did, things are probably in a bad place. The looks on the faces of two Fallen Angels were saying we were there. Which just meant I had to work out who it was going to be bad for, and how it wasn’t going to be me. “What can’t I do?”
“Oh, god.” Haures looked up. “Oh. Right. Sorry—oh, God. My bloody head.”
“God, Haures? I begin to think there are things my Lord should know about you.” Apparently Barbas-Jack wasn’t too weak to raise an eyebrow. So he raised one. At me. “And I think that should relieve me of any … concern … regarding my Infernal reception when you kill me, mortal. So. If you wouldn’t mind getting on with it?”
Haures clutched his head. “And just how are you going to get there, Barbas?”
Barbas-Jack looked puzzled. “Get where, traitor?”
“Any-bloody-where! He broke the Rules!”
Barbas-Jack stopped raising eyebrows, and went back to looking worried. His brow furrowed, and a sullen red glow began to spread from him. It reached the walls of 350—and stopped. “What? It cannot be!” He tried to glare at me. The glare took one look, and gave up its seat to fear. “What have you done, mortal?”
“IT’S A RIGHT BUGGER, ISN’T IT?” The old man in the red overalls and a blinding white t-shirt wasn’t anyone I’d put behind a wall. That didn’t stop him walking through it. “OH. HELLO, JACK.”
Haures blanched. “Er … you’re … aren’t you?” He dropped to one knee.
Barbas-Jack laughed. “Fool. It is my Prince! He has come for—” He stopped. “Er—you are my Prince, are you not?” He dropped to one knee as well.
“YES.”
“Hah!” Haures and Barbas both laughed. Then they looked at each other. Then at the old man.
“But….”
“But….”
“YES.” The old man grinned. “LIKE I SAID. IT’S A RIGHT BUGGER.” The old man looked at me. “Look, do you mind if I don’t keep doing the whole ‘do you mind’ thing?”
I shrugged.
“YOU SEE—er—you see, they’re a little miffed with you, Jack.”
I shrugged again.
The old man grinned. “Mostly because you just destroyed the universe.”