The Kill Society (Sandman Slim)(38)

I look down the hall.

“Good news. That’s the part that’s on fire.”

Daja looks out the front window. The wall of flame is higher than ever. She turns to me.

“I knew I shouldn’t trust you. Big talker. Man with the plan. What’s the plan now?”

I look at the Magistrate.

“You’re the smart one. What do you say?”

“I am sorry,” he says sleepily. “This one hit my head with his rifle. It’s hard to think . . .”

The smoke is getting thicker, drifting down with a red rain of ashes.

I hate lying. No, actually I love lying. I just like it to be a good one and this might be the lamest lie I’ve ever come up with.

I look out the window and say, “I see a break in the fire line.”

Daja comes up next to me.

“Where?”

I point to a spot in the fire where a burning cop car and a pickup truck have locked bumpers.

“See? They’re about to come undone.”

“Are you stupid?” she says. “They’re practically welded together.”

“Nah. It’s fine. Trust me. I’ll show you. You get the Magistrate. I’ll make sure things are clear.”

I stand up and my leg collapses.

“You can’t even walk, shithead.”

“When the choice is burning or hopping, I’m goddamn Bugs Bunny. I’m going out front and clear a path where the fire’s going to break. You wait a second, then bring him.”

“You . . .” she starts.

“I trust him,” says the Magistrate. “Do what you have to, Mr. Pitts.”

I steady myself on the walls with a bloody hand and take a breath. Then I pull the door open and stagger outside.

Fire is hot. Annoyingly hot. And a wall of fire, the kind that melts metal to metal, is even hotter. It’s the kind of hot where you have to hold your breath because if you breathe in, the air will fry your lungs. But I took a breath back in the office, so I have just enough air inside me to bark some Hellion hoodoo. And I’m alone, so I don’t have to be subtle about it. The other nice thing is this is exactly my kind of hoodoo. Really massive. Really loud. Really destructive.

I barely get the last syllable out when the cop car and pickup truck blow apart in a shower of sparks and flying metal. There’s a good ten feet of space in the firewall. Daja starts out with the Magistrate when a Legionnaire who was just on the other side of the cop car sees us. I get the jump on him, throwing out the na’at like a whip and putting it right through the fucker’s chest. Before he can blip out, I twist the na’at so that the far end opens into a kind of claw. Then all I have to do is pull and the na’at yanks the asshole’s spine clean out.

When he’s gone, Daja grabs the Magistrate and runs him through the firebreak. I follow them, getting good and singed as I gimp along on my bad leg.

When I’m clear of the flames, people grab me and drag me away. None of them know that I took a bullet in the side, so they’re not quite as delicate about it as I’d like. Still, they get me clear of the fire and I don’t faint, so I’ll take the help.

When I’m done coughing up smoke, Billy and Doris pour water onto my face and down my throat. It feels good. Someone wipes the water and blood from my eyes. It’s Traven. The rest of the dog pack is around me, Daja, and the Magistrate. The broader havoc is spread out around them. Gisco opens my coat and sees the wound in my side. He turns to get help, but I grab him before he goes and hold out the na’at to him. He puts up his hands and shakes his head frantically. Then he runs off to get me a Band-Aid.

I look at Traven.

“What the hell was that all about?”

He looks at the dog pack. He then looks back to me.

“He watched you rip a man’s spine out.”

“Oh, that.”

“And you should see yourselves.”

I look at Daja then down at me. It looks like we spent a carefree spring afternoon happily running through sprinklers pumping black Hellion blood all over us.

“Not really springtime fresh, are we?”

“You look fine to us,” says Doris.

“But am I still pretty?”

“Ugly as boar’s balls,” says Wanuri.

I lie on my back and bleed for a while. From this distance, the fire is warm and pleasant. I guess we won. Cherry is staring down at me with some of the others. I wonder what she was talking to the Magistrate about earlier. But I pass out before I get the chance to ask her.



When I wake up, I’m wrapped in clean bandages. Someone wadded my shirt and coat and shoved them under my head as a pillow. As I sit up my side hurts like a burning bastard, but it looks like I’ve stopped bleeding.

I’m surrounded by maybe thirty souls and Hellions in bandages and splints, or in worse shape. Legs or arms gone. Bloody bandages over where an eye or two used to be. The Magistrate moves smoothly from body to body doing triage. Of course he’s the havoc’s doctor. He probably also wove the bandages and made a chocolate soufflé while I was out. Carefully, I roll over and get to my feet.

“What are you doing?” says Doris. She comes over from where she was kneeling next to Billy and puts an arm around me, taking some of my weight. “The Magistrate wants you to rest.”