Dead Things

by Stephen Blackmoore

  The birds erupt from my body, tearing through my shirt in a shower of screeching black. They circle the ghost, pecking and tearing at him like spectral piranha. I’ve never used them against the Dead before. Wasn’t sure it would work. Didn’t know they had a taste for ectoplasm.

  Within seconds they’ve shredded him into wisps of insubstantial smoke. I don’t know if he’s gone. I doubt it, but with some luck it will be a little while before I have to worry about him again.

  The crows circle a bit, then fade to nothing. I open my ruined shirt. On the other side they would have lasted longer. Here they lasted less than a minute. Tells me I don’t have a lot of time myself.

  They’re back where they started, but now they’re just ink. The magic I bound into the tattoo is spent. If a touch from one ghost could screw me up so badly, there’s no way I can take on the crowd outside. Screwed if I stay here, screwed if I go back. I need something to get their attention off of me.

  I get a really nasty thought. I know what to do. I’ve done it before. I find a window over to the side. I shove on the latch, trying to push it open. It’s not just that it feels like it’s stuck, it’s hard to get any kind of grip on it, like sinking my hands into mud.

  I switch to hammering on it with the butt of the gun, and after a few seconds it clicks over. I look to see if any of Griffin’s men are coming over. They can’t hear anything I do on this side, but they can hear anything I influence on the other.

  Some of them have scattered, I assume to look for me in other parts of the house. A few are still hanging out here, whether waiting for me to show back up or not I don’t know. No one seems to notice the latch opening. I’m careful not to try to open the window. It’ll probably take some force, but I don’t want to break any of the wards on the house. Not yet, anyway.

  One hand on my open straight razor, the other on the doorknob I wait by the front door until I see one of Griffin’s men come my way. On this side they all look the same to me, man-shaped blobs of light. Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of them will be Griffin. There are a few teasing moments when one of them comes almost in range, but not quite. The timing on this is going to be tough and I can’t afford to fuck it up.

  Finally one of them gets close enough and I flip back to the land of the living. There’s an explosion of light and sound and life. I can feel the magic flooding back, color bursting into everything. Shouting as I suddenly appear, guns being drawn.

  I loop my arm around the guy’s neck, kick open the front door, flip back to the twilight side. Take him with me. The amount of power it uses is enough to leave me dizzy and I really don’t know if I’m going to have enough to get back now. He’s not expecting it. He probably doesn’t deserve it. Hell, not a lot of people do. I take advantage of his surprise and disorientation from the transfer.

  “Sorry, man. Nothing personal,” I say, slicing the straight razor fast across his neck, arterial blood spurting high into the air. I spin him around and throw him out the open door.

  The ghosts go batshit. They descend on him in a seething mass of piranha love. Ripping him to shreds, drinking his life. When they get done with him there won’t be anything left to move on to whatever afterlife might be waiting for him. They’ll eat his soul.

  I don’t wait to see the process. I’ve seen it before. After the car went up at Boudreau’s warehouse I went in, found him torn and broken inside. I dragged him, barely conscious, already dying, out into the night. Threw him onto the still smoking hood of the car.

  I took him over to the other side with me and fed him to the Dead. Listened to him scream. Waited until they tore up every shred of that man’s soul.

  I don’t think I’ve been the same since.

  I run back inside the house to the window I unlocked. I don’t have much time. That many ghosts on a guy, he won’t last long at all. I take a running jump at the window. It’s like hitting concrete. I bounce back, take another jump at it. I’m running out of time.

  The third one does it. The window pops open and I hit the ground on the other side. There are a few wanderers still lingering who haven’t figured out the main event’s by the front door. They fall in behind me, taking swipes as I run past them. The grounds of the house are pretty big. I want to find an exit. I run across the circular driveway past dim outlines of Mercedes and BMWs.

  I skid to a stop when I see it. The vague shape of a Cadillac Eldorado. It’s glowing the same purple the front door had with wards and protection spells.

  I can’t think of anybody who would do that to a Caddy but me.

  I run to the car, try to pull the door open, but I can’t get a grip on the handle. It hasn’t been here long enough to make a solid impression on the landscape. The ghosts are getting close. I try a second time, realize I’m an idiot and flip back over to the living side.

  The world bursts into color and sound again. I yank the car door open, slide into the driver’s seat. One of those assholes shoved a screwdriver into the ignition. I turn it and the engine roars to life.

  In the rearview I can see Griffin’s men running out the door. I throw the car into reverse and stomp on the gas, scattering most of them and bouncing a couple across my trunk. I swerve into the cars in the driveway, bouncing my already battered bumper into the cars’ wheel wells hard enough, I hope, to tweak the steering and make them undrivable.

  I kick the car back into drive and peel out onto a small private road that’s more of a glorified driveway. A vine-covered gate looms in front of me and I give the car more gas, speeding into it and tearing it off its hinges. The doors bounce into the street.

  I hit the street hard. Sparks fly up from the car’s undercarriage when it smacks off the asphalt. Griffin’s house turns out to be on one of the side streets north of Sunset. Should have known. Ritzy place. I toss out a small misdirection spell, hopefully powerful enough to give me a head start. I head for the freeway.

  —

  I’m not feeling so good.

  I find some Kleenex in the glove compartment, tear off a chunk and stick it up my nose to stanch the bleeding. The second it goes up a nostril, pain flares between my eyes and I almost swerve into a truck.

  I hate having a broken nose. Getting it reset is going to suck. After driving around for half an hour and not seeing anyone following me I pull over to the side of the road and take stock. The rib’s definitely broken. In the rearview mirror I can see my face is one massive, purple bruise. Dizzy, which is never good. But I’m not seeing double, so that’s something.

  But my thoughts are like Teflon. I can’t get anything to stick for very long. The adrenaline dump I got back at the mansion has left me shaking.

  I push past the mental Slip n’ Slide. So Ben Duncan, the asshole who kicked me out of L.A., is Ben Griffin. I have to kill him to pay for my cryptic clue from Santa Muerte.

  I can work with that.

  But did he kill Lucy? Even through the beating my head took I know he didn’t. No profit in it. Why go through all that trouble just to bring me back here and then try to kill me?

  He wanted to see me first. Find out why I was in town before he took me out. His surprise when I mentioned Boudreau was genuine. Or he’s a really good actor.

  I find my mind wandering past that to how he tracked me down. Still think he had somebody camped at the cemetery, but how did he know where my motel was? I look around at the seat. Takes me a minute, but I find it, the wadded up receipt for my motel room. Stuck between the cushions. Okay. So they broke in while I was in having my talk with Santa Muerte and found it?

  I’d buy it if the receipt hadn’t been so tightly wedged in there. But how else could they have figured it out? And how would they know what room I was in? I hadn’t told anyone.

  Oh. Wait. Yes, I had. Son of a bitch.

  —

  I pop two wheels up on the curb down the street from Alex’s club and shove down on the parking brake. The day’s getting on and already the parking lot is full. Happy hour.

  I dig arou
nd in the glove compartment. The Browning’s still there. I pull it out, make sure it’s loaded. I get out of the car and immediately regret standing. I stagger, catch myself on the door as dizziness washes over me. I pull it together and lurch down the street to the club. The effect I’m going for isn’t subtlety. It’s entirely possible I’m not exactly in my right mind. Being repeatedly beaten can kind of have that effect.

  I throw the door open and get a face full of bouncer. He could wipe the floor with me, but I’m ready for him. And I’m in the mood to hurt somebody. I drop him with a blast of electricity without bothering to say anything first. He falls backward through the curtain in the foyer to the bar floor.

  None of the customers have seen a mage in action before. Part of me cares enough to keep it that way. All they see is the bouncer land on the floor, skid a couple feet and lie there. He’ll probably get up thinking I’ve got one hell of a right hook.

  “Where the fuck is Alex?” People are ducking behind chairs, running toward the fire exit. The bouncer stands, a little unbalanced, and comes stalking toward me, his face contorted with animal rage. I step in and shove the Browning against his head.

  “I’ve killed two people today,” I say, “and tore their souls into shredded fucking wheat. You really want to fuck with me?”

  He hesitates, unsure of what to do. Whether because I’ve got a gun in his face or because I’m talking bugfuck crazy I don’t know. The fact that he got up from that blast and hasn’t backed down says I may have picked a fight with the wrong guy. I don’t really want to have to kill him. There’s been too much of that today already.

  “Back off, Max,” Alex says, coming out from the back. The bouncer looks at both of us, glares at me and steps aside. Alex comes up to me, pointedly ignoring the gun. “What’s going on, Eric?”

  On the drive over I did the math. Alex is the only person who knew where I was staying. And then there was that crack from Griffin about Alex half a million in bad debt, how he’d sold most of his club to get back into the black. The more I thought about it, the more plausible it sounded.

  “You sold me out, you sonofabitch.” I’m slurring my S’s and the dizziness has kicked up a couple notches. That spell took a lot out of me.

  Alex frowns. He takes on a tone like he’s talking a crazy man off a ledge. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Come on, Eric, you look like hell. I’ve been trying to find you since your call cut out. Let me get you some help.”

  “Fuck you,” I say, loud enough to make him flinch. “You sicced that sonofabitch and his fucking band of thugs on me.” Alex blurs a little, the floor tilts enough to make me stumble but I hold on to the gun.

  “I’m not doing anything, Eric. You’re bleeding. Your nose is broken. Your face is nothing but one big bruise. We need to get you some help.”

  “You’re not fucking touching me. Griffin told me about you. Told me about your deal. Right before he tried to have me killed.”

  “Griffin? Ben Griffin? The hell does he have to do with anything?”

  “See, you know him. You knew he was around. You knew he was looking for me. You gave me to him to clear the half million you owe him, get your club back.”

  “The fuck are you going on about? No. I mean, yeah, I know him. Everybody knows him. And yeah, I owe him money. But he sure as fuck doesn’t own any of this club. We’ve got a revolving account with him. He’s one of my suppliers.”

  “What?”

  “He sells me beer, Eric.”

  Did I get the name wrong? I don’t think so. I can’t remember. There’s something else to say, but I can’t think of it.

  “You didn’t fuck me over,” I say, somewhere between relieved and feeling like an asshole. I blink away the double image of Alex. My thoughts slide off each other. The room takes another tilt and I stumble, suddenly too woozy to stand up straight.

  He catches me as I go to my knees, grabs the gun with one smooth motion. “No, man. I didn’t do anything like that. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “He was with Boudreau.” My voice sounds very far away. “Changed his name from Duncan.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. Let’s get you patched up and you can tell me all about it, okay?”

  Alex thinks he’s just his beer guy. I laugh. “Boy does he have you fooled,” I say, and slip into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 12

  It’s 1994 and Vivian is patching me up again. We’ve been dating almost three years now. I’ve been in another fight. I’ve got another broken nose. Took on three guys in the parking lot behind a shitkicker bar on Pico because I wanted to hurt something.

  I didn’t lose, but I didn’t exactly win, either. Story of my fucking life. I’m not stupid. I know I’ve got issues. Who doesn’t? The world pisses on everybody. I’m not special. That pisses me off even more. Angry young man, that’s me.

  But Viv doesn’t deserve this. Doesn’t deserve the anger, the fights. Me showing up on her doorstep with cuts and bruises. Broken bones. More evidence I can’t rein in my own fucking temper.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. For what I’m not sure. There’s so much to choose from, after all. Let’s settle on me being such a raging asshole. That should cover pretty much everything.

  “You should be,” she says. “Fifteen years is a long time. You didn’t even say goodbye.”

  My eyes snap open and 1994 slams into 2010.

  “Vivian,” I say. I try to get up, but dizziness and weakness overwhelm me. She pushes me back down with a fingertip. I don’t fight it. It’s an awfully nice fingertip.

  Short red hair, porcelain skin, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Time’s barely touched her.

  “Eric.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Fixing you,” she says. “Again. Do you know where here is?”

  It looks like a storeroom with shelves and boxes loaded with booze, cans of peanuts, cleaning supplies. I’m on a folding table with a rolled up jacket under my head for a pillow.

  “We’re at Alex’s bar?” I say.

  “Hey, you’re not as concussed as I thought.”

  I should say something more, but what? Apologize? How do you apologize for disappearing the way I did?

  “Viv, I—”

  “Have a broken nose,” she says, cutting me off. “A fractured rib, lacerations, contusions, a missing tooth, broken capillaries in your left eye and a couple minor gunshot wounds. You’re lucky. Bullets just skimmed the surface. By the way, nice tats.”

  “Thanks. Kept me alive today. You say a couple gunshots?” I only remember getting shot once.

  “Right forearm, and a really nasty one on your back.”

  “Oh, that. Ghost tagged me.”

  “Do I want to know how that happened?”

  “Probably not.” I flex my arm, look at the neat stitching cutting through a tattoo of intertwining snakes in a band. I can’t remember what that tattoo does. Just to be on the safe side I’ll want to get it touched up.

  The wounds are sore, but not what I’d have expected from a gunshot. When I breathe I don’t feel that hitch from the broken rib that’s been bugging me since Florida. I prod my nose with a finger and it explodes with pain, making my eyes tear up. “Jesus fuck that hurts.”

  “Quit your whining. It’s not like you haven’t broken your nose before. Quit poking at it and it’ll heal up fine.”

  The pain subsides slowly. All things considered, including the nose, I’m in pretty good shape. I should be in a lot more pain and a lot more fucked up.

  “You’ve gotten better.”

  “I should hope so,” she says. “Spent enough on the medical degree.”

  “You’re a doctor?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Kinda, yeah.”

  “What, you think I couldn’t make it through med school?”

  “What? No. God, no. I was just—” I let the sentence trail off. I’m not sure what I was thinking. Things had
changed. Alex runs a business, Viv’s a doctor. Lucy, well … before she died Lucy was a success.

  And then there’s me.

  “Just thinking how much things have changed around here. Feeling a little lost is all.”

  Her face softens a little. “I’m sorry about Lucy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s get you up.” She helps me sit upright. I’m still dizzy, but it’s nothing compared to earlier. She hands me a juice box. “Drink this.” I suck it down in record time.

  “You got another?” She’s already handing me one before I’ve finished my sentence.

  “So,” I say, slurping the last of the juice, “med school, huh?”

  “Top of my class.”

  Not surprising. Viv’s scary smart. Smarter than me, that’s for damn sure. Like Alex she wasn’t big on power, but she was good with memory enhancement spells and things that required control and finesse. Couple that with an already brilliant mind and I could never win a goddamn argument with her.

  I flex my back. Even the soreness I felt a little while ago is fading. “Private practice?”

  She nods. “Through UCLA. I do some work at County, too. I can’t do miracle cures, but I can speed things up.”

  I point at my taped up nose. “Like fixing busted noses?”

  She gives me a smile that’s got all the warmth of the North Wind. “I could fix that easy.”

  “Right.” Of course she’s still pissed off at me. I would be if I were her.

  “Oh, I’ll take care of it. I just don’t have what I need here. Look, Eric. Yes, I was hurt. And angry. I wanted to wear your balls for earrings. But it’s been a long time. I’ve moved on.”

  I haven’t.

  The thought comes so suddenly and so unbidden I know it’s true. Everyone’s kept moving forward, following their path, changing with the times. They’ve grown up and I’m still the angry young man playing with dead things. I’ve just gotten better at it is all.

  I think, I know, that I’ve had this hope in the back of my mind that someday I could come home and everything would be fine. That I could pick up where I left off. I know it’s not possible. I can’t bring Lucy back, I can’t bring my parents back.