Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

ANGER MANAGEMENT FOR DUMMIES

Like I said, Samael always leaves me something to work with and a cheap joke is better than no clue at all.

I flip through the book looking for highlighted passages or dog-eared pages. I even read most of a chapter. It’s all the usual straight-arrow self-help babble. No clues. No codes. Just sensible advice for sensible people, which leaves me out in the cold. I throw the book across the room. For all I know, Aelita brought it down so Mason could use it to mess with my brain.

I need a drink. Many drinks. And I need them now.

I kick over the chair as I get up, knocking over the table and sending the lamp flying.

There’s something on a shelf that had been hidden behind the table. On a bottom shelf all the way at the back of the magic section is an old book whose cover is the same shade of yellow as Anger Management for Dummies. I kneel and pull it out.

It’s musty and a little mildewed and the leather binding cracks when I touch it. The lettering and illustration of a kid on the front looks Victorian. Gold lettering reads A Magic Primer  for Little Gentlemen. Magnificent Feats and Rousing Conundrums for Boys of  All Ages. I open it. Inside, the pages have been hollowed out. Lying at the bottom of the empty book is something wrapped in purple linen. I unroll it. And find a golden thunderbolt. Bingo.

I stand up and clip it into place.

Nothing happens. Zero. Zip. Nada. I didn’t think I was going to roll around the floor growling like Lyle Talbot sprouting Wolf Man whiskers but I was hoping for something. I’m so jacked up on adrenaline that all traces of exhaustion are gone, but that’s still a letdown when you expect to feel like the second most powerful being in the universe.

Then something hits me like a baseball bat to the kidneys. My guts knot up and my body temperature shoots up a hundred degrees. Darkness spills out of me, rolling onto the floor and spreading like black Hellion blood. I’m spewing darkness from every pore of my body. The darkness isn’t solid. It’s a cold dead void like a drop into a bottomless pit. Things curl up from the nothingness, icy and sharp, like freezing rattlesnakes. Suddenly I’m a supercharged nitro-burning Hell beast with teeth the size of the Rockies and hands the size of Texas. If I bend down, I can lift all of Creation onto my back.

And then, like a supersonic orgasm, the feeling is gone. There’s nothing left and I’m back on the floor gasping for air.

What the hell just happened? Does this mean I had Lucifer’s power for a second but my human body couldn’t contain it? Or did it just feel like it passed into me?

There are voices. They don’t come through clearly. Whispers of Hellions all around me in the palace. Even though I can’t hear individual words, the meaning still filters through. Most words are nothing. Empty compliments or straight-up information. Other things hang in the air. Faint wisps of vapor like steam coming off hot coffee. They’re veiled threats and lies. The half-truths, evasions, and bullshit that’s the blood in the arteries of this place. They float in through the walls like a ghost mist.

Okay. Right. This is new. It’s not much more than a trick from one of those shitty amaze-your-friends-and-half-wit-relatives magic kits you buy off late-night TV but it’s something. Maybe the superhero stuff will kick back in later. I like the darkness thing that just happened. I hope I didn’t blow all my power in one big death-dive money shot. Maybe being Lucifer isn’t about power but just being more aware of your Luciferness. That would be a hell of a letdown. I swear on every pointy little Hellion head if I start to grow bat wings and a tail, I’m going to cut them off and feed them to Samael through the wrong hole.

There’s one supertrick I want more than anything, and even if I still have the power, I don’t know how to get at it. How did Samael leave Hell? I never got a chance to ask. Maybe a hoodoo chant? Something you do in a Magic Circle? Walking through a waning arch? Maybe he just had a pair of ruby slippers like Dorothy.

I can’t stand this. Get me out of here. Take me home.

The roar and the wind hit like a hurricane. Things shoot past me, shrieking like tracer rounds. All metal and leaving trails of lights. A blue-brown twilight sky hovers above gray clouds. I smell diesel fumes and scorched engine oil. A green sign trimmed in white catches my eye. It reads CRENSHAW BOULEVARD EXIT.

I recognize this. I’m on the I-10 freeway above where I did the Black Dahlia and splattered my brains and bones on a freeway support. I can’t help it. I laugh and laugh like a lunatic way off his meds.

This is L.A. I’m home.

Mustang Sally, the beautiful sylph and goddess of the roads, is perched on the hood of a silver Mercedes 550 convertible in the breakdown lane, smoking like she’s been waiting for me the whole time I’ve been gone. She smiles and crooks a finger to my right. I turn.

A sixteen-wheeler is bearing down on me going seventy. The driver is laying on the air horn as cars flash by all around me. Right. Cars. Fuck. Standing on freeways is bad even if you’re magic.

There’s nowhere to run. I close my eyes and try to come up with some clever hoodoo but all that’s in my head is Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

Suddenly the roar is gone and the smells with it and the sudden gusts of wind as things whiz by. When I open my eyes, all that’s left of L.A. is a faint afterimage of Mustang Sally’s Cheshire-cat smile. I’m back in the library.

My brain is whirling like it’s going to splatter itself all over the inside of my skull like carnival spin art. I was home and it wasn’t any harder than walking from one room to another. Only I think I need to maybe get more specific about what room.

My legs are shaking too much to walk. I sit crossed-legged on the cool marble floor. Stare at it, making sure it’s real.

My burned hand throbs and my chest itches and I couldn’t give less of a goddamn. Suddenly every shitty, painful moment of the last three months has been worth it. I was home and I can do it again.

Every part of me wants to go back to L.A. right now and stay there and pretend none of this ever happened. But I know if I run off, there are things that will bite large chunks out of my ass later. Take care of business and get out clean. I’m halfway home. More than halfway. Getting away clean means making nice with people I never want to lay eyes on again. I’ve got to get Brimborion in gear and start making calls.

But that can wait a minute. Until I get off the floor, which will be any minute now. After my legs stop shaking and I catch my breath. Until then I’m just going to sit here in the cool quiet with my magic yellow book and think of how many ways this freak factory can kiss my ass on its way out the door.

I spend the next day tying up loose ends. I’m expecting a lot of ritual square dancing but it turns out blowing town might be easier than I thought. I decided to blow off the planning committee and their budgets. That leaves my inner council.

Merihim isn’t returning my calls. A sore loser in a battle he hasn’t even lost yet. But for the first time he and his church have to justify their existence and it’s making him cranky. Boo-hoo. Take two altar boys and call me in the morning.