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“When did the new conglomeration first become apparent?” I asked.

“Three months ago? So around December, I suppose.” Bolus sighed wearily. “There is even worse news. My contacts informed me that the archbishop of the Church was assassinated last night.”

I tried not to react, even though I wanted to correct him or at least make a hobbit joke. “Understood. And the Sons of the Crimson Gaze are responsible for said dissolution?”

“Disso... oh, yes. I believe so. Who else would do it?”

Who else would kill the leader of the Asmodeans? Let’s see, the Inquisition, the Knights Templar, the Assassins… shit, I would probably have an easier time listing people who
wouldn’t
want Paul Tallutto dead. Who actually did it might be significant or it might not. After all, Vassily got his start as an enforcer and had been known to perform the odd contract killing whenever it suited him. He was versatile like that.

“This unit has no present list of suspects. Who leads this new conglomeration?”

“I don’t know. They’re so new they haven’t reached out to any established groups. They only take from us. I know there is a man named Hollis Nguyen, a former deacon with the Order of the Morning Star who is now with the Sons. I don’t think he is the leader, though.”

I nodded. If these Sons of the Crimson Gaze were stealing people from the Satanists and Neil caught them at it, that gave me a motive. They would have every reason to destabilize the Church by hiring Vassily to kill Paul. Getting rid of Oana made decent sense, considering her connection to Neil. I couldn’t link them to Mina, and it was the one conspiracy in the world I couldn’t link to myself. It wasn’t quite adding up yet, thought it felt like Bolus had just handed me a big piece of the puzzle.

“We convey gratitude,” I said, standing up.

“You’ll look into it?”

“We already are,” I said, and fought a smile as Bolus looked the tiniest bit scared.

“Lester... uh, Templar Buckaroo, I had no idea you were, that is, if I ever offended you or made you do menial tasks, I apologize.”

“Sing sing said the bluebird.”

Bolus found a nice place between confused and frightened. VC and I left him in it, returning to the Caddy while keeping our eyes to ourselves. The Eldorado rumbled to life and smoothly moved into the street.

“Input destination,” VC said.

“Our Lady of Eternal Disappointment in Boyle Heights.”

VC hit the gas and returned to the freeway. If I needed background information on the Order of the Morning Star and I couldn’t go to the First Reformed Church of the Antichrist, there was one place to go. Only one group hated the Order as much as the Asmodeans, and that was the Inquisition.

They knew me as Michael Hagen, devout Catholic out of Boston. Mike had wanted to be a priest, but lacked the moral fiber and incisive mind to understand scripture. He was also plainly only into adult women, but I’d have to be pretty cynical to think that had anything to do with his failure. Anyway, though he had the lifelong loyalty drilled into him by Catholic school (and no, not like
that
), he didn’t find anything wrong with dirty tricks and shady errands, making him the perfect person to do little things. The Inquisition threw in confession so poor Michael Hagen’s soul would still get its eternal reward, and it was fine.

Even if I lived in constant fear someone would find out I was circumcised.

VC drove into South LA, making for the decaying inner-city neighborhood of Boyle Heights. The church was in better shape than most of the neighborhood, though the Vatican was smart to repress their crippling vanity enough to let the building be a little shabby.

VC pulled over by a crumbling section of curb, somehow maneuvering his giant boat of a car into a space that barely seemed big enough for a compact. The church was behind us now, visible through the dark tint on the Caddy’s windows, looking even dingier for it. VC went for the door handle, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm. His flesh felt unnatural, like gel with a thin rubber coating. “Hang on.”

VC obeyed, grabbing the wheel, his grayish knuckles turning white. I didn’t bother to correct him.

I was trying to decide how to play this. VC and I could go full Men in Black. Throughout history, the Vatican had dealings with black-clad strangers, showing up and acting weird. Most of those were before the powdered wig days, though. Somehow, the Church had managed to get even less tolerant of weirdos in that time.

I checked myself in the mirror again. I wished I still had the bandage. Look past the uniform and it was pretty obvious who I was. The trick would be to keep anyone from looking past it. Maybe I could play the actual government card. Claim to be from one of the alphabet agencies, flash something almost like a badge—assuming I had one—and get what I needed. Last I heard, Father Liam had retired to San Diego, so there might not even be anyone who would recognize me.

“Okay, here’s what we’re doing. When we go in, I’m going to say we’re Feds. You flash a badge... you have a badge, right?”

VC nodded and removed a wallet from his coat. “Hubba hubba.” He opened it up, and the badge, though it had no clearly identifiable shape as coming from a specific agency, nonetheless hit that part of the human brain that craved authority in the form of little hunks of metal.

“All right, I’m going to identify us, you flash that, and under no circumstances are you to speak. You stand there and don’t do anything. Got it?”

VC shot me a curt nod that made me think he was almost normal.

“Okay. Let’s do this.” I opened up the door. Even this far inland, with big buildings and palm trees shielding us, the wind slapped us around a little. I clamped the fedora down on my head, while VC strolled toward the church without a care in the world. Was his hat surgically attached or something? That was a line of thought I didn’t want to pursue, but it kept poking at me, like a kid kicking the back of my seat on a plane.

I composed myself at the door of the church, straightening the tie, checking the collar, brushing out the sleeves on the jacket. With a final nod to VC, I opened the door and stepped through the vestibule and into the sanctuary.

I saw the guns first. A whole bunch: little silvery pistols, big fat shotguns, an anorexic carbine, a few stubby assault rifles, boxy submachine guns, and all pointed at each other, like the finale of a John Woo movie.

In the sanctuary, seeded through the pews, two groups were stuck in a Mexican standoff.

On my right, agents of the Inquisition. I recognized a couple of them, and the priest collars solved that little mystery for those I didn’t. Beyond the collars, some looked like a typical priest in his casual suit, others wore the traditional robes, and I swear to God, one was the “vaya con dios” guy from
King of the Hill
.

On my left were the Knights of the Sacred Chao. And yes, that’s pronounced “cow,” and it means a single unit of chaos, which is the best way to describe their leader, Dame Ladysmith. She was not there, in my one stroke of luck. These guys looked like an escaped gang of carnies, old French whores, and Batman villains. Fitting, since they were a Discordian splinter group described by the other Discordian splinter groups as “the weird one.” That’s a hell of a thing when you worship the Greek goddess of chaos.

A few glanced over at the new arrivals. One by one, they became aware of the two men in black suits standing just inside the sanctuary, looking confused in one case and poker-faced in the other.

“Uh... well, you’re obviously all very busy, and this has nothing to do with my thing, so we’ll see each other out.”

“Steve?” asked Happy Hobart.

“Mike?” asked Father Liam.

All the guns turned to me.

MY HANDS SHOT UP TOWARD THE CEILING.
“Goddamnit!”

The Inquisitors cocked their weapons.

“I mean, gosh darn it?”

The weapons didn’t lower. Instead, Happy Hobart—so named because he wore a mask like those bright yellow Have a Nice Day buttons, stared at me. His eyes completely vanished in the shadows of the rubber mask, turning into little black pits. “What the hell are you doing here, Steve?”

Steve, that’s Steve Holt, and yes, that was intentional. To fit in with the Chaoists, you need to have an entertaining handle, and I lacked for creativity. So I took one that was already out there, and perfectly pitched to shout jubilantly while pumping one’s fists into the air. It had the desired effect, of course, since there isn’t a single Chaoist who hasn’t seen
Arrested Development,
and if you think its cancellation wasn’t a New World Order plot, you’re insane. I geared the bio toward the kind of low-level anarchy the Chaoists seemed to love. Lots of warnings, fines, and community service for petty acts of mildly amusing vandalism. My crowning achievement was a fake press release about the creation of euthanasia shelters for the city’s homeless.

“Mike? Why is he calling you Steve?” asked Father Liam.

Liam Fratelli had been my handler for my years of employment with the Inquisition. He was an all right sort, as members of the Inquisition went. I don’t think he was responsible for any heretic deaths, at least. Besides, they outsourced most of that these days. Guess he hadn’t retired after all. Seemed like a lot of that going around lately.

Happy Hobart, naturally, had been my handler for the Chaoists. Hell of a coincidence there, if you ask me..

“Well...” I started, trying to gather my thoughts into some kind of coherent lie. I glanced at VC to find he was doing exactly what I had asked him to do. He stood motionless and silent, acting like he had no idea an entire NRA convention’s worth of guns were pointing at us.

I carefully removed my shades, since they were doing nothing, folded them up and stuck them in the breast pocket of my shirt. I figured acting like it didn’t bother me was probably the best move, a turkey curse to get them into a less shooty mood.

“Am I really the problem here?” I asked. “I’m unarmed and I don’t really care why you two are pointing guns at each other. I stopped in for a little information, but I can wait until you’re done. If you want, I can even call 911 so you’ll have ambulances standing by.”

Happy Hobart didn’t sound very happy. “Why did he call you...”

“I think it’s more important to remember why all of you are pointing guns at one another. I’m sure it’s an excellent reason. Remember? You guys were just about ready to kill each other.”

The guns stayed right where they were.

“So, what were you all so mad about until I showed up?”

“Grilled cheese,” Happy Hobart growled.

I smiled and nearly laughed, since when an armed man makes a joke, it’s best to let him think it landed. No one else was laughing, and a couple of the priests on the other side of the room nodded grimly.

“Wait, what?”

“The Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese,” Gabe said.

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked, the last bit of hope I was capable of feeling in the intelligence of humanity dying by the side of the railroad tracks.

“Nope,” Happy Hobart said, jerking his head in the direction of the pulpit.

Right in front of the little lectern was a ceramic plate with a red napkin. On top was a wedge of grilled cheese sandwich with a bite taken out. If I got closer, I’d see a reasonably recognizable depiction of the face of an attractive woman in the burn patterns on the bread. Though the person who originally grilled this particular cheese took it to be a picture of Mary, a woman who, if real, was decidedly Middle Eastern in appearance, the woman on the bread looked distinctly Caucasian and pretty in a very 1940s way. I always thought she looked like Donna Reed. But no matter how much you love
It’s a Wonderful Life
, the Donna Reed Grilled Cheese wasn’t going to get credited with any miracles.

“And what do you want to do with it?”

“These psychopaths want to eat a holy relic!” Father Liam shouted, punctuating this by turning his pistol back on the Chaoists. The other Inquisitors followed suit.

“These wholly relics want to lock it up in some lucite,” Happy Hobart shouted back. I heard the pun, mostly because he threw a little emphasis on it, and Discordians really loved their word play. They also loved pointing guns at the Inquisition.

“This isn’t some kind of elaborate prank, is it? You aren’t messing with me?”

The two sides shook their heads and I nearly laughed. I had to admit, if they
were
messing with me, it was really good.

“Okay, so both of you want the Grilled Cheese. Seeing as we’re in a church and all, have you thought about cutting it in half?”

The guns swung back to point at me.

“Or not.”

The guns pointed to the other side.

I thought about what I was going to say very carefully. I thought about not saying anything at all and just trying to slink out like this was the tail end of a Michael Richards stand-up set. I thought about trying to solve this little dilemma. In my old job, I probably would have been the guy they called to get the Grilled Cheese to this place. And the guy who sold that secret to the other side, but only after they had asked me to find out and I spent a day or so farting around pretending to look. While it might have been tempting to angst that this was all my fault for leaving, the truth was that these dipshits could cut themselves on safety scissors.

“I need to ask everyone a few things, and it’s going to sound a little weird. Don’t freak out, okay?”

There were a few general noises of assent and nobody shot me.

“This little situation right here... I don’t suppose anyone saw a giant Russian mobster around? He didn’t set this up?”

The frowns and nonplussed murmurs said no.

“Let’s see. Romanian gymnast?”

It was a longshot, but I am a suspicious soul. I was pleased to see the answer was no.

“Satanists?”

“You mean other than them?” one of the priests said.