Devil Said Bang Read Online Free PDF Page A

mogul’s château. Windows
everywhere. Expensive handmade furniture. Pricey art. And enough bedrooms and
bathrooms for all the cowgirls in Montana to stop by for a pillow fight.
    I kick off my boots by the elevator. Fuck the lobby
carpet. Wash it. Burn it. I don’t care. But I don’t want blood all over my
apartment.
    My apartment.
    It still feels funny to say, but I have to admit
that after the three months the place is starting to feel like home. I used to
run a video store in L.A. If I could move the inventory and a wall-size TV in
here, I might go totally Howard Hughes and never leave. If I got Candy a day
pass, I could definitely get used to the Hellion high life. Up here, surrounded
by tinted glass and silk-covered furniture, I’m Sinatra with horns and
Pandemonium is my boneyard Vegas.
    I go to the bedroom and glance at the peepers I’ve
scattered around the apartment. None are twitching and nothing looks out of
place. I can relax. The truth is, I’m less worried about getting into another
fight than I am about snoops. I need one place in Hell where I don’t have to
look over my shoulder 24/7.
    In the bedroom I strip off my clothes, dropping
them in a heap at the foot of the bed. The ripped jacket I ball up and throw
into the closet. I could get it fixed but I’m goddamn Lucifer. I’ll tell the
tailors to run me off a new one.
    I lock the bedroom door and run my hand over the
top of the lintel. The protective runes I carved are still there. I get under a
hot shower and stay there for a long time.
    I might have gotten used to the apartment but I’ll
never get used to showering in Lucifer’s armor. I never take the stuff off. The
moment it’s gone, I’m vulnerable to any kind of attack. Knife, hoodoo, or a
squirrel with a zip gun. I know I look schizo soaping down in this Versace tuna
can but I don’t have to look at me.
    When I’m done I pull on black suit pants, a silk
T-shirt, and a hotel robe thick enough to stop bullets. The black blade goes in
one pocket and Ukobach’s gun in the other. Then over to the dresser for a quick
check of the bottom drawer. There’s the singularity, Mr. Muninn’s secret weapon
to restart the universe if Mason or I broke it. There’s my na’at, my favorite
weapon when I was fighting in the arena. And there’s the little snub-nose .38 I
brought with me from L.A. One bullet is missing from the cylinder. The one I
tricked Mason Faim into blowing through his head three months ago. That’s when
Saint James, my angel half, took the key I need to leave Hell and left me
stranded here. To tell the truth, I’m glad the goody-goody prick is out of my
head. But I’d take him back in a second if it would get me the key.
    The bedroom doors swing open and Brimborion walks
in with a fistful of envelopes and messages. He’s something else I never wanted
in my life. A personal assistant, which is to say a professional asshole who
knows more about me than I do.
    “What did I tell you about barging in here without
knocking?”
    “If I didn’t barge in, I’d never find you.”
    “That’s the idea.”
    Brimborion looks fairly human except he’s as skinny
as a grasshopper, with limbs and fingers long enough to pluck a quarter from the
bottom of a fifth of Jack. He dresses in dark high-collar suits like he fell out
of a Dickens story right onto the stick up his ass. He also wears round wire-rim
glasses. I think it’s those glasses that really make me hate him. What a weird
choice for an affectation. I mean, whoever heard of a nearsighted angel?
    I say, “How did you even get in here?”
    He rolls his eyes heavenward.
    “You mean those pretty doodads you scratched above
the doors? I’m your personal assistant. I need to be able to follow you
anywhere.”
    He unbuttons his shirt and pulls out a heavy gold
talisman hanging from a chain around his neck.
    “I have a passkey. It opens any door in the palace
no matter how many wards or enchantments are on it.”
    “Nice. Where can I