The Kill Society (Sandman Slim 9)

“You should probably leave those,” Alice says.

“I was afraid so.” She takes them off one by one and tosses them into the road.

Gisco grunts something.

“Yes. They can fix your leg,” says Alice. “That’s one of the archangel Raphael’s specialties.”

That gets an enthusiastic nod.

“What about the rest of the havoc?” says Daja.

I look over at the remains of the messiah’s terror squad. They don’t look so scary now with no vehicles or food or water. And there’s a lot fewer of them than when I joined the show.

“Which way is Pandemonium?” I ask Vehuel.

“Due east.”

I point east and shout, “Go that way. There’s food and water in Pandemonium. Then head south. You’ll find other souls there. Sooner or later, Heaven’s gates will open. You don’t want to miss it.”

Just a few leave at first. Then small groups, and finally the rest, start the long walk east. Cherry stands there like maybe I’ll tell her our conversation was a joke. She’s a wreck and always has been. I can forgive her a lot, but not Wormwood. Finally, she gets the idea and follows the others.

“That’s taken care of. Now I guess we grab the Light Killer.”

“Every scrap and splinter. Leave nothing behind,” says Vehuel.

“Getting barked at by angels. Heaven is going to be fun.”

We spend the next half hour scraping up pieces of the sword from the flatbed and the road. We wrap everything in a moldy curtain Daja grabs from one of the abandoned houses. All except one little pinkie-size piece that we almost missed. I stick that in my pocket. After one last look around, I take the heap to Vehuel.

“That’s it. Let’s get going before you make us sweep up the whole Tenebrae.”

“I don’t think she’s going anywhere,” says Alice.

She’s right. Vehuel is already starting to fade. But she’s strong. It’s a long time before she disappears completely. I help Alice up. Her eyes are red, but she doesn’t shed a tear. She’s a fighter and there are still things to do. There will be plenty of time to cry when she gets Upstairs. I won’t let her do it alone.

“I’m very sorry,” says Traven.

Alice just nods.

“What do we do now?” says Wanuri. “She was our ticket out of here.”

“No,” says Alice. “I can take you.”

I shift the bundle under my arm.

“Then let’s go. Henoch smells and I’m sick of the lies and a thousand other kinds of bullshit down here.”

She says, “Jim, you touch my shoulder. Father, you touch his. The rest of you, touch the person in front of you.”

For a second, I hope that she has to fly us there. I haven’t been on a roller coaster in years and wouldn’t mind a Disneyland moment on our way out of Hell. Instead, Alice looks at the clouds overhead and says a few angelic words. It’s not Space Mountain, but it’s still pretty good.

It’s like she punches a hole in the sky with fire. A blazing circle appears in a particularly dark cloud bank, and spreads wide, its edges burning bright with crimson flames. When she decides the hole is wide enough, and without any kind of fucking warning at all, she blows out her wings and leaps into the air, dragging me and everyone else with her. There’s a lot of wind and some turbulence on the way up, but it’s not exactly the roller coaster I was hoping for. It’s more like a freight elevator a million miles high.

As we climb through the clouds, lightning crackles around us. A storm blows up, smashing rain and hail down on us. A few remaining shards of the divine light glass tear at us. It’s like the clouds knew we were coming and Downtown saved one last fuck-you for us on the way out.

Okay—now we’re in the roller coaster. The crosswinds get worse. There’s glass in my face and hands. I squeeze the bundle with the Light Killer close against me. It would suck very hard to drop it now. Each flash of lightning illuminates things hiding in the clouds. Miles high, with claws like skyscrapers and wings wide enough to smother all of L.A. They are truly pissed about our little excursion Upstairs. They roar and howl, and their voices are the thunder and lightning that come close to knocking us off Alice’s back. But I tighten my grip on her armor and close my eyes against the glass. After all I’ve been through Downtown, I don’t want to end up in Heaven

with just one eye.