They Promised Me the Gun Wasn't Loaded

by James Alan Gardner

  It looks like he’s inflating. He starts as a dot among the embers that fills with hot air and puffs up into a full-sized man. A full-sized man holding a big fucking scythe. He wears robes from head to toe, with the fabric a shade of dirty gray that might have been chosen so that fireplace ash doesn’t show too noticeably.

  The robes have a cowl, and all I can see of the dude is his face. Surprise, surprise, it’s a skull.

  The hands on the scythe are skeletal, too. Don’t ask me how the finger bones don’t fall apart into separate carpals, cuz as far as I can tell, Scythe Dude has no ligaments holding his pinkies together. But that’s magic for you. It doesn’t have to make sense physically, as long as it works as a story. Concept: living skeleton. Done and done.

  I glare at Scythe Dude as he strides from the hearth, tracking soot over the genuine Persian carpet. I say, “Really? Really? Doesn’t J. K. Rowling have a patent on that?”

  “Belief is a lubricant,” Scythe Dude says. His voice is predictably sepulchral, like James Earl Jones wearing a Darth Vader helmet while standing at the bottom of a well. “When the public believes in a particular type of magic spell,” drones on Scythe Dude, “casting the spell becomes easier. Thanks to Harry Potter, travel from fireplace to fireplace takes far less effort than other forms of teleportation.”

  “So it’s also easier to fly on broomsticks now?”

  “Yes,” says Scythe Dude.

  “But it makes you look like a memek,” mutters the woman in black.

  Memek. WikiJools tells me that’s an Indonesian vulgarity. Or should I say “vulvarity.”

  Well, that’s informative.

  Scythe Dude ignores the woman and turns to me. “Are you Julietta Walsh?”

  “Call me Jools,” I say, striding forward and extending my hand. Behind me, Stevens & Stephens lose their shit as they realize I just slipped from their grip like soap in the shower. Scythe Dude seems equally taken aback as I grab his bony fingers and give a hearty shake.

  I know I’m supposed to be retching into my Reeboks in his presence. I feel his Shadow trying to stroke its bony fingers up my sides and make me shiver. But between my buzz and my resistance from being a Spark, this Death dude doesn’t scare me. And as per always, I’d rather make a splash by leaping forward than hanging back with the girls who behave.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” I tell Mr. Scythe. “Gonna tell me your name?”

  “You may call me Reaper,” Scythe Dude says.

  Me and the woman in black both snigger. I mean, really. Before this dude bought the Dark Conversion, he had a name like Bernard Skank-Huffington the Third. Now, he’s christened himself Reaper? That and the scythe and the robes and James Earl Jones are enough to make Freud say, “I told you so.”

  Look, if Scythe Dude wasn’t compensating for feeling like the bottom man on the broomstick, he’d wear regular clothes, use his real name, and avoid entering rooms through the fireplace. He def-o-lutely wouldn’t try to impress me by having his flunkies bring me to the luxury lounge, and he’d carry a regular briefcase instead of a farm implement.

  The only message this bullshit sends me is that Reaper is a Darkling loser: the unpromising son of wealthy parents who paid for the boy’s Conversion in the hope he’d become a badass Death Lord. Instead, all they got was the bass guitarist for a Black Sabbath tribute band.

  “So what’s this all about, Reap?” I ask, maxing out my volume and bonhomie.

  I can almost see wheels turning inside Reaper’s head. (Whoa, now that I think of it, if the dude really did have wheels inside his head, I could see them through his eye sockets. That would be awesome! But all I see are empty air and shadows. Sad!) Reaper turns this way and that, scoping out the other Darklings in the room. I guess he’s debating whether they have enough security clearance for hearing whatever top-secret horse crap he has to say. Finally, he makes a decision. “Ms. Walsh, would you follow me, please?”

  “Why the heck not?” After all, he said please. I know he’s taking me somewhere where shit can transpire without witnesses, but I just can’t work up much concern. Reaper, Stevens, and Stephens are too Yakko, Wakko, and Dot to make me sweat.

  But as the four of us troop from the room, I look back at the Darklings lounging in the lounge. They’re ignoring our group with an air of “I’m pretending you were never here, fa-la-la.” All except the woman in black, who stares at me without blinking.

  Her eyes meet mine for a moment of meaningful I-don’t-know-what. Connection? Interest?

  That’s not good. Attracting a Darkling’s attention is playing with fire. Considering how powerful the woman likely is, maybe it’s like playing with plutonium. Still, I’m tempted to stick out my tongue at her, but there’s not enough booze in the world to push me over that line.

  Aww, fuck it. I give her a wink. She doesn’t wink back.

  2

  Interspecies Competition

  REAPER LEADS THE WAY through more of the airport’s AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Stevens & Stephens have grabbed my arms again, and this time they’re applying strength. It must have rattled them, how slickly I slid out of their grasp, so now they’re giving me the jailhouse clinch. I can still break free if I need to, but aikido will be involved.

  Joint locks and pain. Maybe fractured wrists.

  Picturing what I’d have to do to them turns my stomach. I’ve thrown my share of punches playing hockey, but it seldom adds up to much. Everyone on the ice wears decent protection, including a helmet. Besides, hockey gloves are so thick, the padding reduces their impact. A scuffle lets off steam and sends a message without anyone getting more than a black eye.

  But I’ve also seen real injuries. Broken bones. Severe cuts. And once … shit, I don’t want to think about it.

  Hockey violence is 90 percent show: deimatic behavior. But true violence gets ugly real fast. When I think about hurting Stevens & Stephens—I mean sincerely hurting them …

  Ick. I just won’t do it. Unless they give me no choice.

  Shit. All this thinking has sobered me up. I mean literally: I can feel it. The booze just got purged from my bloodstream like draining a cake of tofu.

  I hate being a Spark. I hate how all of a sudden I have to get serious. Dammit, I’m a student in university; this is the time of my life that’s supposed to be fun.

  I feel my eyes getting damp. Oh no. Before I embarrass myself, I scramble for a distraction.

  And support.

  I finally call for backup.

  « Yo, dudettes! » I transmit mentally. « Could be I might need a hand. »

  « What’s wrong? » a voice answers immediately. It’s my roommate-slash-teammate Miranda. She replies so quickly, it makes me wonder: Is there a telepathic equivalent of holding the phone and waiting with your finger over the Accept button? But more likely, it’s just her superfast reflexes. Miranda isn’t one of those Sparks who can race across the continent in the time it takes to say, “I want sushi,” but her reaction speed beats any mere human’s.

  I say, « It’s possible I’ve been busted by two fake Mounties and a demon who calls himself Reaper. »

  « What did you do? » Miranda demands.

  « Nothing,» I answer, «and thanks for thinking the worst of me. » (By the way, all this time, Stevens & Stephens have been walking me in firmly held lockstep between them. I approve—it means I don’t have to watch where I’m going while I Skype telepathically.)

  I say, « Two Renfields heavy-handed me when I got off the plane. It’s snaky as fuck. Did I mention they were fake RCMP? As in counterfeit IDs? »

  « How do you know they’re counterfeit? » Miranda asks.

  « I know things, remember? So can you please stop thinking I shit the bed, and start giving me some teamly support? »

  « Sorry,» Miranda says. Since she almost never apologizes, this counts as a major concession. « You’re at the airport? I can be there in five. You want to be rescued? »

  « Don’t need it at the moment. Besides, it’ll l
ook suspicious if a big glowing Spark shows up out of nowhere to save unimportant little me. But I’d love you to be within striking distance if striking becomes necessary. »

  « Understood,» Miranda says. « And I’ll bring Zircon with me. Can’t trust Zirc alone with the cookies. »

  « Hey, I heard that! » says Zircon. Zirc is my roommate Kim. Or maybe Kim is Zircon. All Sparks are identity-fluid, but Kim is more fluid than most.

  « I’d love both of you to be ready in the wings,» I say. « Is Dakini around too? »

  « Visiting relatives in Toronto,» Miranda says. So Dakini, the fourth member of our team, is off the roster for the moment. Toronto is an hour away from Waterloo by car. Miranda flies faster than any car ever, but Toronto and back will still take too long to be practical.

  Too bad. Dakini reads minds, so she could tell us what Reaper is up to. But we’ll just have to wing it in ignorance: the story of my life.

  « See you soon,» I tell my friends. « Let’s hope I don’t need you. »

  Miranda and Kim both snort in disbelief. They have this idea I’m a walking disaster, like an alcoholic stick of dynamite. An alcoholic stick of dynamite who plays with matches. An alcoholic stick of dynamite who plays with matches, and isn’t very bright, and maybe hates herself a little.

  Such judgmental meanies! I almost regret asking for their help.

  But not really. To be honest, I’m relieved they’re on the way.

  * * *

  MEANWHILE, MY ESCORTS HAVE walked me into a baggage-handling area. This isn’t like the ones you see in movies, with conveyor belts rolling, and a maze of catwalks, scaffolds, etc. Waterloo is just too small for such mech. Glancing around, I’m led to conclude that the airport can handle all its baggage needs with two luggage carts pulled by lawn-mower tractors, and a shopping trolley with ZEHRS FOOD MART printed on the handle.

  The most eye-catching feature of the area is a whacking big vault: made of solid steel, three meters high, and the same distance wide. It’s locked up tight and deeply embedded in the room’s concrete floor. I can’t tell for sure, but I’d be super disappointed if the walls weren’t strong enough to shrug off missile fire. Just to ice the cake, sorcerous runes have been etched in the metal, then painted Day-Glo pink.

  I stare at the runes and hope that WikiJools will tell me more about them. Nope. I get stabbed with a hideous headache and have to look away real fast. I don’t know if the pain is backlash from the runes themselves, or if it’s what happens when I try to access data on forbidden topics. One way or another, WikiJools gets a flatulent 404 on the infodump request.

  Looks like I need a Plan B. I point to the vault and ask Reaper, “What’s that? Apart from a scary-ass safety-deposit box.”

  Reaper hesitates, then says, “Planes occasionally transport dangerous cargo. All airports are required to have storage facilities where such cargo can be held securely awaiting shipment or pickup.”

  “So this is where FedEx stores Necronomicons when people buy them off eBay?”

  “Essentially.”

  Reaper does some hocus-pocus on the vault. It involves hand gestures, guttural chants, and other mystic fapping. I pay close attention. Not that I’ll be able to reproduce the spell—since I’m not a Darkling, I can’t do magic no matter how loudly I shout, “Fhtagn!” But I’m a science student even if my marks are in the toilet, and the habit of gathering info has been lovingly beaten into me.

  So I memorize what Reaper says and does. Or at least I try. But my brain refuses to remember a single word or twitch of the fingers.

  I think it’s because I’m a Spark. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but it absolutely loathes attempts to combine the Light with the Dark. Magic and weird science don’t mix. Period. This doesn’t stop idiots from trying to merge the two, but it’s like stashing matter and antimatter in the same suppository. Hilarity ensues.

  But Reaper has no problems getting his wizard on. After ten seconds of making shadow puppets and James Earl Jones incantations, Reaper smacks the vault with the tip of his scythe. Click goes the door … then it creaks open melodramatically, wider and wider, until finally I can see inside.

  The upper part of the vault has movable shelves. They’re currently hiked to their highest position, leaving the lower half of the space for something large and gleaming: a gun the size of my leg, apparently made of diamond.

  Picture a tapered diamond cylinder with dozens of weird protrusions: helical antennae and octahedral knobs, cruciform outgrowths and randomly arranged handles. It looks deliberately baroque, as if someone had a Barbie’s Diamond Decoration Set and decided to glue everything from the kit onto a giant diamond Nerf gun.

  That’s one way of looking at it. The other is to say it’s a leg-sized bazooka with a shit-ton of diamond bling. I could totally see myself hoisting this bad boy onto my shoulder and blasting a panzer tank into My Little Pony glitter.

  “Sweet,” I say. “Where can I get one?”

  Reaper asks, “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  “Uhh … bar mitzvah present for Kim Jong-un?”

  Reaper glowers. “Ms. Walsh,” he says, “approximately two weeks ago, on the night of the winter solstice, you entered a lab filled with unusual equipment. Is that not correct?”

  I nod. Warily. Lots of shit went down that night, some of which involved my civilian self and some my superhero identity. I’d better keep straight which parts were which so I don’t give away any secrets.

  The events in the lab all happened when I was Jools; and like an upstanding citizen, I gave a full report to the cops. Eventually, I signed that NDA to keep my mouth shut, but since these dudes are supposedly Mounties, hiding the truth would be suspicious. “I saw plenty of weird stuff in that lab,” I admit. “Why does it matter?”

  Reaper asks, “Do you know who made that ‘stuff’?”

  As it happens, I do know. But I say, “Nope.”

  “It was made by a Spark terrorist,” Reaper says. “A so-called Mad Genius named Diamond. Have you heard of him?”

  I pretend to wrack my brain. WikiJools has obligingly filled my brain with gigabytes of info about Diamond—all the crazy schemes he’s dreamed up, from robot dinosaurs to zombie plagues—but I say, “Is he the Mad Genius who put his butt on Mount Rushmore?”

  “No,” Reaper says, “that was Zettajoule.” Despite having only a skull for a face, Reaper looks smug that he knows more than me. Or so he thinks! “Diamond,” says Reaper, “is best known for having a battle suit that appears to be made of diamond. He also has a fondness for diamondlike devices.”

  I nod toward the bazooka in the vault. “Exhibit one?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine.” Reaper peers at me. Inside his eye sockets, beady red lights glow like LEDs in a cheap Halloween decoration. “Are you sure you haven’t seen this object before? Or anything similar?”

  “There was diamondy stuff in the lab,” I say. “One machine was like a refrigerator made of diamond. Except inside, it had crazy stuff: a metal hand … a ray gun … a brain inside a jar…”

  “Yes, that’s what you told the police,” Reaper agrees. “You may not realize, Ms. Walsh, but you’re one of the only people who’s ever inspected Diamond’s technology. Or rather, you’re one of the few who survived. Diamond’s equipment is built to self-destruct if examined by strangers.”

  “Yeah, so I noticed.” The diamond fridge blew up real good. My friends and I were lucky it didn’t kill us.

  “You’re also trained in science,” Reaper continues. “That makes you even more valuable as a witness.”

  I say, “I’m in biology, not, uhh … woo-woo-istics or whatever you call the study of Mad Genius tech.”

  “Even so,” Reaper says, “you can help us.”

  “Help you do what?”

  “Identify this item,” Reaper says, gesturing toward the diamond bazooka. “It was recently discovered in a storage cache here in Waterloo. As you can see, it’s made of a diamondlik
e material, and we know that Diamond spent several months in this area.”

  I say, “So you think it was made by Diamond?”

  “That is a tempting conclusion. However…”

  Reaper reaches toward the bazooka. He almost touches it; but at the last second, he pulls back his hand without making contact. “As I said, every device irrefutably linked to Diamond has obliterated itself. This gun is the first to be found intact. If it’s genuine … well, you can understand why we’d be interested. But also why we find it hard to believe.”

  I stare at the bazooka. I worry it’ll blow up this very second. From my brief encounter with Diamond several days ago, I can totally picture him leaving a prezzie for Darklings to find, then detonating it in their faces. If the bazooka hasn’t exploded yet, it may just be waiting for a prime opportunity to murder a whole bunch of people. Exploding now will only kill me, the Renfields, and Reaper. If the weapon waits till it’s surrounded by Darklings and scientists …

  I say, “Look, have you even pulled the trigger on this gun? That would tell you a lot, right? If it shoots out something Mad Geniusy, you’ve hit the jackpot. But if nothing happens, maybe it’s a high-school kid’s art project.” I give the gun a look. “Maybe middle school.”

  Reaper stares at me for a long moment. “Would you be willing to pull the trigger, Ms. Walsh? When you know Diamond’s weapons invariably explode if they fall into the wrong hands?”

  “No way in hell,” I answer. “But an engineer should be able to rig a little lever that pulls the trigger while everyone stands well back.” (My head immediately fills with schematic diagrams for making such a lever. Then for making a fully robotic triggering mechanism. Then a semiautonomous robot ten meters tall that can fire four bazookas simultaneously. Come on, brain, don’t be that guy.)

  “We’ve already tried what you suggest,” Reaper tells me. “An expert built a device to pull the trigger. No result. We weren’t surprised—even conventional technology can make guns that only shoot when held by an authorized user. Fingerprint recognition, that sort of thing. It would be no challenge for Diamond to build a gun that only he could use. Or…”