by M. D. Massey
Meanwhile, the sounds of battle—and Kiki’s non-stop cursing—raged on.
Dez shut the gate, latching it from the inside. “Okay, kid, what’s your plan?”
“It’s simple—we’re going to let Kiki inside the junkyard.”
The Jersey Devil pulled his cigar stub from his mouth, turning to face Larry with a look that said I was a dumbshit. “Larry, I thought you said this kid was smart.”
“I never said that,” Larry replied. “I just said he knew how to kill necromancers. He iced Kiki’s mentor, after all.”
The little devil creature nodded, giving me an appraising look. “That was you, eh? Damned impressive, taking that fucker out.”
“How’d you hear about it?” I asked, perplexed.
He chewed on his cigar stub and shrugged. “Being the outcasts of the supernatural world, we cryptids tend to stick together. La Onza’s well-known among our kind, so…”
“Makes sense,” I said.
Dez frowned and nodded. “Anyway, how’re you gonna kill that bitch?”
“Oh, right,” I answered, distracted yet again by the weirdness of it all. “I’m going to let her think that she’s broken through my wards, then I’m going to light those puppies up and trap her in here.”
“Ah, I get it,” Larry said. “Then we lock the place up and throw away the key. Brilliant!”
“Um… no, Larry,” I said. “This junkyard employs a lot of people, so I need to keep it operational. Besides, she’d break out eventually anyway.”
“But we’d be long gone by then. I fail to see an issue with that plan.”
Dez cracked his neck loudly. “Stop being a putz, Lar. Sheesh.”
“Anyway, once we get her inside, we’ll have the advantage. There’s just one of her and four of us, plus I know this place like the back of my hand.”
“Seems reasonable,” Dez replied. “I like it.”
“I still say we should lock her in here,” Larry groused under his breath.
Just then, Vinny came sailing over the fence, landing hard enough in a pile of discarded tires to bury himself. Moments later, a green, scaled hand shot out of the pile. “I’m fine, in case anyone wants to know. By the way, Kiki is flipping pissed, and she brought company.”
“What’s new?” Dez muttered. “Now, quit screwing around and go find Moe. Somethin’ tells me we’re going to need his creepy ass.”
Vinny extricated himself from the pile of tires, walking toward the warehouse as he complained under his breath. “Oh, I see how it is. Y’all wanna make a lizardman do all the hard work. Shit ain’t gonna be like this forever, ya’ know. One day, this lizardman’s gonna rise up, and…”
Larry, Dez and I stood in uncomfortable silence until Vinny’s voice faded into the distance.
“He’s still on that ‘fight the power’ kick?” Larry asked.
“It comes and goes,” Dez replied. “Every once in a while, I’ll point out that all cryptids are minorities, just to piss him off.”
“He is kind of pulling more than his fair share of the weight,” I proffered.
“Thank you!” Vinny shouted in the distance.
Dez hocked up a ball of phlegm and spat it out. “That’s just because he’s our starting pitcher. Trust me, once Kiki gets in here, things are going to go sideways and we’ll all have to do our part.”
There was a loud boom as the gate to the junkyard shook on its hinges, perfectly punctuating Dez’ point. “Looks like it won’t be long,” I said, checking the weaknesses in my wards that I’d left as a decoy. “Let’s get moving so we’re not standing here when she rides that pterodactyl corpse into the yard.”
As Kiki’s attempts to breach the gate grew in ferocity, we jogged past the warehouse toward the stacks. I had a few surprises planned for her there, not the least of which was the Druid Oak. It hated necromancy in all its forms, and I was sure it’d waste no time in helping me destroy the tiny necromancer and her pets.
I pulled up short in a clearing close to the Oak. Dez and Larry followed my lead, looking at me expectantly as Vinny came bounding up behind them.
Dez bit the tip off a fresh cigar, spitting it out before speaking. “Alright, kid—this is your turf, so it’s your show. Whazza’ plan?”
I glanced at Vinny. “Is Moe coming?”
“Yeah, he’ll be here. He’s still on the pot, but it sounded like he was finishing up. I didn’t get close enough to find out for certain, though. It’s like fucking Mogadishu in there. Lawd help anyone who needs to use those facilities for the next few days.”
“Um, that’s more information than I needed, but okay.” I made eye contact with each cryptid in turn. “I’ve dealt with necromancers before, and you guys have too, so I don’t need to tell you to watch your six. Necros love raising corpses behind their enemies, and the fucking dead’ll creep up on you before you know it.”
Larry nodded enthusiastically. “Don’t have to tell me twice. Can’t tell you how many times that crazy bitch snuck a stiff into our bed. I’d be slappin’ them cheeks, and all of a sudden, bam, there’s a fresh corpse trying to stick its finger up my ass. I—”
Dez slapped one of his small, clawed hands over Larry’s snout, clamping it shut. “Ya’ done?” Larry nodded. “Please continue, druid.”
“I’ll have that image seared into my memory for all time, so thanks for that,” Vinny muttered.
“You and me both,” I said, squatting as I started making chicken scratches in the dirt. “Now, here’s the plan. Vinny will draw Kiki and any of her heavy hitters into the yard over here. Dez and Larry will keep her distracted while I lock her in and work on permanently deleting everyone’s favorite zombie corgi.”
-What about me?- a creepy voice said in my head.
“Fuck, Moe!” Dez protested. “How many times I gotta’ tell you not to do that? It’s fuckin’ rude, like an invasion of privacy or some shit.”
“Sorry,” the demonic nightmare creature said in a high, whiny voice reminiscent of Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters. “It’s just easier, and you know I don’t like the way my voice sounds.”
“Don’t sweat it—telepathy will come in handy in the coming fight,” I said, even though I didn’t mean it. “You’re our air support. Stay close, kill anything that Kiki has in the air, and pull out anyone who gets in over their heads.”
“I can do that,” Moe said. “And sorry about your bathroom.”
38
At that, the gate gave way with a resounding crash, announcing Kiki’s entrance. And if that wasn’t enough to let us know she was coming, the crazy little weirdo magically enhanced her voice. It was as if someone had given a megaphone to Teresa Giudice after a long afternoon at the bar and a surprise guest appearance by Danielle Staub.
“Larry, you fucking low-life canine piece of shit, where are you? I’m gonna rip your tiny wrinkled balls off, shove them down your throat, and then pull ’em back up and make you eat ’em again! Nobody walks out on Kristina Katrina Esposito and locks her inside a Native American burial mound, you sorry excuse for a sixth husband—nobody!”
“Well, at least she avoids racially-sensitive language,” I said as Dez and I ducked behind the rusted cadaver of a late 70s Monte Carlo.
“Oh, thank heavens for that,” Dez replied with an eye roll. “It’s a huge comfort to know that she’ll eschew the use of racial epithets and gender-normative pronouns as her undead army eats our intestines like spaghetti.”
“Geez, dude, lighten up already,” Larry’s disembodied voice said from somewhere nearby. “The kid might be a bit of a hippy, but he’s just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Nobody says ‘hippy’ anymore, Larry,” I replied. “And if you say ‘hipster,’ I’ll kill you myself.”
Dez busted out laughing. “See, now that’s funny.”
“Har, har,” Larry said. “By the way, she’s here.”
I peeked over the car’s hood just in time to see Kiki enter the clearing astride her now grounded pterosaur. Follo
wing in her wake was a menagerie of animals—all dead, reanimated, and in various states of disrepair. Most looked as though they’d been roadkill that the tiny necromancer had raised on her way over, but I strongly suspected that more than a few Austinites were missing their pets this evening.
I counted at least a half-dozen dead deer, a few dead hogs and armadillos, a slew of cats and dogs, and a bunch of squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, and skunks thrown in for good measure. Moreover, there were hundreds of dead bats and birds fluttering around above our heads. And to round things out, Kiki had raised several rattlesnakes that were taking up the rear.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get weirder, a bull marched into the yard. From the looks of it, it was a full-grown male Santa Gertrudis, with a mature and unshorn set of horns, a missing eye, and a seriously nasty disposition. If I had to guess, I’d say it easily weighed two thousand pounds, give or take a few for various missing internal organs.
“Where the hell did she find a dead bull in the middle of Austin?” Dez asked.
“This is Texas,” I replied. “She probably found it in someone’s backyard.”
About that time, Vinny leapt over a stack of cars, hooting at the top of his lungs as he landed on the bull’s back. “Woo-hoo, I always wanted to be a cowboy!”
“Ride ’em, Vin!” Larry cheered, as Dez shook his head in embarrassment.
Immediately, the bull had a shit attack of the highest order, bucking and spinning and snorting in an attempt to get the lizardman off its back. Then, it was chaos. Dead animals scattered everywhere in an attempt to get out of the bull’s way, several went flying upon being kicked by the bull’s rear hooves, and even more were trampled underfoot.
This in turn spooked the pterosaur, who in its defense had probably never seen a lizardman ride a zombie bull before. That caused Kiki’s undead steed to back up until it stepped on one of the Oak’s roots. And that’s when things really went haywire.
Instantly, the Oak sent me an image of a raging storm, followed by that of a mama bear defending her cubs, followed by a tornado plowing across the plains. In other words, the Oak was pissed, and it was about to go down. I said the trigger word to slam my wards back in place so none of the undead animals could escape. Then, I took off at a sprint for the back side of the yard.
As they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
“Run, everyone—the shit is about to hit the fan!”
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Larry replied, his voice fading into the distance.
Dez, on the other hand, was living up to his reputation by putting his kangaroo legs to good use. He leapt from car to car, easily clearing thirty-foot gaps in a single leap. At first I thought he was running away from the fray. Then I realized he was stomping on random undead creatures with every leap, snapping necks and spines as he landed with those weird cloven feet.
“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” I quipped before looking back to see how the lizardman was doing. He was still riding the bull like a rodeo cowboy going for the eight-count, although the first eight seconds had already passed. Cupping my hands, I yelled to warn him of the coming carnage. “Vinny, get out of there—shit’s about to get real!”
“Aw, man, I was just getting the hang of this,” he yelled as he did a backflip off the bull onto a nearby stack of cars. He stood there for a moment, looking for signs of danger while batting away the occasional flying zombie creature that tried to sink its teeth into his thick, scaled skin. He looked at me, his hands raised questioningly. “What’s up, druid? I don’t see no—”
That’s when the ground erupted, all across the yard.
39
One moment, the ground was solid beneath Kiki’s pterosaur and the dozens of animals she’d raised. The next, hundreds of roots, vines, and plants burst from the ground, wrapping around random animals like boa constrictors, breaking limbs, crushing ribs, and snapping necks with abandon. It was then I learned that even undead creatures could shriek in fear, as a few dozen zombified animals cried out all at once.
I felt sorry for them, really I did—but this was for the best. They had to be suffering and in pain, being raised from the dead half-decomposed and with horrible injuries. Besides, I knew from my time in the Hellpocalypse that they likely only still possessed the lowest of brain functions. Thus, they probably weren’t even aware of what was going on, and their screams were merely an instinctive response to danger.
Knowing that still wouldn’t get their screams out of my head, though.
I observed the carnage from atop a car’s hood, picking off the odd undead animal that had managed to escape the Oak’s fury with careful shots from my Glock. In the distance, the bull put up a hell of a fight, but in the end, dozens of thorny vines pulled it into a dusty, scrapyard grave beneath the Earth’s surface. The pterosaur was about to suffer a similar fate from the looks of it, and Kiki grew even more livid as the great beast began to falter.
“Fuck you, you big freak of nature!” she shouted as she ran frantic circles around the pterosaur’s back. “You think you can take Kiki Esposito off the board, but I got a surprise for ya’, ya’ oversized houseplant.”
And at that Kiki turned around, lifting her tail and pointing her hind end at the vines shooting up from the ground around her mount. The zombie corgi barked, then a ball of sickly-green, phantasmic fire burst out of her ass at the vines. The virescent light enveloped the plant-life, and where it did, the vines and roots withered away.
“Did that crazy bitch just shit death magic out her ass?” Dez asked from across the yard.
“Huh. I was wondering how a creature with no hands cast spells,” I observed. “Gross, but strangely practical, if you think about it.”
“I can’t believe you hit that,” Vinny remarked drily from his perch atop a stack of cars to my right.
“Hey, it’s not like she did that in bed,” Larry said in his defense.
Clearly, Kiki’s plan was to free her mount so she could make her escape. The flying lizard’s wing was already being mended by eerie green wisps of energy, and Kiki’s necromantic ass magic was doing a fine job of forcing the Oak to keep its distance. Soon, the corgi necromancer had cleared enough space for the pterosaur to take flight.
If they got airborne, it would pose a serious problem, considering that the anti-necromantic wards I’d cast only covered about fifty vertical feet from the ground. That was plenty high enough to keep any stray undead animals in as we cleaned them up, but Kiki’s steed could clear that easily. The corgi released a few more balefire farts for good measure, then the pterodactyl flapped its wings and took off, rising in lazy circles that would soon take it up and over my wards.
“Druid, she’s gettin’ away!” Larry shouted.
“I can see that, Larry,” I growled.
-Is it time for me to jump in?- Moe’s creepy voice said in my head.
“Yes!” everyone said at once.
The only response we heard was a strange whistling noise that came from the skies above us. It rapidly grew in volume, changing from a high-pitched teakettle sound to the roar of a plummeting jetliner.
“What’s that?” Kiki asked, a note of concern in her voice as her eyes scanned the skies overhead. Then, she broke out in laughter. “Seriously, you’re relying on Moe to stop me? The only thing he’s good for is crop-dusting parties and carpet-bombing bathroom stalls. Puh-leze.”
“She’s one to talk,” Vinny said as he landed next to me.
“Is she right, though?” I asked. “Does Moe have this?”
“Oh, he’s got it,” Vinny replied with a sly, serpentine grin. He crossed his arms and pointed his chin at the sky. “Watch.”
“Hah, we’re almost over your wards, druid. Ya’ thought you were smarter than Kiki Esposito, but nobody’s bested me yet. Not even that worthless piece of shit they call the Dark Druid. Or, as I refer to him, deadbeat husband number three. I told that rat bastard, if you leave me, I’m gonna haunt you to the en
ds of the Earth, but did he listen—?”
At that moment, a huge black and red missile impacted both Kiki and the pterosaur dead center, doing about 300 miles an hour. The impact pretty much disintegrated the pterosaur and zombie dog both, pelting us with a rather nasty downpour of undead lizard and dog parts. The stench was unreal, instantly filling the yard with a smell not unlike a five-day-old roadkill skunk in July.
Moe came to a pinpoint stop, hovering in the air ten feet above the center of the yard. “Did I do good?” he asked in his high, meek voice.
“Perfect,” I said, wiping a piece of rotten pterodactyl guts from my face. I slung it off to the side, forcing a smile. “The Oak needed fertilizing anyway.”
“Now, why didn’t he do that the last time?” Vinny asked in an annoyed voice. “Coulda’ saved us a hell of a lot of trouble, not to mention that the bitch wouldn’t have come back for round two.”
Moe shrugged. “I had six bowls of three-bean chili for lunch that day, so you guys ditched me at that trucker plaza in South Amboy. Took me all night to find you, and when I did, she was gone.”
“Worth it not to smell that stench,” Dez said, wiping unidentified goop from his brow. “Worse than this mess by a mile.”
I glanced around, looking for the chupacabra who was the cause of the whole sordid affair. “Larry, you can come out now. She’s gone.”
“Oh, I know,” he softly replied from somewhere nearby.
“Are you cryin’?” Vinny growled. “’Cause if you are, I’m gonna kick your skinny rat ass all the way back to Jersey.”
“Yeah, he’s cryin’ alright,” Dez remarked.
“It’s just…” Larry replied with a hitch in his voice. I noted that he’d wisely chosen to stay invisible for the moment.
“Yes?” I asked, impatience creeping into my voice.
Larry sniffled loudly. “I just—I just wonder what that undead threesome woulda’ been like, is all. Now I’ll never know.”
“I’m gonna kill him,” Vinny said. “I swear it.”