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in one hand, his lighter in the other. “What happened? Oh God…okay, I’m calling 911!” He scrambled back inside, fighting his way through the window.
    Caleb spared a moment to smile at his fallen brother. “Well, what do you know?”
    “Hallelujah,” the demon said, his scarred mouth twisted in a scowl. “Oh well.” He took his own cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with an old-fashioned metal lighter with a cartoon devil painted on the side. “I can wait.” He exhaled a cloud of stinking smoke. “It’s not like I don’t have the time.”
    The mortal stuck his head back out the window. “They’re on their way,” he shouted. “I’ll be right down. I know CPR.”
    “You’re saved,” Lucifer said. “Or she is, anyway.” He took a long drag from his cigarette and grinned. “For now.”
    “She can repent,” Caleb pointed out. “She can still escape you.”
    “And that seems so very likely with her living on the streets.” He exhaled his smoke over the woman’s face, grinning again at Caleb’s scowl. “You’re falling, brother. No good deed goes unpunished, remember? You start out trying to help, and the next thing you know, you’re damning yourself and taking all your pets down with you.” He stepped back as the mortal came running out of the building and fell to his knees beside the angel to help. “See you soon.”
    “How did you find her?” the mortal said, taking over the compressions. “Do you know her?”
    “No,” Caleb said as Lucifer walked away. “Yes.” He turned back to the mortal. “I know her. She’s my aunt.” The demon was right; even if the doctors could save this woman, she would have no real reason to repent. “It was so cold last night I came looking for her.” The mortal was watching him as if he weren’t quite sure he believed him. Caleb breathed into the woman’s mouth again, and the man started the next set of compressions. In the distance, he could hear the ambulance. “I hope I’m not too late.”
    “No,” the mortal said, smiling at him, his eyes full of trust. “I promise she’s going to be fine.”

Chapter Five – Detective Lucas Black
     
    Laura knew she was dreaming. She was standing in the middle of a sandy dirt road in the country that wound up a steep, grassy hill. All along the road were live oak trees hung heavily with Spanish moss—the trees of home. The sun was shining overhead, making the road look gold.
    Just ahead of her and to the left was a shaded clearing in the trees. It was a roadside park, just one concrete picnic table with a pair of broken concrete benches and a rusted fifty-gallon drum for trash. Her mama’s wood-paneled station wagon from the Seventies was parked there with the back hatch standing open. Drawing closer, she saw her mama’s daisy-printed tablecloth spread over the table. As she stepped off the road, she saw her mama straighten up from the back of the car, holding a lemon meringue pie. A platter of fried chicken and a big bowl of potato salad were already set out on the table.
    “There you are,” Mama said, smiling at her. “Get that cooler of drinks out, would you, honey? I’m about to thirst to death.”
    “Where are we?” Laura said, surprised to hear herself sound so perfectly normal. Mama looked beautiful. Her hair was piled up on her head the way she’d always worn it in summer, pinned up with a tortoiseshell clip. “What are we doing here?” She looked down at herself and saw she was wearing a church dress and stockings, the kind of dress-up clothes she hadn’t worn since she and Jake had left Savannah.
    “Having a picnic, of course,” Mama said, ripping open a package of paper plates. “Isn’t it a nice day for it?” She was dressed up, too, in a lavender floral print dress with a lace-edged collar, Laura’s favorite when she was a child.
    “It is.” She knew it was a dream, that none of it was real, but she still felt like crying. She could smell the pie and the warm wind