Chapter Twenty Seven

Reverend Milton had another very successful evening. The miracles and healings resulted in so much profit he wished he would have incorporated stage magic into his sermons years ago.

Of course, that probably would have resulted in him being found out, and he wouldn’t have done as well. The semi-genuine article was probably best.

At any rate, he had made a hell of a lot of money in the last two weeks. The only reason he needed to keep going this season, really, was because he was booked in a few more places. As far as income was concerned, he was far enough in the black to need a fresh bottle of ink.

“So what’s our cut as divine bodyguards?” Scroat asked Cyrus after Grace had left to deposit the donations.

“My sincere thanks and a hearty handshake,” Cyrus said.

“Oh fuck. Do I really have to stay here for this?” Scroat asked Hep.

“Yes,” Hep said.

“Only if you want to get head again,” Sarah said.

“JOIN US!” Killer said.

“You all suck,” Scroat said.

The following morning, Reverend Milton, Grace and Nubbins left around six o’clock. Nubbins complained quite a bit about waking up so early. He didn’t actually mind, he just wanted to hassle Cyrus about something inane. He had to keep him distracted, after all, lest the Reverend come up with a bright idea.

Nubbins was glad the gods who had shown up to help Cyrus out weren’t a bit more scholarly. If, instead of following him around and swearing a lot, they had gone to the selection of Christian texts in the religion section of the local Library, they might have already had some bright ideas of their own. They might have shared those ideas with Cyrus, and Cyrus might have saved his soul. Since, as long as Cyrus was damned (and alive) Nubbins didn’t have to go back to Hell, Nubbins was very interested in making sure he stayed damned. This was also why, tempting as it was to just kill him and everyone in the vicinity, Nubbins let Cyrus keep living.

Meanwhile, he would continue to enjoy the food, liquor and smokes available to him here on Earth. He’d be damned if he was going to miss out on the few perks this assignment had.

Around eight o’clock in the morning, Hep, Scroat, Sarah and Killer left to follow Cyrus to his next stop. Breakfast had been a hurried affair, since they’d meant to leave around seven, not eight. Not that it was a big deal, really, they knew where he was headed so they’d catch him eventually.

Where he was headed, by the way, was Coalgate, Oklahoma. Scroat was, understandably, pissed off they were going to another no name town in the middle of nowhere.

“Fuck, these hicks are no fun at all,” Scroat said. “They’re not even fun to mess with.”

Hep said, “Where do you think people who’s only source of entertainment is church live? Hicks are his paying audience.”

Scroat grumbled a bit, then said “Couldn’t he have just made up a religion? One that appealed to people too smart for speaking in tongues, but too dumb to realize an organization that determines your holiness by how much you’ve spent is a scam?”

“No, I don’t think he was cynical enough to do that,” Hep said.

“Well, fuck, do I have to do everything?” Scroat said.

The ride to Coalgate, Oklahoma from Hope, Arkansas is dull. Really dull. The kind of dull ride that makes a pair of biker gods wish they could just go to sleep. The kind of dull that makes a biker god’s passenger wish she could go to sleep too. It’s the kind of dull ride that makes a biker god’s passenger’s parrot named Killer go to sleep on his wrought iron perch.

Nope, nothing of interest happened on that whole damned ride. No one even had to stop for a piss. That might have been interesting. One never knows what kind of weird shit one is going to encounter in a truck stop restroom, but it’s usually disturbing at best. Yep, that might have been interesting.

But it wasn’t. It was just boring. Boring Boring Boring.

I mean, fuck, I’m getting bored just writing about it.

Eventually, three hours and fifty some minutes later, if you want to be picky, they arrived in Coalgate.

Coalgate was supremely dull. With a name like Coalgate, one would expect a pair of gods to encounter some kind of gigantic, carbon creature bent on destroying them, or at least making them solve a difficult riddle. Or perform feats of strength, that’s always a good one when dealing with giants.

But no. There wasn’t even a scary McDonald’s to have a weird encounter with someone’s mean old grandma in.

Boring.

So horribly motherfucking shit-stoppingly boring.

Curiously enough, all the boredom one could avail himself or herself of was precisely what Reverend Cyrus Evander Milton, sometimes known as Joe Anderson, needed to come up with a brilliant plan to redeem himself.

He was sitting on the toilet in the supremely boring hotel room in this supremely boring stupid awful town when he had a delightfully simple, elegant, and hopefully effective revelation.

He could just give Judy the money back! He’d come up with a story about how God had given him a sign, and he knew she needed the money far more than he did. In fact, here was some extra money, just to make things extra nice for her. He could do all this as Reverend Cyrus Evander Milton, and when he got back home as Joe Anderson he wouldn’t have to feel bad about anything at all.

Fuck, it was brilliant. If he hadn’t been so distracted he would have thought of it right away, he told himself.

If there was only a way he could distract Nubbins so he could take care of it before the little shit interfered and something extra rotten happened to Judy.


Nubbins was also bored. The hotel Cyrus had picked (really, Grace had picked it, but who was keeping track?) was ill-equipped in the way of entertainment. There wasn’t even a mini-bar for him to get into. Liquor was hard to find in Hell, so along with cigarettes, pizza, french fries and strip clubs, Nubbins wanted to get as much liquor in him as he could before he had to go back to the pit.

Speaking of strip clubs, by the way, Nubbins was pretty annoyed they hadn’t been to any yet. The only reason he hadn’t forced the Rev to bring him to see some titties was because Cyrus had made the very good point that some of his congregation might see him. Ordinarily, Nubbins would have told Cyrus his congregation could take a flying fuck at a rolling donut and they were going to see tits and ass or Cyrus was going to grow a pair of his own. Unfortunately, Nubbins had had the idea about eventually letting the congregation “discover” a demon had been behind all the miracles which would simultaneously ruin the Reverend and give the faithful a royal mind-fucking.

Which would be pretty neat.

Alas, it meant he had to wait until the off-season to see some boobs. He could have dealt with this if there was some liquor to be had, or some pay per view porn to put on the Reverend’s tab, but no. They were stuck in this boring shithole with no porn, no booze, not even a goddamn McDonald’s.


Hep and Scroat went over to Cyrus’s hotel room around four in the afternoon. Sarah stayed in the hotel with Killer, since Nubbins got so worked up when Nubbins was around.

They decided to go and have dinner at the one restaurant that had looked remotely interesting, the Old Koaly Cafe. The food was reasonably OK. They had french fries and Coke, so Nubbins was reasonably content. While the little demon was paying attention to his fries, Cyrus discretely passed a note to Hep.

“I need a way to really distract him for a few minutes,” the note read. Hep read it, crumpled it up and stuffed it in his pocket. He nodded at Cyrus, and went back to eating.

When they got back to the hotel Cyrus was staying in, Hep and Scroat said they were going to head back to their own hotel for the night.

“We’ll swing by tomorrow and see what we can do for some entertainment,” Hep said, and winked at Cyrus.