Smiling a bright smile, Willa said, “Okay, guys, here he is. If there’s anything I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you, Willa,” Doc said.
“No problem!”
“Yeah, thanks,” I muttered.
“A tank? Why do you need a tank?”
“Not a tank. Ah, hell, never mind.”
“Okay,” she grinned. “Hugs!”
After another round of spirited hugs, Willa, again, bid us farewell and vanished in a breathtaking cloud of bluish-white smoke that appeared and summarily disappeared in the literal blink of an eye.
“Damn, it’s good to see y’all,” said the redneck archer, taking a healthy gulp of dark whiskey. “What took so dagum long?”
“We had a visit from one of Rooster’s childhood BFFs,” I muttered. “Long story.”
“Say again?”
“I’ll explain later,” Rooster grumbled. “Where’s Double OT?”
Nodding at a badly rusted metal door next to the Ms. PacMan machine at the far end of the alcove, Coop said, “In his lair.”
“His frigg’n lair?” I asked, taking note of the hand written sign hanging from the doorknob that read ‘Lair of the NecroLord — DO NOT ENTER — Except if you’re bringing me booze … in which case, Get your silly ass in here. I am the egg man. I am the walrus. Sham on.’
“NecroLord?” Rooster scoffed.
“That’s what Owen’s calling himself nowadays,” unexpectedly replied an enchanting female voice marked by a delightfully proper southern drawl.
Turning to find none other than Harlan Jayde, the fiddling goddess of witchcraft and rock ‘n’ rollery standing right behind us, I instinctively back-pedaled a few steps as the unadulterated primal power emanating from her tiny persona hit me like a tidal wave. And more interestingly, clearly visible under her low cut, faded black tee shirt was an intricate series of spectral markings woven together in a perfect diamond that subtly pulsed in the center of her chest.
Finding myself blatantly staring at the peculiar anomaly, I quickly averted my eyes before she mistook me for gawking at her cleavage and turned me into a newt — or something worse.
“Whassup, Jaydie girl?” Coop said, with a heavy application of good ol’ boy charm.
“Don’t you Jaydie girl me, Cooper Rayfield. You know I hate it when you call me that.”
“Come on now, little darling, if I had feelings — they’d be hurt.”
Holding out her palm and conjuring a swirling maelstrom of blue lightning, she jested, “Cooper Rayfield, you call me ‘little darling’ again and your feelings won’t be the only thing that gets hurt tonight. Is that my bourbon you’re drinking?”
“Maybe,” Coop sheepishly replied, handing her the bottle.
Taking a healthy swig, she then turned her attention to me and Doc as her face curled into a warm smile. Capping the bottle and tossing it to me, she said, “If y’all are going to see Owen, you’d better take this.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because he’s drunker than Cooter Brown on a Sioux City Saturday night, and won’t take kindly to be disturbed.”
“Disturbed? What the hell’s he doing in there that’s so important?”
“If I had to guess — he’s probably playing with himself.”
“Excuse me?”
Winking at me, she simply said, “See for yourself. Time’s a wasting, Dean Robinson. You have much to do.”
Without so much as another word, she then vanished in a whisk of unnatural smoke accompanied by an impressive clap of thunder.
“Ah, Coop,” I grumbled, making the mental note that Harlan seriously knew how to make an exit, “What did she mean by that?”
“Come on y’all,” Coop replied like it all made perfect sense, “If Owen’s playing with himself again — we sure as hell don’t want to miss it.”
And then he simply opened the peculiar metal door to the NecroLord’s lair and eagerly disappeared into the darkness.
Convinced that I was missing something in translation, I turned to Rooster with a blank stare.
Smirking, he said, “Nobody plays with themselves like Double OT.”
And for the first time in a long time, I found myself profoundly at a loss for words.
Chapter 24
“Ah, guys,” I protested, as Doc and I followed Rooster and Coop down the dark labyrinth of concrete steps toward the sound of blaring music somewhere in the near distance, “Shouldn’t we like, knock or something?”
“Nah,” Coop replied, disturbingly more than okay with the notion of busting in on some dude who was evidently smack in the middle of a hot date with Rosie Palmer. “We don’t want to interrupt him. Sounds like he’s still going strong.”
Turning to Doc to make sure I wasn’t the only one that thought this was more than a bit ludicrous, she just shrugged her shoulders and muttered, “Don’t look at me. They’re your friends.”
Fortunately, as we reached the bottom of the stairs and I got a good look at what the hell was going on in NecroLord’s lair — it all made sense.
Sort of.
Actually, it really didn’t.
But, to be fair, that’s nothing new.
Not sure why I bother trying to figure this shit out anymore.
At any rate, in the dead center of a white, octagonal room decorated with nothing but black curtains and a staggering collection of empty whiskey bottles, stood three guys amidst a towering forest of ginormous amplifiers. Feverishly shredding a heavy metal version of Purple Haze, they seemed completely oblivious to our presence as their vintage array of guitars unnaturally rang out like an anarchist’s symphony in uncanny, perfect tempo.
And oddly, each of them appeared to be subtly flickering in and out of existence faster than my eyes could perceive what the hell was actually happening.
And more oddly, they all looked the same.
Exactly the same.
Almost like it wasn’t three guys.
It was one guy.
“Playing with himself,” I grumbled.
“Pretty dagum impressive, ain’t it?” Coop said, stuffing a wad of tobacco in his cheek.
“I’m just glad his pants aren’t around his ankles.”
“What’d you say, hoss?”
“Never mind. How the hell is he doing that?”
“With a lot of concentration,” Rooster replied, busting out his air guitar and playing along with Owen who was still fully engrossed in playing with himself.
Awkward?
Shaking her head in disbelief, Doc said, “That’s incredible. Can he clone himself like that Kruger jackass or something?”
“No. No he can’t. But, what he can do is time phase between the past and the future in such infinitesimal increments that it appears that there’s three of him in the present.”
“Perfect,” she muttered, clearly regretting she asked. “Because having the ability to play three different guitars in perfect harmony while straddling the time space continuum in either direction makes so much more sense than being able to clone yourself.”
“I don’t much care how he does it,” Coop chimed in, “I just dagum love watching Owen play with him—”
“Coop,” I grunted, “You really need to stop saying that, man.”
“Seriously, Cooper,” Doc added.
Shaking off the disturbing double entendre for the moment, I focused my attention on the enigma that was Owen Octavius Trask — A.K.A. the time hopping Ayatollah of Rock ‘n’ Rolla, who evidently still had no earthly idea we were standing there.
Easily six feet tall and built like Brad Pitt with a certain Matthew McConaughey flair, the otherworldly mercenary turned arcane guitar hero was sporting an obnoxious tie-dyed tee shirt ornately airbrushed with a gigantic fluffy kitten shooting laser beams from its adorable mega paws at a crowd of screaming people.
And I think I might’ve actually given him a pass on the shirt if the rest of his outfit didn’t consist of a b
aggy pair of Spider Man boxer shorts, fru fru cowboy boots bedazzled with hundreds of multicolored rhinestones, and goofy oversized Elvis glasses.
But it did.
Not looking a day older than thirty, the peculiar time phantom happily jammed with reckless abandon as his majestic mane of dark brown, shoulder length hair epically flipped and tossed about his shoulders like that Fabio guy from the nineties commercials. Matching his flowing locks was a thick, art-fully sculpted beard that melded into a grungy culmination of hairy tentacles proudly protruding from his chin.
And if all that wasn’t enough, every inch of skin on both his arms was covered in intricately inked tattoos of snaking Japanese dragons that formed surreal sleeves extending to the very tips of his fingers.
“Should we, ah, say something?” I asked, getting the distinct impression that given the opportunity, Double OT would continue playing guitar with himself for the foreseeable future.
“Before we actually get his attention,” Doc interjected, “How do you guys intend to convince NecroLord to join our cause?”
“Well,” Rooster replied, “Owen’s an unorthodox kind of dude, so I sort of have an unorthodox kind of plan.”
“Unorthodox, eh?” I muttered. “Care to elaborate?”
“Trust me, you probably don’t want to hear it. But, you’ll know it’s working if everything looks like it’s completely gone to shit. And when that happens — just go with it.”
“Right. Okay, so does anyone else have a slightly better plan?”
When both Coop and Erin just shrugged their shoulders, I grumbled, “Great. Then we’re evidently going with Rooster’s plan of letting everything go to complete shit. Frigg’n perfect. How do we get the time hippie to stop, ah, playing with himself?”
And I can’t believe I just said that.
Putting his fingers in the corners of his mouth, Coop then proceeded to let out perhaps the loudest goddamn whistling sound I’d ever frigg’n heard.
Which unfortunately scared the living shit out of Owen causing him to immediately stop playing and look up like he was being mugged. With his concentration broken, his past and future incarnations melted from existence and two of the three guitars he was playing crashed to the floor in a horrid thud, accompanied by screeching amplifier static.
“Ah, howdy, cuz,” Coop apprehensively muttered, staring at the now trashed Fender Stratocaster and Gibson Les Paul strewn about Owen’s feet in various and assorted pieces.
“Cooper Trooper?” He yelled, in a highly animated, raspy voice featuring a noticeable twang. “Hashtag — What the frak’n flip, bro? I mean like holy shit on rye. You can’t be creeping all up in a brother’s lair like that. Didn’t you see my sign? Damn, man. This is not coolio, son. You feeling me, brah?”
“My bad. We were just—”
“Ha! LOL!” Double OT screamed, ripping his glasses off and tossing them across the room as he started to pace like he was having an inspired epiphany. “Okay. I see what’s happening here. This ain’t real. I’m having another drunkadelic halluncinatory interlude. You’re not Cooper Trooper. You’re just a figmentation of my imagination. Whiskey!”
“It’s me, Owen. I’m really here.”
“Hells no you ain’t.”
“Yessir, I am.”
“That’s a big negatory, morning glory. Wanna know how I know? Do ya? Do ya? Do ya?”
“Ah, sure?”
“Because, faux Cooper Trooper, the real Cooper Trooper would never ever ever ever sneak Rooster flipping O’Dickhole into my sanctimonious sanctuary of peace, harmony, and zendebrah. Ergo, my fake bald brother from an imaginary baby mama, you are not real — hence, I need another drink — or several. Boom! Ha! Cat!”
“I’m sorry, cuz, but we’re really here. And we need your help—”
Covering his ears, Owen blurted out, “Blahdyblahdablah. Blahbaganda and blahsphemy!”
“Owen—”
“No, sir! I’m gonna close my eyes and count to three. And then — you, Johnny Roosterballs, the brooding buffola in the ratty jeans, and the brunette Hottie McHotterson will be long gone. Actually, I hope she’s still here — but, the rest of you imaginary fools need to be outtie five thousand. Feel me? Good! Smell ya laters. One — Two — Three!”
And when he opened his eyes to find all four of us awkwardly waving at him, he yelled, “Oh, hells no. You’re still here.”
“Yes. Yes we are,” Rooster said, taking a step toward the befuddled time hippie. “And we need your help. It’s important.”
“Wait — Are you telling me this is actually happening? You’re really real? Like for reals?”
“Yeppers.”
“Hmmmmm,” he muttered, pondering on the circumstances for a second or two. “Excuse me for uno momento. I’m suddenly finding myself in dire need of sage counsel.”
And before I knew what the hell was happening, another version of him, that I could only assume was from nanoseconds into the future, shimmered into existence. Then he began talking to himself — literally.
“Dude!” He said to himself, somewhat under his breath.
“What up, broselfio?” He answered.
“Why the flipping funk is Rooster O’Dargan in our lair?”
“Tis’ a curious conundrum. Maybe he’s popping by to apologize to us for acting like a total douchepants in France.”
“You think?”
“Ha! No! He’s here to kill us!”
“Hashtag — Holy jalapeño popper! That’s what I thought too.”
“We should kill him first.”
“We should. But, we don’t do that sort of stuff anymore, remember? We’re all zenful and shit.”
“We’ ll make an exception. He’s a dick.”
“He’s a total dick.”
“Kill him!”
“Hells yeah! How should we do it?”
“With an umbrella.”
“Why an umbrella?”
“Because we don’t have any bananas, Silly Binilly.”
“Ha! Excellent point!”
“Okay, good talk.”
“Yeah, good talk. See you soon, brah. Hasta.”
“Word.”
As future Owen faded from existence, present Owen turned to face us seemingly now ready for business.
“So,” Rooster muttered, “You know we could hear you the whole time, right?”
“Is my first person narrative happening out loud again?”
“Totally.”
“Son of a bitch! MacGhil promised me he was fixing that in the last edit. That rat bastard!”
“Who?”
“Never mind, laments the dashingly suave hero … Sigh.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Exposition. It’s the best part of any story.”
“Ah, okay, look, Owen—”
“NecroLord.”
“Ah, okay, NecroLord, I don’t want any trouble. I’m only here to ask you for your help.”
“Ha! I knew it. You sick, twisted bastard. What kind of dude asks for another dude’s help to kill the same flipping dude? That’s some seriously jacked up jedi shit, bro. Well, it ain’t working on me, son!”
Then NecroLord did something I think I might actually remember for the rest of my unnatural afterlife.
In a blur of motion, he grabbed an umbrella that was leaning against one of the speakers and proceeded to, somewhat comically, charge at Rooster like it was a scene straight out of Braveheart. Screaming the entire time, he then attempted to clumsily thrust the frigg’n umbrella straight through Rooster’s chest like it was a goddamn spear. But, as it was not a spear — and he was piss drunk — all he ended up doing was poking Rooster in the chest hard enough to make the parasol of death flip open.
Completely undeterred by the failed assassination attempt, Owen continued to jab, bob, and weave while yelling, “That’s right, bitchacho! Feel the pain. No mercy!”
As Rooster’s eyes and skin flashed an unnatural red, he frustratingly grabbe
d the improvised lance and snapped it in half like a twig.
“Damn it, man. Will you freaking knock it off already? We only came to talk. That’s it.”
“Lies! Lies! And, OMG — more lies! Wait! You serious, bro? You’re not like here to kill me?”
“No! And, ah, I’m really sorry about that thing in France, okay? I was a total dick. We good?”
Spinning toward Coop, Owen said, “Is this legit, Cooper Trooper?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, cuz.”
Suspiciously eyeballing me and Doc, he asked, “And what about Hottie Biscotti and monkey man over there?”
“They’re with the Guild.”
“The mother flipping Guild? For reals?”
“It’s, okay, pard. They’re friendlies. Trust me.”
“Friendlies, eh?”
Handing him the bourbon Harlan gave me earlier, I said, “Here. Take a drink before you have a frigg’n aneurysm.”
Happily snatching the bottle and uncorking it with his mouth, he muttered, “Now you’re talking my language, whistlebritches.”
Draining the contents in one fell swig, he stared at us for a long second or two as his eyes danced with rapid thought. Then the crazy bastard screamed, “Thai food!” before disappearing in a flickering shimmer of light accompanied by a distinctive yet subtle popping sound.
“Where the hell’d he go?” I scoffed, looking around to no avail. “And did he just call me whistlebritches?”
“I think he also referred to you as a ‘brooding buffola’ as well as ‘monkey man’,” Rooster replied. “Just in case you missed it.”
“Thanks for pointing that out, ‘Johnny Roosterballs’.”
“Owen does have a way with words, don’t he?” Coop snickered.
“So, is he coming back?” Doc asked.
“Of course he’s coming back, tootse,” Double OT scoffed, flickering back into existence wearing a completely different outfit and holding a steaming plate of crispy noodles and pan fried tofu, drenched in curry sauce, “He happens to live here. Sometimes anyway.”
In lieu of his KittenZilla shirt and boxer short motif, he was now sporting an untucked black dress shirt that looked a few days overdue for a trip to the cleaners, ripped jeans, and some bright blue Vans sneakers with fat white laces. Sitting Indian style atop one of the mammoth amplifiers, he proceeded to voraciously shovel food into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks like he hadn’t eaten anything for a month.
Wrath of the Fallen: The Guild of Deacons, Book 2 Page 22
