by Shad N Freud
“Well, as your employer, I demand you tell me as soon as you can.” Carl glared at the copper man. Jeeves nodded and turned on his heel, sinking back into the floor to go back to his duties. Carl watched him go, then walked over to one of the golems. “Dearie, do me a favor, and go get me the hard copy of the mansion’s logs. Back to the creation, if possible. I want to know how often this coming and going happens and, if possible, figure out who did this. Can you do this without alerting Jeeves?”
The golem smiled and nodded before sinking into the floor herself. Five minutes later, the golem came back out of the floor, quivering with fear, and held up a single sheet of paper. It was written in blood and had only a single word on it. Carl instantly recognized the writing, as it was his own. It was written with a shaking finger and simply said, “DON’T.”
Carl felt very cold on the inside and burned the paper. What the Hell had he gotten himself into?
∞∞∞
The ocean off the coast of Sierra Leone in the middle of summer is a gorgeous place. Unfortunately, the political rat’s nest of despots knifing each other in the back that they affectionately referred to as a government made it a rather precarious place to vacation. A shame, Longinus lamented as he stared at the beaches from his yacht, waiting for an associate of his to arrive. As it rose from the depths, a garishly yellow submarine was impossible to mistake for anything else. Its captain was nearly as flamboyant, as a muffled song played that became easier to understand as the sub got closer to the surface. The owner was a British expat and really enjoyed the Beatles, so it was no surprise that the man had Yellow Submarine on a constant loop. Longinus smiled as he shook his head and tossed a line down to the submarine to tie off to the yacht that might as well have been a pier.
“Lonnie! Permission to come aboard?” the captain of the Goldfish asked after shimmying up the line. Longinus rolled his dark eyes and nodded. Captain Caspian whistled down to his ship and the hatch closed itself, so the music silenced.
A bit of an oddity, the submarine was an old German U-boat from the second World War that the wily young elf had salvaged off the coast of Japan right after it was scuttled. Caspian had then worked for months to make her seaworthy, cobbling together the needed systems to make the prototype work again as well as patching together enchantments and integrating components from a Jameson derelict he’d found off the coast of France. The finishing touch had been to restore the original paint job, which had cost him a lot of cash as the paint contained actual gold. Upside? No barnacles. He’d also found the remnants of the runic scheme imprinted on the outer hull but needed an extensive drydock to institute it, making the vessel able to go invisible while under water. The Captain had recently affected a pirate’s costume, complete with a flintlock pistola. “So, who’s the mark this time?”
Longinus smiled, his bright white teeth contrasting greatly with his coffee colored skin. “Caspian, you old dog, we will be having guests shortly. One of whom I know shall be of particular interest to you. It’s your old friend, Cardinal Carl Beaumont.”
Caspian’s smile and jaunty tone evaporated like 100% isopropyl alcohol. “You’re turning my crank, right? Come on, Lonnie, be serious. I turned down customers that were willing to pay up front for a tour of the merfolk village off Cote d’Ivoire to be here, and I don’t need this crap right now. So, come on. Who’s the schmuck that wants a trip into the briny deeps?”
“I’m sorry my friend, but it is no joke. They will want to see the ruins, get the coins down there, and then come back up. I shall accompany them.”
Caspian tilted his head as he stared at Longinus incredulously. “You’re seriously going down there? But…I thought you couldn’t enter that blasted ship. I know you’ve been trying. Or are those diving suits you’ve been ordering by the pallet just for show?”
“Fuck you too, Cass. You and I both know I couldn’t before. As it is, I’ll just be going along for moral support and I will not be allowed to take the coins. Carl’s little group of cronies will have to be the ones to get them. But, by the end of their little mission, by the end of the year…I shall finally be free. I shall finally die.”
“Lonnie, you’re not making any sense. You told me your immortality was kind of, well, permanent. What changed?”
“I had a visit from Baal, the Archduke of Purgatory. Not precisely the most gracious guest as he turned up unannounced. To be fair, he did get to see the business end of my spear up close, but that’s what you get when you just stroll into a man’s home like you own the place. Anyways, he came to visit, told me about Cardinal Beaumont’s interest in my coin collection, and gave me a damn dossier stating there’s a Prophecy with a capital P. And, should I help in a small way, I can finally be rid of the mortal coil. So, until they’ve got the rest of the damn coins, I’ll be giving them a hand. And for now, I’ll need your sub. I’ll be paying up front for the trip.”
Caspian shrugged as he rested his palm on the butt of his pistola. “Personally, mate, I’d rather take the immortality. That said, as an elf, kind of already have it. You being human…well, I guess you just weren’t made for living by the century instead of the year. Also, two millennia would be a long time, I suppose, and things have no doubt gotten boring. Hell, I’m only three hundred and I’m already getting bored with this whole pirate gig. Might take up being a soldier for a bit. So, Carl bloody Beaumont is going to be a passenger aboard the Goldfish, hey? I’ll need to prepare it for him.” Caspian’s smile took on a slightly sadistic bent as he gently rubbed the pommel of his pistola. “Need to go make sure the accommodations are extra comfortable. But first, just how much is this job paying?” Caspian asked as he took a nice long pull on the flask of grog he grabbed from his belt.
“Hundred million. In gold bullion,” Longinus said as he looked at his nails. Caspian did a spit-take as he did his best not to choke to death on the booze he’d been drinking.
“A hundred million dollars? Are you high?”
“Not right now. I was going to smoke a bowl in a bit. Why?”
Caspian rubbed his temples as he considered just how much money he was about to make. The changes he’d been wanting to implement in the Goldfish would eat up a large amount of that cash, but it would definitely be worth it. “Not that I don’t trust you, but I need to see the goods.”
Longinus smirked and pointed down into his hold. He flipped a light switch and the entire room gleamed with a golden light.
Caspian’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears. “It’s just so…beautiful.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The sun shone brightly as a private jet came in for landing, cutting off a flight trying to take off. Carl rolled his eyes as he lit a fresh cigarette and waited for the maniac he knew was taxiing his way to a stop. The plane’s door opened and one of Jean-Louis’ people hopped out of the plane, covered head to toe with tight fitting clothes and face obscured by a full helmet. She gestured them inside as she covered their entry and finally joined the group in the plane.
Zeke grabbed the armrests of his seat tightly enough to leave permanent groves in the wood, the lighter colored scales on his face looking a little paler than usual. Carl patted the big guy on the shoulder and handed him a tube of Dramamine. “It’ll help. Trust me.”
Carl looked towards the cockpit and smirked as the door flew open, Jean-Louis strolling into the passenger compartment. He smiled pointedly as he snapped his fingers and the plane’s intercom began playing Toto’s Africa. “Carl! We’re going to Africa!” He pulled out a small vial of cocaine, poured a bump out onto his hand, and snorted it before pouring out another. “Whoo! Fuck yeah! Alright, bitches! Let’s get this show on the road!” The door sealed, and Carl took his seat as Jean-Louis skipped back to the cockpit to fire up the plane’s engines.
As was his custom, Jean-Louis cackled madly as he cut off a plane trying to take off, leading air-traffic control to curse loudly over the radio in Chinese as the small jet barreled down the runway, the extra engines already d
eployed as Jean-Louis refused to give the demons a chance to harm his plane. The plane hit Mach three after climbing above the typical flight ceiling. The flight from Hong Kong to Sierra Leone went by without any issues, other than Zeke losing the battle with air sickness yet again. Jin rubbed the big lizard’s back as he filled a second airsickness bag while Cenere bobbed his head under a pair of headphones, writing down new music on specially made vellum, tying runic script to musical notes to function as a mnemonic device.
Carl smirked as he watched Cenere generally ignore the women on the plane save one. Camilla was snoring softly next to the tiefling and whenever he wasn’t working on one song or another, the boy was glancing at the gorgeous redhead to his left. Sachi was sitting in the seat ahead of them, sleeping fitfully. Carl was starting to feel a bit concerned about the group’s ninja, as the poor girl hadn’t been sleeping well.
Before he could consider that, the door to the cockpit opened and Jean-Louis stormed into the passenger section, grabbing Carl by the collar and dragging him to the back of the plane. “You’ve got some friggin’ nerve, Carl! Do you know what’s happening on the ground in Sierra Leone right now?”
Carl growled as he rubbed his temples. “Let me guess. Demons, right?”
“Yes!” Jean-Louis snarled, his fangs glistening in the dim light. “And there is no fucking way I’m putting down in that mess. So, you’ll need to bail out or I’m landing elsewhere. No amount of money is worth a suicide mission.” Carl looked down at the hand holding his lapel, and Jean-Louis set him down, taking a deep and cleansing breath. Granted, vampires don’t actually need to breathe and most of the older ones tended to forget to blink. But Jean-Louis was a youngster, only having been dead for a century, and still gave in to vestigial behaviors. “I’m sorry, Carl. It’s just…you’ve had me fly some real doozies before, but this one takes the cake. Luckily for you, this plane has an airlock. When we’re over the runway, I’ll have you guys chute out and then I’m out of here.” He brushed Carl’s collar off and straightened the taller orc’s coat before making his way back to the cockpit.
Carl went back to his seat and tried not to laugh as he saw Cenere trying to figure out how to handle Camilla’s head being in his lap. She’d laid down in her sleep, her face separated from the tiefling’s family jewels by a couple layers of cloth, and he was fighting desperately to not develop an erection. Carl felt the plane start to slow down as several of the extra engines kick offline and retracted into the plane. This woke Camilla up and Cenere breathed a sigh of relief as the brutal young woman sat up, blushing slightly as she realized where her face had just been. Zeke was fiddling with his prayer beads, thanking Buddha for getting him through another trip on the blasted machine that claimed his stomach contents as payment.
Carl tossed everyone a parachute. “Air drop, folks! We’ve got demons on the ground. We’re jumping off here.”
Zeke threw on his extra-large parachute as the rest checked each other’s chutes, then made their way to the door. A divider rose up, separating the rest of the plane from the temporary airlock, and the door opened. Carl drew his pistol and lunged out of the airlock, followed by Cenere and Camilla, then Sachi, and then Jin who had eschewed the parachute, choosing to use a flight spell instead. The last to jump out was Zeke, who roared in challenge as he leapt into the open air.
Down below, at the airstrip they were supposed to land on, there was a fire fight occurring between the local military, backed up by the UN peace keepers tasked to protect civilians in the area, and a veritable legion of the undead with vespids the size of mountain lions descending upon the defenders and tearing them apart with their vicious mandibles. Vespids flew hither and yon, attacking the defenders on the ground from above, and took little notice of the parachutists coming in for a landing. Despite that fact, Carl smiled as he watched Camilla launch 25mm grenades into massed groups of lesser demons and Jin dive like a Peregrine falcon to pepper the demons with fireballs.
Zeke looked frustrated, as he still eschewed guns. He grabbed his flask full of corn liquor, took a deep pull, and waited. Sachi screamed in fury as she whipped her SAW left and right, showering the demons below with spent brass and hot lead. Cenere sang Danger Zone as a hail of ephemeral steel pierced and punctured the abyssal horde below. Carl himself had drawn his baton and pistol and waited to land.
The demons finally looked up as the group landed and cleared an area when the liquored-up lizard started stabbing, hacking, and slashing any demon foolish enough to get too close while the rest began exterminating the chaotic masses with extreme prejudice. Carl laughed a deep belly laugh as Cenere ended one song and moved on to the next, a song by one of Carl’s favorite musicians. Jin conjured some dancing violins and stringed instruments and the group grew stronger, more powerful, more destructive as they assaulted the demons; the sharp trill of the violin backed Cenere’s rendition of When you’re Evil by Voltaire perfectly, the notes gaining power from his voice and literally scything their way through the demonic attackers. Some were cut in half, others simply wounded as the aetherically charged blades of sound tore through the enemy.
The demonic captains gave pause as they watched the audio massacre as well as the crazy woman cackling maniacally as she lobbed 25mm death into the crowd. The gnat that unleashed fiery death on their fellows caused them to grow more wrathful, ordering the vespids to focus on the little guy. The lizard would have been a weak link were he not acting like a living blender, pureeing the demons that didn’t clear out quickly enough. The lithe ninja-like woman flashed blade and subgun, wasting anything she saw. Leaving Carl, who was humming along to the hymn the tiefling belted out, crushing and shooting the demons nearest him as he worked his way outward.
The defenders on the ground cheered as they too grew more confident and turned their hopeless positions into multi-pronged pincer attacks, working their way towards the burgeoning pocket of dead demons. One enterprising captain, a particularly vile balrog, pointed to Carl and challenged him to single combat. The demonic horde halted their attacks and Jin breathed a sigh of relief, taking a breather to incinerate the demons closest to him before zipping back to the group, his spell reaching its end as he landed gently on Zeke’s shoulder, breathing heavily.
“Where do they keep getting these damn things from? It’s like someone accidentally added extra zeroes on a bulk order,” Jin panted, staring at the shifting unwashed masses of demons, chittering and squelching at each other as they waited for Carl to answer.
He looked up at the Balrog, all twenty feet of him, and nodded. “Sure thing. I’ll be your Huckleberry.”
Jin facepalmed as he shook his head. “Tombstone, Carl? Really?”
Carl glared at Jin. “How many damned movies did you watch at the monastery? I thought Oracles were supposed to be an austere bunch!”
Jin rolled his eyes. “I use movies, fire, and live performances as my focus, you jerk!”
The Balrog watched the by-play with confusion as lesser demons moved out of the way. He actually scratched his head as he took long, ponderous steps forward, drawing an immense greatsword as long as a city bus. He kept striding forward as the two bickered, then shrugged and swung his mighty blade with both hands, seeking to cut the orc-thing in half where it stood.
Carl caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and dodged out of the way, rolling to his feet with a predatory grin. “Now, now, now…no need to get impatient, beastie. Come on then. Bring it on, demon!” Carl lunged forward, dodging a second sword stroke as he ran, getting inside the massive demon’s reach and running between his legs, shooting upward into the loincloth of the greater demon and informing the demon of the fact that Carl was using fragmentary rounds by destroying the demon’s large testicles with white-hot shards of metal.
Carl lowered his gun to ankle height and switched the pistol to automatic fire, shredding the demon’s Achilles tendon as he strode past, causing the demon to keel over. He ran up the demon’s spine, placed his pistol against the ba
ck of the Balor’s head and emptied a magazine’s worth of explosive rounds into the back of the immense demon’s skull, spraying hot, acidic blood everywhere. Carl strode off the demon’s back while reaching into his pocket. He tossed a brick of C4 onto the demon’s corpse and pulled out a detonator while walking back to his group to press the button. The demons that swarmed the greater beast to devour him and gain his power were reduced to a fine mist as the blast cleared a forty-foot radius, all the while Carl was focused on drawing his smokes, and lighting one with the still glowing barrel of his gun.
The remaining demons leered hungrily at the group and Carl leered right back, a rakish grin spreading across his face as he took a deep drag of his cigarette and let the smoke pour out of his mouth slowly. The demons slowly backed away, as the defenders shored up the pocket of safety, the few clerics among them raising defensive barriers. Jin roared in triumph, his aetheric aura rapidly expanding into the shape of a proud dragon, the roar becoming deeper as the demons began fleeing the field and disappearing back into the abyss that spawned them.
The leader of the defensive forces, a U.N. Colonel with a wrapped head wound, stepped forward and saluted. “Cardinal, I can’t thank you enough for your timely assistance. If you and your people hadn’t shown up when you did, we’d have all died for sure. When can we expect reinforcements? Our comms have been down for two days and we’ve been fighting these bastards tooth and nail, but it seemed like they were holding back, like they were waiting for something.”
“Colonel, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we were supposed to be landing on this airstrip and heading to our next rendezvous point to meet up with an asset we need to acquire. I’m afraid we’re not the people you ‘re looking for.” Carl reached into his pocket and pulled out his rune stone. “But, if you’ve got a doorway I can borrow for a few minutes, I can get you some supplies and a working comms system. Can probably get you a task force down here in a few hours.”