Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“What are we going to do with them?” Allegra asks.

A garbage truck is moving our way. It looks like it’s picking up commercial loads from stores and apartment buildings.

I tell the Drifters, “Come over here,” then lead them to the parking lot attached to a self-storage place. There’s a double-size commercial Dumpster hidden from the street by a low wood-slat fence.

“Open your mouth,” I tell the male Lacuna.

He does. I toss the tracker down his throat.

“Shut your mouth and both of you get into the garbage.”

I look at Allegra.

“Go back to the street. Let me know when the truck is close.”

She knows I just want her away from here and she’s happy to oblige. When she’s out of sight I take out the na’at, twist it to expose its sharpest edge, raise it, and bring it down hard, splitting the male Lacuna from head to crotch, making sure to slice his spine in half. The two halves crumple onto the trash bags. Its blood has long since turned to dark sludge, so there’s almost no spray from the cut.

I do the same thing to the female, and when both of their bodies are laid out in the garbage, I slice them in half at the waist. Smaller parts are easier to hide and harder to recognize if some citizen happens by. The barbs on the na’at are good for hooking trash bags. I stamp the Lacuna giblets down into the can and camouflage them by piling garbage on top.

Just in case they aren’t dead, I lean over the Dumpster and say, “If you don’t get crushed and make it to the dump site, you’re going to stay wherever you fall. You’re not going to bite or scratch anyone. Just lie there and wait for the crows to pick your bones clean.”

Allegra and I go across the street to a real estate office. We check our phones. Look around. Check the wrist-watches neither of us owns and generally try to look like we’re waiting for someone.

The truck rumbles to a stop across the street. Two bored, sunburned men hop off the back and wheel the Dumpster into place so that the truck’s hydraulic lifts can upend it. When it’s twenty feet up, the garbage slides into the big compactor. I think I catch a flash of the female Lacuna’s legs, but no one else seems to notice. One of the men hits the button that activates the compactor. It grinds through its cycle, stops, and resets. The driver guns the engine and the truck moves on to the next pickup.

I’m sick of regular people who can’t see what light is made of. I don’t care what they think or what might give them bad dreams. I take Allegra’s hand and pull her into a shadow in the real estate office doorway. An agent inside sees us coming and opens the door just as we disappear.>“Like Cabal.”

“He knows a lot about them. He said there’s someone else who knows even more and told him about the Backbone after he did something for them.”

“Do you remember what he did?”

“No.”

“If I wanted to go into the Jackal’s Backbone, would you go with me? You could show me where you woke up.”

“I don’t remember it very well.”

“Maybe you will if you go back.”

“Maybe.”

“Would you go with me?”

“Hey,” says Tracy. “You can’t ask him that.”

Johnny says, “I don’t think you should go into the Backbone. It doesn’t seem right.”

“I have to. Someone is using Drifters to kill people they don’t like and now some are loose in the city. I have a feeling more are going to get loose. I need to understand why it’s happening. And there’s someone I need to look for and see if she’s in the Backbone.”

“You won’t be able to find one person. There’s about a million people there.”

“I still have to try. Will you go with me?”

Tracy says, “Johnny, don’t listen. You don’t want to go out there where people will be afraid of you.”

“No one will know I’m there if I go into the Backbone.”

“You can’t leave,” says Tracy. “That’s final.”