Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

His friends laugh. I don’t like leggers at the best of times, and this is not one of those.

Behind him is a squat legger with a soft fish face and eye patch.

“I would, but it would just make your girlfriend over there jealous.”

Damn. Did I say that out loud? Maybe some of these fights are my fault after all.

The expression on Dirty Boots’ face lets me know he’s exactly dumb enough to get bent out of shape by such an obvious bait line. I know what’s going to happen next but now I know that these are just infantry blockheads and not ninjas in disguise.

The trick in this kind of situation is to move first and keep moving no matter what. They’ll think you’re crazy and hold back maybe long enough for you to get away. But they’re still six trained killers. Even in Lucifer’s armor, they can kill me, but not before I take out a few of them first.

I sprint straight at them. Five of them peel off out of the way. The sixth, a bearded Hellion who’s gone hungry long enough that his uniform is too big for him, pulls a KA-BAR from his boot and lunges at me.

Even drunk, I’m twice as fast as this backwoods benchwarmer. When he misses with the knife, he leaves himself wide open. I put my boot into his balls, and when he doubles over in pain, I bring my knee up to break his nose. He goes down spewing black blood, and right on cue, his five friends wake up and bum-rush me.

There’s not much to do when you’re on the bad end of this kind of pile-on except to keep punching and wait for an opening.

I duck, get my hands up in front of my face. Bob and weave. Throw the occasional jab just to remind them that I’m in here somewhere. Half the time they’re smacking the armor, so the beating could be a lot worse. What I don’t want is for them to get me on the ground, where they can take turns doing Olympic high dives onto my face.>“I’ll walk with you.”

I stop and look back at him.

“You can do that? Just walk around?”

He holds out Lucifer’s mark.

“This keeps me out of all kinds of trouble. These pig fuckers might stab each other over a nickel’s worth of beer, but they aren’t about to break the Devil’s toys.”

“Come on, then.”

“Give me a minute. I got saddled with a dim Hellion for help. Boy’d be a good thief if he ever actually took anything instead of losing it. He’s too dumb to steal and too clumsy for the legions, so they made him a barman, which, sadly, in my experience is just about right.”

I light the cigarette and watch Bill go inside. Johnny Cash singing “Ain’t No Grave” drifts out when he opens the door.

I hate not trusting him. It’s been nice being able to be human with him for a few minutes at a time. It’s one of the few things that’s kept me sane. If he leads me into another ambush, I’ll know what side he’s really on. If I’m on my own, that’s just the way it is. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Bill comes back to the side of the bar a minute later and cocks his head for me to follow him.

“Which way do you think is best?” I ask, giving him an opening to lead me down any blind alley he wants.

“Through the market, I reckon. There’s a lot of traffic and people are looking at the goods and not at faces.”

And crowds are good places to stick a knife in someone’s back and disappear.

“Sounds good. Let’s go.”

We walk in silence. I can’t hear his heart or his breathing, but I can see him fine and Bill’s movements are definitely tense.

We pass the site where the new City Hall will go up. This Convergence L.A. is solid but there are small places where the real Hell peeks through. Like these Hellion cranes. The cabs are rounded and covered in heavy wired mesh and they have six or eight big portholes instead of windshields. They look a lot more like giant bugs grabbing food with long chitinous beaks than construction equipment.

Bill says, “You’re quiet all of a sudden. Usually you’re the chatterbox and I’m the one waiting to get a word in.”

The market stalls cover the sidewalks and spill onto the roads where the original stores and businesses have burned or been abandoned. The big stalls sell anything a fine upstanding Hellion could want, most of it black market. Clean clothes. Jewelry. Health and hex potions. High-end Aqua Regia and wine.

“I was thinking about who I should flay alive for selling all of Hell’s goods to these Harry Lime pricks.”

“I see. Maybe you’ve got more of the devil in you than even I credited you with.”

“Maybe it’s time to see just how much.”