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"Listen, cop I’ve never heard that stupid naoing or I’h "I wouldn’t try I’m dead serious when I tell you that I could put a bullet in your head right now and go have a sandwich"

"What kind?"

"What kind of what?"

"What kind of sandwich? What’s a murder sandwich taste like? Does it come with extra cheese or chili fries? What tastes better afterho hioes for his gun

When you’re facing down multiple attackers, you alant to make the first ht and that you’re crazy enough to get the party started One rule of thu is that crazy can often overcoht actually enjoy going up against another trained fighter, no one really wants to wrestle with crazy Crazy doesn’t knohen it’s winning And crazy doesn’t knohen to stop If you can’t pull off crazy, if, for instance, you’re handcuffed in a small van with six armed assailants, stupid is a decent substitute for crazy

Wells still has his hand inside his jacket when I sla to remeet any ideas, I swing an elbow up over his head and bring the ar the cuffs around his throat Then I fall back across the seat, pulling Wells on top of uns out by now, but I’ to have to blow a lot of holes in the big man first

"Stand down," shouts Wells Then, quieter, to ot you far, didn’t it, shit-for-brains?"

"It got hten the cuffs across his throat Just enough so that he can feel it, but not enough to make him pass out "You’re not the first bunch that ever kidnapped me, but you’re definitely the least fun"

"Boy, you just attacked a federal officer I’ll have you swinging fro to arrest? I’ forward and sla him at the same tiot four guns on

We’re somewhere south of LA, near Culver City The van turns into the parking lot of what looks like an aircraft assembly plant that hasn’t seen action in twenty years There are dians on all the fences and buildings

The van slahten the cuffs on Wells’s neck and pull hi into the van

A woman in a crisply tailored power suit leans her head inside

"I can coentlemen need a moment alone," she says

I let up on Wells’s neck, but still keep hold of hirabby," says Wells

The woman nods "That’s what he does All those years in the Abyss have left him with some impulse control issues It’s all in his file" She looks atto shoot you And, Larson, uncuff this raders"

"Sorry Who are you again?" I ask

The woman shakes her head, and then walks away The G-uns I lift le out fro back athis suit and tie I follow hi with his jacket and tie like a bad Vegas lounge cos a key out of his pocket and unlocks me There are reduess we’re even

I take out hter, all I get is sparks

"Anybody got a light?" I ask

"You can’t smoke here," says Wells

"We’re in the open in the middle of nowhere Why not?"

"Are you stupid?" asks Wells "That’s Aelita She’s an angel They’re very sensitive to things like cigarette suise before" I follow her to the old asseel would look like She’s about as ethereal as a zip gun She walks like she’s about to call in an air strike or buy Europe Donald Tru with her eneht next to the stapler

The coe Probably a Cold War-era industrial assembly line Aelita opens a side door and I can see inside Absolutely nothing Concrete floor and metal walls Shadows of shts

A few steps into the building, I hit a kind of barrier It’s like walking through warm Jell-O Then I’m suddenly in Times Square on New Year’s Hu huge diesel engines on auto forklifts with pallets loaded with cedar and ots and iron bars Industrial dru armored vehicles and what look like weapons Shiny superscience versions of old pepper-pot guns

I look back at the entrance There are angelic runes chiseled into the concrete floor Overhead so It hureen light

"It’s called a Phylactery Accelerator," says Aelita "The holy relics and sigils in the floor forh to hide all of whatever the hell this is"

"Please don’t use profanity in here The Accelerator captures the energy released by chare mesons as they decay into protons and antineutrinos, and uses that energy to amplify the talisman’s blessed essence"

"You lost et the idea You’re the respectable ot a real Noruns"

She looks right throughthat uys in the van had been a hit squad

"Come with me"

She takes me into a soundproofed side room After the noise of the factory floor, the roolass s suspended by wires froelic script cut into the floor, this time in the shape of a cross There’s an altar at one end of the room The other end looks like Frankenstein’s lab There are celestialdown from Heaven (I’d seen the reversetheater could be anything Part of a personal nuclear power plant or one of the alien rooel to say soed here, but I’m not about to be the first one to blink I turn and find her over by the altar, brushing Coently drops them into a trash can beside the altar, then bows her head and crosses herself Now I knohy Lucifer and his wild bunch ended up down below If I had to take my boss’s kid so seriously that I was required to salute his dandruff, I’d go stab-happy, too

"Have you been enjoying yourself since your return?" she asks with her back to me

"Not particularly"

Now she turns She sel s<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>