Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim)
Page 34
“I hear you broke the priest. Poor thing. They’re so delicate, aren’t they? So confident in your world but they come apart so quickly down here. Still, it’s nothing for you to worry about. A mad priest. It’s like a gothic romance. Add his to the list of lives you’ve ruined. But the priest is still walking the Earth, isn’t he? So he’s only half a demerit. God must be very proud of you. You keep filling our houses with new playmates.”
“Here’s my final thought to you. Kill yourself. All of you Hellions should kill yourselves. Or murder each other. You’re Muninn’s problem now.”
“How long will it take you to break your new girlfriend? What’s her name? Something sweet and simpleminded. Does she know how gruesome you can be?”
“I told her all about what happened in Hell.”
“And she’s still with you? She must be an exceptional woman.”
“She is.”
“So was Alice, I suppose. You do seem to go through a lot of them. Exceptional women. Murder isn’t your greatest sin. It’s being as careless with others’ lives as you are with your own. You need to watch that or sooner or later all that will be left are women who’ll run from the very sight of a monster like you.”
“If you’re calling to threaten me, hurry up. I’m going inside and I won’t be able to hear you being scary.”
“I’m getting better with bodies in your world. I can do more than talk now. Soon I’ll walk and drive and look just like anyone else and I can pay you a visit.”
“You better get to it, Merihim. When the Angra come back, you’re as fucked as the rest of us.”
“Clever guess.”
“That’s exactly what it was. Don’t make me tattle on you to Muninn.”
I hang up and head back inside.
Candy is dancing to Les Baxter’s “Balloon Waltz” with Vidocq. I cut in and he graciously takes a powder just like a real Frenchman. I have no idea how to waltz but I can count to three and I can rock back and forth, and with the bar so packed, that’s pretty much what everyone else is doing too.
It’s been raining on and off for the last couple of weeks. Not fish rain. The regular stuff. Between the storms, the sky is even blue sometimes. Catalina is back and no one has reported any floating streets or volcanoes in days.
Sometimes I step back and look over everything and wonder how the hell I got here. According to Uriel, my real father, I was always destined for this land of bloody laughs. I’m not human or angel or Lurker or demon. I’m just a natural-born killer. What I don’t know is if I’m attracted to places where the worst things are happening or if I bring the shitstorm with me. Until I know, all that matters is that I’m still breathing and I’m dancing with a pretty girl.
The world is going to end when the Angra Om Ya come back. They’ll eat the planets and stars. When they hit L.A., they’ll get a movie deal with points and a percentage of the merchandising. They’ll learn to surf and practice Transcendental Meditation. One of them will OD in the bathroom at the Whisky a Go Go and another will be on the cover of People, caught having an affair with the new mayor. The others will develop depression and go home to their gloomy universe. One more set of suckers. One more one-hit wonder. It’s a nice little universe you built but what have you done lately? Leave your head shots and our people will call your people. This is L.A. There are so many Apocalypses around here that most don’t even make the paper, so be happy yours got any press at all. By the way, Strawberry Alarm Clock is a cool name. Angra Om Ya sounds like a brand of Chinese dog food.
With luck, the Angra won’t pass through these parts for another million years. I don’t usually get that lucky but I’ve got Candy, a place to crash, food, and the Key. L.A. might be a tourist-trap province on the outskirts of Hell, but that’s okay. At least in this Hell, I’m not alone.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Patty for the art and Wil for being an excellent guy. Thanks to Elsabeth Hermens for anime advice and to Tim Holland for French guidance. Thanks to Dino, Martha, and Lorenzo for letting me tag along. Thanks to Pamela Spengler-Jaffee, Jessie Edwards, Will Hinton, and the rest of the team at HarperCollins. And thanks as well to everyone on Twitter and Facebook who sent in song suggestions. As always, thanks to Nicola for everything else.
About the Author
RICHARD KADREY has published seven novels, including Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha from Hell, Butcher Bird, and Metrophage, and more than fifty stories. He has been immortalized as an action figure, and his short story “Goodbye Houston Street, Goodbye” was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award. A freelance writer and photographer, he lives in San Francisco.
www.richardkadrey.com
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Also by Richard Kadrey
Aloha from Hell
Kill the Dead
Sandman Slim
Credits
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover illustration by Craig White
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEVIL SAID BANG. Copyright © 2012 by Richard Kadrey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-209457-5
Epub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062094582
Version 08312012
12 13 14 15 16 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com