Ballistic Kiss (Sandman Slim 11)

I come back with bourbon and explain the whole sordid story. From Mason to Lucifer to my escaping and coming back to L.A. To my surprise, Janet doesn’t want me to take them home. I guess that means I’m stuck in the Lodge for a while. But at least I don’t have to dance around the truth anymore. I don’t know what any of this means in the long run, but for now, I’m happy we’re both sticking around.

They lean forward to kiss me and I hear something funny. Like someone left the stereo on next door. Only there isn’t anybody next door. And the song is strange and high and dangerously familiar.

The first ghost walks in from the kitchen. Two more come out of the wall by the bedroom. A fourth emerges from the front door.

“Stark, what’s happening?” says Janet.

“Get down on the floor and stay there.”

While I’m getting Janet down, the kitchen spook slashes my left arm with a sickle. I knock her back with a kick and go for the bedroom ghosts. They both have clubs, so I get low when I charge them.

I get the first spook around the waist and ram him into the second. They crash onto the shag carpet, but they’re not really hurt. Spooks don’t work like that. You can muscle them, kick them, knock them down, but unless you can convince them to go away or destroy them, you’re stuck with the bastards.

I don’t wait for the fourth spook to attack. I take a club from one of the bedroom ghosts and throw it. But I’m worried about Janet, so I get sloppy. The creep by the door sees the club coming from a mile away. She dodges it and throws a knife. I twist away—mostly. The tip catches me on the side, just above my kidney. By now the bedroom spooks are back on their feet. I look over at Janet just as the kitchen spook makes a move for them.

No more fucking around. Even if I set the whole place on fire, that’s just how it has to be.

I duck as the door ghost throws another knife and manifest my Gladius. Kick the coffee table out of the way and bring down the blade on kitchen spook’s sickle arm. Then slice up again, cutting the ghost in two. It instantly blips out of existence.

One of the bedroom ghosts smashes me across the back with its club. It hurts like hell, but I swing the Gladius wide and take them both out with one slash.

The knife shade keeps tossing blades my way. I rush it, using the coffee table as a shield. Pin the spook to the wall and run it through the gut with the Gladius.

The room goes quiet. I look around for more dead killers. Make a circuit of the room with the Gladius, ready to burn anything strange out of existence. Check the kitchen. Check the bedroom. Nothing. I pull Janet from the floor and help them back onto the sofa.

“What the hell was that?” they say.

“Dead people.”

“Ones you killed?”

“No. Just some random assholes.”

“Does this kind of thing happen to you a lot?”

“It depends on your definition of ‘a lot.’ I told you before, bad things can happen to people who get close to me.”

Janet looks at my arm and my back.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I’m hard on clothes.”

“So you said.”

There’re holes all over the coffee table where the ghost knives embedded themselves. Another hole in the wall where the knife spook dodged the club I threw. Singe marks near the bedroom door where I took down the other two. All things considered, the place could be in worse shape.

I help Janet to their feet.

“Time for you to go home.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

I take them back to their place. They don’t ask me up this time.

Janet says, “Did you get that flaming sword in Hell too?”

“No. From my father.”