Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

I should have brought a pencil and paper and been drawing a map as I go over the place. I find a general-history-of-the-universe section, including Heaven and Hell. There’s a section on science, which is broken down into categories I’ve never heard of. What the hell is Quantum Melancholia?

There’s politics, which is total bullshit. All Samael needs is one book with LIE AND CHEAT LIKE A SON  OF A BITCH in neon on the cover.

There’s also art. Instead of Sodom and Gomorrah clusterfucking and Giger monsters, it looks like Samael has a thing for Rembrandt and mortal portrait painters. Probably looking for the right dead soul to put his mug on a Hellion dollar bill.

Military theory. Ha. I bet he wishes he had these books back in Heaven.

Law and economics. Was he studying for his goddamn SATs? I guess the Devil needs to know things like mortal rules and money. But still. I’m learning Samael’s darkest secrets and they’re really boring.

Philosophy. Okay. He gets some slack for this one. His argument with God seems legit. Is it the sin of pride not wanting to be a slave?

I’m about to start making my own sections. Despair. Boredom. I Want a Nap. And Fuck This Shit Entirely. I’ll push them together in one big pile with a noose overhead.

This whole time I’ve been hoping to find a secret trove of romances or westerns but the long shelves of true-crime books are probably Samael’s pulp pop reading. He’s exactly the kind of guy who flips to the end of every crime book looking for his name in the index. I wonder if I’m in one of these things. Which reminds me. I need to check the Sandman Slim entry on Wikipedia. I’ve tried killing it a couple of times but it’s always back up the next day. If some psychic prick gets wind that I’m temping as Satan, I don’t want it online. Satanists make junior high Goths look like NASA.

There’s a reading area in the corner of the room. I drop down into the soft leather chair, mentally exhausted. There’s a small table with a lamp and an ashtray with a few old butts. I forgot to pick up a pack of Maledictions before coming in, so I poke around the ashtray like a wino looking for one that might still be smokable. None of them are. I’m on a real winning streak tonight.

This is getting me nowhere. There must be a million or more books in here. I could wander the aisles for years and not find anything. Maybe I’m wrong about the missing armor piece. Even if he left it for me, it might not be in here. That means more wasted years wandering the whole palace, searching it one room at a time.

No.

Samael is a dick but he isn’t that random or cruel, at least not to me. As much as he’s fucked with me over the years, there was always a point and he’s always given me something to work with. Saint James would have figured out this bullshit hours ago. It makes me want to hurt him even more.>“See? Talk. Talk. Talk. That’s all you humans do.”

“At least I don’t get other people to do my killing for me. If I wanted to die, I’d do it myself and not trick Heaven into doing it for me.”

He sighs.

“We must be such a disappointment to you, Lucifer.”

He lays heavy sarcastic emphasis on “Lucifer.”

“This whole dump is one big disappointment. Maybe that’s why God forgot about you. You’re so fucking boring.”

Vetis presses the knife into the burn on my neck. I try not to wince.

He says, “Let me put you out of your misery.”

“Give me the knife and I’ll put you out of yours.”

Outside someone yells, “Hey!” Someone else curses. There’s the sound of running feet. A lot of them. More shouts. Guns go off and something hits the ambulance hard.

Vetis looks up as a dozen hands drag him out of the ambulance. One of them twists Vetis’s wrist until it pops and he drops the knife. They drag him around the side of the ambulance and I lose sight of him. A moment later, a woman steps inside and looks around for somewhere to sit that isn’t covered in blood. She finds a foam pillow pinned to the wall by the gurney and sets it on one of the cabinets.

“That worked out nicely, if I do say so myself,” says Deumos.

“It would have worked out even better if you’d gotten up here five minutes ago.”

She holds up her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.

“Getting through the canyons without being seen took more time than we thought.”

I sit up and lean back against the wall. Grizzly’s blood soaks through my pants. I don’t care.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show at all.”

“But here we are, keeping our part of the bargain.”

“And I’ll keep mine. Just one thing. Did you bring a doctor or nurse?”