Richard Kadrey - The Getaway God

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A smart, kick-arse Urban Fantasy from a new master of the genre. The Getaway God is the sixth book in the fantastic Sandman Slim series.Sandman Slim must save himself—and the entire world—from the wrath of some enraged and vengeful ancient gods in this sixth high-octane adventure in the New York Times bestselling series.Being a half-human, half-angel nephilim with a bad rep and a worse attitude—not to mention temporarily playing Lucifer—James Stark aka Sandman Slim has made a few enemies. None, though, are as fearsome as the vindictive Angra Om Ya—the old gods. But their imminent invasion is only one of Stark’s problems right now. LA is descending into chaos, and a new evil—the Wildfire Ripper—is stalking the city.No ordinary killer, The Ripper takes Stark deep into a conspiracy that stretches from Earth to Heaven and Hell. He’s also the only person alive who may know how to keep the world from going extinct. The trouble is, he’s also Stark’s worst enemy . . . the only man in existence Stark would enjoy killing twice.

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“What’s your story, dead man? I hear you speaking English, but your mouth is doing something else.”

He shuffles to the table with the herbs and lab equipment. Drinks something green from an Erlenmeyer flask.

“Ah,” he says when he’s done. “You have good eyes for a fool. I speak how I like and you hear how you like. Same thing for me. I hear you, so you make sense. Not that someone like you makes much sense.”

“I bet you wow them on talent night at the morgue. Do you do balloon animals too?”

“Fat, and ugly too. Not much for someone like you out in the world, is there? You have to hide and consort with the dead like me.”

“Speaking of the dead, why don’t you get more shut-eye? I need to talk to a dead man before he’s gone completely. You have any crow feathers around here?”

Ishiro Shonin glances over at the ice chest. I don’t have to tell him what’s in there.

“How are you going to talk to him?”

“A messy ritual. But effective. It’s the Metatron’s Cube Communion.”

The Shonin nods.

“That’s why you want crow feathers. You lie down with the dead man and slash your wrists. Lots of blood and all that? Of course you’d choose that one.”

“I’ve used it before. It’s goddamn effective.”

“Watch the blasphemy,” says Wells.

“You like the Cube Communion because you’re in love with death,” says the Shonin. “You die a little and come back. Cheat death over and over like a bad boyfriend kissing another girl.” He looks at Candy. “Is he a bad boyfriend?”

“No. He’s great.”

“Then you shouldn’t let him be so stupid.”

I say, “So what do you suggest?”

The Shonin pokes around the table of herbs with the black bony fingers. Picks up a furry twig dotted with small yellow blossoms.

“Dream tea. I learned it from a moon spirit. You probably don’t believe that kind of thing, but it’s true.”

“Me? I believe in everything. How does it work?”

“You make a tea. You meditate. You enter the spirit realm and find your man before he drifts away. That okay with you, fatty?”

“Great. Brew some up. I’ll try it.”

“You know how to meditate?”

“Everyone in L.A. knows how to meditate.”

The Shonin looks as doubtful as a skeleton can. He puts water on a small flame to boil. Drops the twig into the pot.

“I should do it. I have more experience,” says the Shonin.

“And I have trust issues. I’ll do it.”

“If you get lost and can’t come back, don’t blame me.”

“If I get stuck because of your hoodoo juice, my ghost is going to come back and shit in your skull.”

The Shonin shakes his head. It sounds like twigs cracking.

“No reasoning with some people.”

“Amen to that,” says Wells.

Candy says, “You’re really going to drink that stuff?”

I take off my wet coat and throw it over the back of a chair.

“If I don’t have to slice and dice myself, I’m willing to try it. Wells won’t let him kill me, will you, Wells? I’m the only one with experience handling the 8 Ball.”

“So far,” says Wells. “But there’s always tomorrow.”

“Maybe not too many,” says Candy. “You might want to remember that.”

The Shonin takes the tea off the burner and pours a brown mess into a small ceramic cup.

“The girl …”

“Candy,” she says.

The Shonin looks at her.

“Your name is food? How about I call you Banana Split or Hot Dog?”

Candy turns Jade for a second. Her eyes go black, with pinpoints of red at the center. Her teeth are as sharp as a shark with a switchblade.

“Why don’t you just do that?”

The Shonin looks at Wells.

“What the hell kind of a place do you run here? You bring me a fatty and a demon to work with? I didn’t meditate in a hole in the ground for four hundred years for this crap.”

Candy goes back to her human face and I touch her shoulder on the way to the cooler. She doesn’t take shit from anyone. It’s one of the reasons we get along.

I take the dead man’s head from the cooler and sit facing it in the silver circle on the floor. I take the Colt from my waistband and hand it to Candy. She snatches the tea out of the Shonin’s hand and brings it to me.

“Thanks.”

“Now I have both of our guns. If anything weird happens here, I’m shooting these two first.”

“Please do.”

I look at the Shonin.

“I’d still like that crow feather.”

He goes to the herb table and pulls a feather from a bundle wrapped in twine. Candy takes it from him and brings it to me. This isn’t like the old days. I’m still getting used to having someone watch my back. It’s an okay feeling.

“Thanks, baby.”

I throw back the cup of tea. It tastes like hot swamp water filtered through a baboon’s ass.

“Okay,” the Shonin says. “Now you meditate. You need a zafu to sit on? What kind of meditation do you do?”

I pull a flask from my back pocket.

“The liquid kind,” I say, unscrewing the top and downing a long drink of Aqua Regia, the number one booze in Hell. It goes down like gasoline and hot pepper and washes the taste of baboon out of my mouth.

The Shonin says, “Drink all you want, dummy. You won’t find God in a bottle.”

“I already found God,” I say. “That’s why I drink.”

I hand Candy the flask and she takes a quick gulp before putting it in her pocket. I’m used to Aqua Regia’s kick, but down enough at once and it’s going to turn anyone’s cerebral cortex into chocolate pudding. I let it and the tea do their work. They fight it out in my stomach. The Hellion hoodoo wrestling whatever kind of magic Mr. Bones uses. My stomach cramps and for a few seconds I want to throw up. But I hold on and the feeling passes. The room gets thin, like it’s made of black gauze. I put the crow feather between my teeth just as I fall out of myself.

I’m standing on an alkali plain stretching out flat and cracked in all directions. In the far distance is a shaft of light, but it never moves. The sky is dim, like just before sunrise or after sunset. Flip a coin to decide. The air is thick and hard to breathe. I wouldn’t want to have to run a marathon here.

The dead man wanders around shivering. Probably from being on ice for so long. I’m glad it worked and I didn’t have to come halfway to Hell for nothing.

The dead man stumbles back a couple of steps when he sees me. A second later he recognizes me and starts over, a little cautious.

I say, “Joseph Hobaica.”

He stops.

“How do you know my name?”

“We’re standing in fuckall limbo and that’s your first question? It’s just a little trick I can do.”

He looks around, hands across his chest, holding on to his shoulders, shaking.

“Where are we?”

“I just told you. Limbo. Halfway between Hell and Heaven. You’re dead. Remember?”

His face changes. Things start coming back to him. Death can be a real kick in the ass, especially a death like Hobaica’s. Sometimes it takes awhile for spirits to come back to themselves.

“This isn’t right,” he says. “This isn’t where I should be. Where’s the Flayed Heart?”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

“I know that name. It’s a nickname for one of the Angra Om Ya. A big goddamn carnivorous flower. Her real name is Zhuyigdanatha, right?”

He drops his hands to his sides. Narrows his eyes at me.

“You know nothing about the Flayed Heart.”

“I know it’s easier to say than Zhuyig-fucking-danatha.”

“Don’t blaspheme her name.”

“You can knock that off right now. I’ve already got one schoolmarm worrying about my language. I don’t need two.”

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