SANDMAN SLIM

Daddy Kissi plants his shoulder in my sternum and knocks the wind out of me. He's on top of me, pi

I get ready for the pain. He brings his hand down hard. But just sort of punches me in the chest.

I look down, then at him. The Kissi looks as surprised as I do. He rears back and slams his hand down again. It just bounces off the body armor. I have a feeling that this isn't part of the armor's original design. But my heart and the key are still where they should be, so I'm not complaining.

The Kissi screeches, "What are you doing? Stop it!"

When he rears back for another try, his weight shifts enough for me to get my hand out from under my leg.

This time, when Daddy Kissi slams into my chest, I wrap my arm around his neck, shove the Browning under his chin, and blast away. The Spiritus bullets blow the Grand Canyon out the back of his head.

I shove his carcass off and look around for Candy. She's on her stomach, tearing out chunks of Avila's polished wood floors with her claws while Junior is on her back with both hands buried inside her spine.

I can move enough to limp up behind Junior, shove the Browning in his ear, and blow half of his head off. Junior falls one way. I fall the other. Candy pushes herself up onto her elbows, crawls over, and collapses on top of me.

"The sacrifice is in there," I say. "We can't stay here."

"I know," Candy says. She sits up and pulls me up with her. We're both streaked with human and Kissi blood. Candy grabs my head and plants a hundred-thousand-volt kiss on my lips. There's something in her saliva that feels like spider venom and speed. Her black tongue draws my tongue into her mouth and her razor-sharp shark teeth slide down the full length of it.

Candy lets go and smiles. She uses her thumb to wipe off some of the blood she's smeared on my lips.

"Thanks for getting him off me," she says.

"Anytime."

She helps me to my feet. I'm still shaky, but I can walk again. I can tell that Junior hurt her, playing around in her lungs. I give her the Browning and the Navy Colt pistols. I pull the na'at from my coat. Twist the grip to collapse the center shaft so that it hangs like a whip.

I point to the doors.

"Open sesame," I say.

Candy brings up both guns and blasts open the twin doors.

Inside, it's almost comical. Don't devil worshippers have any imagination? It's like a Hot Topic Halloween party. There's a circle of men wearing long, black, hooded robes. Each man holds a silver dagger. Between each of the men is a drugged, naked starlet wa

With Kissi guards stationed outside, it probably didn't occur to the devil's nitwits to have some security inside. Candy and I are pretty beat up, but they don't know that. Plus, we're armed. Plus, we're covered in enough blood and filth that we look like Hell arrived in the room a little sooner than they expected.

One of the robed satanists takes a swipe at Candy with his dagger and she blows a manhole in his chest with a blast from the Navy Colt. More men charge as the big clock over the altar hits the first midnight chime. Candy wades into the crowd and blasts anyone who gets near her. I swing the na'at over my head, let it extend to almost its full length, and crack it like a bullwhip. The high priest's hand and kris knife fly off in different directions. He screams and falls to his knees. Bye-bye, gates of Hell.

The rest of the old-boy coven doesn't seem to notice that they've already lost. They swarm us. Suddenly I'm back in the arena. Swinging the na'at, feeling it shear bones just right. Bring my arm up and sweep it down. Let the na'at's own momentum carry it through anything in its way. I could go on killing these guys all night. But I can't go completely wild. The glassy-eyed starlets are standing around like drugged sheep. I muscle them off the killing floor when I can. They fall over like bowling pins with tits.

More satanists are ru

I collapse the na'at and hold my arms out at my sides. The last few hard cases come at me with their daggers. I don't even fight them. I don't have to. They stab and slash and all they hit are my scars. Each knife thrust hurts, but not enough to matter, and none draws blood.

And then it's over.

The last satanists are dead or limping off into the club where the Vigil is waiting for them with hot cocoa and Tasers. The drugged starlets stare at each other trying to remember exactly what they're auditioning for and when wardrobe is going to arrive.

Aelita is lying hog-tied and unconscious at the far end of the altar. The black knife cuts through the diamond cord around her wrists and ankles. I free Aelita, then hand Candy the knife and tell her to free the others.

I pick Aelita up off the bloody floor and carry her back to the front room.

I'm not one hundred percent certain, but I think that two monsters just saved the world. And I couldn't care less.

Parker was supposed to be in the sacrifice room. And he should have had Vidocq and Allegra with him. If they're dead, the world should be, too. It's only fair. But I learned a long time ago that fair doesn't have much to do with how the universe works. If things were fair, Lucifer wouldn't have had to rebel. Adam and Eve wouldn't have been card-sharked out of Eden. The big man's kid wouldn't have been nailed up at Golgotha. And the Kissi would be just another pack of boring angels. And nothing that's happened in the last few days would have happened.

Wells and his crew have Avila secured when I get up front. They're already sorting the living from the dead, the i

I don't see a single magician among the living. Maybe that's all the fairness I'm going to get tonight. It's better than nothing.

I must look worse than I thought. Or maybe it's because I have Aelita with me. Either way, the entire Vigil crew stops and stares when I carry Aelita in and hand her to Wells.

"She's okay," I tell him. "We stopped the thing before it happened."

"We?"

"My friend Candy and me. She's back there freeing the rest of the angels. You might want to send some of your people back to help her. And bring some bathrobes."

Wells nods and some of the Vigil crew head off the way I came.

Wells kneels and sets Aelita on the floor. He takes a small bottle of what looks like holy water out of a jacket pocket and pours a few drops over each of Aelita's eyes. The angel's lids open a fraction of an inch. She begins to breathe. A Vigil medical team pushes Wells and me out of the way. They wrap Aelita in a Mylar blanket and give her drugs from bottles that look older than the world.

I take off what's left of my silk coat. It's just rags with a hundred bullet holes, a thousand knife slashes, and enough blood to paint a Camaro.