Joey laughed, and waved his gun languidly at the two of them. His hand seemed oddly far away.

“You were an addict?”

“Still am, son,” the priest said gravely. “Will be until the day I die. It’s just a disease, and no shame in it. You just need to get right with yourself and the Lord. You know, God takes care of his own. If you just let Him.”

“It’s not like I’m hooked or anything,” Joey said. “I just need them, you know? I mean it’s not like I take ’em for fun. It’s just… if I don’t… I just gotta get through the day. I just gotta show the guys I’m not… shit, I’m not making sense.”

“Yes, you are, son. You most certainly are.”

Joey nodded. The priest seemed like he was the center of the world. Everything else was narrowing around the thick, pasty face with its calm, accepting expression. Tears filled Joey’s eyes. The little kitchen was swimming.

All the weeks of being laughed at, the shame of his cravings, the nightmares of watching arrows piercing his guys, of being the only one left while his friends died around him-it all bubbled up at once. He lost track of where he was, where the floor was, whether he was standing up.

“Father,” he choked out as the darkness and sorrow enfolded him, “I think I’ve got a problem.”

Father Henry stood over the collapsed thug who lay snoring gently on the floor. The relief mixed pleasantly with what he imagined was a somewhat prideful smugness at Gina’s open-mouthed wonder.

“Now you let that be a lesson to you,” he said. “Always read the warning labels when you get a prescription. Lot of times you mix alcohol with ’em, it’s a very bad idea.”

“Damn,” Gina said. “I mean that’s… pathetic.”

“Well now, give him a little benefit. He didn’t know no better. Gina, if… well now, if you’re going to be going, I think you might best be at it. This fine young man is only going to be asleep for so long.”

The girl looked at him, nodded, and picked the duffel from the table. She hesitated for a moment, then leaned over and kissed him briefly on the lips.

“Thank you,” she said, and was gone up the stairs.

Father Henry sighed and slowly dragged the unconscious thug to the cot, rolled him onto it and covered him with the blanket Gina had been using. It was odd the way God put things together and took them apart. But then he supposed that was what they meant by ineffable. The question of what to do with his new ward, now, was an interesting problem. He didn’t imagine there was a Hired Thugs Anonymous, but given his last few days, he wasn’t going to rule it out either.

When he lumbered up the stairs, he was surprised to find Gina sitting in the front pew, her head in her hands.

“He’s here,” she said. “Out on the street.”

“Who’s here?”

“Demise,” she said, and it came out like she was already dead. “And the other one’s out back. I’m fucked.”

She dropped the duffel bag and sat on the front pew, her head in her hands. She was weeping.

“Now you just tough back up there, miss,” Father Henry said. “It’s like I told you. You accepted the protection of the church, and that means me. I took care of things with that last gentleman, and I’ll take care of his one too.”

“Don’t be a shithead. That guy was some pill-popping dumbfuck. Demise is an ace.”

“Watch your language,” he said, picking up the bag and stowing it back behind the pulpit. “You go downstairs and wash yourself up. I’ll find us a way to settle this thing out.”

She looked up at him with a mixture of hope and disbelief on her face. He only raised his eyebrows-one of the expressions he’d practiced, so he had a pretty clear idea how it looked on him-and pointed to the stairs. She didn’t have much faith in him; that was clear enough from the way she moved. She went, though.

Once she was gone, Father Henry rolled up his sleeves and rubbed his hands together. “Quasi! Come over here, boy. I need to talk with you. Who exactly is this Demise fella?”

Demise stood in a doorway across the street from the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, where he could watch the front doors and the side. Phan was somewhere on the other side, keeping an eye on the other side and the back. The whore hadn’t come out, though he’d seen her poke her head out the door once. It didn’t seem likely that she’d actually stashed the shit in the church, but the longer she stayed in there, the more he was willing to consider it.

The snow was changing to sleet, freezing where it struck. He checked his watch. Fifteen more minutes, he figured, and they’d have to go in after her. He wondered how Danny Mao and the other bosses of Shadow Fist would feel about killing people in a church.

“Mr. Spector?” a distant voice shouted over the noise of traffic.

He looked up. A short, pear-shaped man with a clerical collar stood before the doors of the cathedral, waving over at him with a goofy grin. Demise tilted his head. “Now what the fuck is this?” he muttered.

“No call to be shy now, sir,” the pear-shaped priest shouted, a thick southern accent drawing out his words. “Come on over and let’s talk this here thing out.”

He hesitated for a minute, but then stepped out across the street, dodging cars, until he reached the opposite sidewalk. “Who the fuck are you?” he called.

“Father Henry Obst,” the priest said, beaming. “Lately of Selma. I’m taking over for Father Squid for a mite while he’s traveling the world. Come along inside now, sir. We’ve got a little matter of business to discuss, I think.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Rumor has you’re a hired killer for some sort of Asian mob,” the priest said pleasantly.

“Well. Yeah,” Demise said. “Where’s the whore?”

“Oh, she’s in here,” the priest said. “I think we can get this whole thing taken care of to everybody’s satisfaction. Come on along, now sir. No reason to do this out in the weather.”

The priest turned and trundled back into the cathedral. Demise stood looking at the open door, then, shaking his head walked up and entered the church. The space was bigger than he’d remembered, and almost empty. The twisted, two-headed Christ impaled upon a double-helix cross seemed to writhe as Demise walked down the aisle, his footsteps echoing. The scent of car exhaust and snow mixed with ghost-faint incense.

The whore was there, sitting in the first pew with her head bowed. The little priest was still smiling and leaning against the altar rail.

“Now then, sir,” the priest said. “I understand there was something you were looking for.”

“The bitch stole something,” Demise said. “I’ve come to collect it.”

“Well now, you see that’s the issue that we need to look at, you and me. The drugs and the money-I presume that’s what you had in mind? Yes, well, they are no longer in this fine young woman’s care. I’ve taken them myself in the name of the church.”

“Okay,” Demise said. “So I should kill you instead?”

“It’s one of life’s little ironies that you and I should be the ones having this conversation,” the priest said, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking out over the pews. His round, puffy face had taken on a philosophical cast that looked like he’d rehearsed it in the mirror. “The virus has given me the ability to recreate Our Lord’s first miracle from the marriage at Cana, and you his final one in rising from his tomb. We represent the alpha and the omega, you and I. Not that it’s done either of us much good. I have a sermon I’ll be delivering on the subject come Sunday. You should come hear it.”

“Whatever,” Demise said. “How about we get back to business. Give me the shit and I’ll walk out of here. Nobody gets killed.”

“You forget sir that you are in the house of the Lord. You have no power here.”

Demise laughed, a little disbelieving cough, and locked his eyes into the watery blue of the priest’s. Father Henry met his gaze placidly. Demise pressed the pain along where the channel should have been, but nothing happened. He could see the priest considering him, could look into the black of the little man’s eyes, but there was no connection, no lock.