Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim 1)

"Careful. That might not be dry," I say.

"Thank you." He stands up and checks his jacket for spots. "I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd drop by and congratulate you on outfoxing Mason. I honestly didn't think you had it in you."

"Up until he was gone, neither did I."

"It was clever how you tricked him into following you to Hell. It's just too bad that when you locked him in, you probably gave him exactly what he wanted. You don't really think that ritual at Avila was to let me or my kind out of Hell, do you?"

"No, it was to let him in. I didn't figure that out until later. So, the mob didn't rip him to shreds?"

"Of course not. Mason won't die that easily. And now he's free to crawl around down below, like a viper at my bosom, and conspire with my generals to overthrow me."

"It's going to be a lot harder for him now that he doesn't have the Kissi to back him up."

"Maybe."

"You telling me that the Prince of Darkness can't handle one lousy human? You've done it before."

"Not when he's protected by my entire general corps and the aristocracy. Things were chaotic enough before his arrival. I could gather the troops who remain loyal to me, find and kill him tomorrow, but I'd have to destroy half my kingdom to do it."

"That's not my problem."

"Not yet."

Lucifer takes out a pack of thin black silver-tipped cigarettes.

"Do you mind?" he asks.

"Damn. Are those Maledictions?"

"Right. You can't get these up here." He tosses me the pack. "Keep them. I have more."

"Thanks."

I tap a Malediction out of the box, fire it up, and puff. It tastes like a tire fire in a candy factory next door to a strip club. The best cigarettes in the universe.

"I heard a funny story the other day. Doc Kinski told me one about angels and human women and something called a nephilim. He says I might be one. You know anything about that?"

"I know all about Uriel and his disgrace. Do you think an archangel could fall without me knowing? I'd hoped that Heaven would cast him all the way down to me. I would have thrown him a ticker-tape parade."

"So, he was telling the truth?"

"Of course. I'd heard stories about the nephilim over the centuries, but I'd never seen one. I wasn't sure they even existed. When the Kissi dropped you down with us, I wasn't terribly interested. Unlike my brethren, I'd seen more than my share of humans. Then days passed and you refused to die. That's when you got interesting. I moved you from household to household. Put you in direct conflict with powerful Hellions. Decided who you would fight in the arena."

"I was your science project."

"You still are."

"What does that mean?"

Lucifer looks away and picks up an import DVD of Lucio Fulci's Zombi.

"This looks fun. May I take it?"

"Happy New Year. It's yours."

He throws back the drop cloth and starts going through the stacks of discs on the table.

I say, "I've been wondering, just how much of everything since I got back was your doing?"