36. Ride of the Valkyries

The pain in my head must have been something like what the Earthbound always tried to describe when they were explaining a hangover. If I'd been a human, I’d have sworn never to drink again. I wondered what had been in the cocktail shaker Lilith had used to knock me colder than a fish on the slab. I couldn’t see any Bailey’s or Grenadine in the sticky stuff oozing onto the wash’n’wipe floor tiles. Maybe it had been a Moscow Mule, my head felt like it. Someone was wiping my forehead, which was a bit goofy because the blood was coming from the crown. Still, it was the thought that counted.

It was Sam Sara, and I expected better of her. Azazael, sure, he wasn’t the brightest candle on the cake, but I could hear him shuffling from foot to foot, mumbling about it being an antique cocktail shaker that had cost as much as a gold-leafed bellini in the Ritz. The nearest he’d ever been to the Ritz was eating a few crackers. Sam Sara’s eyes were shining and she gave a sniff as I struggled to sit upright.

‘Either of you see her go?’ I asked.

‘We just got here. She was there and then she was gone.’ Sam Sara grew a frown line I’d have liked to trace with a finger. Azazel grunted from somewhere behind me.

‘You might let me around your front,’ which puzzled Sam but told me that Lilith hadn’t bothered to take Solomon’s Seal from my finger - and that was puzzling me. I couldn’t exactly say “Demon, I release thee,” in front of Sam. ‘Do what you like, Az, ain’t it your place?’ did the trick.  Azazel gave another grunt that might have been a laugh.

I got to my feet with all the zip of Darby Jones in Zombies On Broadway.

I’d missed my chance. If Sam Sara hadn’t been around, I could have forced Azazael to help me kidnap Lilith, maybe sneak her out the back, boost a Japanese compact and light out for somewhere outside Washington. But Sam had been there and whilst Lilith seemed to have no compunction about breaking the rules when it came to the Earthbound, I did. The only thing to do was give Sam a job. One that would keep her away from me while I thought how to get next to the FLOTUS again, before it was too late. I gave her Margarita Cansino’s card, and told Sam to find her.

‘What for?’

‘I ain’t sure yet. We might need her help.’

Sam looked me up and down, put the card in a pocket and walked out the door, heels scarring the cheap tiles on the floor.

It was as easy as that. As for the rest of it. I hadn’t a clue.

And that’s when he walked in. I recognised him straight away. Army fatigues with the pants a little baggy round the crotch, shitbird rank insignia on the lapel. A copy of Eliot’s The Waste Land under his arm, a billiard ball head, and two eyes windowing on the soul of madness. Azazael ran and hid in the facilities. Mr D laughed,

‘The horror, the horror...’

to which I natch replied,

‘Mr Kurtz, he dead.’

‘Not yet, Gabe, not yet.’ The Devil said.