by J. C. Staudt
“I was wrong. You were right. Happy?”
“It’s a start.”
“I really need your help with this.”
Ersatz cocks his head and smirks, as if my desperation is the most entertaining spectacle he’s ever witnessed. “Now let’s just hold on a moment. You want my help? Now that things have gone wrong?”
“I’m an idiot. I’m a failure. I’m the worst. You’re better than me in every way.” I snap my fingers, searching for more. “I cheat at poker whenever we play with Quim. It’s a stupid game, and you’re too small to hold all your cards at once, so I—”
“Stating the obvious will get you nowhere.”
I look at him, incredulous. “You know about that?”
“You think I don’t trust you to make your own decisions? I’ve been trusting you—and watching you make the wrong ones—for years. I refuse to simply solve your problems for you. You’d never learn anything that way. It appears this time you’ve bungled the situation far beyond my wildest nightmares. When you were nine years old, and your mother had moved you into that little house in the suburbs… you were in the woods behind the backyard. Do you remember?”
I nod, wincing at both the memory and the sound of glass shattering in the bedroom.
“I stood by and watched as a neighbor’s puppy withered and nearly died because of one of your spells. I stepped in then because you were young and inexperienced. Now you are well-bred in the ways of magic, and an adult—insofar as you humans call twenty three years adulthood. It’s long past time you learned to answer for yourself. I won’t be around to clean up after you forever. Out of curiosity, what was it you were about to do just now, before I came in?”
“I was going to try to save a few vials of residue before they all got destroyed.”
“By throwing yourself in front of that hellbound locomotive?”
I shrug. “It was the best plan I could come up with. It’s not like I’m an expert ghost hunter.”
“That thing in there is hardly your run-of-the-mill ghost.”
“You know what it is?”
“Yes of course I know what it is,” he snaps. “What do you take me for, some hundred-year-old whelp who doesn’t recognize a poltergeist when he sees one?”
“It’s a poltergeist?”
“Are you hard of hearing? Yes, it’s a bloody poltergeist. And an especially cantankerous one, by the look of this place.”
“It’s a pain in the ass, is what it is. Will you let me draw off you? I’ll try to cast the banishment ritual again.”
“If you think for one moment I’m letting you use me as a quick-start firelog, you’ve lost more than your mind.”
“Ersatz, come on. Don’t do this to me, man.”
“I am not a man, nor will I stand for the indignity of being labeled as such.”
“I promise I’ll stop messing around with blood magic and scrying spells. Just please, help me. You don’t have to fix everything. Just tell me what to do.”
“A wise man once said: Two lefts don’t make a right, but they will send you back in the direction you came from.”
I frown at him in confusion.
“Two lefts. A U-turn. Understand? Two lefts? Never mind. Heavens forbid I should expect a scrap of good sense to penetrate your thick, neanderthalic skull. ”
“It’s going to be hard to U-turn myself out of this one.” I point toward the body of the young man lying in my foyer. “I sort of accidentally banished the soul of an undercover cop to the underworld.”
Ersatz looks. When he sees the body, he twitches in shock. “Oh, gods. It’s worse than I feared.”
“That’s just the vote of confidence I needed right now.”
“He was a police officer?”
“From what I can tell.”
“Close the bedroom door and we’ll talk this through.”
“Close a door on a ghost,” I say, smart-assedly.
“Containment may calm it for a time.”
“You’re telling me the ghost will feel safer being cooped up in a tiny room.”
“I’m telling you if you continue to question my advice, I’ll continue to not give you any.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll close the door.” Without knowing where in my bedroom the poltergeist might be lurking, I grab the doorknob and yank it closed, turning the knob silently so as not to disturb our houseguest.
“Well done,” says Ersatz. “Your ability to follow simple instructions is improving by the second.”
“Dick. What is a poltergeist, exactly?”
“An evil spirit capable of affecting the physical world. Poltergeists are spirits of the dead, whereas demons are physical spirits who prey on the living. The two are similar, yet separate. Suffice it to say that if demons had souls, they’d act like poltergeists.”
“Is it going to leave, or will it hang out here forever?”
“A poltergeist may choose when to pass through solid objects and when to interact with them, yet it remains bound to the place in which it is summoned until freed or relocated by other means.”
“Like what kind of means?”
“We’ll get back to that,” says Ersatz, skittering across the room for a closer look at the lifeless young man. “Let’s see what’s to be done about this poor fellow, shall we? My, you’ve certainly done a number on him.”
I drop into one of the dining room chairs. “I can’t believe this is happening. I killed him. He was alive and breathing, and I murdered him.”
“Technically, no you didn’t. You exiled his soul to another realm. You’ve certainly doomed him to the conclusion of his mortal life, but I assure you his soul is very much alive… wherever it is.”
“This is a dream. I’m dreaming. This can’t be real life.”
“I’m afraid you are very much awake.”
“Is there any way to bring his soul back?”
“Dear gods, no. That would be like trying to refill a tube of toothpaste. Once it’s out, it’s out.”
I groan.
“I don’t see what you’re so upset about. You’ve performed a rather impressive magical feat.”
“I don’t want it to be impressive. I want it to not have happened.”
“I’m afraid you’re stark out of luck there.”
“What am I gonna do?”
“First things first. Get ahold of yourself. There will be time for misery later. I suggest we find out who this fellow was. See if there’s a wallet.”
“You mean I have to… touch him?”
“He’s dead, not contagious.”
After some deliberation, I kneel beside the young man’s body and roll him onto his stomach. In the rear right pocket of his black cargo pants I find his wallet, worn brown leather stuffed with a life’s important badges. There’s a driver’s license, a state-issued concealed carry permit, two credit cards, five crisp hundred-dollar bills, a slip of lined paper with the alphanumeric sequence C4A written on it in black ink, various gift cards and member rewards cards, and a short stack of business cards.
“Savage, Arden Mercer,” I say, reading the name off his driver’s license.
“Do you know him?” asks Ersatz.
“Never heard that name in my life.”
I fan out his business cards like a poker hand, then select one and hold it up so it catches a sliver of light through the window blinds. On thick cream-colored stock in embossed text so perfect it could give Patrick Bateman an aneurysm is printed the following:
Arden M. Savage
Bounty Hunter
There’s a phone number beneath the title.
I sit back in a state of shock. “He wasn’t a policeman. He was a bounty hunter. What would a bounty hunter want with me?”
Ersatz is pensive. He sniffs the man’s clothes. Studies him. Mutters, “I knew this day would come.”
“What day?”
He shakes himself as if to escape a trance. “Never mind. We must work quickly. What else is he carrying on his person?”
I search the man’s pockets, making a pile of what I find. When I’m done, the pile contains the Glock 19; the handcuffs; a set of house and car keys; a cell phone; two balled-up cinnamon gum wrappers; his wallet, with its accompanying cards and the scrap of paper; a small tin box containing several rectangles of the sort of thin rolling paper used to make one’s own cigarettes or joints; and a Ziploc bag holding a dozen light-brown nuts which resemble miniature pistachios. All the while, I can hear the poltergeist playing havoc in my room.
Ersatz circles the pile, nudging the Ziploc bag with his snout. “Open it.”
I break the seal and give the bag’s contents a sniff. The aroma is sweet, with a bitter undertone. I lower the bag so Ersatz can take the scent.
He wrinkles his nose. “Strange. There are traces of this scent in the paper box, though it’s foreign to me.”
“You think he smoked them?”
“I’ve never heard of a man smoking nuts.”
“It happens every day at the Y.” I chuckle, but a moment of levity isn’t enough to quell the black feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Ersatz pushes steam through his nostrils. “Before we take this any further, have you any idea who might’ve hired a bounty hunter to find you?”
“Felita Skaargil comes to mind. This guy isn’t a werewolf, though, and werewolves don’t hire humans to find people.”
“Indeed not.”
“I don’t have any other enemies that I know about.”
“Then clearly it’s one of the ones you don’t know about.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Someone wants you,” says Ersatz.
“Who? And why?”
“I suppose that’s what we need to find out.”
Chapter 9
“What does C4A mean, I wonder?”
I study the scrap of lined paper. “No idea.”
“Have you tried looking in his phone?” Ersatz asks.
I nod. “It’s locked.”
“There’s a simple solution for that. Put it down.”
I set the cell on the floor. Ersatz casts a spell and breathes on the screen. Letters and numbers float upward from the phone on wisps of purple, coalescing into a pattern. An othersider can draw magical energy from his own natural supply, though his essence fades with every spell. That’s why my dragon doesn’t like me using him as a battery. Understandable, I guess.
“A tracing spell,” he explains. “It shows the recent past.”
I pick up the phone and tap out the lifted sequence. The lock icon fades out with a satisfying click, unveiling the home screen, an assortment of colorful icons over a background image of dew-covered grass on a rainy day. It’s a fancier device than I’ll ever own, I’m sure. “That seems like an incredibly useful spell. Why haven’t you ever taught it to me?”
“Because it’s a bit too useful for someone like you,” he says.
“Someone like me? What’s that supposed to mean? You and Quim both think I’m some kind of delinquent.”
“Not true. We know you’re a delinquent. One seldom draws the attentions of werewolves and bounty hunters on his quest for sainthood.”
“Looks like this Arden Savage guy was no saint either,” I observe as I scroll through the open apps on his phone. “You wouldn’t believe some of the browser tabs he’s got open.”
“Try me.”
“Let’s get the worst one out of the way first. He was a Packers fan. He was checking their pre-season schedule.”
Ersatz looks bored. “Next.”
“AnonymCity. Ever heard of it?”
Ersatz shakes his head.
“It’s a site on the deep web where people trade black market services. Quim told me about it. The idea is you can contract out any conceivable job with complete anonymity. Thefts, murders, drug deals, you name it. The authorities then theoretically have no trail to follow if something goes wrong. There’s a tab open here showing an account name and some leads. Looks like he’s got excellent reviews.”
“I imagine he’ll catch a bad one for dying on the job. Is there any record of someone hiring him to find you?”
“Good question.” I scroll through his messages. There are dozens of them, so I run a quick search for my name. No results. “Hmm. That’s weird.”
“What?”
“Not a single mention of me.”
Ersatz frowns. “Strange indeed. What other tabs are open?”
“There’s one for SladeBanc. He was checking his account balance. It’s—” I cut myself off when I see the number of digits after the dollar sign. “The black market has been good to him, apparently. I don’t think this is the kind of bounty hunter you hire to track down criminals who’ve skipped bail. I think he’s the kind of guy you hire to dump your ex-wife’s body in the river.”
“We can deduce several things about him based on his effects. He wears no wedding ring. His fingernails are trimmed, his face is shorn, and his clothes fit. There are six keys on his keychain; two car keys, two house keys, the key to those handcuffs, and a larger key which looks as though it opens a safety deposit box or a post-office box of some sort. We know he’s well-off. That’s easy enough to tell by the brand logos on those key fobs. He drives a Cadillac and a Maserati.”
“There’s a Cadillac parked across the street. It’s a hearse.” I look out the window and press the unlock button on the key fob. The hearse’s headlights blink twice. “Nailed it.”
“What sort of bounty hunter drives a hearse?”
“One who wants to move bodies without drawing attention. Or maybe his Maserati is in the shop and he’s borrowing the hearse from a friend.”
“Doubtful. If I had a Cadillac, I wouldn’t give you the keys to it, and there’s no one I trust more than you.”
“You don’t trust me. Stop lying.”
“I didn’t say I trusted you. I said there’s no one I trust more. Nevertheless, since I am incapable of handling a motor vehicle on my own, you’ll have to drive.”
“Drive? Drive where?”
“Home.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“As expected. Now take hold of your poor excuse for an attention span and listen up, because I’ve devised a plan. Your contributions are discouraged until I’m through explaining. The man’s address is on his driver’s license. We’ve determined he’s unmarried and wealthy. If we’re lucky, he lives alone. Assuming you’d prefer not to leave him here in the foyer as a throw rug, and you’re averse to the idea of spending the rest of your life in prison, the only way out of this is to get him home, put him in pajamas, and tuck him into bed. The coroner will have to conclude he died in his sleep.”
After considering this plan, I’m forced to admit I can’t think of a better one. “I don’t hate the idea. Okay, I’m in. How do we get him from here to the car without anybody seeing? An invisibility spell?”
“I was thinking we’d stuff him into that big suitcase of yours and call it a day.”
“That big suitcase in my bedroom… which is being ransacked by a poltergeist.”
“That’s the one. Better run and fetch it.”
I wring my hands at him. “Did I forget to mention the damn poltergeist?”
“The police won’t arrest you for keeping a ghost in your house. The same cannot be said of a corpse.”
I sigh. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck is for those without skill.”
“I’ve got no skill at the moment. All my magic stuff is in that room. Except you.”
He sighs in exasperation, fuming white smoke. “Oh, alright, I’ll help. Do you know where your suitcase is?”
“Under the bed, I think.”
“You go for the suitcase. I’ll grab your spellbook.”
“What about the Book of Mysteries?”
“I may look strong, but I’m no powerlifter. The grimoire weighs more than I do.”
“We can’t leave it in there. The poltergeist will tear it to shreds if it hasn’t already.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, but says nothing.
“Fine. I’ll grab the grimoire too.”
“We must be in and out of there in a matter of seconds. When you emerge, be sure to close the bedroom door behind you. We wouldn’t want to lure the poltergeist to the body.”
“I’m assuming you’re going to tell me why that would be bad.”
“They can sense the dead. A fresh corpse to a poltergeist is like a hollow tree to a raccoon. It’s prime real estate, and he’s in the market for a rental.”
“What happens if the poltergeist gets to the corpse?”
He fires me a look. “Bad things, Cade. Bad things.”
Ersatz slithers onto the couch and perches in front of the bedroom door while I tiptoe toward it. Something thuds hard against the wood, making the knob rattle. I reach out, hand hovering over the doorknob.
“Wait.”
I flinch away. “For crying out loud… what is it now?”
“My apologies. I was just thinking we ought to move the body before we open the door.”
The lights in the apartment turn on with a flicker. The fridge starts running, and the air conditioning hisses through the vents.
“Hey, we’re back in business. So where should we move the body?”
“Outside.”
“Onto the front stoop?”
My dragon purses his lips, thinking. “Forget the suitcase, then. Invisibility it is.”
“Carrying an invisible corpse across the street is going to look super weird to anyone who might be watching.”
“Let them watch. It’ll only take a moment to get him into the car.”
I kneel beside the pile of Arden Savage’s effects and return every item to where I found it, starting with the tin cigarette box and ending with his handgun. I check the address on his driver’s license, repeating it to myself a few times before shoving his wallet into his back pocket. 1901 Grand River Ave., #503.
His keys are the only item I keep, sliding them into my own pocket. “Okay. Invisibility. I’m going to need you for this.”
Ersatz huffs smoke as he scuttles up my arm and wraps himself around my neck. I begin chanting the invisibility spell, feeling the dragon’s otherworldly energy flow through me as the manifestation builds in my hands. When I’m done, I touch the dead man’s forehead. His body vanishes.