Kill City Blues

Kill City Blues
Richard Kadrey

A smart, kick-arse Urban Fantasy from a new master of the genre. Kill City Blues is the fifth book in the fantastic Sandman Slim series.James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, has managed to get out of Hell – again – renounce his title as the new Lucifer, and settle back into life in LA. But he's not out of trouble yet. Somewhere along the way he misplaced a weapon from the banished older gods who now want it back.The hunt leads Stark to an abandoned shopping mall — a multi-storey copy of LA — infested with Lurkers and bottom-feeding Sub Rosa families, squatters who have formed tight tribes to guard their tiny patches of territory. Somewhere in the kill zone of the former mall is a dead man with the answers Stark needs.All Stark has to do is find the dead man, get back out alive, and outrun some angry old gods — with a few killers on his tail.

Copyright (#ulink_4548ef0b-3ba3-55b6-9f5b-523f2a62d380)

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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London SE1 9GF

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First published by HarperVoyager 2013

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

Copyright © Richard Kadrey 2013

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Designed by Crush Creative (www.crushed.co.uk (http://www.crushed.co.uk))

Richard Kadrey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

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Source ISBN: 9780007446063

Ebook Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 9780007483877

Version: 2017-09-18

To JLK, who should havebeen around a little longer

It is evident that we are hurrying onward to someexciting knowledge—somenever to be imparted secret,whose attainment is destruction.

— EDGAR ALLAN POE, “MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE”

You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lotfarther with a smile and a gun.

—AL CAPONE

Table of Contents

Title Page (#ud178abdc-c9ab-5dc1-a5fc-68575830fe8f)

Copyright (#u256fa57b-00d7-5841-be51-aeffe4fd952d)

Dedication (#ue63756a3-4b86-5da7-abb7-bb86cebf3f51)

Epigraph (#u1780bcf9-083a-5a8d-b175-cf12d6d44829)

I’m in a window (#u32ce558b-54e0-5908-8e3a-3b3bcd6c5c5d)

Maybe happy isn’t the right word (#litres_trial_promo)

When we reach Santa Monica (#litres_trial_promo)

I find a bottle of Aqua Regia (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Richard Kadrey (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

I’M IN A window seat at Donut Universe eating heart-crippling lumps of deep-fried dough with the Devil. Ex-Devil technically, but then technically we’re both ex-Devils. He was Lucifer before I was. Now he’s Samael and I’m back to just plain Stark.

I take a bite of an apple fritter.

“How’s your donut?”

Samael eyes his glazed old-fashioned suspiciously, like maybe it’s haunted.

“Charming. Did I invent these? They taste like something designed to destroy mortals from the inside out.”

Candy says, “Nope. We came up with them all on our own.”

“How wonderfully suicidal you people are. Donuts must be the very essence of free will.”

As for the Devil job, I stuck another poor son of a bitch with that. Mr. Muninn. Some days I feel bad about it. Some days I don’t. Today the sun is out, I’m eating donuts with my girl and another ex-Devil, and it’s all pretty goddamn heartwarming.

Samael says, “That blond woman buying coffee. She sold me her soul for a 1956 Les Paul Goldtop. I don’t think she ever learned to play it. The man behind must be a pious bore. He’s virtually free of sin sign.”

The Devil can see people’s sins. They’re like streaks of black tar on skin. Since I quit the damnation biz, I can’t see sin sign, but as an angel, Samael can still pull that rabbit out of the hat. I don’t miss doing that trick.