Last Call

by Lloyd Behm II

  “Thank you, Father,” Butler said. He looked better—more at ease with what was happening. “Sorry, thanks be to God.”

  “Abide in peace, and pray for me, a sinner,” I said, making the sign of the cross over him.

  “Sorry about the slip there, you guys do things a bit differently,” Butler said.

  “No problems. I’d have done the more formal version you bloody Papists use, but I’m working from memory here, so…”

  “I get it, heretic.” He smiled. “Would you do me a favor, Jesse?”

  “I’m not sinning on your behalf,” I replied, grinning back. “I mean, I’ve got enough on my own plate without that.”

  “Nothing like that,” he replied, a small smile crossing his lips. “I need to talk to Townsend.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure, no problem,” I said, walking to the cell door. Townsend was acting as if he was reading the ingredients list on a bottle of water.

  He leapt to his feet as soon as he saw me.

  “Problem?”

  “No. Well, nothing new,” I replied. “Butler just asked to see you.”

  “Got it,” Townsend said, entering the cell.

  I walked over to where Warren sat.

  “You know, the bastards didn’t even leave us a bad game of solitaire on here,” he said, sliding the laptop across the table. “What’s worse is, it won’t die. It hasn’t been plugged in in over three days, but it’s like the fucking Energizer Bunny—it keeps going, and going, and going.”

  He picked it up and threw it against a wall.

  “See? Damn thing doesn’t even have the courtesy to break when I try to smash it.”

  He jumped up and down on it a few times before returning to his seat.

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m just tired of that video. Fucking Clepstone.”

  “Someone missing me?”

  Warren looked at his watch. “You’re late for your gloating session.”

  Clepstone was dressed like the evil white pimp in a bad seventies Blaxploitation film, in a pink sharkskin suit and wide-brimmed fedora. He had four women in his train.

  “I told you, Warren, I ain’t dying when the livin’ is so good.”

  Warren was right, there was something off about Clepstone’s “women.” I lacked the components to do a major spell, but I thought invoking the spirit might work. I said a quick blessing, and the scales fell from my eyes.

  Clepstone’s fine suit was tatters and rags. Three of the women were either devils or daemons—the scales and tails were a definite give away—although the most human looking of the three had green hair, horns, and wore a tiger-skin bikini. The fourth one, though, she was human, but she had the look of someone who’d traded her soul for power and was realizing she’d made a really bad deal.

  “Jesse, my man, how’s it hangin’?” Clepstone asked.

  “We’ve been trying to ignore him, Jesse, but you know what an ass he can be,” Warren said.

  “Aww, man, don’t be like that,” Clepstone said. “You did what you had to do, and I did what I had to do. No hard feelings, huh?”

  “You know, Clepstone, I feel kind of sorry for you,” I said finally. “You think you got everything you wanted, in exchange for what?”

  “I didn’t give them anything I was using,” Clepstone said.

  “And in exchange, you got finery and women all the rest of your days?” I asked. I was talking to Clepstone, but I was looking at the fourth woman—the human.

  “In exchange I’m not stuck in this shitty, no weather place two weeks out of four. No one is drawing blood every time I go back to the real world. And I get to stay in the real world if I want!”

  “Then why are you here now?”

  “What do you mean, why am I here now? I’m here to give you and these sad sacks shit.”

  “You buddy-fucking bastard,” Warren said, starting to rise from his seat. I reached out with my hand and stopped him.

  “Diindiisi or Obie would curse you for this,” I said.

  “I’m not afraid of their curses,” Clepstone said. “I’m protected. Oeillet and Abzu both said so.”

  “You got that in writing? You know how devils are.”

  “Of course I did,” Clepstone said, pride in his eyes. “Those idiots missed me negotiating the whole deal.”

  “You checked all the clauses? There’s no wiggle room?”

  “You’re not going to scare me, Jesse. I was pre-law. I know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re right,” I replied, rising from the table. “Remember I said Diindiisi would curse you for what you’ve done?”

  “Yeah. Remember I said it doesn’t matter?”

  “I’m not going to curse you,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Warren, Townsend, and Butler have been doing that for the last few days.”

  “Thanks. Not that it makes any difference,” Clepstone said, turning to leave.

  “Did I say you could leave?” I snapped, arresting his turn. “I said I’m not going to curse you. I’m going to do something far worse.”

  “What are you going to do to me that’s worse than a curse? Kill me?”

  I laughed. “Killing you would send you to hell, unshriven. Oh, no, my son, I’m not going to do that either. I don’t need the burden on my soul.”

  “Then what are you going to do, Priest?”

  I took my right arm out of the sling, raising it on high. A nimbus surrounded it.

  “I’m going to bless you, my child,” I said bringing my hand down, making the sign of the Cross. “O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies; lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge, and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  “Amen” rang across the room like a clear, sweet bell.

  Clepstone blinked and then looked like someone had hit him with an axe. First he looked at the rags he wore, then he looked at the “women” who were with him. The one with a mouth like a cookie cutter shark broke him, I think. He fled, shrieking.

  The human female followed him. The three daemonettes turned as one toward me. I raised my hand again, the light from it becoming painful to look at.

  “Go!” I commanded.

  They went.

  The light faded, and I sank back into a chair.

  “Go?” Warren asked.

  “Hey, it worked for Jesus when he cast out Legion,” I replied weakly. “I figured it was worth a shot.”

  “Were those…?” Warren asked.

  “Daemons? Yeah.”

  “He’s been bragging about all the women he’s been getting since he switched sides,” Warren said. “If that’s the caliber of the bribe the other side gives…man, those things were fugly.”

  “What did you do to him?” Townsend asked as the door locked in place again.

  “What I said I was going to do,” I replied. “I blessed him. It might have lifted the glamour placed upon him. Damn, that hurts.”

  “Fool,” Townsend said, looking at the splint. “You didn’t do yourself any good here.”

  “No,” I said with a small smile, “but I might have done myself some good elsewhere. Besides, I might have saved that shitbird Clepstone from eternal damnation.”

  “Jesse, my man, you’re good, that’s no shit,” Warren said, handing me a bottle of water, “but God himself would have a problem saving that putz.”

  “You might have a point,” I said, wincing as Townsend adjusted things on the splint. “How’s it look, Doc?”

  “The magic is keeping the gangrene in your arm, but I don’t have anything to treat it with beyond that. If I can’t get you and Butler out of here soon, you’re going to lose the arm, and Butler, well…”

  “Yeah, he’s resigned to that,” I said. “Would it help if I blessed your gear?”

  “Jesse, I was raised in a reformed temple. I don’t know that it would help, but it sure can’t hurt, you
know?”

  “I’ll get the holy water,” I said. “On second thought, I’ll make the holy water.”

  I don’t know that the blessing helped, but I was able to rest afterward.

  “Jesse, man, can you come here a minute?” Townsend asked from outside my cell a little later.

  “Yeah, what’s up?” I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

  “It’s Butler, he’s fading…he asked that you sit with him.”

  I’d sat with the dying during seminary. It was never a fun thing to do. Usually there’s family there, and you’re consoling them as well as the dying. Butler was unconscious by the time we got there, but you could tell he didn’t have long to go. I don’t know how long I sat there, saying the prayers for the dead, but at one point he opened his eyes.

  “Jesse.”

  “Ryan,” I said, taking his hand.

  “This isn’t how I expected things to end,” he said, each word softer than the last. “I always figured I’d get my head bitten off by a grue or something…”

  With that, he died. I closed his eyes.

  “Well, he’s free at least,” Warren said. “I wonder what that means for us.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,” I said.

  Butler’s body disappeared at some point during the day.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 24 – Diindiisi

  “You sound certain,” Alfie said as we got in the Tahoes.

  “I have to be. Jesse would sound the same if we were coming for you, Alfie.”

  “You’d come after me?” he asked.

  “We’d come after anyone lost like that,” Dalma said.

  “I…I thought you were in this for the money,” Alfie said. “I don’t think even Ozzie would be able to raise the money for your fees if I were lost.”

  “Let me put it this way,” Dalma said as Johnson put the Tahoe in gear and backed out of the parking space, “if someone is buried in a mine collapse, do you think about what it’s going to cost to dig them out, or do you run toward the collapse and help rescue them?”

  “There are dwarfs who would stop and count the cost,” Alfie admitted.

  “But you wouldn’t, right?”

  “Not when there’s a life at stake, no.”

  “What makes you think we would?”

  “But why would you risk your life for one person?”

  “You mean that whole ‘lives of the many vs the life of one’ bullshit?” Dalma asked.

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do. Letting someone die horribly, in great pain, because you might die is a coward’s way of doing things,” Dalma said. “Holt taught me that.”

  I would talk to her tonight, I decided. She had gotten a little…harder in the soul since Holt died. Dying because he had was not necessarily the best way to honor him.

  “I need to think about it,” Alfie said.

  “No problems,” Dalma said, sticking her earphones in and hitting play on her phone.

  “Do you have a plan to test the elves, Diindiisi?” Ozzie asked.

  “Fred sent me a couple of suggestions. I don’t think ‘beating the crap out of them while they hold a spell’ is the best way, but I have come up with something, I think. I’m hoping Osbourne has had time to acquire the items I requested, however.”

  “Oooh, sounds like you’ve got something,” Tatsuo said. “Tell?”

  “No,” I replied, “because in part, you’re going to be tested as well.”

  “What? I’m not a magic usurer!”

  “No, but we need to make sure you can hold your form under provocation. Usurer? Are you sure you don’t mean user?”

  “Have you seen what Mages charge for the simplest spell?”

  “Good point,” I said.

  Today we were going across traffic instead of with it, so it only took half an hour to get out to the training grounds. Though, it was further proof that everything in Austin is at least half an hour away, including Austin.

  Call of the Sun and the other elves were waiting in one of the breakrooms. Speaker and Sharp Blade were cleaning weapons, while Golden Circle sat reading.

  “Good morning, Foreman,” Call of the Sun said, offering me a cup of tea. “How are you this day?”

  “‘I yet live to greet the dawn,” I said, returning the elvish greeting and sipping the tea. “Are you prepared for the tribulations ahead?”

  “Yes. Although, having witnessed some of the preparations for our testing, I wonder what you have planned for us.”

  “Ah, Diindiisi, you’re here,” Osbourne said, walking into the breakroom. “I’ve got everything you requested set up.”

  “Excellent. Call of the Sun, if you and Golden Circle would please follow me? Tatsuo, you as well.”

  “What of Speaker and Sharp Blade?” Call of the Sun asked, taking his UMP from the back of the chair.

  “They may come and watch,” I replied, turning back to Osbourne. “Where did you set things up?”

  “The close combat building, ma’am. It had the most room and electrical connections.”

  “Good. If you would all follow me?”

  We trooped over to the close combat building. Inside were three plywood cubicles, each containing a chair.

  “I got this idea from something Jesse told me about a movie we watched,” I said. “Tatsuo, please take a seat in one of the chairs.”

  She selected the middle cube. Osbourne and one of his helpers slid a final sheet of plywood in place.

  “It’s kind of dark in here, you know?” Tatsuo said.

  “Want to bet she’s doing the big eye thing?” Fred asked.

  “I wouldn’t take that bet,” Dalma replied.

  “Osbourne?”

  “Yes’m.” He turned and walked to a table, where there were three computers. He brought the middle one awake, and it showed Tatsuo in infrared.

  “Tatsuo, can you hear me?”

  “Yes, Foreman. Will the test begin soon?”

  “Yes,” I replied, signaling Osbourne.

  He pressed a button, and four tennis ball machines started firing balls—the ball would come out of the barrel and then disappear.

  “Hey, what was that? Ow…that hurt.”

  “You’re doing fine, Tatsuo. Remember, the goal here is not to transform,” I said.

  “Yes, Foreman, but I’m going to be so bruised when this is done.”

  “I have something for that,” I said.

  “How long do I have to stay in here, Foreman?”

  “How long do you think you can take it?” I asked.

  “Longer than any elf,” she replied.

  “Good girl,” I said, turning to Call of the Sun.

  “You plan to hit us with tennis balls to test our will?” he asked.

  “Yes and no,” I replied. “With Tatsuo, I’m testing how long she can hold her human form, regardless of how frustrated she gets. With you and Golden Circle, I am trying to get an idea of how long you can function to cast spells under distraction. So I’d like it if you could cast some minor spell and hold it while seated there.”

  “I see…illuminate, I think. Do you agree, Golden Circle?”

  The other mage nodded.

  “Then I believe we are ready to take your test to show we are worthy of joining your quest,” Call of the Sun said.

  “Please be seated, then,” I replied.

  The elves took their seats, and we sealed them in. Unlike Tatsuo, the normal light cameras could see them once they started their illumination spells.

  “Go,” I said to Osbourne.

  Call of the Sun’s spell flickered once—a ball caught him square in the nose—then settled back down to a pure, steady light.

  “How long are they going to be in there?” Speaker asked over the steady chunk-chunk-chunk of the ball machines.

  “Until any of them falters,” I said.

  “You said you got this idea from a movie?” Speaker asked.

  “Y
es. Jesse showed me a movie about Marines in a place called Vietnam. It starts with something called a drill instructor screaming insults at something called recruits. The actor playing the part of the drill instructor sent the director a recording of him ranting for half an hour, while people off camera threw tennis balls and oranges at his face.”

  “What was the name of this motion picture, that I might recommend it to our trainers?” Sharp Blade asked.

  “Full Metal Jacket,” I replied.

  “Thank you, Foreman,” Sharp Blade said, bowing low.

  Call of the Sun was the first to lose his concentration eighteen hours later, his light suddenly vanishing.

  “I am out of practice,” he said when we slid the wall of plywood out of the way.

  “Elder, if we are in combat continuously for more than eighteen hours,” Fred said, rising from a seat he’d fashioned from boxes, “we’re going to have bigger problems than you losing your concentration on a spell. Ammo comes to mind, for one.”

  “As it has been more than a century since I risked hazard combating the forces of darkness, I will take your word for it, Mine Brother.”

  Tatsuo was next, shouting, “Enough.”

  “I’m sorry, Foreman,” she said, bowing from the waist when she exited the box. “I didn’t want to transform, but I was going to.”

  “You held your form under random attack for twenty hours,” Fred said.

  “Was it that long?” she asked, eyes wide.

  “You know, I’m coming to understand how she makes money letting people watch her vacuum her home,” Ozzie said to Alfie.

  “Should we stop the other one?” Osbourne asked, smothering a yawn.

  “If I may?” Call of the Sun asked.

  “Yes?”

  “If we have the time, I would allow the test to continue. It will give Golden Circle confidence in his abilities to know how long he lasted.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” I said. “Mr. Osbourne, do you need the space?”

  “No’m. It’s yours as long as you need it. Although,” he looked at the members of my team who were scattered about, sleeping, “I’ll bring over some cots and sleeping pads for your people. Make them a bit less uncomfortable.”

  “Thank you, Osbourne,” I said.

  The cots made a difference. They were not much more comfortable than the concrete floor, but they were enough.