“If I may.” Carolyn stood up and approached Satoku. “I’m sorry Mike, but I’m going to tell her the truth.” The vamp stood within an arm’s reach of my girlfriend, making me uncomfortable as sweat leached out of the skin on my forearms.
Carolyn continued, “She’s not as beautiful as you made her out to be.”
Satoku immediately interjected, head bobbing side to side, “Excuse me.”
The vampire smiled at my girlfriend. I could tell her from experience, that wasn’t going to work. Carolyn said, “That’s not a bad thing if you would let me finish. What I am saying is that Mike talked you up so much that you would have had to float in here as an angel on a cloud. If you heard the things Mike has said about you, let’s just say, I wish I had a guy saying the same stuff about me. He’s scared to lose you and I can see why.”
Satoku said, “Thank you.”
The vampire reached out and put her hand on Satoku’s shoulder. “You’re welcome. You know guys, they’ll admit to their friend how much they love a girl even though they can’t properly express it to her.”
Why was Carolyn so much smoother than me with the ladies? I wasn’t about to stick my nose into this as it seemed to be working out for me.
Satoku agreed, “I guess that is true.”
She rubbed Satoku’s upper arm. “Honestly, I have to tell him to shut up sometimes because he’s rambling on about how great you are. No offense to you.”
“None taken. We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Satoku.” She extended an open hand.
Carolyn reached out and shook her hand. “Carolyn, nice to formally meet you. And I can guarantee you there is nothing going on between Mike and me. I like his friend Reg much better.”
The normal glow on my girlfriend’s face returned, “Isn’t he the greatest guy in the world?”
“He is a peach ready to be sucked.” Carolyn nodded, pulling her lip piercings into her mouth.
Satoku laughed. “I probably wouldn’t use those exact words myself, but good for you two. He is a great person.” She looked around Carolyn to make eye contact with me. “As for you mister, you aren’t off the hook by any stretch of the imagination.”
What? I thought you two just became best friends and you were going to forgive me because of all the good things I said about you.
Satoku continued, “We need to trust each other with everything. I don’t want to walk into another scene like this. I mean it’s not like she’s staying here, right?”
I tried to explain, “Well, that’s kind of, part of the job. She needs to stay close to me at all times. Kind of like with you and Felix.”
The glow disappeared again, and Satoku’s tone harshened, “All right, look. This whataboutism bullshit with Felix needs to stop. He’s waiting for me in the car so I have to get going. Give me a call tomorrow if you want. I need some time to think about this and what I am doing right now.”
“You can look into my soul if you don’t believe me.” I got up to give her a hug goodbye, but she turned her back on me and stormed out the door without a word.
Carolyn said, “You’re lucky I was here.”
“Lucky. I nearly got dumped because you were here. How is that luck?”
She sat back down on the couch. “Putting the instigating situation aside, your stuttering, tongue-tied explanation was pathetic. She’s nobody. Were you expecting me to disappear or something?”
“You could have at least turned into a raven. Look, I’m not very smooth with the ladies. I have social anxiety too.”
“You talk to me just fine.”
She was right. Anything job related made me more at ease. “Yeah, I almost feel more comfortable with supernatural beings. The problem is that Satoku is a Searcher so I can’t even stretch the truth with her because she will find out.”
Her head moved back and her eyes widened. “She’s a Soul Searcher? Thanks for letting me know. I was staring into her haunting green eyes. Of all the conversations we’ve had about her, I figure that would have come up at least once.”
I didn’t talk about it because gifted people could be taken advantage of. “Sorry, but I would never expect her to just stop by out of the blue. Why had she stopped by anyway?”
“She was probably ready to forgive you until she saw me. Ha ha.” She didn’t have the bass in the laugh that Reg had, but she was trying.
“That really isn’t making me feel any better if that is your intention.”
She spoke to me like a baby, “Aw, I don’t like seeing you all sad. You want me to fix you a glass of Jameson?”
I tilted my head and nodded, “I do like my Jameson. Maybe half a glass just to settle my thoughts.”
We ended up getting wasted. I went over to my office to tidy things up, but in my drunken stupor, I most likely made matters worse. When I returned home, Reg and Carolyn were hanging out, actually making out, so I went to my room with the dog.
The next day I woke up to a familiar signal. Gretchen called with another horrible progress report. The uprisings were multiplying and so were the murders of young Japanese women. No sign of my father. The only plus was that she didn’t ream me out over the incident with Satoku and Carolyn.
I crawled out of bed with Colossus jumping up my lower legs. I was going to meet the Greek Gods today. I had to get into the office and make a few calls before Socrates showed up. I only had two nice suits, so choosing an outfit was easy. I wanted to look good for the Gods.
My dog and I shared a quick breakfast and I shuffled down the street to the office. I opened the front door and realized I hadn’t helped during my drunken cleaning yesterday. The mess had just been pushed into the corner of the office.
I had reassembled the phone from my desk, but I needed a new computer monitor because mine had been smashed when the spirit had taken the shape of an ogre. Good times. Nah, great times.
I sat down in the wobbly chair at my desk and looked at the phone. No messages or missed calls. I dialed up Rebecca and Roy to check on the progress of their haunted barn.
The phone rang three times and a female voice said, “Hello.”
I fired up my Bogart speak. “Hi, is this Rebecca?”
“It is.”
“Hi Rebecca, this is Mike Merlino. I’m the detective who stopped by your house a few days ago and I just wanted to check in and see how things were going.”
She sniffled. “Well Mike, after we burned the rest of them boxes, things have been a lot calmer around here. I’d like to pay you if it keeps up, but I’m not sure how long to wait to make sure they will never come back. I also don’t know if it was something you had done or my husband burning the boxes.”
“That’s never a guarantee that they won’t come back, unfortunately. In fact, why don’t we just forget about the fee for now?” I was going to make a pile of money from the boxes that they didn’t want, and charging them on top of that seemed a bit cruel. I’ll probably end up giving them a cut of the profit too.
“Really? What if we need you to come back?” She sounded flabbergasted.
“I’ll do it free of charge. I understand what it is like to deal with those spirits. I did find out some interesting historical information if you’d like to hear about it.”
I told Rebecca about the boxes, leaving out the valuation and my intention to auction them off. I felt a bit guilty, but they didn’t need the money nearly as much as I did. I hung up the phone and looked out my patched-up window. Through the cracked glass, I saw a slightly overcast day.
My tie was choking me, so I loosened it as the phone rang. Unidentified number. I waited for it to ring four times before picking up the corded receiver.
Let’s go for another ride, Humphrey. “Hello, Mike Merlino, Private Detective.”
“Well looky at you. A private dick trying to sound tough.”
I faintly recognized the deep male voice as he continued, “I got a job for you. Why don’t you kill yourself?”
“Who is this?” I just needed to hear a f
ew more words.
“It’s the man what’s gonna kill you.”
It was my father.
16
Although his voice was much deeper, almost guttural, his horrible grammar gave him away. The tone was different from when I visited him the other day. I ditched my accent, and said, “And how are you going to do that, tough guy?”
“Oh, I’ve been running with some pretty powerful friends lately. Seems to be that I am much more powerful than you when it comes to harnessing magic. My blood is purer than yours, small fry.”
Oh, fuck me. He knows about our shared bloodline with Merlin. The Red Cavern of demons had gotten to him and cultivated him into a weapon they could use to cause destruction. “I’m not scared of you, old man. Why are you coming after me anyway? Don’t you have better things to do now that you are out of jail?”
He chuckled. “I’m doing this for fun. You think I forget about stuff. When I went away, you ditched me. Come to see me five years after I got sent away and you were still gonna let me rot. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
I guess he wanted to get into it. “Do you really think I should have visited you? You put fucking cigarette butts out on my arm when I was a little kid. You beat the shit out of my mother.”
“There you go again being a little mama’s boy. That’s called being a real man, toughenin’ you up. Still ain’t gotten rid of the sissy in ya. I’ll help you with that.”
I couldn’t imagine that he had any time to build up a serious magic repertoire in only a few days and dismissed his threats. “Tell you what, big man. You know where I am. Why don’t you stop by for a visit?” I didn’t have permission from the Celtic Gods to commit murder, but I didn’t care. If he showed up here today, I was going to murder that fool.
He spat, and said, “I don’t even need to be there to kick your ass. I’ve already got a hold on you. Look up at the ceiling.”
I peeked up at all the white rafters, except for the one directly above my head. The rectangular white rafter was soaked in red and bowing out. The dam broke and a stinking, thick red liquid with coagulated black chunks came pouring down on my only remaining nice suit and me.
I dropped the receiver on the desk and could hear my father laughing from several feet away. I wiped off the ear and mouthpiece and put it against my head. “Nice cheap trick, asshole. Stop hiding away and get down here for a showdown.”
“I prefer to torture you from a distance. Say goodbye, Mikey.”
The phone receiver took on a mind of its own and jumped out of my hand. It levitated above my desk, almost entrancing me as I stared at the floating object. The receiver quickly moved back and forth and then in a circle.
I sat frozen to my desk chair as the receiver circled my head and lowered. The cord wrapped itself around my neck, again and again, until the base of the phone was pressed against the side of my head.
I gagged, and slobber shot out of the sides of my mouth as I clawed at the wire, trying to get a good grip on it. The cord kept tightening and I got my index finger in between it and my neck. It felt like my finger was being chopped off as I desperately pulled on the death cord.
My head became very dizzy and I fell face first from my chair into the nasty pool of aged blood. The only sound I could hear was my father laughing through the phone as life slowly ebbed from my body. My extremities went numb as my worst nightmare started to come to fruition. The man I wanted to kill more than anyone, was going to kill me instead. A rotten twist of irony if I had ever seen one.
He abused me. He abused my mom. This wasn’t fair. I was supposed to kill him for my mother. I wanted to do it for her. I’m sorry, Mom. Looks like he got me. I’m sorry I failed.
I heard a strange beeping sound and I assumed the hallucinations were starting as bright lights streaked through my eyes. The cord loosened, allowing me to suck in a few precious breaths. The beeping stopped, and the phone cord tightened again, cutting off all the air to my lungs.
Thoughts mashed together in my oxygen-deprived head and one came to the front and center. That beeping was my call waiting and it weakened my father’s hold over the phone. Electronics to the rescue again. The beeping came in again, and the cord loosened.
I had to break the phone. I regained control over my body and banged the side of my head with the phone base attached against my solid desk. It was knocking me senseless, and my father’s exuberant laughter made me think that he still had the upper hand.
I was about to knock myself out when the solution struck me like a bolt of lightning. I reached up and squeezed the input for the cord into the phone base. I pinched as hard as I could and yanked the wire away.
It came out of the base, and finally the cord went limp. I untangled it from around my neck and threw the phone to the side. Leaning back against my desk, I wondered how my father had built up that much magical knowledge in only a few days. Unless the Red Cavern had been recruiting and teaching him for a while.
Crazy thoughts ran through my head about my father and what had just happened. A firm knock thumped against the door.
Socrates.
17
I jumped up from the floor and almost fell back down from my equilibrium being off and the pool of blood on the ground. I put my hand on my desk to steady myself, waited a few moments, and went to the door. A werewolf in a chauffeur outfit knocked again.
My chest heaved in and out from the supernatural fight with my father. My mind was scrambled, but I needed to go forward with this meeting and process what had just happened a few minutes ago.
I opened the door and the werewolf spoke in a gruff tone, “Socrates. He’s waiting to take you to see the Gods.”
I looked down at myself, soaked in rancid blood. “Perhaps I could run home and get cleaned up a bit. An unexpected event has me…” I gestured to my suit.
The werewolf didn’t speak, turned on his heel, walked up to the limo, and knocked on the tinted back window. The window lowered, and the werewolf stuck his head inside. The chauffeur took a step back and opened the door.
Socrates emerged wearing the same robes as yesterday. (Or a different set that looked exactly the same.) He called from the sidewalk, “Is there a fire hydrant in the area?”
“Bout a quarter-mile that way.” I pointed down the street.
Socrates said, “Excellent.” Then he closed his eyes and took long, deep breaths as his chest heaved in and out. His eyes opened, and he said, “Stand against the building.”
I followed his orders and he extended his arms. A blast of warm water (please be water) came from both of his hands and I understood why he had told me to stand against the wall. He washed me off with the strength of a fire hose as I spun around in circles to get clean. It didn’t surprise me that Socrates knew magic, being an immortal genius and all.
I finished getting hosed down, but now I was completely soaked with water and shivered in the winter air. I wouldn’t look terrible, but I prepared for an uncomfortable trip. My worries were erased when Socrates opened his mouth in a circle.
A gale force wind came from his lips and plastered me against the building. I worried that the force might whisk my beat-up office away like the Wizard of Oz. My face and skin rippled from the burst of wind. Socrates relented and told me to turn around.
This part of the drying process was extremely uncomfortable when the intense wind smashed my nuts into the wall. The raging gusts stopped, and I felt the fabric of my suit jacket. Completely dry and warm. Huh.
I joined Socrates in the back of the limo and the werewolf closed the door behind us. I said, “Sorry about all that. I just had a little run in with my father. It wasn’t very pretty as you can see.”
He handed me a small bottle of water, and said, “I know a bit about issues with one’s father. I could actually go on for days about it. You need to push that aside and get ready to meet the Gods. They are eager to talk to you.”
The car pulled out onto the road. I said, “And I, them. I’d be lying if I said I
wasn’t nervous about this.”
He picked at a bowl of dates and talked while he chewed on the snacks. “It’s only a friendly conversation at the end of which you can say yes or no. There’s really no pressure involved, but remember what I told you yesterday about a war in Pittsburgh. The Greeks have the strongest footing around here. Listen wisely.”
I was still waiting for this ancient philosopher to drop some knowledge on me and assumed he must be saving his best material for when we were in front of the Gods. He probably didn’t want to waste his time with a kid in his early twenties. I understood.
I wondered if they were going to roll out the red carpet for me. It struck me that the werewolf driver hadn’t rolled the little red carpet out of the limo for me to get in. I guess that was only reserved for the philosopher.
I broke the short silence, “So, I’m pretty sure I use a variation of the Socratic Method in my line of work. I’m a private detective.”
He dug his hand into his thick beard and scratched his chin. “Of course, of course. I thought you were going to say you were a lawyer.” He let out a belly laugh.
Something was off. He knew I wasn’t a lawyer. And was that even a joke? If so, I don’t get it. The limo speeded up and we streaked past the other cars on the road. I couldn’t tell you the exact speed, but we were flying past everyone else on the two-lane turnpike, weaving back and forth, in and out of traffic.
I tried to keep track of where we were heading and continued the conversation. “Not a lawyer. Was Plato made into an immortal too? Was he a good student?” Stupid question, of course he was a good student.
“Who?”
Really? “Plato.”
“Right, right. I thought you were referring to the pasty dough that children like to play with.” He laughed again.
I hadn’t pegged him for a comedian and he sounded like an idiot savant who made jokes to cover for a lack of knowledge. He continued, “He was quite mischievous at first until I settled him down.”
Graveyard Uprisings Page 11