The Kill Society (Sandman Slim)(7)

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

“Then you’ll fit in just fine around here,” he says.

He nods to the camper.

“I have some work to do. I’ll come back when the Magistrate calls for you.”

“Don’t worry about me. I bet I’m the only one here with cigarettes. The rest of these assholes are smoking locoweed and pocket lint.”

Traven gives me a small smile and then heads back to his camper.

“Enjoy the smoke,” he says.

I sure as hell will. It might be my last.



I cool my heels in the burned-out pickup for an hour. Smoke one Malediction and light a second off it. But I stop there. Got to ration myself, which isn’t in my nature, but these are weird times.

The good news is that while I was bleeding when I started the first cigarette, I’ve pretty much stopped by the time I flip the butt of the second away. That’s means I still heal quickly. Good news there.

The cigarette arcs through the air in the direction of the mountains and almost hits Daja, who’s headed my way. She doesn’t even flinch. Just tracks the flying smoke’s flight with her eyes and watches it miss her by a couple of inches. Nice.

She crooks a finger at me.

“Let’s go,” she says.

“Where to?”

“The Magistrate wants to see you.”

“That’s okay. I like the view right here.”

She rests her hand on the grip of her pistol, cop-style. She’s packing a Colt 1911. Not a new gun, but it still blows nice holes in things.

“The Magistrate wants you with a clear head, so I’m not going to shoot you anywhere that’ll kill you. Just where it hurts.”

“Fine. I’ll go to prom with you, but you’re paying for the limo.”

I swing my legs down out of the truck and yell, “Father! We’re up.”

Traven comes out of his camper, putting on the ragged duster.

We follow Daja to a Hellion motor home. It looks less like something your grandparents would drive to the Grand Canyon and more like a Gothic mansion on wheels—one designed by insects and decorated by something with more tentacles than taste. Hellion chic. Daja opens the door and we go in.

The light inside comes from glowing glass globes that seem to float above the furniture. A cramped sofa along one wall and a small table with chairs in the center of the claustrophobic room finish off the nightmare.

The Magistrate sets down a book he was reading when we come in. He points to chairs at the table for me and Traven, then sits down across from us. Daja doesn’t sit. She stays behind me doing her best to loom. At another time and place I’d say it didn’t work and I’d mean it. But right here and right now, I’m a little off my game and I don’t like her and her gun behind me.

The Magistrate says, “Thank you for coming without causing any more trouble. I somehow think it’s not in your nature to so graciously respond to a summons.”

I shrug. “It beats bleeding in a truck. Do you have anything to drink around here?”

The Magistrate turns around, takes a glass off a small table, and sets it in front of me.

“I had a feeling you might be thirsty.”

I sniff it. No smell.

“Water?” I say.

He nods.

I squint at him.

“You wouldn’t try to roofie a guest, would you?”

“Do I strike you as that sort of man?” says the Magistrate.

“No. But I’ve been wrong before. And we are in Hell.”

Back in the world, I can usually tell when someone is lying. I can hear their heart, watch the pupils of their eyes and micro-expressions on their face. But most of that doesn’t work on the dead. No heartbeat. Micro-expressions dulled by death. And it’s too dark in here to see the Magistrate’s eyes.

I down whatever’s in the glass, though, because at this point I’d drink paint thinner out of a hobo’s galoshes.

What I swallow seems like water. There’s no weird aftertaste and my eyes don’t start spinning. So far so good.

“Feeling better?” he says.

“Okay. But I’d feel great if you had something stronger.”

The Magistrate moves his head from side to side. “We shall see,” he says. “Now that you’re feeling better, are you still Mr. Pitts in here or can we start off on a friendlier footing?”

“Are you still the Magistrate in here?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’m still Mr. Pitts.”

Traven gives me a look, but I give him one right back.

“As you wish,” says the Magistrate. “What were you doing on the mountain?”

His speech is clipped, like English isn’t his first language. But I can’t identify his accent.

I say, “I have no idea.”

He cocks his head.

“You weren’t spying on us?”

“Until you stopped I thought you were a dust devil come to pick my bones clean.”

“Who else is on the mountain?”

“No one that I know of. I told you that when I fried your friend.”

I hear Daja move behind me, but she stops when the Magistrate holds up his hand.

“How did you get onto the mountain? Where did you come from?” he says.