“Which is what?” I asked.
Hildegard got a very prim look at her face. “I don’t believe there’s any need to get into that subject. It wouldn’t be proper for me to talk about it.”
Greyboar was back to scratching his head. “I think I see where you’re going. We have to descend to the netherworld, somehow—”
“Goodness, no!” gasped Hildegard, clutching her throat. “Why, the very idea! My good man, I am the Abbess of the Sisters of Tranquility! It’s a shocking idea, positively shocking! You should be ashamed of yourself! A devout woman like myself, consorting with devils and demons. Shocking!”
“But then, how are—”
“We shall summon the fallen angel here, of course!” exclaimed Hildegard. “It’s the only proper way to proceed.”
Like I said, it was impossible to follow the woman’s logic. Just keep foot soldiering. Greyboar apparently felt the same way.
“Fine, fine,” he said hurriedly. “No problem—we’ll bring the character up here. I assume you know how to do that? I certainly don’t.” Seeing the frown gathering on Hildegard’s brow, he hastened on: “Yeah, yeah, of course you know how to do it! After all, you are the Abbess of the Sisters of Tranquility! So, anyway, the idea is you haul the bum up here and I choke the answer out of him.”
The strangler looked down at his huge hands. Cracked his knuckles. The snarl raised her head, gave him a speculative look—sort of, Hmmm, this guy might make for an interesting little set-to, not like those squealing soldiers what just jump into your maw like rabbits.
“I’ve never tried to put the squeeze on a fallen angel,” mused Greyboar. “What the hell, why not? It’ll be an interesting challenge.”
Hildegard had that look on her face again. The one I was beginning to detest heartily. The one that expressed the idea: How does this guy manage to feed himself, anyway, with a brain like a cabbage?
“My dear man,” she explained in that patient tone, “how in the world do you propose to strangle an angel? Didn’t I just get through explaining that an angel is nothing but a figment of the Old Geister’s imagination? They’re utterly immaterial, angels are—fallen or not.”
Greyboar threw up his hands with exasperation. “Then what am I doing here? I’m a damned strangler, not a theologian! I do manual labor, lady, I’m not a philosopher!”
I couldn’t help it—I giggled. Greyboar glared at me.
“Well, of course you’re a strangler, my dear man. That’s why I engaged your services. I’m not one of those silly people who thinks they can substitute their amateur fumbling for the trained skills of a craftsman. In fact, for the task in front of me, I not only need a professional, I need the best in the field. It won’t be easy, I can assure you. If I may be so immodest, I believe you’ll find this the most difficult choke in your career.”
“Is that right?” demanded Greyboar. He’s normally quite cool-headed, the big guy is, but I could tell the Abbess was starting to get his goat. “So who am I supposed to strangle?”
“Why—me, of course,” replied Hildegard. “Who else?”
* * *
At that point, my brain went on strike. Total walkout, picket lines up, the whole shot. Greyboar gaped.
Of course, Hildegard just kept chugging along with her lesson in Remedial Theology.
“Since they’re immaterial figments of the Old Geister’s imagination,” she explained, “the only way you can force an angel—fallen or risen, by the way, the principle’s the same, it’s just that you can’t summon a risen angel down to earth—to do anything is to squeeze their spirit. And the way you do that is by demonstrating your utter indifference to their existence. Hate that, angels. It tortures them no end, the idea that someone not only isn’t overawed by their presence but would just as soon die to get away from them. It’s an ancient trick, first perfected by the swamis of the Sundjhab. Great austerities. Does it every time.”
She pursed her lips. “Of course, the trick’s gotten more difficult over the millennia. In the old days, you could coerce a fallen angel just by practicing the traditional austerities: fasting, scourging, suchlike. But I’m afraid that just won’t do, anymore. The Old Geister’s gotten tougher as time goes by. Like old Shoe Leather, He is now. His angels just laugh at fasting, today. Scourging will still make them wince, of course. But to force a fallen angel to cough up the score of the Harmony of the Spheres, well, for that I’ll need to practice a truly great austerity. I considered the problem at some length, let me tell you, trying to figure out what would be the greatest austerity I could come up with. And then—like a bolt out of the blue!—it came to me: I’ll have myself strangled by the world’s greatest chokester. If that doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.”