The Getaway God (Sandman Slim 6)

“Mr. Muninn?”

When no one answers I say it again.

Footsteps click down the hall, coming my way. Then nothing. Silence for maybe thirty seconds.

“Are you going to hide in the elevator all night or are you going to come have a drink with me and Father?”

It’s Samael. At least his voice. I step out of the elevator with the na’at held high. Move around the corner until I can see the whole living room.

Samael is there. His suit isn’t quite as sharp as usual. His smile is faint and gone in a second, like he was as uncertain

about me as I was about him. I put the na’at back in my coat. There are stains on his shirt and trouser cuffs. Black blood.

“Come to comfort the bereaved? What a softie you’ve become. Everyone is in the library.”

Samael starts down the hall.

“Which brother was it?”

He doesn’t turn around.

“Nefesh.”

I follow him down the hall.

This stinks. I’m the one who wanted Nefesh to come down to Hell in the first place. I told him he’d be safe here with Muninn. We met when he was hiding in a Roman bath at the bottom of the Kill City mall. Who knows how long he’d been there, hiding in noncorporeal form? Pretending he was nothing more than a mad old ghost. Then I came along with some friends and got him to tell us where Aelita had hidden the 8 Ball. I told him to give up the ghost game. Grow a pair and head Downtown for some face time with his brother and, most of all, safety. Things were bad enough back then that a piece of God took advice from me. Things must be even worse now if all it took were a few legionnaires to bring him down.

I follow Samael into Lucifer’s enormous library. Muninn is sitting on one end of a long velvet couch I used to sleep on. At the other end of the couch is his twin, only instead of being black like Muninn, he’s blue. Everything. Clothes. Skin. Hair. The works.

“James,” says Muninn. “What a nice, if ill-­timed, surprise. Let me introduce my brother Chaya.”

It’s Muninn’s house, so I want to be polite. I put out my hand. Chaya doesn’t move. In the arena, I had Hellions, beasts, and other lost souls look at me with hate in their eyes, but none of them comes close to Blue Boy. I pull back my hand.

“So this is him,” says Chaya. “The monster who kills monsters.”

“Be nice, Chaya,” says Muninn. “James is a guest.”

“I don’t remember inviting him. And I know it wasn’t you. Was it you, Samael?”

“No, Father,” he says.

Chaya looks at me.

“That’s not a guest. That’s an interloper.”

“James knew Nefesh,” Samael says. “Perhaps he’s here to pay his respects.”

“Yes. That,” I say. But no one is buying it. “Okay. Truth is, I didn’t know which one of you it was that got hurt—­”

“Killed,” says Chaya.

“Right. Killed. I wanted to check in and see what the situation is.”

Chaya says, “He wanted to know if we’re all right. What a sweet murderer you are.”

“Truth is, I was really checking on these other two. You I don’t know from a hellhound’s asshole.”

Chaya’s face turns kind of a dark fucked-­up purple, which I guess is him turning red.