“So where do we go first?” Dawn asked after Burney shook the water from his body. This was a completely unnecessary gesture, however, as the water evaporated off him instantly. There was, however, a lot of dirt in the water, so while he succeeded in shaking off none of the water, Burney was successful in shaking off burning pieces of debris and lighting a few benches on fire.

  “There’s a café by St. Louis Cathedral that makes pretty good po-boys,” Steve said, stepping on Burney’s cinders to snuff out the flames. “We should try that first.”

  “Why do you suppose there’s so many people on the street?” Dawn asked.

  “Beats me. It’s not a holiday or anything, is it?”

  Burney screamed.

  “Didn’t think so. What do you think, Evy?” Steve asked.

  Steve turned around, thinking Evy was following him like Gore, Dawn, and Burney were. But when he looked for the still blood-covered cutie, she was no longer in sight. “Did anyone see where Evy went?” Steve asked.

  “No,” Dawn answered.

  Burney screamed.

  “She ran off to join the people dancing in the street,” Gore said, pointing toward a street near the vacant beignet-serving coffee shop.

  “Why didn’t you stop her?” Steve asked.

  “Because she’s annoying.”

  “She never seemed really big on this apocalypse thing if you ask me,” Dawn noted.

  Steve face-palmed in irritation, and a little because he was hurt that Evy would suddenly abandon him. “It’s okay. She just needed to get us here anyway, and she did that,” he said.

  Burney screamed.

  “Like Burney said, we’re with you Steve!” Dawn said, and put a comforting arm around her friend.

  “To the end!” Gore declared.

  “I appreciate that,” Steve said, genuinely touched.

  “I mean that literally. We’re trying to bring about the end of the world. So that’s not a metaphor but a statement of our destination. After the world ends, I might find other friends.”

  “I appreciate that knowledge as well, Gore, thank you. Let’s go.”

  The sandwich shop Steve had in mind lay cattycorner to the white-washed St. Louis cathedral. No sign was hung to name the establishment. Its location and reputation for food and atmosphere didn’t need fancy things like a name or health code compliance. Here was where the city itself came together, possibly a better culinary and physical representation of New Orleans than any other locale. All it lacked at the moment was some live jazz and sun and drink-raddled white people pretending they understood jazz, elements that would be added after dark for the sake of the tourists.

  The restaurant lacked two of its four walls. The corner facing the cathedral was just a few pillars that would better allow air and street music to enter. The restaurant also acted as a roach motel for tourists, billowing smells of gumbo and over-priced drinks. Of course, Steve knew all this, and that despite it all, thought that this was one of the better places to eat in the city. What confused him, however, was that there wasn’t a single person in the restaurant, save for a lone bartender in a white dress shirt. The bartender was leaned back, watching a television hanging above the bar.

  Steve stepped through the open walls and beneath the lazily churning ceiling fans. “Excuse me,” Steve said to the bartender, “which is better, your shrimp po-boy or your chicken po-boy?”

  “’sneither,” the bartender answered, not taking his eyes away from the television.

  “Well okay, maybe you have po-boys with like crab meat or something on it. That sounds tasty.”

  “Don’t got that neither.”

  “Catfish?”

Stolen story; please report.

  “No po-boy like none those.”

  “Well what kind of po-boys do you have?”

  “Don’t got none.” The bartender crossed his arms, scratching his nose as he kept his attention on the television.

  Steve, growing irritated, stepped to the side so he would be in between the bartender and the TV. He knocked on the bar to get the man’s attention. “Hey! What kind of a sandwich place is this?”

  “Pretty good ‘un.” The bartender shrugged.

  “And you don’t even have a shrimp po-boy?”

  “Not taday.”

  “Why not today?” Dawn asked.

  “Taday’s free sandwich day for the chillins,” the bartender said.

  “It’s what?” Steve asked.

  “Church up’n bought entire city chillins free sandwiches.”

  “When did this happen!”

  “Once he happen by,” the bartender said, pointing through the open walls to Jackson Square. Steve followed the gesture toward the center of the square, where Jack the angel was riding the statue of Andrew Jackson.

  “Hooray for charity! Free sandwiches for all!” Jack cheered, and threw a pair of sandwiches into the air. They exploded into a confetti drop of lettuce, bread, and a myriad selection of mediocre-tasting, meat-like substances. The sandwiches breaking and landing on the grass did not, however, prevent the homeless people sleeping at the base of the statue from enjoying the meal enormously.

  “Jack!” Steve shouted.

  “Can I get a bowl of gumbo to go?” Gore asked the bartender.

  “Gore! Focus,” Dawn insisted.

  “Gumbo first, focus later.”

  Burney screamed.

  “No, you cannot get a shrimp cocktail!”

  “Jack, what are you doing?” Steve asked, shouting from the edge of the restaurant.

  “I’m doin’ sumthin nice. You should try it,” Jack said, and kicked Andrew Jackson’s metal horse with enthusiasm. “Giddyup!” The horse did not respond. “Stupid horse. We’re never gonna catch the bandits at the pass if you laze about like that!”

  “I thought you could only do bad things with a good outcome,” Dawn said.

  “True.” Jack puffed out his wings and leapt to his feet, still poised on the statue. “And makin’ you go to hell will have the good outcome of saving the world. Idn’t it fun!”

  “You haven’t given away every sandwich. That’s impossible!” Steve challenged, checking the level of the sun with growing anxiety. It was beginning to grow closer to twilight, and Steve’s failure.

  “Every sandwich in the city eaten by happy children. Just look at ‘em.” Jack pointed to the television inside the restaurant. The bartender was still watching events happening on the screen. Only then did Steve recognize it as a news broadcast. Thousands of happy, puff-cheeked children were gorging themselves on free sandwiches.

  “Every street and every corner, filled with innocent bundles of joy scarfin’ down the only thing that can save you. Look at ‘em! Like a plague a locusts,” Jack laughed. With a gust of his wings that knocked several bums below him off their feet, which made them wake up the other homeless around them to better share in the dropped sandwiches, Jack leapt on top of Andrew Jackson’s head. Jack posed on top of the statue with one leg strut out. “I think this is my best prank yet.”

  “It’s not a prank, Jack this is my life!” Steve challenged.

  “You’re a demon. Who cares? Have fun in hell!” With a final laugh, Jack took to the air, flying high above the city so he could throw more sandwiches at people.

  “No!”

  Steve saw the angel fly away. He saw his hopes fade with that heavenly being’s departure. He saw with that halo-tilted creature the damnation he’d always known was unavoidable, but which just became intensely real. He saw that soldier of Gabriel drop a sandwich on the head of a passing motorcyclist, causing the driver to slide through the window of a café. This succeeded in further diminishing the supply of sandwiches in the city, and earning the driver a future insurance settlement that would help him avoid what would have been bankruptcy for buying a motorcycle he couldn’t afford.

   “Steve,” Dawn said, putting a hand on the half-demon’s shoulder, “we still have time. We can still get that sandwich.”

   Burney screamed. He would have put his hand on Steve’s shoulder as well, but realized that would not have provided comfort.

   Gore was eating gumbo, and slurped a spoonful into his unholy mouth before burping and saying, “Want me to kill some children and steal their sandwiches?”

   “I’m going to try and not think too hard about how ridiculous this all sounds,” Steve said.

   Burney screamed in agreement.

   “I’m going to try and pretend that this is absolutely normal. But I have an idea.”

   “Just tell us what to do,” Dawn said.

   “A sandwich will be just the thing to sate my appetite,” Gore said, gulping the last of his gumbo before tossing it over his shoulder. “That gumbo was terrible.”

   “That café is still giving out sandwiches. Look,” Steve said. He pointed down the long, narrow street just outside Jackson Square. Perhaps three blocks from the demons, amidst a thick crowd of children and nuns handing out sandwiches from a nearby café with a motorcycle-shaped hole in its window, Steve saw hope.

   “We go there. But I’ll need your help. All of you,” Steve said.

   Burney screamed.

   “Of course you too,” Steve said, and looked at each of his friends. “I need you to do what you do best. I need each of you to do your best.”

   “Kill children?” Gore asked with his sword unsheathed.

   “Not that.”

   “Ah.”

   “We’re going to get this sandwich, but we’re also going to do this under my terms. That means no killing, marginal maiming, and we move in as quickly as possible.”

   “You’re no fun.”

   “I am who I am.”

   “There’s angels in that crowd,” Dawn said, weighing her scales. She saw that the amount of good coming from the crowd, coming from the city, was far beyond calculation. “There’s angels everywhere.”

   “We can handle it. We have about a half hour to fight off angels, charity workers and a bunch of hungry children and get a sandwich to the antichrist. And I’m really, really hungry.”