Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim 1)

Something brushes my arm. Dirt swirls from the floor as wind explodes around us, getting stronger by the second. For a minute I wonder if I'm hallucinating, feeling some stranger's memory. Then Vidocq stumbles into me, blown over by a sudden gust, and I know this is all real.

I move my arm down as my eyes adjust to the light. It's pure white and keeps moving, like ripples on the bottom of a swimming pool. The walls look like stretched skin and something is trying to come through them. We can see the silhouettes of faces and arms as they reach for us, straining at the thin wall flesh. The bodies writhe and twist, unable to hold a shape very long as they press in on us.

Arms like roiling packs of snakes. Bodies like the skeletons of fish and birds. Faces that seem to be all teeth, all nails, or screaming from the ends of arms, where the creatures' hands should be.

Vidocq shouts, "Can't you take us out of here?" "We need a shadow, but the light's everywhere." Vidocq flings open his coat. Vials containing his potions, rows and rows of them, are sewn into the lining. He pulls out one after the other and hurls them at the grasping hands. I get the skinhead's Luger from my pocket and fire off a few rounds at the silhouettes. They don't even seem to notice.

I grab Vidocq's sleeve and pull him toward the door, firing the Luger until it's empty. Vidocq keeps throwing his vials. Every now and then, an arm or a monstrous face contorts in pain from our feeble attack, but the wall goblins come roaring back at us a second later.

At the door, Vidocq shoves me away. "Let me go!" he shouts, and tears his arm free. He's back inside the possessed room, with the walls just inches away from him. He reaches into the very bottom of his coat lining and pulls out a bottle the size of his brandy flask. Screaming, "Tas de merde!" he smashes the bottle on the writhing mass of arms and fangs and throws himself back into the room with me, knocking us both to the filthy floor.

The secret room is on fire, but the creatures in the walls are still trying to get at us, only they seem to be trapped behind an invisible barrier. Unfortunately, the fire is not.

The rotten wood in our room ignites the moment flame gets near it. In a few seconds, the place is blazing like Nero's Roman holiday. The good news is that a burning room creates a lot of excellent shadows. I grab Vidocq and drag him down into a deep slash of darkness at the edge of the Circle. We emerge, stumbling into the Room of Thirteen Doors, eyes tearing, lungs burning with smoke. I don't stop moving, but guide Vidocq through the Door of Memory and out onto the cool and silent streets of Beverly Hills. The Porsche is at the other end of the block. We run for it.

By the time we get there, Mason's vacant lot is cracking open and flames are shooting two stories into the air. By the time I get the car started and do a screaming one-eighty, the whole lot has collapsed in on itself, shaking the street like an earthquake and blasting a fat orange fireball into the night sky. I floor the Porsche, taking the first turn out of Beverly Hills on two wheels.

THERE'S AN UNLIT parking lot behind an out-of-business movie multiplex between Hollywood Boulevard and Selma Avenue. I park in a far corner so no one can see us from the street. I'm still rasping. I know it's the smoke in my lungs, but it feels like I've been holding my breath since we got out of the ground. When I kill the Porsche's engine, we can hear the scream of fire trucks echoing off the buildings all the way across town.

"Sounds like a lot of them."

Vidocq snorts. "They always look after the rich. It's the same in all cities in all times, all over the world."

"What was in the last bottle you threw back there?"

"Spiritus Dei oil. A venerable old catholicon, and poisonous to almost any Hellion or Lurker beast. Very hard to find. That was my last bottle."

"Sorry, man."

"Don't worry. The man I said I'd introduce you to will have more."

I take the Zippo out of my pocket. "What am I going do with this thing?"

"Keep it. My exceptional knowledge of magic and the transmutation of elements tells me that it is not an ordinary lighter."

"It's a stupid vessel for such a powerful talisman."

"Perhaps it was created for someone Mason knew would be drawn to it."

"You think Mason left it for me?"

Vidocq shrugs wearily. "I don't know. But it does seem more votre modele than the other members of your Circle."

"Yeah. I walked right off that cliff. But maybe the lighter will tell us something."

"Let us hope."

"So, you think Mason knows I'm back."

"You just blew up his home. He might suspect something."

I open and close my hands on the steering wheel, holding it tight. "I'm not ready yet. I barely have my feet on the ground."

"Opportunity always comes too early or too late. But with what you found tonight, you are one step closer to your heart's desire."

I flip open the top of the lighter and strike it once. Vidocq jerks away, banging his shoulder into the door. The little flame flickers, but nothing else happens. I want a cigarette, but my throat and lungs feel like hot gravel. I close the lighter and put it back in my pocket.

"When we meet this guy with the Spiritus Dei, I'll pay."