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
