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outer circle of Hell, which was well stocked with overproof rum and fine Cuban cigars – the demon had developed a taste for the latter during his Capone years, and for the former when he was attached to the scourge of the Spanish Main.
      "Let's," said Chesney. Instantly he was no longer in his apartment, but in a warm, comfortable and spacious room whose thick stone walls, oak-beamed ceiling and plush carpeting kept out the howl of the ice-charged winds that blew foul, stinking air in a ceaseless gale through Hell's outermost region. Xaphan used the stopover to recharge his tumbler of rum and immediately drain it. Then the room was gone and Chesney was in the park, near the bench where he was to meet his girlfriend.
      "Girlfriend," he whispered to himself. Saying it was almost as good as being called 'sweetie.'
      "She's comin," said the demon. "I'm just gonna fade you in."
      To avoid startling the citizenry, they had arrived invisible, as Xaphan would remain. The demon looked around, saw a teenager on the very edge of the riverbank. The kid was trying to impress his girl by holding out a fragment of bread and encouraging a floating Canada goose to take it from his hand. The fiend made a slight motion of its own stubby fingers, and now the goose lunged upward, caught both the bread and the youth's fingertips in its beak and turned its neck into an ess-shape as it yanked down hard. The teenager, pulled toward the water, tried to keep his footing, knees bent, free arm windmilling. His girl grabbed the flailing limb, but she was too late to pull him back. Instead, he grabbed her wrist and they both toppled into the shallows, where the goose beat its wings at them and honked in outrage.
      Every eye in the park turned toward the disturbance. "Okay," said the demon, "fadin' you in now."
      Chesney became visible as he sat down on the bench. Nobody noticed. "See you at midnight," he said, but his assistant was already just a whiff of sulfur dissipating in the late spring air. He relaxed against the horizontal wooden slats of the bench's backrest. He looked in the direction that Melda would be coming from, and there she was: just passing the basketball court, where the usual gang of young toughs were passing the ball back and forth and offering salacious invitations to the women, usually in pairs, who walked or jogged by.
      One of the teenagers said something to Melda – or tried to; he got no farther than "Hey, chica–" before one of the others clamped a hand over the speaker's mouth and spoke rapidly and quietly into his ear. The silenced youth's eyes widened, his friend released him, and they all turned their attention to dribbling and passing the basketball.
      Chesney had watched the business. He put it into the context of what Xaphan had told him about crime rates falling. The same gang of thugs had surrounded Melda McCann as she'd walked home from work three weeks before, their intent the theft of her purse. Instead, from out of the darkness, the Actionary had appeared amid a clap of thunder and a flash as bright as lightning to bang heads together and send the muggers fleeing.
      It would have been a perfect moment, if Melda hadn't taken him for yet another threat and pepper-sprayed his eyes and nose. But, fortunately, they had gotten past that, and past the much worse things that had ensued when they'd all gone to Hell, and now Melda McCann was one of only three people – Chesney's mother and the Reverend Billy Lee were the others – who knew that he was the crimefighting Actionary.
      She arrived carrying a large plastic cooler hung from a strap over her shoulder. Chesney knew that she was slight of stature but surprisingly strong. He stood and took the cooler from her, set it on the bench, then craned his neck down to kiss her upturned lips.
      "Hi, sweetie," she said.
      "Hi, yourself."
      "You still upset about the rev?"
      "Not now," he said. He drew her down to the bench and they