Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

“Great. Let’s keep things simple. How about you make me a burrito?”

“What kind of meat would you like?”

“What have you got?”

“Manticore. Greater and lesser sand jellyfish. Archaeopteryx. And white strangler fungi. It’s called fungi but really it’s a light-tasting parasite that grows in the bowels of—”

“I know what it is and I wouldn’t eat that shit with God’s mouth. Make it manticore. And send up some Aqua Regia and a carton of Maledictions. Leave it all outside the library door.”

“Will there be anything else, lord?”

“Yeah. Book me a first-class seat on the red-eye to Burbank.”

“You want a book, lord? I thought you were in the library.”

“Forget it. Just the food and smokes.”

I know whatever they bring up will be horrible but at least it will look like something from home. And manticore meat isn’t that bad. Sort of like a buffalo, a jalapeño, and a jar of vinegar had a baby.

Fuck me. I’m turning into a lifer. I’m calling the apartment mine and getting used to the food. I need to be dead or out of here fast.

There’s a soft knock on the library door. I open it, careful not to step in any of my bear traps. Brimborion is in the hall with Deumos.

“No one saw us. Also, this was outside the door.”

He holds up the food tray. I lift the metal top off the plate with the burrito. It looks like a giant maggot in a gray bathrobe. I put the top back on the plate and pull Deumos inside.

“Cool your jets for thirty minutes.”

I take the Aqua Regia and cigarettes off the tray.

“Keep the burrito. I hope you like manticore.”

Brimborian looks at the tray and back at me, surprised.

“Thank you.”

“Thirty minutes,” I say.

I close the door and look at Deumos. She looks very human even if her skin is a little on the snaky side. She holds her head up high enough that it looks like she could use the horns wound in her hair as a weapon. She’s in a floor-length robe that shades from a deep bloody red at her shoulders to a pink so pale it’s almost white at her feet. I point to the floor.

“You’re going to want to walk around those marks. Otherwise you’ll end up boiled, blind, or a Popsicle, depending on which hex you step into.”

She looks down, gathers up the bottom of her robe, and carefully steps over the marks. When she’s clear she walks a few paces farther and turns and fixes me with her hard, bright eyes.

“Did you bring me here to kill me? You have quite a reputation for that sort of thing.”

“I pretty much live in here. If I was going to kill you, I’d do it down the hall in the room with the dead guy and the bugs.”

She looks around at the bookcases. When she looks at the fresco on the ceiling she smiles.

“I take it the first Lucifer made this.”

“Yeah. I’m more the high-def TV man.”

“I’m sure,” she says. “If I’m not here to die, why am I here?”

“First to remind you that I’m not the first Lucifer. I didn’t set up any deals with the Tabernacle and I’m not your enemy. Just because I’m the Devil doesn’t mean I give a goddamn about religion.”