The desk and nearby shelves are covered with books, paper, pens, and weird little machines. Stuff you can only find at an Office Depot doubling as a night school for amateur torturers. There’s a spongy red clamshell that growls when you squeeze it and spits out what I think pass for Hellion staples. They’re sharp and thick, like they’re designed to punish the paper and not just hold it together. There’s something that looks like a set of brass teeth. The teeth chatter sometimes. Sometimes they don’t do anything for days. There’s a gyroscope that when you spin it talks in a deep monster-movie voice in a language I’ve never heard before. On one of the bookshelves is a gold armillary sphere. When I touch any of the golden rings, I feel like I’ve fallen out of myself. Like I’m nowhere and being pushed through empty space by a freezing hurricane. There are stars far away and beyond them a mass of pale boiling vapor streaked with lighting. I think it’s the chaos at the edge of the universe and that this is the deep void that separates Hell and Heaven. Wherever and whatever it is, it’s a lonely and desolate place.
In L.A., I lived with a dead man named Kasabian who worked for Lucifer and could see into parts of Hell. I don’t know if he can see me here, but sometimes I scrawl notes and leave them on the desk for days. Some are to friends. Most are to Candy. We’re a lot alike. Neither of us is quite human. And we’re both killers. We try to forget about the first as much as possible and try to avoid the second as much as we can, which, the way things are, usually isn’t long.
There’s a click behind me. I put my hand on my knife and turn.
Two Hellions come in through a false section of bookcase that slides away like Japanese paper doors.
Merihim, the priest, bows. He’s in sleeveless black robes. Every inch of his pale face and arms is tattooed with sacred Hellion script. Spells, prayers, and, for all I know, a recipe for chicken vindaloo.
The guy with him, Ipos, is big and blunt. Like a walking fire hydrant in gray rubber overalls. The heavy leather belt around his waist holds tools that range from barbarian crushers to delicate surgical-quality instruments. From a distance you can’t tell if he’s the palace’s maintenance chief or head torturer. His job in the palace makes him a useful agent. No one pays attention to the janitor.
“Did we interrupt playtime with your toys, my lord?” asks Merihim.
“Go harass an altar boy, preacher. I’m working.”
On a table near the sofa there’s a line of peepers projecting images from around the palace onto an old-fashioned home movie screen I found in a storeroom. I pop out my right eye, drop it into a glass of water, and stick a peeper in the empty socket, rolling back the images the eye picked up like a video rewinding. Like I said, I have a few of Lucifer’s powers but mostly Vegas magic-act stuff.
“What are you looking for?” asks Ipos. His voice is a low rumble, like an idling sixteen-wheeler.
“The front of the palace where I dumped the bodies of three bushwhacking assholes. I want to see what happened after I came inside.”
Merihim and Ipos are the only two Hellions who can walk in here on their own. They were Samael’s confidants and spies and I inherited them with the gig. I don’t think Samael would have lasted as long as he did without them. I know I wouldn’t still be here.
I roll back to where I came inside and let the peeper play. The officer I talked to barks orders at the troops who are about thirty seconds from a soccer riot trying to get a look at Ukobach and his dead friends. The officer orders most back to their duties and others to take the three bodies to the gibbets. A young officer comes over. They walk along the gory trail where I dragged in the bodies. I try to read their lips but they’re too damned far away.
“I see by your hands you were hurt in the attack,” says Merihim. “I’ll send for a healer from the tabernacle. I daresay they’re more discreet than the palace medical staff.”
“I’m fine. All the bastards did was murder my jacket. It was a nice one too.”
I switch my eyes back, pour myself a shot of Aqua Regia, and hold out the bottle. Merihim shakes his head and walks away. He does that. Prowls the room when we meet. I’ve never seen the guy sit down. Ipos nods for a drink and picks up a glass with his big bratwurst fingers. When I start to pour, he flinches.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and nods in my direction.
“The arm, my lord. Would you mind? It’s . . . distracting.”
I flex my prosthetic Kissi hand. The Kissi were a race of deformed, half-finished angels that lived in the chaos on the edge of Creation. One of God’s first great fuckups while creating the universe. Kissis give Hellions the shakes. I think they see themselves in those other failed angels. It reminds them that even in Hell you can always fall lower.
I dig around in the desk and find a glove. This time he takes a drink. He carries it to the sofa and sits down. I sit on the desk. Merihim prowls.
“Thank you, my lord,” says Ipos.
“Stop with the ‘my lord’ stuff. It bugs me.”
“Sorry.”
Merihim smiles, leaning over the peepers. Projected images from around the palace flicker on the screen like a silent movie.
“What’s up with you?” I ask.
“Nothing. It’s always amusing watching you pretend you’re not who you really are.”
“I’m only interning in Hell for college credit. When I find the right replacement, I’m gone, Daddy, gone.”
“Of course you are. Why would you want any influence over the creation of a new Hell? Or care about the welfare of the millions of mortal souls you’ll be leaving behind? I wonder if Mr. Hickok will be allowed to keep his tavern or will he be thrown back into Butcher Valley? But what do you care? ‘All are equal in the grave.’ Isn’t that what you living mortals say?”
“Keep talking, smart guy. I’ll fake a heart attack and make you Lucifer. Let’s see how you like whitewashing this outhouse with a target painted on the back of your bald head.”
Ipos glances at the priest.
“It would probably look better than all the scribbling.”
Merihim gives him a sharp look, flips through the pages of an ancient Hellion medical book, and sets it down.
“Someone has found out about your habit of riding alone and what routes you take. You can’t ever ride like that again.”
“I know. There’s something else.”
I take out the Glock and set it on the desk.
“Where did these pricks get guns? Only officers get to carry weapons these days.”
Merihim frowns and crosses his arms.
“We need to find out—very discreetly—if there are any officers who can’t account for their weapons.”
“There are merchants who sell stolen weapons in the street markets. I can get people on the road repair crews. They might see or hear something,” Ipos says.
Merihim nods.
“Good.”
“Wait. It gets even better. I checked the attacker who lived. He’d been hexed. He might not have even known what he was doing.”
“An enthrallment?” says Merihim. That gets his attention. He comes back to the desk. “That’s not a power many in Pandemonium would possess. I doubt that any of the officers could do it.”
“Maybe the bastard bribed one of the palace witches,” says Ipos.
“I think whoever set up the attack tried to hex me too. After I dumped the bike, I couldn’t think or fight or defend myself. I’ve been in plenty of wrecks and it didn’t feel like a concussion. It felt like someone was trying to get inside my head.”
Merihim starts wandering again.
“It makes sense. One, Mason Faim created a key that allows him to possess bodies. Two, the key is missing. Three, according to you, it works on mortals. Four, there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t work on Hellions too. That means whoever arranged your attack either has the key or is in league with whoever does.”