by DD Barant
Charlie rifles a shot into his chest. It punches through Zhang’s body like a bullet through smoke, leaving a fist-size hole in its wake. Zhang looks more irritated with the interruption than the assault, and the hole seals itself a second later. “That was most rude.”
“No, that was medium rude. I got most right here.” Charlie draws his short sword from inside his jacket.
I can already tell it’s pointless, but I have to back my partner’s play. I put a slug through Zhang’s windpipe—the .454 round is big enough to more or less destroy his neck and spinal column, and decapitation is always a good fallback position when dealing with supernaturals.
But I’m not all that surprised when all I get for my trouble is a replay of Charlie’s attack. Now Zhang looks more disappointed than annoyed, as if he were expecting better from me.
“I see,” he says, and extends his right arm. The flesh melts away from his hand, leaving the glowing bones exposed, and it shoots forward, growing as it extends. By the time it seizes Charlie he looks like a doll in the grip of an immense skeleton.
I fire again, to zero effect. Charlie’s managed to keep his sword arm free, and hacks at a metacarpal. The blade rings off the bone like it was made of granite.
“Foolish creature,” Zhang says, and tightens his grip. He’s going to pop Charlie like a balloon—
But then something crosses Zhang’s face—it’s what’s called a micro expression, something most people would miss, and it’s one of consternation.
“You are not worthy of death,” Zhang says, and gestures with his other hand. A shimmering hole opens in midair, around twelve feet off the ground, and he tosses Charlie through it like someone throwing away an empty pop bottle. I can see what looks like a tile wall on the other side, and Charlie thumps into it none too softly.
Zhang gestures again, and the hole closes.
The sorcerer and I regard each other. I lower my gun, reluctantly. At least Charlie’s safe—I’m pretty sure that was the real world Zhang just threw him into. Why he did that instead of just killing him, I’m not sure.
“As I was saying.” Zhang’s hand returns to its normal size and condition. “Both of you are well known to me. Mr. Stoker, will you not join us?”
Stoker opens his door and gets out of the car. “Thanks for all the help,” I snarl.
“Combat was pointless,” Stoker says. “And rude. My apologies, Mr. Zhang.”
“You are most gracious.” Zhang smiles, an extremely creepy thing to do when I can see his skull grinning behind his lips at the same time.
“I’m not,” I say. “You can’t keep us here, Zhang.”
“I assure you that I can. While your hunting ability is renowned, even the infamous Bloodhound can be restrained behind a sturdy enough fence. The borders of Yomi are quite up to the task, I’m certain.”
That’s not what I expected. While it’s true I’ve made some waves since I got to Thropirelem, I never thought of my rep as being something that traveled beyond the office. “So you know me?”
“Of course. You defeated a god, Bloodhound; that resonated through the mystical continuum. Every powerful shaman and sorcerer on this plane—and perhaps a few others—took notice. I’m surprised no one has tried to acquire you before this.”
“Oh, it’s been tried.” I give him the coldest smile I can manage. “Didn’t work out so well, though. Not for them.”
“Perhaps I shall be more fortunate.”
“Yeah, I doubt that.”
He gives his head an acknowledging bow. “We shall see. In the meantime, consider yourselves my honored guests; while you are here, you are under my protection. Still, I would advise you not to wander far, or to eat anything but what I provide. To do so would doom you to dwell here for eternity.”
“Damn. I was really looking forward to trying that zombie sushi place we passed a few blocks ago. Nothing like an undead California roll when you’ve got a craving, you know?”
Zhang just stares at me. Geez, tough realm.
“I shall return with provisions,” he says, and zips up into the overhead fog like a corpse on a bungee cord.
“Well, that was interesting,” I mutter.
“In a very Chinese sense,” Stoker says. “You know the ancient curse, right?”
“May you live in interesting times? Yeah, that one popped up in my reality, too. Guess it’s a universal sentiment.” I holster my gun again. “I say we keep driving. If Zhang doesn’t want us exploring, it might be because he’s afraid we’ll find an exit.”
Stoker shrugs. “Or because he doesn’t want something to eat his two hostages before he can sell them.”
“There is that. In which case, I prefer to be a moving target. You coming?” I slide into the driver’s seat.
He gets in beside me. “Where to?”
“Left. Let’s start with that, and see what happens.”
I check the gas gauge as we hit the road. Three-quarters of a tank. Wonder how long it’ll last in the underworld—I have no idea what the rules are, other than Zhang’s warning about not eating. If I fill up at a gas station in Hell, will the DeSoto be doomed to motor down these roads forever? And if so, will Charlie’s insurance cover a fender bender with Beelzebub?
Shut up, brain.
More bland, deserted scenery. The buildings end and now there’s only an empty plain on either side of the road. Then even the road ends, and we’re just driving on flat ground. I stop and turn around, but I can’t seem to find the road again. I stop and shut the engine off; no sense wasting gas if we don’t have a destination.
“Something I can’t figure out,” I say. “Charlie. Why didn’t Zhang kill him?”
“Because we’re living beings in the land of spirits,” Stoker says. “You kill us here, you release our life force. If that happens to you or me, it’s just another human soul added to the local population. But in Charlie’s case—”
I nod. “Ah. Guess Zhang could tell what’s under Charlie’s hood, huh?” Unlike most lems—who are animated by the spirit of a steer or other common animal—Charlie’s charged up with the essence of a long-dead giant lizard. The last thing Zhang wanted was the pissed-off ghost of a T. rex to deal with. That’s good news; it means the sorcerer is still vulnerable here. Too bad my partner’s currently on another plane of existence.
“Yeah.” Stoker leans back against the bench seat, propping one massive arm on it. “So. We need to strategize.”
“We do. Got any ideas?”
“I do, but they all involve not being trapped in an other-dimensional limbo.”
“Ah.”
We fall silent. It’s surprisingly easy to do, but not because Stoker and I are comfortable with each other; no, it’s this place. The grayness outside seems to be seeping into the car, leaching away any sense of purpose, any hope. It takes a conscious effort of will to talk, and I realize that the longer we spend here, the worse our chances are for ever escaping. We need to stay engaged, stay alert—
Stoker reaches down and hits the PLAY button on the car stereo.
The sound of “The Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” fills the car. It’s the perfect antidote, upbeat and cheerful and bouncy, as familiar as a favorite T-shirt and just as comforting. The grin that shows up on my face is a little slow in coming, but it’s genuine.
“Good idea,” I say. “I’m just glad Charlie wasn’t in the mood for the blues.”
“Yeah, let’s try and accentuate the positive.” Stoker sounds as if he’s having a hard time doing that himself. “Because this is just going to get worse, Jace.”
“You call that positive?” I shake my head. “We can’t just sit here and listen to music until we run out of gas and the battery dies. We have to do something.”
“Agreed. But what? We could wander forever in this fog and still never get anywhere.”
“You’re right. But I don’t think this place follows the same rules we’re used to. It’s a … a conceptual place.” I struggle to find the words
to explain what I’m thinking. “Despair has an actual weight here, a physical presence. Other emotions might, too. The dead might not be able to feel much, but we still do. We can … we can…”
“We can what?” His voice is guarded.
“We can fight.”
“I’m not about to give up, Jace. But what are you suggesting, exactly?”
I slap him.
It’s the first time I’ve ever slapped anyone. I’ve hit people plenty of times; with my closed fist, the heel of my palm, my elbow, my knee, even my forehead—but never with my open hand. Now I know why: It hurts.
“Ow!” we both say at the same time.
Stoker pulls back—when did he get so close?—and looks at me with both shock and guilt. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry!”
I cradle my poor hand. Slapping Stoker is like smacking a lamppost. “Sorry? For what? I hit you, you idiot!”
“I know! I was there!”
“Then why are you apologizing?”
“Because—wait.” He rubs his cheek, which is turning a satisfying shade of red. “You hit me because…”
“When I said we can fight, I meant it literally. I thought I’d get the ball rolling, but apparently you don’t have any.” That’s low, but we’re not going to get anywhere by being nice here.
He blinks at me, then bursts into laughter. Okay, not the reaction I was going for, but any show of emotion at this point is a good thing. And it has the added effect of pissing me off, because I have no idea why me hitting him is so damn funny. Maybe I should have broken his nose, instead. “What?”
“I’ve been accused of many things, but never that. And considering what I thought you were proposing, it’s even funnier.”
It takes me a second to process that. And when I do, I get a very gratifying surge of anger in return. “Proposing? With you? Here? Are you out of your sociopathic Neanderthal mind?”
“No. But I could be out of my pants.”
I glare at him, and he stares steadily back. And I realize that what he’s suggesting—what he thought I was suggesting—isn’t that unthinkable. In fact, I did something similar to save Cassius’s life, not too long ago; and as primal as that experience was, what could be more elemental than committing the ultimate life-affirming act in the land of the dead?
Sure. Because the only thing better than boffing your boss is waiting until he disappears so you can jump in the sack with the first psycho that comes along. “Sorry—we were in Hell, we needed a little cheering up, you know how it is.”
“Not. Going. To happen,” I growl.
He yawns. Deliberately. “Sure it isn’t. You know that line, Not if you were the last man on Earth? Well, we may not be on Earth—but I am the only man here.”
Now I’m sorry I didn’t break his nose. “Listen, you arrogant, homicidal sack of testosterone—”
And that’s when someone raps on my window.
“AHHH!” I spin around in my seat, scrabbling for my gun—
A gray face stares in at me. Her eyes look Asian, but it’s the only distinguishing feature about her. She’s dressed in some kind of formless gray shroud the exact color of her skin, and her hair is only slightly darker. She looks at me with the barest trace of interest on her colorless face.
We stare at each other. I feel like I’ve just been pulled over by a zombie traffic cop. “I’m going to need to see your license, registration, and brains, ma’am.” I suppress the urge to stick my gun in her face—I really have to stop relying on the damn thing so much.
“I think she wants to talk to you,” Stoker says.
“So? What if I roll down the window and she tries to eat my head?”
“She’ll probably get food poisoning.”
The woman continues to study me in a vague sort of way. I have to admit, I’m not exactly getting a hostile or dangerous vibe from her—and if she really wanted to attack me I doubt she’d announce herself beforehand or let a thin layer of glass slow her down. I sigh and roll down the window. “Uh, hi.”
“Hi.” Her voice is as dull and flat as an old butter knife. She doesn’t offer anything further.
“Is there something you want?” I say. It seems as good a conversation gambit as any.
“No.” More silence.
I try a different approach. “Why are you here?”
“Because I’m dead.”
Progress, I guess—a whole three words. “How did you die?”
“I was old.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen.” But not to pires, which means she was either a thrope or a baseline human. “How long have you been dead?”
“Ever since I got here.”
“Were you a thrope?”
“Don’t know what that is.”
“Werewolf.”
“What wolf?”
“No, werewolf.”
“Oh.” She pauses and straightens up, looking around. Then she raises one arm slowly and points to the swirling mist behind the car. “There wolf.”
Stoker and I both swivel around and look out the rear window.
There’s a figure back there, standing in the fog at the edge of visibility. Its silhouette is that of a thrope in half-were form, tall pointed ears jutting from a canine skull, but that shrinks down to a more human outline before my eyes. The figure takes a few steps forward, resolving into a redheaded man of indeterminate age. His features are narrow, with a slightly Asian cast to them, but nothing definite; he could pass for Hispanic or Caucasian or even Indian without much trouble. He’s dressed in a tan trench coat over a dark olive suit.
“Hello, love,” he says. His voice is self-assured, amused, and right off a London street.
I look at Stoker. “I think he’s talking to you.”
“Talking to both of you, actually.” The man’s red hair is darker than most, and slicked back with oil. “I mean, I hate to interrupt what seems a fascinating dialogue between you and Ms. Rest-In-Peace there, but when you’re done discussing the relative merits of open versus closed caskets, I wouldn’t mind a moment of your time.”
I look at Stoker. He shrugs. “I think we can work it into our busy schedule, don’t you?”
“Who are you?” I ask the stranger. “And what do you want?”
“You can call me Zevon, Agent Valchek. And as to what I want? Why, I want to provide you with a much-needed service.”
“Let me guess,” I say. “Protection?”
He gives a throaty chuckle. “Not at all. Transportation—which is to say, a way out of this place. Interested?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“A deal, of course. You provide something, I provide something in return.” He gives me a grin, which is a little too feral for my liking. “What else did you expect?”
I sigh. “Something a little less cliché? Come on, guy with a fondness for red shows up in the underworld and offers to make a deal? Why don’t you just pull out a contract and ask for a blood sample?”
Zevon looks slightly indignant. “Please. First of all, you have your cultural references all mixed up; this is Yomi, not Perdition. Second: I much prefer green to red, as you should be able to tell by what I’ve got on; and third, if you mean to suggest I’m after your soul, I should point out that you’re already here. Honestly, if that’s what I was after I’d just kill the both of you.”
“You could try,” I growl.
He shakes his head. “No, no, no. That’s not my intention at all. I’m not Lucifer or Satan or anyone like that; I’m just a humble facilitator. Really.”
“Uh-huh. So what’s a humble facilitator charge for getting out of here?”
“Oh, it varies from customer to customer. Depending on the entertainment value.”
I start to see where this is heading. “How about I hook you up with free cable? I know a guy.”
His smile gets wider. “Oh, the reception in here is terrible. I know, I’ve tried. But you’ve got the right idea.”
Yeah. In an endless gray blankness, anything ne
w and stimulating would be invaluable. But what a demon—and no matter what this guy claims, that’s what he must be—finds entertaining isn’t going to be pleasant. On the other hand, the lack of traditional Judeo-Christian torments here means it may not involve red-hot pokers or bodily orifices. “So tell me, already. But I should warn you that my singing voice is terrible and I can’t juggle.”
“Oh, I think you’re a fine juggler. Just think about how many balls you’ve got in the air right now—there’s the dojo you just started, your friends, your dog, your new lover … and of course your job, which really counts as more than one. All those cases you get dragged into because of your expertise in profiling, when what you really should be doing is concentrating on the one that’ll let you get back to your old life.”
He pauses, obviously enjoying the grim look on my face as he effortlessly defines my current existence. “But look! The biggest ball of all has just landed in your hand! Aristotle Stoker, Fugitive Number One, right there beside you. Exactly one half of your ticket home—you should be overjoyed. Well, half overjoyed, anyway. Maybe just joyed.”
“Get to the point.”
“Which one? There are so many, all of them quite tasty; a point buffet, if you will. Let’s start with a nice contradiction appetizer: the fact that you’re collaborating with someone you really should be arresting.”
“We have mutual concerns.”
Zevon mock-frowns. “Oh? Well, I suppose there is the fact that you’re both human. And single. And heterosexual. Which brings me to point number two…”
“You’re just here to annoy us, aren’t you?” I nod wearily. “Okay, go ahead. Beats us annoying each other.”
“No, annoying you is just a bonus,” Zevon says cheerfully. “Would you mind getting out of the car so we can talk face-to-face? More comfortable all round, I think.”
Why not? I feel like I could use a little distance from Stoker right now, anyway. I get out on one side, Stoker on the other. I cross my arms and lean against the DeSoto with one shoulder. “So make your pitch, already.”
“All right, here it is: I’ll return both of you to the mortal realm—if you’re willing to give up something near and dear to each of you.”