The hash browns were lightly salted, crunchy, cooked just right. I could have done without the staring, though. “Swear to God,” Jessie said, cutting into a sausage link and scooping up a forkful. “If your hands go anywhere near your pants, this discussion is over.” Fontaine cast a rueful glance downward. “Alas, that’s another part that doesn’t work on a corpse. My sensual pleasures, for the moment, are entirely cerebral.” “You were talking about order,” I said. “Right, right.” He picked up his fork. “We are a rather . . . rambunctious people, my kind, prone to excess. When Big Daddy went on his permanent vacation, we all went a little crazy down there. Those were the Years of Iron and Fire, and they were a bad time. A bad time, indeed. What came out of that, though, was order. The courts of hell. Divisions of power.” He held the fork straight, rested it on its tines, and slowly pulled his hand away. It stood there, perfectly and impossibly balanced. “But the courts feud,”
