I pull the black blade from behind my back with the Kissi arm. It feels awkward using my left hand, but the effect is worth it.
I hold out the knife to each of them.
“How about it? General? Merihim? Marchosias?”
I throw the blade so it sticks point first in the floor between them.
“Why don’t you all do it together? I can’t possibly take all three of you at once.”
No one moves. Merihim’s body language says he’s somewhere between fainting and doing a Cowardly Lion dive out of the nearest window. Marchosias backs away behind a bust of Lucifer on a short marble pillar.
Semyazah’s eyes narrow. I gave his ego a hotfoot. He looks like he might actually go for the blade.
The moment his shoulder twitches, I kick the desk chair in front of him. He’s quick. The chair catches one of his legs but he still manages to get the knife. Rolling to his feet, he throws it at me. It’s a pretty good shot for someone off balance on a hurt leg. But I’ve had a lot of knives heaved at me over the years. I know what good aim looks like and knife throwing isn’t Semyazah’s specialty. All I have to do is lean back and the knife sails past. Semyazah grabs a metal candle stand, holding it in front of him like a spear.
It’s three fast steps to where he’s planted himself. I drag the desk behind me as I go. Whip it around like a baseball bat, crashing through a bookshelf and catching him on the side. There’s a loud crack as I make contact and he half flies, half slides down the marble floor to the library doors.
Blood flows into my left eye. The crack when I hit Semyazah wasn’t from him or the desk. It was a derringer he’s pulled from his sleeve. The shot grazed the side of my head.
Merihim and Marchosias are backed up against shelves full of Hellion art books. Merihim has gone dead white. I throw each of them over a shoulder in a kind of half-assed fireman’s carry, holding them low. Keeping their bodies between me and Semyazah. The general is flat on his back but he could be playing possum and he has at least one bullet left in the pocket gun. Merihim starts thrashing when he figures out he’s a human shield. I pull my arm a little tighter and squeeze the air out of him.
When I’m over Semyazah, I step onto the arm holding the gun. The general’s eyes are open but he doesn’t move. I don’t think he’s broken. Just a little dazed. I toss Merihim and Marchosias down on either side of him, take the derringer, and drop the hammer so it won’t go off in my pocket.
A minute later Semyazah sits up. I take the knife from a scabbard on his belt and slap it into his hand.
“We aren’t done yet. It’s still three against one and I’m not armed. You drew first blood, General. Take your shot. Kill me.”
He doesn’t move. I can’t tell if his gaze is uncertain or unfocused.
“Afraid you’ll miss?”
I grab him with the Kissi hand and press the tip of the blade into the base of my throat.
“Now you can’t. Kill me. Become Lucifer.”
When Semyazah doesn’t budge, Merihim grabs his hand and pushes. The blade goes in far enough to draw blood. I feel it run down my neck and under the armor. Semyazah twists and punches Merihim in the face. The preacher lets go of the knife when Semyazah elbows him in the throat. He looks at Marchosias like he’s about to deck her. She holds up her hands, shaking her head.
Semyazah slides the knife back into its scabbard.
“This doesn’t change anything. You’re still a coward and a fraud.”
“And you won’t do anything about it ’cause you’d rather have a coward and a fraud on the throne than sit there yourself.”
I find my knife where it’s embedded in the wall and slip it into the waistband at my back. Walk back to where the last of Bill’s bourbon fell. The bottle hit the floor but didn’t break. Lucky me. My desk is cracked and splintered but still has four legs. I pull it upright and sit down, taking a couple of pulls from the bottle. The wound on my head throbs but is already scabbing over; my burned hand, though, got bounced around enough that it throbs and aches.
“You Hellions think you’re so fucking special. What’s that stuff on the ceiling? The Thought. The Act. The New World? You think God threw you out because you bravely stood up to Him? Bullshit. You started a fight and you lost and you’ve been whining about it ever since. Hell isn’t righteous exile. With all your secret handshakes and horseshit rituals, you’ve made the place into one more members-only gated community. All you people need are Mercedes SUVs and illegals to clean your pools and you couldn’t tell Hell from Brentwood. That’s why you hate Deumos and her heretic ducklings. It’s not because they’re crackpots, which they definitely are. What gets under your skin is that they want to move into the house down the street. Old money hates the nouveau riche. It’s a sad, stupid story even down here in the stupidest place in the universe.”
Merihim and Marchosias get to their feet. When Marchosias starts to help Semyazah, the general shakes her off.
“Are you going to open the door or are we your prisoners?” he asks.
I bark some Hellion and the library doors unlock.
“May I have my gun?”
I get the derringer, pop out the remaining bullet, and toss the pistol to him. He heads for the door without waiting for the other two. Merihim pulls a book from his robes and throws it on the floor.
“Here’s the book you asked about, you ungrateful lout. Read it before you do anything else stupid. Pay particular attention to the final passage. It’s more apt now than ever before.”
When they’re gone I go over and get the book I never asked Merihim about.
It’s an old copy of Hellion psalms. Battered and annotated in the margins. Complete bargain-bin shit. The book doesn’t matter. It’s the note inside. I recognize Merihim’s neat writing.
Last night Ipos sent word that he found evidence of someone or possibly more than one person in maintenance uniforms using building plans to move about the palace. This morning Ipos is dead. I’ll send updates when and if I can. Until then, do not contact me.
Looks like I just burned a few more bridges. Fuck ’em. I was always the dog-faced boy to Semyazah. A sideshow freak in a suit. Merihim might have been on Samael’s side but he knows I don’t give two shits about his church. Marchosias, well, she likes to be where the action is.
I feel bad about Ipos. One more face to go up on the wall of the people who’ve died for me one way or another.
I check the peepers in the bedroom. It looks all clear. I go in and grab everything I need. Clothes. Toothbrush. I toss the na’at into the drawer with the Smith & Wesson, the singularity, and the Magic 8 Ball and carry it like a TV tray into the library.
The front doors feel safe for now. I put down arsenic and sulfur in front of the secret door that Ipos and Merihim used. The truth is, I feel pretty good. I shook things up. I got to break things. I got shot without dying. And I didn’t even have to go to the arena to do any of it.
The list of my enemies was the size of a phone book when I got here and it’ll be a whole set of encyclopedias by the time I leave. If the enemy I’m counting on doesn’t come through, at least I’ll have a lot more to choose from.
I’ve tried to avoid everyone, so I haven’t used the hotel phones much. The one in the library is like the others. Even though the Beverly Wilshire is my demonic palace, it’s still a hotel and the phones are put together hotel-style. A regular push-button model with a row of specialty buttons at the top. Instead of direct lines to the concierge and front desk, this phone only has two buttons. They read VIAND and PISSANTS. I pick up the receiver and push PISSANTS. Brimborion picks up.
“Lucifer?”
“Do you know who’s locked up in the dungeon?”
His voice drops to a whisper.
“Yes.”
“I’m guessing you know discreet ways to get around the palace where no one’s going to see you.”
“Of course.”
“I want you to get the leader out without anyone seeing. Especially the guards. Can you do that?”
“I’ll have to distract them.”
“Whatever you need.”
“May I use a hellhound or two?”
“Use a zeppelin, for all I care. Just get her up here. I think we’ve come to an understanding, so I’ll even give you your passkey back.”
“Thank you,” he says. There’s a microsecond’s hesitation.
“You have another stashed away, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t be good at my job if I didn’t plan ahead.”
“Just get her up to the library. And be sure to knock. There was a little scuffle in here earlier and I’ve added new security.”
“Is anyone interesting dead?”
“Soon.”
I hang up and take out the black blade. Carve dark magic crosses and hexes on the floor up front and by the secret door. Shapes of ice, fire, and darkness. You can’t be too careful, especially after you know at least one other person has the keys to the kingdom. Now I just have to not step in my own traps on the way out.
It’s easy to lose track of time Downtown. I’ve been here one hundred days and a week. A week? More like three or four days since the first attack. In the next day or so I’ll either have the assassins off my back or be dead. Either way I won’t have a Dr. Caligari reject in the bedroom belching bugs on the duvet. On the other hand, there’s no reason to think I’ll destroy the possession key or the psychic amplifier anytime soon. So I’m still fucked, but finding out who’s actually sending bug men and bikers after me and killing my killers should buy me enough time to figure out how to access the last of Lucifer’s power.
I look at the hotel phone. If there are only two buttons and one is to a lackey, what’s the second for? I push VIAND.
“My lord?”
“Is this the kitchen?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Don’t call me ‘lord.’ Did anyone down there watch the cable cooking shows I told you about?”
“Yes, lord. Lucifer. I did.”
“Great. Let’s keep things simple. How about you make me a burrito?”
“What kind of meat would you like?”
“What have you got?”
“Manticore. Greater and lesser sand jellyfish. Archaeopteryx. And white strangler fungi. It’s called fungi but really it’s a light-tasting parasite that grows in the bowels of—”
“I know what it is and I wouldn’t eat that shit with God’s mouth. Make it manticore. And send up some Aqua Regia and a carton of Maledictions. Leave it all outside the library door.”
“Will there be anything else, lord?”
“Yeah. Book me a first-class seat on the red-eye to Burbank.”
“You want a book, lord? I thought you were in the library.”
“Forget it. Just the food and smokes.”
I know whatever they bring up will be horrible but at least it will look like something from home. And manticore meat isn’t that bad. Sort of like a buffalo, a jalapeño, and a jar of vinegar had a baby.
Fuck me. I’m turning into a lifer. I’m calling the apartment mine and getting used to the food. I need to be dead or out of here fast.
There’s a soft knock on the library door. I open it, careful not to step in any of my bear traps. Brimborion is in the hall with Deumos.
“No one saw us. Also, this was outside the door.”
He holds up the food tray. I lift the metal top off the plate with the burrito. It looks like a giant maggot in a gray bathrobe. I put the top back on the plate and pull Deumos inside.
“Cool your jets for thirty minutes.”
I take the Aqua Regia and cigarettes off the tray.
“Keep the burrito. I hope you like manticore.”
Brimborian looks at the tray and back at me, surprised.
“Thank you.”
“Thirty minutes,” I say.
I close the door and look at Deumos. She looks very human even if her skin is a little on the snaky side. She holds her head up high enough that it looks like she could use the horns wound in her hair as a weapon. She’s in a floor-length robe that shades from a deep bloody red at her shoulders to a pink so pale it’s almost white at her feet. I point to the floor.
“You’re going to want to walk around those marks. Otherwise you’ll end up boiled, blind, or a Popsicle, depending on which hex you step into.”
She looks down, gathers up the bottom of her robe, and carefully steps over the marks. When she’s clear she walks a few paces farther and turns and fixes me with her hard, bright eyes.
“Did you bring me here to kill me? You have quite a reputation for that sort of thing.”
“I pretty much live in here. If I was going to kill you, I’d do it down the hall in the room with the dead guy and the bugs.”
She looks around at the bookcases. When she looks at the fresco on the ceiling she smiles.
“I take it the first Lucifer made this.”
“Yeah. I’m more the high-def TV man.”
“I’m sure,” she says. “If I’m not here to die, why am I here?”
“First to remind you that I’m not the first Lucifer. I didn’t set up any deals with the Tabernacle and I’m not your enemy. Just because I’m the Devil doesn’t mean I give a goddamn about religion.”
“If you’re not my enemy, then why are my sisters and I in a dungeon?”
“If you want to play it like that, how about you burned the goddamn king in effigy?”
“Ah. You know about that.”
