Page 171

“Really?”

“If I was in Hell and away from you and Alessa and everybody else? I would have done anything to come back.”

I pick up the hot mug and hold it until I can’t stand it anymore.

“I’m having a real hard time with this.”

“I can tell,” Candy says. “But you’ve had this bigger-than-life idea of yourself ever since I’ve known you. You were super-special Sandman Slim for so long you think you have to be that all the time forever.”

“You really think that’s what I’m like?”

Ignoring the question, she goes on. “And then there’s what happened to Alice. You’re still guilty about that.”

“I always will be.”

“I bet she’s forgiven you by now.”

“Maybe. I saw her when I was Downtown this last time.”

“Alice is in Hell?” says Candy.

“No. She came there with some other angels. She is an angel, I should say. She and her friends helped keep the rebel angels off our backs. I don’t think we

would have survived without them.”

Candy puts her hands together.

“That sounds like forgiveness to me.”

“Still. Her death is my fault. So are all the things I’ve done to you and Kasabian and everyone else. I don’t know anymore if I go looking for monsters or I just bring them with me.”

Candy puts her hand on my back.

“You need to go to Allegra and spend some time with her. She said before you went away this last time that you’d agreed to try medication for your PTSD.”

“I did. Now I’m not so sure about it. What do you think?”

“I think you should take a chance on anything that might make you happy.”

“I know that makes sense, but I don’t know. I’ve been me for so long, what am I going to be if that’s gone?”

“Wouldn’t it at least be interesting to find out?”

She takes her hand away. I miss it already. We sit for a minute, and I soak that in—taking what I can get—until Candy says, “What was Hell like this last time? It must have been horrible being back.”

“It was strange. Stranger than anything I went through down there.”

I tell her about the Magistrate and his mad crusade. And about the weapon that was supposed to save Heaven but turned out to be nothing but a carny gaff. Last, I tell her about almost going to Heaven.

“See?” she says. “After all that, of course you jumped at the chance to come home.”

I drink more coffee and use the mug to point downstairs.

“I like what you’ve done to the store.”

“Oooh. Nice deflection,” she says. “I take it we’re not talking about you anymore?”

“I can’t right now. I just can’t.”