The Kill Society (Sandman Slim)(27)

“Are you saying there are giants out there?”

He shakes his head.

“No. Those rocks weren’t thrown by giants, but by angels. During the first war in Heaven, they were hurled at the fallen angels as they plummeted to their new existence below.”

“I thought the angels fell into Hell.”

“Falling bodies tend to drift as they spin through space.”

“Nine days is a long time to drift. I guess they could fall all over.”

“Exactly.”

“I never heard of ecclesiastic geology before. Daja said you knew something about everything.”

“Ecclesiastic geology. I will have to remember that,” he says. “Yes. Daja told me that you two had a talk last night.”

“She was doing most of the talking.”

“I doubt that. In any case, when she gets an idea in her head, it is hard to dissuade her.”

“What idea does she think about me?”

“That you are an assassin sent by my enemies to kill me.”

I snort back a laugh.

“I don’t know your enemies. Hell, I don’t know you at all.”

“Of course you know my enemies,” he says, and turns to me. “The God of Gods burns in my blood. His enemies will be annihilated.”

I give him a look.

“Right. After all the massacres, I knew you were all about the God of Love.”

“Don’t forget, he is also Lucifer these days. God’s nature has always been multifold, and never more than now. He dances with a dove in one hand and an ax in the other.”

“So, you’re fighting for the nice God and executing helpless slobs for the other. That’s a pretty convenient philosophy.”

“In time, you will see the wisdom.”

“If you say so.”

“Don’t forget. You have the blood of innocents on your hands, too, Mr. Pitts.”

“You sure talk about blood a lot.”

The Magistrate leans back his head and laughs. He looks like a maniac, but I’m sure now that he’s not. He’s something more complicated, but I don’t know what.

I say, “Did we come all the way out here so you could tell me that Daja is gunning for me?”

“Quite the contrary,” says the Magistrate. “She wants you to come deeper into the fold and learn more about our work.”

“Is that what you want?”

“We shall see.”

“What’s under the tarp?”

For the first time, he faces me.

“Do you not know? I thought you got a good look at it last night.”

I shake my head. All innocence.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“An unexplainable explosion. A guard injured, but with no memory of how. And you sleeping in such an uncomfortable, yet highly visible spot. It is all a very good scenario for a lost soul to get up to mischief.”

“I played minigolf once, but the windmill scared me. I try to avoid excitement these days.”

“Naturally,” he says. “Mimir speaks highly of you. She seems to think that you are more than a mere ruffian.”

Dammit, Cherry.

“Mimir might be more than a mere swami,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

I put my hands in my pockets.

“She just seems like an interesting person. Maybe she started the fire.”

“Why would she do that?”

I feel the pistol against my back and wish to hell I had some ammo.

“You know how oracles are. Huffing locoweed all day. Makes them unstable. Maybe she has a kind of vision she hasn’t told you about. Maybe she’s on her own side.”

The Magistrate stops for a minute and seems to consider the idea. Eventually he says, “You haven’t seen Megs around, have you? He seems to have gone missing.”

“He unfriended me when I set him on fire.”

“How sad for us all,” he says, then sighs. “The universe has drifted off its axis. It teeters from side to side. There is a chance it will tumble into oblivion.”

“Like a man once said: ‘I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’”

The Magistrate takes a step closer to me and says, “We live in a time of so much secrecy. Let us play a game. Tell me one of your secrets and I’ll tell you one of mine.”

Daja again. I bet she’s been telling him my name isn’t Pitts.

“You first,” I say.

“All right. I know you have a gun. There. Now tell me one of your secrets.”

“It doesn’t have any bullets.”

He laughs another one of those uncomfortable big laughs.

“That’s no secret, my boy,” he says. “Do you think I would have brought you here otherwise?”

“You knew I had a gun but no bullets? How?”

He leans in even closer.

“Souls are so easy to read if you know the trick.”

“That’s a secret I wouldn’t mind knowing.”

“Perhaps I’ll teach you someday.”

We head back to camp.

“When are we pulling out?” I say. “It sounded like the Empress lit a fire under you.”