Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“No.”

He grabs the athame from the table and throws it. He’s good, too. He’s handled a knife before.

I duck it, but Candy is looking at Koralin, so she doesn’t see it coming. The knife hits her arm and goes in to the hilt. She drops Kasabian and I flick out the na’at, hitting Jan in the chest. It knocks him back onto the sofa and in a few seconds he’s staring through watery eyes filled with the shock and deep-down horror of being alive. A moment later he starts to breathe. As his lungs begin filling with air he reaches for my gun, but his body is still in shock and he’s too clumsy to reach it. I pick it up and put it in his hand. I help him steady it under his chin so he’ll get it right when he pulls the trigger. The sound of a gun going off inside hurts my ears and the back of Jan’s head explodes out in a red spray. The Drifters not heading for Koralin make a beeline for the gore. I take the gun back and put it in my jacket.

I tuck Kasabian under my arm, put my arm around Candy, and help her to the door.

“What about the boy?” she asks.

“He wants to be part of the family. Let him.”

We’re out in the hall when the screaming starts. I close the door and smash the grandfather clock to pieces, sealing the room. I grab Candy and Kasabian and step through a shadow and back to the old apartment.

I can see Brigitte through the bedroom door. She’s propped up on pillows and her eyes are open.

Allegra is coming toward us.

“I’m sorry to always show up with walking wounded. But we don’t have anywhere else to go anymore,” I tell her.

Allegra takes Candy, lays her out on the sofa, and goes for first-aid supplies.

“You know you are always welcome. Family is difficult, but having none is worse.”

Kasabian is still under my arm.

“Oh Christ. Put me back with the zombies, Strawberry Shortcake.”

I go back to the bedroom. Brigitte sits up and puts out her hand. I take it, but only to make her feel better. She’s still too weak to explain that the man she thinks she’s looking at is gone.

There’s a blast in the street. Then shouting. I look out the window and see a couple of girls and a young guy running from a pack of Lacunas. They have guns and are shooting. They’re getting some pretty good hits, but it’s not going to do them any good. They have to slow down when they aim. In a minute or two they’ll be out of bullets and the Lacunas will have gained on them enough that it will be over.

I turn to Brigitte.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

I climb the stairs to the roof. When I get there I can still hear gunfire, but it’s less frequent. They know they’re running low on ammo.

From the edge of the roof I can see the whole city. It’s a patchwork of light and dead blacked-out areas and the whole thing has turned orange and bleached yellow from dozens of fires.

The shooters are out of bullets and the Lacunas close in.

Koralin must have known something extra about how the Druj works. I could make the Drifters nearby do what I want, but there’s no way I can control a whole city. She acted like she could. Maybe I should have asked her about that before letting the Drifters have her.

Even if I could control them all, would that save the day? Lucifer said not to rely on any one weapon. That I might not even be able to keep this one. Maybe that’s the point. The fatal flaw that will reveal itself at exactly the worst moment. When would that be? When I sneak Downtown and use the Druj to hunt Mason? Now, when I try to get the Drifters to march back to their caves?

When I was still in the arena, I stole a knife to kill another fighter I didn’t like. I tried stabbing him in the tunnel leading to the fighting floor, but the knife’s weight was odd and the blade wasn’t sharp enough. I found out later that it was a throwing knife, completely wrong for hand-to-hand fighting. It only had power when you threw it. To use it, you couldn’t keep it.

I take the Druj out of my pocket and throw it off the roof. It turns over and over in the air like a coin tossed on a bet. It takes forever to hit the ground.

The Lacunas have caught up with the shooters. They’re on them. I can hear them screaming.

The Druj hits the pavement and shatters into a million pieces.

The Lacunas freeze. For a moment they’re horrible dummies in a Hellion spook house. Then quietly, like wind on a roof, they fall apart. They’re dust before they hit the ground. The shooters, both girls and the boy, get up. They stagger, grab each other, and look around. When they see what’s happened, they run away as fast as they can. The same thing is happening farther down the street. Drifters are falling apart everywhere. In the distance, civilians are single dots running from packs of other dots. Then the pack disappears and the lone dot stops running.

The fires still burn. Half the city is still blacked out. Sirens scream and helicopters cut up the sky. I go back downstairs.

WHEN IT’S LIGHT out, I take Kasabian back to Max Overload to see what condition the place is in.