Killing Pretty

Killing Pretty
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A smart, kick-arse Urban Fantasy from a new master of the genre. KILLING PRETTY is the seventh book in the fantastic Sandman Slim series.James Stark has met his share of demons and angels, on earth and beyond. Now, he’s come face to face with the one entity few care to meet: Death.Someone has tried to kill Death – ripping the heart right out of him – or rather the body he’s inhabiting. Death needs Sandman Slim’s help: he believes anyone who can beat Lucifer and the old gods at their own game is the only one who can solve his murder.Stark follows a sordid trail deep into LA’s subterranean world, from vampire-infested nightclubs to talent agencies specializing in mad ghosts, from Weimar Republic mystical societies to sleazy supernatural underground fight and sex clubs. Along the way he meets a mysterious girl –distinguished by a pair of graveyard eyes – as badass as Slim: she happens to be the only person who ever outwitted Death. But escaping her demise has had dire consequences for the rest of the world . . . and a few others.For years, Slim has been fighting cosmic forces bent on destroying Heaven, Hell, and Earth. This time, the battle is right here on the gritty streets of the City of Angels, where a very clever, very ballsy killer lies in wait.

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HarperVoyager an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

ww.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015

Copyright © Richard Kadrey 2015

Cover designed by Crush Creative (www.crushed.co.uk)

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

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

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008121006

Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780008121013

Version: 2015-06-30

To all the writing teachers who told me to quit.

I’m still not listening.

Thanks to my agent, Ginger Clark, and my editor, David Pomerico. Thanks also to Pamela Spengler-­Jaffe, Jennifer Brehl, Rebecca Lucash, Kelly O’Connor, Caroline Perny, Shawn Nicholls, Dana Trombley, Jessie Edwards, and the rest of the team at Harper Voyager. Thanks also to Jonathan Lyons, Sarah Perillo, and Holly Frederick. Big thanks to Martha and Lorenzo in L.A. and Diana Gill in New York. As always, thanks to Nicola for everything else.

“I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.”

—­CHARLES BUKOWSKI, Ham on Rye

“This isn’t America, Jack. This is L.A.”

—­LT. MAX HOOVER, Mulholland Drive

He falls to his knees, but I don’t think it’s the pain, though I make sure there’s plenty of that. It’s the sound. The crack of bonesx as they shatter. A sound that lets you know they’re never going to heal quite right and you’re going to spend the rest of eternity drinking your ambrosia slushies with two hands.

I’m surprised to see an angel down here right now, considering all the cleanup going on in Heaven after the recent unpleasantness. Still, there are sore losers and bad winners in every bunch. I don’t know which one this guy is, but I caught him spray-­painting GODKILLER on the front of Maximum Overdrive, the video store where I live. I might have let him off easy if all he wanted to do was kill me. I’m used to that by now. But this fucker was ruining my windows. Do these winged pricks think I’m made of money? I’m about broke, and here’s this high-­and-­mighty halo polisher setting me up for a trip to the hardware store to buy paint remover. I give his wrists an extra twist for that. He gulps in air and makes a gagging sound like he might throw up. I take a ­couple of steps back and look around. No one on the street. It’s just after New Year’s, the floods have receded, and ­people are just beginning to drift back into L.A.

“What exactly is your problem?” I ask the angel. “Why come down here and fuck with me?”

He rests his crippled hands on his thighs and shifts around on his knees until he’s facing me.

“You had no right. You killed him.”

“I didn’t kill God and you know it. He’s Uptown right now putting out new lace doilies in Heaven.”

What really happened is a long story. Truth is, I did fuck over Chaya, a weasely fragment of God who, if he’d lived, would have ruined the universe. But I also left one good God part, Mr. Muninn, fat and happy and back in Heaven. But that’s the problem with angels. They’re absolutists. I clipped a tiny bit off their boss and now I’m the bad guy. Once angels get an idea in their head, there’s no arguing with them.

Like cops and ­people who listen to reggae.

The angel narrows his eyes at me.

“Yes, a part of the father yet remains. But you didn’t have the right to kill any of him, Abomination.”

Damn. This old song.

“See, when you start calling me names, it really undercuts your argument. You’re not mad because I got rid of Chaya. You’re mad because you know you should have done it, but you didn’t. And what happened was a mangy nephilim had to step up and do the deed for you.”

The angel staggers to his feet and sticks his hands out in front of him, pressing his mangled wrists together.

“You must pay for what you’ve done, unclean thing.”



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