Free I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story by Glen Duncan

manifestly you can't squat in someone's body without some
of their life filtering through to yours. It's been the toughest part of the whole trip, so far, accommodating Gunn's leftovers; approximate omniscience notwithstanding, I never
quite know which unfortunate tic or nasty habit of his I'm
going to run into next. Couldn't they have picked someone
else? Some rock star with an entourage of sycophants? Some
sheikh with a hooker habit? Some coke-fiend with a yacht?
Anyone would've been better than this noncer with his
objective correlatives and his Earl Grey and his sorry-ass
bank balance.

    On the subject of Gunn's bank balance - two words: Oh
dear.
    Mrs Karp is Declan Gunn's Account Supervisor at the
NatWest. The day our boy bought the razor blades a letter
arrived from Mrs Karp. Its tone was stern but regretful (the
next was just stern) and it requested the return of Gunn's
cheque book and cheque card, cut in half, immediately. It
pointed out, regretfully, that Gunn was upwards of 03,500
overdrawn (£2,500 over his limit) and that despite repeated
efforts on her part to get him to come in and discuss the situation he had been unwilling to do anything but continue
spending money he didn't have. Which left her no alternative, etc.
    Which left me no alternative to a bit of hands-on, you'll
be delighted to hear: get out of Gunn's body for an hour or
so, nip round to Mrs Karp's semi in Chiswick, scare the
living rectum out of her and get her to do something creative with Gunn's balance. But if there's a flaw in a simple
plan it's usually fundamental, and the flaw in this simple plan
was no exception: it hurt so bad the minute I exited Gunn's
flesh that I shot straight back in without even leaving the flat.
    You can see Someone's thinking behind this, can't you? I
get so used to the absence of angelic pain that even living out
my days in Gunn's flatulent corpus is preferable to the flames and nukes of disembodiment. God's coup: Lucifer's voluntary demotion to the life of a penniless pen-pusher in
Clerkenwell; maybe the Old Fruit's developing a sense of
irony after all. One of the things I never tire of (it's a prob-
1ern, for eternal superbeings, tiring of things) is my own
astonishment at how stupid He must think I am. Is He arrogant enough to think that a brief sojourn in the dank and
clunking rucksack of Gunn's body ...?

    Relax, fans. Come August I'll slip into that pain like
Biggles into his flying jacket. Meantime, I'll find ways
around things.
    'My Lord, I didn't recognize you.'
    Nelchael. There aren't many you can trust. Nelchael's
one of them. My numbers man. Most of the world's numbers are bound by God to make sense. Occasionally there are
glitches. It's Nelchael's job - when it suits us - to exploit
them.
    `Account number 443U0217336. See what you can do.
Doesn't have to be millions. Fifty grand should do it. Got
that?'
    'My Lord Lucifer, I -'
    `You remember, Nelchael, what I told you before I left?'
Not easy to maintain dictatorial dignity when you're sitting
on a moth-eaten couch smoking a Silk Cut and biting your
nails, looking for all the world like that sallow chimpanzee,
Declan Gunn.
    'That this mission was top secret, my Lord.'
    `Top /iickint' secret, Nelks,' I said. `And that's the way it's
going to stay. Do I make myself clear?'
    'Yes, my Lord.'
    `Apart from you, no one else knows of my business here
on earth. If I returned to Hell to find that word had spread -' `My Lord, I assure you -'

    `To find that idle tongues were wagging, then my reasoning, Nelchael, would lead nee to conclude that you had
betrayed my trust, would it not?ff
    `My Lord I exist to do your bidding.'
    'Yes, that's right. Keep in mind Gabreel.'
    Gabreel disobeyed my ruling placing a moratorium on
incubism back in Ancient Egypt. Disobeyed it royally, you
might say. He fucked Cleopatra. (Gabreel was an inveterate
letch, of course, and Cleo couldn't keep her femurs crossed
for five minutes at a