by Unknown
With a droll smile, he shrugged. “Angels fear it, because even though they are of pure intent and have no past misdeeds, they believe justice falls only under the purview of One I never name… they don’t want the responsibility—alas, when this is such an awesome tool.” His smile deepened as he looked at Walter without blinking. “And you, my friend, have used the tool very, very well. I couldn’t be more pleased. I just wish you were…”
Suddenly the stranger cocked his head to the side and narrowed his gaze. “Clean? Totally clean, without a shred of significant sin?”
The two stared at each other for a moment. Again, Walter felt a strange out-of-body sensation, as though watching himself from a very remote place in his mind.
“Who are you?” Waiter croaked, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of his desk to keep from falling when his knees buckled.
“I told you. I’m the book’s owner. I acquired it for quite a hefty sum from the museum,” the stranger said, unfazed. “You were burdened, asked to speak with me. How could I ignore such a… vulnerable plea?” From beneath his suit jacket, the stranger extracted a large book that could not have been hidden there. “Call the power often.”
“We have to send the netherling back,” Walter said, his voice dissolving into a plea. He watched the book slide across the table toward him, its power arching out to make his fingertips tingle.
“I see no reason to do that. It is serving justice in a most blind way, cutting a swath through the country, cleansing the impurities of society without mercy.” The stranger leaned in. “Here’s another reason why the angels loathe this book. It and the entity it contains were created well before the concept of salvation came about. It is very Old Testament in its pursuit. That’s one of the things I find so enchanting about it, but let me not bore you with my philosophical rhetoric. I could go on and on forever.”
“Sir, if you just tell me your name, we’ll provide you with a check for the trouble… if we might borrow it for one evening and then we’d even return it to you.”
“Oh, I would insist on your returning it to me,” the stranger said. “I merely hold it until the right person comes along that really needs it and will use it to the fullest. It is always their choice whether or not to court the consequences. That’s what I so love about the book.”
Walter Kingsdale thrust his hand in a drawer, his eyes never leaving the stranger’s dark gaze, and withdrew a checkbook quickly, snatching a Mont Blanc pen from his desk blotter. “Your name, sir?” he said quickly, and then waited, poised, ready to write.
The stranger smiled. “Nether Ling… but I can cash it under Satan’s account, using many other noms de plume.” He laughed as the wide-eyed justice began to back up. “Oh, did I mention that I need your soul jotted down in the memo section of the instrument, too?”
Walter quickly wrote out the instrument and shoved it across the desk, and then clutched the book. He stood very still, watching the smile slowly fade from the stranger’s handsome face as he stared at the check. Human skin pulled back from bared fangs and normal flesh tone gave way to hideous green. The netherling’s serpent-like eyes glowed with rage as wings and a spaded tail ripped through the designer suit.
“You tricked me!” it screeched, flinging the check back onto the desk. It stabbed a claw into the signature line of the check, goring the desk. “Lucifer. You have to give me back what is mine, because this was not a clean and just trade!”
“As always.” The body of the justice opened the book calmly, flipping to the right page. “Walter died right before your eyes of a heart attack. There was no sin in his empty shell while I manipulated it. Oh, the instrument is good, too—I can cover the amount on the check, and you and I both know I’m not about to allow you to rid the planet of all erring humans. That would not serve my purposes at all. The trade stands in supernatural law.” He leaned in toward the netherling with a smirk. “But you’ve been such a bad little demon. So hard to find, so hard to contain.” Satan chuckled, making a tsking sound while he crooked his finger, causing the netherling to twist and squeal as it began to turn into a sulfuric plume of smoke.
He watched the funnel cloud enter the book and finally slam itself shut. Disgusted, he wiped his hands down the front of Walter’s borrowed body and then stepped out of it, allowing it to crumple to the floor in a heap. He looked back once and collected the book in his massive talons. “Some crap even I won’t take.”
THE Y INCISION
A Cal McDonald Crime Story
STEVE NILES
HENDRICKS WAS BLEEDING to death by the time I reached him near the intersection of sewer tunnels. He’d had his side ripped out like a bite out of a melon. His upper and lower intestines were splashed on the cement like vomited Udon noodles.
He didn’t have long.
The thing had gotten to him.
I was on my own, in the sewers, against one of the freakiest things I’d ever encountered, and all I had was a Glock with a single full cartridge and a shotgun with two shells.
But as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself. I suppose I should start from the beginning…
I knew Henry Thicke was trouble, but I could never pin anything on him, and in all honesty, he’d never done anything to me. I could just sense he was scum. I could smell dead bodies on him. Granted he owned and ran a funeral home, but this was different. This guy reeked of freak.
Henry was from a tenth-generation funeral home business family. He was human, but I liked to imagine his genes were saturated with formaldehyde because he lived and loved his job. So much so that he creeped out the ghouls, and believe me, people, it takes a lot to freak out the undead.
He was tall, at least six-six or taller, and thin as a fucking bone. He had this short, greasy, slicked hair, gaunt, white face and lips as thin as they were colorless. And when he spread those lips for a rare smile, he had these thick gums and two perfect rows of Chicklet teeth.
The last year for me had been one of the worst on record. Two close friends died. One was a cop. Her name was Brueger. She helped me out from time to time, and I helped her out. I let her get too close, and she wound up being the target of one of my enemies, Dr. Polynice. He tortured her and shredded her body with a remote control device attached to his heart.
It was triggered when I blew his rotten brains out.
The other was my girl, Sabrina. She meant a lot to me. Fuck, I’ll say it: I loved her, but she had enough sense to walk away after what happened to Brueger. But Sabrina couldn’t stay away. She came back and fell victim to a Euro-trash vampire who claimed to be the original Nosferatu. I offed him, but not before he infected Sabrina.
Last time I saw her she was flying away with fangs as long as a walrus.
Did I mention Brueger was a cop? Sure I did, but did I mention she was married to a hotshot city councilman? You can imagine he wasn’t too thrilled with me, and he let me know it.
Not only did he beat me within an inch of my suck-ass life, but he also used his contacts to have me cut off from the LAPD, and made me a wanted man while he was at it. He drummed up some fake drug charges and had my place ransacked. They found a small pharmacy of illegal painkillers and other assorted items I like to use to take the edge off.
If you’re keeping score, that’s two dead friends, one major enemy, and a warrant out for my arrest. And let’s not forget homeless. I’d been on the run for a month. Luckily (or unluckily) the Ghouls of Los Angeles found me places to stay.
Oh yeah, my name is Cal McDonald. I’m a private detective currently working out of the subbasement of an abandoned airport in Burbank.
When I got the call from Henry Thicke I was wallowing in self-pity. I’d polished off a bottle of Jim Beam, two bottles of Listerine, some Robitussin, and a package of Excedrin PM. I shoplifted all of it. I had no cash so I couldn’t afford any of the real stuff.
I was feeling pretty shitty; loopy and shitty. I had a mattress in the corner surrounded by boxes of files I lifted from my office
before the cops took it apart.
It was my little, shitty, self-pity fort.
I stayed in there for a week, drinking, smoking, and ingesting anything I could get my hands on or steal. I asked Mo’Lock to score me some hard stuff. He refused. Cheap bastard. I knew he had cash. If my limbs didn’t feel like melted rubber, I would have mugged him.
Who am I kidding? That fucking ghoul was the closest thing I’d ever had to a best friend and a partner. He’d stuck with me through thick and thin and saved my ass on more than one occasion.
It was Mo’Lock who handed me the cell phone.
I pressed it to my face and made a sound that somewhat resembled a greeting.
It was Henry Thicke, the creepy mortician.
“Is this Cal McDonald?”
“Yesh.” My tongue felt like a blowfish in my mouth.
“This is Henry Thicke.”
He sounded nervous. Even in my state I could hear the quiver in his voice.
“Wuz the ploblem?”
I could barely string a sentence together.
I looked at Mo’Lock. The ghoul shook his head and turned away. I knew him well enough to know he was up to something. With his back to me he took something out of his pockets. I heard a rattle sound and to an old junkie like me that was music. That was the sound of pills in a bottle.
I told the mortician to hold for a second, except it came out more like “Hol on fr a specont.”
Mo’Lock begrudgingly opened his hand. There were five black pills, speed. Just the thing I needed to get my shit together. During the best of times taking drugs was like one big chemistry set with my body being the test tube. You had to find just the right blend or the test tube would blow up in your face.
I downed the pills dry and then chased them with some water. Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear I could feel the amphetamine coursing through my blood.
I waited another minute and then went back to the phone.
Henry Thicke wanted me to come down and check out his mortuary. He’d tried calling the police, but they weren’t any help which was no big fucking shock. If anything even slightly out of the ordinary was going down, cops were useless. That’s why people call me.
I asked Thicke for some details, but he insisted that I come see for myself. Luckily his place was in Burbank, on Victory Boulevard about three-four miles from where I was squatting with the undead.
By the time I hung up the phone the speed had taken over all of the over-the-counter crap. I was all tingly, my head itched, and my pits were sweating like a drippy faucet.
I was ready for action.
I told Thicke I’d be over within the hour. I had a errand I wanted to run first.
“Please hurry, Mr. McDonald.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
When I hung up the phone Mo’Lock was staring at me. Ever since all the shit went down, the big dead freak had been treating me like his kid more than a partner, and it was starting to get fucking annoying.
“Was that a job?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, Henry Thicke says something’s up over at his mortuary.”
The ghoul flinched. I told you they were freaked out by Thicke.
The ghoul composed himself. “What was the errand you spoke of?”
That tore it. I don’t mind somebody caring for me. Hell, it was nice after three decades plus to have someone (even if he was dead) give a shit about my well-being, but the ghoul was pushing his fucking luck.
I climbed out of my mattress fort and stood in front of the ghoul. He had about a foot on me but I wasn’t scared of him.
Besides I was pretty sure he’d never hurt me, and trust me, you don’t ever want to be on the receiving end of an angry ghoul. They can dismantle a human like a Marine does a rifle and in about half the time.
I was feeling pretty good. The speed finally made its way around to my eyes and teeth. My eyes were wide, and my teeth throbbed.
I stuck my finger in the ghoul’s gray-toned face. “I’m starting to get pretty sick of you playing nursemaid with me, Mo. What’s say we get back to being partners, and I’ll take care of myself.”
The ghoul stared down at my finger, then slowly up to my eyes. “I thought you said we weren’t partners.”
He was fucking with me. “I’m just saying I’d rather have a partner than a babysitter. I can take care of myself. I’ve been abusing myself for a long time. I know what I’m doing.”
“So the errand is for drugs?”
“Yeah… and I need to borrow some cash.”
The ghoul turned his head. He didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of expressions so it was difficult to gauge what he was thinking.
Then he turned back to me and held out a stack of twenties. “No hard stuff.” He said.
I took the bills and shook my head. I knew what he meant. No needles. Nothing that made me into a zombie. Nothing that made me dead. I was cool with that. I’d avoided shooting for years with only one relapse. I pretty much stuck to pills and smoke.
“Thanks, Mo’Lock.”
The ghoul just nodded.
I went to stick the bills in my pants and missed. I wasn’t wearing pants. I was naked from the waist down.
“Goddammit.”
I shot a look at the ghoul, and luckily for him he wasn’t laughing or smiling. Not that I could tell if he was, but I would have busted a slug in his belly if he was. Unfortunately, my Glock was holstered to the belt on my pants.
I grabbed my pants, pulled them on, and made sure the weapon was loaded. Thicke didn’t say what was up, but that quiver in his voice told me loads. As an extra precaution I grabbed my sawed-off shotgun which tucked into a strap inside my jacket.
When I was ready to go, I noticed Mo’Lock wasn’t following.
“You coming?”
“Am I needed?”
I smiled. “It’s Henry Thicke, isn’t it?”
The ghoul lowered his head. “It is hard to be around someone who smells of the recent dead.”
“Why the hell would that bother you?” I asked. “You’re already dead.”
Hidden in the shadows of the gray cement basement, the ghoul glanced up, his eyes hidden in pits of darkness. “I am undead.” The ghoul paused and sighed. “I do not like being around that which I almost was, let alone around someone like Henry Thicke, who revels in the dead.”
I didn’t really know what the ghoul was talking about. As a team we’d been around dead bodies plenty of times. I assumed it had more to do with the mortician than anything. Like I said, he creeped the ghouls out so I let it lie.
By the time I was dressed and armed, despite not having showered in over a week, I was feeling pretty good. Every inch of my body tingled.
Upstairs I kept the car, my ‘73 Nova, parked inside one of the old hangars. I hadn’t started her up for as long as I hadn’t showered, but two turns of the key in the ignition and the powerful V-8 roared to life and spit out a single plume of smoke, like a smoker clearing his devastated lungs.
First I’d swing by a dealer I knew in Burbank and grab some happy pills and smoke, then to Thicke’s Mortuary to see what the trouble was.
As I’d promised, I arrived at the mortician’s place in under an hour. I had a pocket full of pills, uppers and painkillers, and some weed. Later I’d do a little chemistry experiment and find the right balance. At the moment, the speed was doing a fine job.
I parked the Nova around back where Thicke had his hearse backed against a double steel door. I guessed he’d been loading new arrivals, and even from outside with a strong late December wind blowing, I could smell the stench of formaldehyde.
I walked around the front entrance, which was set up like the front of a friendly old house. I assumed this was to put customers at ease.
I rang the bell and waited. Rang it again and waited some more. Then I saw the sign that said to enter and wait in the front waiting area. I looked around, hoping nobody had seen me. It was one of those moments. I felt lik
e an ass, not unlike standing in front of the ghoul with my beans and frank hanging in the wind.
The air was sharp inside, an eye-stinging combo of formaldehyde and Lysol, and the same homey masquerade showed in the décor. The front was set up like my grandma’s living room, except anyone with an eye could glance up and see the next room over was a showroom for caskets and other funeral minutia.
On the wall of the inside foyer was another bell, and mounted above in the corner was a small security camera. I pressed the bell around a dozen times to make sure this time. Within seconds I heard movement beneath my feet, in the basement of the mortuary where I assume all of the embalming and other unpleasantness was done. First I heard doors open and close, and then the sound of heavy footsteps coming upstairs toward me.
To my surprise, a panel of the wall clicked and opened; a hidden door, and then Henry Thicke appeared. He was even lankier and creepier than I remembered. He made Mo’Lock look like a fucking Teddy Bear.
“Mr. McDonald,” he said with surprising enthusiasm. “I’m so glad you responded to my call.”
On second evaluation I discarded the enthusiasm for desperation. He was happy to see me all right, but it was because something had him scared. He was trying to hide it, but if there was one emotion I knew and could spot, it was fear.
“What can I do for you, Thicke?” I muttered. “On the phone you said it was important.”
Thicke came toward me and extended his hand. I glanced down to make sure he didn’t have blood or some other bodily funk on it, then shook it.
“It’s very important…” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “And extremely disturbing. You were the first person I thought to call.”