by Aaron Crash
“Betcha the church has something to do with the little girl ghost,” Blaze said.
Elle walked over to join Ling. Both stared at the zombie wreckage and rising tide of the ectoplasm river.
While they were distracted, a tiny cold hand slid inside Blaze’s cupped fingers
He glanced down. It was the yellow-dress girl. She turned her black, lifeless eyes up at him and mouthed her soundless rhyme.
Blaze couldn’t hear the words, but he could feel them.
And then his brain came up with a great idea. It was the best idea anyone had ever had. It would solve all their problems, forever more.
The girl’s face shrank away in fright and disappeared. She hadn’t meant to touch him, but she had gotten excited at the idea of them going to the church to solve her mystery.
But that wasn’t important. His epiphany was.
Blaze sighed happily. He could fix everything, and it would be so easy. He would kill his sister and Ling and then himself. They would all be dead, and the dead have no problems.
Nombre de Dios, it was so simple and so brilliant.
Out of the doorway, Raziel the calico cat raced out and hissed at Blaze, teeth bared and hair standing on end.
Damn that cat. Well, he could kill the thing once he was done with his sister and his best friend.
Blaze grinned. “Elle, Ling, I have something to tell you. You might not like it at first but hear me out.”
The Onyx witch and the Shaolin sloth turned around.
Perfect, Blaze thought as he walked toward Elle and Ling. Murdering them would solve everything.
SEVENTEEN_
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Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder followed immediately after. Rain spat down on Blaze, Elle, and Ling as they stood near the edge of the antique store’s roof. The groaning, moaning, and gnashing of the zombie horde filled the air as did the slaughterhouse garbage stench of the ectoplasm rivers swamping the town of Know Return.
Ling and Elle leaned closer. Raziel darted around them, clawed at Blaze, and then raced back into the doorway leading down into the antique store.
“What’s with the cat?” Elle asked, brow furrowed.
Ling shrugged. “It has taken a dislike to our gunny, which is odd. The cat seemed to adore us all. Strange.”
Blaze didn’t like that Raziel was trying to ruin his prefect plan. He cleared his throat. Nervous excitement filled his stomach, and he couldn’t stop his mind from racing. “Okay, Ling, Elle, I was talking with Chthonic, and he said a bunch of stuff about death being pure. I thought he was full of shit at the time, but think about it. Once we’re dead, we’re perfect. We don’t have to deal with all this life nonsense, closing the Onyx Gate, worrying about family. We’re just done.”
Ling curled up his nose to show his mouth of flat teeth.
Elle sighed. “Stop dicking with us, Blaze. I thought you had something important to tell us.”
Blaze struck. He had only one chance. Snatching Ling by his tunic, he tossed the Meelah off the top of the building. Ling and his damn nunchakus would be hard to take down, but the gunny was pretty sure he could take his sister in a fight.
If she couldn’t cast spells.
Elle screamed, “What in the holy hell, Blaze?”
He ripped her bandolier off her armor and then the purse. He tossed them over the roof then shoved his sister down.
Sweeping his ax around, he went to split her head like a watermelon. Elle deflected the blow with her katana and then kicked him in the knee. Swiveling on her back, she followed that kick with another that sent Blaze against the lip of the rooftop.
She leapt to her feet and triggered her other katana. Both curved fusion blades lit up the night, and rain sputtered off the energy. “Blaze, did a ghost touch you? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“My mind has never been so clear,” Blaze said. “I promise, once I end you, I’ll blow my brains out with Ugly Betty. The plan is great, Elle. Just don’t fight me. You can’t win.” He charged forward, feinted with his ax, and when she took the bait, he punched her, but she lowered her head and he caught her on the top of her skull.
She slashed at him with her sword and cut a chunk off his armor then tried to knee him in the groin, but he was ready for that. He turned to the side and tried to get his ax around, but she knocked it out of his hand with both of her katanas.
He picked her up and threw her across the roof and into a growing puddle of water. The rooftop wasn’t draining correctly. Just another flaw in the messed-up universe. They wouldn’t have to worry about such imperfections when they were all dead.
The katanas hit the water and smoked the puddles into mist but then shut off. She grabbed one and Blaze grabbed the other.
Then it was fencing, katana against katana, slashes and deflections, near misses, but neither Blaze nor Elle would stop. The ectoplasm river had risen high enough that tentacles could grab them if they got too close to the edge. Well, good, that was the point of all this, right? To kill and to die.
“What are you doing?” Elle asked, using her speed to stay out of his reach. Blaze was far stronger, and if he got his mitts on her, she wouldn’t last five seconds.
“I’m trying to kill you,” Blaze said. “Haven’t you been paying attention? I think Ling is probably dead, drowned in the ectoplasm. So that’s good. Not sure if I’ll go after Trina. I mean, she’s already dead. But I probably should put her and Cali down before I off myself.”
He stabbed at his sister with the katana. Gripping her sword in both hands, she knocked his blade away. She then feinted as if to thrust her katana into his leg, but he didn’t fall for it. He was ready to block her next attack as the fusion sword arced down to take off an arm.
“What about Bill and Fernando?” Elle danced back. “I’m assuming you’ll also need to kill them.”
Blaze sighed. “Yeah, gotta do what’s best for our family. So, Ling is gone, I’ll get you in a minute, once I tire you out, and then Trina and Cali. I mean, both are around. They’ll eventually want to find me. And if the Lizzie Borden doesn’t show up to rescue us, that pretty much means the Clickers are dead. Don’t you see how great all of this is falling into place? It’s fucking meant to be, Elle.”
He charged her and bashed at her with the fusion katana, driving her back, keeping her on the defensive. She was breathing hard, she was sweating, and her eyes were widening. He backed her up against the edge of the rooftop. An ectoplasm tentacle reached for her, but at the last second, she dodged it, and it lashed out for Blaze.
He was forced to take a moment to slash apart the tentacle before it seized him and pulled him down off the building.
The Onyx witch sprinted away, but when she hit the puddle the roof gave in, and she fell down into the antique store in an explosion of noise.
Blaze growled, “Dammit, Elle, why do you always have to make things difficult? Nombre de Dios. Work, work, work. Well, once we become perfect and dead, I’ll have forgotten all about this night.”
He deactivated Elle’s katana and stuck it onto the nanotech on his thigh. He then picked up his fusion ax and jumped down through the hole and into the antique store. Glass cases, some shattered by the ceiling caving in, were set up around the room. Lightning flashed and lit up the room for a second. In the cases were old watches, some creepy looking dolls, and a few musical instruments – guitars, banjos, and a few old harmonicas. There was also a wall of old firearms—some black powder pistols, a few muskets, even some with old pitted iron bayonets. Iron and salt were effective against ghosts, but that wouldn’t matter much in a few minutes.
Blaze triggered his ax and lit up the room. “Come on, Elle. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. I’m not doing this because I want to. I’m doing it because it makes sense.” Outside the window, the coils of the ectoplasm waved and weaved.
The gunny’s armored boots crunched across the glass. The smell of dust and polished wood tickled his nose. “Ha, it’s s
o like you to cut and run. And yeah, I was wearing you down. You reading all the time and trying to steal away my girlfriends doesn’t do much for your fitness. Well, the joke is on you. I’m in great shape. Just come out. I know you’re in here somewhere.”
Something clattered across the room to his right, next to three big grandfather clocks. Yeah, Elle was trying to distract him. The staircase down was to his left. He turned off his ax and took three big steps toward the clocks, whirled, and then ran for the stairway.
Elle darted from the shadows right in front of him. She threw her fusion katana at him, and it blinded him for a second and then scored his armor. Elle sped down the stairs.
Blaze scooped up her second katana, put it with the first, then charged after her. He curved around the stairs and wondered why this was such an issue. What was up with his sister?
Was life so great that she should cling to it so much? What the hell?
He didn’t charge into the room, but waited a heartbeat, then went in and ducked to the side. Good thing he did. His sister had a cudgel, maybe a chair leg, and she would’ve clocked him if he’d have run right in.
He grabbed her arm and she punched him in the face. It was a good sock, but Blaze had been hit in the kisser around a trillion times. His nose did what it normally did when punched and spurted warm blood down his face.
She seized both katanas off his hip and triggered them. She got one between them, so Blaze was forced to let go. She backed away. “Blaze, you got hit by a ghost. What you are saying is insane. You don’t want to kill us, and I know for damn sure you don’t want to kill yourself. Think about Pearl’s breakfast burritos on Fleabugger.”
Blaze felt his mouth water. “Damn, the chorizo ones, huh?”
“Right, the chorizo burritos. And if you’re dead, you don’t get to smoke cigars or drink beer.” Elle continued to back away from him.
This room was mostly bookshelves and comic book boxes with vintage movie posters on the walls. Each corner had a different kind of piano. Rain dripped down from the water gushing into the room above them. The droplets falling from the ceiling soon turned into streams.
Blaze had to squint to see her in the darkness, and his mind was getting muddled. It was like his conversation with Trina about life…chorizo, beer, and cigars. There was one other thing he’d mentioned.
But in the end, all three of those things killed you, right? Too much cheap sausage and your arteries clogged. Beer chewed up your liver, especially the Clicker piss Blaze liked that was mostly alcohol and madness. And tobacco products led to the big C, cancer—lung, mouth, throat—yeah, all those things killed you dead. Might as well hurry things along.
Blaze swung his ax and sent a bookcase flying. Books touched by his fusion blade burst into flames until water streaming down from the room above extinguished the fire.
Then, suddenly, the streams weren’t just rainwater.
An ectoplasm tentacle burst through the ceiling. Several scalps and a pelvic bone fell to the floor. At the same time, the windows blew inward as the liquid Onyx coils knifed into the room, knocking over more shelves and reaching for the two of them.
Blaze chopped away the tendrils, and once separated from the main branch, the ectoplasm turned into pure liquid and splashed down. Elle chopped away at the tentacles near her with both of her swords.
A case tumbled through and exploded next to him, sending splintered fiddles flying in all directions.
The gunny grabbed one of the violins and hurled it at his sister while she fought the tentacles. It struck her face, and she turned and yelled at him. “Dammit, Blaze, snap out of it. I don’t want to die. I’m dying to get back into Cali’s pants, and when things go south with you and Trina, I want my shot at her. Dude, vampire sex, can you image?”
Blaze ignored her, barreled forward, and forced her to block his ax with one katana while he maneuvered her into a tentacle. The coil caught her arm and she dropped one katana. Blaze threw an elbow, which she dodged, but he forced the other katana out of her hand. Both hilts fell to the floor. He had her.
His own ax fell, and the blades dissipated. Other tentacles snagged them both and they were dragged to the window, dangerously close to the edge. It was a three-story fall to the ground and into the ectoplasm. Elle turned on him, her eyes wide and pleading. “Blaze, I want to live. There’s still so much life I want to experience. Please.”
They were pulled out the window, but Elle managed to grab a wrought iron curtain rod screwed into the wall. She seized Blaze by a handle on the back of his armor with her other hand.
The gunny’s head was clearing, but he was trying to remember the last thing he had said to Trina, the fourth good thing about life. Then it hit him. His sister had mentioned it, the sex thing. Chorizo, beer, cigars, and sex.
All of sudden, the reality all came crashing down on him. The touch of the yellow-dress ghost had driven him insane.
“Dammit, Elle,” he spat. “I’m so sorry. I’m such a pendejo.”
Elle couldn’t talk, she was using every ounce of her strength to hold onto the curtain rod inside the window and Blaze even as tentacles tried to drag them into the river of ectoplasm and entrails beneath them.
Blaze saw that Elle’s bandolier had fallen on a bracket that held the Hutchinson Prime flag, a dark-blue silk rectangle with a sunflower sitting over a bar of gold inside a light blue circle. Blaze couldn’t save himself, but he owed Elle her life. He had lost it, and if anyone should die from his temporary insanity, it should be him.
He jerked away from Elle, letting the tentacle pull him down into the slaughterhouse river. On the way down, though, he grabbed the bandolier and flung it up to his sister. She caught it and then he was pulled into the horrid stink and bloody mucus of the ectoplasm river.
Immediately, the ectoplasm tried to squeeze into his mouth, pry open his eyes, worm its way into his nose and ears. Blaze clapped his hands over his ears and twisted around so that the tiny tendrils of yuck didn’t pierce his nose. His eyes and mouth he kept clamped shut.
But it wouldn’t be long before the liquid Onyx forced its way into his nose. He blew every bit of oxygen in his lungs out through his nostrils to keep the horrendous fluid out of him. His skin stung and started to burn. The ectoplasm was growing in strength, becoming more acidic, and it was hurting him. It was going to melt his flesh off his bones!
Then he was yanked up and out of the goop. He floated there, with his sister above him, also levitating. The rain washed the acidic ectoplasm off his face.
Elle had cast another telekinesis spell. She moved them both up into the rain, away from the tentacles already rising, and then she flew them to the top of the grocery store. With the last of her energy, she seized the starcycles with invisible fingers and brought them to the rooftop.
She then collapsed. Her Onyx levels had dipped dangerously close to zero.
Blaze went and cradled her head in his arms. “Oh, Elle, I’m sorry. I truly was out of my mind. Thanks so much for saving me. You’re right about Trina. I’m totally curious about vampire sex, though she won’t be an actual vampire when we do it. If we ever get to. This fighting evil thing is getting in the way of my naked time.”
Her eyes fluttered. “You did not just say that. Nombre de Dios, that was just downright embarrassing.”
Blaze chuckled and checked his combat display, and once again, no sign of Cali, Trina, or Ling, if Ling was still alive. Even Elle didn’t blink on the display.
Granny’s purse dropped down next to them. Ling walked up and sat down. He spoke to Elle. “Is Blaze back to being our happy little marine?”
“Not little,” the gunny growled. “Sorry, Ling.”
Ling shrugged. “I attacked you, you tried to kill me, we’re even. But Elle, tell me, how crazy is Blaze now? Is he jump-a-starcycle-at-a-dragon insane? Or dating-a-vampire crazy?”
Elle patted Blaze’s cheek. “Our little marine will always be a little bit of both.”
“I’m not liking thi
s ‘little’ thing,” the gunny said. “I’m crazy tough and sane enough not to turn my back on a ginger-headed vampire who is soft, warm, and pretty when she wants to be.”
“When I help her,” Elle said. She pulled herself up and started going through her bandolier pouches and Granny’s purse. “So, now that our gunny is back, how about we check out the church and then the air force base. You guys up for it?”
Ling grinned. “Yes! It’s clear that the mystery of the yellow-dress ghost will be solved in the church. And as for the Gorebacks, while I don’t enjoy murdering Humans, I’m not above pummeling clown-worshipping psychopaths within an inch of their lives.”
“No, I plan on cutting every inch of life out of them,” Blaze said. He just hoped they hadn’t eaten Granny while they fought their way across the haunted planet. And was Trina all right? Where was Cali?
No way to know. But most likely, Cali would show up, wolfed out, at the worst possible time.
Dealing with uncontrollable, unstoppable werewolves was such a pain in the ass.
Elle sighed. “I lost all of my snare spheres except for one, and I’m out of dispel Onyx bags. That one snare sphere isn’t going to do much against billions of Onyx entities.”
Blaze, though, knew that one sphere might make the difference between victory and defeat at some point.
A helicopter, at least five hundred years old, rose in a thudding thunder of rotor blades over the roof of the grocery store. It was hauling something… Someone was entangled in a cargo net dangling from a cable attached to the bottom of the chopper.
A side door slid open to reveal a mounted belt-fed .50 caliber machine gun. The white glow of a grease-painted face leered down, and a second later the first of the tracer bullets struck the roof.
In a zigzagging path of projectile death, the clown gunner, maybe Calhoun himself, fired at them. Elle tossed aragonite crystals from Granny’s pouch, created an Onyx shield, and stopped the bullets.