"Look, all I want to do is make you a deal. A great deal! A once-in-a-lifetime deal!"

Aahz yawned. "You have a hundred words or less to make your pitch, or you can take a walk. I'm a busy man, and I don't hear any bulldogs being fed—or dragons."

"What's a bulldog?" I asked. The picture that appeared in my head was intriguing, but almost guaranteed to be wrong based upon my experience with Aahz and his colloquial expressions.

Aahz turned toward me with an expression of irritation that slowly relaxed into a grin. "Kid, I gotta tell you, I missed that. Show you later. Samwise, your hundred words starts now."

The Imp took a deep breath. "Mr. Aahz, when I said that this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, I meant just that: only once in a lifetime does something this fantastic come along! Have you ever thought what your contribution to the future was going to be? I come to you today with an offer—no, two offers. One's a straight business deal. I need the help of an organization like M.Y.T.H., Inc., to watch over the day-to-day operations of my little company. The other offer is immortality, or the next best thing. You might not have thought about your legacy, but I want to offer you. ..." He clamped his mouth shut.

"What legacy?" Aahz roared, lunging forward. I was pretty curious about it myself. "You're just going to stop there?"

"Sorry, but you only gave me a hundred words!" the Imp squeaked, trying to pull his tie out of Aahz's grip. Aahz let go and thrust the Imp back into his seat.

"Okay, you can finish, but with the minimum verbiage. Talk. What kind of immortality? Are we talking

about eternal life? Because I've talked to some immortals, and believe me, it's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Well, unfortunately, it's not within my power to provide anyone with eternal life," Samwise said, straightening his tie. "I'm more in the monument business. But they're monumental monuments!"