The Kill Society (Sandman Slim)(15)

“It will be you?” says Traven.

Cherry gives us a fingertip wave and heads back to camp.

Traven looks at me.

“Well. That was unexpected.”

“That’s one word for it.”

He looks down at Megs. “What are we going to do with him?”

I reach down and snap his neck. He blips out of existence a moment later.

Traven turns away.

“Please warn me the next time you’re going to do something like that.”

“Sorry.”

He looks back at where the body was a second before.

“There’s a lot of blood.”

“We’re going to need to cover it up.”

I look around.

“We’re close to the base of the mountain. I remember loose soil down there,” I say. “I’ll bring some over and cover the blood when things settle down.”

“You’ll need help.”

I look around for something else to cover the blood with, but there’s nothing.

“You’re in good with the Magistrate,” I say. “I won’t fuck that up. If things go wrong, it should be me they come after.”

“That’s not fair.”

“We’re in Hell. I just got knifed by a charcoal briquette and molested by a witch. Talk to me some more about fair.”

“At least let me be your lookout,” says Traven.

“Fine. But not now. When most of them are asleep.”

We go back into the camper. Traven settles back down on his cot and I lie on my coat on the floor with a couple of pillows. It’s not exactly comfortable, but it beats sleeping anywhere else at this crummy summer camp.

He says, “This has been an unusual day.”

“And we’re just getting started.”

“I know.”

“Good night, Father.”

“Whatever happens, it really is good to see you.”

“You too. Now shut up and let me rest awhile.”

A minute later Traven sits up.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

“When I broke Megs’s neck? Don’t sweat it. Think of it like someone putting a dog out of its misery. Only he really, really hated the dog.”

“Maybe I was wrong earlier,” he says. “Maybe I can get excommunicated in Hell.”

“Pull that off and I sure as shit will let you eat my sins.”



At least one thing goes right. We get enough dirt to cover the blood without anybody seeing us. The rest of the night, though, Traven tosses and turns.

A few hours later, I wake to the ground shaking and a roar like Mechagodzilla. I run outside, but it isn’t an earthquake or a metal Kaiju invasion. It’s just the camp waking up and getting ready to move out. Vehicles gun their engines. Trucks maneuver out of the camp to clear a path for the cars. The semis and construction equipment get chained to the double-length flatbed carrying the tarp. It looks like complete chaos at first, but the moves are smooth and practiced. The havoc is one big, well-oiled machine.

Traven comes out of the camper and stands next to me.

I say, “Is it like this every day?”

“Not every day. We’ve camped for as long as three days while scouts have gone out surveilling the territory.”

“Hell’s own alarm clock.”

“We’re not in Hell, remember?”

“Right . . . I’ve been wondering about that. Why search the Tenebrae?”

He sits in the camper doorway with an old book in his lap.

“We go where the Magistrate leads us and whatever it is he’s looking for led us out here.”

He’s holding a book.

“Doing a little light reading?”

“I wish. This is an old Hellion treatise on ley lines, holy sites, and places of power down here.”

“If it points out any Dairy Queens let me know. I could sure go for a sundae.”

He gets up and heads to where Daja, Cherry Moon, and the Magistrate are studying a map spread out on the hood of his Charger.

I shout after him.

“The Magistrate seems like the Holy Roller type. Could the tarp be some kind of church on wheels?”

Traven stops.

“I doubt it. From what he says, it has to do with the war in Heaven.”

“Which side is he on?”

Traven pauses.

“Sometimes I’m not sure. He’s so full of righteous anger. Still, I like to think that, despite some of his methods, he’s one of the good guys.”

“Define ‘good guys.’”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

“That’s not a comfort, Father. You could at least give your flock comfort.”

He makes the sign of the cross and ends it by giving me the finger. It actually makes me smile.

“That’s more like it,” I say.

“I’ll see you in a little while.”

“A little while” is relative—the four of them go over the map for a long time. Cherry throws stones. Traven consults his books. The Magistrate plots a course using a pile of shiny Hellion tools that make it look more like he’s dissecting something than reading a map. After a half hour of good old-fashioned geomancy, the Magistrate hops onto the hood and then the roof of the car like a goddamn gazelle. As he scans the horizon with a telescope, the others gather up the map and tools he scattered all over the ground. A minute later he jumps down just as gracefully as he got up. I didn’t expect that. I’d pegged him for a desk warrior. Serves me right for assuming too much too fast. I wonder what other tricks he can do?