Dead Jack and the Soul Catcher: (Volume 2)

by James Aquilone

  “I’d applaud,” I said, “but my hands are full.”

  Zara stepped toward the staircase. Flames shot up from the level below and smoke poured out of the tower like a Lucky Dragon factory had exploded below.

  “We need to get off this tower,” she said. “And we can’t go down there.”

  I peered over the edge and stared at the thousand-foot drop. “Oswald could make it.” I turned, holding up the ball of fluff. The Jupiter Stone’s glow faded. The little guy looked deader than ever.

  “Oswald doesn’t look like he’s going to be much help,” Zara said.

  “I can bring him back.”

  “How?”

  “I have our soul.”

  “Our soul? Isn’t it your soul?”

  “No. It hasn’t been my soul for a long time. He’s done much better with it than I ever did.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when this is all over.”

  I removed the soul egg from my pocket, cracked it open, and sucked up my soul. But I didn’t swallow.

  “Jack, wouldn’t you―”

  I held up a finger, cutting her off. I pried open Oswald’s mouth, leaned toward the homunculus, and blew into his mouth. His body filled with a bright purple light and then dissolved back to the color of a marshmallow. Oswald still lay in my hands, lifeless and unresponsive. I shook him. But he just jiggled like a bowl of gelatin.

  Was I wrong? I knew I shouldn’t have trusted hallucinations while high on dust. This whole time Oswald really was just a figment of my imagination. I finally understood what he meant when he said I’d known all along and couldn’t admit it. He was dead. Oswald was gone and never coming back.

  I should have listened to Gertie. No, I should have blown my brains out back in the dust den and saved myself all this trouble.

  “We have to go,” Zara said.

  I wiped the green goo off Oswald. “I’m staying.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Go without me.”

  “You’ll burn to ashes if you stay.”

  “Don’t you get it? Oswald’s dead. Really dead.”

  “Oswald’s been dead a long time. You tried, Jack. You did everything you could, but we have to get off this tower before it turns back to lava.”

  An inferno raged around us. The tower softened, its glass surface turning into goo.

  “He was more than my best friend,” I said. “He was―”

  Oswald’s limbs went rigid. His X eyes blinked. He coughed.

  “Finish what you were going to say,” the homunculus said in a sleepy voice.

  Something caught in my throat, and I couldn’t speak. I gagged. “I was going to say it took you damn long enough to wake up. We’re about an inch from death here.”

  “I’ve heard everything you’ve been saying.”

  “So? You know I’m a liar.”

  “And a dust head and a coward and my best friend.”

  “Don’t make me regret saving your life, Oswald. I can take my soul back any time.”

  “This changes everything, you know?”

  “You’re not going to let me live this down, are you?”

  Oswald smiled.

  “Guys, the fire?” Zara said. “I don’t want to interrupt the family reunion, but―”

  “Zara,” Oswald said. “How have you been?”

  “Hi, Oswald. Let’s catch up when we’re not in imminent danger of being burned to death.”

  “Oswald, can you still morph?” I asked.

  “I think I can do a lot more than that now,” Oswald said.

  “Don’t brag. It’s ugly.”

  I placed Oswald on the floor. He stretched his arms and legs, rolled his head around, arched his back. The Jupiter Stone flashed inside his chest.

  I shook my head. “Geez, he’s going to be impossible from now on.”

  Oswald spread out into a giant tarp. “Get on top of me.”

  As soon as we flopped down on top of him, Oswald curled up his body and enveloped us in a cushiony ball. “Hold on. We’re going over the edge.”

  The giant Oswald ball rolled. Me and Zara tumbled like a pair of dice thrown in a high-stakes game of craps. We banged into the edge of the tower, went over it, and floated weightless.

  “Oswald knows what he’s doing, right?” Zara asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  We plummeted a thousand feet in silence.

  My neck cracked when we hit the ground, but I only needed to pop it back in place. It didn’t help that we bounced a hundred feet in the air. We kept bouncing, each time a bit lower, me and Zara crashing into each other, until Oswald slammed into a somewhat-hard surface and stopped moving. He unfurled himself, releasing us before morphing back to his usual homunculus shape. We’d wound up at the bottom of a ditch a couple hundred feet away from the tower.

  “That was fun,” he said. “Want to do it again?”

  It dawned on me that Oswald might have lost a few marbles since he went into a coma.

  CHAPTER 22: Deal or No Deal

  Three quick explosions came from the east. Columns of black smoke blasted into the sky. Winged demons patrolled high over the camp. Every now and then, one would descend and a scream would follow. The roar of cannons and vehicles had ceased.

  Beleth rode his pale horse through the clouds in the middle of the sky. He flicked his wand from side to side, screams ringing out to the discordant beat of his infernal soundtrack.

  “If we can find a car, we can drive to Magus Cove and catch a ghost ship―a reputable ghost ship―off Witch End,” I said.

  “You want to take a ghost ship?” Oswald asked. “After our adventure in the Broken Sea, I thought you said you’d never travel in a ghost ship again.”

  “I’ve gotten much braver since you took your big nap.”

  “Hellstrom’s Mercedes is probably still there,” Zara said, “but don’t you have to settle things with Lucifer?”

  “We didn’t have anything in writing.”

  “You made a deal with Lucifer?” Oswald asked. “I’ve been away for a little while and you’re already making Faustian bargains?”

  “I did it for you, dunzy. Had you woken up sooner, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “What was the deal?”

  “I don’t want to say.”

  “He promised him the Jupiter Stone and The Book of Three Towers,” Zara said.

  Oswald shook his head. The homunculus was still a judgmental thing.

  “Relax,” I said. “I didn’t mean to give him anything. I had my fingers crossed.”

  The car still idled in the clearing midway between the tower and the edge of camp. Nazi Town was completely ablaze now. Beleth and his legions had created a new hell. The Obsidian Tower, too, melted like a giant Popsicle. Giant tendrils of flame shot from its peak.

  “Let’s hurry,” I said.

  We had made it to the car when I smelled brimstone. In a puff of smoke, Lucifer appeared. He wore Bermuda shorts, a loose Hawaiian shirt, and sandals with black socks. Five thick-necked demons popped into existence behind him.

  “I bet you were just on your way to see me,” he said.

  “I figured you’d pop up,” I said.

  “We had a deal. Remember? Give me the homunculus.”

  “You gave me up?” Oswald said. “And I believed that stuff you said about me. The nice stuff, I mean.”

  “Don’t get all sentimental,” I said. “He only wants the Jupiter Stone. He wants to remove it and then he’ll return you safe and sound. Isn’t that right?”

  “And The Book of Three Towers,” Lucifer said.

  Oswald shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Did he just say nope?” Lucifer said.

  “I didn’t make a deal with you,” Oswald said.

  Lucifer laughed. “This little man has some big balls. Do I need to remind you both that when you have a contract with the Devil, you don’t negotiate.”

  “We don’t have a
contract,” I said. “There’s nothing in writing.”

  “We have a verbal agreement. That’s a legally binding deal where I come from.”

  “There are extenuating circumstances.”

  “Which are?”

  “I don’t want to make the deal anymore.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “I discovered that Oswald owns my soul.”

  “That sounds very romantic, but you two should keep that to yourselves.”

  Lucifer approached Oswald.

  The Jupiter Stone burned inside his chest, lighting him with an otherworldly glow. The homunculus expanded like an inflating tire.

  “What’s he doing?” Lucifer said.

  “I think you’re getting him mad,” I said.

  “Jack may have made an idiotic deal with you,” Oswald said, his voice smooth and deep. Nothing pipsqueak about it. “But I certainly did not.”

  “A deal’s a fookin deal!” Lucifer got a bit hysterical. He stamped his feet and smoke shot out of his ears. “Why do people think they can always get out of deals with the Devil? It’s unbelievable. Do I look like an idiot? Is this the face of an idiot?” He pointed at his face. “We had a deal. You agreed to it. I upheld my end of the bargain. Is it too much to ask people to act fairly?”

  “There’s no deal,” Oswald said.

  The Jupiter Stone inside the homunculus burned a bright pink and a blue emanation enveloped his body, now twice its normal size.

  “Don’t mess with the bull unless you want the horns,” Lucifer said. He directed his minions to grab Oswald. That was the last thing I saw. Oswald burned brighter, going from pink to orange to blue. An explosion of intense white light blinded me momentarily. When I got my eyesight back, Lucifer and his minions were gone. I looked toward the camp and I didn’t see any demons in the sky either.

  “What did you do, Oswald?” I asked.

  Before he could answer, the wind picked up. It whipped through the clearing like a tornado. I had to grab my hat before it flew off. The burning tower rumbled and swayed like a licorice stick. Then, in a blink, it fell in on itself, collapsing and disappearing into the ground. Great puffs of smoke and debris shot into the air.

  “What the fook did you do, Oswald?”

  The homunculus said nothing.

  We all stared at the spot where the Obsidian Tower had been. When the dust had settled, only a giant hole in the ground remained, with a swirling vortex at the bottom. Probably the worst kind of vortex there is.

  “Oswald, whatever it is you’re doing, stop,” I said.

  The homunculus had returned to his former size and shape. “I didn’t do that.” He pointed at the vortex. “I don’t think I did, anyway. This is all new to me.”

  “Great. You have super powers now, but you’re still an idiot. We’re fookin doomed.”

  “I took care of that stupid deal you made. You should thank me.”

  “You killed Lucifer. There has to be repercussions for that.”

  “I didn’t kill him. I just sent him back to hell.”

  “You what now?”

  “He won’t be bothering us anymore.”

  “You should have killed him, dunzy. Oh, geez, what did you do?”

  “How about, ‘Thank you, Oswald, for again saving the world and your arse and fixing your stupid plans.’”

  “Do you really think you just saved us? When Lucifer gets back, what do you think he’s going to do to us?”

  “I thought no one could leave Pandemonium,” Zara said.

  “Are you sure you sent him to Hell?” I asked.

  “That’s where I willed him. I can send you there, too, and you can see if he made it.”

  “Oswald, you’re talking out of your arse. And you’ve gotten quite sassy since you got that Jupiter Stone.”

  “I think the vortex is a portal out of Pandemonium,” Oswald said.

  “You created a cosmic toilet bowl and flushed Lucifer down the drain. Oswald, you might be a weapon of mass destruction, but you haven’t changed a bit. You’re nothing but a nuisance.”

  “That makes sense,” Zara said. “We found an Angel Door in the Lucifer Tower. Maybe Oswald opened something like that in the Obsidian Tower. Can’t you check with The Book of Three Towers?”

  “Now you’re asking me for answers,” I said. “I thought super-homunculus had all the insights.”

  “You’re just being ugly now.” Oswald folded his arms.

  “I do not like the new you.” I took out the book, but just as I had thought, it had gone back to normal. No secret text about the towers. No help. Nothing. “Looks like without the tower, the book isn’t accessing its location specific textuality. It’s worthless now. Thanks, Oswald.”

  I looked at the swirling vortex, dark blue light spinning inside an infinitely deep sea of night. I didn’t like it one bit. Trouble lurked in that unholy maelstrom.

  “Can the portal reach the Other World?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Oswald said, “but I can’t see why not.”

  “Great. Now monsters can take a holiday in New Jersey. Wasn’t that why we stopped the Pandemonium Device? We’re back at square one.”

  “No,” Zara said. “We stopped the device to stop the destruction of Pandemonium. Not everyone likes being trapped here, you know.”

  “Speaking for yourself?”

  “I’m happy here, but my father always wanted to go back home. And I think he should have had that choice. This might be a good thing.”

  “I seriously doubt that. Look at it.”

  “Guys, I don’t want to alarm anyone,” Oswald said.

  “Why care now? I’m really starting to regret giving you my soul.”

  “I was just thinking. If things could go out, couldn’t things come in, too?”

  “How the heck are we supposed to know?” I screamed. “You created this thing. Why are you asking us questions?”

  “Can you make it disappear, Oswald?” Zara asked.

  “I can try.”

  Oswald stared at the vortex. His X eyes flattened to horizontal lines. He did his glowing and puffing up bit. Me and Zara and backed up. Who knew if he’d managed to blow us all up. Or if Lucifer would jump out of the dark depths and kill us both. Oswald didn’t seem to have much of a handle on the stone’s power.

  The swirling vortex doubled in size.

  Lucifer was right about him being a ticking time bomb. He would destroy the entire dimension if given the chance.

  “How is he doing that?” I asked. “He’s doing the exact worst thing possible. Stop, Oswald. I forbid you to use the power of the Jupiter Stone. You’re cut off! Done!”

  The homunculus shrank, his glow dimmed.

  The vortex now swirled at least half a mile wide.

  “I can’t do it,” Oswald said. “I don’t think I can get rid of it.”

  “I wish you knew that before you made it bigger,” I said. “I think the vortex is swirling faster, too.”

  “Do you know how you created it?” Zara asked.

  “Not really. It just sort of happened.”

  “We can’t just leave it here,” I said. “We need to hide it.”

  “I can create a glamour, but it won’t be very strong. Anyone who investigates will see that it’s an illusion.”

  “With the Nazis dead or gone, this place will hopefully stay vacant for a while. We just need enough time to figure what to do.”

  Zara stood at the edge of the vortex. She mumbled some arcane words as she traced figures in the air. Soon, the Obsidian Tower―or a reasonable facsimile―had appeared over the spot.

  “It’s as thin as a whisper,” she said. “I know some witches on Witch End who can guard the tower and keep up the glamour.”

  “Do you know anyone who sells dust, too?” I deserved it.

  CHAPTER 23: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Oswald?

  Oswald wanted to transport us back to ShadowShade with his newfound power, but I stuck to my new rule: Osw
ald never uses the Jupiter Stone again. He can’t even be trusted with filing. Since he’d become sorcerer supreme, I trembled at the mere sight of him. But it wasn’t his power that got on my nerves so much as his ego. He strutted around like he owned Pandemonium. And he wouldn’t let the soul thing go. He kept making goo-goo eyes at me, like a lovesick teenager.

  “You’re creeping me out. Where’s my dust?” I flipped through the ShadowShade Sentinel looking for any stories about the Nazi camp or the Obsidian Tower. I was exhausted. I needed to take a six-month nap like Oswald or a good bump of dust. It was usually as good as a vacation. I sat behind my desk. Oswald sat in front of the typewriter, ineptly banging out a report.

  “I got rid of it,” he said.

  “If you used your cosmic powers, I’m taking back my soul.”

  “I told you to stop using the stuff, and I meant it. If I can’t use the Jupiter Stone, you can’t use dust. Didn’t you learn anything in the Obsidian Tower?”

  “I learned that you’re a menace to society.”

  “Don’t make me use my hoodoo.” The homunculus held up a hand, as if to hex me.

  Maybe I should listen to him. He could wish me into another dimension.

  “That’s not funny. You got sadistic since you became a demi-god. Remember, I gave you life.”

  Zara had headed back to Fairy Land to see if she could learn anything about the portal and if we could do anything about it. I told her not to give away too much info. We needed to keep the vortex a secret. No telling what would happen if word got out. Fortunately, I didn’t see anything about it in the paper, though an article about a giant spider terrorizing a downtown café had made page two. We left a few human witches Zara trusted to guard the tower and keep up the glamour. So far, it had been quiet. But rumors swirled that the Children of Thule regrouped on the Zombie Islands. I had no doubt Ratzinger still scurried about, and his gal pal Ilsa, too, even if she was just a head. I had a feeling Nazis more powerful than those two pulled the strings. I couldn’t stop thinking about that werewolf Hitler statue. I hoped it was only a bad artistic decision, but Nazis like to bring nightmares to life. It’s their modus operandi.

  “Do you really think you opened a portal?” I asked.