Sudden Death

by Donald Hanley

“No, you’re alive, like I was.”

  “Huh?” That didn’t make any sense at all. I tried to sit up and my hands scraped on something rough. “What the hell?” Bits of gravel and twigs clung to my palms and forearms and something was jabbing into my butt. I looked down at myself and my jaw dropped open. “Holy shit,” I breathed. My uniform was gone, along with my shoes, my socks, my underwear, and every other stitch of clothing I had. Little Peter lolled there between my legs, exposed to God and everyone, and I hastily clapped both hands over him. “Where are my clothes?” My voice hit a note it hadn’t reached since puberty.

  “Thy mortal flesh is born anew, Peter Simon Collins,” Daraxandriel informed me. She knelt by my side, just the faintest hint of a ruddy glow within her onyx eyes. “Thou hast taken on my Dread Lord’s curse, as did Olivia before thee.”

  My brain still wasn’t firing on all cylinders but it muddled its way through the situation. The Dread Lord’s curse was designed to turn supernatural beings like Dara into regular humans but all it does with ghosts is let them manifest as physical beings. I looked up at Olivia, suddenly understanding why she was just a ghost again. The incubus must have pulled the curse out of her at the apartment and sent it after Dara. She’s been running from it ever since, until I got in the way. So now I’m human again, sort of. “Damn,” I murmured.

  “I thank thee for thy courageous sacrifice, Peter Simon Collins,” Daraxandriel went on somberly, “but I fear thine actions will have dire consequences for thee. We needs must make haste to remove the curse from thee and restore thee to thy proper form.”

  “What do you mean, consequences?” I asked uneasily. “I’m just like Olivia was.”

  “Nay, for she was deceased when the curse took hold of her. It could cause her no further harm. Thy discorporated soul shall fade as the hours pass, if thou dost not reunite with thy body.”

  “Dis-what?”

  “Discorporated,” Amy smirked. She was buxom teen Amy now, with long purple-tinted hair. Her clothes, meant for a much smaller and younger person, were on the verge of exploding into textile shrapnel. “It means disembodied.”

  I shook my head with a sigh. I didn’t want to do this now but it looked like I had no choice. “I’m so sorry, Dara, I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

  She tilted her head quizzically. “What is it that troubles thee?”

  “I’m dead,” I told her bluntly. “The incubus killed me this morning.”

  “Nay, that is not so, Peter Simon Collins,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “It’s true. Tell them, Olivia.”

  Olivia showed me her empty hands. “I’m out of paper,” she confessed. “Sorry.”

  “Well, never mind. I really am dead,” I insisted. “I’m a ghost now. That’s why you couldn’t see me until the curse grabbed me.”

  “Thou art not,” Daraxandriel argued firmly.

  “Look, I know it’s a shock for you but we have to face facts. I’m dead and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Thou are mistaken, Peter Simon Collins,” she retorted heatedly. “When the day comes that I am confronted by thy lifeless corpse, then shall I wail in despair and call fire down from the sky to avenge thee. Today is not that day. Thy body yet walks among us, indwelt by our common enemy.” Her eyes were definitely glowing now.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked doubtfully. “My body’s not dead?”

  “Incubi have no substance of their own, they needs must occupy a living body to seduce women and lay with them. This one has possession of thy corpus and uses it to its own advantage.”

  I blinked at her. “Wait a minute. You’re saying he isn’t just disguised as me, he actually is me? He’s wearing my body?”

  “Aye,” she affirmed, “but summat is amiss. Thy self should have been sent into slumber when the incubus possessed thee and yet thou art here and whole. Mayhap thy soulstone cast thee out to protect thee,” she mused.

  “So I’m not dead?” I asked, hope rising in my curse-restored heart. “I can get my body back?”

  Daraxandriel hesitated, which put an immediate damper on things. “’Tis unnatural for a soul and a body to be separated before death. Thou canst survive for a time, but thine essence will surely fade an thou art not soon reunited.”

  I swallowed with difficulty. “How long do I have?”

  She shook her head. “That I cannot say. Weaker souls fade within a day, mayhap less, yet thou art bound to thy soulstone, which may lend thee strength and sustain thee for a time. Be that true or no, the candle of thy existence burns swiftly.”

  “We need to stop this thing before he causes any more trouble.” I tried to get up but I couldn’t manage it without using my hands. “Does anyone know where I can get some clothes?” I asked plaintively.

  “You can borrow mine, Peter,” Amy offered with a salacious grin, hooking her thumbs into the waistband of her panties. “They might be a bit snug on you, though.”

  “No!” Olivia and I retorted together and Amy relented with a smug shrug.

  “I shall bend the world for thee,” Daraxandriel promised, “once I have rested a moment. None shall question thy current state or think ill of thee.”

  “In other words,” Amy grinned, “she’ll make everyone we meet think it’s perfectly normal for you to be walking around like that.”

  “I don’t want people to think it’s normal!” I protested. “I want to have clothes on!”

  “Okay, we’ll just pop into this clothing store here,” she shrugged. “Oh, wait, we can’t, because we’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Can’t you just take us to the apartment through the shadowed paths?” I begged Daraxandriel.

  “Nay,” she said, shaking her head. “I have done so too often this day to elude my Dread Lord’s curse and I am bonewise weary. Hellhounds hunt unrestrained throughout the borderlands without Orixnador Soulreaper to keep them in hand and they attack without hesitation or respite. All who pass there face bitter peril.” She plucked at one of the rents in her shirt. The stain surrounding it looked suspiciously like blood.

  “Oh, suck it up, Peter,” Amy told me with a flip of her wrist. “We’ve already seen everything anyway.”

  “What?” I squeaked, aghast. “When did that happen?”

  “Thou wert insensible a goodly time,” Daraxandriel informed me. “We had no means to cover thee.”

  “So you just looked?” Olivia found something interesting to watch somewhere off in the distance but Amy just rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, please,” she retorted. “You would have done the same if one of us was lying there.”

  “No, I wouldn’t!”

  Of course you would, Little Peter said smugly. You’re a guy.

  “Art thou ashamed of thy form?” Daraxandriel asked with a puzzled frown. “Thou art passing comely for a human and thy manhood is most –”

  “That’s not the point! You shouldn’t be looking at my ... things,” I finished awkwardly.

  “Oh, really?” Amy asked archly. “But it’s okay for you to look at our boobs?”

  “Well, no,” I admitted, “but that’s different.”

  “Oh? How exactly?” She planted her hands on her hips and leaned over me. Teen Amy’s breasts weren’t especially large but they were so perfectly formed the word perky was probably invented to describe them. They pressed against the thin fabric of her top and threatened to burst through if she took too deep a breath. Little Peter tried to peek out from under my hands to get a closer look.

  “I, uh, it just is,” I argued feebly, forcing myself to look away, only to find Olivia frowning at me.

  “So it’s okay for you to be peeping at me all day long,” she asked tartly, plucking at her torn nightgown, “but I can’t satisfy my curiosity just once?”

  “That’s not the same and you know it!”

  “I think it is,” she sniffed, turning her back on me. That had the unfortunate side-effect of revealing the long rents in her ni
ghtgown, one of which sagged low enough to expose her buttocks. Little Peter heartily approved of the view and I had to shift around awkwardly to keep him hidden.

  “Look, can we just concentrate on dealing with this incubus?” I pleaded desperately. “Let’s get Dr. Bellowes’ journal and figure out how to stop him.”

  Daraxandriel drew back from me, baring her unbroken fang. “Parathraxas?” She nearly snarled the name. “We are well quit of him. I am forever indebted to Metraxion for disposing of him at last.”

  “He’s gone but the incubus has his ring, the one he used to capture Metraxion in the first place. I think he’s using it to boost his powers. He already took control of Mrs. Kendricks for a while.”

  Daraxandriel sucked in her breath, taken aback. “That is ill news, Peter Simon Collins,” she murmured, shaking her head. “We cannot hope to counter its power.”

  “Mrs. Kendricks was trying to read his journal to see if he wrote down some way of destroying the ring. The problem is, she can’t read demonic script. Susie can’t either,” I added.

  “But I can.” Daraxandriel used her sword to lever herself to her feet and then held out a hand to help me up. “Come, let us vanquish this upstart incubus and return it to the abyss from which it came.”

  I looked at her outstretched hand and then down at mine hiding Little Peter from view and then around at my audience. Daraxandriel looked eager but exhausted, Amy grinned at me with her tongue teasing her stubby canines, and Olivia peeked at me surreptitiously over her shoulder. I heaved a resigned sigh and took Daraxandriel’s hand, letting her pull me up to my feet.

  “Come on,” I said glumly. “Let’s get this over with.”

  8

  I don’t understand the appeal of tattoos. Apart from the pain involved, there’s no symbol or image or quote I can think of that I want permanently attached to my body. I’d be suffering from buyer’s remorse the instant I walked out of the studio, without the option to return it and get my money back. At least I’d have the rest of my life to come up with a plausible explanation for why there’s a flaming skull wrapped in barbed wire on my butt.

  I have the same problem with bumper stickers. I like to think of myself as having a complex and nuanced personality. There’s no way I can fully express my opinions on a particular topic in a few pithy words on a paper rectangle. If I’m going to deface my car to inform the person behind me of my political views, the font size would have to be so small I’d get rear-ended when he tried to get close enough to read it.

  Vanity plates are even worse. Pretty much every personalized license plate I’ve seen so far demonstrates the owner’s complete lack of imagination. Granted, there’s only so much you can do with seven characters, but surely they can come up with something better than TIMSCAR or MOR2LUV. If I ever indulge in a vanity plate, I’ll have it say something like SIMONSEZ. That way, the guy behind me will wonder, “Who is this Simon guy and what is he saying?” If nothing else, it’ll give him something to think about while he’s stuck in traffic. Except it’s eight letters long and it won’t fit on the plate. See what I mean? It’s impossible.

  I sat on the marble bench with my legs crossed and my elbow propped on my knee, trying to look casual, which is a lot harder than it sounds when you’re buck naked. Daraxandriel was fast asleep on the rug at my feet with her outstretched hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Tweener Amy perched on the bench beside me, using my shoulder as a backrest as she perused Dr. Bellowes’ journal, snortling to herself every now and then. Olivia paced back and forth in front of us, alternating between eyeing me speculatively and teasing me with glimpses of her backside, although I doubted she realized she was doing it.

  She’s certainly in great shape for a dead girl, Little Peter observed. Those ballet lessons really tightened everything up.

  Shut up. “Have you found anything yet?” I asked for the dozenth time.

  “Oh, lots of stuff,” Amy chuckled.

  “Really?” I sat up straighter and Olivia halted her perambulations. “Like what?”

  “Here’s a good one: This demon’s demeanor is both tiresome and irksome. She lacks the most fundamental knowledge of the human world and yet she dares to dictate terms for our contract that no man in full possession of his faculties could agree to. I am sorely tempted to banish her back to the pits of Hell and yet she holds the key to my ascendance within Her Majesty’s court. I must remain patient.”

  “What does that have to do with destroying the ring?” I asked doubtfully.

  “Nothing, I just thought it was funny. Ooh, I like this one: The sight of this unholy creature churns my stomach. Her unnatural eyes gleam in the darkness like a plague rat’s, her gnarled horns semble a goat picking through the refuse, her abomination of a tail writhes like a worm rooting through night soil, yet still I must smile and nod at her brainless pratter.”

  “You’re supposed to be looking for a way to destroy the ring, not dig up insults about Dara!”

  “They’re not insults if they’re true,” she sniffed.

  “Amy –” I warned.

  “I’m looking, I’m looking,” she grumbled. “There’s like twenty years of notes in here, you know, and his handwriting is really small.”

  “Just keep at it,” I sighed.

  “How much longer are we going to stay here, Peter?” Olivia asked uneasily. “The incubus is still out there somewhere.”

  “We can’t do anything until Dara wakes up.” She only got through the first few pages of the journal before conking out and there was no telling how much longer she’d be out. I was frankly surprised she lasted as long as she did, after playing hide-and-seek with the Dread Lord’s curse all day.

  “But what if the incubus goes after Susie or Melissa or someone else we know?”

  “They can take care of themselves,” I assured her, desperately hoping it was actually true. “We can’t go charging after him without a plan to get that ring from him and we can’t do that if we don’t know how it works.”

  “Susie could just cut off his head,” Amy suggested absently, turning the page, “like she did to Orixnador.”

  Olivia and I both turned to stare at her in disbelief. “That’s my body!” I protested.

  “So? You already have another one.” Amy reached back to poke me in my side.

  “I want the original one back,” I informed her tersely. “Preferably in one piece.”

  “Your call,” she shrugged. “It’d be a lot easier my way, though.”

  “I’ll take your suggestion under advisement,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “You’ll thank me later. Oh, here we go.” She sat up, running a fingertip along a line of cramped, spidery text.

  “What is it?” I asked eagerly.

  “After all this time,” she quoted, “after failure and frustration enough to try a man’s immortal soul, I never believed I would ever enscribe these words upon these pages. Daraxandriel’s instructions worked!”

  “Come on, Amy,” I sighed, disappointed. “No more insults, okay?”

  “No, this is legit, I promise. Listen: The imp we summoned is entrapped within the jewel-stone and cannot break free, try what it will. It is a feeble creature, however, and of no value to me and my ends. I must construct a stronger prison, one capable of holding a certain bothersome succubus, for then she will be bound to obey me and I shall be freed of the contract that weighs upon me like an anchor. With her in my thrall, I shall fashion a better receptacle for my soul-trap than these inconvenient and fragile stones, perhaps an amulet or a ring. I shall begin in earnest tonight whilst she slumbers.”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed. “Dara taught Dr. Bellowes how to make those geodes?”

  “And then he adapted the idea to create the ring,” Amy pointed out, tapping the open pages of the journal. “He probably worked his way up the demonic food chain until he caught Metraxion.”

  “Parathraxas demanded I prove my worth ere he pressed his bloodied finger to my contract.” Daraxandriel
was awake now, looking up at me with eyes that glowed like a smoky sunset. “I thought an imp-trap would be harmless.”

  “And it never occurred to you he might use it on you?” Amy sneered and Daraxandriel shook her head sadly. “Unbelievable. You realize that anyone who consorts with demons is evil, right?” She tilted her head back to bat her eyes at me upside-down. “Present company excepted, of course,” she grinned.

  “I am sorry, Peter Simon Collins.” Daraxandriel knelt in front of me with her head bowed low, her horns scraping against my shins. “Once more, blame for thy dire straits is laid at my feet.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I assured her. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.” Amy made a rude noise. I ignored her and tugged carefully on one of Daraxandriel’s horns to get her to look up. “We’ll fix this, I promise.”

  “Thou art a kind and generous soul,” she said with a shy smile. “I was truly fortunate that ‘twas thee who released me from mine imprisonment.” She gazed up at me through her lashes and I cleared my throat uncomfortably.

  “So what do we do now, Peter?” Olivia asked. “We still don’t know how to break the ring.”

  “We will,” I told her firmly, “we just need to keep digging. In the meantime,” I shaded my eyes as I peered up at the sky, trying to guess the time, “we should probably get out of this sun and find me some clothes. Us,” I amended hastily. “Find us some clothes.”

  “The Texas sun is unrelenting,” Daraxandriel acknowledged, plucking at her t-shirt with a grimace. She pronounced Texas like a demon name, which I couldn’t fault her for, frankly. She stood and peeled her shirt over her head, struggling to get it over her horns.

  “Um, what are you doing?” I asked uneasily. I’d seen Daraxandriel naked many times before, even slept in the same bed with her that way, but there was something different about seeing her standing there in the altogether out in the open. Little Peter stood up to get a better look and I hastily crossed my legs. “I meant we should put more clothes on.”

  “Certes,” she agreed, dropping her shirt on the ground at her feet, “yet I would first soothe my fevered flesh ere we depart.” She walked over to the low embankment overlooking the river and picked her way down carefully to the water’s edge. She stood there clutching her tail to her chest for a long moment, working up the courage to actually get in, and then slowly waded out until her knees were covered.