Into the Weird: The Collected Stories of James Palmer

by James Palmer

  Eldritch Yet to Come had to watch helplessly as his partner died right in front of him a second time.

  The Ghost of Eldritch Past rose from his chair and used it as a missile, hurling it at the thing. It had as much effect as the hot lead Malone had just sent into it. The demon snaked its long tail around Eldritch, pinning him like a python imprisons a rat it is about to engulf. Its yellow eyes looked into Sam’s, and its teeth dripped saliva or venom.

  It had two short arms ending in sharp talons just below its large head. It used one of these to reach into Sam’s chest—through his chest. The Ghost of Eldritch Past froze, his face a mask of pain and terror, and Eldritch Yet to Come remembered his horror, the icy grip of the fiend around his heart. It was an all-consuming cold that went straight into his marrow and stayed there.

  “You I am going to keep,” said the demon. “I give you a gift so that you will remember this day. I want you to deliver a message for me. Tell Chen that Lo Wong sends his regards.”

  The demon released him then, and the Ghost of Eldritch past toppled to the floor.

  Eldritch Yet to Come turned away from the scene. The djinni still sat at the table by the window, only now she had supplanted the old Chinese woman entirely.

  “No one believed my story about the demon. They thought it was some kind of Chinese gang attack,” he told her. Everyone at the restaurant got scared, dummied up. Pretended they couldn’t speak English. I was booted off the force in disgrace.”

  “But you’ve found the missing piece of the puzzle, said the woman. “Like you said, remembering is understanding.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. Let’s just go home. Planet Earth. Maraud’s tobacco shop. Present day.”

  The restaurant disappeared, and Eldritch was back in the same place with the same woman, only he felt very different. He opened the door of the tobacco shop and entered, the djinni following obediently.

  “You found her!” said Maraud. He ran up and embraced her.

  “She’s all yours, Maraud,” said Eldritch.

  “I missed you so much," said the tobacconist, smiling.

  “Of course, my Master," said the woman formally. She bowed. Something about the display turned Eldritch's stomach.

  “I owe you some money,” said Maraud. “Let me go to my safe.”

  “No, Mr. Maraud. You don't owe me any more money. We're square.”

  “Ah. Then you availed yourself of my beauty’s power.”

  “Yes, but not in the way you mean. She has given me something far more valuable than wealth. And in return for all that she has done for both of us, I have one final wish to make.”

  Both of them stared at me.

  “What you're talking about?” asked Maraud.

  “When you found the ring all those years ago it was all about the money. But you soon came to love her, didn't you, Maraud?”

  “I-I.”

  “You used her power to make yourself successful. That was probably your first wish. And you knew you couldn’t take it with you, so you probably wished for endless life, only you were smarter about it than poor Georgie.”

  “W-what? How--”

  “You knew you could have as many wishes as you wanted, but you couldn’t bare to let her go to her next owner. And you were too afraid to tell her how you feel or release her from her obligation to you, because in both scenarios you thought you would lose her forever.”

  “Is this true, Maraud?”

  The djinni turned to him, taking his face in her hands.

  “Y-yes, my love," said Maraud. “I could not let you go. You are just too beautiful, too intelligent. I have had so many happy centuries with you, even though you were miserable. I knew that if I let you go, you would leave me, and all I've ever wanted was you.”

  “That's why you haven’t asked me for anything in such a long time,” said the djinni.

  “You have already given me everything I will ever want,” said Maraud.

  “Salim, I care for you deeply. I wouldn't have left you. All I wanted was a chance to be trusted. We are so alike, you and I. We both know what we want, and have the power to get it. You always had that power, even before you found my ring.”

  “My love,” said Maraud with tears in his eyes.

  Eldritch handed him the ring. He wouldn’t have to make the wish after all.

  “I wish you were mortal,” Maraud said.

  The beautiful woman clasped her hands together, and there was a distant rumble as the smell of ozone filled the air. A ring of light and smoke enveloped the former djinni, coalescing around her. When it dissipated, she was wearing ordinary, even doughty, modern attire, but she was still the same beautiful woman Eldritch had seen back at Georgie’s.

  “Thank you, Mr. Eldritch,” she said. “How did you know?”

  Eldritch shrugged. “I had a hunch you weren’t too happy with your, uh, living arrangements.” He glanced at Maraud, who was practically beaming. “You had the look of the lovelorn about you when you came to my office last night. And I knew that she had a thing for you when I met her.”

  “I should have done this a hundred years ago,” said Maraud. “But now I am immortal, and you are not!”

  “It is all right, my love. I have already lived a thousand thousand lifetimes. And a human life is long enough. You'll see.”

  Sam Eldritch left the shop before Maraud's and the former djinni's show of affection turned into something out of a Coney Island peep show.

  Sam walked silently out into the night, conjuring a cigarette from thin air and lighting it with a match from his pocket. He’d had enough magic for one day. He felt happy for the first time in a long while, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because this case had a happy ending, at least for the ones who deserved it. Maybe because he finally had the key details from the day that changed his life forever, the key to solving another mystery.

  *

  The Daffodil was crowded when Sam arrived, and he headed straight for the bar. Vivian was between sets, and she was sitting at the bar downing a martini and talking to Moe. The big black man smiled at her and they talked in hushed tones.

  Sam sidled up beside Vivian.

  “I know why you stay around,” he told her. She exchanged self-conscious glances with Moses.

  “Now you know my other secret,” she said.

  “Please don’t tell,” Moses whispered.

  Sam smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna tell anyone. It’s just…this kind of thing can’t be easy. Especially right under Caprisi’s nose.”

  Vivian shrugged. “It isn’t easy anywhere. But Moses and I genuinely love each other.”

  “One day,” said Moses, “When I’ve scraped together enough dough, we’ll split. But not yet.”

  “And you’re OK with waiting? With sneaking around?” Eldritch asked Vivian.

  “I’ve lived a long time, Sam. Moses is worth the wait.”

  Sam nodded.

  “You, on the other hand, should get out of here fast, before Caprisi sees you. You’re not his favorite person right now, especially since he thinks you have a magic ring that grants the wearer unlimited power.”

  “I got rid of it.”

  “Great,” she said. “Maybe you can tell him that before he ventilates you.”

  “I got the message. Be safe, you two.”

  Sam Eldritch slunk out of the Daffodil and walked across the street where his favorite gypsy cab sat idling. He wondered if Chen’s would still be open. He wondered what the demon meant, and how it knew he would have any connection to Chen. He wondered who or what Lo Wong was. But most of all he wondered about the forces at work in the world and the powerful magic he had witnessed tonight. Not just the djinni’s magic, but the binding power of love, the strongest magic there is.

  Mars McCoy and the Curse of the Star Lance

  “I’m glad this patrol duty is almost over,” said Marshall “Mars” McCoy. “This is boring. There’s nothing happening for parsecs in any direction.”

  In th
e seat next to him, his beautiful, statuesque copilot, Lieutenant Betty-12, looked at her instrument panel. “You’d rather be in danger?”

  “I’d rather have something to do,” said McCoy, leaning back in his pilot’s seat. There were no course adjustments to make for the moment, so he stared ahead through the viewport instead, the stars winking at them like pinpricks in velvet.

  “This system has been at peace for some time,” said Betty-12, concentrating on her controls. “Thanks in no small part to us and the Space Patrol.”

  McCoy sighed. “I know. I just wish something would happen. However minor.”

  “Well,” said Betty-12. “We are now done with our sweep of this sector. Your orders?”

  McCoy gave a sly grin. “Betty, my dear, let’s head for home. Lay in a course for the Black Hole. Prepare to enter null space.”

  Just then the null radio flickered to life. “Hellooooooo?” Said an urgent voice, filled with static.

  McCoy glanced at his copilot. “Can we clean that up?”

  “I’m trying,” she said, tapping buttons and working the radio’s controls. “I don’t understand it. The signal goes through null space, so it should be crystal clear. Unless . . .”

  McCoy immediately knew what Betty-12 was getting at. “Null space feedback,” he said. Betty-12 nodded.

  “Whoever it is, they’re close,” said McCoy. “Start a short range scan. I want everything. Infrared, gamma, the works.”

  “Scanning EM band,” said Betty, working her instruments. The screens of the Black Bird 5 flickered and bleeped as the ship scanned their immediate area for anything that could send a distress signal.

  “If it’s this close, why didn’t we find it earlier?”

  “Maybe because it wasn’t here earlier,” said Betty-12 without looking up from her instruments. “I have something. A series of short, regular radio bursts.”

  “Could be a quasar,” McCoy mused.

  “No. Because you’re not dead from radiation.” Betty-12 looked at him, her blue eyes sparkling. She was a robot, a machine, and could take levels of radiation that would cook McCoy in his Space Patrol uniform.

  “OK. Then what?”

  “It’s a ship. But that wasn’t the source of the distress call.”

  “Show me.”

  Betty-12 pressed a series of buttons and the small screen that divided the two halves of the command console lit up, showing a tiny ship.

  “Looks an ore hauler,” said McCoy. “Pirates?”

  “Not in such a small craft, and not without support. They would not need help.”

  McCoy nodded, rubbed his stubbled chin in thought. “True. But I’ve heard of space pirates using the old distress signal trick to free would-be Samaritans of their vessels. And their lives.”

  The null radio crackled and buzzed again.

  “There are no other ships in this vicinity,” said Betty-12, consulting her instruments. “Detecting faint vital signs of at least one humanoid life form.”

  “Let’s get over there and check it out,” said Mars. “Get on the horn to the Black Hole, let them know what’s going on.”

  “Horn?” Betty-12 asked, arching her right eyebrow and staring at McCoy quizzically.

  “It’s an old Earth term. Never mind. Tell Commander Verne we’ll be a little late.”

  McCoy brought the Black Bird 5 in closer. The craft was not much larger than the Black Bird 5. It was bulky, gray and free of insignia or identifying serial numbers. But there were no pirate markings either.

  “. . .elp me. . .” came a faint cry from the null radio. Betty hit the com button. “This is the Black Bird 5 calling unidentified craft. What is your situation?”

  “. . .countered . . . erelict,” came the tinny, far away voice. “Boarded . . .et up claim beacon.” More static. “It’s the . . . -ar . . . -ance.”

  “Can you repeat?” Mars shouted into the null radio.

  “. . . Star Lance . . .”

  A chill ran down McCoy’s spine. If the name registered with Betty-12's robotic memory, she didn’t show it.

  “Prepare to be boarded,” she told the radio. “We’re coming to rescue you.”

  The null radio answered with static.

  “There’s a lot more wrong with their radio than null space feedback,” said McCoy as he brought the Black Bird closer. “Do you know the ship he was talking about?”

  “The Star Lance,” Betty-12 recited from her memory banks. “Experimental class Navy Cruiser. Disappeared with all hands on its maiden voyage twenty-seven years, eight months, five hours and forty-seven minutes ago.”

  McCoy shook his head. Until she started talking like that, he could almost forget his beautiful copilot was a machine. “Uh, yeah. That’s the one. I didn’t think she really existed. The Navy doesn’t like to talk about her, and everyone who claims to have found the wreckage ends up dead.”

  “Not this time,” said Betty-12, her deft hands working her controls. “Should I radio the Black Hole and tell them about the Star Lance?”

  “No. “I don’t want Voroshilov overhearing.” Voroshilov was the Navy’s liaison to the Space Patrol, but as far as McCoy was concerned, liaison was a fancy term for spy.

  McCoy hit the forward thrusters, slowing the Black Bird 5 and preparing to dock with the distressed vessel.

  An emergency rescue of this nature wasn’t overly complex. They had to dock with the vessel, open the hatch and extract the pilot.

  “People say the Lance is cursed,” said McCoy, bracing for the metal-on-metal thump as the Black Bird 5 merged with the hull of the damaged ship.

  “I don’t believe in curses,” said Betty-12. “Docking rings engaged.”

  Mars McCoy released his seat restraints. “Let’s go and say hi.”

  Betty-12 grabbed a first aid kit as she followed McCoy to the rear of the Black Bird. McCoy leaned down and tugged on a handle, which released their hatch with a hiss.

  Suddenly the ship rocked violently, knocking McCoy and Betty-12 to the deck. The BB 5's warning siren went off. So did the null radio.

  “Get out of here!” came the frightened voice they first heard minutes earlier. It was crystal clear now, and full of panic. “She’s gonna blow!”

  “What?”

  Betty got up quickly from where she fell and glanced at the readings on her console, her keen robot eyes zeroing in on the data.

  “Their engines are overheating,” she said without emotion. “Something’s wrong with the ship’s null engine.”

  “Let’s get him out of there,” said Mars, tugging on the doomed ship’s hatch. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Let me,” said Betty-12, reaching down into the opening and tugging at the thick hatch. The hatch opened with a scream of screeching metal.

  McCoy dived feet first into the opening, his boots hitting rickety deck plating six feet below. Betty-12 watched him from the opening, as expressionless as if she was watching grass grow on some lush green colony world on a sunny afternoon.

  There were more sirens going off on this ship, louder, more urgent. Billowing smoke clouded McCoy’s vision, and his nostrils were filled by the acrid smell of burnt wiring.

  “Hello?” he called, his voice echoing in the small space.

  “Over here.”

  McCoy peered through the smoke and saw a man lying under a hunk of metal. Mars scowled into the smoke. “Betty!”

  McCoy heard a thud behind him as Betty-12 dropped into the damaged ship. Without a word she grabbed the piece of metal and lifted it effortlessly while McCoy dragged the ship’s pilot out from under it.

  “Th-thank you,” said the pilot. He was young. Short sandy blond hair stuck out from his head, and wore a grey tunic and matching trousers. “The ship . . . is falling apart.”

  “What happened?” Asked Betty-12.

  “Later,” McCoy barked. “We’ve got to get him out of here before his ship falls apart around our ears.”

  Betty-12 helped the man to his feet and, with considerabl
e effort, they lifted him through the opening into the Black Bird 5. Betty-12 slammed the hatch shut while McCoy gave full power to the thrusters. “That ship is gonna blow any second,” he said. “Soon as we’re clear, I’m skipping into null-space.”

  “Roger,” said Betty-12, who was busily securing the injured pilot to one of the BB 5's bunks.

  The ship exploded with a flash, the force rocking the Black Bird 5 as it became enveloped in a rainbow of light, entering the safety of null-space.

  “How’s our passenger?”

  “I am still assessing his injuries.”

  The pilot tried to sit up, but Betty-12 put a restraining hand on his chest.

  “Easy. You are injured.”

  The pilot sat up, grey eyes stared widely at his savior. “You’re a robot,” he said.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  The pilot grinned. “You’re too pretty to be a real woman.” After that brief state of coherence, the pilot fell back on his bunk, coughing.

  “Ship . . . fell to the . . . curse.”

  “Shhhh,” Betty-12 soothed.

  “All I could see were stars,” said the young man. “So many stars. They changed. The stars changed!”

  “What’s your name, pilot?” asked McCoy.

  “Rand. N-Nathan Rand.”

  “What happened out there?” Betty asked, opening the first aid kit.

  “D-don’t know. The Lance . . . rippled. Like a pond when you throw a stone into it. My ship got too close.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said McCoy.

  “Stories were right,” said Nathan Rand. “Ship . . . cursed.”

  “You’re all right now,” said Betty-12. “Just take it easy.”

  Nathan Rand passed out then, leaving Mars McCoy and Betty-12 in silence as they headed home.

  *

  “You two want to tell me what happened out there?”

  Commander Herbert George “H.G.” Verne glared at Mars McCoy and Betty-12 as they stood at attention in his office. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. They could hear the whir of the servos in Verne’s mechanical right arm as he moved it across his chest and tucked under his left arm.