The Kill Society

by Richard Kadrey

  She does a grimacing smile.

  “I thought you’d like that. It’s the kind of thing I’ve seen you do.”

  “You’ve seen me fight with a Gladius?”

  “What? You think I haven’t been looking in on you when I could?”

  “Very sneaky.”

  “It’s no fun watching movies all the time without you.”

  “So, I’ll just hold this forever, shall I?”

  It’s Samael. He’s holding the drapes out as far from his body as possible.

  “How about two more seconds? We’re having a moment here.”

  He looks away.

  “Now that you’re up here, I’m going to start sending you my cleaning bills.”

  “Feel free.”

  “They’re expensive.”

  “I’ll get a job.”

  “As what? There aren’t a lot of openings for wandering assassins in Heaven. The best you could hope for is bouncer at one of the beach bars.”

  “Like college dudes and party bros doing tequila shots?”

  “Exactly.”

  I look at Alice.

  “You didn’t tell me about any of this.”

  She says, “Thank you, Samael. Thank you for making it a hundred times harder to get him to stay.”

  He just raises an eyebrow.

  He says, “They play reggae, too. All day and all night.”

  I wonder if I can walk to Pandemonium from here?

  “Damn. Not this fool,” Samael says. “I hoped never to see his ridiculous face again.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh no. It’s Michael,” says Alice. “He went to the other side. Now he’s a rebel general.”

  The archangel Michael sets down gracefully on the marble. It’s easy to see why Samael hates him. He’s handsome. Like right up there with Samael’s cover-model looks. Only Michael is meaner around the eyes. If he was mortal, he’d be the kind of good-looking guy who spends too much time in bars complaining about foreigners, chemtrails, and Area 51.

  Alice grabs my coat.

  “Help me up.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Universe isn’t the real problem. The real problem is the twenty other rebel angels hovering over him. Mr. Muninn invited me here, you’d think he’d be a good enough host to help me get past the damn gates. But like so many other times when I could have used a little Heavenly help, he’s a no-show.

  I look at Samael.

  “I suppose you can’t take sides here either.”

  “Oh no. Actually, I can kill all the rebels I want.”

  I hold out the amber blade to him, but once more he declines.

  “I think you should hold on to that for a while longer.”

  “What are you going to use, though? Can you manifest your Gladius? I saw you use two of them once.”

  He sighs. “There’s another downside to being Death. I have a pretty amber blade that will kill anything, but I lost my Gladius.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I agree completely.”

  Alice grabs me.

  “Help me up. If I’m going to die, I won’t do it on my back.”

  I pull her to her feet. She does her best to stand straight up, but she can’t quite do it.

  Michael heads for us.

  “If it isn’t Sandman Slim, the monster who kills monsters. Isn’t that what they call you?”

  “I prefer Abomination. It fits better on a T-shirt. I’d comp you one, but we don’t have any big enough for your ego.”

  “Why would you say that? You don’t know anything about me.”

  “You’re an archangel who hates his dad, has a neurotic thirst for power, and when the war is all over, you have a plan to set yourself up as a tinhorn messiah with those goons up there as your brownshirts. Am I in the ballpark with all that? I think I am.”

  “You have a big mouth and make a lot of assumptions about your betters.”

  “I just helped kill an archangel exactly like you Downtown, so I’m acquainted with your type.”

  He thinks about that for a minute.

  “Who did you kill?”

  “Raziel.”

  He laughs and so does his peanut gallery.

  “That imbecile? He couldn’t even pick a side, so he ran off to the hinterlands with his tail between his legs.”

  “He had nice things to say about you, too.”

  “Did he? What did he say?”

  “That you’re a coward, and even though you might not have liked him, you were always jealous of Samael because he’s smarter than you and has bigger balls.”

  “Feel free to leave me out of this conversation,” Samael says.

  Michael rubs the back of his neck.

  “You’re aware that I’m an angel, correct? I can tell when mortals are lying. And you’re lying.”

  “But I’m not a hundred percent mortal. Can you be a hundred percent sure when it comes to anything about me?”

  That stops him for a minute. He turns to Samael.

  “What’s that you’re holding? You’re friends with this thing. Are you doing his laundry now, too?”

  “If only it were clean laundry,” Samael says. “Care for a sniff?”

  Michael looks from Samael to me to Alice.

  “You don’t look too well, my dear,” he says.

  “Attack me and see how bright my Gladius is.”

  “All in due time. Who are your friends?”

  He points to Traven and the dog pack.

  “Don’t worry about them,” I say. “They’re just some strays Alice picked up on the way.”

  “Good,” says Michael. He turns to his goons. “Kill them.”

  “Okay. Wait. They’re with me.”

  “See? You were lying and I knew it.”

  “You don’t have to kill them because you’re pissed at me. I take back all that other stuff I said about you. You seem like a swell, reasonable guy. Let’s talk this over, bastard to bastard.”

  That really makes him smile.

  “In that case, you’re all free to go. Enjoy Heaven.”

  The others look at me.

  I tell them, “Don’t move.” To Michael I say, “What’s the catch?”

  “You know exactly what the catch is,” he says.

  “Before I decide, tell me something. Did you see what happened or did someone tell you we had it?”

  “Guess.”

  “Wormwood. They told you.”

  He looks at the bastards hovering above us.

  “What a clever monster he is. I’ll keep his head on my mantel and take it out every now and then to scare children.”

  His people chuckle.

  “You’re very ugly, you know,” he says.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  It looks like I have one thing in my favor. He knows we have the Light Killer, but he doesn’t know it’s broken and a fake. Maybe I can do something with that.

  “Listen, we both know I’m not just going to hand you the sword.”

  “Fine. Kill his friends.”

  “See, I was right. You’re a small-time little shit with a big ego.”

  He holds up his hand for the attack squad to stop.

  “You really should stop talking or I’ll kill your friends slowly in front of you.”

  “I’m saying if you are who you say you are, send the glee club home and the two of us fight for the sword and my friends.”

  “Stop it,” says Alice. “You’re being an asshole again.”

  “Just because I’m an asshole doesn’t mean I’m wrong. This kind of thing is pretty much all I’ve done for the last twelve years.”

  “What would Candy say? Your ego is as big as his. You think she’d be proud of you being this stupid?”

  That almost knocks me back, but I suck it up and say, “I’ve spent a lot of energy trying not to think about Candy. This is not a good time to bring her up.”

  I take a couple of steps toward Michael.

  �
��What do you say? The two of us for the sword, Alice, and my friends.”

  “Done,” says Michael. “But my troops won’t be leaving. You’re a well-known trickster and I won’t have it. This is a fight to the death between the two of us. No hoaxes or illusions. And no technicalities. If I think you’re cheating, all of your friends die.”

  “Cool. Let me just say a couple of good-byes in case I break a nail.”

  Alice says, “Please don’t do this. Let’s fight them together.”

  “As long as I have Death’s knife, Mr. Universe isn’t hurting anyone.”

  I squeeze her hand and go to Samael.

  “Sorry to drag you into this.”

  “Don’t apologize. This is more fun than I’ve had in a long time.”

  “Just tell me one thing. If I fuck this up, can you get the amber knife and kill these pricks?”

  “With great pleasure.”

  I shake his hand and go to Alice.

  “You brought up a lot of old feelings in me.”

  “You did that to me, too.”

  “Heaven with you is very tempting.”

  “But L.A. with Candy is more,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “But you can’t go back.”

  “If I stayed here, she’s all I’d think about. I’d be useless to you and everyone else. That’s not Heaven for anyone.”

  “You choose now to stop being an asshole? You have terrible timing.”

  “Whatever happens with these guys, it was worth it to see you again. I hope you know that.”

  “I do.”

  I kiss her on the cheek and get up wondering if I’m the dumbest guy to ever reach the pearly gates. But when I close my eyes, it’s Candy’s face I see.

  “I’m sorry I let you down,” I whisper. “I told you I’d never leave you alone or go back to Hell without you and I blew it. Whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re happy and keeping Kasabian in line. I’d come back to you if I could, but I can’t and that’s okay. I’m not pushing your memory away again. If you’re the last thing I see before I go to Tartarus or whatever happens to the dead up here, I’ll go out happy thinking about you playing your guitar worse than anybody in California. It was fun being monsters together. I just wish it could have lasted longer.”

  Michael says, “As I drove the serpent from Eden, so shall I kill you today, Abomination.”

  I rub my hands on my coat to make sure they’re dry.

  “Was that you with Adam and Eve? That was a dick move shoving a couple of naked morons into the wilderness. I bet you come to Earth just to trip blind people.”

  He manifests his Gladius. I take out the amber knife.

  He frowns.

  “Are you going to fight me with a stick?”

  “It’s very pointy. It’ll really leave a mark.”

  “No tricks,” he says.

  “No tricks. Just me and my stick.”

  He doesn’t say anything because a second later he’s in the air, coming down like a falling star.

  I need to time this just right. No more fuck-ups or half-assing it. I’m going to get one, maybe two shots at this, tops.

  I really don’t want to lose to this guy. I’d rather work the reggae bar with ganja-head white-boy nitwits than let Mr. Universe get his smug way.

  Michael closes in fast.

  I bend my knees, dropping my weight back.

  See you around, Candy. Stay sweet.

  When he’s just a few feet away, I let my legs go and roll, so I drop down on my back.

  Damn, but archangels are fast.

  I get the amber knife up exactly where I want it, but he rakes his Gladius across my chest. My vision goes black for a moment from the pain. When I can see again, I’m very pissed off.

  Even though I got Michael square in the chest with the amber knife, he’s standing nearby fresh as a fucking daisy. There isn’t even a mark on his armor.

  When he sees me staring, he checks himself. Nope. Not even a skinned knee. He points at my hand.

  “What exactly is that?”

  He looks over at Samael.

  “Did you give this buffoon your blade?”

  Samael shrugs.

  “Father isn’t going to be very happy with you.”

  “He seldom is. But at least I’m not boring.”

  “And I am?”

  “No. Of course not. You’re terribly interesting. Read any good books lately?”

  “I’ll deal with you later.”

  He turns back to me.

  “Didn’t we just agree to no tricks?”

  “It’s not a trick. It’s a knife.”

  “And no technicalities either.”

  “What technicalities? You have a fucking sword. And you can fly. I have a knife. What’s your problem?”

  “My problem is that that isn’t an ordinary knife. You’re part of a conspiracy with Death. That’s my problem, trickster.”

  “I’m supposed to fight you with a sharpened Popsicle stick? You have the best sword you can, I have the best knife I can. Calm down and let’s fight.”

  “Have it your way. But when you’re dead, I’m killing all your friends myself.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For this whole thing we’re doing right now. Between Hesediel, Alice, and Vehuel, I’d forgotten for a minute how much I hate angels. You’re a billboard for everything wrong with your kind.”

  “Aren’t you wondering why I’m not dead?” Michael says.

  “Yeah. I am actually.”

  He slaps his fist against his chest.

  “This isn’t angelic armor. If you had any brains at all, you would have recognized it. It’s Father’s armor from the first war. And it’s immune to Death’s touch.”

  Samael says, “To be fair, I didn’t recognize it either. It isn’t filled out. You simply don’t have the physique for it.”

  “Now I’m going to kill you, too.”

  “I said you were boring.”

  While the two brothers bicker I rummage around in my foggy brain trying to come up with any way I can get the knife close enough to Michael to slip around his armor. The problem is that he’s right. Aside from being deathproof, the armor covers every square inch of his body except his face. What are the chances of him letting me get close enough to poke my chopstick up his nose?

  That’s it, then. I have nothing. All I can do is play for time and try to give everybody a few more minutes of life. Even if I can return the knife to Samael, he can’t get through the armor any more than I can. Sorry, everybody. I blew it again.

  Sorry, Candy. At least this is the last time I’ll ever disappoint you.

  I lower my center of gravity and move into a fighting stance. I look ridiculous with my useless knife sticking out like the antenna on a thirty-year-old cell phone.

  Michael manifests his Gladius and runs at me. I stand my ground hoping to get in a shot at his face. When he’s a few feet away, he lets the Gladius go out. I thrust the knife at his eye, but miss by a mile. Instead of finishing me, Michael pulls back a big armored fist and punches me over my chest wound.

  I think I must have blacked out for a second from the force of the blow because when I look around, I realize I’m floating in limbo.

  This is going to be a humiliating way to die. There’s no gravity and nothing to grab on to. I pump my arms and legs trying to get some traction, but nothing happens. I know that everybody by Heaven’s gates can see me. That’s going to be their last memory of Sandman Slim: him flailing away like a bloated tick trying to roll himself off his back.

  I don’t know what the hell Michael does next, but a moment later I’m rocketing back to the golden gates. The Colt slips out of my waistband and tumbles into empty space. Big deal. A lot that would have helped against an archangel. I feel around my boots and coat. The na’at is long gone and now the gun. All I have is Doris’s butcher knife and the amber blade. The only other thing I find is the pinkie-size piece of the Li
ght Killer in my pocket. I don’t think he’s going to let me shove that through his face either, so I do the only thing I can think of. I eat it.

  A second later I’m back at the gates and Michael is holding me off the ground by the front of my shirt.

  “We can’t keep meeting like this,” I say. “People will talk.”

  Michael looks back at his troops.

  “Am I done here? Should I just kill him and finally rid creation of the Abomination?”

  Lots of cheers and hoots from the cheap seats. I blow them a kiss.

  Michael manifests his Gladius.

  “Wait. I should do this so Alice can see.”

  He turns and I wave to her.

  “Hi. Can you see me all right?”

  She nods.

  “Good.”

  I purse my lips and spit in Michael’s face.

  He wipes it off.

  “You filth,” he says. “You spawn of corruption. You living defilement of all that is holy.”

  I spit again. It’s a nice solid quantity, too, and it hits him right in the eye.

  This time he drops me. He screams. His hands go to his face, tearing at his eye. It’s turning red and starting to bleed.

  “What have you done to me?”

  “I gave you the sword, just like you wanted. Well, a bunch of little pieces of it. It tasted bad. Looks like it feels bad, too.”

  He’s down on his hands and knees now. I lean over so I can see his face. He’s pale and sweating. I kick him upright. Then jam the amber knife into his bleeding eye and pull it out again.

  It’s messy and bloody, but honestly, I’m feeling pretty good about myself. I think about how I’m going to buy myself a drink and maybe not work in the reggae bar after all.

  But this is an archangel and I’m a moron.

  Even as Michael starts to fade and die, he manifests his Gladius. And shoves it right through my heart.

  The fire is so intense that I don’t even feel it. I just get very cold because for the second time in not all that long, I am no-shit dying. I have just enough time and strength to throw the amber knife to Samael. He drops the bundle and he and Alice run straight at Michael’s troops. I wish I could stick around and see how it comes out, but Michael is going and so am I and that’s how the song ends.

  So long, dog pack. See you around, Traven.

  I’m sorry I disappointed you again, Alice. Some days it seems like the thing I’m best at.

  Thanks for the laughs, Samael. Now do what you do best with angels. If they move, kill ’em.