SANDMAN SLIM

He moves slowly, choosing his words carefully. That much I can see. He's not high or drunk and he doesn't give off a Looney Tunes vibe. Still.

"Put your shirt on. Let's go have a smoke."

I follow him into the parking lot. The sun hurts my eyes after having them closed. I watch the doc, looking for any signs of obvious craziness. I could make a break for the Benz, but I'm a little woozy from the surgery.

Kinski is looking at me. He takes out a cigarette and offers me the pack. I take one.

"If you don't want to hear this, I'm not going to force you. I just thought that maybe you'd like to know who you are, why certain things have happened to you, and why certain other things are going to happen in the future."

"I'm listening."

"I'm sure Miss Aelita told you about God's great fuckup at the begi

I smoked my cigarette and watched the smog rim the clouds with fu

"The problem with this plan is that you can't take anything, even angels, put them in a human body, give them a human life, and not expect them to start feeling and acting just a little human. Even falling in love. Even having children.

"The children these angels had with mortal women were called nephilim. There were a lot of them around once upon a time. Now, not so many."

"Why not?"

"They were killed. So were the angels who fathered them and the mothers who gave birth to them."

"Why?"

"They had to. There had to be no record, no trace that they ever existed. Most of those doing the killing didn't call the children nephilim. They had another name for them."

"Abomination."

Kinski nods.

"Smart boy."

"If you're not Doc Kinski, who the hell are you?"

"They took away my real name when they kicked me out of Heaven. Normally, when an angel falls from grace, that angel ends up with other fallen ones in Hell. That would have been too embarrassing in my case. See, I was an archangel. Uriel, the Guardian of the Earth. If they'd sent me all the way down, they knew what would happen. Lucifer would have thrown me a ticker tape parade. God wasn't going to let that happen. So, here I am. I run a little under-the-radar human fix-it shop next to some nice ladies who do other ladies' nails."

"What did you do to the kicked out of heaven?"

"I killed another angel."

"Why?"

"He deserved it."

I flick the remains of my cigarette out into the parking lot.

"Can I get another?"

The doc offers me one from the pack. I light it with Mason's lighter.

"Does Vidocq knew about this nephilim thing?"

"You mean, does he know what you are? He's a smart man who's read a lot of book. He can do the math."

"This is fucking ridiculous. I'm no goddam angel."

"Sure, you're a perfectly normal boy. You were born able to do more magic than most Sub Rosa learn in a lifetime. You survived Hell. You saved the world and you corraled the Kissi. Typical underachiever."

A ski

The doc nods toward him. "That kid is smarter than both of us put together. He's got a car and all the pizza he can eat. What more does a man need?"

He smiles at his own joke. It's the first time I've seen him be anything but serious.

"If I believe all this, where does that leave me?"

The smile fades.

"Not anywhere good, I am sorry to say. You're an Abomination. You'll always be an Abomination. Hell hates you for being more than a human and Heaven hates you for being less than an angel."

"No wonder I couldn't get a date for the prom."

"There's something else you need to know." He looks at his watch. "I should call Candy soon. See how she's doing. I have her on double doses of the blood substitute."

"Is she going to be all right?"

"Hard to say. It's hard to fight your own nature. I couldn't do it. Angels are creatures made to love and protect humanity, only we weren't supposed to fall in love. But I did. Candy's a predator. A killer through and through. She's trying to change that and I'm trying to help her. Maybe that's a mistake."

"I thought it was you who was making her give up the kill."

"No. She came to me."

"I wouldn't have guessed that."

"Like I said, I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing by helping her. There's something else you ought to know about the nephilim. Not all of them were killed off by God's hit squads. Your kind is mostly gone because you tend to kill yourselves. You're not the most stable being, but I guess you knew that."

"Is that how you got that wound on your arm? Those guys who tried to shove you into a car. Those were angels trying to kill you?"

Kinski laughs.

"No, boy. Heaven doesn't worry about me anymore. Those were Kissi. They were shopping for one last angel for their New Year's party."

I look at him hard, trying to read him. Wanting a final, for-real take on him. But he's a blank wall.

He smiles at me.

"I know what you're doing. You can't read angels like regular people. Even angels can't always read other angels. Otherwise we would have never had that little dustup with Lucifer in Heaven."

"Can you read me?"

"Of course."

"What am I thinking?"

"You're afraid I'm crazy because that's one more person you can't count on. And you're afraid I'm telling the truth 'cause that means you were screwed before you ever drew your first breath."

That's exactly what I'm thinking.

"Will I be like you? Will I be able to read you someday?"

He shrugs.

"It's hard to say. With nephilim, it's always different. Some are more human and some are almost angels and can do almost anything angels do. You'll know what you can do when you can do it. That's all I can tell you."

"Let's say I believe this story. Could you fix me up with a cocktail like Candy's? Make me like a regular person?"

"I wouldn't even try."

"Why not?"

"You always had magic, but you came into your real power in Hell. You were ru

"And what is it I can do?"

"Warrior is the nice word, the traditional word, but that's just a polite way of saying that you're a natural-born killer. You're Sandman Slim, the monster who kills monsters. I'm not going to drug you up to change that."

"Even if I wanted to change it?"

"Especially then. How many angels showed up to save the world the other night? Did Aelita and her little quilting bee conquer the evil at Avila's heart? No. It took a monster to walk between all the forces massed there and to beat them all. No one else could have done that."

"There were two monsters there," I remind him.

He nods.

"Right. Two monsters."

The pizza delivery boy brings out a second pile of pizza boxes, loads them in the van, backs up, and heads into the afternoon traffic. He gives us the finger on the way out of the parking lot.

"I can feel a lot of stuff pinballing around in your head. You want to tell me what you think about all this?"

"If your story is true, then one of my parents fucked an angel. Which one?"