Honorial muttered, "Either there's something wrong with the equipment or we have a problem."
Galas said, "The equipment checks out. Our body tracers show over two hundred thousand Hellraised. If you want an exact count, I can get it, but it won't hold long. The numbers seem to be increasing."
"They should be decreasing. Scan for total population," Honorial said
Galas scanned, then sighed. "Just over five million. That's the number our database says we ought to find."
"That's how many there were when the Hellraised got there."
"That's how many there are now, too. What's the fuss?"
"Scan for human population."
Galas kept quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Oh, dear. That's interesting."
"What?"
"We seem to have misplaced about two hundred thousand people."
Honorial snapped his badge of rank, his golden quill, into little pieces and flung them to the floor. "God damn them!" he snarled.
"That would be redundant." Galas smiled, pleased with his little joke.
"Don't you get it? Lucifer's hordes have found a way to cheat on their numbers. The legitimate population of North Carolina is falling, but somehow the Hellraised have managed to fill in those slots one-for-one without us catching on. They're only supposed to make up one percent of the population. They're way over their allotted numbers."
Galas leaned back in his chair and locked his long fingers behind his head. "Then, Honorial, for all intents and purposes, the deal ought to be off. Right? They flagrantly broke their part of the deal. We caught them. When we tell Our Munificent Creator, he'll make the misbegotten fiends march themselves straight back to Hell. And that will be the end of the experiment."
Honorial nodded. "Maybe."
"Don't be dramatic. The Holy of Holies made his point. You can't tell me you think he'll let the experiment continue when he finds out the legions of the damned have been . . . cheating. "
In fact, Honorial could have told Galas just that. He didn't intend to—for one thing, Galas wouldn't have believed him. For another thing, he simply didn't like Galas very much. But Honorial suspected that, while God might take action to return the excess Hellraised to the nether regions, he didn't think for a moment that the Heavenly One would cancel his joke entirely. He'd been having too much fun with it.
Honorial said, "Give me a printout of this, would you? I'll be talking to God later today—I'd like to be able to show him these numbers." He studied the lesser angel for a moment. "And don't tell anyone else what we've found out here. Please."
"Since you ask me, I won't," Galas said, rolling his eyes.