Invasion from Uranus Read Online Free PDF Page B

sure, whatever ya want. Sounds great."
    "Good. I'll meet you for breakfast tomorrow. Night."
    I hung up on his gushing thanks and went to ravage my ham on rye and that precious, wonderful coffee. This was the smartest move I had ever done. Dry cleaners, it was brilliant. We'd specialize in removing blood stains from silk, with low-low prices, and I would track down every demon in the city, hell in the state! Blow their brains out with silver bullets and steal their horde of cash. A sweet deal.
    Then the universe seemed to constrict around me as a great and terrible thought occurred and I felt cold in the pit of my stomach. If there were actual demons, then there must be a Hell that they came from. Which logically meant Satan must be real, and that dictated the existence of God. Holy crap! Suddenly, every pissant misdemeanor and capital crime I had ever committed paraded through my mind and the weight of my sins was truly staggering. I'd never made a tally before, and even I was impressed. No doubt about it, if there was a God in heaven, then I was going straight to Hell. Unacceptable. From everything I had ever read, seen or heard about The Abyss, the evil were chained in lakes of fire.
    There was the magic word, chained. Shackled, trapped, wearing a collar like an animal. This time my body shuddered so hard that I dropped my fork. In this life I had vowed to die rather than go to jail, so I sure as shit wasn't going to do it in the afterlife. Because that's all Hell was, the biggest, baddest jail in the infinite cosmos.
    Adding more sugar to my coffee, I started to take a sip, paused, then quickly muttered grace first. Or as close to the words as I could get. Sunday school was a million years ago, in another lifetime.
    But once I had been an altar boy, so okay, it was time to reform. I'd keep the dry cleaner idea, but after killing a demon, I wouldn't steal the cash. No, I would, but I wouldn't keep any, every penny would go to charity, the homeless, and starving kids, blind orphans, jazz like that. God loved good deeds. Praisedbehe. I would keep on blowing away hellspawn and helping folks until finally balancing the scales for all the innocent people I had aced. Damn, er, darn, that would take a lot of demons. Best to hedge my bet and stop cursing, lying, cheating, gambling, hookers, hmm, best to avoid sex entirely, just in case. Maybe I should become a priest? Accept one collar to avoid another. Fair enough. I like to kill, but it was easy to combine the two. Father Michael Xavier Donaher, Demon Hunter. Actually, that had a nice ring to it. Praise the Lord and pass the silver ammunition.
    Feeling reborn, I bowed my head and thanked my heavenly Father for his wisdom and mercy, and all the saintly pious stuff. Then paying the check, and leaving a tremendous tip, I stuffed the briarwood pipe into my mouth and strode from the dinner into the foggy night. It would be smart to move fast on this deal. If I got hit tonight by a bus while crossing the street, my ass was grass. Now where the hell was I going to find a goddamn Catholic Church at this shitty hour of the night to get fucking ordained?
    Halle-freaking-lujah. I've been saved.

-THE END-

"A few years ago, my buddy, Prof. Charles Sheffield, decided to do an anthology about saving the world," Nick spoke softly into the microphone, really getting into the swing of things. "Well, that sounded fun, but much too straight forward, so I offered to save the world...by fixing two problems at the same time!"
    Missing the cue for a sound effect, the man in the booth raised a homemade sign reading, "Look down, you fool!"
    Adjusting the gain slightly to remove a faint squeal, Nick ignored the fellow. "Well, three hours, and a gallon of iced tea later, the story was finished. I emailed it to Charles; he was delighted and bought it on the spot. All in all a very pleasant way to spend a sunny summer afternoon...."

RAW TERRA
    "Ladies and gentlemen, we're almost there!" Erik Kay cried into