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“I promise.”
“You better.”
She finishes the whiskey and goes back into the bedroom.
“You sure have a way with women,” says Kasabian.
“Shut up.”
I TAKE THE elevator down to the garage. I’m wearing a hoodie under my coat. I’ve reloaded all my guns with bullets dipped in Spiritus Dei. No need to worry about whether it’s silver bullets or garlic or white oak you need in order to kill something. Spiritus Dei on a hollow point cutting the air at twelve hundred feet per second will kill anything dead.
The Hellion hog, a damned version of a ’65 Harley Electra Glide built for me when I was Lucifer, is stashed in the back under a vinyl cover. I pull it off and look it over. There’s no lock to undo. Who would steal something like this? Who except someone who’s hard to kill would ride it? It’s built like a mechanical bull covered in plate armor. The handlebars taper to points like a longhorn’s head. The exhaust belches dragon fire and I can get the hypercharged panhead engine glowing cherry red on a long straightaway. I’ve only ridden it a few times in L.A. because it’s like wearing a neon “Arrest Me” sign on my back and LAPD doesn’t need any more encouragement.
Vidocq’s potion cleared my head and Allegra did a good job healing my gut. Despite Candy being pissed at me for passing out, the sleep was good and deep. I feel strong enough to try a little hoodoo.
I whisper some Hellion, wait a few seconds, and touch my face. It isn’t my face anymore. I’m just another ugly Hellion. I kick the bike into gear and it roars like a hungry Tyrannosaurus at an all-you-can-eat buffet. There’s a nice shadow at the far end of the garage. I pop the clutch and lay rubber. I hope there aren’t any parking attendants coming down with someone’s Lamborghini because it’s about to get all scratched up.
I disappear into the wall.
And blast out of the other side of the Room into Hell. I’m on the Hellion version of Sunset Boulevard, near Fairfax. The streets are in better shape than when I was Lucifer. Mr. Muninn must have the repair crews working round-the-clock shifts. The pavement along Sunset isn’t buckled and I don’t see a sinkhole in sight. I don’t even smell any of the nauseating blood tides bubbling up from under the city. Nice work, Lucifer 3.0. I hope it’s getting you some goodwill from these Gloomy Guses.
I aim the bike east, out where the street markets are clustered. The last time I was there I got into a scuffle with some army deserters when the 8 Ball went nuts and killed them all. Ground them up like fresh sausage. I’m hoping to keep a lower profile this trip. Which doesn’t include worrying about stoplights and pedestrian crossings. Most of the vehicles on the road are still Unimogs and troop trucks. I’m the fastest thing in the afterlife. Eat my dust.
I SHOULD HAVE guessed that most of the changes to Pandemonium were cosmetic. Fix up the main streets to boost morale. But get off Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard and the city is still a wreck. Never recovered from when Samael, the first Lucifer, deserted the place for Heaven. Most of the regular bars, restaurants, and stores are still closed, so the big street market is packed. This is Harry Lime territory. Some of the goods are legit but just as many are black-market items, mainly from the legion’s supplies. There’s anything a handsome young Hellion out on the town might want. Clean clothes. Guns. Health and hex potions. High-end Aqua Regia and wine. But most of the goods are the same flea-market junk you see from L.A. to Tijuana to Narnia. Knockoffs. Stolen goods. And the things no one else wants anymore. The same goes for the food. But at least the portions are large.
I hide the hog in the same abandoned garage I did the last time I came to the market. I pull up my hoodie, still not convinced my hoodoo is a hundred percent yet. I don’t want to turn back to my handsome self in the middle of a crowd. I’m a little twitchy being back here. It brings back bad memories. Not just of being Lucifer. It wasn’t far from here that I got my left arm hacked off. And I know that if I head due south, I’ll hit the arena, where I spent eleven years learning over and over again how close you can come to dying without ever quite making it. It’s where I learned to be Sandman Slim. I don’t like to think about him too much when I’m back in the world, but tonight I’m prepared to let him run wild and fancy-free.
It doesn’t take long to find a bar. And then spot an officer. What I need is an officer drinking by him- or herself. At the far end of a small, tented joint I see one. A captain. Leaning on the bar with a whole company of shot glasses by his elbow. Perfect. I take out a Malediction and circle around so I come up behind him.
I get close with the cigarette out so he’s looking at it and not me.
“Hey, General, got a light?”
He turns and gives me a bleary look. I must look all right because he glares at me like any other Hellion.
“I’ve got an extra for you if you have some flame,” I say.
He pats himself down and stands when he feels a lighter in his pocket. As he gets up, I clip him on the jaw. Not hard enough to knock him out. Just enough to make his knees wobble like he’s even more loaded than he really is. I get my arm around his shoulder and walk him around the back of the tent, between the market stalls where no one can see us. When I’m sure we’re alone, I grab him by his collar and slap him a couple of times until he comes around.
“What happened?” he says.
“I hit you.”
He looks up at me, trying to put a face and a memory together.
“You did. Didn’t you?”
He reaches for his gun and I let him get it. I want him to feel it in his hand. Then I slam the pommel of Candy’s knife into his temple and down he goes again. Now he knows his weapon isn’t going to help. I put his pistol in my pocket and slap him again. When he comes around this time, he remembers me.
“Helheim,” I say.
“What?”
“Helheim. Do you know where it is?”
“I can read a damned map.”
“Take me there.”
