Dead Jack and the Soul Catcher: (Volume 2)

by James Aquilone

  “Jack, it doesn’t mean anything.” Zara patted me on the back. “I’m sure your soul is somewhere out there.”

  I didn’t need my soul. I’ve solved hundreds of cases without it. I saved the world. What did I need a soul for?

  I needed only one thing. Dust.

  I could always count on the sparkly powder. It always picked me up. Made me feel alive, even on my darkest days. Then I remembered Lucifer’s yellow powder in my pocket. Third Circle. The most powerful (and expensive) dust in Pandemonium.

  As I removed the baggie, I felt another pang of hunger. My body burned with an unquenchable fire.

  “Come on, Jack. We don’t have time for this,” Zara said. “We have to stop those Nazi bastards. Give me that shit. Dust is for losers.”

  “In a second.”

  Zara tried to snatch the dust from me, but I pulled it back.

  “Don’t fall apart on us,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we need you.”

  Zara moved toward me. I ran deeper into the woods, and she chased after me.

  “Jack, goddammit, don’t take that dust!” Zara screamed. “I’m serious.”

  I shambled like the dickens, hopping over grabbing vines and tree stumps. The shadows deepened in this part of the wood and the wind made funny sounds.

  When I figured I had enough distance between us, I poured out the dust on my fist and took three quick bumps. I leaned against the corpse of a tree. Zara caught up with me. She wore an expression of infinite disappointment. I stared at her for what seemed another infinity. Her face changed, stretching apart like taffy. Her body undulated like waves of heat.

  She repeated, “Oh, Jack, oh. Oh, Jack, oh. Oh, Jack, oh.”

  If I had a heart, it pumped like a mighty steam engine. My body prickled as if covered with fire ants. Who the fook needs a soul when you have fairy dust? I was alive!

  The Dire Wood melted away, and I found myself standing in a bright place. Clear blue sky. Yellow sun. Fat white clouds. Dozen of shark women stood before me, dancing the Charleston. They hopped and shimmied on their fins and waved their human arms.

  Dance with us, Jack.

  I had never had dust like this. This stuff was the real deal.

  I’m not a good dancer.

  We’ll teach you.

  Do you know where my soul is?

  The shark women flipped up their seaweed skirts. Like what you see?

  I ran. No shambling. I ran with power and grace, on human legs.

  I moved through a city. Not Pandemonium. Tall buildings crowded the streets. New York City. I stood in the middle of Broadway. Ticker tape covered the ground, as if a great parade or party had rolled through only minutes before. A block ahead, I spotted a woman in a yellow sundress, her long blonde hair waving in the wind as she swiftly turned the corner.

  I thought I recognized the woman and ran toward her, shouting her name, though I couldn’t understand it in my mind. As I ran, the sidewalk grew longer and I couldn’t gain any ground. Wait! Wait! Wait! I shouted. Have you seen my soul? But I knew she couldn’t hear me.

  I stopped. My surroundings shifted to a dark place, an underground place of stone and fire.

  I looked up at Lucifer descending from the shadows. He must have been a hundred feet tall and no longer wore golf clothes. He was naked, his body bright red and hairless. His cloven hooves stamped the ground.

  That was some good shit I gave you, huh?

  I think I’m in heaven.

  The devil laughed and laughed like I just told him the greatest joke.

  Is it true you’re God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit?

  I think you have me mixed up with someone else.

  I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

  You’re just having a bad trip, Jack. Just keep walking.

  I didn’t realize it, but I was moving. I looked down at a rainbow beneath my feet. Above me, the red and starless Pandemonium sky.

  A leprechaun came skipping toward me. He sang a jaunty tune.

  Once there was man named McSweeney…

  My old dealer Fine Flanagan walked beside me.

  Didn’t I eat you once?

  You sure did. How did I taste?

  I’m not going to lie. You were delicious.

  That’s all that matters then. Life is too short to sweat over eating a dear old friend. I guess it’s my fault for tasting so yummy.

  Did I eat your soul, too?

  Leprechauns don’t keep their souls in their bodies, dummy. It’s too dangerous.

  I have to go now. I have to walk.

  Don’t wear out your feet. The lep skipped past me.

  I crested the rainbow and descended the far side. A rumbling stirred behind me. When I turned, a giant Oswald-shaped boulder, rolled toward me. I sprinted with everything I had. My thighs ached and strained. In an instant, I stood motionless. I lifted my legs, but glue covered them. Though I tried harder to move, I couldn’t get unstuck. I lifted my legs higher and higher, but the glue rode up to my thighs. The Oswald boulder steamrolled over me, and stopped a few feet away. I stood.

  Really, Jack? I’m gone a few minutes and you’re already getting high?

  Even in my fever dreams, you nag me?

  You need nagging. I could do much worse.

  You’ve been gone longer than a few minutes.

  I’ve been by your side all this time, haven’t I?

  But that wasn’t really you. You were sleeping.

  The giant Oswald frowned a giant frown.

  My soul is gone.

  Then find it.

  I have no idea where to start. It can be anywhere.

  You know better, Jack. Think. You’ve known for a long time, but you didn’t want to admit it. You can be a stubborn fool.

  No. No. No.

  I had returned to Room 731. Naked. Lying on a steel table. Inside a clear body bag. I looked down at myself.

  Ratzinger stood beside a machine with many pumps and moving parts that made sucking noises. He was saying, “We did it! We finally did it!”

  Pain washed over me. Excruciating pain. Like I had been skinned alive and dropped in a vat of acid. Then nothing. Numbness. Emptiness. A small ball of light left my still body, sucked up into a hose connected to the machine, and floated away. The machine whirred and whistled and then I floated back into my body, but still felt nothing. My view shifted to looking out from my real eyes, through the plastic body bag.

  Ratzinger hovered over me, his grotesque smile inches from my nose. “Welcome back. I am happy to see you are still with us, mein cow-boy.”

  I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I stood in water up to my waist.

  The shark women circled me, their gray fins cutting the water like sickles. One popped her head over the surface. Georgina, the shark woman who saved me from the Broken Sea, said, You should listen to the homunculus, sweetie. He’s a lot smarter than you. Cuter too. She smiled a horrible smile, showing off her dagger teeth.

  I waded until I came to the shore. I walked across the beach. The instant my foot hit sand, the world changed, leaving me ascending a staircase in the sky. I looked down at Manhattan. Not ShadowShade, but honest-to-goodness New York City. Exactly as I had left it, no demon cabbies or vampire bankers. No werewolf police officers. Only humans. I thought of the woman I couldn’t catch. I tried to remember her name.

  You want to go back? Oswald’s voice boomed from the heavens.

  Of course. But not like this.

  If you want to go back, you have to go inside.

  Inside where?

  Find me.

  Where are you?

  The Obsidian Tower.

  When this is all over, we’re going to have a long talk.

  Jack, it isn’t going to be easy. The interior of the tower is in the fourth dimension.

  So what? That’s only one more dimension than usual.

  Hurry or there’ll be no more talking for anyone.

  This changes nothing. I still may thr
ow you out of the agency.

  Remember, Jack, you don’t have to be a zombie if you don’t want to be.

  An interdimensional baby, his curly hair waving in the breeze, floated by and gave me the finger. Unicorns goose-stepped beside the staircase. Ukobach, the fire demon, flew by jabbing his poker at me. I know Beezelbub, he shouted, and drifted away.

  Oswald’s voice: Hurry, Jack. They want me to suck up everyone’s soul in Pandemonium.

  I still hate you, Oswald.

  I know.

  When I reached the top of the staircase, a red kraken roared up from the depths, its tentacles flailing. It opened its mouth, and kept opening its mouth until it filled the entire sky. I stepped inside and slid down the kraken’s smooth-as-glass tongue. I screwed my eyes closed, raised my arms over my head, and yelled, Whee!

  When I opened my eyes, Zara’s face stood inches from mine. “Where am I?”

  “Right where you’ve been for the last half hour.”

  “We have to go to the Obsidian Tower. That’s where they’re holding Oswald.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I stood, straightening my hat. “Fairy dust has never let me down before.”

  “I have one word for you: rehab.”

  “And put your damn clothes back on,” Wally said to me.

  I looked down and, to my horror, I wore my zombie birthday suit.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You just started ripping off your clothes and screaming for Oswald,” said Zara. “It was a heck of a sight.”

  “This has been fun,” Wally said, “but Lucius and I have had our fill of adventure.”

  “I admit there have been some bumps in the road,” I said.

  “I wish you two the best of luck, but prison isn’t so bad. Three squares a day, and all the time to read. I’m too old for Nazis and fairy dust freakouts. Besides, you only needed me to translate your book, and I did that.”

  “Thanks for the help, especially you, Lucius. You saved our necks back there.”

  “You’re welcome,” said a deep, baritone voice that nearly gave me a heart attack.

  Wally held out his hand, and an invisible hand took his. They sauntered away.

  “And then there were two,” I said. “That is, if you’re still with me?”

  “I couldn’t abandon you now,” Zara said. “You’re like the saddest guy in the history of Pandemonium at the moment. Besides, I haven’t gotten to kill the Duke yet.”

  I dressed and we headed northeast to the Obsidian Tower and certain misery.

  CHAPTER 16: Welcome to Nazi Town

  Darkness spread as we trekked out of the Dire Wood. The dead trees, wooden corpses frozen in crime scene poses, crowded the narrow path. Black vines, like hairy snakes, twined over the trees and ground. The wood seemed to press in on us. Zara remained on high alert, crouching with her hammer in hand, scanning the area for predators. I lit a hellfire stick and listened to cryptid paws scratching over dry leaves. When the creatures howled, a cold fire licked up my back.

  “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” I asked.

  “I’m making an educated guess,” Zara said.

  “This is your hometown, isn’t it?”

  “I haven’t been here in many years.”

  “But you know the place?”

  “I was born in New Salem, just south of here. We would sneak into the Dire Wood for short periods, but we never went very far. It’s not safe.”

  We walked on, led only by shadows.

  Something large bayed, a deep, guttural call. It was close.

  “What are those things?” I asked.

  “Wendigos. If you stay on the path, they probably won’t attack. They’re cowards.”

  “Then we should get along fine.”

  I thought I saw eyes glow behind a tree stump. I shambled a bit faster.

  The path widened where the edge of the wood met a plain of deep green grass. I had never seen such a lush and idyllic scene in Pandemonium before. The sky burned a bright pinkish-red. It shimmered above our heads like hellfire.

  I couldn’t enjoy the view. Something pounded inside my head. It must have been the comedown from Lucifer’s dust. Nasty, powerful stuff.

  “Hard to believe the Nazis live here,” Zara said. “This might be the most beautiful spot in Pandemonium.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “But I’d rather be in a formaldehyde bar right now.”

  The Obsidian Tower rose like a giant shard of black glass from the meadow straight ahead. To the right sat Abracadabra Hill, a smooth brown hump in the distance.

  We crossed the plain in silence.

  Right about now would usually be the time I’d be thinking of a plan, but my head felt ready to split in half. I tried to communicate with Oswald telepathically, but he didn’t answer. Or couldn’t. Was that really Oswald who spoke to me in my dust dream? Or had that come from my imagination? If you want to go back, you have to go inside. What the heck did that mean? What did any of it mean? I’ve known for a long time? What did I know? And the kicker: Remember, Jack, you don’t have to be a zombie if you don’t want to be. When you don’t have a soul, can’t die, and crave flesh, what else does that add up to? I can do the fookin math. It wasn’t a matter of not wanting to be a zombie. It was a matter of undeniable facts. Ratzinger stole my soul, turned me into a monster. I’ve been making the best of it ever since. I didn’t need a homunculus to shame me for what I had no power over. But, Jack, you’ve controlled your flesh craving―more or less―and have become Pandemonium’s leading detective, I imagined Oswald saying. Maybe not the last part. I couldn’t think any more about this. I had Nazis to deal with.

  The plain ended at a plateau overlooking Nazi Town. We got down on our bellies and studied the layout.

  The tower stood in the northwest corner of the camp. It must have been a thousand feet high. Three squat buildings clustered together a short distance from the tower, resembling barracks or hangars. Smaller buildings and what looked like a town square sat off to the east. Three main roads cut through the camp, and a massive magic circle drawn in what looked like piles of sand surrounded the entire installation.

  “How are we going to get past the circle?” I asked.

  “It shouldn’t be a problem,” Zara said. “It probably only keeps out demons, thus allowing the humans to freely come and go.”

  “I’m not human.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “Neither are you. Not fully.”

  “I’m human enough and so are you.”

  “We don’t look like Nazis, so that will be a problem. We need to get our hands on uniforms.”

  “Which means we’re gonna have to get our hands dirty.”

  “There.” I pointed at an area near the edge of town where several cars and trucks sat behind a chain-link fence along the southern edge of the camp.

  We stumbled down a steep path on the other side of the plateau and stayed low to avoid detection. Several times, I nearly took a tumble on the rocky ground. As we got closer, I got a better look at the vehicles, including several German army trucks, circa WWII. Tanks, too. Lots of cars that looked like vintage BMWs and Mercedes. These Nazi bastards were recreating the Third Reich. Or would it technically be the Fourth Reich? What the hell was a Reich anyway? I’m sure something terrible.

  When we came to the edge of the magic circle, I asked, “What do you think it’s made of?”

  “Looks like cremains.”

  I looked closer. Chunks of bone and teeth dotted the ashes. “Same old Nazis.”

  “Neo my arse.”

  Zara knelt on top of the ash, spoke a few magic words, and touched the fence. The links melted like they’d been covered in acid.

  The voices of two men broke the silence.

  Before I crossed the circle, I prayed to the Great Unicorn not to be obliterated. Zara slipped inside the camp and encouraged me to follow. I closed my eyes, hopped over the circle, and tumbled throu
gh the fence.

  “See?” Zara whispered when I reached the other side. “You’re more human than you think.”

  We ducked behind a camouflaged truck. One of the men spoke in German, badly. His pal kept correcting him in English. “It’s not Der Katze ist weis. It’s Die Katze ist schwarz. Die.”

  “What’s der difference?” the first one asked. “You know what I’m trying to say.”

  I peered over the hood. Two Nazis in crisp suits smoked hellfire sticks against a snazzy black sedan. I crept back to Zara and whispered, “I’ll distract them and you come around the other side.”

  She nodded.

  I pulled my hat down over my eyes, tugged a Lucky Dragon from my pocket, popped it in my mouth, and lit it.

  The Nazis prattled on. The one on my left was a big, meaty guy with fists like clubs. The other was short and thin with a crooked jaw, like he took a wrench to the face a few too many times. Crooked Jaw wore mirrored sunglasses and grinned at me.

  I didn’t like him. “Mir geht’s nicht gut?” I asked as I swung around the sedan, the only German phrase I could remember on such short notice.

  The shorter one asked, “Who the fook are you?”

  “I’m looking to become a Nazi. I mean a neo-Nazi. Gotta keep up with the times, right? Where do I sign up? Who do I have to sieg heil to get a sweet uniform like you fellas?”

  “Did someone set you on fire?” the big one asked.

  I glanced out the corner of my eye at Zara stalking behind them. “There’s a funny story behind that actually. If we had more time, I’d tell you.”

  “Your cheek is missing,” Short Stuff said, a second before Zara’s hammer bashed in his temple, went straight through his skull, and smashed the big Nazi’s head, too. Two birds… Blood sprayed from their necks like a pair of busted fire hydrants. It didn’t ruin my suit. So much blood spatter covered me that it had become part of my suit.

  “Couldn’t you have done that a little neater?” I asked. “You know how the Nazis are about keeping their uniforms neat.”

  “Get their clothes off before someone sees us.”

  “I thought you weren’t that kind of girl, Zara.”

  “Funny.”