Habeas Corpses

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  "How did you get in here?" I wasn't just affecting a cool disinterest; I was coldly pissed off. Somebody had to invite him in; vampires couldn't cross a private threshold uninvited. The implications of that were as disturbing as his actual presence.

  He smiled. It was like opening a tin of frozen sardines. "The owner invited me in."

  "I'm the owner, baldy, and I'm dis-inviting you right now!"

  He shook his head in an almost lazy fashion. "I speak of the original owner. You may have a way with some of the dead like those hapless fools next door, but not all of the corpses you will encounter will turn out to be such fawning sycophants."

  Fawning syncophants? Great. I have met my arch-nemesis and his name is Lexicon Luthor. "So, the original owner . . ."

  "A Madame LeClaire. Buried under the weeping willow by the front gate in 1869. She misses her headstone."

  "Didn't know she was there. No headstone when I bought the place."

  "Should have done the research. I did. Found out she was unhappy with the present tenants. Guess she doesn't approve of the Three's Company living arrangements. Very traditional, Madame LeClaire is."

  "A nineteenth-century ghost told you all this?"

  He shrugged. "I hired a medium."

  Crap! An eloquent biker-vampire-assassin who did research. In-depth research. When the predators are stronger and faster than you are, you hope to gain a little edge by being smarter. This one, however, could not only outrun and outfight me but probably would kick my ass at the undead science fair, as well. "You've gone to a great deal of trouble."

  "The contract on you is worth a great deal of money," he said. Like he had to justify the extra trouble and expense of tracking me down to kill me. "Not to mention the street cred."

  Yeah, he looked like the type who valued street cred over practical considerations. I wondered if he appreciated where an overinflated reputation had gotten me.

  "You realize, of course," I said slowly, "that what we have here is a Mexican standoff."

  "Really?" He grinned. "I don't see it that way at all."

  "I know that I'm no match for you," I continued, "but, as you so colorfully phrased it, I can scream like a little girl before you kill me. And you are definitely no match for the people upstairs or the security team on the property. If you don't stand down, we both die." Of course I would have to scream real loud now that I had soundproofed the cellar.

  "Stand down," he mused. "I like that. So military. Probably something to do with your service records. I did a lot of research before I came here and that's the one part of my file on you that's incomplete. Why are some of your military records under a Pentagon seal?"

  "Come back next week and I'll tell you."

  He shook his head. "The money or the mystery—decisions, decisions." He pulled a wireless detonator out of his pocket. "I think I'll take the money." He flipped a switch and a flash lit up the basement windows followed by a loud "bang!"

  He tossed the detonator aside. "That got their attention. The next one will get them moving. In three. Two. One." A second "bang," farther away this time and the accompanying flash was dimmer.

  "Now," he announced, "while your security team is running about outside, seeking the source of the mysterious explosions . . ." Another, more distant "bang" sounded. " . . . we can conclude our business without untimely interruptions." He reached down and pulled a combat knife out of his left boot. I patted the empty shoulder holster under my shirt as he held it up. Yeah, I wouldn't need to carry a gun inside my own house: I didn't need to go to bed or to the john or to the dinner table armed. Apparently trips to the cellar were a different matter.

  The vampire brandished the weapon, turning it back and forth so we could both admire how the silvered blade gleamed under the General Electric Soft White.

  "Oh, thank God," I said, "a knife. And here I was afraid you were going to taunt me to death."

  He nodded. "A smartass. I heard that about you."

  I nodded back: "Jack . . ."

  "That's not my name."

  "How would I know? Because that's what I've heard about you."

  He grinned now. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you won't squeal like a little girl after all."

  "Bet I can get you to do a pretty fair impression of Mariah Carey, though."

  Maybe I could keep him talking until the others came looking for me.

  He stopped grinning. A look of slow surprise filtered across his scary visage. "You're trying to piss me off?"

  "Jeepers, Jack, now why would I want to do that?"

  "Probe for any weaknesses, goad me into making a mistake. And my name is not Jack."

  "I figured that's what you've been doing with me. And what am I supposed to call you? Mister Cuddles?"

  "Call me Razor." He was back to sneering.

  "You're kidding."

  "Do I look like I'm kidding?"

  "You look confused." I tried to look like I was relaxing while preparing to dodge at the first sign of forward momentum on his part.

  "Confused?"

  "If you were standing there, brandishing an actual razor, by God, I would be more inclined to take you seriously. At least in terms of attempted packaging. But you're waving a knife, not a razor. Therefore your moniker, your alias, nom de plume should match your weapon of choice. You should be 'Shiv' or 'Shank' or 'Blade'—no, Marvel Comics would probably sue your ass. So, what sort of nickname is going to suit? I know! For the few remaining minutes that you remain corporeal, I shall call you 'Pigsticker!'"

  He growled. "That would make you the 'pig.'"

  "Or we could use your manhood as a metaphor and christen you 'Penknife.'"

  He took a menacing step forward. "The money is great. The rep I'm gonna get out of this is priceless. But killing you slow is going to be the sweetest part of the deal."

  "I win," I said. "I made you madder, first."

  He leapt.

  He missed.

  If I'd been human I would have been skewered. As it was, he grazed me as I spun out of his way.

  His momentum carried him smack up against Deidre's tanning bed, jostling the Bakelite clamshell frame.

  I followed through on my spin and kicked toward him. My right foot missed him by a good six inches and my toes slid into the opening between the lid and the bed surface. A quick scissors kick dislodged my foot and caused the lid to fly up into the full open position.

  "Ha!" gloated Pigsticker. "You missed!" I guess he was feeling a little sheepish about doing the same a half-second earlier.

  "You think so?" I followed through with my left foot which was lined up with his solar plexus. I would have nailed him this time except he leaned back. The edge of the bed tripped him further and he fell onto the bed in a half-sitting position.

  "And again," he mocked.

  I think he expected me to turn and run for the stairs. He certainly didn't expect me to throw myself on the knife that he was thrusting toward me. By the time he decided I must be crazy enough to jump him after all, he had lost the better part of his advantage.

  Two things saved me. I wasn't actually leaping on top of him; I was throwing myself against the lid and pulling it back down. And I turned as he jabbed at me with the blade. His awkward position, coupled with the descending cover, made the thrust less effectual. The tip entered my shirt beneath my left arm, hitting two thick layers of leather minus the customary handgun: he stabbed me in the holster.

  I turned back, further loosening the knife in his grasp while redirecting the point to angle past my body, and reached over his wrist with my left hand. "I've changed my mind," I hissed as I pushed down the cover with my right arm. "'Razor' suits you, after all. Disposable Razor, that is."

  He squirmed, trying to escape the awkward confinement. Although he was stronger, I had a momentary advantage of leverage. But only momentary: one-armed, I was starting to lose the battle to keep the lid down. The fingers of my left hand fumbled under the cover at the end of the bed.

  "Oh, and one
last thing," I said as I felt the toggle switch. "Neither of those kicks missed. They accomplished exactly what they were supposed to!" I pressed the switch.

  Nothing happened.

  Except that Not-So-Disposable Razor flung the lid up and sat up like a Jack-in-the-Box of Doom!

  I shrieked like a little girl. And kicked him like Michelle Yeoh. As he fell back I slammed the lid back down and reached under the end. This time I found the timer next to the toggle and twisted the dial. The ultraviolet tubes flickered to life inside the bed and now Razor began to shriek—not like a little girl but like a 300-pound castrato. His legs kicked and I was knocked back across the room and into the weight bench. The bruises were worth it. Although the UV radiation was harder on a full-fledged vampire, I still risked a nasty burn by standing too close.

  I circled the room toward the stairs, keeping my distance as what was left of my would-be assassin thrashed and smoked and burned in the purple-blue glare of the special fluorescents. When I started up the steps I saw that he had taken extra precautions while I had first stumbled around in the dark. A chair and a brace of two-by-fours were wedged up against the door and under the doorknob: it couldn't be opened from the other side.

  Easy enough from this side though, I figured—until I tripped on the fourth step up and fell on my face. That smarted—but not so much as the third step and then the second and the first and finally the floor as I was dragged back down into the cellar. Razor had a chary grip on my ankle and was looking rather crispy. Maybe I should call him Ashley from now on.

  "I kill you!" he wheezed.

  No more witty banter. No more smug exposition or questions of how and when. He'd dropped the knife in fleeing the fluorescent inferno but needed the blood even more: his fangs were fully extended in his hideously seared countenance. He'd drink me dry, regardless of reward or street cred.

  I kicked up at him and broke his grip on my leg in a smoky explosion of ash. Rolling away, I leapt up and scurried under the stairs. Somewhere in the jumble of boxes stored beneath the ascending risers was a set of lawn darts—not the most ideal of weapons but one made do with what was at hand.

  Except they weren't.

  At hand, that is.

  By the time Count Charcoala grabbed my leg and started yanking me back out I'd only succeeded in uncovering a badminton set. I flung the net at him and then whacked him with a racquet. He was no longer operating at one hundred percent but I didn't seem to be inflicting any real damage, either. I grabbed at another box to slow my momentum but it just gave way, falling over and spilling a series of implements with a wooden clatter.

  Croquet equipment.

  With wooden goal stakes!

  I grabbed for the nearest one but he kicked it out of reach. Then he kicked one of the wooden balls at my head. It barely missed, grazing my ear. I grabbed blindly, trying to pick up something that would serve offensively or defensively. My fingers closed around a piece of bent wire, about the thickness of the type used to make coat hangers. Deep Fry went one better by scooping up a wooden mallet. Yelling "It's Hammer Time!" he rushed me.

  He had the better line. What was I going to say? "No rest for the wicket?" Still, I took the blow in the shoulder where the leather strap from the holster rig helped absorb the shock while he took both pronged ends in the chest, straddling the sternum and double punctuating his heart like a sidewise colon.

  It wasn't a wooden stake but just about as effectual. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

  I climbed wearily to my feet and tested for broken bones. None apparent but I was going to purple up like a Grand Canyon sunset on the tomorrow. Back when I was still fully human, the bruises would have lasted several weeks. Now? Maybe a couple of days.

  Maybe.

  Tonight?

  I looked around the cellar at the minor mayhem left in the wake of the fight. The timer on the tanning bed ran out just as I noted that it was going to require some major detailing and rehab work. As for the rest . . .

  I started up the stairs. It could wait until tomorrow. Tonight was movie night. I was going to relax and have a good time.

  Even if it killed me.

  * * *

  Mr. Disposable Razor aka the French Fry Guy had planted flash-bangs, not bombs, on the property. Since their purpose was to distract and lure the others away while murder most foul was committed, their destructive potential was quite minimal.

  After a quick recap of my story and making sure that I wasn't at Death's door, the ladies descended into the basement to check on the real damage. Deirdre's security team was out, combing the grounds and walking the perimeters in case anything else had slipped through. I was pretty sure that the rest of the night would be relatively quiet but then I had gone into the cellar unarmed so what did I know?

  After a couple of moments The Kid closed the door on the sounds of Lupé sweeping up and Deirdre mourning her Solar-Tropic 9000 Ultra Bronzing Environment with duo-control tanning options. He sat down across from me and leaned close. "You okay, chief?"

  "Ducky. My home turf is turning into Vampapolooza and my only recourse is to go to New York and face down the fang gang all at once so they won't keep dropping in on me a few at a time. Other than that—"

  "Sure, sure, lissen: I need a palaver," he said in hushed tones. "I need some advice on the frail side."

  It took a second to run that through the time-warp translator. Frail: chick, squeeze, babe. Female. It helped if one watched a lot of the old Warner Brothers gangster movies from the forties. "Two questions, Junior," I growled, "who is it and why me?" I had a new bodyache to go with my previous headache and I wasn't in the mood for any additional complexities to the evening.

  "Well . . ." His gaze swept the room like a film noir lookout planning a bank heist. "You've got experience."

  "Experience?" I knew the educational system didn't have sex ed when J.D. was dipping schoolgirls' pigtails in inkwells but the little undead runt had been around long enough to do two lifetimes of the other kind of dipping.

  "I mean, dating a Warm."

  "A what?" I didn't recall this particular bit of noirish lingo.

  "A 'Breather,'" he elaborated. "You've been married. Had a family. And, since the transformation, you've been involved outside your species."

  I grabbed his arm a little more roughly than I intended. The subject of my family was still a sore spot and it didn't take much to push the buttons on my mood elevator. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Calm down, Hon," breathed a familiar voice in my ear.

  I looked around even though I knew I wouldn't see my late wife. She rarely made a visual appearance anymore. It was as if something was causing her ectoplasm to do a slow fade. "He needs some fatherly advice," Jenny-the-friendly-ghost-ex continued, "not Daddy Dearest."

  "I need some advice," The Kid echoed, unaware that our tête-à-tête had just turned into a three-way. "Date-wise."

  "Date-wise?"

  He nodded and lowered his voice. "Don't go all dark on me, Cecil; I'm askin' for the straight dope."

  "He's serious, Chris," Jen chimed in. "Be nice. This is hard for him."

  "It would help," I said, "if I knew what we were talking about."

  The Kid opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it again.

  "I think it involves the birds and the bees," she kibitzed.

  "What?!"

  "I didn't say nothin'," he said.

  I cocked an eyebrow. "You got a question about the birds and the bees? Or, in your case, the bats and the wasps?" I felt a ghostly finger thump my ear but I couldn't help the attitude: this was a little like your grandfather asking for advice on bedroom techniques.

  "It ain't about sex," he huffed. "Leastways, not yet."

  "What's not about sex?" Lupé asked, reappearing sooner than anticipated. She was toting the broom still dark with dust and ashes and I prayed Jenny wouldn't be tempted to snark. Even though she was dead and had already pronounced Lupé good for me, former wives can get funny about
their replacements and Jenny still had her moments.

  The Kid blushed—sort of. Being a vampire, however, he blushed in reverse. Excess blood in an undead body is drawn away from the skin during periods of physical or emotional stress or strain: a blush looks more like a blanch. And The Kid was now as white as a sheet.

  "We're talking about man-stuff, dear," I said, trying to rescue J.D. from further humiliation. I wasn't being especially kind. Humiliating The Kid was my own province and I didn't like to share.

  Deirdre was right behind. "What's the sitch?"

  J.D. looked from Lupé to Deirdre and his eyes took on the appearance of a cornered animal's.

  "James and Christopher are having a conversation about 'man-stuff'," Lupé explained.

  "Man-stuff?" The redhead pondered for all of three seconds. "That means they're talking about sex."

  The Kid glared at me.

  I held my hands up. "I didn't say that."

  Lupé smiled. "But you did, dear. All women know 'man-stuff' is merely a euphemism for 'sex.'"

  "Not true," I tried. "Man-stuff can be about cars and sports and lawn care and stuff."

  She stood her ground: "It's about sex when men don't want women to listen in."

  "The question is," Deirdre chimed in, "why don't you want us to listen in?"

  "I was just looking for a little advice," The Kid said with obvious reluctance.

  "Then why is he asking you about sex?" my wife's ghost murmured in my ear.

  "Hey, I know about sex," I whispered back.

  Apparently not quietly enough. Everyone turned to look at me. "Is Jenny here?" Deirdre asked.

  "For Akela's sake!" Lupé swore. "Don't encourage him!"

  There were two mindsets when the topic of my dead wife arose. One was that her ghost really did "haunt" me from time to time. The other was that I hallucinated Jennifer out of some Freudian, psychosexual guilt complex, kicked up a notch by the necrotic virus that was mutating my brain chemistry. Deirdre bought into the former theory, Lupé was a firm adherent of the latter.

  I wasn't always sure what I believed.

  J.D. got me off the hook with: "I just wanted some advice on how to get dizzy with a dame."