Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“They’re good colors for hiding blood. You’re bleeding, aren’t you?”

He stares at me for a while. Long enough that I start to wonder if I’ve finally said the wrong thing and he’s going to have to tip the maid extra to peel my skull off the ceiling. Eventually, he nods.

“Yes, I am.”

“But you didn’t get hurt tonight. You always wear these colors, so I’m thinking you’ve had the wound for a while.”

He smiles.

“Keep going. You’re impressing me.”

“That’s why you’re here and not in Hell. You got hurt in a tussle with one of your generals who went bad on you, but you don’t want anyone to know. It’s better to come up here and play an egomaniac dick than it is to stay Downtown and hide all the blood.”

He cocks his head and puffs his Malediction.

“Not bad. You’re not entirely right, but you’re closer than I thought you’d get.”

“What did I get wrong?”

“No one in Hell did this to me. I received these wounds in Heaven.”

Lucifer stands and opens his shirt. Most of his body, from his waist to his chest, is wrapped in linen bandages. Here and there, yellow lymph and blood have soaked through. There’s a large bloody patch near his heart. That’s the blood I noticed earlier.

“There are some things even an angel can’t endure. A father’s disapproval is one.” He sits down and winces. “His thunderbolts are another.”

He buttons his shirt.

“You think you were scarred in the arena? You should have seen my face before the surgeons had their way with me. Of course, in those days we had no medicines or medical instruments in Hell. My doctors attended to me with obsidian knives chipped from the walls and slivers of sword blades that had fallen from Heaven with us.”

“You’ve always been like this. The whole time you’ve been in Hell?”

“Daddy showed me the door with a face full of fire.”

“Do your generals know you’re hurt?”

“They fought beside me. Of course they know.”

“If they know, that means Mason knows.”

“I suppose so.”

“The wound is getting worse, isn’t it? It’s bleeding more than it used to and you had to leave to hide it. What happened? Did you get hexed?”

Lucifer gestures at the table.

“Pick a shirt and get dressed.”

I take a red one so dark it’s almost black. He stares at me as I put it on.

“The front desk will call you a cab.”

He pulls a few hundreds from his pocket and hands them to me.

“This will get you home and buy you some drinks to stop the pain. We’ll talk later.”

I go to the clock and lean over to step through. I pause and look at him.

“You’re the one who told me to get smarter about what I do, so don’t get weird because I start asking questions.”