In Moon City.
Killing.
These.
Things.
The last monster he struck so hard, its head nearly came off its shoulders. It dangled there to the side for a second before the whole body collapsed backward.
More monsters surged around him.
Dean climbed on top of his car.
He was up there for less than a minute when a clawed hand wrapped around his ankle and yanked him down. Air left his lungs as he landed on his back. He couldn’t breathe, but he reacted and lifted his butcher knife as a shadow creation leapt for his face. The blade cleaved it in two pieces, and the bloody, black things fell apart around his hands.
He got to his feet, but they grew in number around him. One tugged him down onto one leg. Dean tried to stand, but his head was slammed into the side of the car. Stars and moons cluttered his vision, but he still managed to cut the thing in half.
Then there was a void.
No monsters snapped around him.
Dean stumbled to regain himself.
Powerful hands wrapped around his shoulders.
He turned and swiped with his blade.
The man moved in a blur and caught him around the midsection. Dean felt his body being hurled backward from a force that had the strength of twenty, but the grace of a hundred. He landed several yards away, safely, yet rattled.
This person wasn’t a monster like the rest, but something was other about him. The warmth of the touch around his waist told Dean it wasn’t natural. It was superhuman.
He was to meet the Moon City Killer now. In the flesh.
Dean tried to focus.
His vision focused. The blurring world condensed down to clarity. And when his surroundings were finally clear, he could at last take in the man who stood before him.
His friend, Rick Agate.
Chapter 22
Dressed in black camouflage tactical gear and sporting major artillery, Rick didn’t look any different than he had two days ago when he’d supposedly been killed. There wasn’t even a scar on his neck from where the knife had gone through. There was something different about Rick’s countenance however. His face looked more angular, regal, luminescent almost. He wasn’t exactly the same man; it was as though a new intelligence bubbled under the surface of his skin.
“Sorry for roughing you up, buddy.” He offered a hand, which Dean reluctantly took and allowed himself to be hauled to his feet with such ease it made him feel a child. “You were hacking up so many of those things, I had to break you out of your fit or you were going to hurt yourself.”
Dean didn’t buy it. “How did you survive? I saw what happened.”
Rick touched his temple thoughtfully. “Looked pretty bad, didn’t it?”
“Fatal, yes.”
“Turns out that if you drink enough Deitii spinal fluid, your brain doesn’t die so easily.” A light smile touched his face.
“But—I don’t follow you.”
“It’s not complicated, pal. I’ve been siphoning off the Moon City Killer’s supply. I’ve been doing it for weeks now, unbeknownst to him. You’re the first to know.”
“To become powerful,” Dean said dryly.
“More powerful,” Rick added with a crocodile grin.
“So what happens now?”
“You looked famished. See down on that street corner there? Shublish Grill. You’re going to wash up in their bathroom and then I’m going to buy you something to eat. They serve LFK burgers throughout third dinner. One of the best places in all of Moon City.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Get moving, Dean,” said Rick with a sigh. His eyes darkened. “There’s a lot of talk about. First, drop the butcher knife.” Dean hadn’t realized he still gripped the weapon, coated in coagulated, black blood, in his grasp. He let it fall to the ground. He still had his gun in his back pocket, but he had no intention of trying to use it on someone like Rick, even without being suped-up on Deitii juice.
Neither man spoke. When they got to the restaurant, which looked like all other art deco diners in Moon City, Rick took control and got them a table. Then he led Dean to a bathroom in the back corner of the establishment. They walked in and Rick nodded to the basin. “Get that shit off you, buddy.”
Dean began to scrub his arms with orange soap and warm water. The basin turned gray as the black blood and gore rinsed off.
“He’s much farther along than me—he made those things, you know, to come after you,” said Rick with great awe in his voice.
Dean said nothing and continued to wash.
“I told Limbus it was taking me a while to find the Moon City Killer, but I’d really found him right away, probably in twelve hours after I arrived. He’d already grown powerful enough to not worry about what trails he left behind. I watched him make several kills before I got the idea of what he was up to—I saw him move, saw his strength, and I got jealous… I’m not ashamed to admit that. You know?”
“Sure,” said Dean as he grabbed a paper towel.
“Getting an edge like that would make me pretty good at my job.”
“Far better than your brother.” Dean grabbed another paper towel, disappointment and anger surging through him.
Rick chuckled. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me.”
“Nope.”
“Shut up, Dean. I got a knife through my damned neck! It was just about healed up when that freaky son of a bitch threw me down a bottomless pit—well, there was a bottom, turns out. It wasn’t pleasant, even though my bones healed almost right away too. The hardest part was keeping my heart from beating, playing dead for so long. I’m not as far along as he is and I’ve only had a few feedings. My fugue state gave me time though to think through some plans, but I had to jump the hell to it once I was pitched over that cliff and was breaking every bone in my body left and right.”
“How did he not discover you were stealing his supply?” asked Dean.
Rick’s somber face was replaced by a mischievous one. “Your memory is foggy after you drink it. I realized he’d not be able to keep track of how much he had. I watched him. He didn’t keep an inventory. He’d drink, go out on a run, and come back to empty jars and not be able to trust his memory enough to grow suspicious. It just worked that way. Hell, I may have even had more than a few bottles myself. I’ve forgotten too. In the beginning I just thought he’d assume he got ripped off, but then he never seemed to change his movements or secure his supply better. After my own experiences, I figured out why and it couldn’t have worked out any better. That’s just because it was meant to be. Some people deserve greatness and others don’t.”
Except for his shirt sleeve stained gray, Dean was clean now. “So you’re looking to be God too then?”
“Not even—I don’t want to be all-knowing or see and feel everything. You’ve got me pegged right, buddy. Bottom line, I just want to outdo my brother. I need to be the best at what I do, and I want him to see it and know it and appreciate it, in EVERY dimension.”
“How in the hell would you do that?”
Rick opened the bathroom door. “I haven’t decided if I’ll tell you that part yet.”
They walked to their table and sat down. The waitress brought over the menus, but Rick waved her off. “He already knows what he’s getting. An LFK, medium.” He looked at Dean. “Fries?”
Dean shrugged.
“They have good fries here.”
Dean looked at the waitress. “Gimme fries too. And a beer. That local stuff.”
“Moon Lager.”
“That’s the one.”
“And for you, sir?” the waitress asked Rick.
“I’m not hungry. Just ice water with an orange slice.”
“Oranges haven’t arrived yet this week. Freighters are stuck from the Grettish war.”
“Well, I’ll take it without fruit then. Please hurry on the burger,” Rick told her with a polite wink.
“You got it.”
&nb
sp; When she left, Dean leaned forward. “What’s this about? Why are you force feeding me?”
“The LFKs can’t be missed.” Rick’s smile was unnatural, wrong.
“What’s it stand for?”
“Lavafuck.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“Good. As you know, I love introducing my friends to new cuisine. Hope you like spicy.”
“I don’t actually. I’ll have to send it back. I have bad acid reflux. I don’t even eat spaghetti sauce anymore. Really messes up my gut.”
“That’s too bad, but you’re eating this burger. It has pureed riot pepper in it—it’s like the Carolina reaper pepper back on Earth, except it has some amphetamine components that get the heart jerking pretty good—like a riot in your chest, hence the name. The pepper is too powerful to eat on its own, so it’s usually blended into hamburgers or taco meat. I tried it once on Ganymede 35. Really screwed me up.”
“What has gotten into you? I thought we were friends.”
“Damn, I was wondering how long it would take for you to say that, Slaughter Man.”
“Don’t call me that,” Dean snapped. “I’ve gone to bat for you. I got you this mission.”
“I’ll tell you more, but you have to cooperate. Eat the burger. Drink your beer. Drink two of them and my water. You’ll need it.”
“Up yours.”
Rick’s nostrils flared. “I will kill everyone in here if you don’t eat it. Don’t make this nasty.”
“Bullshit.”
His friend remained silent for a moment and stared outside at the bare street. Up on the corner, all the black corpses of the Moon City Killer’s monsters lay in heaps. Dean couldn’t actually believe he’d killed all of them by himself. It seemed unreal.
“We do what we have to,” said the mercenary.
“When it’s the right thing to do.” Dean could hear the words coming through his teeth. He was tired of being jerked around by the people he cared about the most.
“I told you not to come here, Dean,” whispered Rick. “Once Tasha got it in her head I needed admin support with the mayor and all that, I said do whatever you could to leave me be or send somebody else who wouldn’t get in my way. Remember that above all I told you not to come here. I told you it would be dangerous and you might not make it back home.”
“That’s how all my offworld jobs are.”
“You could have fought harder. Instead, you bent over and showed up, right on the day I could have taken out that bastard and drank his brain down and maybe the rest of his supply. It would have been done. It would have been all I needed. I could have been happy. Limbus would have been happy. You wouldn’t be alone here, away from your woman and about to die. Now I have to deal with all this shit I didn’t want to, so you’re going to eat that burger. It’s necessary anyway.”
“Necessary? How?”
“You’ll see. I’ve thought this all out.”
Dean tamped down his impulse to punch the man in his square smile. “Who are you?”
“I’m the little brother,” said Rick, nodding. “I’m the little brother who took all he could take.”
“He’s your blood.”
Rick shook his head and grabbed a salt shaker, spinning it around between his calloused fingers. “You don’t have the profession I have, Dean. My brother won’t take this personally. He’ll accept that he underestimated me.”
“Because you aren’t playing fair. You will never be able to say you really beat him.”
“I can live with that, especially since every dimension will understand who the greater force is. You see, buddy, it’s been a long time since a genuine smile crossed my face, but whenever I think of a universe that holds me up as the greater of the two Agates… I can’t help but grin.”
“How are you going to do this in every dimension?”
Rick’s mouth twisted and he shrugged. “What the hell? You aren’t long for this world anyway.”
“So you say.”
“I’ve become quite an expert at membrane transport lately. I’ve read all the studies and trials. There is a way for a single person to hop dimensions.”
“It was you,” said Dean. “You caused the membranes to slip on me.”
The salt shaker spun out of Rick’s hands and spilled over the table. He picked it up quickly and pushed it back against the wall next to the pepper and a jar of some green alien spice. “You weren’t ever supposed to make it here, Dean… I had that planned for some other schmuck.”
“You could have just left me to die.”
Rick made an expression of hurt. “Buddy, that’s pretty raw of you to say. But anyway, I’m glad it worked out the way it did though. You’ve done a decent job occupying the Moon City Killer with that robot. Now that he’s not suspecting it, on defense and looking for you to kill, I can catch him unawares, put a nice big smile in his neck with my favorite knife and then siphon his brain—it’ll be more potent than any Deitii by now—since we’ve all waited this long. In the beginning I just wanted to kill him and take his stash. Now I need the asshole or I’ll never be better than my brother. Don’t look so surprised! If I’m going into the dimensions to get my brother, I have to be ready.”
“Where’d you get the galaxy glass? I know you’re planning to get to other dimensions by taking it through the membranes.”
Rick’s mouth parted in a smile of admiration. “Oh, you’re smarter than you look, Dean.”
“How’d you get the glass? Those are costly and Friars don’t part with them unless they’re killed.”
The mercenary glanced around. “Where is that burger of yours?”
“How, Rick?” Dean asked again.
Rick cleared his throat. “Courtesy of the Moon City Killer. All the Grettish Friars he slaughtered at the mayor’s estate the other day left plenty of their swords behind. I got a few of them stashed back at the transport station.”
“I hadn’t heard about that.”
“No, I guess not. You were too busy overdosing on Constalife.”
“You were behind that too?”
“Of course. It all works together, buddy. That and your delicious burger.”
The waitress showed up then and put the plate down in front of Dean. The hamburger looked innocent enough except for a bright red cheese melted over its sides.
“Sorry, guys, just a few things I have to say.” The waitress read off a notepad. “Any heart problems or nervous system problems, you must disclose before you eat the LFK. Also, has anybody at the table taken a higher dose of Constalife than recommended by the Moon City surgeon general?”
Dean cocked his head at his former friend and narrowed his eyes. Rick held his stare and replied, “No, we are good.”
“Please read the warning on the napkin under the plate. Also, I have to ask if either of you has ever acquired the Quantum Flu? Unfortunately, it’s another precaution we have to take. It tends to weaken the heart and that also isn’t safe.”
“We are completely good,” Rick answered. “Lifetime Moon City citizens. Never left through a membrane transport.”
“Me neither,” the waitress said with a flirty wink. “Okay, enjoy! I’ll keep the water and beer flowing. Be sure to wash your hands with the towelettes.”
Dean stared down at the burger, feeling sick. “You killed that Noggin… I was right there, inside the shack. You had the chance again.”
Rick sighed. “The Noggin spotted me when I came back for the extra thermos of Deitii fluid I hid behind your shack. It wasn’t personal but I had to do what I had to. Look, I left his damn cat alive. I’m not such a bad guy. So let’s get going, eh, compadre? Although it’s uncomfortable, I’m going to insist you eat.”
Dean grabbed the burger and took a large bite. He immediately felt the heat on the roof of his mouth, but he continued through. The fiery sting actually soaked into his gums and burned the roots of his teeth and his esophagus trembled as the pieces traveled down. A sour churning formed in his stomach right away. His fo
rehead broke out in sweat, which followed a massive army of rolling beads of perspiration down his shoulders and his back. He had to finish the hamburger, but halfway through, he already started gagging.
“Slow down, buddy. You don’t have to go so fast.”
Dean didn’t slow down though. He kept devouring the burger without even drinking his beer or water. If he could just get it all down at once, he’d be able to deal with the fallout rather than prolong the suffering, but this was harsh. It was the worst thing he’d ever chewed up and swallowed. It hardly seemed edible by human standards. His arteries and heart felt like they were going to explode. Rick had planned this for some reason. The overdose of Constalife already had his heart rate up.
He finished eating and downed the beer and his water right away. He started on Rick’s glass of water when the man stopped chuckling and began talking. “I know how he watches people. I’ve been able to do it myself—the beating heart of a living thing is a beacon. The Moon City Killer wants you, Dean—I thought he’d clue in with all that Constalife raging through you, but he’s only now sending his little minions your way. I didn’t want to make you bait, but it’s the only way to get him to come. This way he’ll have to come himself. He’ll have to make sure you are taken care of. He won’t take chances on any more monsters.” Rick grabbed his head. “I’m not even as far along as he is and your heartbeat is getting to me.”
Dean was about to pass out. He saw Rick throw some money on the table. He felt his body being hoisted up out of the booth seat and being guided back outside. In the distance, he heard the waitress ask if he was okay and Rick say he was fine.
The caverns outside shook with every painful pounding of Dean’s chest.
A rope slid around him and tightened. He could do nothing but slump there, against the com pole he’d been placed up on. “We have to get you all set up for your big date,” said Rick.
Dean felt like vomiting but he was losing consciousness. His head snapped to the side as Rick struck him across the face. “Keep awake,” he cautioned. “And don’t have a damned heart attack.”
Numbness surged up Dean’s left arm and his neck bent with a painful spasm. He realized then he might not be able to fulfill that request.
Moon City Page 22
