Devil Said Bang

Devil Said Bang
Richard Kadrey

The fourth eagerly awaited Sandman Slim novel from Richard KadreyWhile ruling the denizens of darkness does have a few perks, James Stark isn’t exactly thrilled at the course his career (not to mention his soul) has taken. Breaking out of Hell once was a miraculous trick. But twice? If anyone can do it, it’s Sandman Slim. While he’s working out the details of his latest escape plan, Slim has to figure out how to run his new domain and hold off a host of trigger-happy killers mesmerised by that bullseye on his back.Everyone in Heaven, Hell, and in between wants to be the fastest gun in the universe, and the best way to prove it is to take down the new Lucifer, aka Sandman Slim aka James Stark. Then again, LA isn’t quite the paradise it once was since he headed south. A serial killer ghost is running wild and his angelic alter-ago is hiding somewhere in the lost days of time with a secret cabal who can rewrite reality. And starting to care about people and life again is a real bitch for a stone-cold killer.A violent and atmospheric tale full of edgy fun and packed with angels and demons, monsters and madmen, Devil Said Bang is another thrilling hit of kick-ass fun from the diabolically talented Richard Kadrey.

To Ginger and Diana for making this happen. And to Holly, Sarah, and Dave for the gravy.

To descend into Hell is easy; Night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; But to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air—There’s the rub, the task.

– AENEID, Book 6

In this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.

– CLINT EASTWOOD, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Table of Contents

Title Page (#u4b4cd2bf-b9f5-51db-9cc2-f26090ee65f6)

Dedication (#u4eef1a65-999c-5cc6-a455-994d56bc4132)

Epigraph (#ua2fa3da9-be52-571b-a137-3cbf665582e6)

“Me and the Devil Blues” (#u4801ff38-d53c-5186-9b70-10a5d1327748)

I have a pretty good idea (#litres_trial_promo)

I ride the Hellion Hog (#litres_trial_promo)

If you ever need to pull a girl (#litres_trial_promo)

Bamboo house of dolls is crowded (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Also By Richard Kadrey (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

“Me and the Devil Blues”

“Devil’s Stompin’ Ground”

“Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell”

“Don’t Shake Me, Lucifer”

“Hell Is Around the Corner”

“Hellnation”

“Up Jumped the Devil”

I punch the tunes into the jukebox and make sure it’s turned up loud. I’ve loaded up the juke with a hundred or so devil tunes. The Hellion Council can’t stand it when I come to a meeting with a pocketful of change. Wild Bill, the bartender, hates it too, but he’s a damned soul I recruited for the job, so he gets why I do it. I head back to the table and nod to him. He shakes his head and goes back to cleaning glasses.

Les Baxter winds down a spooky “Devil Cult” as I sit down with the rest of Hell’s ruling council. We’ve been here in the Bamboo House of Dolls for a couple of hours. My head hurts from reports, revised timetables, and learned opinions. If I didn’t have the music to annoy everyone with, I would probably have killed them all by now.

Buer slides a set of blueprints in my direction.

Hellions look sort of like the little demons in that Hieronymus Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. Some look pretty human. Some look like the green devils on old absinthe bottles. Some are like what monsters puke up after a long weekend of eating other monsters. Buer looks like a cuttlefish in a Hugo Boss suit and smells like a pet-store Dumpster.

“What do you think of the colonnades?” he asks.

“The colonnades?”

“Yes. I redesigned the colonnades.”

“What the fuck are colonnades?”

General Semyazah, the supreme commander of Hell’s legions, sighs and points to a line of pillars at the center of the page. “That is a colonnade.”

“Ah.”

If the hen scratchings on the blueprints are different from the last bunch of hen scratchings Buer showed me, I sure as hell can’t tell. I say the first thing that pops into my head.

“Were those statues there before?”

Buer waves his little cuttlefish tentacles and moves his finger across the paper.

“They’re new. A different icon for each of the Seven Noble Virtues.”

He’s not lying. They’re all there. All the personality quirks that give Hellions a massive cultural hard-on. Cunning. Ruthlessness. Ferocity. Deception. Silence. Strength. Joy. They’re represented by a collection of demonic marble figures with leathery wings and forked tongues, bent spines and razor dorsal fins, clusters of eyestalks and spider legs. The colonnades look like the most fucked-up miniature golf course in the universe and they’re on what’s supposed to be the new City Hall.

“I have an idea. How about instead of the Legion of Doom we put up the Rat Pack and the lyrics to ‘Luck Be a Lady’”

“Excuse me?” says Buer.

“What I mean is, it looks a little fascist.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

I push the blueprints away with the sharpened fingers of my left hand, the ugly prosthetic one on my ugly prosthetic arm.

Buer doesn’t know how to react. None of them do.

There’s Buer the builder, Semyazah the general, Obyzuth the sorceress, and Marchosias the politician. Old Greek kings used to have councils like this, and since a certain friend hinted I should read up on the Greeks, I have a council too. The last member of the Council is Lucifer. That’s me. But I’ll get to that part later. The five of us are the big brains supposedly in charge of Hell. Really, we’re a bunch of second-rate mechanics trying to keep the wheels from coming off a burning gasoline truck skidding toward a school bus full of orphans and kittens.