Ballistic Kiss (Sandman Slim 11)

Stein’s back is to me, so I come up to him as quietly as I can. He’s swaying back and forth in time with the spooks’ high, strange song. I hope Flicker is right and it comforts them, because it makes my skin crawl.

When I’m a few yards from Stein I say the magic words.

“Forever yours. Forever mine.”

Slowly, he shuffles around to face me. He looks miserable. A lost dog in the rain. But he still has Samantha’s last love note balled up in his dead hand. When he comes at me, it’s not a charge or even a threat. It’s just some sad, final impulse. He’s mad at the world and Samantha for what happened to him. He’s still willing to take it out on everyone alive, but he’s also the most miserable dead man I’ve ever seen.

I say the words again.

“Forever yours. Forever mine.”

This time though I take the old Polaroid out of my pocket and hold it out to him.

His dead eyes drift from me to the photo. He stares for a few seconds, then shudders. Makes a high, keening sound and gently takes the Polaroid from my hand.

I say, “Merry Christmas, 1977.”

Stein looks at me.

“I saw Samantha.”

He holds the letter and photo to his chest.

“She says she loves you and she’s very sorry about what happened. She

never meant to kill you.”

His lips move, but he doesn’t make a sound. Still, I know what’s he’s saying. It’s her name.

I’m running out of time, so I talk fast.

“She wants you to go home, Chris. She wants you to rest. Someday she’ll come back to you. She wants you to know forever yours, forever—”

“Mine,” he says.

Fuck me. He can talk.

He half-turns from me and says, “Heaven?”

I’m not sure if he’s asking if he’ll go to Heaven or saying it’s Heaven having Samantha back in his arms.

I say, “Sure, Chris. It’s Heaven.”

He walks away, the photo and note clutched in his hands the way a kid holds a stuffed bear to keep the monsters away.

I follow him as he wanders to the Thurl. There’s no hesitation when he reaches it. He’s done. He’s as satisfied as he’ll ever be. He has Samantha back. At least her acknowledgment and apology. I wasn’t lying when I said she was sorry. I saw it in her eyes and heard it in her voice when she saw Chris’s photo in the Backbone. Whatever she is—vampire, witch, or Drifter—I have a feeling she’s still somewhere in L.A. nursing her wounds and mourning Chris. If things were different, I might leave her to her misery. But she’s the one who put the knife in Vidocq’s back. That’s something I can’t forgive.

I’ll see you someday, Samantha, and we’re going to have a talk. And then I’m going to kill you.

With Stein gone—the lovelorn magnet who drew the other Stay Belows back to the world—the spooks begin drifting away from the barriers around Little Cairo and back to the Thurl. They go one by one or in groups. Not rushing. They’re no longer fueled by Stein’s fury. They just amble back to the Land of the Dead—where every asshole in L.A. seems to want to go to. At least for the Stay Belows it’s home. I hope they can find some peace there.

As the last one enters the Thurl, the stars seem to move a little again, like a reflection in water. I dial Abbot.

“Call off your dogs.”

“You killed them?”

“I didn’t need to. All they wanted was a Valentine. So, I gave them one.”