Ballistic Kiss (Sandman Slim 11)

“It doesn’t mean anything to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Damn. I was hoping it might be a Sub Rosa thing. Something you blue bloods say.”

“I can assure you that I’ve never heard anyone say ‘forever yours, forever mine.’ You think it’s important?”

“It almost got me killed, so yeah.”

I tell him about Stein’s attacking me, then what Flicker said about Zadkiel.

“There’s an angel involved? I knew you were the right man.”

“I hope so.”

Abbot says, “You think if you can figure out ‘forever yours, forever mine,’ you’ll have everything you need?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Keep me in the loop. I have the whole Sub Rosa council ready to burn Little Cairo. I can only put them off for a little while longer.”

“You can’t do that. I told you. There are civilians in there.”

“I can probably give you until the end of the week.”

Samael and now Abbot. Everyone wants a present and they want it now. I should have kept the yule log. Merry Christmas and fuck you all.

“What about Brigitte’s situation?” I say. “What can you do for her?”

Another breath on the line.

“Listen. I’m still looking into it, but your friend has lousy timing. Immigration is a hot topic right now. It’s easier for the authorities to deport than to look at individual cases. The politics are just not on her side.”

“Keep trying. I’m holding up my end of the bargain. You do the same.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I was going to say something else. Something angry and stupid about Abbot, the council, and all the blue bloods on all the councils in the world. They hop from country to country without the Feds’ looking at them twice. Their families too. If anything happens to Brigitte, I’m going to make a lot of them very sad.

Instead of being dumb I say, “You want me to go faster, get me an address on a Lisa Thivierge. She’s an old movie director who went underground years ago. She’d be in her eighties by now.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“One more thing. Do you know Avani Chanchala?”

“Of course. My in-laws bought their house from her.”

“Lucky them. They’re doing business with a pimp. You all are. Bye.”

I hang up on him.

That was a waste of a conversation, but it gave me an idea.

I get a marker from a kitchen drawer and draw a wide circle on the marble counter, then a smaller circle inside it, and scrawl a few runes in the blank area between the two. Inside the inner circle, I scrawl the basic shape of L.A. County. It’s not a map. It’s more like something a kid would do when they’re not potty training or making hand turkeys. But it’s the best I can do without a paper map of the city. If I can pull off some location hoodoo, maybe I can get a sense of what neighborhood Thivierge might be hiding in—if she’s even still alive.

I don’t have an athame anymore, so I have to use the black blade as a platen, hoping it will point me in Thivierge’s direction. Once the map is finished, I hold the blade above it and chant some Hellion hoodoo.

The blade moves instantly, but it doesn’t point out a neighborhood. It pulls my hand into the air a couple of feet. Then it feels like something reaches right out of the marble and grabs me, plunging the blade hilt deep into the map. The marble countertop cracks and the whole house begins to shake.