Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim 1)

Then she crumbles all at once. Like someone pulled the plug and shut her down. When she's flat on her back, I turn the na'at to release the barbs, pull it from her chest, and retract it.

Slipping it back inside my jacket, I go over to have a look at her. Her eyes are open, and even though she's looking up, I know she's not looking at the sky. She's looking a lot farther away than that. I wonder what she sees.

"You'll suffer for this, Abomination. Do you know that? God sees everything and He sees you."

"Does He see you? I have an idea. Call God to come down and save you." I look up at the sky with her. "Nothing." I look down again and shrug. "I guess you're expendable, too."

"I hate you more than anything I've ever seen or known."

"There we go. The truth. You hate me. Not for God's sake, but for yours. Feels good, doesn't it? Feels human."

I wonder if an angel can die the way humans do. I wonder what happens to their bodies. Does their spirit go back to Heaven or Hell or do they just evaporate?

I kneel by Aelita's head. She looks up at me, sort of blank.

"I've been thinking about it. Remember when I asked you why God left me in Hell and you said that He probably thought I was where I should be? Maybe He thought I should be here today. To face you down in this alley. Maybe He wants me to finish what I came here for, only to do that, I had to get past you first. It's something for both of us to think about."

Aelita straightens out her arm and tries to manifest her sword. A fighter to the end. Maybe I do like her a little after all. No. I don't.

I don't really believe that angels can die the way we do. And God wouldn't let an important one like Aelita go so easily. Wells and his Golden Vigil buddies and half of Homeland Security are probably on their way over right now. Time for me to find a cleaners, buy some clothes, and generally, not be here.

THERE'S ONE GOOD way to always get what you want from someone who doesn't necessarily want to sell you something. Pay in advance and pay too much. When you're dropping off a coat covered in blood and plaster dust, it's no time to cheap out. The old lady behind the dry-cleaning counter gives me a I-might-call-the-cops look over the tops of her glasses. I slip her one of Muninn's hundred-dollar bills, and just like that, all is forgiven. The coat will be ready later tonight. Civilians really need to remember this. Cash is the magic that anyone can do.

Where did all the Kissi go? The streets were lousy with them yesterday and now they're as gone as a Friday blockbuster with a bad weekend gross.

What the hell is wrong with L.A.? Full of magicians, alchemists, bloodsuckers, soul suckers, the Golden Vigil, and federally funded angels, and no one's been able to touch Mason? That doesn't make any sense. It stinks of protection. It smells like a conspiracy, but I don't believe in conspiracies. Guys will say anything to get laid. If some CIA guy thought he could get a little action by showing a coed how he was the guy on the Grassy Knoll, he'd do it and we'd all know about it by now. But if there's no conspiracy, what does that mean? Maybe there's an asshole A-list that no one told me about. Shake hands with the forces of darkness and get a gift bag from Neiman Marcus and a free pass on murder and apocalyptic power plays.

Is Mason bulletproof because he's tight with the Kissi? Is everyone really that afraid? What did he have to do to cozy up to that celestial vermin anyway? What did he have to steal? Who did he have to kill? What Lovecraftian sewer slug did he have to blow to get up close and personal with God's bastard kids?

I don't believe in conspiracies, but I do believe in bullshit and I believe I'm up to my balls in it right now.

I throw the Veritas and it comes up showing a tangle of what looks almost like barbed wire. The thorn forest in Sheol, Downtown's wild western region. Caatinga thorns will strip and debone anything that wanders into them faster than a piranha with a chain saw. Roughly translated, the Hellion script around the edge of the coin reads, It's not too late to go back and get your GED. I can't tell anymore if the Veritas is giving me advice or just making fun of my doomed ass.

I've pretty much used up any sense of charity or obligation I might have had in this lifetime, but I don't want to turn into just another L.A. dick looking out for number one. I get out my cell and dial Allegra's number. She doesn't pick up. I dial my old number, but no one picks up at Vidocq's. I text Allegra the way I'd seen her text her friends: Keep yr doors locked. Mason 3's suicide bombers.

I wonder if Wells and his G-men have picked up Aelita. It couldn't hurt to make a quick check. The Chinese believe that having a funeral home near your store is bad luck in general and lousy for business. How bad must a dying angel outside your back door be?

I pick up a Jag outside a raw food restaurant next to a tanning salon. Isn't a tanning salon in L.A. like a frostbite salon in Fairbanks?

There's no one is behind me, so I can do a slow drive-by at Max Overdrive and get a look in the alley. Aelita isn't there. There's no blood. No scorch mark from her sword. No sign that anything has ever happened there. Thank you, Marshal. I'll drink to your health on New Year's.

I'D BE A happy camper if between now, when I kill Mason, and when I'm back Downtown, I didn't have to speak to anyone. But that's not how this is going to work out. I drive the Jag over to Allegra's apartment and pound on her door. Do it loud enough and long enough that one of her neighbors comes out and explains to me that she hasn't been home in a couple of days and that I should fuck off. I drive over to Vidocq's and ditch the Jag a few blocks away. There's a little bodega on the corner. I step into a shadow beside it. Two gray-haired men sitting on plastic milk crates and drinking beer ignore the weird white boy doing weird-white-boy stuff.

Vidocq's door is open. That's not so bad all on its own. The door opens and closes all the time when he goes in and out. But now it's standing open and the vaguely diffuse glow that signals a glamour is gone, like someone took soap and water and washed it off.

"When did they put an apartment in over there?" A nosy neighbor stands down the hall staring at the open door. He wants to see it, but he won't get any closer, like maybe the place is radioactive.

"Stay here," I tell him, and reach under my jacket for the na'at. The day I don't pack a gun, that's when I really want one.

"Should you go in there? Should I call the landlord?"

I throw him a quick keep-talking-and-you'll-be-shitting-out-your-tongue look and he backs off.

There's something really wrong with the apartment. Like the one out-of-tune string on a guitar. I can feel it before I even get inside. When I step over the threshold, something else hits. A taste and a smell. Vinegar at the back of my throat. Josef smelled like that when the Kissi revealed themselves. Not that I need another clue that there's something wrong with Vidocq's place.

The walls, ceiling, and floor are covered in twisting, spiky ideograms and letters, intertwined with endless spirals. Spirit faces or maybe images of God the Father, looking more like some saucer-eyed alien than a deity, are smeared around the room. The colors run from rust to a snaky, metallic green, but I've smelled enough dried blood in my time to know what the basic ingredient in all these pigments is.

I stop and I listen, waiting for something. The nosy neighbor is so freaked out, I can feel his heart and breathing. Don't stroke out, guy. We've got enough problems here.