Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

“If that sentence is headed where I think it is, you better say it pretty because it’s going to be your last words.”

“Pretty please, Mr. Blackburn. Let me do it. I’ve wanted to put the boot to this rude boy for a long time.”

It’s King Cairo’s hoarse voice. Hoarse because screaming at the top of his lungs is as quiet as he ever fucking gets. He’s head of a family specializing in freelance hoodoo muscle, stuff both on and off the books. He’s a skinny Mohawked shirtless rat in a floor-length velvet coat trimmed with ostrich feathers. He thinks shrieking and jumping on furniture makes him a punk. Really it just makes him a Dixie Wishbone addict.

Wishbone is a kind of hoodoo meth. It makes you jittery and paranoid, but guys like Cairo get off on it because it doesn’t fry them like regular meth. It burns out the people around them. A heavy Dixie Wishbone addict will end up surrounded by a pack of jaundiced, black-toothed psychopaths. Rumors are that’s how Cairo’s family got started down Alabama way.

He’s standing on a heavy mahogany settee. Leaps off and tries to kick it at me. He almost makes it too, but it catches on the edge of Kyzer Navarro’s chair and knocks him in his face. Navarro is head of the big South American Sub Rosa syndicate. Not someone you want to hit with a dining room set. Cairo’s high-drama moment turns into Three Stooges dope-fiend high jinks. He goes over to apologize to Navarro and a woman’s voice quiets the room.

“Calm down, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Stark might be guilty of many things but look closer and you’ll see he’s not who you think he is.”

I recognize the voice. It belongs to one of two or three people I hate most on this planet. I pocket the Glock, grab my na’at and get ready for a hoodoo attack, but when I turn she’s just sitting off by herself at Blackburn’s desk looking at me like I’m the soggy banana at the bottom of her bag lunch.

“Shouldn’t you be off somewhere playing Ragnarok?” I say and turn back to the room. “You know when she’s not with you bastards Cruella de Vil here is hot to murder God. How’s that for a grudge? Makes me seem downright reasonable.”

Aelita is another goddamn angel. Not a fallen one like Lucifer but one of God’s more recent rogues. Because God let a nephilim bastard like me live, Aelita’s decided the old man has gone senile and needs to be put out of His misery. She used to run the Golden Vigil, God’s earthbound Pinkertons, with a U.S. marshal named Wells. The Vigil is dead and I haven’t heard anything new about Aelita until this minute.

Blackburn moves between Aelita and me.

“Stop this right now, Mr. Stark.”

“Kill him. Fucking kill him, Blackburn,” screams King Cairo.

I grab the cantaloupe-size crystal ball off Blackburn’s desk and throw it at the ceiling. Shattered glass and smashed plaster rains down on Cairo.

“Fuck!” he screams, but he doesn’t dare do anything without the Augur’s permission.

I recognize a few faces in the crowd.

Tuatha Fortune, Blackburn’s wife. She’s a brontomancer. A thunder worker. A decent bronto can ride the storm clouds to find lost people and objects. A pro one can use lightning as a weapon. There must have been some heavy storms lately because Tuatha looks as green and worn as a civilian on chemotherapy. Some kinds of hoodoo take more out of you than others.

There’s Nasrudin Hodja. He’s a Cold Case. A soul merchant. From an old world Sub Rosa family. Like ante-fucking-diluvian old. His family might be oil and media barons these days, but buried in their vaults are ancient Sub Rosa relics traded along the Silk Road a thousand years ago.

L.A.’s Sub Rosa mayor lounges on a purple silk love seat surrounded by bodyguards. Richard William “Big Bill” Wheaton the Third. He dropped “the Third” for the last election but you always knew it was there, like he’s the king of merry old England and everyone needs to know how many of him there are.

Near Big Bill a guy sits with his hands folded neatly in his lap. He’s in a suit sharp enough to cut diamonds and has a manicure that would make the pope jealous. He’s not Sub Rosa and he’s on edge enough that I don’t think he’s ever seen so many in one place before. Or maybe he’s spooked because a crazy guy just broke in firing a gun.

At the rear of the place is a girl with a shaved head and a lot of tattoos. I’d swear I know her from somewhere but I’ve known more than a couple of tattooed girls over the years. She has thick scars on her neck and the side of her face is like one of those women you hear about who get hit with acid by a psycho ex-lover. That means I don’t know her. I’d remember those scars. You have to admire Sub Rosa who keeps their wounds. When you can go to a hoodoo clinic like Allegra’s and have them healed in an hour, you know this girl loves her scars more than she loves being beautiful. Good for her.

I look at Blackburn and flick open the na’at.

“Why did you send goons after me tonight? They busted into a public place and started shooting. Civilians got hurt.”

King Cairo laughs like I told a great knock-knock joke.

“Of course, Cairo. They’re your assholes. Aren’t they? I should have known by the Wishbone shakes. No wonder they couldn’t hit anything they aimed at.”

Aelita says, “They attacked you because they thought you were the other Stark. He didn’t carry guns or use profanity. He was a refreshing change until he murdered the mayor’s son.”

“That ring-tailed choirboy? I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. We have witnesses.”

She folds her hands on the desk and gives me a cold smile.

“Maybe he got bored acting like a sane man and was trying to be more like you.”

“Or maybe you just made the whole thing up to kill me piece by piece like you’re doing with God.”