The Kill Society (Sandman Slim 9)

“Good night, Father.”

“Whatever happens, it really is good to see you.”

“You too. Now shut up and let me rest awhile.”

A minute later Traven sits up.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

“When I broke Megs’s neck? Don’t sweat it. Think of it like someone putting a dog out of its misery. Only he really, really hated the dog.”

“Maybe I was wrong earlier,” he says. “Maybe I can get excommunicated in Hell.”

“Pull that off and I sure as shit will let you eat my sins.”

At least one thing goes right. We get enough dirt to cover the blood without anybody seeing us. The rest of the night, though, Traven tosses and turns.

A few hours later, I wake to the ground shaking and a roar like Mechagodzilla. I run outside, but it isn’t an earthquake or a metal Kaiju invasion. It’s just the camp waking up and getting ready to move out. Vehicles gun their engines. Trucks maneuver out of the camp to clear a path for the cars. The semis and construction equipment get chained to the double-length flatbed carrying the tarp. It looks like complete chaos at first, but the moves are smooth and practiced. The havoc is one big, well-oiled machine.

Traven comes out of the camper and stands next to me.

I say, “Is it like this every day?”

“Not every day. We’ve camped for as long as three days while scouts have gone out surveilling the territory.”

“Hell’s own alarm clock.”

“We’re not in Hell, remember?”

“Right . . . I’ve been wondering about that. Why search the Tenebrae?”

He sits in the camper doorway with an old book in his lap.

“We go where the Magistrate leads us and whatever it is he’s looking for led us out here.”

He’s holding a book.

“Doing a little light reading?”

“I wish. This is an old Hellion treatise on ley lines, holy sites, and places of power down here.”

“If it points out any Dairy Queens let me know. I could sure go for a sundae.”

He gets up and heads to where Daja, Cherry Moon, and the Magistrate are studying a map spread out on the hood of his Charger.

I shout after him.

“The Magistrate seems like the Holy Roller type. Could the tarp be some kind of church on wheels?”

Traven stops.

“I doubt it. From what he says, it has to do with the war in Heaven.”

“Which side is he on?”

Traven pauses.

“Sometimes I’m not sure. He’s so full of righteous anger. Still, I like to think that, despite some of his methods, he’s one of the good guys.”