1.

Bee was having a day. That's what he had now: days. Good and bad didn't come into it. He was old enough to regard 'good' and 'bad' as synonymous.

Bee's day began like most others. He fed the animals at five a.m. and then began shovelling shit. At ten, it was time for his mid-morning break. He laid his shovel down across the bed of his wheelbarrow, and walked away from the shit pile, scuffing up the red dust of the yard as he made his way to the house. He went through the side door, into the kitchen; a bright white clean unshitty room. He washed his hands and then went through the slow and methodical motions of adding coffee and water to his percolator. That done, he set the percolator on the hob, sat down and checked his phone for messages. He wasn't particularly pleased to see he had one.

We need to talk. Now.

Bee sighed and looked at the coffee pot, which hadn't even begun to rumble.

'Shit,' he said. He stood up and turned off the hob before locking up the house and getting into the old pick-up truck. Now meant now. There was no point in fucking about.

It didn't take long to get to Lu's. He drove up to the ridiculous mansion that stood alone, amidst nothing – a grand fucking statement to no one – and he parked by the front door. He didn't bother to knock – just let himself in, went into the kitchen and started to make coffee.

'Come in. Make yourself at home,' said Lu, walking into the kitchen a moment later. It was impossible to tell if Lu was being genuine or sarcastic, but Bee had known him long enough not to care.

'What d'you want?' asked Bee. He leaned back against the kitchen counter and gave Lu as hard a look as he could muster.

Lu was impeccably turned out, as usual. Casual and beautiful. He looked at Bee, that clear-eyed, penetrative gaze that was always unsettling and magnetic, and Bee shifted his feet in spite of himself. He looked away, focused on the coffee.

'What do you want?' Lu asked him in reply.

Bee poured the coffee before it was ready.

'Coffee?' he asked and he finally looked at Lu again. Lu shook his head.

'How long have you been out there on that farm, now?' he asked.

Bee shrugged.

'I forget.'

'Why are you doing it?'

'Does it matter?'

'Yes. I'd like to understand. Why could you possibly want to be out there farming, when you could be here with me? You're a fucking prince, Bee.'

'I'm the king of shit,' Bee said and he took a sip of his coffee. It tasted shit.

'Oh God, will you let that Jewish thing go, already? As I recall you found it pretty funny back then.'

'Yeah, it was funny for about a minute,' Bee said and he winced at his own words. He sounded defensive. And stupid. And besides, none of this was about that anyhow.

Lu was giving him that look again. The one that dug deep, peeled back the layers, got into the centre of you.

'You think shovelling shit is cleaner,' Lu finally said. 'More worth your while.'

Bee sipped coffee.

'When's the last time you had fun?' Lu asked.

Now that was a question. Bee thought about it for a while.

'1611,' he said.

'Aix-en-Provence?' Lu asked. Bee nodded.

'Jesus.'

Bee laughed. The sound rumbled out of his throat, dry and cracked but clearly a laugh.

'What?' Lu asked.

'You,' said Bee. 'Oh God. Jesus. Next you'll say: Bloody Hell.'

Lu chuckled.

'It's like all those kids that fill their sentences with 'like'. Totally unnecessary but they can't help it. The word has sunk in, it comes out on its own, just like 'God' and 'Jesus'. Bastards. They did a great PR job.'

'You always say that. Let it go.'

'You're a fine one to talk, Mr I'm the king of shit.'

'Touché. What do you want, Lu?' Bee asked again and he threw his coffee into the sink and washed out his mug.

'I wanted to see you,' Lu said. 'I wanted to talk. It's been... how long has it been?'

'I forget,' Bee said again and he took a seat across the table from Lu. 'Since I started the farm.'

'Have you talked to anyone, this whole time?'

'I deliver my shit to a lot of crop farmers. You'd be surprised how well I do.'

'You know I'm not talking about farmers.'

'You mean our lot? Nope. Not seen anyone. But that's a two-way street, you know. There's nothing stopping anyone from dropping by.'

'I—'

A knock at the front door interrupted Lu and he got up to answer it. He returned with Sam and Levi.

'Bee,' said Levi and Bee nodded at him. Sam said nothing.

'Sammael,' Lu said, and Sam flinched.

'Bee,' he said. 'How are you?'

'Oh, you know. Same shit, different day.'

Levi laughed. Sam did not. Lu sat down. Sam put out a hand to draw back a chair but before his fingers could curl around the chair back Lu held up a finger that said: No. Sam stepped back.

'So. Bee. What brings you back?' Levi asked, trying to break the tension.

Bee smiled at him. Levi was even uglier than he remembered; his skin so pocked scored and scarred it looked scaly. He had a permanent grin/grimace on his face, his mouth forced into it by his many overlarge teeth. There was a surprising gentleness in his eyes, though, that Bee hadn’t noticed before.

'When the bossman wants to see you, you come,' Bee said. 'And you?'

Sam sighed ostentatiously. Levi looked at him, nervous, and said nothing. Bee sat back and studied them all. Lu's face gave nothing away but Bee knew he was enjoying making Sam stand, wait, and was perhaps a heartbeat away from saying ‘roll over, play dead’. Sam was playing it cool. He was as handsome as ever but there was a conceited cast to his face that stopped him from being beautiful. He was diet Lu. And then there was Levi, looking to Sam for approval, casting fearful glances at Lu, looking beaten down and shaken up and nothing like the Leviathan Bee had known once upon a time. What had happened to him?

'Leave us,' Lu said and Levi almost sprinted from the room. Sam frowned, looked about to argue, but he left too, walking slowly and with swagger.

'What's all that about?' Bee asked.

Lu shrugged.

'What's happened to Levi?'

Lu shrugged again. Bee waited.

'It doesn't concern you, Bee,' Lu said.

'What does concern me? Seriously. Why am I here?'

'I think it's about time you got back in the game.'

Bee shook his head.

'I'm in the game, Lu. The shit shovelling game – that's as much a part of it all as the possessions and the healings were.'

Lu held up his hands and laughed

'I can concede that, but you've spent God knows how long shovelling shit and neglecting all your others duties. You said yourself, the last time you had a good time was in 1611. Maybe it's time to for a reprise?'

Bee wanted to say outright: No. But the memory of Aix-en-Provence was tugging at him. It had been a good time.

'I'm not asking for anything major,' Lu said. 'Just one person, that's all. We don't need to start another inquisition.'

Bee stood up. He wanted to walk out, get in his truck and drive back to home. He wanted to grab his shovel. He wanted to pile up shit and sell it. He wanted his own quiet life.

'You have anyone in mind?' he said.

Lu smiled.

2.

Gabriel was looking at the notes for his sermon and considering a second cup of coffee when he felt something he had never felt before. It was almost as if someone had sat on his lap. There was a huge pressure on his thighs, he felt something press against his torso, weigh down his arms, push him back into his chair and then... nothing. He was free to move again.

'You definitely want that second cup of coffee,' he thought. He was already moving, reaching for the supermarket gold brand of instant coffee, and dipping a spoon in before he realised that there was something odd about his thought.

'You'll get it. Just think. It'll come to you,' he thought. There was something odd about that thought too. It took some thinking about but it hit him – these thoughts weren't his at all. He wasn't sure what made him so certain of that, but he was sure.

'Well done,' he thought and he had the urge to clap sarcastically.

'What the hell?' This he said out loud. His voice was reassuringly his own.

'Yep, that's the right direction,' he thought. But that wasn't him.

'Who...'

'I'm Bee,' the thought bloomed. 'I'll be possessing you for an indefinite period of time.'

'Possessing me?' Again, Gabriel spoke out loud.

'Conversation will be a lot faster if you just think things. You have no idea how long it takes for your mouth to catch up with your thoughts and since I'm already in your head it's a bit like waiting around for a really slow echo.'

'Wait...' Gabriel began, but he had no way to finish that sentence.

'...'

'I can hear you waiting,' Gabriel said.

'And I can hear you talking. Seriously, just think things.'

So Gabriel sat down to think.

'You're not going to get that second cup of coffee?' Bee thought. 'Probably for the best; that instant stuff is shit.'

'Who are you?' Gabriel asked.

'I'm Bee.'

'Yes, you said that, but who are you?'

Gabriel sighed and then realised he wasn't sighing. Bee was sighing. And that's when Gabriel vomited.

'Yeah. Best get it all out,' Bee thought as Gabriel retched. 'You'll be surprised at how quickly you'll get used to this, though.'

'Oh God,' Gabriel thought.

'Yeah, God can't hear your thoughts. God's not the one possessing you.'

Gabriel vomited some more.

'So,' Bee thought, 'you're called Gabriel. I can tell you something for nothing: your name-sake is a cunt.'

Gabriel found himself laughing through his vomit. It was involuntary laughter. It was Bee's laughter.

'But Gabriel is a fine name really. You can go around with a name like that. You can't go around with a name like Beelzebub, though. It's shit.'

'Beelzebub?' thought Gabriel.

'That's me. The king of shit himself.'

'Beelzebub?'

'Yes. Beelzebub.'

'You're Beelz—'

'Yes, I'm Beelzebub, for fuck's sake. What's wrong with you?'

Gabriel had stopped vomiting. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and leant forwards, his head between his knees.

'Y-you're the lord of the flies?'

Bee sighed through Gabriel again. It felt strange but Gabriel managed to contain himself this time.

'Yes,' thought Bee. 'But the way you interpret it is one big fuck up. Look, originally it meant Lord of the Heavens. The flies. Heavens. They're the same thing. It was nice.'

'But you're from hell. How you could you be a lord of the heavens?'

'I'm not from hell. I just ended up there. It was... oh God.'

Bee and Gabriel started to laugh.

'What's so funny?' asked Gabriel.

'Life.'

They laughed for a while and Gabriel found he was actually pretty happy, though he had no idea why.

'I should be terrified,' he thought. 'I'm being possessed by, and having a conversation with, a proper demon. Why am I not terrified?'

'I've suppressed your fear impulses,' Bee answered.

'Why? I want to be afraid. I don't want to be okay with this. Let me— OH FUCKING CHRIST, GOD SAVE ME I— What? What just happened?'

'I let you be afraid for a second. That was just the beginning. It would have got a lot worse. You want to go for that? It'll make all of this a lot uglier.'

Gabriel thought about it.

'Listen,' thought Bee. 'Why don't you just sit back and have a chat with me. Get to know me a little and then we can talk about what'll happen next. Reasonable?'

Gabriel couldn't argue with that.

'Fine,' he thought. 'Tell me about your name. How did you stop being a lord of the heavens?'

'It would take too long to tell you the whole story,' Bee thought back. 'Cliff's notes. I know it seems like it's in poor taste but I have serious beef with Jews. It's not like I think they're all bad people. There are great fucking Jews. Jesus was pretty solid. I like Bob Dylan. I have total respect for everyone that made it through World War II. I have respect for the ones that didn't, even. But back when I was a god the Jews fucked me over.’

Gabriel took his body into his own hands and sighed himself, a Gabriel sigh. It felt cleaner somehow.

'That's just your imagination,' Bee thought at him. Gabriel ignored him.

'I think I missed a few steps,' he thought instead. 'You said something about being a god?'

'I used to be god of Ekron. It's not a big deal, it was only a small city. Being god of a city isn't like being God. But, you know, they relied on me there. I was needed. It was nice. I wasn't Beelzebub then. They called me Ba'al. Ba'al Zbl. Which, roughly translates as 'Lord prince'. Not the most imaginative name, but like I said, it was nice. And I made a difference. I was a healer.'

'...'

'I can hear your disbelief.'

'Well... you're a demon that's currently in possession of my body, and all you've done so far is talk and laugh while I vomit. Forgive me for being sceptical.'

'That sounds like sarcasm.'

'That's because it was.'

'Hey, I'm trying to explain how my name became what it is today; you don't need to shit on my story.'

'Oh, sorry for being rude. It's just like that time I possessed a stranger's body without their permission.' Gabriel was surprised at the anger that was attached to those words. He didn't want to think about what it might mean.

'I preferred you when you were vomiting.'

That seemed fair.

'I preferred you when I didn't know you were real.' Again, the words surprised Gabriel but they were definitely his own.

'Look, I'm just doing what I've been told to do. We all have someone to answer to. I'm answering. Don't you ever have to do shit you're not crazy about? If I had a choice I wouldn't have picked you for possession. I could have had way more fun.'

'Fun like how?'

'Can I just finish my goddamn story?'

'...'

'Good. Right. Back to Ekron. As I said, I was a healer. I was really good at it actually, and word spread. After a while, people from all over were coming to me for help. And that's where things went wrong. See, King Ahaziah of Israel sent for me to see if I could cure him. He was suffering from internal bleeding after a bad fall. Back in those days, that was pretty much game over. I could have fixed him though. But then the Jews had to step in. Elijah – are you familiar with Elijah?'

'The prophet? Yes, of course.'

'Yes, well, he condemned King Ahaziah to die. 'By God's word' he said. It was all: 'Is there no God in Israel that you have to send for Ba'al?' and 'how dare you put your faith in a false idol?' and everyone else seemed to agree. I was barred from the city. King Ahaziah died. And the Israelites all started talking about how the god of Ekron was a pile of shit and that all his followers were just flies on the shit pile. Look at Ba'al: Lord of the flies.'

Gabriel laughed.

'I'm not joking. This is really how it went down. And things went from bad to worse after that. I suffered from a crisis of confidence. Being called shit for a long time will do that to you. And it was pretty difficult for believers to believe in me when I was finding it hard to believe in myself. They started to think the Jews were onto something. They didn't appreciate all the fly talk either. Suddenly I'm being demoted. I'm no longer the god of Ekron and what's worse, they don't just forget about me and let me peter out of existence, no. They decide to demonize me instead. Look at Ba'al, the king of shit. They cast me out of the city and sent me to Hell. And if it hadn't been for Lu...'

Bee shuddered through Gabriel.

'Lu?' Gabriel asked. 'Lu...cifer?'

'The big guy himself. This was all old hat to him. He'd been cast down before I was even thought into existence. He'd had a good long while to make his peace with Hell, work on his image, figure out how to enjoy life again. When he found me at his gates I was a mess. He didn't even ask me any questions, he just brought me in and...' Gabriel felt himself shrug. '...he was kind to me.'

'This is definitely not the devil I know,' Gabriel thought.

'Well, as Lu always says, God had a cracking PR team.'

Gabriel laughed at the thought. So did Bee, and for a moment Gabriel thought he could hear two voices come from his mouth. His stomach shifted queasily, and he stood up with a lurch.

'Calm down, Gabriel. Breathe. It'll settle,' Bee thought soothingly.

Gabriel sat down. His head started to swim.

'Your body is still getting used to me.'

3.

Bee was having a day. His heart wasn't in the possession but there was something about Gabriel that he found attractive. It kept him where he was, lying awake in Gabriel's sleeping body, waiting for something to do.

I hope the animals are okay

Lu had promised to send someone to take care of things at the farm but Bee wasn't sure he trusted any of their people. Maybe Levi. But Levi would just scare the beasts with that ugly mug of his.

Bee sighed and the air went rippling out of Gabriel's throat. He could wake the man up, he supposed. He could properly take him over, use his body, have some fun and bring him back. Gabriel would be none the wiser. But what was fun?

The last time I fun.

Bee remembered it well.

He had seen her on the street. Clean, prim, shiny, new, a pristine doll. Beautiful. Perfect. He wanted her. He wanted her in a way that made possessing her wrong. He couldn't force his way into this one.

That clean, prim, shiny, pristine doll saw him too; this dirty shit king. And who would have thought it? She wanted him.

It was typical teenage rebellion, at first. It was beauty and the beast. And it wasn't long before she invited him in, she wanted to be possessed; it wasn't enough that he was a man and she was a woman. She wanted more. And when he got inside and filled her up, that's when the real fun began.

Madeleine de Demandolx was a good and pious girl. She had come to the Ursulines at a young age, her parents concerned about her soul.

'She cries sometimes. And she can be angry.'

'Ah yes, emotional instability. We'll take good care of her. She is in want of spiritual guidance.'

And just like that, young Madeleine was set on the path to be a nun.

'I am a good and pious girl,' Madeleine had giggled as she pressed close into Bee in a dark alley, and guided his hands up her legs.

'I am a good and pious girl,' Madeleine had gasped when Bee first went inside her.

'I am a good and pious girl,' Madeleine whispered when Bee first possessed her. 'Let's show them how good and pious I can be.'

Bee shook the memory and Gabriel grunted.

'What happened next?' Gabriel asked.

'You saw all that?' said Bee.

'At first I thought it was just a really vivid dream, but then I realised I was awake. I think it woke me up. She was important, huh?'

'Those are some pretty private memories.'

'Well if you don't want to share them then maybe get out of my body?'

Bee chuckled.

'I hate that,' said Gabriel.

'What?'

'You laughing or sighing. It keeps going through my body. Can't you just do it internally?'

'No.'

'...'

'... What?'

'What d'you mean, what?'

'What are you waiting for?'

'What happened with Madeleine?'

Bee sighed, just to annoy Gabriel.

'There had been a man that had... treated her badly when she was young. He was a friend of the family, welcome in their home, and he took advantage of that. When Madeleine spoke up about it she was sent to the nuns. Clearly she was unstable. A man of God wouldn't... couldn't do the things she spoke of. Everyone was so sure of it that they made her doubt herself. She thought she must have imagined it and that she was wicked to invent something so awful. She had to repent, she had to punish herself, purify herself, devote herself to God. She had to be good and pious. And then she met me.

'No one ever really knows how these things happen but when we met there was an instant understanding.'

Bee went quiet. He could feel Gabriel's disgust, not at him but at Madeleine's family. He didn't disbelieve any of it; he knew that 'religious' men were not all good men. And that was nice. Gabriel was a nice man. That was what was attractive about him. He was likeable. That was pretty much all there was to him, though. Why would Lu want Bee to possess someone so utterly nice?

Bee delved a bit deeper into Gabriel's being. The man wanted to know the rest of the story but he didn't want to push Bee. He could tell this was important to the demon and he wanted to be sensitive. Very nice. A man of the cloth the way they were supposed to be.

Bee pushed harder. The man wasn't really angry about being possessed, and even his grumbling was without substance. That was strange.

Bee pushed right down to the very bottom of Gabriel. And he was surprised. Gabriel was blind faithful. God was everything to him. He lived and breathed Christianity. He wasn't angry at being possessed because he was sure his faith would deliver him from evil, and deliver Bee too. He thought he could save Bee from being a demon. Well, that was pure madness.

Bee woke up a little at this. This was interesting. This was difficult. This was a challenge. He straightened his figurative back and returned to his story.

'Sorry. It's hard to think about her sometimes. She was one of the loveliest creatures I ever met. Despite everything that happened, she stayed pure.'

'But you possessed her?'

'Yes.'

'Surely being possessed makes a person impure.'

'That's an interesting way to look at it. Would you say you're impure now that I'm inside you?'

'Yes.'

'But are you still yourself right now?'

'Well, yes.'

'So in what way are you impure?'

'Well, you're controlling aspects of me so I'm not wholly myself.'

'Am I controlling you?'

'You're suppressing my fear.'

Bee smiled.

'No, I stopped doing that a while ago. Once you got used to the idea of me it wasn't really necessary anymore. You're totally in charge of yourself. I'm not interfering with you at all, I'm just sharing some space with you. It's sort of like catching a cold. I'm the cold. So are you impure?'

'Yes.' Gabriel was emphatic.

'How?'

'Because you're not a cold. You're a demon. From hell. You're a hell demon. And that can only mean one thing: you want to corrupt my soul.'

'What? Where do you get these ideas?'

'Don't deny it. I've been taught all about your lot. I know what you are?'

'Oh really? You didn’t seem all that clued up when I told you I used to be a god.'

'A story! That's what you demons do. You tell stories and use honeyed words to convince the unsuspecting to do your bidding.'

'Honeyed words! Wow. I never thought of my words as having all that much flavour before. Tell me, where did you come by your immaculate knowledge of my kind?'

'The book,' Gabriel told him.

'Oh yes. The infamous book; collated through the ages by all sorts of people with all sorts of human failings, agendas, ignorance, attitude, hatefulness, love and idiocy. And none of them in accord with the storyteller that came before them. What makes your stories any more true than mine?'

'They aren't stories! They're true.'

'How do you know that?'

'... Faith,' Gabriel said. He said it with no uncertainty. He said it with finality. He said it safe in the knowledge that this was one word no one could argue with. Faith.

'Right,' said Bee. 'Well that's that. You just finished us off right there.'

'What does that mean?'

'It's clear we can't discuss anything. You're convinced already. Nothing I say, or show you, nothing I prove even, will convince you that I'm not what you think I am. And neither is your God. We're at that "agree to disagree" moment. Which is really disappointing, actually. You know I haven't possessed anyone since 1692? That was the last time I made a difference. I was looking forward to giving it a go again. Sure, I wasn't crazy about the idea at first, but it grew on me. There are some things we all have to do sometimes.'

'I'm not following you.'

'I'm not surprised,' Bee said and he yawned through Gabriel's mouth and stretched out Gabriel's arms and said through Gabriel's mouth: 'I'm not sure I'm quite following all this myself.'

Gabriel, the real Gabriel, shuddered.

'Come along,' said Bee and he swung Gabriel out of his bed and took him to the wardrobe.

'Where are we going?' Gabriel asked. A nervous note had entered his voice but he was controlling it admirably. Bee looked in on Gabriel's Faith. Was there any doubt there? Not yet. But with nerves there usually came doubt and that was a good thing.

'Out.'

4.

Dawn was breaking.

'Beautiful day,' Gabriel muttered and so Bee really looked at it. The sun was shining, there was dew on the ground, and he could see silver webs glistening between all sorts of hard surfaces. This was a very different place from Hell.

'It is beautiful,' Bee agreed.

And because he had thought of Hell, and because he was inside Gabriel, Gabriel asked:

'What's Hell like?'

'Pretty dry, most of the time. You get the odd good storm.'

'Sulphur?'

'No.'

'Brimstone?'

'No, and those are the same thing you know.'

'Fire?'

'Bushfires, sometimes. What the hell do you think Utah looks like?'

'Utah?'

'Well, technically Hell is on a state line. Four state lines. I live on the Utah side, though.'

'Utah?'

Bee walked Gabriel out of his front garden and onto the street.

'Yes, Utah,' he said and that was that.

Gabriel lived in a quiet village in Dartmoor. It was far enough into the National Park that there were no farmers about, but the dogs were being walked, the postman was scurrying door to door, and the ‘ye olde shoppes’ were just stirring, though nothing was open yet.

They got into Gabriel's car and began to drive.

'Where are we going?' Gabriel asked again.

'No idea,' Bee said. He took the next left and though he couldn't see it he knew he was gunning for the sea.

By the time they reached the seedy seaside town of Torquay the day had begun to warm. Bee parked and they walked down to the marina. Gabriel muttered hellos to the people they passed and Bee ruminated.

'I need a drink,' Bee said.

'Coffee?'

'What time is it?'

'Eight-thirty.'

'Coffee will have to do.'

So they went to the nearest cafe.

'What's going on?' Gabriel asked.

'I'm thinking,' said Bee.

'You're unhappy,' Gabriel pointed out.

'I'm confused,' Bee corrected him.

'What about?' Gabriel asked.

'What about what?' asked the waitress as she set a cup of coffee down in front of them.

Gabriel blushed.

'What about another cup, actually?'

'Sure,' she said, not batting an eyelid and walking away.

'Good call,' Bee told him.

Gabriel sat up a bit straighter. It was his equivalent of looking Bee in the eye.

'Can we just get down to it?' he asked.

'Down to what?'

'You implied that you were asked to possess me. Why? What's this all about?'

'Good question,' said Bee, and he took a sip of coffee and looked out of the window. 'Good question.'

When Lu first proposed possessions to Bee, back when he was still grumbling that his name was Ba'al, he hadn't been easy to convince. It seemed like a prodigious waste of time. People, he argued, were stupid. People, he said, weren't worth saving. People, he continued, didn't give a damn about him, so why should he give a damn about them? Lu smiled that beatific smile – the one that could get anyone to do anything – and he said: because you're better than them.

Once Bee got a taste for it he really got a taste for it. There were a lot of people to possess and he wanted them all. In the beginning, Lu had chosen which people he took over, but after a while he developed an eye of his own; he could tell when someone made a good mark. He went all over, tried out all sorts, every person he got into he managed to change. He made a difference. But after a while it got harder. Bee never knew if it was that people had changed or if it was just that he was tired, but possessions stopped feeling good and started to become work. And his job in 1692 was so messy that despite some success it felt like a failure. Too many innocents had died that time. Too many shit-heels had got away with it. Fucking puritans.

'What happened in 1692?' asked Gabriel just as the waitress came back with his second cup of coffee.

'How should I know?' she asked him, and she walked off without waiting for his answer. 'Weirdo,' he heard her mutter.

'Great,' he muttered to himself.

'I told you just to think things,' Bee said. 'And it was the Salem witch trials. Bad business, start to finish, and I was only involved at the end. Had to jump in. Your big guy wasn't lifting a finger to help. Your holy lot is like that. They love to watch impassively while humankind fucks itself. So we have a bunch of stupid, vindictive girls crying 'witch' and 'possession' and before you know it people are dying. I was busy elsewhere so I didn't even know it was going on until I was asked for.'

'Someone asked for you?'

'Praise be,' said Bee. 'A woman called Tituba. She'd been accused but she wriggled free by accusing others. Can't say I blame her. She did what she had to. But the guilt was strong and finally she called for me. Thought maybe I could help her set some of it to rights.'

'And did you?'

'Well they stopped hanging people.'

'That's not an answer.'

'Would you believe me if I said I did put it to rights?' asked Bee. Gabriel didn't even need to think about it. The answer was no. 'There you go,' said Bee.

'That was your last possession.'

'Until now.'

'Which brings us back to my question. Why me?'

'Why you, indeed,' Bee said. ‘I'm not all about possessions, you know? Not after 1692. I may not be the god Ba'al anymore but I still have my healing touch. Mostly I just shovel shit, though.'

'Shovel... are you being literal?'

'Yes. I have a farm. A nice herd of cattle. I look after them and they shit and I shovel. I sell the manure. Excellent natural fertilizer. In between the shovelling and looking after the animals I get a lot of reading done. And I watch television. Tv is amazing these days, don't you think?'

'I don't watch much. This isn't answering my question.'

Bee knocked back the first cup of coffee and pulled the second one closer.

'Yes. Well. Being out of the game, I've not really been keeping an eye out for possession-worthy candidates. I didn't even know you existed until I was sent here. You were all Lu's idea. He didn't say why he was interested in an English priest. Just gave me the name and said: I think he'd be a good place to start.'

Bee's impression of Lu's voice was spot on and it made him smile. Good impressions always did.

'So, you haven't got an answer?' Gabriel asked.

'Oh, I didn't say that. I have an answer it just might not be the right one.'

'So?'

'Well, you really have to understand what my purpose is as a possessor. I'm an interferer. A busy body. A nosy parker. I get into people's bodies and take over their lives, but it isn't what you think it is. I get involved to help people. That's my job. Madeleine asked me to possess her because she wanted my strength to fight her demons. Tituba called for me because she needed me to bring justice. I possess the needy, the weak, the despairing, not because they're easy but because their lives are hard. I'm about getting down in the shit and sorting it out. So that brings us back to you. Because you aren't needy and you aren't weak. You're definitely not despairing. You're actually my worst nightmare.'

'What?'

'You're my worst nightmare.'

'Yes, I heard you, I just don't understand.'

'You wouldn't. That's part of what makes you so bad. You have a fixed view of how things work. You have an unshakeable faith. You have all the answers.'

'I don't have all the answers! If I did, I wouldn't be asking questions.'

'Well, that's not true. In the absence of an answer you would find your own and it would always be: Because of God.' Bee had Gabriel's voice down to a tee and Gabriel smiled in spite of himself.

'That's not true...' Gabriel said but as he thought it he knew that it was true.

'And the worst thing about you isn't the fact that you are a totally inflexible, judgemental devotee to one of the least sympathetic beings I've ever had the displeasure of coming across. The worst thing about you is that you're nice. You're filled with good intentions and good wishes, so I couldn't possibly not like you. I can't change you, though. And that's what I'm about.'

Gabriel was confused.

'Yeah, me too,' Bee sighed.

'But—' Gabriel began. Bee didn't wait for the thought to finish.

'My only answer is that Lu didn't send me here to change you at all. He sent me here to change me.'

Gabriel's phone buzzed in his pocket. He retrieved it. It was a text. It said:

Let's talk. Now. Please.

Gabriel frowned.

'Who the...' He took a sip of coffee. 'Is this from you, Bee? Bee?'

But Bee was gone. Gabriel shivered and it was just him shivering in his own body. He yawned and it was just him yawning. He took another sip of coffee and really took the time to savour that sip, his sip, before he swallowed. Then he stood up, left some money on the table and walked out to the beach. He watched the tide come in. The sky had clouded over and the sun was a milky disc behind a skein of mist. The water was grey. Gabriel felt a bit grey himself. A wind rose and he shivered again. There was something lonely in this shiver. Gabriel thought about that. And then he pushed the thought away. It didn't bear dwelling on. He walked back to his car and drove home. He had a sermon to finish writing. He had the glory of God to proclaim. As he drove he started to compose the words.

'Once there was a god called Ba'al,' he said out loud. Then he laughed. It was all he could do to keep from crying.