Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“I know. But I liked James better. I hope I get to see him again someday.”

I LET HIM through the door, but I don’t go in with him. He’s on his own Downtown. I honestly don’t know if I want him to make it to Heaven or not. Like me, he’ll have to rise or fall on his own.

Only one of the angels will die by my hand, Aelita said. She was coming here, so she had to have meant Lucifer, right? But she didn’t come.

I dial Kasabian. No answer. I dial Kinski and the call goes to voice mail. Shit. I should feel something more than this. Fear. Rage. But I don’t. I just see the microscopic elements of the universe vibrating. The clockwork wheels turning behind the stars.

I can go and look for them or I can go back and deal with Koralin. I suppose Lucifer was right about some of the things he said about me. Especially now with these angel’s eyes, ruthlessness seems like good common sense.

I step through a shadow and back into the hotel lobby. A few of the hotel guests, who were bitten but not completely eaten, are awake. Adorable baby zeds. I herd them into the elevator, punch three, and take a few of them into Lucifer’s hotel suite with me.

Aki’s eyes go wide when he sees us.

I tear the tape off his mouth, cut one of his hands free, and give him my phone.

“Don’t worry. The Drifters won’t bite. For now. Call Koralin. Tell her where you are and that her prodigal son is going to be tonight’s all-you-can-eat buffet if she doesn’t get her ass down here fast.”

When he’s done, I tape him back up and go through a shadow to Vidocq and Allegra’s place. I need to get things ready.

KORALIN STEPS THROUGH the clock and into the room slowly, like she’s expecting a firing squad.

I turned off most of the lights, just leaving on the ones that illuminate Aki and the area by the sofas.

She spots Aki.

“Rainier, darling, are you all right? Has he hurt you?”

“I didn’t hurt him, but the genius shot a hole in his own foot.”

She starts to go to him, but I cut her off.

“He isn’t taking visitors and he isn’t Rainier. Don’t call him that.”

“He’s my son. I’ll call him whatever I like.”

“Your son is dead. So’s your daughter. I know. I killed her.”

She looks at me for a moment like she doesn’t believe me and then turns back to Aki.

“That was a terrible thing for you to do. Still, she was lost to me a long time ago.”

“It’s funny you should say that. You’re the last thing she talked about. She wanted me to tell you that she was sorry. She said that you scared her and her father and she wanted to get you back for it, but now she was sorry. What was she so sorry for? Taking the Druj?”

“She was always her father’s daughter. They were just alike. Always weak and worried. Always apologizing.”

“But not Rainier.”

“Rainier was a good boy. He was strong like his mother. He understood how the world was and what was necessary for the family.”

“He was that important and you let him die. Take you off the mother-of-the-year list. What happened to him?”

She walks back and forth, looking past me at Aki. But she doesn’t try to go to him.

“It was an accident. Rainier was reckless and headstrong, like all children. He went to a chemical plant and stole a large amount of ammonal, aluminum, and ammonium nitrate. He was going to use it to blow up the Springheel home. Can you imagine? It would have been such a merry thing, ending that ancient family line not with sorcery, but with something so mundane. But Rainier didn’t know how to properly handle the material. There must have been a spark or a flame. Perhaps one of his witless friends lit a cigarette. There was an explosion. That was the true tragedy of his death. It was so common and petty as to be obscene. It was a human death.”

“That’s got to be a bad way to go for you.”

She turns to me, looking every bit the ironclad matriarch that frightened Eleanor so much that she’d rather be a bloodsucker than a daughter.