“Zombie,” he said.
“I’m in a bit of a pickle. My rental pegasus broke down up the road. Do you have a phone I can use?”
The demon picked its long teeth.
“A telegraph?” I asked.
The demon drooled.
“A carrier gremlin? I’d like to call a miracle-worker.”
“Zombie,” the demon said with fat ropes of saliva running down its muzzle.
It was obvious what the creature was after. “Look, I taste worse than kraken sushi left out on a hot Pandemonium night.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Really? Have you ever eaten three-day-old bladderpig?”
“Four-day old.”
“Spoiled sea hag?”
“Twice. Have you ever eaten petrified troll?”
“Come on, of course. But if you want a treat, try leprechaun. So sweet and juicy.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“Let me use the phone and I’ll tell you where you can pick some up.”
I didn’t wait for an invitation. I stepped inside. A huge portrait beside two torches dominated the grand foyer. Several other, smaller portraits and a couple of statues depicted the same man: a tall, gaunt fellow with intense black eyes, a red goatee, and a bald head. It took a moment for me to place that face. I last saw it twenty-five years ago in a dust den in ShadowShade.
“Is that the Duke of Pandemonium?” I asked, pretty sure it was. “Does he live here?” I tried to put a squeal in my voice. I think I succeeded.
The demon bowed his head. “Of course. He is our master.”
“Me and the Duke go way back. We used to party in ShadowShade years ago. I used to hook him up with dust.” The demon didn’t seem impressed. “Tell your master his old pal Dead Jack is here.”
The demon seemed doubtful, but he nodded and slipped into the shadows. I heard the whoosh of demon wings in the depths of the palace and shrieks, of pain or joy, I wasn’t sure, and it probably didn’t matter here. Demonic laughter rolled through the long halls. If I had any hair left on my body, it would have been standing up.
A few minutes later, the demon returned.
“Come,” he said.
He led me into the palace. It smelled much worse inside than outside. The air reeked of brimstone and blood and rot and turned earth. We passed the ballroom. Inside, vampires feasted on a group of what looked like tentacled squid men. They didn’t look up.
Demons and orcs and gargoyles passed us in the halls. Some gave me dirty looks. Pieces of the ceiling showered down like confetti at a ticker-tape parade.
“Can I smoke in here?” I asked, mostly as a joke. There didn’t seem to be anything you couldn’t do here.
The demon didn’t respond, so I lit up a hellfire stick. I took a couple of puffs before the demon snatched it out of my mouth. He didn’t say why. It was my last one.
He stopped before a black door and opened it.
“Wait inside,” he said.
“Am I ever going to get out of this room?” The demon didn’t answer.
I poked my head in and did a quick scan. It was a large hall. The right wall had crumbled to dust and most of the ceiling had collapsed. Moonlight drifted in and covered everything in a red tint. At the end of the room, an obsidian throne sat on a dais. No one was inside.
I stepped in.
The door immediately slammed behind me. I was about to check if it was locked, but I was accosted by a swarm of demonic flies. The little buggers buzzed around my head, chatting about me as if I weren’t there.
“Oh, a corpse!”
“Good eating they are.”
“Perfect for nesting.”
“I see a perfect spot to lay eggs.”
“I can hear you,” I said.
“Did you hear that?” one of them said.
“The corpse is speaking!”
“I didn’t hear it. What did it say?”
“It’s just your imagination, Carl.”
“He doesn’t look too bright.”
“Stupid-looking thing, isn’t he?”
“Maybe he’s not worth infesting.”
“We may catch something, you know?”
“Bug off!” I shouted as I swatted at the infernal insects.
They dodged my hand and returned to circling. Little fat horns jutted out of their heads and tiny spikes protruded from their legs.
“Is that an insult?” one of them said.
“Told us to bug off, did he?”
“A pun! The corpse is using puns? How utterly sad.”
“His jokes are as dead as he is.”
“He should crawl back into the grave from which he escaped.”
One of the flies bit me on the cheek. I smacked him with the back of my hand. He dropped straight to the ground. Gave a bzzt-bzzt and died.
“The corpse killed Carl!”
“Scram!” I shouted and poked at them with my lit lighter. They got the message and flew off.
Feet thumped. The ground shook. Something huge and most likely dangerous approached. I cracked my knuckles and got into a fighting stance.
From the other end of the hall, a horde of demons appeared. Slimy, scaly suckers with big, misshapen heads and slavering muzzles flooded the hall, one troop from the left and another from the right. Like automatons, they lined up in perfect, tight rows before the dais and paid me no mind. I remained in position, ready for whatever.
The hall got a bit stuffy and smelled something awful. I could feel heat coming off the demons. It was the only heat in the cold, cold room.
Music began to play. First a solitary drum, and then an orchestra, full of brass instruments and atonal clanging.
A spotlight hit the throne from directly above.
A public address system screeched to life and crackled, before a deep, guttural voice said:
“Chattel and chums…put your claws together for the Lord of the Broken!” The demons drove their clawed feet into the ground and clapped their taloned hands. Their wings snapped. The voice continued: “The Baron of the Banished! The Ruler of the Wastelands and Beyond! The Redeemer, that Big, Big Dreamer. Our Master of Disaster. The one, the only…Duke of Pandemonium!”
The room filled with a dark electricity. The clamor was deafening. The heat got so intense I thought the place was about to burst into flames.
A figure in black descended from the shadows above. He waved to the hordes and blew kisses as he floated down. I thought I saw a wire. The Duke dropped onto the throne.
“Hey,” he said in an apathetic way and rested his head on his left fist. “Where’s our esteemed guest? Get him up here.”
The demons turned to me. I didn’t move. One of them grabbed me, picked me up, and passed me to another creature. They kept passing me up along until I was standing before the throne.
I instantly recognized my old friend. But back then his name was Eddie McCrawley. He was one of the only humans I had ever palled around with. He was a wild man, one of the biggest dust-heads I had ever known. He could snort an entire kilo in one night, and he often did.
He hadn’t changed much, except for the lack of hair. Tall and pale, black eyes like obsidian mirrors. A perpetual wicked grin. He was always the showman, but never anything like this.
“A fookin zombie!” he shouted. “You guys didn’t tell me it was a damn brain-licker! I thought it was someone alive! Someone important!”
Eddie jumped up, his eyes wide in disbelief. It had been a while since we hung out. Maybe he had forgotten about me.
“Someone eat this guy and stop wasting my time.”
A demon grabbed me from behind. The Duke turned and began to walk away. I was surprised he didn’t float back up through the ceiling.
“Eddie!” I shouted. “It’s me, Jack!”
He turned and the long tails of his high-collared tunic swished. “Never heard of any Eddie and I sure as fook don’t know any bag of bones named Zach.”
“No, Jack! Dead Jack! We used to hang
out at the dust den in Little Valhalla.”
“Sorry. Doesn’t ring a bell. Eat him and grind up the bones for the hellhounds.”
The demon’s talons dug into my shoulders. I closed my eyes, waiting for the drop. The Duke howled in laughter. I opened my eyes and he stood before me. He was shaking his head, a big smirk on his face.
“You dirty, rotten corpse! You always fell for my practical jokes!”
I tried to hide my shakes. “You haven’t changed, Eddie,” I said.
“My name has changed.” His smiled evaporated. “I go by the Duke now. And I’m no longer a two-bit hustler. All of these infernal creatures are my loyal subjects.”
“Too modest for the King or the Lord of Pandemonium, huh?”
“I gave it serious thought. But I was always a fan of the Duke, John Wayne. And the Duke of Pandemonium just sounds so nifty, doesn’t it? What brings you to our part of hell, Jack? Working on one of your little cases?”
“Me? No. I’m retired.”
“When did that happen?”
“About two hellfire sticks ago.”
He laughed, but I wasn’t sure if it was at me or with me. “You’re far from ShadowShade, friend.”
“I’m on vacation. Seeing the sights. And wouldn’t you know it, my pegasus rental breaks down and dies? Do you have a phone I can use?”
“A phone?”
“Yeah, you know that thing you speak into and people far away can hear you?”
“Sorry, Jack. We keep things pretty simple around here.”
“You and all your demon friends?”
“I always kept interesting company, didn’t I?” He slapped me on the back, hard. I stumbled a step or two forward.
Despite the weird theatrics and the demon army, I was having a hard time believing my old pal was responsible for killing all those fairies up on Corpse Hill. Then a demon fell out of formation. Just a step. But enough to make a sound.
The Duke turned. “Who moved?” he said. “Who the fook moved?”
The demons didn’t say a word. The Duke walked up and down the line like a military general, eyeing each infernal creature. “Is this a fookin carnival show? Have I not prepared you? There must be no weak links for what is to come!”
The demon must have gotten nervous because he slipped again and the Duke spotted it. He snapped his fingers and the other demons descended on their colleague, pulling off his wings and arms and legs.
The Duke returned to me, smirked like a man who’s just been fitted with a straitjacket, and said, as if nothing had happened: “To be honest, I’m glad you’re here, Jack. I miss the old days. Why don’t you stick around? We can reminisce. We’re about to have dinner.”
“I already ate today.” I watched as the demon’s horns were wrenched off his head.
“I hope it wasn’t anyone I know.” He laughed and gave me another chummy slap on the back.
Actually, it probably was someone he knew. “I can’t make any promises,” I said and giggled nervously.
“Forget food then. Have a drink with us.”
“Do you have any Devil Boy?”
“I’m sure I can procure some.” He winked. “You caught me at a bad time, Jack. Things are extremely busy around here. In fact, I have some urgent matters to attend to.”
He probably had some demonic fly wings to pull off.
“Jevex,” he said, “give Jack a tour of the palace.” And with that, he left.
Jevex—he was the demon who opened the palace door—stepped forward and said, “Follow me.”
As I followed Jevex, the errant demon’s head was torn from his body and passed around the room like a trophy. It was going to be an interesting dinner.
11. Dinner for Demons (and Assorted Other Monsters)
The tour was brief.
Jevex showed me the ruined gardens, which were nothing but clods of dirt full of bones; the ruined chapel, where the inverted crosses were right-side up; and the hall of mirrors, which was actually a hall of shattered glass. When we reached a wooden door covered in Enochian script, Jevex said, “It’s time for dinner.” And then he did an about-face.
“What’s beyond that door?” I asked.
“That’s the Duke’s chambers.”
And why did the Duke need to protect his chambers with a secret angelic language? Maybe he was afraid of his minions busting in and tearing his head off.
The last stop on the tour was the dining room.
Like the rest of the palace, it was a wreck. Holes filled the ceiling and the walls. The back wall was completely gone. The remaining walls were charred from what must have been a huge fire that swept through the room.
Guests sat around the thirty-yard-long dining table, digging into their stomach-churning meals. They put me a few seats from the head of the table. I was surrounded by Pandemonium’s biggest scum—ogres, vampires, trolls, lizard men, demons of all sorts. And people were disgusted when they saw me eat? I was a dainty little eater compared to these hungry hellions. The ogre beside me slopped up a dark brown soup that seemed to be made of human bones and maggots. I think I spotted a moleman eating a deep-fried rat on an obsidian plate at the end of the table. Fortunately, cat wasn’t on the menu, or Oswald.
An ancient-looking vampire sat across from me. “I have been told you are an intelligent corpse,” he said. His mustard-colored fangs dripped with blood from his sanguine milkshake.
“I’m a zombie genius actually,” I said. “The only member of the revenant branch of Mensa.”
“More like a smart-ass zombie, if you ask me,” said a woman with the head of an alligator and the claws of a hawk. She bit the head off a live chicken and drank its blood.
If I had an appetite, I would have lost it.
I recognized one of the guests: Madgogg. I was once hired to rescue a pixie from the ogre’s Upper West Side lair. He flared his nostrils at me. I ignored him and drank my Devil Boy. Eddie had plenty, and I planned on drinking as much as my innards would hold. I was already on my third glass. Eddie hadn’t joined our little soirée yet. I presumed he wanted to be fashionably late.
“I also understand you are a detective,” the vampire said. He took another long, disgusting slurp of his blood shake. I had to turn away.
This bloodsucker sure was curious. “Some people call me a dead dick,” I said, “but I don’t like those people.”
The vamp snorted and I swear some of that frothy blood came out of his nose. I had to try to make him laugh again.
“Do you have a…?” He raised an eyebrow and nodded down at my nether regions.
I caught his drift. It wasn’t the first time I was asked if my man parts had been resurrected, too. “Let’s say I’m undead, but I’m not completely undead.” I winked.
The joke bombed. No frothy blood out of the nose this time, just a smirk.
“That’s all that matters,” he said. “If I couldn’t get it up after all these centuries, I’d put a stake through my own heart.”
“Isn’t the whole vampire thing sexual? All that blood sucking is just a metaphor, right?”
“There’s a sexual component, yes, but sometimes it’s just about the blood.” He ran a long, bony finger around the rim of his glass, catching blood milkshake residue. Then he put it to his lips and gave it a good suck. He was giving me quite a show.
“Is there a lot of sex going on in the palace?” I asked. “Is this the preparation for a big monster orgy?”
The vamp chortled but again no nose blood. I was beginning to feel like a failure.
“If things go right, we’re going to have the biggest monster orgy in the history of existence.”
“Yeah? If what goes right?”
The vampire gave me an expression that said “you don’t know?” But before he could fill me in, the Duke made his grand entrance.
He swept into the room like he owned the place. Actually, he probably did. He sat at the head of the table. A bullheaded demon sat to his left. Jevex, now in a white tuxedo, immediatel
y poured two large glasses of a thick, dark wine. The Duke snapped his fingers and the candles on the table lit.
“I’m glad to see we could rustle up some Devil Boy for you,” the Duke said to me.
“It’s finely aged, too,” I said. “Real smooth.”
“Only the best for my old pal.”
I saw the vamp take another hit of his blood shake, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. “So what’s this I hear about an orgy?” I asked loud enough so everyone could hear.
Blood shot out of the vampire’s nose like a geyser. I felt such a sense of achievement that it took a moment for me to realize that the rest of the room went silent. The creatures’ eyes bore into me. They looked ready to pounce. I could swear steam was coming out of Madgogg’s ears.
I looked to the Duke. He glared at me, too. Then, after a very awkward silence, he burst into laughter. Like good lackeys, the rest joined in.
“If it’s sex you want, Jack, I’ll introduce you to Wilma, our resident succubus.”
I know a thing or two about succubi, and they’re not worth the trouble. Very clingy.
“So this isn’t a deviant sex club?” I said, smiling.
The Duke grinned. “We have more important things to occupy us than sex, Jack.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the truth.”
“Lay some truth on me, Eddie.”
He stopped dead and looked at me like he wanted to rip my head off, mount it on the wall, and throw knives at it.
“I meant to say, ‘Lay some truth on me, Duke.’ ”
He held his crazy eyes on me for a few more seconds. I knew to play along. I remembered that demon in the hall. He forced out a grin and said, “No harm no foul. You’re just ignorant, Jack. We can’t be angry at the ignorant, can we? But once you learn, then, I’m afraid, there won’t be any mercy. Then you’re a liability.” He took a long pull of wine, and then he continued his rant. “We’ve all been there—stupid, uninformed, unenlightened beasts—but now we’re awake, aren’t we?” He raised his voice at the end of the sentence and the infernal crew jeered and shouted and agreed with their crazy lord.
Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device Page 7
