Rusty Nails (The Dade Gibson Case Files) by Jason Brannon

don’t even remember how I got mixed up in all of this.”
    “You remember.”
    “The devil made me do it,” Edgemore said with a chuckle.
    “Stop tinkering with me,” Samael growled. “My patience is wearing thin with you.”
    “How about answering a question for me then?”
    Samael’s eyes narrowed. It was clear he was growing desperate. “Fine,” he said. “What?”
    “What made you even want to try the drug in the first place?”
    “It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out. I’m the angel of death. I’ve killed billions. And, yes, I know it’s my job, my place in the grand scheme of things. But it’s a depressing job at times. Have you ever looked into the weeping eyes of a young mother after you’ve taken her newborn? Have you ever seen the way children cry when they learn their father won’t be coming home again? Do you know how hard it is to watch the unnatural process of parents burying their children? There are times when my job is more of an injustice than a necessity, and I feel guilt just like anyone else. I heard murmurings about the drug, and thought it would be worth a shot. Guilt is a powerful master, you know?”
    Lilith stared at Samael from across the table, her eyes burning with what might have been anger or desire. For a moment, the death angel wasn’t sure who exactly was staring at him: Edgemore or Lilith. Then Edgemore took over. “That was more honest than I was expecting from you. Because of that, I’ll let you in on something.”
    Samael took a deep breath. It was clear he was relieved that his little confession had done as he had intended and established a small measure of trust between him and Edgemore. “Lucifer’s disappeared,” Edgemore said from somewhere deep within Lilith.
    “I haven’t heard anything about that,” Samael said, not bothering to hide his disbelief.
    “You wouldn’t have. The demons are trying to keep as much havoc stirred up as they possibly can so that no one will notice anything is amiss.”
    “That would make sense,” Samael conceded. “But what does that have to do with me?”
    “I don’t know exactly,” Edgemore admitted. “But it seems like an odd time for the angel of light to go missing. Here you are in the midst of a second war in heaven and the originator of the first just up and disappears.”
    Samael scowled. Edgemore had a point.
    “I’ll keep that information under my hat,” Samael said. “But you know what I’m after. I want to know where you stashed the Rusty Nails.”
    “I can’t remember.”
    Enraged, Samael snatched Lilith up from her chair and pressed his nose against hers, looking deep into those green eyes for some glimpse of the possessing spirit. Yet all he saw was the frightened look of an animal trapped in the sights of a hunting rifle.
    Tired of playing this game, Samael unzipped his leather pants and urinated on the heap of bones. Lilith screamed as the chalky remains began to smoke and sizzle like tiny animals dropped in vats of acid.
    “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” Edgemore screamed. “Just don’t do that again.”
    “I’m waiting.”
    “It’s buried in the wall of my crypt. I left explicit instructions for the marble works and the glass company to add a little compartment inside my vault where the stash could be hidden. I lined the compartment with lead so you wouldn’t be able to sniff it out.”
    “See,” the death angel said with a devious smirk on his face, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
    Excitedly, he bagged the bones up in the burlap sack and watched as the gleam left Lilith’s eyes in a flash of quicksilver.
     

 
    Chapter 17
     
     
    Samael waited until Lilith had been escorted from the junkyard before losing his composure. The fallen watched as Samael tore the seats out of an old Plymouth and heaved them angrily at the stacks of wrecked automobiles. Several of the stacks fell with a deafening crash. Nobody moved when Samael wrenched away the Plymouth’s