The End of the World As I Know It (The Ghosts & Demons Series Book 2)

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  We stood there, shifting our feet and mumbling to each other, hot with exhaustion and resentment.

  Anguloora grinned. “But words are for smart people. Watch carefully and I’ll demonstrate so even the dimmest of you will understand. With four arrows, I will hit eight targets in a few seconds.”

  Despite my anger, I had to smile a little when Wilmington covered her mouth to cough and added, “Bullshit.”

  Anguloora turned and ran, faster than I expected for such a large man. He carried no quiver. Instead, the four arrows stayed in his right hand. He fired the first arrow on the run. He must have aimed, but his shot was so fast, it appeared he did not. Still, the first arrow buried itself in a small target stuck on a post halfway down the courtyard.

  As soon as the Samoan crested the first dirt mound, he fired another shot and immediately shot another mid-leap. Those arrows found their marks on narrow stakes driven into the ground, one high and one low. He fired another arrow as he wove through a course of wire, deft and sure.

  Out of arrows now, he reached the first arrow he’d shot, and yanked it from its place. Anguloora pirouetted in the air and fired down the field, splitting a watermelon on a post. He repeated the feat, pulling the arrows he’d already shot and firing again. When he was done, two limes had been shot from the top of two posts and he’d even buried an arrow in one of the obscured targets at a full run.

  We all stared at him as he ran back, arrows in hand. Our jaws were slack with amazement. Even Wil let out a low whistle and clapped. The applause spread.

  It was Anguloora’s smug grin as he swaggered back to us that made me wish the demons had taken him instead of my friends. That smug grin kept me away from archery practice, too.

  Lesson 101: There’s a time for playing hooky. If you miss out on training that could save lives, it is never time to play hooky.

  Chapter 5

  Lesson 102: We must find our future. Get yours before Fate finds you.

  The noob’s cheekbones and strong jaw made his face lean, angular and interesting. His eyes were so blue I suspected vanity contacts. It was his long blonde hair that set him apart from the pack of new recruits. His looks made me look and linger — me and every other woman and a couple of the guys in the sword singers’ courtyard. The fact that he was utterly clueless with a sword in his hand made me feel sorry for him. For someone so tragically clumsy to pull the attention of a crowd must have been incredibly embarrassing.

  When at last it was time for me to train him, I disarmed him every time he raised his sword. The noob didn’t go pink with humiliation like I would have done. He didn’t get frustrated and angry like some of the younger, more competitive guys did. Instead, every time I knocked the shinai from his grip, he laughed at himself as he hustled to pick up the bamboo practice sword. In other words, he was almost perfect.

  Remember Lesson 100? People who are afraid to look like beginners, stay beginners. The blonde guy may have been a spaz, but he obviously understood Lesson 100. He moved like a spider puppet with loose strings, but his attitude about his ineptitude was charming. The way some guys move, you can tell they’re dangerous and able, but those same guys who seem to have it all together are often too cocky and walk around with their chests puffed out.

  When I couldn’t stand disarming the spaz anymore, I motioned for him to go to the back of the line to watch the other duels in progress. I hoped he’d start to get the gist of sword combat via osmosis. That’s when he transformed himself into the perfect man. He bowed to me. His voice was deep as a well. In a lovely Irish accent, he said, “Thank you for the lesson in humility, Iowa, Castrator of Demons.” He beamed a crooked, aw-shucks smile at me. “I’ll try to do better. I’m feelin’ a bit castrated m’self.”

  “Ooh,” I blurted, “that won’t do.”

  The gaggle of noobs standing at the edge of the practice pad chuckled and my cheeks ran hot. It was my turn to be embarrassed.

  Later, when we took a break, Manhattan handed me her water bottle.

  “How’s it going with your group, Manny?”

  “I’ve been working with four soccer moms. They’re actually pretty cool and I think one of them is in love with me already.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re all in love with you.”

  “Well, yeah. Of course.”

  “The training. How’s that going?”

  She laughed. “I showed them how to choke each other unconscious. One freaked out about it.”

  “And the other three?”

  “That’s all they want to do now. I had to pass them on to Chang to work on conditioning so they wouldn’t be so feisty. They’re a bunch of forty-year-olds with teenagers at home but they’re all up and at ’em to defend against D-Day.”

  I glanced at the sun high overhead. “About noon. Pretty hot for Chang’s brand of calisthenics.”

  “Calisthenics, plyometrics, shuttle runs. He started them out with Ashtanga since they showed up in yoga pants. By the time they hit the kettle bells and deadlifts, they’ll be ready to hit the showers and go to bed at about…five o’clock. Gotta love ’em.”

  “Any idea what they’re specialty will be yet?”

  “The one who blew a gasket about going unconscious is a control freak. I think we can find a place for her among the Silent Singers.”

  The Silent Singer section of the Choir were the stewards of the Keep. They had various duties, from procurement of supplies to maintenance and keeping our mission a secret to the Normies. Not everyone is meant for combat, but everyone can contribute.

  We turned to watch the new recruits work out. After a moment, Manhattan said, “So? Are you going to tell me about the blonde guy?”

  I didn’t even glance sideways. I knew Manny would be aiming a leer my way.

  “What blonde guy?”

  “Oh, please, Iowa. You can do better than that. I saw you working with him.”

  “I work with all the students in my group.”

  “You worked with him longest.”

  “He needed it.”

  Manny sighed. “Fine, tell me now or tell me later.”

  “Fine. He’s cute and he’s got an Irish accent. I don’t even know his name.”

  “Trick.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “His name is Trick.”

  At that moment, I spotted him emerge from a tent we’d erected under the East Tower. A water station and a medic sat in the shade.

  One of the older instructors, Savanna, had tried to show off for the noobs. In an attempt to break Anguloora’s record on the archers’ obstacle course, he’d twisted his ankle. Savanna looked pretty sheepish as he limped to the med tent for an ice pack and an ankle wrap.

  My gaze fixed on the blonde Irish dude. There was something about him impossible to ignore. He looked about my age or a little older. A red-haired girl was chatting him up, smiling so hard I thought her teeth might crack. He listened and nodded as he lifted his shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead. I got a glimpse of angular abs. He couldn’t swing a sword, but he had to have a lot of cardio, weight training and salads to make that happen.

  “Mm,” Manhattan said. “I saw that, too.”

  “He’s not your type.”

  “No,” she said. “I mean I saw that you saw that.”

  “No one’s name is Trick. That’s stupid.”

  “Short for Patrick. Patrick Aonghus.”

  “A blonde Irish guy named Patrick? Where’d we find him? Did they send him over from Central Casting? Or is he off a romance novel cover? It’s ridiculous.”

  Manhattan laughed. “Irish guys named Patrick? They do exist. And he does look like an actor. Pretty dreamy. What position do you want to put him in?”

  I ignored her obvious double entendre. Manhattan was determined to get me dating again.

  “He can’t handle a sword. The way he moves, I don’t think he ever will. Not everyone has the knack.”

  “He looks athletic enough. Pretty jacked, actually, for a lean guy.”


  “Anybody can do a lot of sit ups and crunches and cut out all sugars and grains. Those abs are probably a metabolic thing, anyway. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone so inept on the pads before.”

  “You really don’t think he has potential?” Manny asked.

  “I’m talking warrior potential and you’re asking whether he’s boyfriend material.”

  “Fine. You’re all business. Did you get him to try a morning star yet?”

  “That guy? Spaz? Swinging a spiked ball around on a chain? Are you kidding? Your OCD soccer mom’s first duty will be to cover up his death. He’d spike himself in the head in a heartbeat.”

  When I glanced at Manny, I realized by her smile she was making fun of me. “Fine. You’re funny. He’ll be placed with the Silent Singers, for sure.”

  “Maybe you just have to spend some more time with Trick,” she said. “Find his hidden talents.”

  “Okay, okay. We’ll try him on spears and javelins and tridents. See if you can get him to poke a pike on target.” That was Manhattan’s department, but she didn’t take the hint.

  “A pike isn’t what needs poking,” Manhattan said. “And his charms are wasted on me. You, though? You need a Trick in your life. Trick! Love it!”

  “What will his Choir name be?” I asked.

  “If I were him, I’d keep the name he came with. That’s just too cool. However, I scoped him out for you. He’s from Dungarvan, Ireland. We already have an Ireland and she won’t want to give that up. He’ll be stuck with Dungarvan, I guess.

  “Tragic.”

  Trick tipped his head back to drink from his canteen. As he finished, he looked directly at me. Across the courtyard, it felt like our eyes met. Despite the heat, I shivered and a feeling I hadn’t felt for a long time stirred in my belly. Well…south of my belly. I felt pulled to him.

  Naturally, I ran in the other direction. For a while.

  Lesson 103: Few things are inevitable, but almost everything feels that way.

  Chapter 6

  That evening at Castille Funeral Homes, one of the Lindas buzzed me in through the back door. There were three women named Linda who worked in the back offices of Castille (though one spelled her name with a y.)

  My boss, Samantha Biggs, steamed toward me, her heels clicking fast on the marble floor. Sam gave me a bright smile as she caught me by the coffee machine. I considered her a friend, especially since she’d saved my life on my first day on the job. By her speed, I suspected she had lots of work for me to do.

  “Isn’t it time you got a new suit?” Sam asked. “I only ever see you in the one.”

  “When the pay goes up, I’ll consider it.”

  Her blue striped suit didn’t look much different from mine but she didn’t find hers at a secondhand store. Instead of the ugly striped tie required of all Castille employees, the only marked difference in our attire was the string of pearls at her neck. Like all funeral directors, Sam dressed conservatively. However, with her blonde hair and custom fitted suit, she probably inspired at least a few widowers to ease their grief with lusty fantasies.

  Since the attack on the Keep, I’d been training hard. I’d lost weight and my suit felt a little baggy. Until Sam looked a little too long at my suit, I hadn’t felt self-conscious about it. With the end of the world coming (and who knew when) I thought maybe I should cave to Manhattan’s pleas and Sam’s hint. A shopping spree is always a therapeutic mood booster, at least until the credit card bill arrives.

  I sipped the free coffee and quirked an eyebrow at Sam. “You’re smiling too wide. You’ve got work for me to do, don’t you?”

  “Always. I need the Rose Room vacuumed and the toilets need a good scrub. After that, grab a hot suit from the back — ”

  “Oh, no,” I said. The hot suits were what we called the plastic coveralls we kept at the ready for really gross pickups. The suits were hot — as in temperature, not hawt.

  Not hawt like Trick, my rebel brain added. I pushed that thought away. It’s easy not to think about men when your job is to pick up and deliver bodies.

  Working the funerals was my favorite job at Castille. It was an opportunity to do some good for the living. Whenever D-Day arrived, I’d be all about killing demons. Until that day, I wanted to make this life a little easier for somebody in need.

  However, I absolutely hated the runs that required hot suits. Let’s take a moment to examine why consoling sweet, old people at memorial services is superior to picking up and delivering for funeral homes.

  With the shotgun suicides, the rule was to pick up the big, solid chunks and leave the rest of the goo for the crime scene cleanup team. We weren’t paid enough to deal with biohazards. That job was for the people who come after we’re done.

  Crime scene cleanup crews pay well. It’s a sad job. What they never tell the clients is, after a messy suicide, it doesn’t matter how many coats of paint you use, you’ll never really cover up that blood spray.

  As for our job, there might not be enough leftovers to piece together a whole skull. However, that jigsaw was a bony puzzle for Castille’s funeral directors.

  If that sounds bad to you, the hoarders were worse. When human bodies aren’t found for a while, things get gushy and squishy. Sometimes the hoarders aren’t found immediately because they’re buried in trash.

  For me, the worst job I had to do for Castille was the old man in the bathtub in Hell’s Kitchen. That one required a hot suit.

  The poor guy killed himself in his bathtub. He slit his forearm deep and bled out. After the initial pain, it’s a sleepy way to go, assuming he didn’t slip down and slowly drown before he exsanguinated.

  That wasn’t the horror, though.

  He’d filled a deep clawfoot bathtub with hot water before he climbed in there with a steak knife and a plan. He’d used an electric reheater to keep the water hot. Heat makes the blood flow, but the device didn’t shut down after he’d shuffled off this mortal coil. The body was baked slowly and all the water evaporated before he was found.

  I went out on that run with Clyde, a full-time driver for Castille. As soon as we walked into the bathroom, I wanted to vomit. A bunch of cops and firefighters were standing around so I kept my gorge under control.

  Clyde grabbed the corpse’s legs at the ankles. The suicide’s insides slid out of his skin, boiled stew out of a loose bag. Everything, even the bones, were cooked soft and tender. Talk about shuffling off a mortal coil. The experience put me off stew for weeks.

  And…we’re back. Cut to Sam and me in Castille Funeral Homes by the coffee machine.

  “Hot suit? Again, already? Are there more toilets I could clean, instead? I went out on the last three murders in the Bronx. Isn’t Clyde working delivery tonight?”

  “Relax,” Sam said. “It’s going to be an easy night. The hot suit’s for the car wash. I don’t want you getting your one nice suit wet. I need the coach washed for a funeral tomorrow. Just work the car wash for now. I have one easy pickup for you later.”

  My shoulders relaxed and I let out a laugh. “You let me dangle there.”

  Sam gave me a long look. “If you don’t want to go on the slushy deliveries, I can send someone else. This work isn’t for everyone and I know you prefer the front room stuff to the prep room.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll do my fair share. I just don’t want to do more than my fair share. The last one gave me nightmares.”

  “Give the job some more time and you’ll be eating a ham sandwich in the prep room.”

  I shuddered. The prep room was lined with small plastic bottles full of preservatives and fixatives. The funeral directors used so many of the little orange and yellow bottles of embalming chemicals, I wondered why they didn’t buy them by the drum. The stainless steel tables in the prep room had drains. Despite the fact that the prep rooms were generally very clean and the floors were spotless, the pipes beneath those tables always had a little tangled clump of hair hanging from them.

  “I don
’t mind washing cars. I’ll do that all shift if you want.”

  Sam shook her head. “There’s a pickup at the Mercy hospice. When you’re done with that, come see me in my office. I want to get a head start on the Christmas Survivors Club Meeting mailing list and I need your help sticking address labels on envelopes.”

  “Goody!”

  “Better than sending you off to murder scenes.” Sam leaned in closer to whisper, “Don’t you get enough of violence all day?”

  I shrugged.

  “Oh!” she brightened. “And I’ll make popcorn. Office work is better than blood and guts, right?”

  Sam strode off before I could tell her I preferred squishy death scenes to dry microwave popcorn.

  Halfway down the hall, Samantha turned to look back at me. “You okay, little sister?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t believe you. Remember what your Mama says about funerals?”

  “They’re for the living.” I mimicked Mama’s accent, laying the Amarillo on a little too thick because I knew Sam loved that.

  Sam didn’t smile though. She aimed her serious, empathetic look at me and said, “That’s true of everything, you know. Life is for the living. I worry about what you do with your days. You’re still young, Tammy. Don’t forget to live.”

  Before I could reply, she disappeared around a corner, off on another mission to help a family grieve and bury their dead. Samantha knew all about the Choir Invisible from Victor Fuentes. Early on, Victor tried to recruit her to the cause of combating D-Day. Being a singer wasn’t for her. Too bad. She certainly had the discipline for it.

  The night Sam saved my life, she drove me to the Keep to deliver me to Victor. Since then, she had never once asked me anything about the secret war.

  After the attack on the Keep, I’d tried to talk to her about how Vlad died. She’d known Vladimir Estasia, but she cut me off with a sharp shake of her head.

  “I’m a civilian,” she’d said. “I don’t know and I don’t want to know. You do you, Boo. I’ll do me.”

  “But Vlad — ”