Good-bye, Alice.

I know you probably don't like the idea of me killing, but it's all I have left to give you. And I've gone too far to stop now. When I'm sure about Mason, this thing is done. I'll go back down where I belong and dream about you in Hell. Till then, sleep tight.

WHO WOULD HAVE guessed that Kasabian had his act wired tight enough to have accident insurance? Allegra found the papers in the bottom of the safe when she was closing up the one night a week she still works at Max Overdrive.

Drop cloths, ladders, and paint cans are stacked along the edge of the staircase leading to my bedroom. The broken walls and ceiling have new drywall. In the morning (not too early; I tipped the foreman not to show up until after eleven), the crew will start plastering one end of the room and start painting the other.

I'm lying in bed after a shower, staring up at streaks of drywall tape and mud, the long white scars that hold the new ceiling panels together. I'm trying to talk myself into getting my ass out of bed and down to the Bamboo House of Dolls for some decent food.

"Knock. Knock."

I have the Navy Colt up and cocked in a fraction of a second. Lucifer is standing in the doorway, holding a red-and-white-checkered bowling bag. I lower the Colt's hammer and set it back down on the bedside table.

Lucifer says, "Don't get up. This is just a social call."

The Prince of Darkness is dressed in a tailored charcoal-gray suit that looks like it cost more than this building. He sets down the bowling bag on the bootlegging table and leans back against the door frame.

"Careful. That might not be dry," I say.

"Thank you." He stands up and checks his jacket for spots. "I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd drop by and congratulate you on outfoxing Mason. I honestly didn't think you had it in you."

"Up until he was gone, neither did I."

"It was clever how you tricked him into following you to Hell. It's just too bad that when you locked him in, you probably gave him exactly what he wanted. You don't really think that ritual at Avila was to let me or my kind out of Hell, do you?"

"No, it was to let him in. I didn't figure that out until later. So, the mob didn't rip him to shreds?"

"Of course not. Mason won't die that easily. And now he's free to crawl around down below, like a viper at my bosom, and conspire with my generals to overthrow me."

"It's going to be a lot harder for him now that he doesn't have the Kissi to back him up."

"Maybe."

"You telling me that the Prince of Darkness can't handle one lousy human? You've done it before."

"Not when he's protected by my entire general corps and the aristocracy. Things were chaotic enough before his arrival. I could gather the troops who remain loyal to me, find and kill him tomorrow, but I'd have to destroy half my kingdom to do it."

"That's not my problem."

"Not yet."

Lucifer takes out a pack of thin black silver-tipped cigarettes.

"Do you mind?" he asks.

"Damn. Are those Maledictions?"

"Right. You can't get these up here." He tosses me the pack. "Keep them. I have more."

"Thanks."

I tap a Malediction out of the box, fire it up, and puff. It tastes like a tire fire in a candy factory next door to a strip club. The best cigarettes in the universe.

"I heard a funny story the other day. Doc Kinski told me one about angels and human women and something called a nephilim. He says I might be one. You know anything about that?"

"I know all about Uriel and his disgrace. Do you think an archangel could fall without me knowing? I'd hoped that Heaven would cast him all the way down to me. I would have thrown him a ticker-tape parade."

"So, he was telling the truth?"

Tags: Richard Kadrey Sandman Slim Fantasy
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