Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device

by James Aquilone

  “He loses his memory,” Oswald said, “but he’s exactly the same.”

  “Will you two cut it out?” Zara said. “Oz, I need you to slip back out there and not have the demon notice you. Can you do that?”

  “Not being noticed is what I do best.”

  “First, I need you to form one of your hands into a stylus or something to write with.”

  “Like this?” The blob held up its right arm, which was now as thin as a pencil and sharp at the end.

  “Perfect. Now dab the tip in my blood. Get it good and bloody. Then slip out there and draw a circle around that demon. It’ll trap him. We’ll be able to walk right by him.”

  Oswald dipped his pencil hand in the blood, walked to the bars, flattened himself like a pancake, and slid out of the cell.

  “You sure this will work?” I asked.

  “I’ve done this many times before. I know my way around demons.”

  I believed her. She seemed like she could handle herself against anything, but I had my doubts about the blob. I couldn’t imagine why I would know such a weird and disrespectful creature. He certainly didn’t seem like anyone I’d want to befriend. I must be a desperate zombie with pals like that.

  The demon had apparently woken up or was having the mother of all nightmares, because he was yelling bloody murder. Then he began stomping. The cell bars rattled.

  The door swung open and there was Oswald, smirking. “It worked! Come on!”

  I looked at Zara. She shrugged.

  Outside the cell, we were met by a very irate demon. Smoke puffed out of his flared nostrils and ears. His eyes burned red.

  “I will make you pay dearly for this,” the demon said and slammed his clawed feet into the floor.

  The blob did a pretty poor job of drawing that magic circle, if you ask me. It was barely a circle, more like a demented hexagon. The demon lunged at us, but bounced back when he hit the edge of the blood line.

  “This way,” Zara said and led us down the hall. We turned left, and then right, and went through a door, which opened onto a winding stone staircase.

  We made it about three steps when we heard the distinct snap of demon wings.

  “The circle must have had a gap!” Zara said.

  I glared at Oswald.

  “What?!” he said.

  Hot air rushed toward us.

  “Go!” Zara yelled, and we ran up the staircase.

  The demon was on the stairs in no time. We slipped around the first bend. The creature tried to navigate the narrow opening, but crashed into the wall and went tumbling down the stairs.

  “I am going to eat your souls,” the demon barked when he regained his footing.

  “The joke is on you!” Oswald shouted back. “We don’t have souls!”

  “Speak for yourselves,” Zara said.

  This seemed to anger the demon. He howled, and the stink of his hot breath made us gag. The beast’s bony feet slapped against the stone as he climbed the stairs in giant leaps.

  “My memory isn’t great,” I said, “but I’m sure zombies aren’t great runners. Sooner or later, he’s going to catch me.”

  “Let me handle this,” Oswald said, and the little blob melted into a puddle. I hopped over him.

  Zara had stopped running and was waiting several steps above me.

  “Keep going,” I said. “The demon isn’t far behind.”

  She ran her fingertips over her right arm and mumbled something in a strange, lilting language. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She lifted the sledgehammer tattoo off her arm and a real sledgehammer appeared in her hand. Except this one was half the size of Zara herself.

  The demon bellowed as he crashed onto the steps, most likely after slipping on Oswald. The sound of claws scraping against the stone walls made me cringe.

  “Get behind me,” Zara said, and I did.

  She held up the sledgehammer. The demon came stomping up the staircase, smoke spewing out of his mouth and nostrils. When he saw Zara, his expression went from furious to “oh fook.”

  It was the last expression he’d ever make. The witch/pixie swung for the fences, connecting the head of the sledgehammer with the head of the demon, which smashed against the wall. Bits of demon skull and stone pelted us.

  Zara slid the sledgehammer back toward her arm and it was a tattoo again.

  “You’ll have to give me the name of your tattoo artist,” I said.

  “I did it myself actually,” she said.

  Oswald had re-formed into a cocky little man and joined us. Maybe the little blob wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Let’s get going,” Zara said. “The other demons will have heard that and will be on us soon enough.”

  As we hustled up the stairs, Zara told us that the two rivers the Duke discovered on Monster Island were called Lethe and Mnemosyne, or the rivers of forgetfulness and memory. He kept bottles of the waters in a special storeroom.

  “But won’t that be heavily guarded?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Zara said.

  “And you think we can take on an army of demons?”

  “Who? A dead guy and a shape-shifting marshmallow?”

  “We did all right just now.”

  “We? Don’t worry about an army of demons. I’m taking you to my quarters. I stole a few vials of the waters.”

  At the top of the stairs was a landing with several doors. Zara opened the third one and we entered a long, narrow hallway. We followed Zara through several other hallways until we reached a gold door. There was no handle or doorknob on it.

  “How do you get inside?” I asked.

  “Magic, of course,” she said. “That’s how I know the room is as I kept it. No one but me can get in.”

  Zara mumbled something in that weird language, and then traced a tattoo of a gold key on her left arm. She mumbled more cryptic words and the key appeared in her hand. The tattoo was gone, her brown skin now in its place.

  When Zara placed the key near the door, a keyhole appeared. She put the key in the lock and opened the door.

  Everything inside was black. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, the rugs, the furniture—everything beside the posters and pictures of something called Kill Unicorn Kill. They looked like a swing band full of psychos.

  “You really like black,” I said.

  “It likes me,” Zara said and put the key back on her arm. I had no idea what that meant. “I’ll be right back,” she said and went through a door on her right.

  I was alone with the little creature.

  He glared at me.

  “What’s this about cats?” I asked.

  “That’s why we’re here. To rescue the cats and bring them back to the goblins.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Mainly for fairy dust. You’re a detective, Jack.”

  “A zombie detective? Sounds like a stupid idea.”

  “It pays the bills.”

  “Am I any good at it?”

  “Well…let’s say things usually work out in the end.”

  “And how do we know each other?”

  “I used to live inside your skull. Now I’m your partner. Your equal partner.”

  “You’re a strange one, Oswald.”

  “Wait till you remember.”

  I didn’t like the way he said that. I wasn’t sure getting my memory back was a good thing. I figured if you were a zombie, you must have messed up big time in your past.

  Zara returned with a large box. Naturally, it was black.

  She placed it on a table beside us and opened the lid. Inside were two glass jars. One was filled with a milky white liquid and the other with a dark, cloudy liquid. Zara removed the jar with white liquid and popped it open.

  “Is that okay to drink?” I asked.

  “I think this is what made the Duke insane or, I should say, more insane,” she said. “He was always a bit off. Long after he found the rivers, he continued to drink water from Mnemosyne. Eventually, he remembered e
verything in his life all the way back to the womb, everything anyone had ever said to him, anything he had overheard or read. I think it broke his mind.” Zara dipped her finger inside the container and held it up to me. “Okay, drink this.”

  “You were never a salesman, were you?” I asked.

  “It’s fine. I’ve taken it before. The Duke tricked me into drinking from the water of forgetfulness after our fallout, but I was ready for him.” She held up the back of her right hand, where she had tattooed the word “DRINK” and an image of a shot glass. “I just needed to lift out the glass and drink.”

  “Clever,” I said.

  “I’ll give you only a drop at a time, until we get your memory back to where it was.”

  “Are you sure you want to do it that way?” Oswald asked. “He is a zombie after all.”

  “If he so much as takes a peck, I think he knows what I’ll do. Right, Jack?”

  I looked at the sledgehammer tattoo that almost ran the length of her right arm. “I have some ideas,” I said and delicately licked the water off Zara’s fingertip. Immediately, something in my head popped, like a flash grenade going off in my skull.

  “What is your oldest memory?” Zara asked.

  I searched my brain. “Meeting the goblin queen.”

  Oswald grinned.

  Zara gave me another drop of memory juice. “What do you remember now?”

  I hesitated and rubbed my hands on my thighs. I thought about lying, but I was afraid Oswald would call me out. “Eating a leprechaun,” I mumbled.

  “What was that?” Zara asked.

  “Eating a leprechaun,” I said more clearly.

  “You ate a leprechaun? A little, defenseless leprechaun?”

  “They aren’t so defenseless, you know!”

  Zara grimaced and dabbed her finger again. We kept at it for maybe another two dozen times. I remembered Oswald oozing out of my skull all those years ago; my arrival in Pandemonium; having my soul stolen from me; Room 731; Ratzinger; fighting in the war; and my pre-zombie life, which had been mostly a blur before the Duke slipped me the water of forgetfulness. But now long-lost memories flooded back and I wanted nothing more than to stuff them back in the darkness. When visions of a blonde woman with green eyes appeared in my mind, I stopped Zara. “No more,” I said. “I remember enough. We’re good. Put the water away.”

  She closed the jar and returned it to the box.

  “How does it feel to have your memory back?” Oswald asked.

  “It’s not going to feel good for you. I remember how you never filed a report for the Purloined Unicorn case eight years ago.”

  “Crap. I had forgotten about that.”

  “We’ll deal with that later. Where are the cats?”

  “The cats are gone.”

  “Gone? Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  “What was the point? You didn’t have any memory.”

  “Do you know where they are, dunzy?”

  “The Duke took off with them.”

  “Great! The Duke is gone, too.”

  “I have more bad news.”

  “You’re on a roll.”

  “I saw the two leprechauns from Irish Town here. The Duke was really pissed with them. Then they took off for Monster Island with most of the other lackeys from the palace. They were carrying a bunch of equipment. Looks like they were preparing for something big. Why are the leps here, Jack?”

  “To make my life miserable. I’ll explain everything on the way to Monster Island.”

  17. A God Reborn

  Oswald was right. (There’s a first time for everything.) Most of the palace had been evacuated. On our way out, we slipped past a few demons and vampires. They were too busy getting drunk and horsing around to notice us. The Duke apparently left behind the losers. Maybe to mop up and meet the Duke on Monster Island, or maybe he abandoned them to their fate like us.

  I figured the only reason he left me and Ms. Moonbeam in the cell instead of killing us was because we’d die soon enough once he destroyed the IDBs. Why waste time trying to kill a member of the undead and a witch who’d put up a hell of a fight?

  I didn’t check, but I was sure the interdimensional beings were gone, too. The Duke must have been heading to Monster Island to catch the last IDB and kill them all right there. He wasn’t going to leave anything to chance now.

  We made our way out of the palace through an underground tunnel that Zara knew about. Or we almost made it out. Just feet from the exit, we ran into that ancient vampire I met at dinner.

  “The smart zombie,” he said. “So, you’re not dead. I mean truly dead. Because you’ve always been kinda dead, right?” He slurred his words and wobbled. He was clearly drunk.

  “What was your name again?” I asked.

  “Count Ardlin, at your service.” He tried to bow but stumbled instead.

  “Why didn’t you go with the Duke to Monster Island?”

  “I guess I wasn’t invited.” He hiccupped and a trickle of blood dripped out of his nose. “Or maybe I had been partying too hard to notice he had gone. That succubus Wilma is a real doll. Maybe I’ll catch a water taxi. Hey, aren’t you the Duke’s bitch?” He looked at Zara.

  She wasted no time. She spoke the strange words and grabbed her sledgehammer tattoo. The vampire didn’t even have time to blink. Zara took three quick giant steps, and then lowered the boom onto his head, which burst like a watermelon filled with firecrackers. I got a bit more blood on me and a vampire fang lodged in my neck. I had a tough time pulling it out.

  “I think we can go now,” I said. “Unless Zara wants to bash in a few more heads.”

  She seemed to think about it, and then said, “I’m good.”

  We exited the palace and I had never been so happy to see the red skies of Pandemonium. I could have kissed it. We weren’t far from the shore so we decided to head there. We had no idea how we’d get to Monster Island, but I was damn sure a ghost ship wouldn’t be involved.

  On the way, we pieced together the Duke’s plan.

  I told Zara about the winged baby we encountered in Irish Town. “That insolent brat is all the Duke needs to destroy Pandemonium and everyone in it,” I said. “The leps must have been on their way to deliver it to the Duke when I messed up their plan.”

  “Why would the leps be involved?” Oswald asked. “Why wouldn’t the Duke capture the baby himself?”

  “Probably because the Duke doesn’t have any powers. His magic was bound when the other black magicians sent him to Pandemonium.” Zara looked at me in disbelief. “You didn’t know?”

  “That piece of filth,” she said. “I should have known, but he’s a damn good liar. He needed the water of memory to compensate for his lack of magical powers. That’s how he come up with the plans for the device.”

  “What device?” Oswald asked.

  “He calls it the Pandemonium Device. It’s equipped with a Jupiter Stone. It’s the only way he can kill the IDBs.”

  I had figured as much.

  “But how do they know the baby is on Monster Island?” Oswald asked. “Why wouldn’t he be able to move between dimensions?”

  “Simple,” Zara said. “The leps must have put binding and tracking spells on him. They’re crafty, which is why the Duke used them. Leps know a thing or two about moving between dimensions themselves.”

  “That leaves the cats,” Oswald said. “Why did the Duke take them?”

  I fielded that one. “The Duke believes their blood will protect them when Pandemonium is destroyed. So how are we getting to Monster Island? Zara, is your witchcraft capable of transporting us there?”

  “If I had my broom, I could have flown us. But I must have misplaced it.”

  “You should keep a backup.”

  “Never had a broom. That’s a myth. I was joking.”

  “This isn’t the time for jokes.”

  A warm blast of air hit us and I nearly fell over. Heavy wings whooshed overhead.

  “Find c
over!” I shouted. “The demons are attacking!”

  The three of us ran toward a grouping of stones and ducked behind them.

  Laughter filled the air. Demonic laughter. Like something you’d hear in the deepest pits of Hell as you’re being worked over by Lucifer.

  Zara grabbed her sledgehammer, Oswald got into a fighting stance, and I adjusted my hat. The demon buzzed us again, shooting past us just overhead. I caught a glimpse of the creature’s wings as he flew away from us. They must have been twenty feet wide.

  When the demon circled back, I got a better look at him. I instantly noticed the distinct burn marks on the creature’s body. That was no demon. It was Camazotz.

  “Hey, Camazotz! Camazotz!” I shouted.

  “Pipe down, you idiot,” Zara said. “He’ll hear you.”

  “I know him. He saved my life before.” I stood and waved my arms. Zara grabbed me and pulled me down to the ground.

  “Are you crazy? That’s the guy who stole the Jupiter Stone.”

  The bat god swooped low, angling toward us. He was coming in fast. For a moment, I had forgotten that he ditched me on Corpse Hill and stole my dust. Crap, the dust! He must be high as a kite. He probably doesn’t even remember me.

  “Maybe I miscalculated,” I said. Then I remembered something else. Camazotz didn’t have wings.

  The giant bat flew right into me, knocking me down. Zara lifted her sledgehammer. I jumped up. “Camazotz?” I asked. “Is that you?” He did say he was one of a kind.

  The giant bat perched himself on top of a large stone, his wings fully spread out. There was something strange about them.

  “Jack!” he shouted. “Just the dead man I wanted to see.”

  “You really do know this guy?” Zara asked, but she didn’t lower her sledgehammer.

  “I think so,” I said. “Camazotz, buddy, what’s going on? Your wings grew back?”

  He was beaming. At first I thought it was because of the dust I had given him, but he didn’t have that glazed look in his eyes.

  “No,” he said. “I bought them.”

  “I thought you had nothing to your name.”

  “I didn’t. Not before you gave me that dust. Do you know how valuable that stuff is?”

  I was thinking maybe I overpaid for his help.