Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“Thank you,” he says. “That was getting uncomfortable.”

He sets the knife delicately back onto the console.

“What was this? Was he waiting for Aelita to come and finish you off?”

“Yes. But she never appeared.”

“How the hell did you let this prick do this to you?”

“We were having a nice chat about the movie at the Chateau and he caught me off guard. It’s my fault for taking his fear for compliance. Aelita gave Ritchie the athame. It’s not exactly an ordinary knife. It’s straight from Michael’s own armory. She could have killed me with it. Truly killed me. Not just this body. But she missed their appointment and poor Ritchie had been getting steadily more and more panicked.”

“Ritchie doesn’t strike me as the type to help an angel out of the kindness of his heart.”

“Aelita promised him his soul back if he incapacitated me.”

I nod, pick up one of Ritchie’s cigarette butts from the floor, sniff, and drop it again. It smells like hot tar and cancer. A little echo of Stark’s compulsions.

Lucifer cocks his head and gives me a sidelong look.

“What’s wrong with you? You sound different, James.”

“James isn’t here. It’s just me now.”

Lucifer rolls his eyes.

“I was wondering when this was going to happen. Nephilim are so unstable. Now it’s time for you to have a little psychotic break and imagine you’re a true angel. How sweet. Sad, but sweet.”

“You knew that something awful was going to happen, didn’t you?”

I sit down on the console near Lucifer.

“You knew about the Geistwalds. And maybe even that Aelita would use the chaos to pull something, didn’t you?”

Lucifer nods.

“You never intended for Light Bringer to get made. The movie was just an excuse to hang around and see it play out. Tell me that you didn’t know it was going to be a Drifter shit storm.”

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pack of Maledictions, finds one that isn’t broken, and lights it.

“Are you interrogating me? Remember who it is you’re talking to.”

“A half-dead old man who hides his seeping wounds and bloody bandages under dark shirts.”

“Playing angel is fun, isn’t it? You feel powerful. Omnipotent. Don’t let it go to your head. Even if the Stark part of you is gone, it doesn’t make you an angel. At best it makes you half. You’re a novelty toy like a talking doll or sea monkeys.”

I pick up the athame and shove it back between Lucifer’s ribs. He doubles over and collapses onto the floor. I leave him there and go to Ritchie’s gun cabinet to look for bullets. I find the right ones on the top shelf and reload the Smith & Wesson. Take that box and another box of shells and put them in my pocket.

“You knew all about it. You knew about Koralin and Aki and how they were going to murder the city.”

From the floor he says, “What if I did?”

“Why? You own half the place. Why would you let that happen?”

Lucifer tries to sit up. It gets annoying watching him flail around, so I pull out the knife. He breathes deeply, leaning on one elbow on the floor.

“Remember when I came to your room after you stopped the angel sacrifice at Avila? I joked that you were my science project.”

“Yes.”