This battle of thinly veiled insults could go on forever. Balthazar expected that whomever this man was had about as many witty rejoinders as he did, which is to say a lot. In fact, his tongue had been poised and ready to strike, but the breath that had been worked up to form words only became a sigh. He realized how useless it was to keep shooting the shit like this and it was starting to get on his nerves.

So it was time to turn the conversation around into something much more productive and, perhaps, a little more revealing. "So then," he began, weariness clear in his naturally mocking tone, "You're here to talk to the man upstairs. Or men, whichever your little heart desires. Unfortunately, I think you might just get the answering machine."