“Of course not.”
“Then I won’t be reassured.”
Azzie said testily, “When you’re alive, nothing can reassure you. I’m just telling you this now. It’s only when you’re dead you can appreciate it.”
They walked on. After a ways more, Scrivener said, “You know, I can’t remember a thing about my life back on Earth.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll all come back to you.”
“I think I was married, though.”
“Fine.”
“But I’m not sure.”
“It’ll all come back to you as soon as you are back in your body.”
“What if it doesn’t? What if I’ve got amnesia?”
“You’ll be fine,” Azzie said.
“Do you swear that on your honor as a demon?”
“Certainly,” Azzie said, lying with ease. He had taken a special course in forswearing and had proven adept at it.
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
“Hey, trust me,” Azzie said, using the master mantra that makes docile even the most suspicious and bellicose.
“You can understand why I’d be a little nervous,” Scrivener said. “Being born again, I mean.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Azzie said. “Here we are.
“Thank Satan,” he added under his breath. Talking long with humans made him nervous. They went around subjects so! The Demon Fathers had offered a survey course in Human Tergiversation at Demon U, but it was an elective and he hadn’t bothered to take it. False Dialectic had seemed more interesting at the time.
Up ahead he saw the familiar scarlet and chartreuse stripes of the North Pit ambulance. The ambulance stopped a few yards away and a medical demon got out. He was an obelisk-eyed pig-snouted fellow and very different from Azzie, who was a fox-faced demon with red hair, pointed ears, and startling blue eyes, accounted quite handsome by those who have a taste for demons.
“Is this the fellow?”
“This is him,” Azzie said.
“Before you do anything,” Scrivener said, “I just want to know – ”
The pig-snouted medical demon reached out and touched a spot on Scrivener’s forehead. Scrivener stopped talking and his eyes went unfocused.
“What did you do?” Azzie asked.
“Put him on idle,” the medical demon said. “Now it’s time to ship him.”
Azzie hoped Scrivener would be all right: it’s never good news when a demon messes with your head.
“How do you know where to send him?” Azzie asked.
The medical demon opened Scrivener’s shirt and showed Azzie the name and address tattooed on his chest in purple ink.
“It’s the devil’s identification mark,” the medical demon said.
“You’ll take that off before you send him back?”
“Don’t worry, he can’t see it. That’s for us to read. You going along with him?”
“I’ll get there on my own,” Azzie said. “Let me just see that address again. Okay, I got it.
“See you later, Tom,” he said to the blank-eyed man.
Chapter 3
And so Thomas Scrivener was returned to his home. Luckily the medical demon had been able to get him back before irreparable damage had been done to his body. The doctor who had bought it had been about to start an incision in the neck to trace out the arterial system for his students. Before he could begin, Scrivener opened his eyes. “Good morning, Dr. Moreau,” he said, and then fainted.
Moreau proclaimed him alive and demanded a refund from his widow.
She paid it grudgingly. Her marriage to Scrivener hadn’t been particularly successful.
Azzie had traveled to Earth by his own means, not wanting to go with Scrivener in the Vehicle of the Undead, whose rotting smells were a trial even for supernatural beings. He arrived just after Scrivener’s resuscitation. No one could see him since he wore the Amulet of Invisibility.
Invisibly, except to those with the second sight, Azzie followed the procession that carried Scrivener back to his home. The good people of the village, rustics all, proclaimed it a miracle. But Scrivener’s wife, Milaud, kept on muttering, “I knew he was faking it, the wretch!”
Shielded by his invisibility, Azzie drifted around Scrivener’s house, where he would live until Scrivener was past the claims period. Probably a matter of a few days. It was a fair-sized house, several rooms on each floor, and a nice dank basement.