Kill City Blues (Sandman Slim 5)

He looks at his watch.

“Look at the time. I should be getting back home before I’m missed.”

“How are things Upstairs?” I ask.

“Just don’t die anytime soon. You’ve seen Hell and right now I wouldn’t wish Heaven on anyone. Ruach is more paranoid every day. Imagine Josef Stalin with unlimited resources.”

Ruach is one of the five God brothers and the current God sitting on the throne in Heaven. Unfortunately for both humans and angels, he’s the “troubled child.” A stone son of a bitch. Supposedly he’s cut a deal with Aelita to let her kill the other four brothers if she leaves him alone. She’s already killed at least one, maybe more. Aside from Mr. Muninn and Ruach, no one knows where the other brothers are.

“At least he can’t send you to Tartarus,” I say.

“There are worse things than Tartarus, I’m afraid.”

“Like what?”

Samael just shakes his head.

“If you want to get in touch with me, go through Muninn. Don’t do it directly. Sandman Slim isn’t a name I want on my contacts list right now.”

And he’s gone. Just blips out of existence. Interesting. With all the shit that’s happened—Mason Faim’s attempted war with Heaven, and God fragmenting into warring siblings—I’ve never seen Samael nervous before.

A couple of people in the Donut Universe parking lot are pointing our way. I wonder if the cops have put together that the hero who chased a shooter from the donut shop is the same asshole that desecrated his corpse and jacked a biker a few blocks away. This isn’t the time to find out. I see a tasty shadow by the side of the church and pull Candy inside with me.

We go through the Room of Thirteen Doors and come out around the back of the Chateau Marmont. Our digs these days. Really it’s Lucifer’s penthouse, but until they figure out that I’m not Lucifer anymore, it’s a room-service, clean-towels, and free-cable party.

BACK WHEN I was still the Lord of Flies, I’d walk through the Chateau Marmont lobby like Errol Flynn back in the day. Now that I’m not, I creep through with my head down like a flea-bitten hillbilly trying to sneak out on a bar tab. Sooner or later word is going to get out up here. The local Satanists might be nouveau riche headbangers and trust-fund creeps with a grudge against the world, but they have some good psychics on their payroll. One of them is going to pick up Mr. Muninn’s vibes and start wondering how Lucifer is doing paperwork in his palace in Hell and ordering kung pao shrimp in his Chateau penthouse at the same time.

Lady Snowblood is playing on the giant plasma screen in the living room. Kasabian is at the long table he uses for a desk, surrounded by dirty plates and beer cans. He’s naked, but it isn’t like ordinary naked. Kasabian is a disembodied head. I’m the one who disembodied him. He shot me, so it seemed like the thing to do. He used to scuttle around on a little wood-and-brass skateboard I conjured for him. Now he gets around on a mechanical hellhound body I brought back from Downtown. Only the body has never quite worked right. Manimal Mike is trying to fix that.

Kasabian is bouncing on the balls of his two rear hound feet. His balance looks good. Mike looks up as Candy and I come inside. He points to Kasabian, looking pale and hopeful.

“Can I have my soul back now?” he says.

I watch Kasabian.

“I don’t know. Can Gimpy make it down the catwalk on his own?”

Kasabian takes a step, teeters, and plants his ass on the side of the table to keep from falling.

Mike slumps into a desk chair. Wipes his face with a dirty rag. It leaves a trail of grease on his forehead and cheek. He wheels himself over and uses a delicate tool that looks like a screwdriver crossed with a spider to make adjustments to Kasabian’s legs.

Mike is a Tick-Tock Man. He builds mechanical spirit familiars for the Sub Rosa chic set. He might be a drunk and nutty and a little suicidal, but he knows his way around machines. He also owes the Devil a favor. The idiot sold his soul a few years back. Now he wants it back. He still thinks I’m Lucifer, so I’m making him work off the debt by fixing up Kasabian.

While Mike works on him, I show Kasabian the dead man’s bloody photo on my phone.

“Friend of yours?” Kasabian says.

“He missed, if that’s what you mean.”

“And now you feel guilty for offing him.”

“That’s the problem. I didn’t. He did it to himself. And I want to know why.”

I flip to the guy’s driver’s license. Kasabian squints at it.

“Trevor Moseley. When did he die?”

“Just now,” I say. “Like twenty minutes ago.”