Kill City Blues (Sandman Slim 5)

“You and Kasabian work it out. He has a million delivery menus around here. I have to make a phone call.”

I walk her to the stairs and call down.

“Hey, Samael. Want to stay for dinner?”

“Will there be donuts?” he says.

“No.”

“Then yes.”

Candy heads downstairs and I go back into a bedroom and close the door. I get out my phone and scroll back through the old incoming call numbers until I find the one I’m looking for.

“Hello? Who is this please? I don’t recognize your number.”

It’s a man’s voice. Vaguely familiar. He called me once when he was possessed.

“Talk to me, Merihim.”

“Who? I think you have wrong number.”

“Come on, Merihim. I know you’ve been in this guy’s head before. Come back and talk to me.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Talk to me.”

The line goes quiet but the other guy hasn’t hung up.

“Stark. How nice to hear from you. We haven’t talked in a while.”

“I miss your crank calls. Did you lose interest in harassing me?”

“Not at all. There’s just a lot of work to do down here. Busy, busy, busy. What have you been up to?”

“Killing Aelita and Medea Bava.”

“That’s not what I heard. I heard it was the priest who killed Bava.”

“Ah. So you are keeping tabs on things.”

“It’s getting easier. Using the key. Possessing humans. You might have noticed.”

“Yes. That was you possessing Father Traven.”

“Of course.”

“That’s where it all came together for me. You take over Traven. He gives the 8 Ball to Medea. Medea kills Aelita to get her out of the way. That means she can come back to Hell and give the 8 Ball to Deumos. She’s the key to all this. The goddess worshipper who brought the Qomrama to this universe from wherever the Angra are stuck. She wants it to do the final summoning.”

“Look at you, thinking like you haven’t completely pickled your brain yet.”

“And this whole thing comes back to you Hellions’ obsession with suicide. You think if the Angra come back, they’ll destroy all of Creation and put you out of your misery once and for all.”

“Why not? Father won’t do it. Or can’t. Who else are we to turn to?”

“I tried to save you tonight. I almost had him talked into opening Hell and letting you bastards flutter home to Heaven.”

“What’s the phrase? Almost only counts in hoof slippers?”