Sandman Slim

"I WAS DEAD."



"Pretty much," says Kinski. He's leaning over me, shining a light into my eyes as I lie on his exam table. "But Eugene poured a whole bottle of white nightshade elixir down your throat. It kept your soul from wandering away. After that, it was just a matter of kick-starting your body. How do you feel?"



"All right. Tired, but all right."



Several of Kinski's rocks are arranged around the wound in my chest. Others around my head, arms, and legs. The doc takes the stones off me, one by one.



Vidocq and Allegra are at the other end of the table. "I saw you there," I say. "I thought I was dreaming, but you were there."



"Yes," Vidocq says. "I'm so sorry for what happened."



"You knew those cops were going to snatch me, didn't you? You told them where I'd be. You set me up."



"You've been so out of control lately. I thought meeting the Golden Vigil and seeing their work would help you to focus your energies. You're going to kill yourself or some innocent person."



"So, you handed me over to Homeland Security and a psychotic angel. Is that your idea of group therapy?"



"I had no idea this would happen. Aelita was just going to talk to you."



I swing my legs over the edge of the table and try to stand. My vision blurs and my head swims. I sit back down.



"I crawl all the way out of Hell just to get kidnapped and sold out by friends all over again. But you know what the funniest thing about this is? Mason didn't get me killed. You did." Vidocq is sweating and cold. It's a fear reaction. Fear and guilt. "How long have you been working for them?"



"I work with them, not for them. It's been a while. Half a year. A little more, maybe. You don't know how things have been getting here. It's bad and getting worse. Things are quieter now. I don't know why. But they'll turn bad again and then you'll see why I did what I did."



"Were you working for them before I went Downtown?"



He shakes his head. "No. I'd barely heard of them back then."



Kinski hands me a glass of some stinking brown tea.



"Drink that down. All of it. Don't sip it."



I down the tea in three long gulps. It's thick and hot and I can feel little bits of twigs and leaves in my mouth. I hand the glass back to Kinski.



"Thanks. That was disgusting." I look at Vidocq. "At least your lie is a new lie. That's something. Small mercies, my father would say."



Allegra is holding on to Vidocq's arm, like she's supporting an old man who's had a stroke but is too proud to use a cane. Her heart is racing. Her pupils are like hubcaps. She's afraid, but not of me. Of everything. It might not have been such a good idea to bring her into the Sub Rosa world. She's seen a lot in just a few days. "Were you in on this with him?" I ask.



She looks at Vidocq, then back at me.



"He told me earlier. Look, after the thing on Rodeo and Medea Bava with those feathers and teeth, it didn't seem like such a bad idea."



"Okay. Thanks. You can leave with him."



Vidocq comes around the table. The bottles of potions and poisons sewn into his coat tinkle as he walks. "No, Jimmy."



"Yes, Jimmy. Get out of here. Both of you."



"Eugene saved you," says Allegra. "Aelita about killed your ass."



"Maybe next time she'll get lucky and save you two the trouble of selling me out."



Kinski says, "Why don't you ease up on these people a little? You brought some of this on yourself." I can't read Kinski. His eyes are steady. I can't hear his heart or breathing. He's hiding them from me somehow. Maybe Candy taught him some Jade tricks.



"Thanks for saving me, doc. I mean it. I'm going to need to sit here for a while. After that, I'll be out of your hair. But until then, please stay the fuck out of this."



Candy is over in the corner of the room. I missed her before. She's got her back to the wall and is trying to make herself small.



Looking back to Allegra and Vidocq, I say, "You two need to leave now. I don't want to look at you anymore." Vidocq starts to say something, but I cut him off. "I should have seen something like this coming. Hell's a circus run by mental patients. Heaven's a gated community where we're the bastard stepkids the real kids hate. Daddy's little mistake. Where does that leave us on this rock? I believe Aelita's story about the broken glass starting life. Trash falls from the sky and no one cleans it up because the trash starts talking. Why should anyone expect anything from anyone? How can trash trust trash?"



Vidocq nods. "Right, then." He looks at Allegra and they walk out together, closing the door to the exam room behind them.



Kinski and Candy start putting things back in cabinets. Bottles. Bundles of dried plants. A tray of desiccated sea horses. Kinski wraps his rocks up in their silk covers and quietly stows them away.



"What's wrong with your arm?" I ask. His left arm is bandaged up to the elbow. Spots of blood have soaked through the dressing.



"That's nothing. A couple of kids jumped me last night. They must have been high or something. They weren't very good robbers. They didn't get anything. Maybe they just wanted to beat someone up."



"Did they grab you or did they just start pushing you around?"



"What difference does that make?"



"If they grabbed you, it was probably a robbery. If they started whaling on you, then they were just looking to kick someone's ass. Which was it?"



"I guess they sort of grabbed me, at first."



"Then it was a robbery."



"Yeah, but they didn't ask for my wallet or pat me down. They just kind of held on and dragged me around."



"Were they trying to pull you toward a car or into one of these stores?"



"Like they were kidnapping me? No. I don't think so. They were just high."



"Who've you pissed off? You owe anyone money?"



"No one. It was nothing. Just life in the big city." He puts the last of the rocks away and turns to me, half smiling. "Look who's quizzing me about pissing people off. I think you took the gold, silver, and bronze in that event."



I waited for a minute, not sure I was going to say the next thing.



"I figured out one of your secrets."



"Which one would that be?"



"The rocks you used on Allegra and me. They're glass, aren't they? The glass from Aelita's story. Glass all full of divine light. Where did you get them?"



"You can find anything on eBay."



"Or from Mr. Muninn," says Candy.



"He has some nice things, no doubt."



"Why did you want them?" I ask. "You don't seem like a hippie New Age type. And you seem smart enough. Why aren't you a regular doctor?"



"What do I keep telling you? We'll talk when you let me take those bullets out."



"Then it was a bad move using those rocks on me. I don't even feel them anymore."



"You will." The doc keeps moving around the place, putting little things away. Examining others before handing them to Candy. He drops things, clumsy with just the one good arm. Candy leans against the end of the exam table. I pull my legs back so she can sit down. "Keep running around things and you'll feel them soon enough." Kinski picks up some green stems with small white blossoms on top. Candy leans over and takes them from him. "See? I told you we had some veratrum," he says.



"That's why you're the doc," says Candy.



The doc looks at me and crosses his arms.



"You might want to ease up on Eugene. He stood up for you while a lot of folks around here want to see you sent right back to where you came from, but he stood up for you."



"You one of them?"



"I'm on the fence."



"That's why I don't know if I trust you to cut me open."



"Imagine how I feel having you in my home, Sandman Slim."



I hadn't thought of that.



"Thanks again for fixing me up. I owe you."



Candy says, "You're going to have a nice new scar for your collection."



I rub my chest. She's right. There's an almost-healed burn near my heart, right where the sword went in.



"It's a good one, too. I think I'll be immune to nukes after this." Candy's heart has slowed, but her pupils are still wide. "Listen. I was an asshole the other night. I had no call to talk to you the way I did. I'm sorry."



"It's okay. Jades freak out a lot of people."



"Not me. I know better than that. When I was Downtown, I met Hellions more honorable than ninety-nine percent of the people I have to deal with up here. And I met human souls as vicious and treacherous as any Hellion. So for me to say that stuff to you, that was double shitty. My father would have smacked me and I'd've deserved it."



"I forgive you. We'll all be freaks together. A bloodsucker who doesn't suck blood. A human who thinks he's a Tasmanian Devil driving a tank. And a two-armed witch doctor with only one working arm."



I ask Kinski, "Why don't you use the glass to fix yourself?"



He shakes his head.



"They don't work the same way on everybody and they can't fix everything. I've got my herbs and my ice packs. I'll be fine."



"It's funny, you got mugged by people who didn't know what they wanted and I sort of did, too."



"You mean the angel?" asks Candy.



"Yeah. One minute, she's doing the hard sell and then she's coming over all beatific and Mother Teresa. Then she suddenly goes batshit psycho. Screams, 'Abomination,' and stabs me."



"You're sure she said 'Abomination'?"



"She was screaming it right in my face. I'm sure."



Candy makes a face and says, "Angels can be such pricks."



"That they can, darlin'," Kinski says. "Listen, you're going to have to watch your back. Just because Eugene stopped Aelita today doesn't mean he'll be able to do it again."



"You think she'll come after me?"



"Angels don't use the word Abomination lightly. You're the lowest of the low to her. Worse than a Hellion."



"So, if Parker or Mason or Hellions or Homeland Security don't get me, she will."



"Don't forget the Sub Rosa," says Candy.



"Thanks, sunshine. The Sub Rosa, too."



"You can always come here if things get too hot. I know people who can help get you out of town," Kinski says.



"I'll remember that." I slide off the table and try out my feet. What do you know? I don't fall over or want to throw up. It's the little things that make life special. "I should go. Do you know the number of a cab company?"



"I've got one in the desk. I'll go look." He goes out and Candy and I are alone in the exam room. She gets off the table and brings me a plastic bag full of what looks like mulch.



"Doc wants you to boil this stuff and drink it once in the morning and once at night until it's gone. Don't worry. It doesn't taste any worse than a boiled doormat."



"Thanks. Is this what the doc gives you to wean you off being a Jade?"



"My tea tastes a lot worse than yours."



"How's sobriety working out for you?"



"You know. One day at a time."



"Were you bitten or something? How do you become a Jade?"



"You're born to be a Jade. The gift, or affliction, depending on who you ask, descends through the female line in the family. I can trace all my Jade ancestors back to the First Crusade."



"If it's your nature to eat people, doesn't it feel funny to go against that? And against a thousand years of your family history?"



"We drink people. We don't eat them. And giving it up isn't so bad. Everything has to evolve, right? We're monkeys in trees one day and the next we're monkeys with dental hygiene and cell phones. Best of all, we don't throw shit at each other anymore."



"Speak for yourself," I say, and Candy laughs. Her heartbeat goes up a little. "Do you think that if the doc can get you off drinking people juice, you'll feel like a regular person someday?"



"Project much, Sandman Slim? What you mean is that if doc can make me less of a monster, can he do it for you, too?"



"I didn't say you were a monster."



"But I am. By any human definition, I am a monster. And I always will be, so, no, I don't think I'll ever feel like a regular person. I'll just be a monster who chooses to be a little less monstrous. Who knows? I might fall off the wagon and start drinking people milk shakes again. But I'm going to try not to. Are you asking because you want to see if doc can turn you into a librarian when all this is over?"



I'm walking circles around the table, trying to get my sea legs back. Candy cranes her neck around to watch me. It's weird being alone with her.



"I don't know exactly what I want. I know that no one outside of Hell can stand what I am. I'm not wild about it most of the time myself. But I can't picture being something else."



"Try. Just imagine it for a few days. See how it feels."



"Why not? But I'm lazy. When it's time, I'll probably go for a simpler fix."



"Like what?"



"Going back to Hell isn't the worst thing I can imagine. I know the place. I have a rep. I can probably get my old job back, fighting in the arena."