Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim 1)

Allegra comes back from the kitchen with a cold cloth. I lie back and she drapes it over my forehead. I run a body check, like I used to do after a night in the arena. Flex, move, feel, and evaluate each part of my body, starting with the feet and moving up. Feet and legs work. Knees bend (one is still a little stiff). Gut and ribs are about the same. Arms, neck, and skull intact. Hands and fingers flex. I'm all right. I'm just having a hard time getting my breath after Parker's fireball love tap. I shrug off my coat, peel off the ruined body armor, and drop it on the floor.

Vidocq is on the floor again, clinking bottles together, looking for usable potions. He comes back to the sofa with a couple.

"These aren't my first choices, but they will do. Drink this."

"What is it?"

"Mustika Pearl. From Turkey. You'll feel stronger and heal faster."

"Christ. It tastes like boiled goddamn roadkill."

"Have some of this-now. You'll feel very good and it will help wash away the taste of the other."

He's right. The second one is warm and earthy, with a slightly bitter edge.

"That's nice. What is it?"

"Vin Mariani. Red wine and cocaine."

I don't know if it's the Vin or the Pearl, but within a few minutes, I feel sort of like myself again. A shaky, hot, glued-together version, but definitely me.

"Don't tell anyone," I say, "but every rotten thing that's happened since I got back is my fault."

"What does that mean?" asks Allegra.

"Wait. It gets better. I could have gone after Mason and the Kissi a long time ago. But I was flat-out chickenshit."

Vidocq asks, "How is that possible? You didn't even know about the Kissi until two days ago."

"I knew about them. Not their name or what they were, but I knew there was something like them right in front of me. What did the Kissi want from me, the moment they knew I had it? The key. Mason would have told them about that. When I followed Kasabian into the Twilight, he told me that he'd been with Mason and Parker somewhere dark. Not empty, but filled with nothing. That's why Mason and the Kissi want the key."

"Because they're in nothing?" asks Allegra.

"Because they want me in nothing. I've been through twelve doors in the Room of Thirteen Doors. I've never gone through the thirteenth. I've always been afraid of it. All the other doors are marked with a symbol. A sun. A crescent moon. A frozen lake. Only the thirteenth door is blank. There's nothing on it. It's the Door of Nothing. That's where the Kissi and Mason will be. And I could have gone there anytime since Azazel gave me the key. Years ago. But I was too afraid of that blank door."

"You're going to go there now?" asks Vidocq.

"I should be there already." I pull a wad of bills out of my pocket and hand them to Allegra. "There should be around a thousand dollars there. The rest of Muninn's money is in an envelope under all the junk upstairs at Max Overdrive. If I don't come back, it's yours. If I do come back, I'll need some of it back. The place needs a little fixing up."

Their heart rates and breathing are all over the place. The stress is going to kill them quicker than Mason or the Kissi. They both want to say something. I make sure I have my knife and step through a shadow before either of them can get out a word.

THE THIRTEENTH DOOR looks older and more battered than the others. If the other doors are portals to different planes and places in the universe, the thirteenth is the entrance to a prison. Strange sounds leak through it. Growls. Vibrations. A faint stink of vinegar. What could be the wind or voices whispering. A slow but relentless scratching, like something is trying to dig its way out.

I throw the bolt and open the Door of Nothing.

The name is pretty damned apt. Some of the other doors, I still can't figure out. What does the Door of Abandoned Melancholy mean? Not much. But the Door of Nothing is right on the money.

There's nothing beyond on the door. Not darkness. Not emptiness. Nothing. It's the total and absolute absence of everything. Especially light. I step inside and pull the door closed. Immediately I hear sounds all around me. Scurrying, secret sounds. Bugs under dry leaves. Something wet pulling itself through mud. Hungry things, chewing their claws and grinding their teeth. Things touch me in the nothing. They crawl on me and try to work their way under my clothes. I can't move. I don't know where to go. Then I remember the thing Mason left for me because he knew that sooner or later, I'd be standing here. I take out the lighter.

Let there be light.

The Zippo flares, looking like an oil-well fire in all that lightless empty space. A billion soft, pale, half-formed anti-angels limp back into the dark. Their big blank eyes glitter like black chrome. The Kissi are crowded into every inch of their chaotic nonspace. They live piled on top of each other, like dead and dying angels. The piles of bodies look like pictures of Auschwitz. This is what Heaven must have looked like after Lucifer's war.>"You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Mr. Stark."

"I try to keep things interesting for my friends."

"So far, so good."

If I was a regular person and Candy was a regular girl and this was a regular moment, I'd be kissing her, but we're not and this isn't. She looks at me like she knows what I'm thinking.