Hollywood Dead (Sandman Slim 10)

I bark some Hellion and one of the walls collapses, crushing the furniture and statues underneath.

“Not through there I guess.”

I pull down another wall. This one shatters some very old-looking stained glass windows hanging from the ceiling.

“Stop it,” he says. “How do I know you won’t kill me?”

“Play nice and I’ll let you go. It’s your bosses I want. And like I said, I’m in a bit of a rush.”

He points back to his office.

“The floor in front. Step on the three floorboards nearest the office twice. Then the two next to them three times.”

“I’m not in a dancing mood. You do it.” I put the black blade into his back and say, “Just don’t do anything dumb.”

He nods abruptly. Steps on some boards I would have never found. The first twice. The second set, three times. A trapdoor in his office floor opens.

“Lead the way,” I say.

There’s a short staircase down to a large workshop below the store. It’s a chaotic zoo of half-constructed mechanical animals. Some are as small as hummingbirds and some as large as tigers. There are snakes and lizards on one table. Cats, dogs, and candy-colored parakeets on another, some limbless, some with no head. A tank nearby is filled with skinless mechanical fish, all graceful silver muscles and tiny, intricate gears.

Really, it’s beautiful. A crazed Santa’s workshop full of sinister puppets that will one day be familiars to a horde of upper-crust bastards. If I let Rose live that long.

I push him against one of the tables and pick up what looks like a finished red squirrel. I hold it out to him.

“How do you turn it on?”

He gives me a look like I’m an idiot.

“It’s not a fucking Furby. You don’t turn it on. Its energy sublimes from a small crystal where the animal’s heart would normally be.”

“How do I sublime it?”

“Talk to it,” he says. “Gently. Like waking a friend.”

“Are you fucking with me?”

He reaches for it.

“Give it to me.”

He cradles the squirrel in his arm and rubs its small chest with his index finger, all the while cooing at it like it’s a baby.

A minute or so later, the squirrel’s eyes flutter open. Its paws begin to move. It sits up and looks around. Climbs Rose’s arm and perches on his shoulder.

“That’s amazing,” I say.

“Thank you. The small ones are my favorites. They’re the most work but are endlessly charming.”

“Does it bite?”

“Never.”

“Let me hold it.”

I take it off his shoulder and it runs down my arm. I let it hop onto the table where I found it. In the funny herky-jerky way that squirrels move, it sniffs and touches some of the other half-finished familiars. While it’s sniffing a nightingale, I pick up a hammer and smash the squirrel to pieces. Gears, fur, and claws fly across the table and onto the floor.

I hold the hammer out to Rose.