Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim 1)

"Don't call me that, either."

"I hadn't realized how all those years in the Abyss had warped your mind. You've completely lost your ability to feel empathy. I've told you what's coming for humanity, yet you won't lift a finger to prevent it." She's walking over to me, like a kindergarten teacher about to take the white glue away from a kid who won't stop eating it. "Don't you feel anything for anyone?"

"No. The only person I cared about was murdered. And you didn't do anything about that, either, did you?"

"I can help you heal. Your body and your soul. You were an empty vessel when you went into the Abyss and the devil filled you full of poison. Let me fill you with the Lord's divine light."

She's throwing some hardcore angel hoodoo my way. Trying to get control of my tiny, expendable monkey brain. Candy was better at the soothing talk trick-she really had me going back at Kinski's. But Aelita isn't getting anywhere. Maybe the difference is that I kind of liked Candy, but Lucretia Borgia here isn't my type.

"Let me help you, my son." She reaches out and takes both of my hands in hers. "Become part of God's great plan."

"No."

Aelita's face turns red and she screams. Tears are streaming down her red face. She takes my hand again and then drops it.

"Abomination," she whispers. Then she screams, "Abomination!"

Downtown, one of the things Hellions used to complain about was how Heaven had disarmed them before tossing them into the garbage dump. Every angel is born with a weapon. Not something they can lose, but something that's part of them. A flaming sword. They manifest it with a thought and use it like a handheld nuke. I'd never seen one before Aelita manifested her sword in the soundproof chapel.

I'm still looking at it, kind of hypnotized by the thing, when she sticks it through me. I can feel it go through my chest and come out my back, burning and freezing at the same time.

Then I'm on the floor. I have a weird hallucination that Vidocq and Allegra are standing over me. Then I'm dead.

I DREAM THAT I'm back on Earth. I dream that I've escaped from Azazel and all the pain and madness of Hell. I'm home and I'm drinking beer with Alice, sweaty and happy in bed. I struggle to open my eyes and I see blue skies. I'm waking up in a cemetery. I am home. It isn't a dream. But why is the moon out during the day?

It's not the moon. It's a light.

That's not the sky. It's a blue ceiling. I know the smell of this place, but its name is lost down some darkened detour in my brain.>"I only ask because it seems to me that you've been having a lot of fun. Cutting people's heads off. Beating up people in bars. Blowing up whole shopping districts. Shooting people on the street in the middle of the day. It sounds terribly fun to me. The kind of fun that I'd expect to appeal to someone like you."

"Is snatching people off the street your idea of fun? God gave you wings, so you have an everlasting get-out-of-jail-free card. You can do anything you want because everything you do is holy. Is that it?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, it is."

"Is everything your army does holy, too? They didn't all look like angels to me. Was Marshal Wells sweating holy water? I must have missed that."

"Marshal Wells is a good and dedicated man who is willing to give his life in the cause of good. What are you willing to die for?"

"To kill the people I came here for. And to not be fucked with along the way."

"What if I told you that I could help you find what and who you're looking for?"

"I wouldn't believe you."

"Why?"

"Because I rode here with a gun to my head."

"Have you ever heard of the Golden Vigil?"

"Sounds like a community-college Goth band."

"We're an ancient order. A coalition of celestial beings and humans dedicated to protecting the world and mankind from its greatest enemy."

Get ready for the Garden of Eden Sunday school lecture.

"Don't try and sell me the snake oil you fobbed off on your Ghostbusters out there. I've met Lucifer. I've killed his generals. Those idiots are too busy stabbing each other in the back to be much danger to mankind."

"You're right. I agree completely."