by Martha Carr
“We got you.”
“And you’re probably gonna have to get a lot of these fuckers on your own.”
“We’ll be your eyes, Johnny. Just—shit! Duck!”
He dropped into a crouch and winced when the searing heat from a spell streaked over his head, but he saw nothing. That was a damn fireball.
“Okay, two feet to the right.” Rex snarled and another scream Johnny didn’t recognize came from even farther away.
The walls of the alley trembled before the shadowy form of the demon stepped forward out of the shadows. “You’re trying so hard, dwarf.” The voice echoed in a hundred different tones, and the glowing purple aura around the woman shuddered. “Stop fighting. I’m only here to take what you love.”
“Johnny, snap out of it!” Luther shouted. “And move your ass. Hey, hey, behind you!”
The bounty hunter whirled and caught the briefest glimpse of a wavering shadow and an arm that swung toward him. He ducked the arm he couldn’t see with any degree of certainty, then swiped his blade into where a person’s ribcage would have been. The knife stuck in solid, warm flesh, and a wizard materialized in front of him and gaped in disbelief as he sagged to the floor.
He jerked the knife free, stepped back, and shook his head again. None of this is real except for these bastards tryin’ to kill me.
“Good aim, Johnny!” Rex barked. “We got these shitheads on your right.”
“Yeah, but turn left at three o’clock,” Luther added. “Shit! Your other left!”
Johnny spun right and slashed at another shadow with his knife. Blood sprayed against his face. With a hiss, he squinted at the alley he knew wasn’t real and tried to clear the hallucination.
The vision faded and he stood in front of his burning cabin again. The demon flashed into existence in front of him, laughing in her inhuman voice. “You’re watching it all fall apart, aren’t you? Yes…I can feel it. Oh, you do keep it all bottled up inside, don’t you, dwarf?”
He lunged forward and swung his blade at the glowing purple figure. She disappeared, shrieking with laughter. When he turned quickly, the terrifyingly huge wings were fully extended in front of him again.
“But there’s more you haven’t shown me. I can smell it.”
With a roar of effort, he surged toward her and slashed again but she was suddenly six feet too far out of reach.
“What is it? What are you so afraid of?”
“Johnny!” Rex shouted. “You’re facing the wrong way.”
“He can’t fight like that,” Luther added. “Johnny, the rest are over here!”
The bounty hunter turned more slowly this time, breathing heavily, and scanned the dark grass in front of his burning cabin. Listen to them. That’s it. Listen to their voices, Johnny.
Lisa knelt on the grass, her hands tied behind her back. A faceless figure stood behind her and held her tightly with one arm while the other hand pressed a knife to her throat.
“No.”
“Johnny.” She stared at him with wide eyes. “Johnny, don’t let him—”
“Oh, yes…” The demon’s voice echoed from everywhere all at once and she drew in a long, hissing breath. “It’s so predictable but I guess I should have seen it.”
“No, no, Johnny,” Rex said and snarled again. A sound like ripping flesh barely registered in the bounty hunter’s mind. “Whatever you see, it’s not real.”
“Get her, Johnny. The witch! Right in front of you!”
“Do something,” Lisa begged and tears streamed down her cheeks as the shadowy bastard’s knife pressed harder against her throat. “Johnny, don’t stand there and—”
The knife glinted in a blur to open a wide gash in her flesh and spill her blood over the grass.
Johnny roared in anger and tried to run to her, but the world tilted and pushed him off balance. “Lisa—”
“It’s not her!” Rex and Luther shouted at the same time.
That snapped him out of his horrified shock long enough for his instincts to kick in. ’Course it ain’t. We’re in fuckin’ Portland.
He tossed his knife, caught it by the blade, and hurled it at the fake Lisa Breyer who knelt in the grass with blood pouring from her slashed throat. The blade struck true with a wet thunk, buried to the hilt in not-Lisa’s chest. She coughed, lurched forward, and toppled without a sound.
“Fuck…” He staggered sideways and his hand flailed to find something to grasp to stop his fall but with no success.
The bounty hunter landed heavily in the dust and his ears rang as his senses returned slowly. Reluctantly, he shifted his gaze to where he half-expected Lisa to be sprawled on the floor in front of him. The body was there but it was the witch, her dark eyes wide and staring at him as blood seeped slowly from around his utility knife buried in her chest.
“All right, Johnny!” Rex limped toward him with a sharp yip. “Now that’s what you call a kill-shot, huh? Johnny?”
Luther sniffed his master’s face, then gave it a tentative lick. “You don’t look so good. Are you still in there?”
“Johnny, it’s us.”
He responded with an unintelligible groan as his vision narrowed into darkness.
“Uh-oh, Luther. There he goes…”
The dwarf woke with a pounding headache and rolled onto his back. I swear I didn’t drink enough to feel this shitty.
“Hey! He’s up!” Luther skittered toward him across the dusty floor and shoved his nose into his master’s face. “Shit, Johnny. We thought you were dead.”
Rex snorted. “No, we didn’t. But it’s a good thing you’re waking up now. So is everyone else, I think.”
Luther sniggered. “Well, except for the dead ones.”
He pushed to a seated position and grunted as the dizziness began to clear. “Lisa?”
“Yep.” Rex trotted across the destroyed hotel. “Over here, Johnny. She’s been kinda curled in a ball since you both keeled over and passed out.”
“Yeah, that was weird.”
“Hey.” He forced his limbs to move so he could crawl across the floor toward her. Sure enough, she was still curled huddled into herself, whimpering and trembling. He cleared his throat when he reached her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Aw, come on, darlin’. Come on out of it—”
Lisa gasped, jerked upright, and delivered a blistering slap to the side of his face. “Back the fuck up!”
“Shit.” The bounty hunter turned his head away and gritted his teeth through the sting. “It’s me.”
“Johnny? Oh, my God.” She covered her mouth with both hands, then reached toward his face. “I’m so sorry. I thought—”
“You thought I was some scary fuck tryin’ to do somethin’ scary to ya?” He chuckled and wiggled his jaw. “I get it but it’s only me.”
She caught his face in both hands and studied it intently. “I don’t even… Okay, it sounds crazy, but is this—”
“Is it real?” He took her hands in his and lowered them gently from his face. “If it ain’t, I’m all outta ideas, darlin’.”
She stared at him, breathing heavily. “That was awful.”
“Yep. Are you okay?”
“Well…physically? Maybe.”
“Hey, sorry to break up your little moment and stuff.” Rex leapt on the chest of a groaning wizard and elicited a sharp grunt before he snarled in the man’s face. “But we got a bunch of dipshits waking up.”
“Yeah, now would be a good time to—” Luther clamped his jaws around the gnome’s twitching hand. His prisoner shrieked, and the hound spat him out again with a warning growl. “Call in the cleaning crew. You got your demon, Johnny.”
“Got the demon,” Johnny muttered.
Lisa frowned at him. “What?”
He turned to look at the witch lying face-down beside the wooden table and the crate of purple vials. “The witch. Same thing.”
“We need to call this in.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket with a shaking hand and unlock
ed the screen. “Shit. There’s no service down here.”
“Hold on.” He reached for the black case and frowned when he didn’t feel it at his side.
“Lookin’ for this?” Luther trotted toward him with the nylon strap between his teeth.
“Good boy.” It took him five seconds to remove the small black square from between the random items in his case, and he dropped the rest to punch the buttons on the side of the device.
Lisa tilted her head with a disbelieving expression. “You brought a pager?”
“It ain’t a pager.” His fingers felt stiff and clumsy but he finally managed to turn it on and a pale green circle illuminated at the top. “It’s a service box.”
“What?”
“I made two of ʼem. Amanda has the other one with her at school for emergencies.”
She chuckled weakly. “Wow.”
“Check your phone.”
The agent looked at the screen and raised her eyebrows. “Well, this is the last time I have my doubts about anything you make.”
“That’s good to know.”
She raised her phone to her ear, stared at him, and smiled at the faint pressure when he squeezed her other hand. “Yeah. It’s Breyer.” She cleared her throat and studied the floor littered with bodies of dead and unconscious criminals alike. “We found the dem—uh…the perp in the human attacks. We could use backup. Yeah, the, uh… The Shanghai Tunnels under Old Town. Yes, I know. Send a team out. Thanks.”
The hounds made their rounds among the bodies. Luther stopped in front of the witch and sniffed her outstretched hand. “Hey, Johnny. You want your knife back?”
“Naw. She earned it.”
Lisa cleared her throat. “Johnny, that does not sound like you’re talking to yourself.”
His eyes widened.
“Looks like you’re busted, Johnny.” Luther sat and thumped his tail across the dead witch’s face. “About time, too.”
“So you gonna tell her?” Rex licked a small cut on his forepaw. “Now or never, right?”
“Seriously, what’s going on?” she demanded.
He sniffed and toyed with the spy-bug he’d found lying close by and which would undoubtedly need a few repairs. “All right, darlin’ There’s, uh…there’s somethin’ I oughtta tell you ʼbout them hounds. And it ain’t gonna sound exactly sane.”
“After all this?” She gave him a tired, crooked smile. “Try me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Four days later.
“Here you go, Johnny.” Darlene set the glass of Johnny Walker Black on the bar and slid it toward the bounty hunter. “You let me know when you want another.”
“Thanks. I’ll stick with only the one today.” He took the glass and stared into the whisky, then knocked it back.
The door to the trailer-diner opened and closed, and Darlene smirked before she nodded. “Your friend’s here.”
He turned on the stool as Lisa walked toward him with a knowing smile. “Well, there’s a surprise.”
“Is it?” She took the stool next to him. “Hey, Darlene.”
“What can I getcha, honey?”
“Nothing. I’m good, thanks.”
“Mm-hmm.” The woman darted them a sideways glance and chuckled before she moved down the bar.
“How you doin’?” Johnny asked.
Lisa ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath. “Better. Things have settled, relatively speaking. You?”
He stared at his empty glass. I should’ve asked for another. “I’m fine.”
“Good. Listen, I went ahead and handled the debriefing for both of us this morning. And got the rest of the reports from the labs.”
“You don’t say?”
“You were right. Maya Carroway—the demon-witch—was feeding off human fears and using it to power her magic.”
The dwarf grunted. “Not only human, though.”
“Well, for the most part.” She folded her arms on the bar. “It took our team a little longer than expected, but they managed to create a type of antidote potion for the one Carroway used to buoy her psyche spells. All victims have been given it and we’re working to clear things a little for those who were locked up while under her influence. Hopefully, it helps.”
“Did they say anythin’ ʼbout you and me?” He turned slowly to meet her gaze.
“Yeah. The spells she used were tailored to humans specifically because most of them have an incredibly low tolerance for magic. It seems she gave you and I way more than the regular dose, but we snapped out of it far quicker too.”
“Yeah, I assumed it was somethin’ like that. The hounds were immune.”
“As it turns out.” Lisa tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded slowly. “They were amazing, Johnny. I don’t think we would’ve made it out of there without them.”
He snorted. “Don’t tell them that.”
“We can totally hear you, by the way,” Rex said.
Luther giggled. “Can’t hide from us, Johnny. Tell her she should’ve stayed outside for a longer belly rub.”
The dwarf wrinkled his nose.
Lisa tried to hide a laugh. “What?”
“They already heard. And you gave ʼem belly rubs?”
“Hey, no belly rubs isn’t one of your rules.” With a shrug, she gazed at the back of the bar. “And they deserve it.”
“Uh-huh. As long as they don’t let it go to their heads.”
“It’s probably a little late for that.”
They both stared across the bar. Johnny inched his fingers closer to the empty rocks glass in the silence. Uh-huh. I need another.
Lisa drew a deep breath. “You know, I understand what happened and that it’s over. That nothing I saw was real. But I keep going back to all the awful things that spell pulled up in me. Losing my job was one of them. And I saw an old friend of mine get…hurt. I had to call her to make sure she was still okay.”
“And she is, right?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s doing as well as the last time I talked to her. What about you?”
He grunted. “What about me?”
“You know, if you wanted to talk about anything you saw when we were drugged by dark magic and you fought off a group of criminals based on Rex and Luther’s instructions.”
“Ha. Funny.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t trying to be.”
“I know.” With a sniff, he tilted his head and stared at the bar. “I saw Amanda.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yep. And my cabin burnin’ to the ground. I heard Dawn callin’ for me too.”
She stared at him in surprise. “I—”
“And a few other things. Hey, Darlene!”
“Yeah, honey?”
“How ʼbout another drink and two fried catfish plates?”
“You got it.” The woman smiled at him and turned the coy look onto his companion as she poured another four fingers of whisky into his glass. “Those’ll be right up.”
“Thanks.”
When the woman disappeared through the door into the kitchen, the agent leaned forward to catch his attention. “A few other things?”
“Yep.” He snatched the glass and slid it toward him, still staring at the back of the bar. If she pushes, I ain’t gonna be able to keep it down.
“Like what?”
Shit. He cleared his throat. “You.” He immediately lifted the glass to his lips and gulped half of it.
Lisa laughed in surprise. “Johnny Walker. Are you afraid of me?”
A slow smile spread across his lips despite how hard he tried to keep it at bay. The bounty hunter turned toward her and met her gaze. “You know that ain’t what I meant.”
Continue the adventures of Johnny Walker and his coonhounds in Zero Dwarfs Given.
Zero Dwarfs Given
The story continues in book 4, Zero Dwarfs Given, coming in early January.
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Author Notes - Martha Carr
November 7, 2020
The garden of my dreams is approved and all set to be installed in the spring in the backyard of the dream house. It’s gonna be the bomb. It’s also the first time I’ve really done something that says, I’m putting down solid roots – both figuratively and literally.
I’ve always had a thing about owning too much stuff. I don’t like it. For a long time, I thought it was because I just couldn’t buy that much anyway. I was a journalist, author and single mother. That combo kind of screams, ‘I have no money’. (I still look back and marvel at how I could stretch a dollar till it sang.)
I was used to doing more with less for decades while building a career and raising a son. But then, the Great Recession happened and frankly, I was worn out from dealing with agents and publishers and marketing and I just wanted a break. I came in out of the cold and looked for a corporate job.
After sending out hundreds or resumes (I promise, not an exaggeration), I finally got a job. I was an editor in brand compliance for a large health care company. The shorthand of that is I was part of the ‘word police’ team. We checked everything to make sure it was copacetic before it left the building.
I was probably the happiest person in a building with a thousand people. I had an insurance card in my pocket. There were not one, but two Starbucks – one for each building, and a large cafeteria with chefs, not cooks.
I had my own cubicle that had walls where I could put up a calendar and a few pictures. After so many years of hustling and making do, I could predict what would happen tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. And every two weeks the same amount of money popped up in my checking account. It was heaven.