SANDMAN SLIM

"Is that how you got away?"

"No. I was the property of Azazel, one of Lucifer's generals. He made me his designated hitman. He said that Alice would be all right, as long as I played along."

"And then she wasn't all right."

"I don't know how I knew, but I did. It's like these new things I can hear and feel." I gulped some wine. "Before I left, I cut out Azazel's heart and left it on his altar."

"How did you get out?"

"A key. A key to anywhere in the universe I want to go."

"Do you have it with you?"

"It's right here," I say, putting my hand on my chest like I'm about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. "Over my heart. I took his knife, cut myself open, and put the key inside. Now I can walk through shadows to the Room of Thirteen Doors. Go anywhere I want, anytime I want. Back to Hell. Maybe Heaven, too. I don't know. I haven't opened all thirteen doors."

"You put the key inside you? And it was made with Hellion magic? It will poison you."

"Everything that happened to me for eleven years poisoned me. You think one little key is going to make a difference now?"

"This isn't good, Jimmy."

"Please don't call me that. I don't have that name anymore."

"So, you are still afraid of them. Afraid they can find you through your name?"

"Not if no one uses it."

"Your name is who you are. It's your family. It connects you to this world. You can't give it away so easily." He took a long gulp of wine and said, "Wild Bill."

"Especially, don't call me that."

Vidocq is one of the few people who know that my full name is James Butler Hickok Stark. That's Wild Bill Hickok's name, except for the Stark. I learned to shoot and appreciate guns young because we're supposed to be direct descendants of Wild Bill, the greatest shootist of the American West. "Stark" was tacked on sometime after those prairie towns became cities to keep idiots from showing up at the door wanting to touch great-great-granddad's legend. Or worse. There were more than a few fights and even some gunplay. The funny thing is no one knows for sure if we really are connected to Wild Bill. Supposedly, he left a few little bastards behind in Kansas and Missouri, so it's possible. But it might just be a tall tale. My family never let facts get in the way of a good story.

"Wild Bill is dead. I'm just Stark."

"That is your family, your identity. You can't just walk away from your name."

"I can and I have. I'm looking for Mason. He gave me to the Hellions for power and now I'm here to pay him back. Do you know where he is?"

"No one sees Monsieur Faim anymore. Like God, he is a great mystery. What will you do if you find him?"

"Kill him."

"And then what?" Vidocq sets down his glass and steeples his fingers. "What you want may not be possible. Mason is a very powerful man these days. Very well protected."

"I've gotten through to plenty of well-protected Hellions. And I learned a few things along the way. Want to know what the first lesson was?"

"Tell me, please."

I pick up a little vial of mercury sitting on the coffee table and shake it, watching the light glint of its silver surface.

"Up here in the City of Angels USA, magicians worry about good and evil. White magic versus black."

"All magicians think about those differences."

"Not Downtown they don't. Hellions understand something we don't. That there is no white magic. There is no black magic. There's just magic. You can kill with a healing spell as easily as with a curse. If you were having a heart attack right now, I could do a spell to slow your heart and keep it from beating out of your chest. I could regulate your blood pressure, bring it up or down. But I can use those same spells if you aren't having a heart attack. I can turn down your blood pressure until you pass out. Slow and stop your heart. And you'd be just as dead as if I'd hexed you."

"This isn't Hell, boy. People will know. There are rules up here."

"Not for me. I don't even know if they can read my magic up here. If it will even disturb the aether."

Vidocq picks up, and then sets down his wineglass with a thud. Loudly, he says, "Then why don't you use it? Go on and do a location charm for Mason right now."

I set down the mercury and look around the unfamiliar familiar room. "I can't. I don't know what will happen. The magic might not show up at all, or it might go off like fireworks at the Super Bowl. I can't take a chance on anyone knowing I'm back."

Vidocq smiles and wags his finger at me. "So, for all your power you have no power at all. That's a little funny, don't you think?"

"I have guns."

"Yes, you'll conquer the whole Sub Rosa with guns. More Roy Rogers bullshit."

I think about that for a minute. "There are things I used in the arena. I'm going to have to get some weapons made. I need to find someone who can work with metal."