Killing Pretty
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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Copyright
HarperVoyager an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
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 authorâs 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
Dedication
To all the writing teachers who told me to quit.
Iâm still not listening.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my agent, Ginger Clark, and my editor, David Pomerico. Thanks also to Pamela Spengler-ÂJaffe, Jennifer Brehl, Rebecca Lucash, Kelly OâConnor, 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.
Epigraph
âI had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.â
âÂCHARLES BUKOWSKI, Ham on Rye
âThis isnât America, Jack. This is L.A.â
âÂLT. MAX HOOVER, Mulholland Drive
Contents
I BREAK HIS wrists so I donât have to break his neck.
He falls to his knees, but I donât think itâs the pain, though I make sure thereâs plenty of that. Itâs the sound. The crack of bonesx as they shatter. A sound that lets you know theyâre never going to heal quite right and youâre going to spend the rest of eternity drinking your ambrosia slushies with two hands.
Iâm 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 donât know which one this guy is, but I caught him spray-Âpainting 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. Iâm used to that by now. But this fucker was ruining my windows. Do these winged pricks think Iâm made of money? Iâm about broke, and hereâs this high-Âand-Âmighty 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 Âcouple of steps back and look around. No one on the street. Itâs just after New Yearâs, the floods have receded, and Âpeople are just beginning to drift back into L.A.
âWhat exactly is your problem?â I ask the angel. âWhy come down here and fuck with me?â
He rests his crippled hands on his thighs and shifts around on his knees until heâs facing me.
âYou had no right. You killed him.â
âI didnât kill God and you know it. Heâs Uptown right now putting out new lace doilies in Heaven.â
What really happened is a long story. Truth is, I did fuck over Chaya, a weasely fragment of God who, if heâd lived, would have ruined the universe. But I also left one good God part, Mr. Muninn, fat and happy and back in Heaven. But thatâs the problem with angels. Theyâre absolutists. I clipped a tiny bit off their boss and now Iâm the bad guy. Once angels get an idea in their head, thereâs no arguing with them.
Like cops and Âpeople who listen to reggae.
The angel narrows his eyes at me.
âYes, a part of the father yet remains. But you didnât have the right to kill any of him, Abomination.â
Damn. This old song.
âSee, when you start calling me names, it really undercuts your argument. Youâre not mad because I got rid of Chaya. Youâre mad because you know you should have done it, but you didnât. And what happened was a mangy nephilim had to step up and do the deed for you.â
The angel staggers to his feet and sticks his hands out in front of him, pressing his mangled wrists together.
âYou must pay for what youâve done, unclean thing.â
