“Besides, when not hard at work with this research, I'm actually conducting a side experiment on how cigarettes and gin increase charisma. As you might guess, the results are looking very promising.”

“What's that?" he asked, when I stood beside him again."Halos," I said with a grin. "For heavenly creatures like us.""That might be a stretch.”

“We've had to deal with so many complications. We're still dealing with them. And what can we do? Nothing - well, unless we take your side's point of view and make deals with the devil. But why? Why can't we make deals with God? People do all the time. 'God, if you do this for me, I promise to be good.' Stuff like that.Yeah, but I don't see any contracts like you guys have. No hard evidence that it works. How come we can only get things we want by being bad? Why can't we get them by being good?”

“I knew you were a badass," continued Adrian. "But I didn't realize just how much until I saw you dropping guardians out there.""Does that mean you're going to be nicer to me?" I teased."I'm already nice to you," he said loftily. "Do you know how badly I want a cigarette right now? But no. I manfully suffer through nicotine withdrawal—all for you.”

“John Cusack is standing over there.”I followed his incredulous gaze to where a man very like Mr. Cusack did indeed stand, smoking a cigarette as he leaned against a building. I sighed.“That’s not John Cusack. That’s Jerome.”“Seriously?”“Yup. I told you he looked like John Cusack.”“Keyword: looked. That guy doesn’t look like him. That guy is him.”

“I'm sure. But it doesn't work with me. for one thing, you won't look me in the eye. As for the other...I don't know. I can just tell.”

“I'm not going to give you a hard time. I'm just going to love you whether you want me to or not.”