Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim)

by Richard Kadrey

  I stay in the shadow for a minute, letting my head clear, when I hear Mammon say, “The battle plan, lady and gentlemen, is simple: Do better.”

  The officers go back-to-back, forming a protective triangle around Mammon, which means they’re stuck there while I can move around. I’m lucky that none of them can manifest a Gladius. Besides Lucifer, only a few of the heavyweight fallen angels still have the power. None of this crew has or they would have used it by now.

  I duck into the room, moving from shadow to shadow, swinging the na’at at the overhead lights. I take them out one by one, creating more shadows for me to work from. The white suit shoots at me, but Hugo Boss is busy reloading. I feel two shots go through my coat just above my leg and dive back into the dark.

  Half the room is in shadows and Mammon’s officers are nervous. Mrs. Hogan doesn’t have her gun, so I go for her first. Keeping most of my body in the shadow, I snap out the na’at, leaving it loose until it wraps around her ankle, then I pull it tight like a snare. I fade back into the wall while retracting the na’at and it pulls her across the floor like she’s tied to a freight train. When she hits the wall I grab her lapels and pull her upright. The sight of even just my hands gets Hugo Boss itchy. He blasts away, only I’m back in the shadow and his redheaded teammate is suddenly full of holes. I pull back my hands and let her fall. The ice-cream man checks her body and I get the distinct feeling that he had something going with Mrs. Hogan, because when he sees her back full of smoking craters, he levels his pistol at Hugo Boss and blows his brains out.

  Now it’s just the ice-cream man and Mammon. He grabs Mammon by the back of his collar and drags him into the biggest pool of light, shouting for the guards. No one shouts back. He keeps shouting until Mammon backhands him from the floor.

  “Stop shouting in my ear. If backup were coming, it would be here by now. You might consider shooting him yourself before he kills us.”

  I step out behind the pillar where I first entered the room and shout, “He’s right. No guards get in here without a permission slip from me.”

  The ice-cream man blasts into the dark.

  “That’s a clever ploy. Use up all your bullets shooting at nothing. Did they teach you that at military school?” says Mammon. But the ice-cream man isn’t listening. He’s not a soldier anymore. He’s an angry boyfriend looking to get back at someone who got his girl killed. Join the club, fucker.

  The ice-cream man shouts, “Show yourself!”

  “I am,” I say. “Don’t look at the shadows. I’m right out in the open with you. Come and get me.”

  He’s pissed enough about Mrs. Hulk that he lets go of Mammon and prowls around the edges of the light, listening, trying to figure out where my voice came from.

  “Get back here,” shouts Mammon. “He’s goading you.”

  I take out Mason’s lighter from my pocket and toss it onto the nearest couch. The ice-cream man spins and blasts the enemy furniture.

  I throw the black blade. He sees it at the last second but can’t get out of the way, and the blade buries itself in his right eye. He’s dead before he hits the floor.

  Mammon finally sees me as I step out from behind his floating map of the universe. The room is empty except for us. Mammon’s dead officers have all winked out of existence and are on their way to Tartarus, the Hell below Hell.

  I get Mason’s lighter off the couch and put it back in my pocket.

  From the floor, Mammon gives the room an expansive wave like he’s addressing the multitudes.

  “Lo, the prodigal coward returns. It’s been a long time, assassin. How have you been? Enjoying your life upstairs? That’s a breathtaking tan.”

  I take my time getting to him.

  “You’ll notice I’m not rushing over. I want you to get used to seeing the world from floor level.”

  He looks me over.

  “Nice coat. But I hate the shoes.”

  “I like what you’ve done with the place. Is that why you threw in with Mason? He got you a good decorator?”

  “I’m with Mason because I appreciate winners.”

  “Like the five I just slaughtered? Or was it that time when you threw in with Lucifer to take over Heaven. Face it. You’re completely shit in the picking-winners department.”

  Mammon’s legs are splayed at funny angles. He’s propped on his elbows, trying to look comfortable. I circle him so half the time he’s talking to empty air.

  He shrugs.

  “We were young back then and swept up in the excitement that we could throw out the old ways and rebuild the world. I’m older now and understand. Our plans weren’t thorough enough back then. This time they are.”

  “I’ve got my fingers crossed for you, doughboy. I have a feeling if you fuck up one more time, there’s nothing left for you but Tartarus. Unless you know somewhere lower than that?”

  He keeps smiling, but his lips do a little involuntary micro-twitch. Tartarus is the only thing that truly frightens all these Hellion bastards. Even they don’t know what’s down there. Maybe Lucifer does, but he’s not around to ask.

  Mammon manages a little mocking laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. It’s a private joke. You wouldn’t understand. There’s wine and Aqua Regia on my desk. I hear you’re quite the drunkard these days.”

  “Did you hear that when Kasabian was still spying for Lucifer? That intel is out-of-date. I’m strictly a social drinker these days.”

  “That’s what all drunks say. In any case, enjoy yourself.”

  I give the bottles on his desk a sniff. They don’t smell poisoned, but it’s hard to tell with Aqua Regia since it’s already mostly poison. I start going through his desk.

  “Where are the Maledictions? I’d strangle the Pope for a smoke.”

  “Sorry. I quit.”

  “You’re a Hellion. All you do is torture and smoke.”

  “You’re right. I lied. But I’m out of cigarettes. Maybe if you let the guards in, one of them could bring some.”

  “How’s the view from the carpet, Tom Thumb? Does the world smell different down there?”

  I go through the rest of the drawers. There’s a silver flask in a bottom one. I take it out, admiring Mammon’s family crest on the front. I hold it up and he says, “Be my guest.”

  While I’m pouring Aqua Regia into the empty flask, Mammon says, “You’re going to be dead tomorrow, you know.”

  When the flask is filled to the top, I tighten the cap and slip it inside my coat.

  “Dead, huh? That sucks. How are your legs? Any pain yet?”

  Mammon shakes his head.

  “None, thank you.”

  “It’ll start soon.”

  Metal scrapes near the wall.

  I snap out the na’at to its full length and twist it so barbs sprout along its length. A scared, muffled voice screams where the na’at is pointing. It sounds like it’s coming from a weird metal sculpture across the room. It’s about six feet tall and covered in hand-hammered silver in roughly the outline of a human body. It looks like something from Muninn’s discount bin. I get closer, letting the na’at keep some distance between us.

  There are openings in the sculpture, like eye slits. There’s movement behind them. I shove the na’at right up to the opening. The muffled screaming starts up. When I get closer I can see eyes inside the helmet. They’re brown. The pupils wide and dilated with fear. They’re human.

  I point at the caged man.

  “Who’s the gimp?”

  Mammon pushes himself up a little higher on his elbows.

  “That’s Mr. Kelly. Say hello, Mr. Kelly.”

  The Hellion upper classes love to talk about the damned with mock formality.

  The slaved soul in the metal restraints squeezes out what I guess is a muffled greeting.

  “Why’s he locked up? Is he dangerous?”

  “Only to your kind. He’s a murderer.”

  “Is that what’s in this year? Coll
ecting killers instead of baseball cards?”

  He tightens his lips in a look of mild disgust.

  “It was Mason’s idea. He issued senior officers ‘interesting’ souls so we might become more acquainted with human minds. The one he gave me was a bore, so I put him in storage.”

  The soul is in something like a Hellion suit of armor welded inside an external cage. I put away the na’at and start slicing through the bars with the black blade. With a little force the bars come off easily. When I get the front clear, I start slicing off the armor.

  “Just out of curiosity, where’s General Semyazah these days? I know he’s on the run, but I also know you have spies. Where’s he hiding?”

  “You admire the fool, don’t you? ‘Semyazah, the lone Hellion general brave enough to hold out against Mason Faim, the dread usurper of Lucifer’s throne!’ ”

  “I just asked where he was. I don’t need a campaign speech.”

  Mammon pulls himself around so we’re looking straight at each other again.

  “Remember the private joke I mentioned? I’ll share it with you after all. When you so subtly threatened me with Tartarus, I laughed because that’s where your hero is. Semyazah is Tartarus’s newest and I daresay most famous guest.”

  If Mammon is telling the truth then the game is over. There’s no game at all. With Semyazah out of the way, another general will have claimed his troops and there won’t be anyone to stop Mason from launching his war. It was a long shot that Semyazah could do anything anyway. Now even that slim chance might be gone. Mammon could be lying, but the first thing I have to do is find Alice. I don’t have time to run all over Hell checking out Mammon’s bullshit. I wonder what happens to a non-damned soul if it’s killed in Hell? If I can’t find Alice in time and Mason murders her again, will she end up in Tartarus? Or worse, she might be saved from Tartarus but end up too far from Heaven to find her way back, and wander in the Limbo between them forever.

  “Who killed Semyazah?”

  Mammon shakes his head.

  “That’s the best part. You inspired Semyazah’s fate. He wasn’t killed. Mason said that we should send him to Tartarus alive, and so we did.”

  What a bunch of gold-plated idiots we are, Hellions and humans alike. Somewhere God is laughing at us. We’re his private joke with himself. Why didn’t he just wipe us all out and start over? Maybe it’s more fun watching us run around bouncing off the walls.

  “What? No more jokes, Sandman Slim? Here’s an idea. Run back to your cozy home upstairs. Drink. Watch movies. Fuck whomever it is you fuck these days and let the grown-ups get on with their work. We’re really awfully busy.”

  I cut the last few pieces of armor off the soul and pull him out of the cage. There’s a metal restraint around his head holding a leather bit in his mouth. I slice through the lock and the restraint falls to the floor. I go back to Mammon, leaving the soul to rub his aching jaw.

  “When is it happening?”

  “When is what happening?”

  I want to kick him in the throat but I don’t want to kill him, so I just give him the toe of my boot in the jaw.

  “That was me being nice. The next thing that happens is I start cutting off the parts of your body you can still feel, starting with your fingers.”

  Mammon rubs his jaw, considering his answer. When he answers, his voice is low.

  “The troops are already massed. All that remains is to agree to the final details of plans and bring the troops under a single command. From there, Mason will lead us to Heaven.”

  “Do you really think you’re going to win this time? Heaven has the high ground and they know you’re coming. Lucifer will have told them everything.”

  His eyes narrow when he smiles.

  “Lucifer is far from omniscient.”

  “So you have a secret. What is it?”

  “What is what?”

  I grab Mammon by the collar and toss him across the room onto his desk.

  He waits until I’m close before he attacks.

  I’m walking around the desk when he moves his arm in a very particular way. He’s angel-fast, but I recognize what he’s doing because these days I can do it, too.

  Mammon swings his Gladius back over his head, trying to slice me in half as I come around the desk. I dodge it just in time. Feel it burn through my coat sleeve.

  He swings again but I’ve already manifested my own Gladius. I block the strike. Mammon is flat on his back, not a prime defensive position. When I block his next shot, I slip my Gladius under his, shift my weight, and flip his sword over and down onto his chest. He screams and I stab my sword into his fighting arm as far as it will go. I hold it there until his arm blackens and his Gladius goes out. Hellions smell bad at the best of times. Burning Hellions are like a bonfire in a garbage dump.

  He lies on the desk blinking at the ceiling.

  “You still with us, General?”

  He doesn’t say anything. He just holds his burned arm with his good one. I don’t have time for him to lie around and go into shock. I open the bottle of wine, lift him up, and hand him the bottle. He takes it in his good hand and drains half the bottle. I pick him up off the desk and sit him in his leather executive chair.

  He’s looking at me, but his eyes have the vacant stare of someone on a bad acid trip.

  “What doesn’t Lucifer know about?”

  It takes him a few seconds to focus on me.

  “The key. The key Mason was building to get into the Room of Thirteen Doors. It will never open the Room, but it will do something else. It will open Heaven to us.”

  “Maybe you’ve made a passkey, but how can you break through all of Heaven’s defenses and get close enough to use it?”

  “There’s a weak spot. One of the protective seals is missing.”

  “You mean the Druj Ammun?”

  His eyes go wide.

  “How do you know about that?”

  This time I laugh at him.

  “Because I had it. Back in L.A.”

  He grabs my coat sleeve with his good hand.

  “Where is it? Name any price.”

  “Too late. I traded it for some magic beans.”

  He drinks more wine.

  “This isn’t anything to joke about.”

  “I took the Druj Ammun off a dead vampire. A young girl. The only one of her kind I ever felt bad about killing. When I found out one of the Druj’s powers was to mind-control Hellions, the plan was to come down and get you assholes to rip Mason to pieces for me.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “I also found out that it controlled zombies, and as it happened, we had a substantial zombie surplus in L.A. right then. Instead of letting everyone get eaten, I destroyed the Druj. That killed every single zombie in the world in one night. By now your secret weapon is in a million little pieces clogging up the L.A. sewer system.”

  Mammon stares at the floor. I can’t tell if he’s listening or getting drunk. He lifts his head.

  “It would have been good to have. We could have built a great weapon from it. Made it control the other angels,” he says, and looks up at me. “Baphomet said if anyone was going to ruin this for us, it would be you. But you’d been gone so long many of us thought that you wanted to forget all about this place and wouldn’t get involved. We should have erred on the side of caution.”

  “If it’s any comfort, L.A. is completely zombie-free these days, so you can bring the wife and kids to Disneyland.”

  “It’s too bad you killed your patron, Azazel. I would have enjoyed torturing him to death for creating you.”

  “So, even without the Druj, Mason has a backup plan he thinks will still get him into Heaven. How?”

  “I don’t know. It’s the one thing he’s kept secret from everyone, including his generals.”

  It’s hard to read Hellions, but the angel and I agree that Mammon is telling the truth. Damn Lucifer for not being here. He might be able to figure out Mason’s secret.

&n
bsp; The Kissi stole the Druj thousands of years ago and dropped it on earth just to see what would happen. They like to create amusing chaos. It’s their main nourishment. But Kissi are hit-and-run types, not known for their long-term planning. We always thought of them like a bunch of ADHD kids with superpowers. Always playing games and breaking things for the dumb joy of breaking them. But when they stole the Druj and dumped it on earth, did they have a secret of their own that no one ever considered? Maybe we’ve underestimated them this whole time.

  Mammon finishes the wine and I set the bottle back on the desk.

  “You’re being awfully cooperative,” I say.

  “You’ve already crippled me. Torture is the next logical step. Why shouldn’t I skip all the messiness and tell you what you want to know since none of it will help you?”

  While we’ve been talking, Mammon’s enslaved soul has been creeping over to the desk.

  “We’ll see. The truth is, the war isn’t the main reason I’m here. I want you to take me to Eleusis.”

  He raises his eyebrows slightly.

  “Don’t be stupid. I don’t drive, and even if I could . . .” He holds up his one working arm. “I’m not in racing shape.”

  Drive? In the Hell I remember, Lucifer’s generals have their own private barges for getting around Hell’s five big rivers. I guess a nice luxury car is about the same as a barge in L.A.

  I turn my head and find the soul staring at me. He’s a medium-size man with dark hair and brown eyes. He has rough workman’s hands and his cheap shirt and thin black pants say he wasn’t all that high in whatever trade he was in.

  I point to him.

  “Can the gimp drive?”

  Mammon brightens at that, getting back some of his old high-and-mighty look.

  “And dust and sing songs, too. All the menial things humans are so good at. Isn’t that right, Mr. Kelly?”

  Kelly nods.

  “Give me the keys,” I tell Mammon.

  He opens a drawer, takes them out, and tosses them on the desk. I hand them to Kelly.

  “You’re the wheelman, Kelly. I’m riding shotgun and Dr. Strangelove here can sit in the back and navigate. Got it?”