Billy sighs with annoyance because it turns out this motherfucker is crazy after all. He’d really hoped he was going to make it through the day without having to stab a dude.
CHAPTER TWO
TOUCHED IN THE HEAD
THE SAFETY MANAGER • CULTURAL NORMS AND WHEN TO IGNORE THEM • IMAGINARY COPS • THE CONCEPT OF A LIGHT SWITCH • INTIMACY AND CONSENT • LUCIFER’S PREFERRED MEDIUM • NOVELS VS. SHORT STORIES • EARNING IT • A LEAK AND TWO ASPIRIN
But he doesn’t reach for the knives, not actually just quite yet thanks, even though his optimism about the situation has just sustained a major hit. There’s still got to be a route to resolution here. A plausible reason why this guy is in this room, saying these things.
“Lucifer Morningstar?” Billy asks. “What is that, your World of Warcraft name?”
“William,” Lucifer says, and then he gives up a small, patient smile, the kind of patient smile that primarily communicates just how tolerant its bearer is being.
“Just Billy,” Billy says. “Please.”
“Billy, then. No, Billy, Lucifer Morningstar is my true and given name.”
“That’s rough,” Billy says. “Hippie parents?”
“Not exactly.”
Billy picks up his cup of coffee and begins to step around the counter, heading closer to the guy. What are you doing? says the cautious part of his brain, the part Billy thinks of as the Safety Manager. Don’t get closer to this guy. He’s a nutjob.
Let’s just see, says some other part of him, the part that Billy sometimes, in retrospect, calls the Well-Meaning Idiot. It’s stupid, this part says, to maintain, like, a twenty-foot distance between you and someone you’re talking to.
That’s a cultural norm! says the Safety Manager. You get to ignore cultural norms when some stranger shows up in your apartment! They’re already violated!
But by then it’s too late. He’s sitting in the armchair across from Lucifer. He reaches out to the coffee table, uses the back of his hand to push some garbage aside, making a space for his mug. He still feels pretty certain that he’s not in real physical danger.
“Sorry about the mess,” Billy says, holding both his palms up, beseechingly. “I’ve been busy.”
“That makes perfect sense,” says Lucifer. Billy feels a little flattered by this. Lucifer nods at the business card he placed on the table earlier, wedged between a heap of bills and a tangle of charging cords. The gilded edge catches Billy’s eye, and he picks it up. Sure enough, it says “Lucifer Morningstar” on it, in a nice serif font. Underneath that it says “Comprehensive Consulting.” There’s no number or anything. Billy thinks about pocketing it before remembering that there’s no good reason why he needs to be polite to this guy. Maybe playing it tough is the way to go. He flips the card back onto the table, leans back in the chair, crosses his arms, and puts on a face that’s intended to say something like You ain’t shit to me. Lucifer regards it placidly.
“Billy,” he begins. “I wish to communicate something to you directly. Our time is limited, so it is important for me to be frank here at the outset. I am a supernatural force. I have existed since time immemorial. I am what you would colloquially call the Devil.”
This gives Billy a significant dose of pause. He lifts the coffee and gulps down a strong bolt of it, as if that will help.
“So—wait,” Billy says. “What you’re saying is …” He frowns. He’s not really sure what else Lucifer Morningstar might be saying.
“What I’m saying,” Lucifer says, “is exactly what I have said. There is no misunderstanding.”
Billy, suffering a jolt of alarm, looks this guy straight in the face. Lucifer meets his stare and holds it, which does nothing to help him relax, so he looks away, electing to stare, instead, at the rim of his coffee mug.
“Yeahhhh,” he says eventually. “But … you get that that’s not a normal thing to say, right? I mean—I’m not a, what would you call it, a religious man. I don’t believe in the Devil. So, what I’m saying is that you’re kinda freaking me out here. I mean, if we’re being frank, I’m, like, half a second away from picking up the phone and calling 911, reporting this as a home invasion, and getting on with my day.”
Lucifer nods in a way that confers a certain sad understanding. “You are welcome to do that,” he says, “but I guarantee it will not advance this conversation in a fruitful way.”
For a minute, Billy thinks about doing it. But then he imagines having to deal with the NYPD. His past run-ins with them have never exactly elicited a high level of what you might call customer satisfaction. He imagines having to go through the process of hiding all the drug paraphernalia on the coffee table, imagines the long statement he’d have to give to some asshole force veteran.