Devil Said Bang (17 page)

I
spend the next day tying up loose ends. I’m expecting a lot of ritual square
dancing but it turns out blowing town might be easier than I thought. I decided
to blow off the planning committee and their budgets. That leaves my inner
council.

Merihim isn’t returning my calls. A sore loser in a
battle he hasn’t even lost yet. But for the first time he and his church have to
justify their existence and it’s making him cranky. Boo-hoo. Take two altar boys
and call me in the morning.

The other members of the Council are tied up. Buer
is at the City Hall building site. There’s no reason to get him off it since
it’s one of the few projects that’s actually accomplishing something. Obyzuth is
with Deumos, so she knows the score. There’s Marchosias but she’s not sending me
any good-bye roses. She’s busy wheeling and dealing with other Hellion
politicos, giving them the good word that Lucifer is alive and well despite
another ambush. The king is the land, the land is the king, and as long as
Lucifer lives, the ground won’t open and gobble the place down like a California
roll.

The bedroom is still a broken little FUBAR island.
What’s-his-name the herbalist, just a pile of gristle and bones on the stained
bed. Snowdrifts of Kentucky fried insects. Bullet holes in the wall. Burn marks
around the electric outlet. Shards of porcelain from the broken bathroom sink.
In all, a fitting monument to my stellar turn as Lucifer. Leave it just like
this. Let the next Lucifer clean it up.

I toss my coat on the bed and give myself the
once-over in the mirror. New scars on my face and hand. A left arm that looks
like a tin-plated grasshopper. A livid burn on my chest above the armor. My eyes
are stuck in a thousand-yard-arena death stare. I might even see some gray
hairs. I look like old roadkill in new boots.

I can’t go home looking like this. I take long,
slow breaths and try to relax. I practice a smile but that just makes things
worse. I’m not sure how wide to make it. How many teeth should I show? You’re
not supposed to think about smiling. You just do it. I curl up the ends of my
lips and open my eyes. Not bad: if I want to look like a paint-huffing
shark.

I call Brimborion and tell him to come up in an
hour. Then dial the witches downstairs. Let them know I’ll be paying them a
visit. A couple of other short calls and then I head down to the kennels to feed
the hellhounds.

Brimborion is a pain in the ass but he’s a prompt
pain in the ass. He knocks on the bedroom door in exactly one hour. I’m shoving
clothes, Aqua Regia, and cigarettes into a duffel bag I found. With some silk
stockings and chocolate, I could be one of Harry Lime’s pals in
The Third Man
.

“The door’s open.”

Brimborion comes over to the bed where I’m
packing.

“I’m taking off. We got Vetis but we don’t know if
we got his whole crew. You working with me makes you a target, so you should
have this.”

I toss him the Glock.

“You know how to use it?”

I’m stuffing a couple of last cartons of
Maledictions into the duffel when Brimborion racks in a shell and presses the
gun into the back of my head.

“That’s not a Happy Meal, pal. No matter how hard
you push, there aren’t any prizes inside.”

“Give me the weapon,” he says.

“The 8 Ball? No. I need some souvenirs and the gift
shop is closed.”

“Lucifer’s armor might give you power but I think
five or six shots in the head from this range would kill even the Light
Bringer.”

“Before you carry out this brilliant plan, tell me
this: Did Marchosias come to you or did you go to her?”

He hesitates.

“Why do you think she’s involved? I’m the one with
the gun to your head.”

“First, she’s the only one who might want the job.
Second, you’re the one with the gun to my head, meaning you’re stupid and she’s
not. She’d never touch anything that might be traced back to her.”

“Who cares? Vetis is going to be killed escaping.
His confederates will commit suicide when they hear about it. You’ll be dead and
someone will have to step in to fill the vacuum.”

I get the cigarettes in the duffel and zip it
closed. Brimborion jumps at the sound and shoves the gun harder into my
head.

“Is that the deal she offered you? You help Vetis.
Get him and his boys maintenance uniforms so they can move around the palace.
They get taken down but I’m killed by one of their vengeful stooges. Tragic but
understandable.”

“And I’m the only one who knows how you work,” says
Brimborion. “What you had planned. I’m the one to whom you came to for counsel.
I don’t have the rank or respectability to become Lucifer right away, but with
no one else available, Marchosias will appoint me regent.”

“And you’ll do such a bang-up job everyone will
grovel and beg you to become Lucifer 3.0.”

“And I’ll humbly accept.”

“You know the only reason Marchosias brought you
into the deal is because you hillbillies won’t ever go for a woman Lucifer. So
she needs a Muppet like you to be her beard.”

I start to turn but he grabs my shoulder and holds
me.

“It was worth a finger to get rid of you. No one in
all of Hell will shed a tear when you’re gone.”

“I will.”

I can hear his fiend’s heart beating like a bar
band doing a cover of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” He stinks of Aqua Regia and some
kind of Hellion speed I haven’t smelled before.

“Did Vetis kill Ipos or did you? I’m guessing
Vetis. Ipos would crack you open and play Jenga with your bones.”

“Among the many reasons I hate you is that you only
drank enough to be infuriating. Just a little more and the possession key might
have worked and then none of this would have been necessary. You would have
appointed me the new Lucifer and killed yourself on the palace steps. You don’t
even want to be Lucifer and it’s impossible to stop you from doing it.”

“But you won’t be Lucifer. Marchosias will. Wise
up, Tom Swift. She gets the power and all you’re getting is a desk and new
stationery.”

I take Mason’s lighter out of my pocket and pick up
an unopened pack of Maledictions from the bed. Brimborion starts and takes a
step back as I tear open the pack, tap out a smoke, and light up.

“How did you know Marchosias and I were working
together?” he asks.

“It was the thing with Lahash. What a zany
coincidence it was that your dope dealer attacked me. You and Marchosias got
drugs from him to dose Ukobach. I’m guessing Marchosias got the idea from Mason
when he was experimenting on those poor bastards in the hidden room. Vetis and
his fake maintenance crew smuggled Lahash in using one of your passkeys. Lahash
and I were supposed to kill each other but Vetis let him out early. I wonder
why. If you died, Marchosias would need a new front guy. Vetis maybe? Think
about it. A legionnaire is a lot better choice for Lucifer than a secretary.
You’re as dumb as a hat full of horseshit.”

He cocks the pistol.

“You have ten seconds to tell me what you’ve done
with the weapon.”

“The weapon. You don’t even know what it’s called.
I bet you about wet yourself when I upped the library security and you couldn’t
snoop around anymore. Too bad too. I was afraid of losing the 8 Ball, so I kept
it close by. A few more hours and you would have had it.”

“That’s good enough. Better than talking to you
anymore.”

Click
. He pulls the
trigger again. Another
click
.

“Marchosias would never bet her life on a gun she
wasn’t sure worked. See what I mean about stupid?”

Semyazah and Wild Bill come out of the bathroom.
Both are holding pistols. Brimborion stares at them. I put the lit end of the
Malediction to the back of his hand and he drops the Glock on the bed. I
backhand him with my Kissi hand and bounce him off the wall.

“What did I say would happen if you ever threatened
me again?”

He stares dumbly, hugging his bandaged hand to his
chest. I put my hand around his wrist.

“I said I’d take the whole arm.”

I let the dark flow out of me. Twisting and
growing, it expands like the corona of a black sun. The dark encircles us in a
freezing void, leaving Brimborion and me the only two beings in a lonely,
freezing universe.

Black tendrils like strangler vines flow down from
overhead while tentacles whip up from deep below. Thorny, twitching things with
circles of razor-sharp teeth that spin like drill bits. Brimborion backs away
but the darkness wraps around him, pulling him deeper into the black tide. The
drilling teeth brace themselves against his flesh, waiting for my signal.

I grab Brimborion’s arm in my Kissi hand.

“Did Lahash steal from you or try to blackmail you
or was he just a convenient fall guy? Do you think he could feel what was
happening when they put the bugs into him? Or maybe later when they came
out?”

Brimborion opens his mouth to scream but the dark
flows in and he chokes on it.

I move my hand up to where his arm connects with
his shoulder and say, “Here.”

The teeth spin. The drilling starts. Brimborion
tries to wriggle away but the tentacles have him and the black vines wrap around
his head, stifling his screams.

When the drilling stops, he looks at the arm,
expecting to see blood and bone. There’s nothing. The skin isn’t even broken. He
rubs at a few faint scratches. The skin collapses under his fingers like
papier-mâché. That’s his cue to scream. He claws at the hollow arm, pulling dry
dead flesh off brittle bones. Insects pour out of him. He’s ripped his arm back
all the way to the shoulder by the time he understands what’s happening. He
tries to shake off the insects but they’re dug in too deep. Dry bones in his arm
snap and it falls where it’s snatched out of the air by a tentacle that draws it
down into the void. He looks at me as the tentacles hold him, giving the hungry
insects time to finish their work. It doesn’t take long. When Brimborion falls,
his body is as dry and empty as a locust husk.

I let the dark go and it flows back into me like it
was never there.

“I hope I never have to see that again,” says
Semyazah.

“You could see that?”

He nods.

“Enough. Like through a fog.”

Bill says, “Remind me not to get on your bad
side.”

“You still think I have a good side?”

“There’s a search party out for it but I’m
optimistic they’ll turn up something.”

Semyazah goes over to Brimborion’s body. Touches it
tentatively with his boot, like he’s not sure its real.

“If only you took Lucifer’s other duties as
seriously as you take killing your enemies.”

“Which duties? Leading spooky rituals or pretending
I love pie charts? What I’m good at is killing sons of bitches who want to kill
me. How long have you Hellions been trying it? Nearly twelve years now. What
anniversary is that? Pewter? Shit? Napalm?”

Bill sits on the bed. Bounces up and down on his
ass like a customer in a mattress outlet. He fingers the blanket and sheets.
Semyazah gives Bill a look but he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“And now you’ll go home and leave us without a
Lucifer and the city will burn. Hellions and damned souls will perish but you’ll
have what you want and isn’t that all that matters?”

“I can’t babysit you assholes forever. I have
things to do. But I’m coming back. Samael used to leave all the time and he
always came back.”

“This was his home and we knew he’d always return.
What incentive do you have to come back?”

“None, but I’m coming back anyway. Not to save you.
Hell, most of you want to die anyway, so they don’t care. But I’m coming back
because there’s souls down here I care about. I won’t let Hell fall apart
again.”

“I expect we’ll see.”

He holsters his gun and I say a silent thanks. I
don’t want to get into a fight with the one general that can stand the sight of
me. And I really don’t want to go home with holes in my face.

“I’m taking the peepers with me. If there’s an
emergency or you just get lonely, leave a note on the desk in the library.”

“That’s very reassuring.”

I motion for Bill to get up, reach between the
mattress and the box spring, and pull out a full Glock clip. I eject the clip of
blanks and slap in the real one. Out of habit I start to tuck the gun in the
waistband of my pants but stop. I look at Semyazah.

“How much of this shit did you see coming and
didn’t let me in on?”

“Marchosias isn’t a surprise but I didn’t know it
would happen so soon. As for Vetis, he was a surprise. And certainly not the
rise of Deumos and her church. You’ve changed the very nature of Hell in the
last couple of days, do you know that?”

“You’re really worried about Hell’s survival.”

“This place is my home more than Heaven ever
was.”

“That’s why I’m putting you in charge while I’m
gone.”

Semyazah’s forehead creases and he shakes his
head.

“Please don’t.”

“I don’t trust you but you didn’t join up with
Mason, so you don’t want to die right now. Besides you, I can’t think of anyone
else who actually cares about this place.”

“My lord, please.”

“Sorry, man. The thing is you’re like David
Coverdale and Hell is like Deep Purple without a singer. You don’t know if you
want the gig and the band isn’t sure they want you up front, but you need each
other to tour. So shut up. Tune up. Learn ‘Smoke on the Water’ and smile pretty
for the fans.”

I toss the Glock to Wild Bill.

“That’s for you.”

He turns the Glock over in his hands. Weighs in.
Sights on Brimborion’s body. Tosses it back to me.

“I don’t trust a gun I can’t see where the bullets
go in.”

He drops back onto the bed.

“But if you’re in a generous mood, I’d take one of
these. Without the dead man, of course.”