The Kill Society (Sandman Slim)(77)

And there it is. The voice of a true believer. Nothing matters but him and his obsession. The people that followed him for how long through the desert don’t mean anything more to him than the slaves he captured in the towns he burned along the way. I met freaks like this everywhere. Everyone has. Not just in Hell and not just in wars. They’re people you pass on the street. A preacher, a grocery-store manager, a parent. Anyone with a vision and enough of a vicious streak to make it come true no matter what they have to destroy or who they have to chew up and spit out along the way. Even Mr. Muninn was like that in the old days. There were older gods than him, but he tricked them out of this universe and then locked them out forever. That was the plan, but they found their way back and almost destroyed Creation. And sometimes that’s the only small satisfaction you can hope for with someone like the Magistrate. Sometimes there’s something they missed, or something they thought was dead, or someone they were sure was on their side, but they were wrong. That one small mistake can bring them down, but not until they’ve burned and ruined everything around them. I wonder if Vehuel understands that about him? He’ll kill her angels, too, if he doesn’t get what he wants. I touch my coat and feel Samael’s amber knife where I left it. I won’t use it on him if I don’t have to, but if I do have to, I’m going to enjoy every second of it.

Daja says, “You can’t mean that about everybody. What about Wanuri and Doris? What about Gisco?”

“The Almighty will look after them.”

“What about me?”

He pulls her close and says, “You are different, Dajaskinos. You will always be with me.”

I want to tell her, Until you’re inconvenient or ask the wrong question so that the messiah questions your faith. Then we’ll see how different you are from the rabble he’s throwing on the fire.

I shake my head and look at Alice. She sees exactly what I see, but she stays quiet and for the same reason as me. The Light Killer is too important.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” says Daja.

“You will,” says the Magistrate. “Soon. But for now, we must make this last, short journey to the sword. Once we have it, our real work begins.”

“All right, Father.”

“Good girl.”

He keeps an arm around her as Vehuel leads us to Henoch Breach. It’s almost painful to watch Daja so manipulated, and it’s all I can do to not plunge Death’s knife between the Magistrate’s wing scars.

Instead I just grit my teeth and keep walking.



It’s not long before we come to a deserted town. It’s old, as old as anything I’ve seen Downtown. No one has lived here in a long time. In places, the buildings are so overgrown with the skeleton trees and tough weeds that they look like something that sprouted from the dead soil. The style of the buildings looks Hellion, but not quite. Simpler. Less ornate than the elaborate Hellion designs on the buildings and vehicles in Pandemonium.

I don’t notice that Vehuel has fallen back to walk with me until she says something.

“You’re staring.”

“It’s a ghost town. Why shouldn’t I look? Besides, maybe there’s something valuable in the houses. Maybe something to eat. Or smoke. I’m almost out of cigarettes.”

“You won’t find any Maledictions in these buildings.”

“Yeah? Why not?”

“I’ve read about this place,” says Traven from a few feet away. “Maledictions didn’t exist when Henoch was built. They didn’t exist until centuries later in Pandemonium.”

Traven is limping, but he keeps pace with us.

“You sound like a tourist brochure, Father. Is there a souvenir shop? I might need a snow globe.”

Vehuel smiles when she looks at me, not taking anything I’m saying personally. It bugs me. What does she know?

“None of this looks familiar?” says Vehuel. “Maybe you saw it in a dream?”

“Some of it, I guess. But all old, dead towns are the same, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know. There are no ghost towns in Heaven.”

“I get it now. It’s a real-estate scam. You take us to the middle of nowhere and we can’t go back until we sit through a time-share sales pitch.”

The angels all laugh, all except for Alice and Traven. They look worried, but not because I refuse to kiss the boss angel’s ass.

“What do you know about the first war in Heaven?” Vehuel says.

“Lucifer rebelled. God threw him out. End of story.”

“When you say Lucifer, of course you mean Samael.”

“Of course. Who else?”

“I’m talking about the first war in Heaven. The one led by Maleephas. Samael’s petulant conflict was the second.”

Maleephas.

There it is again. That annoying feeling that I’ve been here and heard that name before.

“It’s frustrating, isn’t it? To be so close to remembering, but unable to make the connections?”

“Please, Vehuel. Just tell him,” says Alice.

“Tell me what?”

Vehuel says, “You’ve been here before.”

“No. I haven’t.”

“You were here and you killed an old man. The angel Maleephas. The first Lucifer.”