Richard Kadrey - Devil Said Bang

Their boots and body armor are the heavy kind issued to frontline infantry who are basically cannon fodder. But since the war with Heaven is over, clowns like this aren’t supposed to have time on their hands. Avoiding this kind of fucking mess is why I’m going slow with the rebuilding. Why aren’t these pricks with the rest of the grunts, clearing rubble or rebuilding roads? Did they think if they killed me, one of them would be the new Lucifer? Maybe they were going to share the title—Moe, Larry, and Curly, the Three Infernal Stooges. But not one of this bunch had the imagination or balls to try something like that on their own. Someone put them up to it. The one I clocked with the helmet is coming around, so I go back to him.

I pick up the unbroken long sword and press it against his throat.

“You awake, sunshine?”

He grunts. Shakes his head, trying to clear it.

“Who sent you?”

“No one. I don’t need permission to slaughter mortals.”

I lean forward, using my weight to press the tip of the sword into him until he bleeds.

“This mortal signs your paychecks, ugly. Guess who’s not getting a Christmas bonus?”

He grimaces and spits.

“A mortal will never be the true Lucifer. Mortals are spirits, good for nothing but torture and chores you could teach an animal. I curse you and the mortal Mason Faim. At least he promised us Heaven. What have you given us?”

“I haven’t cut off your arms and legs and made you into a throw pillow. How’s that?”

He tenses. Even with the sword at his throat he wants to lunge at me. This guy is the real deal. A true believer. His type built Auschwitz and had lynching parties back home. Who knows what games he and his friends are playing with souls down here?

I take the sword away from his throat and smack his mangled face with the broad side. He groans and doubles over. Lucky bastard. I’d like to be lying down groaning too. My bruised ribs hurt. I toss both of his swords into the nearby sinkhole.

“You still haven’t answered my question. Who sent you here?”

He catches his breath and says, “We came on our own to kill the false Lord of Perdition.”

I grab his head and press it back into the rubble. I’ve always been good at telling when people are lying, but Lucifer can see things I can’t and the armor gives me bits and pieces of his powers. It’s mostly sideshow-level tricks so far but I can tell if someone is wearing a glamour to conceal themselves or if they’ve been hexed. I look all the way to the back of the assassin’s eyes. There’s a fluttering inside, like a microscopic strobe light. That’s it. He’s hexed. Someone sent him and his friends out hunting for me and erased their memories so the fuckwits would think it was their idea. I let go of him and sit above him on the rubble.

“What’s your name?”

He looks at me hard. He really hates being questioned by a mortal.

“Ukobach.”

I could take Ukobach back to the palace, hand him over to the witches, and let them take his mind apart. They might be able to find something useful inside, but I’m not sure about this guy. Whoever picked these three chose them because they didn’t have an overabundance of brain cells. With an intelligent Hellion or human, even after a memory wipe there’s usually some residual impressions left. Sometimes you can find it if you dig deep enough and aren’t worried about killing them or leaving them a vegetable. But with the power of the hex I saw in Ukobach’s eyes, there isn’t going to be anything useful inside him. I can’t throw him in the asylum or jail. I’m Lucifer, after all. Whoever sent him needs a statement.

“Okay, Ukobach, here’s where things stand. You ambushed me and you blew it. Your friends are dead and I don’t think you’re much use for information. Plus, your goddamn sword ripped my jacket.”

He stares at me.

“I’ll make it simple. I can kill you now or I can let you live, but it’s going to hurt. You choose.”

Ukobach shifts his weight. He wants to take one last kamikaze shot at me. I finger the rip in my jacket sleeve. It’s not too bad. I can probably get it fixed. I’m kind of hard on clothes. It’s all the stabbing and shooting.

“I’d kill you and every mortal in the universe if I could,” he rasps. “When your souls reached Hell, I’d spend eternity weaving your guts into tapestries of glorious agony and hang them from every wall and parapet in Pandemonium.”

“If wishes were horses we’d all have shit on our boots. Choose, Chuck. A quiet death or a messy life.”

“I choose life. Any chance to return and kill you for murdering my comrades is worth whatever feeble punishment a mortal can muster.”

I nod.

“I thought so. If I were you, I might have gone the other way.”

He kicks low, trying to sweep my ankle. I take his Glock from my pocket and shoot him in the knee. He howls and rolls around, holding his leg. It gives him something to do while I get to work.

I cut six long strips of material from Hobnail’s overalls. I use four around his and his dead friends’ wrists. Then I get the Harley on its wheels and roll it back so I can tie the dead men to the rear shocks. I take the last two strips and tie Ukobach too. He kicks at me and swings his fists as I haul him to the bike, but when he moves, it hurts him more than it does me. I loop my arm through the front of the helmet so I can hold it while I ride. There’s no sense in hiding who I am now. Before I get on the bike, I look down at Ukobach.

“This isn’t the kind of thing I normally do, you understand. Back home I’m a bad person but I’m not this kind of bad. Before he left, Samael told me I was going to have to be ruthless to survive, and he was right. People have to understand that if you dance with the Devil you better not step on his toes.”

Ukobach looks up at me. I don’t know if it’s pain or fear or general boneheadedness but he has no idea what I’m saying. I get on the bike and start the engine.

“And away we go.”

The bike creeps forward like it wants to tip over in quicksand. Even a Hellion motorcycle isn’t geared to drag three full-grown bodies behind it. I give the bike some throttle. It straightens and moves forward. Slowly at first, but it picks up speed as I twist the throttle. When it feels stable, I kick the bike hard and we shoot down Santa Monica Boulevard to the palace. I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see what it looks like behind me.

THE CLOSER WE GET to Beverly Hills, the more Hellions there are on the street. They stare and point as I cruise by. I’m tempted to stop and make a joke about how this is how I always tenderize meat, but I keep rolling without meeting any of their eyes. I don’t have to. Seeing their ruler covered in blood and dirt, hauling a few hundred pounds of bleeding bologna behind him, is all they need. The story will be all over town in an hour. By tomorrow there will be rumors that it wasn’t three. It’ll be a dozen men. Fifty. I killed them with a bitch slap and dragged them with my pinkie.

The guards around the palace see me coming and step out of the way like the Red Sea parting for Charlton Heston. I stop the bike by the palace lawn, heel down the kickstand, and get off. A hundred Hellion soldiers watch me in dead silence.

I say, “This is what happens to assassins.”

Soldiers crane their necks or climb onto jeeps and Unimogs for a better look at what I’ve hauled in.

An officer walks over. I don’t know his name and I don’t ask. He looks scared.

“I killed two where they jumped me. One was alive when I started back. Gibbet all three. If the live one is still alive after two days, let him go. Alive and skinless, he’ll still be an object lesson for others.”