Devil Said Bang. Richard Kadrey

smiles, leaning over the peepers. Projected images from around the palace flicker on the screen like a silent movie.

      “What’s up with you?” I ask.

      “Nothing. It’s always amusing watching you pretend you’re not who you really are.”

      “I’m only interning in Hell for college credit. When I find the right replacement, I’m gone, Daddy, gone.”

      “Of course you are. Why would you want any influence over the creation of a new Hell? Or care about the welfare of the millions of mortal souls you’ll be leaving behind? I wonder if Mr. Hickok will be allowed to keep his tavern or will he be thrown back into Butcher Valley? But what do you care? ‘All are equal in the grave.’ Isn’t that what you living mortals say?”

      “Keep talking, smart guy. I’ll fake a heart attack and make you Lucifer. Let’s see how you like whitewashing this outhouse with a target painted on the back of your bald head.”

      Ipos glances at the priest.

      “It would probably look better than all the scribbling.”

      Merihim gives him a sharp look, flips through the pages of an ancient Hellion medical book, and sets it down.

      “Someone has found out about your habit of riding alone and what routes you take. You can’t ever ride like that again.”

      “I know. There’s something else.”

      I take out the Glock and set it on the desk.

      “Where did these pricks get guns? Only officers get to carry weapons these days.”

      Merihim frowns and crosses his arms.

      “We need to find out—very discreetly—if there are any officers who can’t account for their weapons.”

      “There are merchants who sell stolen weapons in the street markets. I can get people on the road repair crews. They might see or hear something,” Ipos says.

      Merihim nods.

      “Good.”

      “Wait. It gets even better. I checked the attacker who lived. He’d been hexed. He might not have even known what he was doing.”

      “An enthrallment?” says Merihim. That gets his attention. He comes back to the desk. “That’s not a power many in Pandemonium would possess. I doubt that any of the officers could do it.”

      “Maybe the bastard bribed one of the palace witches,” says Ipos.

      “I think whoever set up the attack tried to hex me too. After I dumped the bike, I couldn’t think or fight or defend myself. I’ve been in plenty of wrecks and it didn’t feel like a concussion. It felt like someone was trying to get inside my head.”

      Merihim starts wandering again.

      “It makes sense. One, Mason Faim created a key that allows him to possess bodies. Two, the key is missing. Three, according to you, it works on mortals. Four, there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t work on Hellions too. That means whoever arranged your attack either has the key or is in league with whoever does.”

      Ipos says, “I suppose if any of us would be hard to possess, it would be Lucifer. They probably won’t try it on you again.”

      “This might not be an assassination attempt at all,” says Merihim. “An isolated ambush would be a good way to cover up a psychic experiment. If your attackers killed you, all the better. If you killed your attackers, the only evidence would be the corpses of a few rogue soldiers.”

      “That makes sense. It’s one thing to kill Lucifer but another to spellbind him,” says Ipos. “You could make him do anything. Something unforgivable.”

      “Which means I get to live this little drama all over again.”

      Ipos nods. Merihim picks up the gyroscope from the desk and spins it the wrong way. The ominous voice comes out high and weird. A demonic Alvin and the Chipmunks.

      “Definitely,” says Ipos.

      “And it will be both subtler and more serious. We have access to potion makings in the tabernacle. I’ll personally prepare some draughts to protect you from psychic attack.”

      “What I want to know is why now?” say Ipos. “After all this time, why would someone attack you?”

      I shrug.

      “Maybe someone caught me counting cards.”

      Merihim says, “Something has changed. They’ve discovered something or they’re afraid you will, and they need to kill you before you discover it too.”

      I say, “It’s the possession key. Mason wasn’t exactly generous with information. He created the key and wouldn’t want anyone else using it, so it’s not like there’s going to be a user manual lying around. Maybe it’s taken this long for whoever has it to figure out how it works.”

      Merihim waves off the comment.

      “Perhaps. Speculation is pointless. We need to contact our operatives among the legions and the palace thaumaturgy staff to see what they can find.”

      “Did anything interesting happen at the Council meeting?” says Ipos.

      “Not really. Marchosias wanted to fuck me in her limo to annoy the others. I called Buer a Nazi and sent them all home to watch a silent movie about good architecture and a mad scientist.”

      “It sounds charming,” says Merihim.

      “There’s even a robot.”

      “A masterpiece, then.”

      Ipos says, “We should get to work.”

      He sets his glass on the desk, holds it there, and pushes on it. The desk rocks a fraction of an inch up and down.

      “I thought so. You wore down one of the legs dragging it over. I’ll fix that the next time we meet.”

      “I can just stick a matchbook under it.”

      He looks at me.

      “No, you can’t. You might run the kingdom but I maintain the palace. This is my domain.”

      “Whatever you say, Mr. Wizard.”

      After they’re gone, I sit down at the desk and light a Malediction. Toss the Glock into the bottom drawer of the desk. I don’t like Glocks. They’re the gun equivalent of a middle-aged guy buying a Porsche.

      From the top drawer I take out a shiny silver Veritas. The coin is a useful little pocket oracle. Another Veritas helped me survive my first few days when I first escaped back to L.A. The Veritas sees the present and the near future and never lies, though sometimes it’s a little shit about it.

      I flip it and think, What now?

      It comes down showing the image of a man pouring money into a woman’s hands. I’ve seen the symbol before. A hooker and her customer. Around the coin’s edge, in perfect Hellion script, it reads, Don’t make any long-term investments. Have a good time now. That’s what I mean. The little prick could have just said, You’re doomed, but it likes showing off.

      I toss the Veritas back in the desk, pick up a book, and lie down on the sofa. I’m reading a chapter about a Greek philosopher named Epicurus. The guy was a kind of depressed swinger. Imagine the Playboy Mansion run by Mr. Rogers. Epicurus was all about pleasure but in a stingy eat-your-vegetables-or-you-won’t-get-any-dessert kind of way.

      A lot of this philosophy stuff puts me right to sleep, but Epicurus must have been able to see into the future when people like me can’t read more than a paragraph without checking our e-mail because he spit out the important stuff short and sweet. It’s called the Tetrapharmakos and it’s a kind of a PowerPoint list to fix whatever ails you. It goes:

       Don’t fear