Black Box Inc.

by Jake Bible

  “What? Hell no, I didn’t put the plating back on,” Lassa said. “Screw that shit.”

  “Now we have an Achilles’ heel,” Harper said.

  “We’re in a goddamn limo,” I said. “We were never in a tank.”

  “This is my firm’s limo and with any luck it will remain that way when we are all done here,” Teresa said. “Our accountants are good, but I have no idea how’d they write this off.”

  Her head cocked, and I held up a finger stained with nacho cheese dust. I’d moved on to tortilla chips.

  “Don’t even think of billing us for this,” I said. “Sharon will fight you to the death. Any damage to your limo is a business expense, not a billable expense.”

  “That was not what I was thinking,” she said.

  “Liar,” I replied.

  She didn’t argue.

  We had a few close calls, but Lassa sped past them. The closest was when we nearly ran smack into a messed-up Hydra-looking thing that landed right in the road. The beast towered a good fifty feet above us and was busy screeching at something way up in the sky. So Lassa took advantage of the distraction, aimed between its legs, and put the pedal to the metal. Harper didn’t even have to use the RPGs.

  Another hour passed before we pulled over again. I’d been scarfing food nonstop since leaving Ekron. I couldn’t fill my belly enough. Even when the stomach cramps hit, and I knew I couldn’t eat another bite or I’d puke, I kept jamming Goldfish past my lips. Having that Dim trap sitting back in Ekron, wide open and drawing energy from me, coupled with a Dim key in my gut, was almost more than I could take. I coped with food.

  The sky had gotten dark along the Gory Gauntlet, and the gas station we’d stopped at before was all lit up inside. Its simple sign, which read “Gas,” kept blinking on and off. Migraine fuel right there.

  “You’re back,” Stan said as he came out of the garage. “Ain’t I lucky.”

  “Fill ’er up,” Lassa said as he got out and stretched.

  Harper hopped out, shotgun ready, and scanned the area. She pounded on the top of the limo.

  “What was that?” I asked as I got out too.

  “I was giving you the all clear,” she answered.

  “Then say ‘all clear,’” I said. “I really hate that pounding shit. We’re not Blackwater.”

  “Fuck off,” she said, but with a smile.

  “What ya eating?” Kek’cha’s Right Head called out from his perpetual seat in front of the station. “Smells good.”

  I looked down at the bag in my hands. I had no goddamn idea what I was eating. Everything tasted like salt and sugar and cheese by that point. I could have bitten into a crisp apple, and the fruit would have tasted like salt and sugar and cheese.

  “Scrunchers,” I said, reading the label.

  “Scrunchers? That shit’ll rot your belly, boy!” Left Head cackled. “You’re gonna have the trots for days!”

  “Way past that worry, pal,” I said.

  I crumpled up the empty bag and tossed it into the trash can by the gas pumps. There was a gulp and a belch from the can. I didn’t bother having a look inside.

  Stan had started pumping the gas, giving us the evil eye the whole time. I nodded and smiled, then studied the gas station.

  “Bathroom?” I asked.

  “Gonna need a key,” he said.

  I raised an eyebrow; his expression, which I had to guess was a mix of contempt and boredom, hard to tell with all those eyes, didn’t change.

  “Where’s the key?” I snapped.

  “Nowhere for a rude ass like you,” he said.

  “I apologize,” I stated flatly.

  “Inside. Hanging by the door next to the counter.”

  “Thanks.” I turned to Harper, who was doing stretches while staring out into the dark landscape. “I’m hitting the head.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Just using the bathroom, Harp.”

  “Nothing is just anything here. Watch your ass. Literally.”

  “Jesus. Great.” I went to find the key.

  “You get done what ya needed to get done?” Right Head asked as I passed Kek’cha on my way into the station.

  “I think so,” I said.

  The two outside heads looked at each other. The middle one ignored everything going on.

  “You did?” Left Head asked.

  “Lord Beelzebub didn’t take your souls?” Right Head asked.

  “No, we made it out fine,” I said. “We’re professionals. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  I went inside, found the key, and made my way back to the bathroom. The door stuck a little, and I had to put my shoulder to the warped wood-like material to get it to open, but I finally did—and not a minute too soon.

  I’d say I was halfway through my business when I heard the scratching from above.

  At first, I thought the sound was the wind. Then I thought maybe rats. After that I panicked, because who the hell knew how big the rats were around there. I finished up, double-checked there wasn’t a Dim key in the bowl, and hurried to wash my hands. If I was going to be attacked by huge extradimensional roadside gas station rats, I wanted clean hands, dammit.

  The scratching got louder, and I heard something, or somethings, muttering above me.

  “Jesus . . . ,” I said, then shouted, “Guys!” as the ceiling caved in and three harpies landed right in the middle of the too-small bathroom.

  I didn’t recognize the harpies, hard to recognize that kind of ugly, but I was fairly sure they were part of the same group we’d dealt with yesterday. They leapt at me, and I punched one in the face while I kicked another in the chest. Those two moves simultaneously sent me off balance fast, and I fell against the sink, giving my ribs a hard whack. I grunted in pain, then punched another harpy before one got in at me and took a bite from my thigh.

  “Bitch!” I yelled and shot a two-foot-long rod of Dim out of my palm at her.

  The Dim pierced her chest, sending black blood spraying everywhere as her heart exploded. I yanked the rod back and thwacked the head of a harpy coming for my face. The nasty bird bitch stumbled back against the other harpy, and they ended up in a tangle of wings and putrid feathers.

  I smiled at the Dim rod in my hand. Despite the drain on me, the power felt good. Real good.

  “Howdy,” I said as I stood over the tangled harpies.

  The one I’d stabbed in the heart was down for the count, her face slack and her blood continuing to pour out of the hole in her chest, so I didn’t worry about her. She’d be out of commission for a while. But the other two . . .

  I slammed the Dim rod against the head of the closest harpy, cracking its bird woman skull. Bone fragments and bits of brain splattered against the less-than-clean bathroom wall. The harpy cried out as I hit it again and again, shutting that disgusting mouth up fast.

  The last harpy tried to get untangled from its sister’s corpse, but there was no hope of that. It thrashed and hissed at me, spitting epithets and promises of what it’d do to my body when finally free. I raised the Dim rod with both hands and stabbed the harpy through the eye. Once the body had stopped twitching, and I knew it was dead for a while, I waved my hand, and the rod disappeared.

  “Damn,” I said as I studied my handy work.

  The door was kicked in, slamming into my back and sending me falling across the harpy corpses, as Harper burst into the bathroom, shotgun up and sweeping the tiny space.

  “Hey,” I said. “I handled the situation.”

  She grabbed me by the back of the neck and yanked me onto my feet.

  “Thanks,” I said as I wiped stray, blood-coated feathers from my shirt. “How’re things out there? Any harpy trouble?”

  “All quiet outside,” Harper
said. “That’s how I heard you yelling.”

  She studied the bodies for a second, then looked around the bathroom.

  “You done in here?”

  “All done and I had time to wash my hands. Which are coated in harpy gunk now.”

  “Wipe ’em on your shirt,” she said, nodding toward the front of the gas station. “Wash them later. For now, let’s get the hell out of here. Lassa’s paying Stan and we should be able to push through to the faerie dimension tonight. With luck we’ll be there at dawn.”

  “Yes, because luck is always on our side,” I said.

  We went outside, I said good-bye to Kek’cha, not only to be polite, but because a little Sharon voice in my head said, “Always network, Chase. You never know what contacts we may need.” I hated networking because of the ingrained cheese factor, but Kek’cha was as far from cheesy as you could get, so it sure couldn’t hurt.

  “Bring me some of those Scrunchers next time you come through,” the Middle Head said. The other two heads groaned.

  “You can talk. Nice.” I smirked. “Will do.”

  Back in the limo, and we were off, driving our last stretch of the Gory Gauntlet. I was almost reluctant to leave, considering our next move was having to deal with Daphne.

  25

  THE SUN WAS cresting the horizon when we pulled up in front of Daphne’s mansion.

  Travis got out first, since that would be protocol if he actually was Aspen Littlestick. He’d shifted back into that form before we’d crossed over into the faerie dimension.

  He and Harper had discussed how they were going to handle Daphne along the drive. Harper needed to stay the angry, but subservient traitor, while Travis had to pretend he didn’t know Daphne suspected he wasn’t actually Aspen even though we knew she did. They were both good in their roles, but that was a lot of bullshit to keep up with, especially after everything we’d been through.

  “There they are,” Daphne said as she came out of the mansion in nothing but a sleeping tee. I mean nothing but that. One innocent stretch and everyone knew how she groomed downstairs. She sipped from a mug of coffee and gave us all the biggest, widest, most full of shit smile ever created in the history of all faerie existence. “Have a nice trip? Get what you were supposed to get?”

  “Yes,” I said as I got out of the limo behind Travis and Harper.

  Lassa stayed in the driver’s seat while Teresa remained in the back of the limo. We weren’t going to make the whole group easy targets. Lassa had instructions to fire the RPGs if anything looked even close to hinky.

  Except a couple of spindly-legged faeries had come running from around the mansion with a wheelbarrow and proceeded to unload the RPGs from the launchers. I could hear Lassa yelling inside the limo as he tried to swivel the belt guns to face Daphne, but the guns were obviously rebelling as they started to turn toward the windshield instead.

  “Lassa! Stop!” I shouted.

  He stopped, and the guns swiveled back to face forward.

  “Wouldn’t want anyone to accidentally shoot themselves, now would we?” Daphne asked as the two faeries disassembled the belt guns next. “Not after all your hard work getting me what I wanted.” She eyed me and pursed her lips. “You did get what I wanted, didn’t you, Chase?”

  “I said yes.” I produced a Dim key from my pocket. Before we’d crossed into the faerie dimension, I’d transferred Lord Beelzebub’s shriveled little soul from that ridiculous box and into a Dim box. She’d know something was up if I’d handed it to her in a mahogany box with stickers on top. “Here you go. Be careful, though.”

  “Oh, and why is that?” Daphne asked. “Is the black box you made booby-trapped?”

  She stuck out her chest, making sure I could see her nipples tight against the T-shirt. I could have sworn I heard Lassa whimper even from inside the limo.

  “No, but Dim dissipates fast,” I said. “When you open the Dim box, you’ll want to move the soul into another vessel immediately.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to the precious cargo.”

  Her real face flashed at me for a brief second, and I took a step back.

  “Show me,” she ordered.

  With a wave of her hand, her T-shirt was gone and replaced by a robin’s egg blue sundress. Her hair was up in a bun, and she wore dainty librarian glasses on the end of her nose, a beaded chain around her neck.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said and pulled the box out of the Dim.

  It appeared in my palm, about the size of a Rubik’s Cube.

  “How . . . anticlimactic,” she said as she studied the box without touching it. “You do the honors, Chase.”

  “You got a coffee can or something to put the soul in?” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” she said and snapped her fingers.

  An actual coffee can appeared in Travis’s hands. To his credit, he didn’t react at all except to look thoroughly bored in that Aspen way. He pulled the plastic lid off and held the can out toward me.

  “Do your job, defiler of dimensions,” he said.

  I did my job.

  I put the key against the box, and the Dim dissolved into smoke, then into nothing, and I was left with Lord Beelzebub’s soul in the palm of my hand. For a brief moment I wondered what would happen if I squeezed as hard as I could. Daphne must have known what was going through my mind, as she tutted and clicked her tongue.

  “In the can,” she said.

  I complied and set the nasty thing inside the coffee can. Travis put the lid back on, then offered the can to Daphne, bowing low.

  “We done now?” Harper snapped. “Am I released from my exile curse?”

  “What’s that?” Daphne asked, taking the coffee can from Travis. “Released? Is release what you’re looking for?”

  “You know what I mean.” Harper snarled. “No word games, Daphne. Am I free to go or not?”

  “Well, certainly you are free to go,” Daphne said. “All of you are.”

  “And you’re going to let us leave unharmed?” I said.

  “Chase,” Daphne said. “We had a deal. What did you think would happen? That I’d imprison all of you and slowly torture you for the next few centuries?”

  Her eyes twinkled, then glazed over like a junkie’s. Jesus, was she actually fantasizing about it?

  “Can we avoid that?” I asked.

  “We would like to return now, please,” Teresa called from inside the limo.

  “Not going to come out and great me, Ms. Sullivan?” Daphne shouted as she bent to look into the vehicle. “I might consider that rude.”

  “Not trying to be rude, simply trying to hurry this along,” Teresa said.

  “Quite,” Daphne replied and looked at me. “Back home, then?”

  “Back home,” I said.

  “Very well,” she said. “You all may leave. Oh, and I’ve done you a favor. When you arrive, Time will only have advanced a minute or so after the moment that you left. Still had a little of Lord Beelzebub’s temporal fluidity to play with. He really needs to be careful sprinkling that around. Some of us have learned to take advantage. But only for dear friends, of course. Isn’t that nice of me?”

  “Very nice,” I said.

  “Will you be taking the traitor with you?” Daphne asked.

  “We will,” I said. “She’s got some shit to answer for.”

  “And you are fine with this, Harper?” Daphne asked. “They won’t be very nice to you. You’re always welcome to stay here and come back to work for me full time, my little abomination. I’ll lift your exile fully since I am down an assassin. I could certainly use the help.”

  “Down an assassin?” I asked.

  “No!” Harper yelled as Daphne jammed her fist through Travis’s chest and out his back, his
still-beating heart gripped firmly in her hand.

  “Goddamn you!” I yelled.

  Harper brought up her shotgun and opened fire on Daphne, but the bitch of a faerie was already gone. She’d blinked out, like that, Travis’s heart still in her hand.

  “Chase!” Lassa screamed from inside the limo.