Sandman Slim with Bonus Content (8 page)

A couple of Hellion arena slaves roll me onto a stretcher and take me backstage. In the fighters’ quarters, a wizened old Hellion gladiator trainer shuffles over and hands me a bottle of Aqua Regia. That’s medical care in Hell. A hospital in a bottle. Later, the same old Hellion comes by with a needle and werewolf-hair thread and sews me up.

Later that night, Azazel, my slave master, sends for me. Fresh wounds or not, when he calls, you go. At least he’s reasonable enough to send a couple of burly damned souls to carry me to his palace on a litter.

None of the palaces in Hell come close to Lucifer’s in size or beauty. Lucifer lives at the top of a literal ivory tower, miles high. You can’t even see the top from the ground. The joke is that he built it that high so he can lean out the window and pound on Heaven’s floor with a broom handle when he wants them to turn down the choir.

Lucifer’s four favorite generals have their own palaces.

Azazel is Lucifer’s second favorite general, so his palace is second only to Beelzebub’s in size and beauty. Beelzebub is Lucifer’s favorite general. While Azazel’s palace is made entirely of flowing water, Beelzebub’s is mud-and-dung bricks covered in human bones. Not what you’d call pretty, but it makes a statement.

Inside Azazel’s palace it’s all Gothic arches and stained glass, laid out in classic cathedral style. A carpeted nave leads to an altar at the far end where a mammoth clockwork Christ buggers the Virgin Mary every hour on the hour.

“You’re going to use those arena skills of yours to kill Beelzebub for me,” says Azazel.

“Don’t I rate a night off? I’m held together with Silly String and good wishes.”

He smiles, showing his hundred pointed teeth. “Perfect. Then no one will suspect you. More importantly, they won’t suspect me.” He hands me something, a sharpened piece of spiral-cut metal, like a long ice pick. I’ve seen it before. It’s General Belial’s favorite weapon. “Leave that behind, but be sure to dip it into Beelzebub’s blood first.” He pauses. “And wear gloves. I don’t want your human taint all over it. They have to think that Belial did it.”

“Beelzebub’s palace is a fucking fortress with about ten times more troops and guard animals than you have. And he knows I work for you. His guards will never let me get near him.”

Azazel shows me his teeth again. He likes doing that. It used to make me want to pee my pants. Now it’s just a ritual, like a dog biting another dog’s throat to remind it who’s the alpha.

Azazel reaches into his robes made of shimmering golden water and pulls out a heavy brass key. “Have you ever heard of the Room of Thirteen Doors?” he asks. “This key will take you there. The room leads to anywhere and everywhere in the universe simultaneously. Including Beelzebub’s bedroom.”

He hands me the key. It’s heavier than it looks and weirdly soft. I realize that it’s not made of brass after all. It’s living skin over bones.

“In one hour, you’ll enter the Room of Thirteen Doors through a shadow behind this altar. From the room, you’ll go out through the Door of Fire. That’s a killing portal. It will take you right to your prey. Once you’ve killed Beelzebub, leave Belial’s weapon and return here.”

I turn the key over in my hands. I should be horrified by it, but I’m not. There’s something animal-like about the key, like it’s a pet that wants to please its master.

“You’re thinking that I’ve given you your means to escape, aren’t you?” Azazel asks.

“Me? I love it here, boss. Why would I ever want to escape?”

He touches the edge of the key with a fingertip.

“Lucifer can leave Hell and travel easily through the cosmos, while the rest of us are bound here, cursed by the heavenly enemy. I’ve found a way out. Not for me, but for someone like you. However, you should remember not to go too far. Though I can’t leave Hell, I have some influence in your world, among those humans dedicated to Hell. Cross me, try to escape from me, and something awful will happen to the one you love. That pretty girl you left behind. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.”

“You’re not leaving here. Someday maybe, but not right now and not for a good long time.” Azazel turns and starts away. “Keep the key next to your body. That way, it will know to open the room to you. Wait an hour before you go. I need to be somewhere public when it happens.”

An obedient little slave, I do as my master tells me. I wait an hour and slip into a shadow behind the altar. Passing into that utter blackness feels like falling through cool air.

I find myself in a semicircular room that, surprise, contains thirteen doors. Each door seems to be made from a different material. Wood, water, air, stone, metal. More abstract things, too. The Door of Dreams moves and writhes, reshaping itself from second to second. There’s a sound from the far side of the room. I go to the only unmarked door and listen. There’s something moving behind the door and it knows I’m here. Something growls and scratches to get at me. Then there’s a shriek, a long, keening, furious animal sound that hits me like a knife dragged through my skull. Right then and there I know I’m going to do whatever Azazel wants and kill any damned Hellion he tells me to. I’ll be his servant as long as he leaves Alice alone and never, ever asks me to go through the unmarked door.

I wake up with the taste of Hell in the back of my throat. I know it’s just the bad vodka, but that doesn’t help. My head is full of monsters and I’m one of them. I sit up smelling sulfur and I want to kill something. I want a Hellion to burst through the window so I can take this bone knife and cut its black heart out. There are so many questions left. It feels like I’ve been doing nothing but talking since I got back. I need to do something. I need to hurt something. I need to kill Azazel, but I’ve already killed him.

I’m afraid. I’m so fucking afraid. I don’t know what’s worse, Hell or this stupid world where I’ll never be at home. But I need to keep talking to people. I need to keep asking the right questions. And I’ve already missed maybe the most important question of all.

I roll out of bed and slam the closet open, nearly tearing the door off its hinges. Kasabian lets out a yelp and turns his eyes up at me. I pick up his head in both hands and hold him so that we’re eye to eye.

“I have one question for you and I swear to God and the devil and everything holy and unholy that if you fuck me around for even one second, I will drop you in the ocean right now. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah.” He barely whispers the word.

“Where’s Alice’s body?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“I swear, I don’t know. Jesus, even I’m not that fucked up. Parker would know. He killed her. Parker’s the one that can tell you.”

There’s real terror in Kasabian’s eyes. I’m still holding him up, squeezing him tighter than I thought. His cheeks are red and starting to bruise. I set him back on the shelf and lean against the wall.

Kasabian stares at me like he’s never seen me before. “What are you, hypoglycemic or something? Go eat a muffin, for shit’s sake.”

“I’ll bring by some cigarettes later,” I tell him, and close the closet door.

At least I got to ask the big question, but I’m not any less agitated. Kasabian was telling the truth a minute ago; I could see in his mind that he would have made something up if he could have thought of a convincing enough lie. That means I can’t find Alice’s body until I track down Parker. I’m still so wound up from having Hell in my head all night that I need to break something, and soon. I hate it when I get this way. Do they have anger-management classes for hitmen?

Allegra’s voice comes from downstairs. I didn’t hear her come in. She’s talking into her BlackBerry. I look around for a clean shirt and realize that I forgot to buy some yesterday. I steal another Max Overdrive shirt from the box and go downstairs quietly. I’m not in the mood for this, but I need to do something now so that I don’t have to do something worse later.

Allegra is still on the phone and has her back to me. She doesn’t hear me come up behind her. When she turns around and sees me, she jumps a little.

“Jesus, you’re quiet,” she says. Then, into her BlackBerry, “No, not you. Let me call you back.” She takes off her coat, stashes it behind the counter, and begins setting up the money and register for the day. “I thought you were upstairs. I heard noise.”

“I had a movie on.
Dust Devil
. You ever see it?”

“Isn’t that a horror flick?”

“Sort of a horror movie crossed with a spaghetti western. You ought to take a look. The girl character dumps her boyfriend and then spends the rest of the movie trying to get away from a ghost world killer who’s sort of in love with her. She runs, but she’s no coward. She fights back and stays brave. You’d like her.”

“Thanks. I’ll have a look.” She gives me a distracted smile.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I said anything stupid last night. I haven’t been in the city in a long time. I grew up here, but it might as well be the dark side of the moon.”

“I feel that way sometimes, too.”

“There’s something else you’re wondering about. You’re wondering if I’m an ex-con. The answer is yes.”

“Oh.” She busies herself breaking open rolls of coins and putting the change in the register. “I only wondered because of, you know, the scars.”

“Would it help if I told you that I didn’t go away because of something I did, but because of something someone else wanted?”

“Are you, like, on parole?”

“It’s more of a work-release thing. If things work out, I won’t be going back at all.”

“I had a boyfriend who did time.”

“A dealer, right?”

She looked up at me, her expression shifting from interest to suspicion. “How did you know that?”

“A long time ago, I had a girlfriend named Alice. Your eyes are like hers were when I first met her. There’s this funny thing that happens to girls’ eyes when they’ve been in love with a dealer. It’s a real particular look. More than not trusting people. It’s like you’re trying to figure out if they’re the same species as you, like they might be a snake in a people mask.”

She’s still looking at me, sizing me up, and trying to classify me as animal, vegetable, or mineral. “Can we maybe change the subject?”

“Sure. I just wanted you to know the truth. I’m not a snake. I’m just a person like you.”

She turns a key on the register, clearing yesterday’s transactions and getting ready for today’s. “But it’s not the whole truth, though, is it? You’re not like Michael was, but there’s still a little bit of the snake thing going on behind your eyes.”

“What do you expect? I’m from L.A.”

She laughs. I can hear her breathing steady, her heart slow. Her fear doesn’t disappear; she’s too smart and wary for that. But she’s not going to call the cops or stab me in my sleep, and what more can you ask of a pretty girl?

I start upstairs, but turn back to Allegra. “What day is it?”

“Thursday. It’ll be New Year’s in a few days.”

“We should get some champagne for the store. And those popper things, too. They look like little bottles. Take some money out of the till and go buy whatever you think is fun.”

“How much can I spend?”

“Buy whatever you want.”

“Hey, those were nice leathers you had on yesterday. Do you have a motorcycle?”

“I might just pick one up today.”

WHEN I WAS
Downtown, Galina, one of Azazel’s vampire drinking buddies, liked to regale me with stories about what it’s like to hunt humans. She would go into exquisite detail, mostly to spoil my dinner. Sometimes to screw me up before a fight in the arena. She had a gambling problem.

Galina told me that most vampires work hard to keep a low profile. They dress, act, and often get jobs like regular people. Most vampires only feed once a month, at the new moon. A month is the longest vampires can go without fresh blood, unless they don’t mind shriveling to something that looks like hundred-year-old beef jerky.

There are the other vampires, too. The kind they make movies about. Mad-dog, Dracula-Has-Risen-from-the-Grave psycho killers. They hunt every night just for the sheer meat-market thrill of it. The craziest ones don’t even wait for night. They hunt during the day. Streaking from shadow to shadow, they snatch people right off the street and feed on them behind Dumpsters or in crack houses, next to the other addicts.

These vampires hunt for kicks, but not for fun. They hunt for rage. They hunt because something inside them is broken, and no matter how much new blood they fill their bellies with, it turns to fire in their veins. They hunt and kill because they need to, because if they didn’t, they’d tear their own heads off. Just like any fix, the calm that comes from the kill doesn’t last long, but for a few minutes or maybe an hour, the fire fades to a single glowing ember and they’re at peace. Until they need to hunt again.

If I learned anything Downtown it’s this: I’m not a vampire, but I am a junkie. And every junkie needs a fix.

A DELIVERY VAN
is pulling away from the curb outside the Bamboo House of Dolls. I go in and see stacks of whiskey in boxes, steel beer kegs, and Carlos by the bar, flanked by three lanky skinheads. One is in a bomber jacket, one is in a T-shirt of some black metal band, and the third, a huge skinhead, is in a German military officer’s coat.

Bomber Jacket jerks his head toward me. “We’re closed!”

“Just a quick one, sweetheart,” I say. “So I know you love me.”

Bomber Jacket pulls out—can you fucking believe this guy?—a Luger pistol, like he thinks he’s Rommel. Quicker than he can react, I scoop up one of the beer kegs and underhand it at him. It slams into his chest and knocks him across the room. The Luger flies out of his hand and lands on the floor somewhere near the bar.

The shaved ape in the officer’s coat starts across the room at me while the black metal skinhead pulls an impressive shank from his boot. Just to make things fun, I go straight for the one with the knife. This confuses the ape, who turns just as I reach his pal, whose arm is straight out, trying to pig-stick me. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone up against a human, so I don’t know if I’m really fast or if these geniuses are really slow, but I slip past the skinhead’s blade and pop him in the elbow, hyperextending the joint just enough to hurt, but not to snap. While little birdies are still flying around his head, I grab his arm and do-si-do around him, swinging him into the ape just as he comes up behind me.