He reared back to take a swing at the base of the mast.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I shouted.
“The answer is, I don’t know,” he said. Then he punched the mast.
The whole thing wobbled mightily, especially at the top. It was all I could do to hang on. I fortunately had plenty of tree-climbing experience to draw from.
“Hmm,” he muttered. He stepped back to try again, but before he could, a loud CRACK sounded out from the center of the mast.
“Uh-oh.” He’d hit a weak point in the wood grain. The whole thing was splitting up the middle and coming down like the felled tree it once was.
I swung around to one side and, with my hands gripping the top of the mast and my feet touching just below my hands, tried to offer some guidance to the chosen direction of the mast’s descent. A few seconds later the mast sounded out another loud CRACK and down it went, pretty much falling the way I’d hoped it would. I landed not on the deck but in the water, a little stunned, but otherwise none the worse.
The top fourth of the mast had snapped off after impacting with the side of the ship. I found it floating beside me in the water.
“You lucky devil,” Whomp declared, on verifying my continued good health. I grabbed onto the mast tip.
Something occurred to me. “Hey,” I shouted. “Can demons swim?”
“No,” he admitted. “But you can’t stay in the water forever.”
“I don’t have to. I can swim to the city from here.” I used the mast like a kick board just to illustrate my point.
This was not an outcome that pleased Whomp. “I’ll destroy your ship and your house, kill all your slaves and everyone else who gets in my way if you don’t get out of the water and let me kill you!” Not the most convincing argument.
“Go ahead,” I said. “The boat’s already half-destroyed anyway.”
He picked up the heavy base of the mast and hurled it into the water. He missed me, but I gave him points for effort.
“You’re not nearly as charming when you’re not about to kill somebody,” I pointed out.
“Get back here!” he raged.
“Can’t,” I said. “Gotta go. But it was nice meeting you.”
Swimming off, I could hear him tearing apart my vessel piece by piece, his roaring growing more distant with each stroke.
* * *
It took me the rest of the night and part of the next morning to reach the city’s inner harbor. By then Whomp had destroyed most of the homes on the pier and killed dozens of people, many of whom didn’t even work for me. Midday, around the time I reached my main house in Carthage, the sufets had figured out that something horrible was happening outside the city walls and a garrison of soldiers was sent to deal with the problem. It took a couple of days, and there were a tremendous number of human casualties, but they did eventually take care of Whomp for me.
The subsequent inquiry uncovered the name of the merchant who was foolish enough to hire a demon. Guy had been a guest in my home dozens of times, which explained how he knew so much about my ledgers. He was sentenced to death.
And I got a good discount on two of his ships. So, like any good businessman, I came out ahead in the end.
But I never did learn why there are so few demons in the world.
Chapter 13
Got a visit from the man himself today. He wanted to see how I was holding up, or so he said. His real motive might have had something to do with Viktor, who I might just be getting to. Can’t have your top scientist asking difficult questions when you’re so close to success.
So, he kept going on about how this situation I’m in is “just temporary” and how I should “relax.” Because I’m supposed to be naïve enough to think he’ll actually let me walk out of here when this is all over. I told him to fuck off. Not the best way to get an extra helping at dinner, but whatever.
* * *
I looked again at the frozen image of Gary’s crushed face. What idiot set a demon on me? It seemed unlikely that a bounty was put on my head at the same time a demon was sent to hunt me down, so the most apparent conclusion was that the demon was another bounty hunter. Or at least he was hired by the same person. This is as stupid in modern times as it had been in ancient Carthage. Demons don’t do subtle. They may be motivated by money, but they’re also motivated by bloodlust, and usually the bloodlust wins. Possibly, the person who was behind all of this knew perfectly well that sending a demon would result in some collateral damage, and possibly he or she considered that acceptable. This did not compel me to surrender.
“Do you have any more?” I asked Tchekhy, waving the empty bottle at him.
He looked at me for the first time in two hours. “You need more?”
“I do,” I said. “Turns out there’s a demon chasing me.”
“There is a demon chasing all of us, my friend.”
“I mean literally. You find anything?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Feel like telling me what?”
He lit another cigarette and paused dramatically. Tchekhy can be very theatrical. “Come,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
I got up and half-staggered across the room as the vodka said hello to my motor skills. Perhaps another bottle wouldn’t be a good idea.
Tchekhy pointed to one of the monitors. “You are familiar with the Internet?”
“Of course I am,” I replied indignantly.
I was, in fact, only somewhat familiar with it. Try to look at this from my perspective. I remember getting drunk several of years ago with a guy named Bob who declared that “everything” in the world of computers changes completely “every eighteen months.” He went on with “honestly, you blink and you’re hopelessly behind.” That describes just about my whole existence. Nod off during the Restoration, next thing you know you’re right in the middle of the French Revolution, and you’re wondering what the hell just happened.
“Good,” Tchekhy said. “What you are looking at here is a MUD.”
“Okay.”
“Multi-User Dimension.”
“Okay.”
“It is fantasy. Role-playing. You understand?”
“Not even a little bit.”
He sighed heavily. “Many different people join a group, all right? It is a group where everyone pretends to be someone else in someplace else at some other time or some other world.”
“Why?”
“Why not? It is fun, these games of fantasy. I belong to two myself. I am a merchant in one and a warrior in another.”
“And this is fun? Because I’ve been both and they weren’t all that thrilling.”
“Very much. You trade, you fight monsters, solve puzzles… a welcome distraction.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Why are you showing me one?”
“Because this MUD is not like any I have seen before. It is playing out in the modern world.”
“Sounds healthy,” I noted, a tad sarcastically.
“Yes, but still with fantasy elements. There are vampires and demons and other magical creatures. And one immortal.”
“Pardon?”
“It would appear that one of the central goals of this MUD is to track an immortal man. Just reading along, it seems most of the participants treat this as a work of interactive fiction, but a few are taking it very seriously.”
He clicked an entry titled “Recent Pic.” It came with an attachment and in that attachment was a poorly reproduced image—of me.
“Oh shit,” I said.
“Oh shit, indeed,” agreed Tchekhy. “There is some out-of-character speculation that you are merely the person who is running the MUD, encouraging people to seek you out for some egotistic goal. But the ones who take it seriously accept you as an immortal, and seem to believe in the vampires and fairies as well.”
“They’re called pixies,” I said.
He looked at me carefully. “They are real?”
“Sure.”
“And demons?”
&n
bsp; I held up the photo of Gary’s face. He grimaced. I returned to my computerized picture. “Does that photo include when and where it was taken?”
“It was captured seven months ago in Cleveland.”
That explained where the photograph in Stan’s kit had come from, as well as the “last known location” identifier.
“So, these… MUD people are tracking me?”
“That is the idea. Much honor is accorded anybody who captures your image and reports your current location. The rumor that you were in Boston had the Boston members wandering the streets with their digital cameras for several days. Shall I write that you have since left for New York?”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” I was feeling sick. Might have been the vodka, but I didn’t think so. “How long has this been going on?”
“For over a year.”
“These people have been following me for a year? Whose idea was this?”
“That, I cannot know for certain. I have identified the screen name of the person running the MUD, but his email is fairly generic.” He referred to a second monitor. “Over here I am attempting to track the origin of the email. I sent a request to join this MUD and obtained an automated response. From that, I analyzed the source, a software company in South Dakota called InfoGen.”
“And this company is running the MUD.”
“No. A person with an email address within this company is running the MUD. And that might not be the case either.”
“You lost me again,” I admitted.
“Say you know a computer technician within a certain company, and say that person is in charge of assigning email accounts for that company. Your technician friend could hypothetically establish a perfectly valid email address for you with no one else in the company being the wiser. And you in turn could have your email from that account forwarded to another address. It would effectively be a blind mail drop. Nearly untraceable.”
“Only nearly?”
“I am breaking into their system to ascertain the owner of the account. If that leads to another account, I shall be forced to do the same. With some luck, I will eventually get a location and possibly a name.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Minutes. Hours. Days. There is no a priori answer for that question. But there is another bottle of vodka in the cooler, and you are already familiar with the couch. You are free to stay, if you wish.”
* * *
Tchekhy woke me from a sound, alcohol-induced sleep sometime later. I had no clear idea exactly how much later, not with the air conditioner blocking the window.
“Did you find anything?” I muttered, not particularly willing to move.
“A new message on the MUD,” he said. “You were spotted at the train station.”
“Glorious. What about the email thing?”
“I am still tracing that.”
There was clearly something more. He couldn’t have woken me up just for that. “And?”
“And there is someone here to see you.”
I tried to sit up, but my head wouldn’t let me. “She wouldn’t be blonde and built like a supermodel, by chance, would she? Because otherwise I’m not moving.”
“After a fashion, yes, she is,” he said.
I realized how freaked my old friend looked. Then something buzzed past his ear and I understood.
“Hello, Iza,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“H’lo,” she chimed.
“Remember what I said about pixies, Tchekhy?” I asked. “Meet Iza.”
“We have met,” he stammered, clutching a gold cross around his neck. You’d think a guy who knew an immortal personally would be more difficult to shake up. He was lucky Brenda didn’t come.
Iza was darting madly about the room, which I recognized as the pixie version of a nervous twitch indicative of impending bad news like “you’re living at the base of an active volcano.”
“What’s wrong, Iza?” I asked. “And how did you find me?”
“I follow. Early, when you leave girl. Girl asks Iza to follow. Iza follow to train. Iza read and tell girl.”
I actually understood that. Possibly because I was drunk. I would have to remember that trick.
Brenda—who I hadn’t told where I was going—had asked Iza to find out what train I took. Stupid of me not to consider the possibility I would be tailed by a pixie. Except Iza was sort of coerced into helping me in the first place. I wondered what Brenda did to gain her confidence. Perhaps showing her the mushroom trick was a bad idea.
“So, you didn’t get on the train with me,” I said.
“Nono, I tell girl.”
“Then why are you here now?”
“The man,” she pouted.
“What man?”
“Big man. Big smelly man. Hurt girl.”
I sat up. “Someone hurt Brenda? She’s not…”
“Girl run away. Make me use train.”
“Shit,” I said. Then I threw in, “Shit, shit, shit. It must have been the demon. Are you sure she’s okay?”
“She hide,” Iza emphasized. That was the best she could do, comfort-wise. Had I known half of the goddamn Internet was following me around, I would have given her more cash and demanded she change addresses immediately.
“Demon?” Tchekhy asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And he attacked a friend. He must be one tough bastard to get the best of her.”
“A woman against a demon?”
“She’s not a woman. Brenda’s a vampire.”
“Ah. Of course.” Tchekhy picked up the bottle of vodka from the cot and promptly downed the remainder. He was probably planning to pick up a few more crosses later at wherever one goes to buy crosses. I’m a bull in the Judeo-Christian worldview china shop.
“Iza, how did you find me here?” I asked, remembering that this was a fairly big city.
“I smell,” she said.
Great Zeus, did everything have a better sense of smell than I did?
I thought of Whomp and how quickly he’d followed me to the pier. Could this one track me as easily? Could he track Iza?
“Tchekhy, I need strong coffee and a very quick answer on that email question,” I said, rubbing my eyes as if that had some sort of magical sobering effect. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to be safe for me to stay here much longer.”
“Da,” he answered meekly.
“Also, what the hell time is it?”
* * *
It was pushing seven in the evening, which I discovered as soon as I remembered I was wearing a watch. It felt like later, but I hadn’t gotten much sleep over the last couple of days. All I really wanted was another bottle of Tchekhy’s vodka and a good long nap on his couch, but it was thinking like that that got me into this little jam in the first place, so instead I sipped my coffee and tried to clear the woozies as quickly as possible. It was time to start thinking straight before things spun any more out of control. I could figure my way out of this. Or that’s what I told myself.
The whole thing shook me up pretty badly when I thought hard enough about it. Between the devoted little Internet cult tracking me, the bounty hunters, the demon, and the letters in the newspaper, I felt more trapped than I had in a long time. As I said, I’ve managed to escape long-term imprisonment in my many years, but lack of firsthand experience doesn’t dampen my fear of it in the least bit. Throw in the instinctive reaction to being cornered and the times in the past when I’ve been an actual slave, and it was enough to make an immortal crazy.
My strongest impulse was to get up and just run. Well, run and drink more vodka, but mainly just run. But I was no longer entirely comfortable doing that either. I was running when I left Boston, and it was possible Brenda paid for that decision with her life. If I ran again the next one at risk might be Tchekhy, and I liked his odds against a demon considerably less than Brenda’s.
That was the biggest problem—the demon. I could get away from human bounty hunters, and I could li
ve with the people from the MUD snapping my picture because neither had shown any particular talent for tracking me, thus far relying mainly on luck and tip-offs. But the demon might have gotten my scent, and if I wasn’t careful he’d leave a trail of bodies in his wake.
I was clearly going to have to figure out a way to kill it. Possibly, modern weaponry could do now what swords and arrows could not.
With the first inkling of a plan tricking through my brain, it occurred to me it might be helpful to know if the demon was in New York yet.
“Iza, are you still here?” It’d been an hour since she had arrived with her news, and in that time I had mostly sat still and sobered up while Tchekhy continued to violate the law and pretend there wasn’t a pixie in the room.
“Uh-huh,” I heard her little voice declare. She zipped over from whatever distant corner of the room she’d been camping in.
“Do you remember what the demon smells like?”
“Deeman?”
“The big man who hurt Brenda.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If I asked you to fly around the city and look for him, could you do that? I can get you some more mushrooms.”
“Uh-huh, okay.”
“And then tell me when you find him,” I added. You have to be very specific with pixies.
“Uh-huh.”
She buzzed off.
Once it was clear she was safely out of the room, Tchekhy looked up from his hacking. “It is not natural,” he muttered.
“What, her? She’s no less natural than you are,” I said.
“I know my Bible, Efgeniy. You should not traffic with such beings.”
“I’m a lot older than the Bible, my friend, and I can tell you from experience the world is a good deal stranger and more interesting than anything in that book.”
He fell silent and continued to work. That’s usually what happens when someone brings up the Bible with me, mainly because I was around for most of it. Let’s just say if you’re looking for historical accuracy there, you’re looking in the wrong place. And the stuff that is accurate—or at least fact-based—is horribly skewed. Take Joshua, from battle of Jericho fame. Joshua was a ruthless and violent man who was looking to carve out an empire without any particular concern about how much blood was shed to do it, just like every other megalomaniacal world-conqueror from that time. Having the God of the Old Testament on his side didn’t make any kind of difference, nor did it make the blood on Joshua’s hands justifiable.
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