Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

A pack of Maledictions lies next to the overturned desk. I get the smokes and light a couple, passing one to him.

“They’re good Christian boys. Thou shall not steal and all that Ten Commandments hoodoo. The new Golden Vigil. Smashing the place and fucking up your leg is for the greater good but taking a nickel is a mortal sin.”

Kasabian sets down his beer and tries to stand. The leg collapses the moment he puts weight on it. He lies down on his back.

“Look at me. I should have stayed on my skateboard.”

“It’s okay. I met a guy and he owes me a favor. He’ll finish your body.”

Kasabian props himself up on his elbows.

“And then what? I wait around for the next Curious George to come through the door and break my other leg? Everything was quiet and boring and fine until you came back, and now it’s all shit again.”

“That’s pretty harsh and it’s not even true,” says Candy.

“So says the pretty girl with two working legs. If it wasn’t for you, he would have been here to kick those guys’ asses.”

I say, “Don’t go blaming her. You’re the one who wanted me gone, Old Yeller.”

“And you’re the one who should’ve ignored me like you used to. What do I know? I’m a head on a stick. I get emotional.”

The Magic 8 Ball and the singularity are still in the duffel at the Beat Hotel. I need to move them to the Chateau.

Kasabian tosses the beer can into a small pile across the room. He opens the fridge and takes out another.

“I’ve been watching Hell on your peeper, by the way. Without sound I can’t understand everything, so maybe you can help me. Are burning churches a good thing or a bad thing?”

Shit. Merihim works fast. Deumos isn’t going to take an attack lying down. I wonder if Semyazah let it happen to lure me back. That’s not going to happen.

“Anything else?”

“Lots. I keep wondering about the uglies in uniform kicking the shit out of other uglies in red pants. Are red pants like a no-white-after-Labor-Day thing down there?”

“I need to get some things from the hotel to a safe place. If you don’t want to stay here, you can come with us.”

“And be crippled and a third wheel in your little love nest? No thanks. Cairo’s Muppets know there’s nothing here. They won’t come back.”

“I hope you’re right. I’m going to put the side door up and lay down some hexes there and in the alley. You want to leave, you do it through the front door. I’ll lay down some lighter hexes there.”

“I hope I remember all that when I go to meet the cool kids at the Viper Room.”

“Is there any Spiritus Dei around here?”

“There’s a small bottle in the medicine cabinet.”

On the way back to the Chateau, we make a quick stop at the Beat Hotel. I feel bad about Kasabian. If I’m a shit magnet, he’s a getting-stomped magnet. Maybe I should’ve forced him to come with us. He would’ve loved that. One more thing to complain about.

At the Chateau, Candy and I break more furniture and afterward I try to figure out what to do next. The sofa won’t budge. It sits like an iceberg surrounded by a sinking Titanic of broken furniture.

I go to the window to have a smoke. Something that might be an iceberg slides down Sunset Boulevard, tearing up the road, smashing windows in the buildings across the street, and crushing cars. Then it slips silently out of sight. The stars overhead blink on and off like colored Christmas-tree lights. In the distance, there’s the glow of fire and sound of sirens. What’s that line from The Outlaw Josie Wales? “Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming for breakfast.”

It comes to me sometime around dawn. Fuck Saint James. I don’t need him. I want the Key to the Room of Thirteen Doors but I’m doing fine without it. It’s sure not enough to put up with this carousel of bullshit. An apple-cheeked ghost that has everyone jumpy as a chicken on an electric fence. A pushy skeleton whining like the clingiest girlfriend since Ophelia. A fruit bat in Malibu who has high tea with skeletons. Downtown is turning to shit again and L.A. is on fire. And I know things are only going to get worse. If Semyazah can’t handle Hell, how am I supposed to? I don’t need any of it. Fuck Saint James. Aelita and King Cairo are the ones I need to worry about and by “worry about,” I mean kill.

We’re sitting in a stolen Ford soccer-mom SUV between a hipster art gallery and a costume store.

“So this is your idea of a double date,” says Allegra.

“You wanted back in the field. Welcome to the exciting world of trench warfare.”