“This isn’t the right time. Be patient. And trust me.”
Cindil finishes her drink and Bill pours her another.
“You can leave here?” she says.
“This one can go any damned place he likes. He just visits with us Hell--bound folks when he gets bored carousing with monsters and disreputable types back home.”
“Back home on Earth,” she says.
I toss back another drink. It tastes better as it numbs your taste buds.
“Yes. I can go back and forth.”
“Why can’t we come with you now?”
“It’s like I said, it’s not time. There are consequences for everyone when I steal a soul from Hell. I have to wait until the good outweighs the bad.”
I stole Father Traven’s soul from Hell a month before. Things haven’t been the same between me and Mr. Muninn since.
“How will you know when it’s the right time?”
“I’ll know. Trust me. I have someone watching Hell. If things get bad, I’ll be back for both of you,” I say. Then to Bill, “Until then, meet your new barback.”
Bill raises his eyes at that.
“Barback? I hardly get enough customers these days to justify my existence much less help’s.”
“Yeah, but you’ll take her because I owe her. She’s dead because of me.”
Bill nods at that. Pointless death and the guilt that comes with it are things a gunfighter like him understands.
He looks Cindil over. She’s drenched in bloody rain. Her hair hangs limp around her face. My coat is a -couple of sizes too big and she’s still wearing her devil horns.
“You ever tend bar before?” he says.
She looks at me, then back at him.
“At friends’ parties sometimes.”
“See? She’s a natural,” I say. “And she ran her own eating establishment down here for almost a year.”
She frowns.
“It’s only been a year? It seems a lot longer than that.”
“I know. Time’s funny when you’re treading water in a river of shit.”
Bill looks Cindil over.
“You can start by taking them things off,” he says, pointing to her head with his drink. She reaches up and touches her horns. Smiles and takes them off. She sets them down and Bill sweeps them off onto the floor behind the bar.
“Enough of that insult to a friend of my great--grandson.”
He nods and puffs his cigar.
“If the boy thinks you’re all right that’s good enough for me,” he says. “Welcome to the best saloon in all the fiery Abyss. We don’t get a lot of customers these days, but we have liquor and a little food from time to time and that decent music box the boy left behind.”
“It’s called a jukebox,” I say.
“I know what it’s called. It’s a damned foolish word and I’m not about to use it, especially not in front of a lady who looks like she’s endured enough foolishness.”
Cindil looks around the bar. It’s a ragged place, but back when I was Lucifer I had it built to look as much like Bamboo House of Dolls as possible.
“I can really stay here?” she says.
“Yes, you can,” says Bill.
“What if someone comes to take me back to the donut shop?”
“The powers that be have a lot on their plate right now,” I say. “I doubt anyone’s going to notice you’re gone. And if they do, they’re going to have a hard time finding you. If anyone comes for you, don’t worry. I’ll know about it.”
I look at Bill.
“You should have taken that gun I offered you back at the palace.”
“That funny Glock thing where I couldn’t even see the bullets? No thanks. Besides, with all the drunks and ne’er--do--wells that pass through here, I’ve got all the guns and ammunition I need. Under the floorboards back here.”
He sets the cigar on the bar and picks up his drink.
“You think it’s going to come to that?”
“No. But in strange times like this it’s better having too many guns than too few.”
“Amen to that,” says Bill.
I cock my head at the legionnaire.
“Is he someone to worry about?”
“Him?” says Bill. He smiles.
“He’s a deserter. That’s pretty much all we get out here these days. Law enforcement or anyone in authority are the last folks he wants to see.”
“Good to hear.”
I look at Cindil.
“I’ll say good--bye for now. Don’t worry about anything. Bill will take good care of you.”
“Thanks,” says Cindil.
“Can I have my coat back?” I say.
She shrugs it off and hands it to me. When I take it she leans forward and gives me a quick hug. I think she’s still a little shell--shocked.
“Take care, both of you. Look after her, Bill.”
“That I will,” he says.
I turn to the legionnaire. He’s barely moved since we came in. My first instinct is to blow his head off just to make sure he won’t talk to anyone. But Cindil is still skittish and has seen enough death, and the last thing I want to do is send her screaming into the night. I take out the black blade and go over. When the legionnaire looks up, I stick it under his throat.
“My name is Sandman Slim. I’ve killed more of you Hellion pig fuckers than I can count. You breathe one word about what’s happened here today to anyone . . . well, you know what Tartarus is?”
Everyone in Hell knows what Tartarus is. It’s the Hell below Hell. The resting place for the double dead.
The rummy nods.
I wrecked Tartarus once, but I had it rebuilt for just one man. Mason Faim, the mortal man I killed to become Lucifer. I hated him more than all the Hellions put together. He’s the only soul in Tartarus these days.
“There’s plenty of room in Tartarus for a dumb guy with a big mouth. Especially a deserter. No one would notice or care if you disappeared. So you didn’t see anything today. And if anyone asks, that girl over there has been working here since the day the place opened. Got it?”
His eyes are wide. When he tries to nod he sticks himself on the tip of the knife.
“Ow.”
“I’ll take that for a yes.”
I put the blade back under my coat and head for the nearest shadow.
“And you didn’t see this either, fucker,” I say, and step into the dark.
I COME OUT in Mr. Muninn’s cavern under the Bradbury Building. The shelves are crammed with books, ancient weapons, and scientific instruments. Animal teeth and dinosaur bones. Paintings cover the walls and sculptures fill every empty corner. In the distance is a drive--in movie screen. Who knows what else? You could spend a -couple of lifetimes down here trying to inventory the place.
I go to where Muninn’s fortress of solitude opens onto the main tunnel that used to be home for L.A.’s dead. Kneeling, I pour the potion across the floor. A wall quietly assembles itself from the surrounding stones and fills the gap. It only takes a few seconds to form and it looks like it’s been there since T. rexes used the Rockies as a skateboard ramp.
There’s a new war in Heaven. Angels eating their own. What a surprise. I don’t have a good history with angels. They’re bigger control freaks than Wells and crazier than manic--depressive cobras. Aelita, the loon. Rizoel, who made me take his arm when he tried to keep me out of Eden. That tricky bastard Lucifer. And my father. He was technically an archangel. Uriel. He went by the name Doc Kinski when I knew him and I didn’t even know he was my father until after Aelita murdered him. The one good thing he ever did for me, that any angel ever did for me, was take care of Candy. He pulled her off the street and got her the Jade potion that keeps her from eating -people. A -couple of points for Doc Kinski, then. But the rest of them? I can’t wait for the rain to break in L.A. because it will mean the blood has stopped in Hell, and that will mean there aren’t any angels left in Heaven. Of course, we’ll still have Ruach upstairs and the Angra knocking at the back door. Once again, the powers that be have completely fucked us. They play out their family traumas on a cosmic scale and we’re caught in the middle, like we’ve always been. We’re just bugs on God’s windshield.
I try calling Candy to let her know that I’m back and everything is all right, but I can’t get a signal this far underground.
I check on the new clothes that Muninn gave me, but Hell’s red rain has soaked through my jacket and ruined them. I toss them on the ground and step through a shadow.
Come out on Hollywood Boulevard a few blocks from Max Overdrive. I walk the last five minutes home in the rain trying to wash as much of the blood off me as I can.
I’ll have to remember to give Kasabian his hat.