“We’re not friends, by the way,” Johnny said. “Just so you guys know, Crawhook was kind of an asshole.”
“We’ll take your word for it.” I took off down the corridor, Garry close behind. “I need the book.”
“Right. Sorry.” The skeleton gently lifted his toupee and slid The Book of Three Towers out before handing it to me.
“There’s a locating spell in here that’ll bring us to Wally.”
I flipped to a section conveniently called LOCATION SPELLS and read the spell to myself.
“Why aren’t you reciting a spell?” Garry asked when we got to the end of the cellblock.
“There’s a problem. I need a map of the prison for it to work.”
“You didn’t check the spell before we got locked up?”
“I’m winging it, Garry.”
We entered the hub. It was empty, but a commotion came from the end of the main corridor, the one leading to the outside world. A klaxon sounded. Silence, apparently, was no longer golden.
“How are we going to find Wally?” Garry asked.
“Easy.” I ran around the hub, shouting, “Wally! Wally! Wally! Wally!”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
“That’s why I have the detective license and you don’t.” I poked my head into the second corridor and shouted Wally’s name. No answer. A fire engulfed the third block.
“What if he’s with the others trying to escape?” Garry asked.
“Then we may be out of luck.”
I stuck my head in the fourth corridor and shouted, “Wally! Wally! Wally! Wally!”
“Be quiet,” a voice said.
“Wally, is that you? Come on, Garry.”
We raced down the stairs and entered the cellblock. All the doors were open, except one.
Why hadn’t he taken off like the others?
I opened the door.
Wally stood in the middle of the cell, his back toward us. The cell was twice the size of the others and filled with the comforts of outside life: a couch, bed, lamp, rug, wireless radio, and bookshelves. “For chrissakes, that was terrible,” he whispered.
Wally is a korrigan, a cross between a gremlin and a fairy. He stood barely up to my waist, his hands on his hips, his long brown ears drooping to his shoulders.
I was about to say something when it became apparent he wasn’t talking to us.
Admission time about Wallflower. He’s not the most reliable wizard in Pandemonium. Truthfully, he’s not even a good wizard. In fact, he’s pretty much a disaster as a wizard. More of a mountebank. A charlatan. A fraud, really. He makes bogus amulets and elixirs of life. Cons dragons out of their treasure hoards. Why do I rely on him? Wally adores me and he is quite brilliant, if he’s mostly a scam. And he really is a whiz at languages.
“Do you sincerely believe you can win the competition with such a deplorable performance?” Wally asked the air.
“Hey, Wally, it’s your old pal Jack. I’m here to bust you out.”
He still didn’t turn, but continued to talk to someone or something that apparently wasn’t in the room.
“You said you’ve been practicing, that you had it down,” Wally said. “Didn’t I say the competition would be fierce this year? The wendigo in cell block five has the voice of an angel.”
“Wally, who are you talking to?” I asked.
The wizard slowly turned and looked at me without expression. “You’re late.”
Before he had gotten pinched, Wally had been a heavyset little guy with an enormous potbelly. Now he didn’t have much more fat than Garry. His head, though, having remained the same size, looked way too big for his tiny, frail body.
“Did we walk in on something here, Wally?” I asked.
Wally’s eyebrows wiggled. “What’s your talent?”
“I can’t die.”
“That won’t do. Are you a song and dance man? I can really use one.”
“Wally, stop messing around. We disabled the magic inhibitor. We’re breaking you out of here. We need you.”
“I’m not going anywhere until we finish the talent show. They try to break you in here, but we won’t let them. Right, Lucius?” Wally turned to his left and looked up.
An awkward silence hung between us.
“We’ve been practicing for weeks,” he continued. “At least I have. I’m not sure about Lucius. He keeps getting his steps wrong. It’s a one-two-three. Shimmy-shimmy.” Wally did what can best be described as a jig.
Great, the wizard was bonkers. He must have been kept in solitary a bit too long.
“We win the talent show every year,” he said, “and I’m sure not going to change that. So if you can’t help, stay out of the way, ghoul. Your friend, by the way, is naked. This is a family-friendly show. Please, tell him to cover up.”
“This is your brilliant wizard?” Garry asked.
“He’s eccentric,” I said. “Give me a minute. Can I audition, Wally?”
“Do you have any talent?”
“Loads. I’m going to read a dramatic monologue, if that’s all right.”
“Wonderful.”
I opened The Book of Three Towers.
I didn’t feel very confident after the locating spell. Maybe transportation spells are easier. I hadn’t used that one too often―meaning never. What could go wrong?
I said the words, twirled my fingers, and―poof!―we vanished.
Funny thing about spells: They need to be done exactly right to work properly. Every “t” needs to be dotted, every “i” needs to be crossed. Apparently, I had forgotten to cross one of those i’s, because we landed in the middle of the warden’s office. In fact, we landed on top of the warden. From the sharp crack, I figure at least two of his ribs shattered. Believe me, I know the sound of ribs shattering. This might have been a problem, but when I stood, it became apparent the warden had already died, as had several of his guards.
“What the heck happened here?” Garry asked.
The dark elves’ bodies lay scattered around the room. One sprawled over the desk, another’s head had gone through a file cabinet. Green blood splatter covered the walls and the door had been smashed to crap.
“Zara happened,” I said.
“What are we doing here?” Wally asked.
“The talent show has been canceled, Wally,” I said. “On account of the prison going to shit.”
“Darn, darn, darn. We had been practicing for months.”
“Wally, we have a much better show, bigger stars, bigger audience, for you to join. Come with us.”
Zara ran into the room, panting, and threw two bundles at us―our clothes. “Get dressed. I do not need to see that.” She pointed at Garry’s naked body. We scooped up the clothes.
“Turn around,” I said while pulling off my prison garb.
Zara did.
“What the holy heck happened?” I asked.
She patted her hammer. “Revenge.”
It felt good slipping my fedora back on. Garry was back in his awful zoot suit.
“Are you with us, Wally?” I asked.
All hell had broken loose outside. Inmates stampeded past the office, shouting and howling in elation.
“If there’s no talent show, there’s really nothing holding me here. Lucius?” Wally tilted his head as if listening to someone. “He says he likes the skeleton’s wig.”
“Is that a yes?” I asked. Wally shrugged. “Good enough.”
We headed out of the warden’s office into a smoke-filled hub. Up ahead, a tremendous crash announced the prison’s front doors opening. Sounds like it’s time to get the fook out of here.
CHAPTER 9: Between the Devil and the Broken Sea
“So that went smoothly,” Zara said when we reached the Studebaker. Patches of dried blood coated her cheeks and forehead. A bruise darkened under her right eye.
I didn’t know if she had gotten injured when she battled the dark elves or when she tried to save the ferryman from the f
leeing prisoners. They ended up tossing him into the Broken Sea anyway. We commandeered the ferry after Zara ripped off an escapee’s nose and shoved it down his throat. Several of the inmates ran back to their cells. The others let us be on our way.
I worried the glamour hadn’t worked and Upper East Side thieves had gotten into the Studebaker. With a hand wave, Zara brought back the invisible car. I opened the trunk, my heart pounding. When I found Oswald still in his satchel next to the alchemist’s journal, I finally relaxed.
I slipped the satchel over my shoulder. “All in all, it went better than most of my missions. No one died.”
“No one except the warden, all his guards, and several prisoners,” Garry said.
“No one who mattered.”
“We can’t stand around here too long,” Zara said. “Where are we going?”
“That depends on what Wally finds in the journal.”
“I hope he’s as good as you say he is,” she said.
I swallowed hard. “He won’t disappoint us. Right, Wally?”
“We need to get back to the prison,” Wally said. “The talent show is tonight.”
“Wally, there’s not going to be a talent show, remember? The prison was overrun.” He stared at me. “We need you to translate a journal.”
“Oh, I stopped doing that years ago. There’s no money in it.”
“It’s very important that you help us. A lot is riding on it.”
“A lot is riding on the talent show. Lucius and I have been practicing for weeks.”
“Lucius?” Zara asked.
“He’s Wally’s special friend,” I said.
Zara scrunched up her face as if to say, huh?
I held up a hand. “Don’t ask.”
“You said this was the guy.” Zara pointed at him. “You said he was a great wizard.”
“He’s just a little off on account of his prison stay. He’ll be right as rain soon enough. Do you need a little dust, Wally? A little of the sparkly stuff?”
“Did you know Lucifer puts the ground-up bones of the dead in fairy dust? I have documents. Proof!”
“Is that a yes or no?”
“Stimulants don’t interest me. Dulls the third eye.” He tapped the middle of his heavily furrowed forehead.
“Stop wasting time,” Zara said. “Give him the journal.”
I handed Wally the journal. He took it and gazed at the front cover for a long while, turning it over in his hands as if he had never seen a book before. I was about to tell him that you need to open a book to read it, but he finally cracked it open.
“We don’t know the language it’s written in,” I said. “We need to know where the person who wrote the journal is located. We’re hoping the book will give us a clue.”
He gave the opening page a glance and handed it back to me. “I can’t translate it.”
Zara and Garry stared at me.
“I thought you knew every magical language in existence,” I said.
Zara and Garry kept glaring at me.
“It’s not written in a magical language,” Wally said. “It’s in code.”
“Can you decipher it?”
“Sure.” Wally snapped the book shut.
“Great.”
“It will take me no longer than seven days.”
“We don’t have seven days. We have a few minutes at best.”
“Then you’re out of luck. Can I go back to jail now?”
“Look, you don’t have to decipher the entire thing. We only need to find where the alchemist is keeping our souls.”
I flipped to the images of the soul vessels and showed them to the wizard. His eyes widened.
“Souls,” he said, in a creepy voice. “I’ve always wanted to get my hands on some souls. I can get a pretty penny for them, you know? There once was an alchemist who was buying them up for big bucks a few years back.”
“Are you fookin kidding, Wally?”
“I think his name was Alberic. Boy, did he love to journal.”
My hands shook from excitement. “Wally, I think this is our guy.”
“He was always going on about how difficult his lair―that’s what he called it―how difficult his lair was to find.”
“Wally, do you know where it is? Did you ever go there?”
“No, it was a secret lair in the Dire Wood. I would never go there.”
“The Dire Wood! Perfect!”
“Sorry, but I can’t help with the book. I’m terrible at cryptography.”
“Wally, I knew you could do it.”
Wally turned to Garry. “Is this zombie nuts?”
“Come on―let’s get in the Studebaker before something bad happens,” I said.
“Too late.” Garry pointed over my shoulder.
Shadows came up from the earth and dripped off the trees. They fell from the sky. They pooled on the ground. One by one, they rose into vague man-shapes, tall and thin as reeds.
Shadow men surrounded us.
The wind whistled and howled as a black car sped around a corner and came screaming down the road.
I flicked my lighter on and held it up. A gust blew it out.
“I don’t think that’s going to work here,” Garry said.
Zara conjured her hammer.
The car stopped, the door opened, and out slid a red-faced demon in a three-piece suit. Two sharpened horns jutted from the top of his head. He looked like the sort of accountant who’d have no problem helping you cheat on your taxes.
“That was quite the scene you all caused on Purgatory Island,” he said with a mocking bow.
I figured if I could make it to the Studebaker and throw on the headlights, I could take care of the shadow men. The demon would be another story.
“You broke about a dozen laws and are harboring a fugitive,” the well-dressed demon said, his face shiny and slick. “But we’re not concerned about all that.”
“And by we, do you mean Lucifer?” I asked.
“The Man has requested your presence at Lucifer Corp.”
The shadows glided toward us.
“We’re not going anywhere.” I flicked on my lighter again and cupped it with my other hand to protect it from the wind.
“He only wants to discuss a business proposition. No tricks. He’s the good guy here. If you don’t want the deal, you’re free to go.”
“Those shadow men tried to abduct Oswald.”
“Let’s talk at the tower. We have refreshments.” The demon flashed a slimy smile.
“We’ll meet you there,” I said.
“No. I’m afraid I’ll have to take you.” The demon took a step forward.
“Come any closer and the witch will bash in your skull.”
The demon held out his hands. “You can trust me.”
A screech came from the sky.
I looked up. At least a dozen long, emaciated beasts flew overhead, their ribs showing through their dull gray skin. The soul suckers, their beaks like curved ice picks, dove. But they were the least of our worries. Riding the creatures were Nazis, but not any Nazis. These fookers had been dead a good long time.
I was wondering when those bastards would show up. Certainly word had gotten out about our prison break.
The demon shouted to his shadow men. The shades rose to twice their size.
When the soul suckers neared the ground, the undead Nazis leaped off their mounts.
Zara attacked before their boots even touched pavement, knocking Nazis back into the sky with mighty swings of her hammer. I caught a wing in the face and went down. As I scrambled onto my arse, I glimpsed a Nazi woman with blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a little black cap at a rakish angle. The only live human in the group, she stayed atop her soul sucker. She winked at me and circled the fray like a Valkyrie waiting to escort the dead to Valhalla.
The soul suckers hung back, screeching like dying krakens. Shadow men engulfed the zombies. Soul suckers inhaled shadow men. A Nazi zombie came lumbering through the fray direc
tly at me. He smiled, exposing bleeding gums. He had muscles on muscles. His Nazi uniform stretched so tight over his body I expected buttons to shoot off like bullets at any second. I hated zombies. But I hated Nazi zombies more. I put up my dukes as Garry rattled like a pair of castanets. Wally watched it all like a spectator at Ebbets Field.
The big zombie kept coming, pushing other zombies out of the way. He launched a haymaker from the back of his ear. I sidestepped, but his knuckles still managed to brush the side of my head. It stung good and I fell into the posh demon’s arms. He dragged me off as a group of shadow men descended on the giant zombie.
The demon let me go when we reached safety. It looked like the shadow men had the upper hand―until the Nazi blonde yelled, calling in a second battalion of winged zombie demons from high in the sky. They looked like the infernal creatures that had died atop Monster Island during the battle over the Pandemonium Device. Ratzinger must have sucked up their souls and now used the beasts in his army.
The Brooks Brothers demon said, “You need to come with me now or we’re all food.”
Finding myself stuck between the undead and Lucifer, I figured Lucifer was probably our best bet.
“What kind of refreshments do you have?” I asked.
CHAPTER 10: An Offer You Can Refuse
“Welcome to Lucifer Corp.,” a disembodied female voice said as we entered the tower’s lobby, “a shining light in the darkest of places. No refunds, no returns.”
Lucifer Tower is the tallest and most famous of Pandemonium’s three towers, 102 stories of gleaming steel and glass. While the Bone Tower and Obsidian Tower are shrouded in mystery and supposedly unoccupied, Lucifer Tower doubles as the headquarters of the Lord of Hell’s business operations. Besides Devil Boy and Lucky Dragon, Lucifer manufactures a line of unicorn steaks and his own strain of fairy dust (which I had never tried due to its exorbitant price). He owned casinos in ShadowShade and Witch End, and Pandemonium’s only five-star hotel. He was the Boss of Bosses and generally kept Pandemonium’s most powerful gangs from each other’s throats.
We rode an elevator with the well-dressed demon, who had introduced himself as Eric Allen.
Dead Jack and the Soul Catcher: (Volume 2) Page 6