Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

She shifts her eyes from me to her right then back to me. I take a step into the parlor and snap out the na’at to where she looked. One of Cairo’s men drops to the floor.

I go over to Brigitte.

“What are you doing here? Tell me you’re not part of this shitstorm.”

She puts her hand on Blackburn’s arm.

“Saragossa is a friend. That’s all.”

Blackburn just sits there. Useless and staring at his wife. He puts his hand over Brigitte’s. It the gesture of an old man trying to find something to hold on to while his ship is sinking.

I pull Brigitte off the desk and push her into a chair. Drag my arm across Blackburn’s desk, knocking everything to the floor.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Killing dreamers? Playing with reality? Do you have any goddamn idea what you’re doing?”

“Please. My wife.”

He holds out his hand to Tuatha.

“Fuck you and your wife. You’re not just turning the sky the wrong color. You just killed a girl whose only sins were having an asshole for a boyfriend and wanting to keep the world from falling apart.”

Blackburn’s hand falls on a pen that was still on the desk. He delicately straightens it and then clasps his hands together.

“I’m sorry. It started well. We would replace the dreamers with our people and mold the world into our own image. A better place for Sub Rosa and civilians. No one was supposed to die.”

“That’s what every amateur killer says when they’re up to their elbows in blood. Not only did you kill all those people but you poked a hole in the universe. Opened us up to angry Godeating motherfuckers who want you and me and Brigitte and your precious wife flushed down the cosmic toilet.”

He shakes his head.

“I had no choice,” he says. “You see, they took her soul.”>“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.”