Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

“I wanted to do more than read books. I guess this is it.”

“Welcome to le merdier. Does this back window roll down?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Too bad.”

I put my fist through it. It catches around my wrist like a big glass bracelet. I pull it off and throw it at Cairo just as he’s about to toss more fire our way. The glass shatters in Cairo’s face. He slides back into the car, covering his eyes. The Charger slows down.

“Is it over?” asks Traven. “Did we win?”

“No and I doubt it.”

The Charger cuts right and gets behind us again.

“Keep talking, Father. I like hearing stories when I’m killing people. Lamia is a demon of an Angra. How did she get here? What does she want?”

Traven’s voice quivers a little. I can’t tell if it’s fear or the uneven road.

“The weapon is your answer. She, and we can assume the rest of the Angra, will return to take back what’s theirs.”

“The Qomrama?”

“If the books are right, they’ll want everything. The entire universe.”

The Charger moves up on us again. I can see Cairo shouting at the driver.

“Candy, shoot that son of a bitch.”

“Which one?”

“Any of them. Just pop a couple of shots at them and see what they do. Keep talking, Father.”

Candy leans out the window and shoots twice. One shot misses and the other takes out one of the Charger’s headlights. Not a bad start. It gets them to put a little more distance between us.

“Father?”

“We once talked about the idea that the being we call God is merely the Demiurge.”

“More like the universe’s janitor than an all-powerful creator. Got it.”

“The book you saw in my office when we first met. The one you called the Angra Om Ya Bible has an alternate Creation story. It’s entirely possible that the entity that we call God didn’t create this universe. The Angra Om Ya did. God merely usurped it.”

The Charger pulls up right on our bumper and Cairo climbs out of the sunroof.

“Slow down,” I shout.

Traven backs off the accelerator.

Behind us, the Charger lurches, trying to keep from hitting our bumper. Cairo slams into the side of the sunroof and falls back inside.

“Keep going.”

“Talking or driving?” says Traven.

“Both. See if you can hit the windshield, Candy.”

“In math there’s something called M-theory. It says that we live in a universe with many parallel dimensions and many universes all separated by infinitely large membranes.”