Tomorrow Wendell (White Dragon Black)

by R. M. Ridley

  As soon as the tall man laid eyes on him, he pointed to the place where the first piece of plaster had dropped. The lathe was shattered. Even as he watched, it flew apart, showering the room with splinters.

  He saw a form through the gap and raised his gun, but hesitated. It would almost certainly be a wasted shot.

  In the next second, the chain rattled through the hole with terrifying accuracy and speed. It smashed the gun out of his hand, sending it skidding across the floor.

  Jonathan clenched his teeth in anger, and to bite back the scream of pain. He wouldn’t give the sons of bitches that satisfaction.

  Luckily the chain had hit the gun and not his hand; his fingers were still working, though sore.

  He moved to get the revolver and saw the glint of the metal as it once more slashed down towards him.

  Jonathan managed to twist enough that the chain missed him and smashed down onto the floor. He reached out and grabbed a hold of it, intent on pulling the creature down.

  The thick links seared into his skin, setting the nerves in his hands screaming with pain. He let go of the chain and shook his hand, as though that would dispel the burning heat etched into it.

  Jonathan heard another loud crack and knew another portion of the plaster had cracked on the ceiling.

  He whipped his head around and saw a piece the size of a dinner plate strike Wendell on the head, the blood instantly visible through the pale hair.

  “No!”

  Wendell slumped in the chair.

  “Wendell! Wendell? Talk to me!”

  He heard the clattering sound of one of the little bastards’ chain unfurling from the front office and had to turn away from the sight of his unmoving client.

  He dropped to his knees and canted his head to his left shoulder. The chain struck the edge of the desk, and a chip of wood dug into Jonathan’s cheek. Without thinking, he grabbed the chain and jerked. The creature, surprised by his action, tumbled forward.

  Jonathan flung another loop over his hand and, as it seared into the flesh on the back of his hand, he stood up, leading with his chain-wrapped fist.

  He felt the jawbone crack, but before it could fall away, he grabbed it by its thick orange hair and smashed its face again, and again.

  When he dropped it to the ground, the face was a bloody pulp.

  Jonathan spun, hoping to see that Wendell had sat up again. If anything, he had slid further down the chair. His body limp—lifeless. Blood caked the side of his head, coated his neck, and stained the collar of his shirt.

  “No, no! Gods, no!” Jonathan yelled.

  Even then, a second, smaller piece of plaster fell, bouncing off Wendell’s shoulder. Jonathan looked up and saw another of the cursed beasts had punched through the ceiling.

  A chain shot down from the hole and wrapped around the arm that hung limply over the chair.

  Jonathan simply stared. Wendell hadn’t reacted at all to the touch of the chain.

  I failed.

  He hadn’t protected his client.

  The chain slid from around his hand.

  I couldn’t save you, Wendell. I couldn’t even do that.

  He let a good man die—had killed him.

  Jonathan felt the blood sticky on his hand and stared at the lifeless body.

  He remembered telling Wendell what his father had said, that there was nothing more right than defending the innocent—no matter what the cost.

  What was the cost when you failed?

  The chain wrapped around Wendell’s arm moved up, and his body jerked out of the chair. Jonathan heard another of the monkey creatures shrieking its approach but didn’t bother to look.

  What does it matter now?

  Jonathan saw Wendell hanging like a side of beef from the ceiling.

  He clenched his fists and roared—a sound of pure rage and challenge.

  Hurtling himself forwards, he leapt up in the air and grabbed onto the chain around Wendell’s arms.

  “You can’t have him, damn you! Even now—you-can’t-have-him!”

  Jonathan reached up into the hole, wrapped his hand around the beast’s neck, and let go of the chain.

  He dropped a foot and then heard the howl of the creature above him turn into a whimpered mewl, as its head slammed into the floor above. Blood splattered down on Jonathan’s face.

  Letting go, he dropped to the floor. Crouching beside Wendell, he said, “I’m sorry,” as he stripped the chain from around the man’s wrist.

  Jonathan tried to push him back into the chair properly but didn’t have the strength left in him.

  He looked over and saw the monkey man that had been coming before he leapt to recover Wendell’s body.

  It didn’t have a chain, only the rope. It seemed confused as to which it should try and target.

  Jonathan didn’t hesitate.

  He lifted his hand, moved his fingers, and uttered nine words that were as ugly as the thing before him.

  A dark energy surged into him, and he bit down on his own tongue to keep from crying out in pain.

  A mist, glowing so dark red it was nearly black, issued from his hand, and the creature gibbered and turned away. The malignance of the oncoming energy was unmistakable.

  The monkey man wasn’t fast enough.

  The fog enveloped it and the creature screamed—as Jonathan’s soul screamed. He watched, refusing to turn away as the skin slid off the muscles, and then the muscles themselves dripped from the bones—all the while the creature screeched.

  It fell silent as its organs dropped to the floor, its bones tumbling after.

  Jonathan wanted to be sick. Not from what he watched, but from the energy he’d used to do it.

  The spell came from one of his blackest grimoires and used perverse energy. There was no White Dragon now, only the Dragon Black, twisting his intestines with its barbed tongue, tearing at his battered soul.

  He didn’t know if it was over—if there were more. It didn’t matter. Not now.

  He heard the sounds of them above. He leaned his shoulder on the side of the chair, panting and holding back his nausea.

  Wendell mumbled then, and Jonathan snapped his head up.

  “Wendell?”

  “My head is killing me,” he groaned.

  “Oh, gods!” Jonathan gasped. “Don’t do that to me.”

  “What did I do?” he asked, blinking his eyes and raising his hand to his head.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  Wendell took a moment to focus on Jonathan.

  “Do what?”

  He shook his head and smiled. “Touch your head.” He pushed himself up to his knees. “Think you can stay conscious for me?”

  “Yeah, I—I think so. The pain should help.” He still wasn’t all back, but he wasn’t dead. Jonathan thought that a damn fine move in the right direction.

  He got his feet under him and stood up. He looked about the room, taking in the damage, the bodies, and the chaos. They hadn’t just breached his defenses and harmed his client—they had defiled his sanctuary. The pounding and shrieks told him they weren’t done, either.

  Jonathan slowly rolled his hands into fists and felt the pain arc hot across his palms. The memory of the dark spell rippled through his soul. He let his fists fall open.

  Crossing to his desk, he drew a cigarette from the silver case. With a flash of energy, a flickering flame sprung up on the tip of smoke. Jonathan drew in a long drag and closed his eyes. He remembered the feel of the creature’s face shattering under his fist and exhaled.

  “Jonathan?” Wendell’s voice seemed distant—from another time.

  Another drag, and he thought about the image of Wendell unmoving.

  He opened his eyes and growled deep in his throat.

  Crushing the cigarette in his hand, he tossed it to the floor. He opened the desk drawer with his shoe and snatched out the bottle. He drank off the first quarter of the bourbon before putting it down.

  Looking at the cloc
k, Jonathan drew in a deep breath. He kept his eyes on the minute hand as he held that breath. He used the willpower with which he wrestled with the Dragon Black and found rage a much weaker beast in the end. The self-reproach was a slipperier thing to control.

  Wendell was fine, but Jonathan’s guilt had been let out of the box and had no plans of going back in. It stung old scars with jagged barbs.

  Jonathan let it.

  Perhaps it was time to let the thing wear itself out. He knew too well, wounds only hurt if you pay them any attention.

  He exhaled slowly. “Time to finish this.”

  Jonathan crossed over to the body on the floor—the third one he had managed to kill, the one that had actually laid its hand on his client.

  He kicked the body over onto its back and, crouching down, took its hand in his. He opened the fingers and looked at the palm. He’d been right; he had smelt burning meat.

  Seared into the creatures palm was a symbol. The image seared there when it had grabbed the medallion under Wendell’s shirt.

  “Om Mani Padme Hum. Seems it does protect the bearer of the symbol.” He looked to the dead, ugly face. “So, you’re from the Hindu side of things. You traveled a long way just to die, my friend.”

  Getting stiffly to his feet, Jonathan swayed for a moment, but the sounds from the hall and above them informed him he didn’t have time for a coffee break.

  He needed something with which to draw the symbol and the floor space to do it.

  “Wendell, think you could manage to clear the plaster off the circle as best you can?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Jonathan hoped he wasn’t endangering his client by asking. He didn’t see much choice.

  He dashed into his closet and looked about, hoping for inspiration. He had to use something that wouldn’t just get scuffed if any more plaster fell, something more permanent.

  It was seeing the fat tail feather of a turkey that gave him the answer.

  Feather in hand, he entered the room and did a quick double check. They hadn’t attacked again—yet. Probably hadn’t expected this much resistance in the first place.

  He forced himself not to think about what he’d done to the one monkey man. It was something he had always sworn he’d never cast. Capping his guilt, Jonathan dipped the feather into the red liquid remains of creature he’d melted.

  Wendell had cleared enough space.

  “Okay, good enough. Sit back down and rest your head.”

  Jonathan crouched and saw his gun.

  “Here, hold this, would you?”

  Jonathan began painting the symbol that had already once saved Wendell, around and under the chair. He had to go back to freshen the feather twice.

  When he was done, he looked to Wendell.

  The bleeding had stopped. The wound wasn’t even as bad as Jonathan feared. A nasty gash, but no bigger than an inch and a half, lay at the center of a wicked goose egg. It had just bled spectacularly as head wounds tend to do.

  Once he knew Wendell would live, Jonathan took the further step of painting the symbol on the floor at the front door, but he thought it unnecessary. The sounds, their shrieks, howls, and the thudding, had stopped.

  The next second Wendell was pointing his own gun at him.

  Jonathan couldn’t figure out what had gotten into the man until he saw the panic in Wendell’s eyes.

  Dropping like a sack of potatoes, he hit the floor with a grunt of pain.

  A shot rang out.

  Jonathan rolled onto his back and saw one of the creatures look down at the hole in its chest.

  Even as he registered it, there was a crack, like thunder, and a good portion of the top of the creature’s head was missing. Jonathan rolled to get out of the way of the body as it toppled to the ground.

  “Thanks!” Jonathan wheezed, lying on his back and panting. His brain said to get up—his body told it to go to hell.

  “You realize I was aiming for its face, both times—right?” Wendell admitted, holding the weapon as though it were a rotten fish.

  “You hit it and not me. That’s about all I ever ask for.”

  Jonathan thought about getting up again and realized he was good where he was. “You doing all right?” he asked.

  “I’m feeling all right,” Wendell said with an odd chuckle.

  “I’m not feeling too good myself.”

  “How much more of this do we have to put up with?”

  “If you’re talking creatures trashing the place while trying to get at you, by the gods, I hope not much more. I hurt. If you’re talking time,” Jonathan glanced to the clock, “only another hour and forty minutes ’til midnight, but I’m keeping you in until twelve-thirty, just to be overly cautious.”

  “Two hours. We can do that, right? Two hours?”

  “We’ve made it this long. I think another two hours we can do,” Jonathan said, and resisted the urge to laugh hysterically.

  “At least they don’t smell as bad as the Sluagh did,” Wendell said, and Jonathan gave in and brayed despite his ribs.

  Jonathan finally made it into his chair, and the two of them waited out the last two hours. The expectation of another attack made them both tense. They masked it by reliving the encounters they had already survived.

  The clock finally pulled its long arm up, pointing straight at the ceiling with the shorter one in front. Jonathan had been staring at it, and nothing else, for seven minutes by this point.

  He gave a sigh of relief and announced the time.

  “Whew,” Wendell leaned his head back. “For a while there, I had actually started to doubt that time was moving forward at all.”

  “Well, you’re not going anywhere for another half hour, but I think you can probably safely leave the circle now. Why don’t you carry that chair over here, and we can toast surviving the last twenty-four hours?”

  “Throw in another of those cigars, and you’ve got a deal.”

  “You know smoking isn’t good for your health,” Jonathan joked as he grabbed one of the cigars from the humidor.

  He’d have to pick up more, but he had one left, should he have need of it. If Wendell wanted to celebrate with the other, Jonathan wasn’t going to stop him.

  “Yeah, I’ll quit again tomorrow. Back to healthy living and all that, but until that day dawns, I think I’ll live it up, see?” Wendell said as he placed the chair beside the desk.

  Jonathan clipped the end of the cigar and passed it to Wendell with the lighter. While Wendell puffed on the cigar, making sure it was smoldering well, Jonathan took out a cigarette and popped it into his own mouth.

  Because he was feeling cocky, and because the need was still tearing through his body like a hyena on a dying man’s chest, Jonathan caused the tip of the cigarette to flash into a flame lasting just long enough for him to inhale.

  He poured three fingers worth of bourbon into both his glass and Wendell’s mug. This finished the bottle, and Jonathan dropped it off the side of his desk as he always did.

  It landed with a clank, clatter, and thud. Jonathan chuckled, remembering that he hadn’t righted the wastebasket yet. He shrugged and, lifting up his glass towards his client, said, “To new days.”

  “To new days,” Wendell echoed as they clinked the edges of their vessels together.

  “So, another few minutes. Want to use the closet one last time for nostalgia’s sake?” Jonathan offered. “You know, something to remember all this by?”

  “I think I’m good,” Wendell replied in mock seriousness. “As for remembering, Jonathan, I’ll never forget what you did for me.”

  “I still want to figure out who or what was behind it.”

  “I don’t know,” Wendell said, shaking his head slowly. “I’m starting to feel that the old adage of let sleeping dogs lie might be best.”

  “I can understand that.” For Jonathan, that meant he would carry out any further inquiries as delicately as possible. He wouldn’t want Wendell to be disturbed by them.
/>   Still, if Wendell’s left alone now, perhaps it is best not to poke the slumbering bear.

  He enjoyed the smoke and drink as if they were the first of the night.

  Wendell had transformed into a version of himself completely different than anything Jonathan had previously seen.

  A smile, small but unmistakable, stayed on his lips, and his eyes had a depth that brimmed with life. His body language was dynamic. No longer jittery and pulled in, instead relaxed and open.

  Jonathan knew that part of this was the reprieve they had earned on his sentence. However, Wendell had started living a new life now—one with magic and mystery.

  After what he’d experienced and seen over the last couple of days, things would always be different for him.

  And then Jonathan looked up and it was thirty minutes past midnight.

  “Well, that’s it, my friend. Grab your coat, and let’s get out from between these four walls.”

  Wendell rose, threw back the last of his drink, and drew in a deep breath. “Well, that’s a recommendation I can’t refuse.”

  They put on their coats and Jonathan led the way.

  He took the elevator for the simple reason that he doubted he could take the stairs with the way his body felt.

  “So, what do you say to some hot food and coffee over at The Lucky Monkey?”

  “Actually, if it’s all the same, I’m really looking forward to getting home, taking a hot shower, and collapsing on my bed,” Wendell replied as the elevator door slid open.

  Jonathan nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

  Although he had been looking forward to the two of them having a celebratory feast, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t understand Wendell’s desire.

  “Might just do the same myself, now that you mention it.”

  “Great,” Wendell sighed. “Maybe later, in a few days, say, we can get together and catch up over a meal?”

  Jonathan held open the front door and then followed Wendell into the bitter cold air. The street lights cast amber pools on the thin layer of snow which lay on the ground. It was just deep enough to squeak annoyingly with every footfall.

  “I know there is still a lot I’m going to have to learn about all the other stuff. I’d like to think I can call you a friend and, you know, have someone I can call when things get weird.”