Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“Don’t start talking that way. My head already hurts.”

Allegra is still grinding ingredients, concentrating. Ignoring us. It’s nice to have a job and know exactly what you’re doing, what’s expected of you, and that you can do it all yourself.

“Sometimes I miss the arena. I miss being pointed at some monster and told, ‘It’s you or him, little drytt,’ and just going for it. No decisions. No motives. No guessing games. Just blood and dust, and afterward, I have a gallon of Aqua Regia and go to sleep.”

Allegra asks, “What’s a ‘little drytt’?”

I guess she is listening after all.

“A drytt is a bug that lives in the desert outside Pandemonium, Lucifer’s capital. Drytts are like sand fleas. They’re everywhere and get into everything. They live in the dirt and they eat and shit their body weight every day for two days. Then they die. They lay eggs in their shit and that’s where their young are born.”

“You miss being called a shit bug?”

“It’s what they call all mortals,” Vidocq says. “Angels, even fallen ones, are eternal. We, the story goes, are made from dust. We eat. We shit. We grow old and die. We are born in filth, decay, and return to filth. We’re all little drytt to them.”

Allegra shakes her head.

“I bet you were one morbid little kid, Stark. Your poor mother.”

“You have no idea.”

Vidocq asks, “How is the potion coming?”

“I have all the ingredients together. It just needs to be digested.”

“Show him what you’ve learned.”

Allegra turns and raises her eyebrows at me. I go to where she’s working at the table.

“In alchemy, digesting something just means cooking it. You need the Friosan nostrum to stop your scars from healing, right? The storax, the liquid amber, is the base for the other ingredients. There’s also white cedar, salamander bones, ground sea horse. All things that grow slowly.”

“What’s that other powder?”

She glances at Vidocq.

“I don’t know. Mysterious things in old jars with Latin names. Eugène helped with that part.”

“Good. I was worried about the Latin part.”

Vidocq leans forward on the sofa.

“Don’t be shy. Show him the rest.”

Allegra dumps all the ingredients in a silver bowl and sets it on a tabletop brazier.

“Remember that fire trick you showed me?”

“The one you used on Parker? You saved my life, so, yeah, I remember.”

Allegra smiles like a girl with a secret.

“Watch this.”

She blows across her fingers the way I showed her back when she was just another civilian. Flames flicker to life on her fingertips, but she keeps blowing, moving her hand in a slow circle in front of her lips. In a few seconds, the flames have moved from the tips of her fingers to burn all the way down to her palm. She puts her hand under the silver bowl with the ingredients. As she blows, the flames rise and the storax begins to boil. Steam comes off the amber, filling the room with the smell of burned pine. The powder and other ingredients quickly dissolve. She holds her hand near her lips again, blows lightly, and the flames shrink and disappear.

“Damn. I showed you a party trick and you took it and turned pro. You’re practically Evel Knievel.”

“I’m McGyver, baby. Stick around. I’ll make you a philosopher’s stone from Barbie dolls and spark plugs.”