Damn Him to Hell

by Jamie Quaid

  Andre’s next shot winged a fire alarm—because his intended victim had shrunk to boot-heel height and now hopped about the floor, croaking. We both stared in disbelief at the frightened, hopping frogs. Even the guy with the bullet in his middle morphed into a flattened amphibian with his webbed feet curled in the air.

  Andre turned an incredulous glare on me. The ensuing shriek of fire alarms prevented argument and shredded my already ragged nerves. And yeah, of course, the sprinkler system came on. The frogs loved it.

  At the end of the hall, Einstein froze in disbelief as half a dozen amphibians hopped about where his guards should be, but Andre and I were Zonies. We were used to chaos and destruction. We took off running in his direction, trying to avoid breaking our necks on the water coating the tiled hall.

  The white-haired troll sprang into action, darting into an office to the left. The slam could be heard over the shrieking alarms. IVANOV BERGDORFF had been gold-lettered onto the door.

  I had the gut feeling we’d just located the true villain behind Acme’s depredations.

  Andre didn’t even bother trying the knob. He simply blew it away, then kicked in the door.

  Not wanting to lose my chance to question our target, I whacked the gun out of Andre’s grip with the side of my hand.

  Andre shot me a truly disgruntled look but miraculously didn’t go after the gun. Maybe even he understood what he was doing to his soul when he killed. Maybe he had issues like mine. Although not quite like mine, because he’d been trained to kill, and I’d been trained to find evidence.

  But I didn’t figure Bergdorff would give up information just because I asked. So I jumped him before he could put that big desk between us. Landing on his back, I brought him down to the ground and rammed my knee into his spine.

  “What is that infernal contraption doing to us?” I shouted, struggling to hold down the furious scientist. For an old man, he was wiry and strong.

  “Making magic!” he cried. “We can cure cancer, raise the dead, own the world! It worked, can’t you see? They said it wouldn’t, but it did! The gas is curing their ills.”

  That sounded way too much like Gloria’s mad tirade. I could be sitting on another power-hungry demon. Or a madman. Guilty by way of insanity? “Did you gas us on purpose?” I asked in horror.

  “I needed to prove my element would work on people! It was the only way.” The troll shoved, and, furious, I shoved back, kneeing him harder and grabbing his electrified hair. Andre located his gun but stayed out of my way, thank all the heavens and maybe Saturn.

  “How?” I demanded, wanting to smash Bergdorff’s nose into the floor but magnanimously refraining. “With pipes straight to hell? Where does that gas come from?”

  “Who cares?” the troll asked, practically spitting in rage. “Don’t you understand? I’m creating medical history! All those sick old people—they’re cured!” He stopped his struggles in his need to explain.

  “They’re not better if they’re comatose,” I argued, backing off slightly and wishing he were right. “And the gas causes violence.”

  “But don’t you see? We can utilize that!” he crowed in triumph. “The ultimate weapon! We just have to refine the process.” Taking advantage of my loosening grip, the devil came up swinging. He socked me straight in the diaphragm, sending me sprawling backward into Andre.

  And of course Andre had aimed his damned gun while my back was turned.

  Knocked off target by me hitting Andre’s shins, the shot rang wild. The troll grabbed the opportunity to dive for an open desk drawer.

  Figuring he was going for a gun, I rolled for cover. Andre did the opposite. He flung himself directly at Einstein.

  Instead of a gun, Bergdorff brandished a familiar aerosol canister. He spritzed. Pink sparklies and a green cloud billowed in Andre’s face.

  Andre staggered backward, cast a startled glance at me, then crumpled, nearly two hundred pounds of male muscle at my feet. That he hadn’t turned into a raging berserker like Gloria probably said something, but Andre was the final straw. He’d been trying to do good. And now he was comatose like the others.

  Red rage instantly consumed me.

  The cloud had drifted down to the carpet, where I was still gasping from the blow to my gut. I couldn’t catch my breath in time. I inhaled.

  He’d gassed us! The insane Nazi had gassed us!

  Just as he had risked all our lives by gassing the Zone, used our friends as guinea pigs, and turned them into zombies.

  “Damn you to hell, you’ve killed him!” I shrieked, wiping my eyes and lunging for the madman behind the desk, who had scrambled to his feet again.

  My curses never worked fast enough and usually required physical action. Stupid slow Saturn.

  Bergdorff shot another cloud of gas but missed in his scramble to retreat from a raging virago. Covered in pink sparklies, I was too furious to think. I just went over his desk, aiming for his face and the can at the same time. I mashed his nose with the flat of my hand and shoved him back against the wall before nearly ripping his arm out of the socket to get at the cloud can.

  “I want Andre back!” I yelled, struggling with his grip on the can. “I want my friends back. I want all the zombies back, you bastard.” I dug my fingernails into his hand so hard that he finally dropped his weapon. “And I want you to suffer like them!”

  With that last shout, I did more than slam my palm in his face. In my wild frenzy, I swung my fist at his jaw with all the power in me and sent him flying. He wasn’t big and he wasn’t agile and he obviously had a glass jaw. He slumped into a window, crushing the blinds. Before he could recover and come after me, I found the canister and shot him with his own damned gas.

  He shrieked. He clutched at his eyes. And instead of leaping at me in self-defense, he turned and dived through the closed window, blinds and all.

  I staggered backward, stunned. I didn’t think it was really possible to throw oneself through glass and blinds at close range. He should have just bounced off. He didn’t. As if a giant hand had grabbed his back and swung him through the air, he took out everything, including the aluminum frame. And then he was gone. Whoosh, out the window.

  Maybe I hadn’t killed him. Maybe he was just out there on the ground.

  I glanced down at Andre’s lifeless, elegant body sprawled across the floor and felt the red rage drain away, replaced by soul-deep fear that I might never talk to him again. I didn’t know what was happening to us or to the Zone, but I’d never wanted anyone to die. Or spend eternity in a coma. Shaking, trying not to cry or panic, I approached the window and leaned out.

  This was the main floor, one level above the basement labs where we’d left Paddy and the machine. The window wasn’t much more than ten feet above ground—a survivable drop.

  Einstein lay crumpled across a spiked fence surrounding an air-conditioning unit. I was pretty sure the black spike coming out his back wasn’t good for his heart, if he had one. My stomach churned. Had I done that? Or the evil gas? Or . . . Saturn?

  A frog hopped through the open doorway and across Andre’s silk shirt, croaking. I realized the fire alarm had stopped shrieking. In the silence, I could hear the bullfrog still bellowing through the air vents. I brushed pink particles off my sleeves and started shuddering. Hard.

  “Okay, Saturn, what do I do now?” I whispered, wishing I’d at least learned how to save the zombies before inviting death and destruction.

  I had no idea if Bergdorff had been mad or evil. I just knew he was dead. And so was almost any hope of Andre and the others recovering.

  Hands trembling, I could scarcely open my bag to retrieve my phone as I kneeled beside Andre. I still had the can in my hand. I stared at it in distaste, but, not wanting to leave a weapon lying around, I stashed it in my bag after removing the phone.

  Who should I call? I didn’t know how Andre or Paddy had gotten in. I wasn’t certain Leo would be willing to climb the fence, and we really needed ambulances and cop cars. .
. .

  Phone in hand, I knew my mind wasn’t working right when I realized I was thinking of calling cops to help Andre. He was wanted for murder. And there was a dead body outside the window and missing security everywhere. And frogs.

  I stared in fascination as the one near Andre shot out a long tongue to catch up one of the pink particles as if it were a tasty insect.

  The frog didn’t flinch when I glared at it, but it hopped under the desk to slurp more particles while I tested the pulse in Andre’s strong wrist. He was still alive. Grasping at this one straw, I punched in Cora’s number. This was Zone business. Outsiders not allowed.

  26

  Paddy staggered in holding a white cloth to his head. He glanced down at Andre and wearily slumped into a chair. “What happened?”

  “Einstein gassed him.” I put away my phone and waited for the troops to arrive. I still wasn’t certain if Paddy was any saner than Einstein or Ferguson had been. Maybe magic gas had polluted their brains and the whole plant was crazy.

  Paddy glanced worriedly at Andre, rubbed his head, and asked with puzzlement, “Einstein?”

  “Oh, stop that,” I said grouchily. “I’m tired of the crazy act. The troll with the white hair who had the cloud canister. He sprayed both of us. Andre dropped like a stone. The troll went berserk.” With a little help from a raging Saturnian lunatic.

  “Bergdorff?” he asked in bewilderment at my rant. His attention was more on Andre than me. “Andre got gassed? Julius will kill me.” Paddy winced and pressed the cloth tighter to his head. “We’ve got to get him out of here before we call the cops to report Ferguson. I’ve already called the fire chief and told him we had a false alarm.”

  Ferguson? He was worried about the bullfrog? I glanced at the smashed blinds covering the shattered window, but Paddy hadn’t even looked in that direction. Maybe I’d better not disturb his confused mental state just yet.

  “Why was Ferguson trying to kill you?” I asked, trying to determine how much he actually understood.

  “He turned on the magic machine again. I had to stop him.” He studied Andre with puzzlement and listened to the silence. “Did Andre stop him?”

  “He stopped the machine, I guess.”

  Paddy looked pretty pale and sweaty, so I didn’t see any sense in explaining too much, especially if he hadn’t seen Ferguson morph into a bullfrog.

  “I want Bill and the others in a proper hospital,” I continued, mournfully stroking Andre’s glossy hair. I was all out of rage. I just felt hollow inside. Andre didn’t stir.

  Paddy slumped silently into a chair. I was afraid he’d gone out on me too.

  In response to my frantic call, Cora arrived with Frank and Leo in record time. I hugged Cora in relief, and she tucked her snakes back to their own dimension. We all stared solemnly at Andre’s sprawled form. He seemed even bigger on the floor than he did standing up. I’d seen him in action. He was all solid muscle, and a whiff of gas had taken him out. My pulse pounded anxiously, but it would be uncool of me to reveal my fear for him.

  While Frank checked Paddy’s bruised head, our perceptive cop wrinkled his brow. “What’s with the frog?” He pointed under the desk.

  I accepted the distraction and glanced around. The stupid amphibian was probably poisoning himself on pink particles. Maybe he thought he was still a six-foot thug with a sweet tooth. Heck if I knew.

  “Not important,” I said, going into impartial lawyer mode. “We have to remove Paddy and Andre and the zombies before anyone discovers they have a mad scientist impaled on the fence.”

  Everyone raised their eyebrows in shock except Paddy, who was rocking back and forth like a dementee. Leo took the lead and strode across to the smashed blinds.

  I shivered as he examined the broken window frame and wished this had all been a nightmare I could wake from.

  “We won’t find Andre’s bullets in the guy down there, will we?” Studly Do-Right asked, reasonably enough.

  If they wanted to check frogs, they’d find a bullet there. I didn’t tell Leo that. I’d added Andre’s gun to my bag before the troops arrived. “No, I gassed him,” I confessed, “and he went berserk and leaped out.”

  No mentioning damning the bastard to hell. Leo wouldn’t have believed that anyway. If we got out of this without a life term in prison, Leo was our Zone cop like I was the Zone lawyer. A regular clan, we were. Right now, my teeth were chattering in sheer terror. I didn’t much like killing people, and I didn’t want to lose Andre.

  “That was some leap,” was all Leo said, testing the splintered frame. “Frank, you and Cora better check on Bill and the other patients. I’ll find something to carry Andre on. At this rate, we probably ought to keep a supply of stretchers on hand for Tina’s victims.”

  I hugged my elbows and glared. Cora snorted. And Frank did as he was told. Still not looking good, Paddy lumbered out of his chair to lead the way. No one tried to stop him. I hoped he had the authority to order the scientists to back off when they reached Bill.

  Once they were all gone, I kneeled beside Andre and gently brushed the hair off his forehead. He was cool to the touch and didn’t stir so much as an eyelid to acknowledge my presence, which left me feeling empty.

  He was a handsome man when he wasn’t leering or being snarky. I’d just sent Satan a soul. Saturn or Satan or Someone owed me for that. I’d already asked the Great Whatever to return my friends from comas, but rather than rely on the fickle finger of fate, I was hoping Paddy had more magic formulas. We needed Andre too much to lose him.

  Except the troll had said they didn’t have a solution yet.

  “What the devil is that racket?” was the only other question Leo asked when he returned with a gurney just as the bullfrog roared his protests through the vents.

  “Demon,” I joked. “You want to see Acme’s demon-transport system? It’s fiendish in its simplicity.” Although I supposed I’d need a definition of demon to know if a bullfrog qualified, but Leo wasn’t buying my attempt at humor.

  Leo glared and heaved Andre onto the wheeled table.

  I had no way of knowing if the boiler machine did anything more than thunder and smoke. I didn’t know how to blow it up without blowing up Acme. I had to hope Paddy would take care of it now that the villains were gone.

  Mostly, I was worried that we weren’t dealing with normal chemicals. Given the amount of damage done, the new magic element the stupid scientists were testing could have come straight from hell. Did greedy, arrogant men never consider long-term consequences when they had dollar signs in their eyes?

  Or had Ferguson and Bergdorff really been demons and not just corrupt men?

  My wicked imagination conjured gates to hell in Acme’s basement, but I was reeling from exhaustion and despair and not thinking straight. How did one go about scientifically studying the underworld? If we proved it existed, could I write laws against demons?

  I was thinking hard about resigning my Saturn duties. I was pretty certain it wasn’t possible, but watching Andre lying lifeless on that cart, I considered it anyway.

  How had the damned troll gotten that canister?

  Unless there was more than one, Paddy was the only answer. Paddy must have retrieved the canister from Tim and not told us. We still didn’t know if Paddy was sane. Of course, at this point, I needed a definition of sanity. I needed a damned library of abnormal knowledge.

  I wanted to cling to Andre’s hand and reassure myself that he lived as Leo wheeled him out, but I was afraid Leo would slam him into walls if I expressed my concern. Men are territorial for the stupidest reasons.

  Ignoring the frogs hopping about in the puddles, we met the rest of the crew rolling Bill out of the elevator. My fear of losing friends was deeply ingrained. I touched Bill’s forehead, but he didn’t stir.

  “We’ll have to come back for the others,” Frank said gruffly.

  The security cameras would have had a field day, except Leo said he’d turned them off and wiped them out. Le
t them believe the sprinkler system had short-circuited the wiring.

  Cora and Frank were intelligently wearing rubber gloves so no trace of them would be found later. Leo and I had been here before, so there was no sense in disguising our fingerprints. I hoped Andre hadn’t touched anything besides his gun. Both of us had fingerprints in the database if anyone cared enough to search.

  “You mean you just walked in through the gate?” I asked suspiciously as we stepped into the night and I recognized Leo’s Ford SUV in the drive. “I could have walked in instead of crawling through ducts?”

  Holding his bandage in place, Paddy glared at me. “I have keys. You could have asked.”

  And gotten gassed for my efforts? I bit my already sore tongue and eyed him with more suspicion. He seemed to be recovering in the night air. “When I know I can rely on you, I will,” I retorted. “How did Bergdorff get the canister?”

  He locked Acme’s front door and smudged the lock with the back of his sleeve. “Bergdorff is in charge of the magic machine.”

  Even Frank rolled his eyes at this. “Magic machine?”

  “Figure of speech. Bergdorff is mad as a hatter. I wanted to use the cloud on him and see if it would make him better.” Paddy studied the darkened windows of the plant. “I left the canister in my office. Maybe I’d better go back and get it.”

  “Man, you lie better than I do, Padraig,” I said nastily. If he’d brought the canister here, he was as much to blame for Bergdorff’s death as I was. Although ultimately, as inventor of the gas, Bergdorff had killed himself in more ways than one. “Einstein’s deader than a doornail, so you don’t need to worry about him anymore. You’d better just hope Andre hasn’t sacrificed his life for us, or I’ll bring the whole place down around your ears.”

  It didn’t sound threatening from a skinny shrimp like me, but he ought to have known by now that I was a loose cannon and dangerous when roused.