hotel on South Main Street. The first floor is boarded up. The second and third have been gutted by fire and you can see the sky through the top-floor ceiling. Gang tags and spray-painted naked ladies are like outdoor cave paintings. Aeons of stapled ads and glued band flyers form a pale crust on the lower floors. Cut deep enough into those things and you’ll find flyers for Babylonian death-metal shows printed in cuneiform on papyrus.
The mansion is protected by more hoodoo than King Tut’s tomb. It can hold off the armies of Hell, a Bigfoot horde, and a Martian invasion all at the same time. In fact, Blackburn’s place is so loaded with wards and mantrap spells that he doesn’t have a single security guard. Not even a dog. The Augur is so high-and-mighty he thinks muscle is declasse, which for him is sort of true but it’s not polite to rub the world’s nose in it. Someone should TP the place just to remind him he’s human. I’d like it to be me but right now I don’t know how to get close enough to even hit the place with a grenade launcher.
These Lucifer eyes can see the shimmering spells surrounding the hotel. A series of crystal spheres set inside each other like Russian nesting dolls. As far as I know, with the armor on, I’m as hard to kill as ever, but that means I can still snuff it or get hurt and I don’t want to be known as the Gimp Lucifer. I need to not fuck this up.
Most of my hoodoo is geared toward hurting people and making things go boom. I’m pretty good at making up spells on the spot but how many different ones will I have to wing if I try to hex my way through Blackburn’s defenses? Only one thing makes sense if I want to get inside before Santa takes a toy dump down everyone’s chimney. It’s really stupid but stupid is sort of my specialty.
I take a few deep breaths and summon all the heinous bastard Luciferness I can and wrap myself in
When I first got back to Earth, Samael strolled into my bedroom above Max Overdrive. At the time I was so shocked seeing the Devil at my door I didn’t think about what it meant. By then I’d laid out wards around the store and my own improvised protection spells. Lucifer walked right through them. Is that one of the secrets the celestial types keep from us? That most human protections don’t work on angels? My angel half is off somewhere sipping Shirley Temples and reading
I put my hand on the first layer of magic and press. Blue flame engulfs me but it doesn’t burn. Beyond the fire, the layer feels thick and liquid. I’m not dead yet, so I keep pressing. Slowly and steadily, like stepping out of a warm glycerin bath, I pass through the first layer. I do the same thing on the next layer. This one is full of wind and grit. A sandstorm of razor blades. I press slow and steady, holding a “do not even begin to fuck with me” mantra in my mind. The layer cracks and splits just enough for me to pass through. Four more layers and I walk up to Blackburn’s front door like the Avon lady. I reach out to test the door. The prick doesn’t even bother locking it.
Inside, Blackburn’s mansion is an old Victorian manor house with stained glass, potted palms, and a curiosity cabinet in every room. The kind of place where you wouldn’t be surprised to see Sherlock Holmes shooting coke in the guest room.
