The Getaway God (Sandman Slim 6)

“If your stupid brother hasn’t killed my bike completely, I’ll be fine.”

Muninn stands up, looking into the sky, blinking against the rain.

“I have to go and think about things.”

He vanishes.

Samael and I look at each other. He follows me under a tree and I light a Malediction.

“I’m kind of fucked, aren’t I?”

He furrows his eyebrows.

“You he might just kill. I have to go home and live with the man. Which one of us is truly the fucked one?”

I puff the cigarette like it might be my last, because it might.

“I can’t take the hellhounds back now. You’ll have to do it.”

Samael nods.

“Another mess I have to clean up for you.”

“Probably the last.”

I offer Samael a cigarette and he takes it. I give him mine and he lights his off it.

“With the Room gone, I suppose we won’t be seeing each other very much anymore,” he says.

“Good riddance. You never returned your videos anyway.”

“And I never rewound in the VHS days.”

We don’t talk as we finish our smokes.

When we’re done I say, “Think you can give me a ride home? My bike’s in Hollywood and I can’t shadow-­walk anymore.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Come along, Abomination,” he says.

I stand next to him. And in the next instant I’m alone in front of Max Overdrive. I go in the side door and straight upstairs.

Candy is asleep in the bedroom. Kasabian is under a blanket on the sofa. Destroy All Monsters plays silently on the big screen. I turn it off, strip naked, and slide into bed.

I wake up a few hours later when I hear something strange.

Silence.

I go to the window. The rain has stopped. The war in Heaven is over. Muninn is taking charge there and in Hell.

I go back to bed. Muninn has it in for me and the bullets are still in my chest. I’ll either wake up dead or I won’t.

I COME AWAKE with someone shaking me. I expect Candy, but when I open my eyes I see Samael. He hands me my clothes and puts a finger to his mouth telling me to be quiet.

We go out into the living room and I close the bedroom door.

“What are you doing here?”