Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

The EMTs lift the gurney I’m on high enough to slide me into the back of an ambulance. I’d feel a lot better if it was a troop truck or Unimog. Hellion ambulances look a lot like garbage trucks. Not a comforting look.

I’m strapped to the gurney with heavy nylon across my waist and legs. My burned chest is covered with a heavy gauze dressing stained bloody orange with Betadine. There’s a cool salve on my neck where the Gladius struck above the armor.

When the gurney is locked down, the EMT with the sagging shar-pei skin goes up front and starts the ambulance’s engine. As we start to move, the other EMT, a big son of a bitch with crustacean eyestalks sticking out over a bushy Grizzly Adams beard, checks my pulse.

“Does this bus stop at the Sands?” I say. “I hear the Rat Pack is even funnier now that they’re all in Hell.”

Grizzly Lobster jumps a little. Guess I’m not supposed to be awake yet. But seriously, I’m Satan, asshole. Time is money. The Devil doesn’t nap.

I push myself halfway up on my elbows. Grizzly shakes his head and puts his hands on my shoulders to hold me down. Message received. I relax and lie back down and wonder if he has a mouth under the beard.

The driver is running us through the hills at a nice clip. I crane my neck enough to see the glow of a GPS on the dashboard. Ipos told me they have them programmed with all the safe routes through the L.A. badlands. What he didn’t say is how GPS works down here. Unless Hellions have their own satellites. That would mean they have their own space program and can I get a ride out of here on a sulfur-powered Saturn V? Do Hellion tots grow up and want to be demon cosmonauts? The old Greeks believed the stars and planets carouseled around the sky in celestial spheres. Megasize glass globes made of a mysterious something called Quintessence. It would be fun to go target shooting with Wild Bill and blow them to crystal kitty litter.

Plato and his pals are as full of shit as everyone else who ever thought they had it all figured out. Deumos especially. The universe doesn’t revolve around Earth. No goddess is going to come along with milk and cookies for Hell’s lost lambs. We’re so fucked.

The ambulance crunches and jerks hard to the right like we hit something. The rear end fishtails. Feels like it’s skidding along the soft edges of the road. Then it catches again and we straighten out. I hear the engine rev as the driver punches the accelerator. But ambulances are built for stability. Not speed. A second later we’re bouncing to the right again. This time we didn’t hit anything. Something hit us.

Grizzly Lobster is on his feet, pressing his big hands against the ceiling to hold himself steady, and leans down to look out the rear window. There’s a pop and Grizzly’s head explodes. One eyestalk hits the wall and ricochets hard enough to knock bags of saline and bandages off the storage shelves. I unbuckle the gurney straps and haul myself to my feet, still wobbly and a little seasick.

Something hits us again and this time the driver can’t hold it. She curses in a grunting Low Hellion growl while jerking the wheel one way as the wheels slide the other. We’re tossed around like socks in a malfunctioning dryer. When we stop, the floor is the ceiling and the ceiling is the floor. We’re upside down a few feet from a sheer drop off the road.

The engine sputters out and things go very quiet. The driver has fallen over onto the passenger side but her legs are moving. She’s alive but pretty out of it. Voices come through the wall. Four? No. Three. A by-the-book Hellion hit team, just like back when Ukobach and his friends pile-drived me.

Grizzly Lobster’s blood is everywhere. I slip on it and fall back, banging my head hard on the wall. The outside voices stop. A shot comes through the wall. More follow. I throw myself down on the ceiling, about knocking my teeth out on a light fixture.

The rear doors creak open, metal grating against metal. One falls onto the ground. Someone locks the other in place so it won’t fall closed. All I can see are silhouettes framed in headlights. Two are way back from the ambulance. Lookouts. One hovers by the entrance for a minute then comes inside. He kicks Grizzly Lobster a couple of times, and when he’s satisfied the big man is dead, he looks up front where the driver is starting to thrash around. He yells back to the two covering him.

“One of you get up front and pull her out. Keep her quiet. This is a private audience.”

He turns back to me. Makes a big show of pulling a curved skinning knife from a sheath on his hip and waits for one of the grunts to get to work.

There’s a lot of cursing and heavy breathing. The sound of feet slipping and someone being pulled to her feet against her will. The assassin in the ambulance pushes the driver to the assassin on top of the ambulance, who hauls her out the window.

The one running the show hasn’t moved the whole time. He’s the strong, silent type with his knife. I can see he’s wearing standard-issue legion boots and pants. The pants are camo-colored, so he’s not a red legger.

From outside someone yells, “All clear.”

He kicks Grizzly’s body out of the way and kneels with the knife right over my face. Light coming through the door outlines one side of his face.

“Do you know who I am? It’s important that you know who I am. I know you’re hurt. I can wait a minute while you work it out. We’ve got all night.”

I can almost place the face but it’s the voice that gives him away.

“Vetis. Look at you all grown up and slick as pig shit. You’re finally doing your own dirty work. Of course you waited until I was in an ambulance. Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“Brave talk for a man covered in blood.”

“The blood belongs to the dead ambulance guy. You can’t get anything right, can you? You blew it bad with bug boy. And that phone call? What was that, you fuckwit Ghostface wannabe?”

He stares at me.

“So what’s this all about? You and your crew want a raise? How about two weeks’ vacation while I pull out your intestines with an oyster fork?”

He lowers the knife close to my eye and wiggles it around. The shiny blade glints in the headlights. It looks brand-new. I’m flattered.

“You mortals love to hear yourself talk, don’t you?”

It’s hard to shrug gracefully flat on my back.