Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“Because I’m a thief.”

“Because you steal their shit.”

“Only because they want what each other has, but are afraid to do it themselves. They need me to take it and Muninn to sell it back to them because the wealthy and powerful have always preferred to pay their lessers to commit their crimes for them.”

Allegra looks back at me.

“Take me with you tonight. I want to see the crazy people you two are always talking about. I’ll brush my teeth and wear underwear and everything.”

“Trust me, neither of those things are mandatory with this crowd. But you can’t be my date. I’m Lucifer’s date.”

“Bull. He wants you there to intimidate people. I’ll be Lucifer’s date. You can loom behind us like a teddy bear with a Gatling gun.”

“I’ll introduce you to Lucifer when Hell freezes over and Jesus opens a sex shop on Melrose.”

“Don’t be such a grandma. Vidocq would introduce me if he could.”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“It does no good to hide the world from those determined to see it for themselves,” Vidocq says.

“We’re talking about Lucifer, not taking little Susie down to Planned Parenthood for birth control.”

“When you introduce yourself to the devil willingly, you take away his power to surprise you.”

“And an apple a day keeps the doctor away, except for all those people who got cancer.”

Allegra yells, “This is what I’m talking about. You two are arguing like I’m not here about things I’ve never seen. I want to know about these secret people and places and I will, with or without your help.”

“You’re not coming with me tonight. Maybe I can get you into something else later. Lucifer is in town for this movie thing and those can drag on forever, so there’ll be lots of other parties with plenty of magical douche bags for you to meet. But you’re not coming tonight. And I’m not introducing you to Lucifer. Not now. Not ever. That’s it. You want to do alchemy, you’re in Vidocq’s world, and you two can work that out however you want. You get near the Sub Rosa or anything to do with Hellions, you’re in my world and I make the rules. Understand?”

Allegra turns away, nods.

“I understand. Okay.”

I take my cup to Vidocq for some coffee to wash the taste of the nostrum out of my mouth.

Allegra says, “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be left out of the big things. I get frustrated because you and Eugène have done and seen so much. I don’t think you want me to see anything. You want me to go back and be the cute little ignorant girl who runs the cash register at Max Overload.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing you over there sometimes, but I don’t want to nail your feet to the floor. Try to understand, if Vidocq or I seem like we don’t want to show you something, maybe it’s because we’re not the best role models. We’re basically a couple of huge fuckups who ought to be dead. Eugène screwed up his chemistry set so bad he made himself immortal by mistake. He could have ended up a worm or slime on a wall in a Paris sewer, but he got lucky. Me, I’m so good at what I do that I’ve spent more than a third of my life in Hell. Sometimes, if you ask a question and we don’t jump in right away with the secrets of the universe, it’s not because we think you can’t handle it, but because we don’t have all the answers either.”

Allegra takes something out of her pocket and holds it behind her back.

“Put out your hand,” she says.

I do it and she drops something heavy. It looks like a cigarette box, but it’s dense enough to be full of buck shot.

“What is this?”

“It’s an electronic cigarette. All the cool kids have ’em. They look just like normal cigarettes. You charge the cigarette part off the computer and there’s a nicotine cartridge in the filter end. Basically, you’re just sucking in nicotine and steam. It’s just like smoking a real cigarette, but these won’t kill you as quick.”

“Doesn’t that kind of defeat the point?”

She takes the pack from my hand and slips it into my jacket pocket.

“Sometimes being smart is more important than magic.”

I say, “Thanks for looking out for me.”