Dead Jack and the Soul Catcher: (Volume 2)

by James Aquilone

  “Can you slow down?”

  “I need some dust with a Devil Boy chaser or I’m going to eat half of ShadowShade.” I cut off a gorgon on a moped. Thankfully, she wore a helmet. “My office is just a few blocks away. Now get to the point, skeleton, or I’m going to call cryptid protection on your toupee.”

  “I have the alchemist’s journal. He wrote about our souls. He was using them in experiments. We find him, we find the souls, and get him to revive Oswald. I’m sure he can do it.”

  “Kill two birds…”

  “Where?”

  “It’s an expression, Garry. Is there still a brain in your skull?”

  “I haven’t checked.” He knocked on his head a couple of times and listened. I thought it sounded a bit hollow.

  “But you don’t know this guy or what he’s capable of. This whole thing is just a wish and a pray. If you know he has the souls, why not find him yourself?”

  “My brain―whatever’s left of it―doesn’t work so good, Jack. I have episodes.”

  “Like a minute ago?”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered how we continue to exist without our souls?”

  “I try not to think about it.”

  “We’re running on the residue left by our souls. It clings to us. It’s in our skin and bones. But over time, it diminishes until you’re nothing but an empty husk, a grunting, mindless mouth-breather. With all my flesh gone, I’m nearly out of soul residue. I forget things. I get confused. I lose myself. I’m running on fumes here. I need my soul, Jack, so”―he hesitated, stared out the window―“so, I can off myself and be done with it all.”

  “Wait! You want your soul so you can kill yourself? And I’m the one in bad shape? Just do it now, and save both of us the trouble.”

  “If I kill myself without a soul, I go straight to the basement of hell. I just want peace, Jack.”

  “What the fook happened to you?”

  The skeleton watched the storefronts whiz by as I weaved in and out of traffic. “I got mixed up with this group in Witch End. It started out okay. They wanted to help other humans in Pandemonium. It sounded like a good idea at the time.”

  “You’re not human.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I learned. In spades. They were using me.”

  “What for?”

  “They plan to take over Pandemonium. They want humans to rule, as they do in the Other World. They’re tired of being the low men on the totem pole here. They think this world is immoral and decadent.”

  “But that’s what gives the place its charm.”

  “They’re serious. They’re all virgins or celibate. They’re real shitheads.”

  “What’s the name of this group?” The bald skeleton hesitated. His bones knocked together. “Garry, you want me to trust you, right?”

  He said, “The Children of Thule.”

  “Sound like Nazis, Garry.” He got quiet and ran his phalanges through his elf-hair wig. I turned around. “Garry?” He wouldn’t look at me. For a second, I thought he was having one of his episodes.

  “They are Nazis, Jack. They’re the fookers who revived Ratzinger.”

  I slammed on the brakes. A few seconds later, the Studebaker decided to stop. “You are with Ratzinger! You fook! You sack of calcium! What is this? A setup? I said you better not be a Nazi. Now I’m pissed, Garry. You pissed me off, and I’m about to get infernal on your goofy arse.”

  A chorus of honks broke out behind me. I was holding up traffic, but I didn’t care.

  “No, no, buddy!” Garry said. “I had no idea. I promise. I have nothing to do with them. Anymore. They’re the ones who did this to me!”

  “Did what?”

  More cars honked. Someone shouted.

  “Made me a skeleton, Jack. They knew about Ratzinger’s army of the undead from back in the war. They want to recreate it. So they brought the psycho back and they’ve been searching for his souls―”

  “Our souls.”

  “Right, Jack, right. They believe a soul is attracted to its corporeal body and will try to reunite with it. So the psychos cut pieces off my body and, using those soul suckers, flew them around Pandemonium hoping it would attract my soul and give up its location. They didn’t stop until they’d completely stripped me. They used me as bait, but it didn’t work. I had been their prisoner for years, until I escaped with the alchemist’s journal.”

  “Which means these bastards are after you.”

  “There are a few more complications.”

  Through the rearview, I watched an ogre exit his truck and head toward the Studebaker. I rolled down my window and started to shout at him to go around when the worst migraine I’ve ever suffered ripped through my skull. It felt like a dwarf had gotten in there to dig for treasure with an icepick. The ogre stopped at my door, shouting, but I didn’t hear a word. I grabbed both my temples as a crackle of static roared in my head. Low and indistinct, the sound buzzed like a radio tuned to a dead station. Was Ratzinger trying to break into my mind? It wouldn’t be the first time. I pressed my knuckles into the sides of my head.

  The ogre―an ugly green creep with purple sores around his thin lips―reached through the open window and grabbed the front of my shirt. I had enough sense to step on the gas. The ogre’s hand slammed against the window frame as I sped away.

  “Piece of dead garbage,” he growled.

  I gritted my teeth and tried to concentrate on the road as a swarm of bees bounced around my skull.

  Garry patted me on the shoulder and mouthed something. I couldn’t hear him. I think he asked if I was okay.

  “I just need to get some dust and formaldehyde in me,” I said, probably much louder than necessary, and hoped I’d make it to the office before I cracked up the Studebaker or cracked open my head.

  CHAPTER 3: Shadows Over ShadowShade

  The Studebaker screeched to a stop in front of 666 Fifth Avenue. The noise in my head had resolved itself into a dull hum.

  Garry’s voice broke through the buzzing. “Buddy, buddy, buddy.”

  I grabbed Oswald, stumbled out of the car, and headed into the building.

  As the elevator ascended, Oswald seemed to jump inside the satchel. I took him out, but he looked as dormant as ever, his little “X” eyes and mouth frozen, his body as limp as wet dough.

  The elevator banged to a stop at the fifth floor. The static in my head crackled back to life. Was someone talking under the white noise between my ears? I tried to concentrate, but couldn’t make anything out. Garbled and distorted, it sounded like a record playing backwards.

  “It’s a bit dark, isn’t it?” Garry said as we stepped into the hallway.

  Shadows covered the corridor. A sliver of weak light outlined my front office door at the end. Lilith must have left it open, after she blabbed to Garry about me being at at the dust den. The buzzing in my head had me so batty that I forgot Lilith didn’t open or close doors―despite my protestations. She always went through them.

  The office gave me a bad feeling. I stood outside the door, not knowing whether I should run for a bottle of Devil Boy or bolt out of the building. Garry had no reservations. The skeleton pushed past me and entered the reception area Lily haunts during business hours. She wasn’t there at this late hour. I followed, and the moment I stepped past the threshold, the hum turned into a confusion of sound, like a thousand voices shouting at once.

  “Nice place, buddy,” Garry said. “It could use a little light though.”

  We crossed the room and entered my office.

  I needed to clear my head. I moved toward the bathroom, which I used primarily to glare into the mirror while contemplating the nature of damned souls and the depths of my self-loathing, but stopped.

  Usually the desk lamp stayed on, but someone had turned it off. The light from a street lamp filtered through the window blinds, throwing dark bands against the walls.

  “Do you feel that?” Garry’s teeth chattered. “It’s damn chilly in here?”

&nbs
p; A breeze as cold as a yeti’s nut sack on Christmas morning swept through the room, but a glance at the window confirmed it remained shut.

  I tapped Garry on the shoulder and pointed at the walls. Shadows clung to them like hungry spiders.

  “Garry, you said your brain doesn’t work so good. How about your fists?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  The room came alive. Shadows slid along the floorboards, puddled in the corners, crawled across the file cabinets. A black-as-midnight shade spread like an oil spill over my desk.

  We stood back to back in the middle of the room. The noise in my head had suddenly gone silent.

  “What do you know about shadow men?” Garry asked, his voice filled with terror.

  “Is this a test, Garry?”

  The oily shade detached itself from my desk, and its nebulous, insubstantial form stretched and coalesced into the shape of a wolf. The shadow-wolf pounced, knocking me straight back onto the floor.

  It leaped onto my chest and chewed on my arm, which I had the foresight to throw over my precious throat.

  I turned to Garry, who ran around the room swatting at shadow-ravens. I didn’t know much about shadow men, and I’m dumb as dirt, but I’m a genius compared to him.

  “Turn the light on, Garry! They’re fookin shadows!”

  The shadow-wolf was doing a number on my jacket. I tried punching the shadow, but―wouldn’t you know it?―my fists went right through the bastard.

  “Good thinking.” The skeleton ran in circles. “Where’s the light switch, buddy?”

  “On the fookin wall, Garry! Like all light switches.”

  “What?”

  “The wall! The fookin wall.” I reminded myself his brain wasn’t so good.

  The switch didn’t work.

  “I think it’s broken!” he said. “Did you pay your electric bill?” A shadow-raven pecked at his head, but Garry continued to flick the light switch up and down, uselessly.

  I wondered why the shades weren’t doing much to attack Garry, other than a few pecks. When I reached into my inner jacket pocket for my lighter, I learned why. The shadow-wolf’s lower end morphed into a claw. The creature snatched my satchel, morphed into a shadow-raven, and flew for the door.

  “They’re after Oswald!” I shouted as I struggled to stand.

  Without missing a beat, Garry whipped out his gold pocket watch, held it up at the perfect angle to catch the light coming through the window, and aimed it at the fleeing shadow-bird. Seconds before it reached the door, the creature blew apart in a puff of black smoke. The satchel thudded to the ground.

  I scooped Oswald up with one hand while turning up my lighter with the other, the flame dancing in the darkness like the first rays of dawn. I grabbed some papers off my desk―bills, I hoped―and hastily rolled them into batons, which I lit. I gave one to Garry and took another for myself. I waved my makeshift torch at the shadows.

  They howled, but got the message and fled the office.

  “We should get out of here,” Garry said.

  “One second.” I pulled a painting of three gremlins playing poker off the wall, revealing my safe, and spun the dial left-right-left. The door opened. I grabbed The Book of Three Towers from inside. I had a feeling we’d need some magic.

  We headed to the city’s worst bar for much needed refreshments.

  CHAPTER 4: A Zombie and a Skeleton Walk Into a Bar...

  If you didn’t know the Full Moon Saloon was a bar, you’d probably mistake it for a cavern where junkie molemen lived. Dark, spacious, and reeking of raw sewage, the dive bar stood on the ashes of a dozen other dive bars that had all occupied the same plot of land. Each establishment burned down under mysterious circumstances, mostly involving insurance fraud or bad pyrotechnics from the resident band. In the Other World, a Hell’s Kitchen bar sat in the same location. Some things never change.

  Tonight, an old client, Unicorn de Havilland, provided the musical entertainment. Her trademark was the ivory horn on her head and her racy lyrics. A few years back, I helped her out of a sticky jam. I had heard she broke up with her band, Kill Unicorn Kill, since then. I never cared for her music. It resembled Benny Goodman’s work―if Benny had half his brain scooped out.

  I hated everything about the place, but the saloon’s formaldehyde shots cost half the price of any other bar in ShadowShade.

  “What are you drinking these days, Garry? I remember you used to throw back Devil Boys like a champ.”

  We sat in the booth farthest from the stage, but Unicorn’s racket of discordant trumpets and pounding drums still punished my eardrums. She screeched about riding a sphinx over the Broken Sea. I think it was a sexual innuendo.

  “These days, milk,” he said.

  I placed Oswald on the table. “For the bones.”

  “Yeah, the bones. They’re all I’ve got now.” He grimaced and looked down at the table. This guy might be the only person in Pandemonium sadder than me.

  I snorted a tiny bump of the dust I had taken from the Russian Roulette game.

  “That stuff’ll melt what’s left of your brain,” Garry said.

  “How do you stop from feeding?” I asked.

  “Since I’ve gone skeletal, I haven’t had to worry about that. I don’t hunger. In fact, I don’t feel much of anything anymore.”

  “Try a little dust. It’ll make you feel something. But you’ll have to get your own. I’m running low.”

  I waved over the waitress, a cute pixie with purple hair. I knew her well. Gwendolyn hired me a while back to save her daughter from an amorous ogre. She’s despised me ever since.

  “Gwen, give me half a dozen shots of Devil Boy,” I said, “and a tall glass of unicorn milk for my associate.”

  “We don’t serve your kind around here,” the pixie said, with a sassy look.

  “How adorable, a teeny tiny zombiphobe.” The dust warmed the sludge in my veins, turning it into molten molasses. My migraine dissolved instantly. “You people make me sick, you know that? Isn’t life terrible enough without all the hate?”

  The pixie looked insulted. Her wings twittered. “I don’t have a problem with the undead. I have a problem with deadbeats. We have a wee policy here: bums don’t get served. And you, Jack, are one of Pandemonium’s biggest bums.”

  The dust reached my toes. They tingled like carbonated water invading my capillaries. My hunger for sweet flesh dissolved as swiftly as a snowman in hell. At that moment, I almost didn’t feel like a zombie. “I’ve been experiencing financial difficulties ever since I saved the world.”

  “Bludletter says you’re cut off. You can talk to him if you want.” Gwen smiled.

  Bludletter, the captain of Pandemonium’s fastest rising vampire gang, recently took control of the Full Moon Saloon. He’d forced out the werewolf clan that had owned it since they landed in this godforsaken dimension. He had a reputation for impaling his victims with straws and drinking their blood.

  “How is Bludletter? Still extorting garden gnomes?”

  Garry stood. “I’ll take care of it, buddy.” He reached into his pants pocket. “How much does he owe?” The skeleton dropped several large gold coins on the table.

  The pixie’s eyes lit up. “This should cover it. Half a dozen shots of Devil Boy and a glass of milk, right?” She scooped up the coins and headed to the bar.

  “Where did you get all that money?” I asked.

  “I stole it from the Nazis.”

  “Garry, did you take the damn swastikas too? Are you crazy? Don’t answer that. I know the answer. What I don’t know, is how in the holy heck a dunzy like you pulled off that sweet move with the pocket watch.”

  Gwen came back with the Devil Boy shots and a tall glass of milk.

  “I’m not always such a palooka,” Garry said. “Sometimes, the old me shows up.” He sipped his milk, the frothy white liquid pouring down his throat and into his ribcage. I wasn’t sure if that was the old Garry or the new Garry.

 
“You sure you don’t want a splash of Devil Boy in your milk, Garry? We just had a heck of a fright back there.”

  “That business? That was nothing.”

  “I thought I saw your bones knocking together.”

  “Shadow men don’t scare me. The Children of Thule scare me.”

  “You think those shadow men were sent by the Nazis?”

  “No. Shadow men are under Lucifer’s control. It’s said they’re the emanations of the dead in hell.”

  “That’s what they say, huh?” I asked.

  “They also say Lucifer can leave Pandemonium whenever he wants, but he’d rather rule here than serve Satan in hell.”

  “You’re a big expert on shadow men and Lucifer?”

  “They attacked the Children of Thule not long ago.”

  “How did that go?”

  Garry shook his head. “It didn’t happen. The Nazis set up a magical block to keep them out of their camp.”

  “And why would Lucifer attack the Nazis?”

  “I have no idea. But they barred him from entering their camp. Why would Lucifer want Oswald?”

  I downed three shots of Devil Boy in rapid succession, coating my throat with the chilled formaldehyde. That Lucifer owned the Devil Boy brand wasn’t lost on me. He made Lucky Dragon hellfire sticks, too. Lucifer Corp. pretty much owned Pandemonium. You could call him the Nelson Rockefeller of the Five Cities, only he had more ethics.

  “Beats me,” I said. “He’s just a ball of fluff.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “He was sitting on top of a Jupiter Stone when it exploded.”

  Garry might’ve tried to blink. “A Jupiter Stone? Aren’t they pretty powerful?”

  “Seeing as the cyclopses made them from Zeus’s thunderbolts, I’d say they pack quite a wallop.”

  “What was he doing on top of a Jupiter Stone?”

  “Saving all us poor schmoes from annihilation. Haven’t you heard of the Pandemonium Device?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “The newspapers wouldn’t run the story,” I said. “They couldn’t believe a zombie saved the world.”