King Bullet Read online

  Dedication

  To Cass.

  Last time around’s for you.

  Epigraph

  The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.

  William Faulkner

  When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky. They’re always twenty years behind everything.

  Mark Twain (allegedly)

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Content Warning

  King Bullet: A Sandman Slim Novel

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Endorsements

  Also by Richard Kadrey

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Content Warning

  While this is a work of fiction, there are depictions of self-harm and suicide that may be troubling to some readers.

  King Bullet: A Sandman Slim Novel

  I come to alone and confused, so I grab my gun. It’s a Colt Peacemaker. Heavy in my hand. The weight is familiar and the smell of gun oil is comforting. I cock it and scope out the area.

  But there’s nothing to see. Just an old bedroom in a rundown apartment with the L.A. sun creeping in from cracks at the bottom of the shades where I nailed them to the windowsill.

  I put the Colt back in its holster by the bed. Nothing to see here, folks. Just some nutcase who can’t remember the simple truth of it all.

  I’m home.

  I’ve been waking up here for weeks now and every damn morning it’s still a shock. It’s not because of the dreams. I don’t have dreams half the time or, if I do, I can’t remember them. No, mornings are confusing because I’m still getting used to being in the old apartment I shared with Alice twelve—or was it thirteen?—years ago. I could probably pin down the exact date, but I don’t want to. Too many memories down that road. Still, I’m back where everything began. The last place I lived before Mason sent me to Hell and I became Sandman Slim.

  I want to say that there’s something profound about it. That it was inevitable and some invisible hand led me back here. But the universe doesn’t work that way. There’s no savior nudging us toward salvation like a bunch of brainless lamb chops. Mr. Muninn has enough on his hands stitching Heaven and Hell back together again. And Lucifer—back when there was a Lucifer—was too busy preening in the mirror to care.

  No, we’re on our own and that’s fine by me. I can drink and eat a Yule log cake for dinner and stay up late watching monster movies. I’m home and free.

  So why does everything feel so fucking—off?

  As I head to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I hear Fuck Hollywood in the kitchen making coffee. She’s been sleeping on my couch for the last week or so, ever since she dumped her shitty skate rat boyfriend, Buzzard. At first, I thought it would be weird having someone around in the old apartment, but it’s been kind of nice. She’s like the loudmouth little sister I never had. And we have the same taste in movies, so she can stay as long as she wants.

  She’s reading a magazine when I come into the living room.

  “We’re out of coffee, but I saved the last cup for you,” she says without looking up. She’s wearing a T-shirt at least three sizes too big for her. I get my coffee and stand over her.

  “Is that my T-shirt?”

  “Nope.”

  “It looks like one I got at a Cramps show probably before you were born.”

  “You’re so old. Maybe you should sit down.”

  “Don’t change the subject. That’s my T-shirt, isn’t it?”

  She drops the magazine on her lap and looks up at me.

  “Let’s just say that if someone were to borrow someone’s T-shirt around here,” she says, “they would certainly return said T-shirt to the rightful owner washed and folded and with a pretty ribbon on top because the other person was being such a little princess about everything.”

  “I’m not being a little princess.”

  “Whatever you say, Snow White.”

  Like I said, my bratty little sister.

  I sit down with my coffee and turn on the TV. Ringo Lam’s City on Fire is on and I watch while Fuck Hollywood reads. After a few minutes, she puts down her magazine.

  “Stark.”

  I hit pause on the movie and say, “Is the sound bugging you? I can mute it and just go with the subtitles.”

  “Yeah, it is bothering me a little, but that’s not what I wanted to say.”

  “Okay. So, what’s on your mind?”

  “I’ve been here, like, eight or nine days now.”

  “That’s cool. It’s fun having you around.”

  “That’s nice to hear. But what I wanted to say is . . .” She trails off.

  “Are you okay? Has your ex been bugging you? I can have a word with him.”

  “That’s not it,” she says. She pauses for a minute and says, “I’ve been here for a long time now and I’ve never stayed the night with a guy who didn’t try to fuck me. But you didn’t pull that.”

  She comes over and hugs me.

  “Thank you.”

  I pat her on the arm.

  “You’re family now. We’re going to take care of you.”

  “It’s nice knowing not all guys suck.”

  I can’t think of what to say right away. I knew Fuck Hollywood had been through some rough times, but the way she said “But you didn’t” kind of breaks my heart. I mumble the first thing I can think of.

  “You’re safe here.”

  “That means a lot to me.”

  I gulp down the rest of my coffee and get up.

  “I’m going to pick us up more coffee before heading to Bamboo House. You want anything?”

  She grins at me.

  “Are you running away? You really don’t take compliments well, do you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll be back soon.”

  She points to the coffee table.

  “Don’t forget your mask.”

  A surgical mask. I’m so sick of masks.

  The epidemic started maybe three months ago. At first it looked like just another bad summer cold. Then the hospitals filled up. Then people started dying. And they kept dying so fast the city couldn’t bury them right. It had to dig out mass graves in the Angeles National Forest to hold the dead. L.A. itself—all four thousand square miles of concrete and palm trees—feels like a cheap balloon ready to pop.

  I don’t know how civilians get anything done these days. The subway shut down months ago. A few of the bus routes still run, but with almost half of the drivers dead, they don’t exactly keep a regular schedule. The streets are empty enough parts of the day that gutsy types can get around on bikes and skateboards. A nice idea, except then you’re plowing face-first through a goddamn biblical plague of flies from all the garbage. No one has had a pickup in weeks. If trash was snow, Hollywood would be in a blizzard. You can practically ski down the side of the overflowing dumpster next to Maximum Overdrive. I keep waiting for all the shit to turn sentient and start demanding protection money.

  I grab my jacket off the back of a chair.

  “Why do I need a mask? I’m immune to everything.”

  Fuck Hollywood leans forward.

  “It’s your civic duty to set an example.”

  “You’re going to have to come up with something better than that.”

  Before I can respond, she takes a mask from the coffee table and slips the loops over my ears. Then quickly grabs her phone and takes a photo.

  I touch my face.

  “What did you just put on me?”

  “Nothing.”

  I take the mask off and look. On the front is a blond girl with a helmet and a sword.

  “W
hat the hell is this?”

  “That’s She-Ra, aka Princess Adora, aka He-Man’s twin sister.”

  “Why can’t I just wear He-Man?”

  “He-Man is a dork. We don’t have He-Man.”

  “I look ridiculous. There has to be something else.”

  She grabs the other masks, throws them under the sofa cushions, and sits on them.

  “There aren’t any other masks.”

  I look at her.

  “What are you going to do with that photo?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If that shows up online, you’re dead. So is everyone who sees it.”

  She’s still laughing at me as I head out to get coffee.

  In the hall, I adjust the mask so it fits better. I think about throwing the damn thing away, but it’s probably better if I wear it. I’ll be just another drone in the crowd.

  And let’s face it, no one wants to see my face.

  Her goofy mask aside, it’s nice that Fuck Hollywood is staying at my place. She’s just a kid, and I’d worry about her otherwise. Of course, I worry about everybody these days, especially Candy and Janet. With Vidocq gone, they’re pretty much the two most important people to me.

  I light up a Malediction only to remember Princess Adora. Another reason I don’t like these things. I pinch out the cigarette and try to push the worry and nonsense out of my head for a few minutes and concentrate on what kind of food to pick up while I’m out. Burgers or burritos? No more pizza. I swear, that’s all Fuck Hollywood lives on. How someone that little can put away that much cheese and pepperoni and still have a functional digestive system baffles me. Maybe she’s Sub Rosa, but only on the inside. A hoodoo stomach that can stretch forever as she stuffs pounds of burned crust down her gullet.

  It makes me laugh a little, trying to picture how magic innards might work, when I spot some asshole tagging the wall by the elevator. The door to one of the nearby apartments is kicked open and someone’s tossed furniture and clothes all over the hall. I’m not big on coincidences and I have a sneaky feeling that Michelangelo was helping himself to some baubles before he decided to slop paint in the hall.

  Quiet as a baby bunny, I come up behind him and slam his head into the wall. Not hard enough to knock him out, but hard enough to rattle his molars. He drops his brush and the paint can he was working with. Now that I’m close, though, something is strange about the scene. The paint smells wrong. I lean over the can and give it a sniff. It’s blood. And there’s too much of it to have all come from him.

  With my boot, I roll art boy over onto his back. Like me, he’s wearing a mask, but his is a complicated painter’s rig with a wide filter in the front. He decorated the mask with nostrils and pointy pink ears so he looks like a paint—or blood—spattered pig. I grab him by the overalls and haul him to his feet. He’s still woozy when I get him up, so I take off his mask and slap him a couple of times to get his attention.

  “Hey, Porky. You do not come into my home and start shitting the place up without my permission, which you definitely don’t have. Explain to me why I shouldn’t drag your dumb ass to the window and drop you like one more bag of trash?”

  He’s awake now and smiling like a baboon. It’s quite a sight. He has double sets of silver fang implants in his upper and lower jaw. His face looks like it was scarred with acid, but in careful patterns. Spirals on his cheeks and chin. His ears have been burned to points and someone etched “PIGGY” across his forehead. The tip of his nose is gone, completing the look.

  I have a bad feeling I know who and what he is.

  After I slap him a couple more times I say, “What’s your name?”

  That makes him laugh—deep, hysterical guffaws. Porky is on something and high as the Goodyear Blimp.

  He blinks at me, blood from a cut on his forehead pooling in the circular scars on his cheeks. He whispers, “Shoggot.”

  Fuck.

  This is just what I need right now. Shoggots are a Sub Rosa gang. By far the craziest. They live by a myth that they’re like me—Nephilims. Only in their shriveled little brains, they’re the offspring of one of Lucifer’s fallen angels and a mortal woman. They ugly themselves up to resemble what they imagine Hellions look like. They got the ugly part right, at least. But the more I look at him, the more I feel like there’s something else wrong here besides Porky’s paint. No. This doesn’t add up.

  I say, “You’re not a Shoggot. Shoggots are Sub Rosa. You’re a civilian. Just some ordinary asshole living by a tall tale that isn’t even yours.”

  He shakes his ugly head.

  “The old Shoggots are dead. They were a lie. We’re the real, true heirs to the name.”

  I look at his eyes and listen to his heartbeat. What’s weird is that he isn’t lying. At least he thinks he isn’t.

  “Who are you?” I say.

  “Sawney Bean.”

  I shake him a couple of times.

  “Sawney Bean? He died three hundred years ago and a million miles away. Try again, Porky.”

  He laughs and grabs my arms.

  “I’m Sawney and I’ll eat your guts for lunch.”

  “Naming yourself after a dead cannibal might scare some people, but you’re just a clown to me. Now tell me again why I shouldn’t drop you out a window?”

  “King Bullet,” he says and points to his tag on the wall.

  I look at it for the first time. He’s painted a crude skull with a target on its forehead. A pointy crown floats a few inches above the skull. It jogs something for me.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it around town. Is it supposed to mean something to me?”

  “It should,” says Porky. “He’s the one who did it. Killed off the false Shoggots and made us new ones in his image.”

  “One asshole didn’t murder a whole Sub Rosa gang on his own.”

  He whispers, “You don’t know the King.”

  “And you’re high enough to believe anyone with a funny name and a few card tricks.”

  “I’m Sawney Bean. Hurt me and the King will burn all you know and love.”

  “If the King is so great and you’re so important to him, why are you doing something as dumb as tagging my building?”

  He opens his eyes wide.

  “Your building? Nothing is yours. Not anymore.”

  “Let me guess. It belongs to the King.”

  “Everything,” he says. Then he gets right up in my face. “Including you.”

  “You’re not Sawney. You’re just a little piggy. And it’s window time.”

  I grab him by the collar, convinced I’m in charge of the scene. I’ve dealt with crazies before. What’s one more? Only he’s not the stupid one. I am. He digs in his heels and when I turn to look, he slips a little .25 automatic out of the sleeve of his coveralls. Presses it against my left cheek and pulls the trigger.

  Now, a .25 caliber bullet is a tiny thing. Like a joke shop bullet. From any distance at all it’s as lethal as a mosquito bite. But this prick jammed the thing right into my face. Even a little bullet from that range is going to hurt. And it fucking does. What’s worse is that between the pain of the shot and the surprise, I let pig-faced Sawney go.

  He jackrabbits to the stairs, but instead of running away he turns around and does a merry little soft-shoe routine. When he’s done he sings “Rum-tiddley-um-tum-tay” before disappearing down the stairs. I stagger back to the apartment with a handful of blood and embarrassment.

  Fuck Hollywood is at the door when I get there.

  “I heard something,” she says. Then she sees me and pulls me inside. “Oh god. Oh shit. What happened?”

  Between clenched teeth I say, “I was mugged by Porky Pig.”

  She helps me to the sofa and says, “Oh man, you’re delirious. What should I do?”

  “Relax. I was joking.”

  She slaps my arm.

  “That’s not funny. Should I call Allegra?”

  “No. Just bring me a mirror and a rag. And find me some pliers.”
r />   She gets up, but just stands there.

  “What do you want pliers for?”

  “The bullet. It didn’t go all the way through and I can feel it against my cheekbone. I want to get it out. To do that, I need some needle-nose pliers.”

  “That’s so metal.”

  As she runs off to get my stuff, I go to the side table and find a bottle of bourbon. It tastes good going down, but the .25 tore the inside of my cheek, so the liquor burns like a blowtorch. Still, I take another pull and in a minute Fuck Hollywood comes back with the rag and a mirror.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “You gave all of Vidocq’s tools to Allegra. We don’t have any pliers.”

  I hold up a hand.

  “It’s okay. Just give me the other stuff.”

  I drop back down onto the sofa and wipe away as much blood as I can with the rag. I’m not much to look at the best of times, but now I’m considerably worse. Not only do I have a fresh hole in my face, but because the gun was pressed up against me, the skin around the wound is burned. And he didn’t even shoot through She-Ra, so I have to go on wearing this stupid thing.

  Fuck Hollywood hovers over me like a distraught mother hen.

  I say, “First off, you sit down.”

  She sits on the sofa right next to me.

  “Second, thanks for all this stuff, but I’m not getting us coffee.”

  “Stop joking,” she yells.

  “I know someone with tools I can borrow.”

  “You need to go to Allegra.”

  I shake my head.

  “This is too humiliating. Shot by a junkie in a pig mask. And it was my fault. I’m going out again to take care of things.”

  “What should I do?”

  I take some cash and shove it into her hand.

  “Get us some coffee and I’ll see you later at Bamboo House of Dolls.”

  “You can’t go in today.” She’s shouting again.

  “I’ve been there in worse shape than this. Please just get some coffee and we can laugh about this later.”

  “Okay,” she says and balls up the money in her fist.

  I toss the mirror onto the coffee table and get up, holding the bloody rag to my face.