LITMIR.BIZ

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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.”

      “Yes, my lord,” says the officer.

      I start into the palace but turn after a few steps. I can’t tell the condition of the bodies from here. There isn’t much of a blood trail behind the bike. That’s probably not a good sign for Ukobach. The guards stare at me.

      “One of you take my bike into the garage and have it cleaned and polished.” Not that I’m ever going to get to ride it again now that everyone knows what it looks like.

      I head inside wondering what Candy would think about what I just did. I’m pretty sure she’d understand. She might even approve. She won’t have to, though, because this goes on the long list of things I’m never going to tell her.

      IN THIS FUNNY CONVERGENCE HELL, Lucifer’s palace is the penthouse of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I’m not saying my digs are nice, but I am saying that my rooms make Versailles look like an outhouse.

      Palace security guards ring the inside of the lobby. I give them a nod while tracking dirt, road grime, and blood across the carpets. I head straight for my private elevator. Slap my hand over a brass plate on the wall and the elevator doors roll open. Inside I touch another plate and whisper a Hellion hoodoo code. The car starts up, the pulley and wires humming overhead, gently rocking the compartment. It feels good. A Magic Fingers motel massage loosening the tension knots in my shoulders. I move my arms and legs. Rotate my head. The palms of my hands are scraped raw from the fall off the bike, but there’s no real damage to anything but my damned jacket.

      The car stops at the penthouse. I touch the brass plate again and step out onto the cool polished marble floor. The penthouse is a sight. Like Architectural Digest climbed to the top of the hotel roof and shit out a Hollywood movie mogul’s château. Windows everywhere. Expensive handmade furniture. Pricey art. And enough bedrooms and bathrooms for all the cowgirls in Montana to stop by for a pillow fight.

      I kick off my boots by the elevator. Fuck the lobby carpet. Wash it. Burn it. I don’t care. But I don’t want blood all over my apartment.

      My apartment.

      It still feels funny to say, but I have to admit that after the three months the place is starting to feel like home. I used to run a video store in L.A. If I could move the inventory and a wall-size TV in here, I might go totally Howard Hughes and never leave. If I got Candy a day pass, I could definitely get used to the Hellion high life. Up here, surrounded by tinted glass and silk-covered furniture, I’m Sinatra with horns and Pandemonium is my boneyard Vegas.

      I go to the bedroom and glance at the peepers I’ve scattered around the apartment. None are twitching and nothing looks out of place. I can relax. The truth is, I’m less worried about getting into another fight than I am about snoops. I need one place in Hell where I don’t have to look over my shoulder 24/7.

      In the bedroom I strip off my clothes, dropping them in a heap at the foot of the bed. The ripped jacket I ball up and throw into the closet. I could get it fixed but I’m goddamn Lucifer. I’ll tell the tailors to run me off a new one.

      I lock the bedroom door and run my hand over the top of the lintel. The protective runes I carved are still there. I get under a hot shower and stay there for a long time.

      I might have gotten used to the apartment but I’ll never get used to showering in Lucifer’s armor. I never take the stuff off. The moment it’s gone, I’m vulnerable to any kind of attack. Knife, hoodoo, or a squirrel with a zip gun. I know I look schizo soaping down in this Versace tuna can but I don’t have to look at me.

      When I’m done I pull on black suit pants, a silk T-shirt, and a hotel robe thick enough to stop bullets. The black blade goes in one pocket and Ukobach’s gun in the other. Then over to the dresser for a quick check of the bottom drawer. There’s the singularity, Mr. Muninn’s secret weapon to restart the universe if Mason or I broke it. There’s my na’at, my favorite weapon when I was fighting in the arena. And there’s the little snub-nose .38 I brought with me from L.A. One bullet is missing from the cylinder. The one I tricked Mason Faim into blowing through his head three months ago. That’s when Saint James, my angel half, took the key I need to leave Hell and left me stranded here. To tell the truth, I’m glad the goody-goody prick is out of my head. But I’d take him back in a second if it would get me the key.

      The bedroom doors swing open and Brimborion walks in with a fistful of envelopes and messages. He’s something else I never wanted in my life. A personal assistant, which is to say a professional asshole who knows more about me than I do.

      “What did I tell you about barging in here without knocking?”

      “If I didn’t barge in, I’d never find you.”

      “That’s the idea.”

      Brimborion looks fairly human except he’s as skinny as a grasshopper, with limbs and fingers long enough to pluck a quarter from the bottom of a fifth of Jack. He dresses in dark high-collar suits like he fell out of a Dickens story right onto the stick up his ass. He also wears round wire-rim glasses. I think it’s those glasses that really make me hate him. What a weird choice for an affectation. I mean, whoever heard of a nearsighted angel?

      I say, “How did you even get in here?”

      He rolls his eyes heavenward.

      “You mean those pretty doodads you scratched above the doors? I’m your personal assistant. I need to be able to follow you anywhere.”

      He unbuttons his shirt and pulls out a heavy gold talisman hanging from a chain around his neck.

      “I have a passkey. It opens any door in the palace no matter how many wards or enchantments are on it.”

      “Nice. Where can I get one?”

      “I’m afraid this is the only one.”

      “Maybe I should take it.”

      “Feel free, my lord,” he says. “And don’t worry. I’ll do my best to suppress the scandal.”

      “What scandal?”

      “The one about how the Lord of the Underworld, the Archfiend, the Great Beast is afraid of a glorified secretary. I hate to think what your enemies would make

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