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First no cigarettes and now I realize I left my Aqua Regia back at home base. My neck hurts. My chest burns. My right hand aches from picking up books. I’m sore and sweating like a fat man chasing a taco wagon across the Mojave.
Sitting here and closing my eyes feels good.
Then it comes back to me.
“Right in front of you. Stop looking. Sit down and you’ll see. ”
I open my eyes and see I’m sitting in the middle of a huge section on magic. Samael takes the subject more seriously than I ever did. Because I was born a nephilim, I never learned much real magic. Even as a kid I had enough power to improvise my own hoodoo. The first and only real magic I ever learned was down here killing in the arena and later as Sandman Slim. There’s probably a lot of useful information in these books. Too bad the whole reading thing is starting to give me hives.
A book lies facedown on the other side of a reading lamp. I didn’t notice it before. It’s a paperback with a bright yellow cover, the first paperback I’ve seen down here. I pick it up. The title is in big block letters.
ANGER MANAGEMENT FOR DUMMIES
Like I said, Samael always leaves me something to work with and a cheap joke is better than no clue at all.
I flip through the book looking for highlighted passages or dog-eared pages. I even read most of a chapter. It’s all the usual straight-arrow self-help babble. No clues. No codes. Just sensible advice for sensible people, which leaves me out in the cold. I throw the book across the room. For all I know, Aelita brought it down so Mason could use it to mess with my brain.
I need a drink. Many drinks. And I need them now.
I kick over the chair as I get up, knocking over the table and sending the lamp flying.
There’s something on a shelf that had been hidden behind the table. On a bottom shelf all the way at the back of the magic section is an old book whose cover is the same shade of yellow as Anger Management for Dummies. I kneel and pull it out.
It’s musty and a little mildewed and the leather binding cracks when I touch it. The lettering and illustration of a kid on the front looks Victorian. Gold lettering reads A Magic Primer for Little Gentlemen. Magnificent Feats and Rousing Conundrums for Boys of All Ages. I open it. Inside, the pages have been hollowed out. Lying at the bottom of the empty book is something wrapped in purple linen. I unroll it. And find a golden thunderbolt. Bingo.
I stand up and clip it into place.
Nothing happens. Zero. Zip. Nada. I didn’t think I was going to roll around the floor growling like Lyle Talbot sprouting Wolf Man whiskers but I was hoping for something. I’m so jacked up on adrenaline that all traces of exhaustion are gone, but that’s still a letdown when you expect to feel like the second most powerful being in the universe.
Then something hits me like a baseball bat to the kidneys. My guts knot up and my body temperature shoots up a hundred degrees. Darkness spills out of me, rolling onto the floor and spreading like black Hellion blood. I’m spewing darkness from every pore of my body. The darkness isn’t solid. It’s a cold dead void like a drop into a bottomless pit. Things curl up from the nothingness, icy and sharp, like freezing rattlesnakes. Suddenly I’m a supercharged nitro-burning Hell beast with teeth the size of the Rockies and hands the size of Texas. If I bend down, I can lift all of Creation onto my back.
And then, like a supersonic orgasm, the feeling is gone. There’s nothing left and I’m back on the floor gasping for air.
What the hell just happened? Does this mean I had Lucifer’s power for a second but my human body couldn’t contain it? Or did it just feel like it passed into me?
There are voices. They don’t come through clearly. Whispers of Hellions all around me in the palace. Even though I can’t hear individual words, the meaning still filters through. Most words are nothing. Empty compliments or straight-up information. Other things hang in the air. Faint wisps of vapor like steam coming off hot coffee. They’re veiled threats and lies. The half-truths, evasions, and bullshit that’s the blood in the arteries of this place. They float in through the walls like a ghost mist.
Okay. Right. This is new. It’s not much more than a trick from one of those shitty amaze-your-friends-and-half-wit-relatives magic kits you buy off late-night TV but it’s something. Maybe the superhero stuff will kick back in later. I like the darkness thing that just happened. I hope I didn’t blow all my power in one big death-dive money shot. Maybe being Lucifer isn’t about power but just being more aware of your Luciferness. That would be a hell of a letdown. I swear on every pointy little Hellion head if I start to grow bat wings and a tail, I’m going to cut them off and feed them to Samael through the wrong hole.
There’s one supertrick I want more than anything, and even if I still have the power, I don’t know how to get at it. How did Samael leave Hell? I never got a chance to ask. Maybe a hoodoo chant? Something you do in a Magic Circle? Walking through a waning arch? Maybe he just had a pair of ruby slippers like Dorothy.
I can’t stand this. Get me out of here. Take me home.
The roar and the wind hit like a hurricane. Things shoot past me, shrieking like tracer rounds. All metal and leaving trails of lights. A blue-brown twilight sky hovers above gray clouds. I smell diesel fumes and scorched engine oil. A green sign trimmed in white catches my eye. It reads CRENSHAW BOULEVARD EXIT.
I recognize this. I’m on the I-10 freeway above where I did the Black Dahlia and splattered my brains and bones on a freeway support. I can’t help it. I laugh and laugh like a lunatic way off his meds.
This is L. A. I’m home.
Mustang Sally, the beautiful sylph and goddess of the roads, is perched on the hood of a silver Mercedes 550 convertible in the breakdown lane, smoking like she’s been waiting for me the whole time I’ve been gone. She smiles and crooks a finger to my right. I turn.
A sixteen-wheeler is bearing down on me going seventy. The driver is laying on the air horn as cars flash by all around me. Right. Cars. Fuck. Standing on freeways is bad even if you’re magic.
There’s nowhere to run. I close my eyes and try to come up with some clever hoodoo but all that’s in my head is Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
Suddenly the roar is gone and the smells with it and the sudden gusts of wind as things whiz by. When I open my eyes, all that’s left of L. A. is a faint afterimage of Mustang Sally’s Cheshire-cat smile. I’m back in the library.
My brain is whirling like it’s going to splatter itself all over the inside of my skull like carnival spin art. I was home and it wasn’t any harder than walking from one room to another. Only I think I need to maybe get more specific about what room.
My legs are shaking too much to walk. I sit crossed-legged on the cool marble floor. Stare at it, making sure it’s real.
My burned hand throbs and my chest itches and I couldn’t give less of a goddamn. Suddenly every shitty, painful moment of the last three months has been worth it. I was home and I can do it again.
Every part of me wants to go back to L. A. right now and stay there and pretend none of this ever happened. But I know if I run off, there are things that will bite large chunks out of my ass later. Take care of business and get out clean. I’m halfway home. More than halfway. Getting away clean means making nice with people I never want to lay eyes on again. I’ve got to get Brimborion in gear and start making calls.
But that can wait a minute. Until I get off the floor, which will be any minute now. After my legs stop shaking and I catch my breath. Until then I’m just going to sit here in the cool quiet with my magic yellow book and think of how many ways this freak factory can kiss my ass on its way out the door.
I spend the next day tying up loose ends. I’m expecting a lot of ritual square dancing but it turns out blowing town might be easier than I thought. I decided to blow off the planning committee and their budgets. That leaves my inner council.
Merihim isn’t returning my calls
. A sore loser in a battle he hasn’t even lost yet. But for the first time he and his church have to justify their existence and it’s making him cranky. Boo-hoo. Take two altar boys and call me in the morning.
The other members of the Council are tied up. Buer is at the City Hall building site. There’s no reason to get him off it since it’s one of the few projects that’s actually accomplishing something. Obyzuth is with Deumos, so she knows the score. There’s Marchosias but she’s not sending me any good-bye roses. She’s busy wheeling and dealing with other Hellion politicos, giving them the good word that Lucifer is alive and well despite another ambush. The king is the land, the land is the king, and as long as Lucifer lives, the ground won’t open and gobble the place down like a California roll.
The bedroom is still a broken little FUBAR island. What’s-his-name the herbalist, just a pile of gristle and bones on the stained bed. Snowdrifts of Kentucky fried insects. Bullet holes in the wall. Burn marks around the electric outlet. Shards of porcelain from the broken bathroom sink. In all, a fitting monument to my stellar turn as Lucifer. Leave it just like this. Let the next Lucifer clean it up.
I toss my coat on the bed and give myself the once-over in the mirror. New scars on my face and hand. A left arm that looks like a tin-plated grasshopper. A livid burn on my chest above the armor. My eyes are stuck in a thousand-yard-arena death stare. I might even see some gray hairs. I look like old roadkill in new boots.
I can’t go home looking like this. I take long, slow breaths and try to relax. I practice a smile but that just makes things worse. I’m not sure how wide to make it. How many teeth should I show? You’re not supposed to think about smiling. You just do it. I curl up the ends of my lips and open my eyes. Not bad: if I want to look like a paint-huffing shark.
I call Brimborion and tell him to come up in an hour. Then dial the witches downstairs. Let them know I’ll be paying them a visit. A couple of other short calls and then I head down to the kennels to feed the hellhounds.
Brimborion is a pain in the ass but he’s a prompt pain in the ass. He knocks on the bedroom door in exactly one hour. I’m shoving clothes, Aqua Regia, and cigarettes into a duffel bag I found. With some silk stockings and chocolate, I could be one of Harry Lime’s pals in The Third Man.
“The door’s open. ”
Brimborion comes over to the bed where I’m packing.
“I’m taking off. We got Vetis but we don’t know if we got his whole crew. You working with me makes you a target, so you should have this. ”
I toss him the Glock.
“You know how to use it?”
I’m stuffing a couple of last cartons of Maledictions into the duffel when Brimborion racks in a shell and presses the gun into the back of my head.
“That’s not a Happy Meal, pal. No matter how hard you push, there aren’t any prizes inside. ”
“Give me the weapon,” he says.
“The 8 Ball? No. I need some souvenirs and the gift shop is closed. ”
“Lucifer’s armor might give you power but I think five or six shots in the head from this range would kill even the Light Bringer. ”
“Before you carry out this brilliant plan, tell me this: Did Marchosias come to you or did you go to her?”
He hesitates.
“Why do you think she’s involved? I’m the one with the gun to your head. ”
“First, she’s the only one who might want the job. Second, you’re the one with the gun to my head, meaning you’re stupid and she’s not. She’d never touch anything that might be traced back to her. ”
“Who cares? Vetis is going to be killed escaping. His confederates will commit suicide when they hear about it. You’ll be dead and someone will have to step in to fill the vacuum. ”
I get the cigarettes in the duffel and zip it closed. Brimborion jumps at the sound and shoves the gun harder into my head.
“Is that the deal she offered you? You help Vetis. Get him and his boys maintenance uniforms so they can move around the palace. They get taken down but I’m killed by one of their vengeful stooges. Tragic but understandable. ”
“And I’m the only one who knows how you work,” says Brimborion. “What you had planned. I’m the one to whom you came to for counsel. I don’t have the rank or respectability to become Lucifer right away, but with no one else available, Marchosias will appoint me regent. ”
“And you’ll do such a bang-up job everyone will grovel and beg you to become Lucifer 3. 0. ”
“And I’ll humbly accept. ”
“You know the only reason Marchosias brought you into the deal is because you hillbillies won’t ever go for a woman Lucifer. So she needs a Muppet like you to be her beard. ”
I start to turn but he grabs my shoulder and holds me.
“It was worth a finger to get rid of you. No one in all of Hell will shed a tear when you’re gone. ”
“I will. ”
I can hear his fiend’s heart beating like a bar band doing a cover of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. ” He stinks of Aqua Regia and some kind of Hellion speed I haven’t smelled before.
“Did Vetis kill Ipos or did you? I’m guessing Vetis. Ipos would crack you open and play Jenga with your bones. ”
“Among the many reasons I hate you is that you only drank enough to be infuriating. Just a little more and the possession key might have worked and then none of this would have been necessary. You would have appointed me the new Lucifer and killed yourself on the palace steps. You don’t even want to be Lucifer and it’s impossible to stop you from doing it. ”
“But you won’t be Lucifer. Marchosias will. Wise up, Tom Swift. She gets the power and all you’re getting is a desk and new stationery. ”
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