by Mac Flynn
He smiled and grasped my hand. "Only if you are by my side."
I leaned my cheek against his arm and smiled. "Forever."
That wasn't a promise I could keep just then, but things would change soon enough.
JUST DESSERTS
CHAPTER 1
"Watch it with that thing!" Ralph yelped.
"I'm being careful!" I argued.
"Yer fingers! Yer gonna lose yer fingers!" he screamed.
I put my hands palms-down on the top of the cardboard box and glared at him across the void of dead wood. "You want to open these boxes?"
He scowled back at me. "Ya know what happened the last time Ah opened a delivery!"
Ralph and I stood in the middle of the kitchen with a new shipment of plates and cups for the diner. The regulars had had a fight the other night. Somebody had made the comment that their pistons were bigger than somebody else's and chaos had ensued. The ancient china of the diner, much of it from the Tang dynasty, had exploded against walls, windows, stools, foreheads, pocketbooks, tiles, the coffee maker, and even in the cracks between the tables and the walls. There were no survivors. Of the china, that is. The truckers all made it through with only a minor amount of scratches, cuts, stitches, and loss of blood.
"I don't think these dishes are going to be haunted," I told him.
"Ah'm not taking any chances, now stop yer yapping and start using that box cutter right!" he ordered me.
I held a box cutter in my right hand. This was the first time Ralph had allowed any of his employees to handle such a weapon. He usually just gave us the knives and forks with which to defend ourselves against unwanted advances.
"I know how to handle one of these," I assured him as I returned to cutting the packing tape off the top of the boxes.
"Don't cut towards yerself! Cut away!" he snapped.
"Then I'd be cutting towards you," I pointed out.
The color drained from his face and he hurriedly stepped back. I appreciated the room. His breath smelled like a tuna-head sandwich after it sat on the counter for a biblical amount of time.
"Well, don't cut so fast! This stuff ain't going nowhere!" he ordered me.
I pocketed the box cutter, opened the first box, and peeked in. Ralph stretched his neck and looked inside. The china was of the finest quality that a Third-World, pre-industrial country could offer. The white color was off and the plates weren't completely round. Ralph stepped up and took the top one in hand.
"Not too bad," he commented.
"I don't know if they're thick enough," I added. The interim between the rowdy night and the arrival of the plates had seen Ralph's food eat away dozens of plastic and paper plates.
"They'll work," he growled. He set one on the counter. The plate rocked back and forth showing its bottom was as flat as a soup bowl. "Yer just gonna have to be careful with 'em, that's all."
"Yeah, we wouldn't want the customers to think this place wasn't on a fault zone," I quipped.
"Ain't it time for ya to leave?" he snarled.
"Past time," I told him as I closed the flaps of the box.
"Ah'm not paying ya-"
"I know, I know, no overtime, holiday, or death-of-a-family-member's-dog pay," I finished for him.
"Darn right!" he agreed.
I snatched my jacket from its hook and slipped it on, but I paused at the door and turned to him. "I forgot to ask. Did that Finnegan guy ever stop bothering you?" I wondered.
"Yep. Last message Ah got from him was some phone call about fish and stuff," Ralph told me. He shook his head and flipped off the front lights. "Some people are just nuts."
"Aren't we all?" I murmured as I opened the door.
I stepped outside and shivered. Gone was the autumn, and in its place was the cool chill of winter. A light snow fell as I stood at the top of the dangerous stairs. The steps beneath me were covered in crunched and frozen snow. One false step and you'd be pushing up daises a few months before spring.
"Can't we buy a bag of salt for the stairs?" I yelled over my shoulder at Ralph.
"No, and don't let me catch ya using the table salt, neither!" he shouted back.
I rolled my eyes and shut the door behind me. I grabbed the railing and stepped carefully down the steps. My car sat a few yards off, and a few miles off was a warm apartment and a certain frisky vampire who waited for me with a hot bowl of soup and hopefully no clothes. On the vampire, not the bowl.
My foot reached the last dangerous step when a sudden gust of wind blew over me. I was pulled forward. My hand lost its grip on the railing and I tumbled to the cold, ice-hardened ground. I fell on my side and skidded a few feet before I stopped a yard short of my car door.
I sat up and rubbed my bruised side. "Damn it. . ." I muttered.
"Too late," a voice quipped.
I whipped my head up and found myself face to ankles with Rose the Brat Vampire. She grinned down at me with her sharp, pearly-white fangs. Behind her loomed a taller shadow of a man in a black coat. I put on a brave face and put myself in full reverse as I tried to scurry away from them on my hands and knees.
"Get her," Rose ordered her companion.
The man swept past Rose and into the light from the diner kitchen. My eyes widened when I beheld Ginsleh the vampire hunter. He stooped and caught me by the collar. I was lifted off the ground, but I kicked and swung my arms. He pulled my back against his chest and pinned my arms to my side with his own limbs.
"What the hell are you doing helping a vampire?" I shouted at him. "She's you're enemy! Let me go and go after her!"
He sneered at me. "I don't listen to humans," he growled at me.
"Don't try to trick my servant into believing he's someone he's not," Rose scolded me as she came up to us. Her eyes glowed bright red and I felt myself getting sleepy. "Now we shall have our fun with you and Roland."
My heavy eyelids closed and I lost consciousness.
The next thing I remembered was waking up with a bad hangover and even worse memories. I lay on my side, and my arms and legs were pinned against me. I opened my eyes and saw I was in the center of some sort of large, shadowed room. The only source of light came from the dozens of candles that melted around the edges of the space. They let me see that the walls were made of stone and were covered in cobwebs, dust, spiders, and slots for coffins.
I did a double-take. There were definitely coffins in those wide, long alcoves. My last memories of Rose and Ginsleh's union told me I'd better find a way to escape. There was a tall, open stone doorway in front of me, and I could see a dark night sky and the shadow of trees and short slabs of stones. I twisted and turned, but the bonds that held me were tight.
"You won't find an easy escape from those ropes," Rose's voice spoke up. She stepped from the shadows at my feet and smiled at me. "My servant is quite adapt at creating bonds even a vampire would have difficulty breaking." Something glistened in her hand. I squinted my eyes and beheld my cellphone. She noticed where my gaze was and tossed the phone to me. It clattered to the ground and slid until it hit my gut. "I hope you will forgive me, but during your temporary sleep I used your device to call a friend. He promised to be here in a few minutes."
My eyes widened. "Mhmh!" I yelled. You'll have to forgive my strange way of speaking. I was gagged.
She laughed. "Exactly. And I have such a surprise awaiting him." She swept her hand over the ground. I looked at the floor and noticed there were chalk lines around me. "I hope he appreciates the welcome I have for him. It took quite a few tries to get the precise measurements of the room to align with the symbols."
A soft breeze blew through the open door and extinguished some of the candles. Rose frowned and pulled a lighter from her pocket.
"Blasted night air. . ." she muttered as she went to relight the group of candles.
I took advantage of her distraction to struggle in my ropes, but Rose was right. That guy could tie a mean knot. My hands could move just enough to wiggle, and I could flop from one sid
e to the other. I did a single barrel roll and something fell from my pocket. My eyes widened when I beheld the box cutter. Ralph had forgotten to snatch it from me before I left.
I rolled back to my starting position and my fingers grasped the box cutter. Rose paused in her lighting and turned to me with a frown. I tried to give her an innocent smile, but it came more as a grimace. Her eyes narrrowed, but she returned to managing her war against electricity.
I grasped the box cutter in one hand and worked away at the ropes. Fortunately Ginsleh hadn't heard about the miracles of chains or I'd have been in worse trouble. With a little distraction from another gust of wind I managed to cut through more than half the rope before Rose finished her candle lighting business. The loss of lighter fuel had forced her to use the candles, and she held one in her hand when I heard a noise at the doorway. Rose and I looked and saw Ginsleh in the doorway. He bowed his head to her.
"My Mistress, he comes," Ginsleh informed her.
"Good." She dropped her candle into place and moved to the rear of the room. A tall table of stone stood at the back and on it lay a few dozen candles and a large book that would have made Tolstoy envious. She picked up the book and looked to her new servant. "Move to the side and allow our friend entrance."
Ginsleh stepped over to her and against the coffin wall. I sawed faster through my bindings, but it wasn't easy keeping the pair from noticing. In a moment there came another sound in the doorway, and I looked up dreading what I would see.
Roland, my roommate and boyfriend, stood in the doorway.
"Mmm!" I yelled at him.
The message must have been lost in translation because Roland stepped into the room.
"Not a step closer," Rose warned him.
He jerked to a stop and glared at her. "What was your purpose in stealing Misty away?" he questioned her.
A wide smile slipped onto her lips as she flipped open the book to one of the last pages. "I will show you." She raised one of her hands above her head and her dark red eyes lit up with glee. "May the dark lord's power rise without and trap this dark one's soul within!" she shouted.
A wind tore from the book and the markings on the chalky ground lit up with an eerie white glow. The wind tore the gag from my mouth, but not the ropes from around my arms. Dark light burst from the symbols beneath Roland's feet and morphed into bars. They reached from the floor to the ceiling, and emitted a dark, pulsing glow of light from their thick bodies. Now we were both trapped.
And I really needed to go to the bathroom.
CHAPTER 2
Roland tried to step out of the circle, but one touch of the bars and they crackled and sparked. He started back, and Rose laughed.
"You as a creature of darkness escape from the cell of demons," she told him. She walked up and tapped a cell bar with her own long fingernail, and the bar sizzled. "No dark being can break the magic in this book."
"What sorcery is this?" he questioned her.
She held up the tome to him so he could read the cover. "Does this book perhaps appear familiar to you?"
Roland's eyes narrowed. "How came you to have that book?"
Rose smirked at him and walked around the cell. "A werewolf was careless with the book, and I stole it away for a short while." She raised the book and brushed a hand over the leather cover. "I admit the spells and language were not easy to decipher, but I believe I am ready for the grand spell to finally give your soul to me."
"Didn't you get the news? He's got his soul back," I spoke up.
Rose turned to me and her smirk widened. "I had heard as much from others, but that is of little consequence. I merely intend to steal his soul from his body and place it in my own."
I glanced at Roland. "Seriously? Is that possible?"
He pursed his lips and his eyes fell on the book. "Anything is possible when the wielder holds the Myrddin Grimoire."
"The whats-it?" I asked him.
Rose held the book out to me. "This is the Myrddin Grimoire. The most powerful grimoire in the world."
"I don't know what a dire book has to do with anything," I argued.
Rose dropped her arms and glared at me. "Grimoire, not grim," she snapped.
I shrugged, or tried to. "I'm still not following."
The short vampire stomped past me to the other side of the short room. She spun around and flipped open the pages. "You will follow in a moment," she assured me. Rose's search ended at the back of the book, and her smile returned. Her eyes flitted over the room. "All the pieces are in place." She raised a hand and the book pulsed with a dark light. Her eyes flickered to Roland and her voice chanted the magical words. "By the darkness in my hand and the dark lord in the land, let our souls be born anew in the body of we two."
A swirl of wind whipped through the room. I ate dust, cobwebs, and their spider tenants. The dark light from the book rose from the pages as a thick strand and flew through the air. That end slammed into Roland's chest. He whipped his head back and let out a cry of pain and horror.
The other end rose from the pages and stabbed itself into Rose's chest. She screamed and the book clattered to the ground, its pages still open to the hideous spell.
I imitated a beaver and chewed through the rest of the ropes with the box cutter. The binds fell off me and I jumped to my feet.
My plan was simple: don't die. The execution was a little messier. I figured what Rose had said about Roland's cell was true. A creature of darkness couldn't break it. I'd been called a lot of things in my short life, but creature of darkness wasn't one of them. I threw myself at Roland's prison and prayed to God this would work.
Half of my message got through because I got through. The dark shadow bars parted for me like they were mist and I grabbed Roland's arm. That's when the last half of my message to God became a dropped call.
The dark strand that connected Roland to Rose changed directions. Rose's end took a sharp right and slammed into me. Horrible, fiery pain shot through my body like the end of the Devil's cane, but deeper. It pulled something out of me and shoved something colder and older into its place.
"No!" I heard Rose scream.
She ran up to us and tried to grab me, but the dark bars of Roland's cell filtered through me and into her. She was blown back and Ginsleh caught her. The pair could only watch the unwilling transaction.
I glimpsed the transfer of two dark shadows through the conduit of the strand. One, a white shadow, flew into Roland, and out of him and into me went a darker shadow.
The moment the two shadows completed their short trek was the moment the thick strand burst apart. Roland and I were thrown into opposite walls, and Ginsleh and Rose were tossed against the far back wall. The dark light and the candles were blown out, and the crypt fell into darkness as a dust cloud covered everything.
I coughed on the cloud and raised myself onto my arms. My eyes scanned the dark room and somehow found Roland's stiff body five feet from me. He lay face-down on the hard stone floor. I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn't hold me.
"Roland," I choked out.
There was no reply. I stuffed my phone into my pocket and crawled towards him. I winced when my body told me that was a really stupid idea. Every muscle and bone fell like it'd been placed in front of a brick wall and an entire middle school was given permission to over-inflated hard gator-skin balls at me for a few hours. I made it to Roland and shook his shoulder.
"Roland?" I whispered. "You okay?"
Roland shifted and raised his quivering head. His blue eyes blinked back at me.
"Misty." He raised his hand, but it dropped to his side. "Misty, I-" A noise from the back of the crypt told me the crypt keepers were waking up.
"No time for apologies," I scolded him. I slung his droopy arm over my shoulders and climbed to my shaky feet. He didn't feel as heavy as other times I'd dragged his undead corpse out of trouble. "We gotta get out of here before we're invited for dessert."
I dragged him across the threshold of the crypt a
nd out into the open, clean, snowy air of the graveyard. Never did moldy grass, damp snow, and leaves smell so good. I stumbled down the white hill and Roland tried to help by walking, but his feet kept dragging over the rocks and flat stone markers. He caught his feet a half dozen times before I paused and frowned at him.
"Roland, I don't think our enemies need any help from either of us, so just go limp for a while," I told him.
"I. . .must warn. . .you-" he wheezed. "Our-" A twig behind us snapped. I looked over my shoulder, but didn't see anything except a really short distance between us and the crypt.
"Warning later, panicking now," I told him.
I dragged him to the foot of the hill and set him on a stone bench helpfully provided by one of the deceased. He held himself upright while I took caught my breath.
"You don't happen to be able to fly right now, do you?" I wheezed. He shook his head, and I pursed my lips together. "There goes the Superman escape route. Now on to the telecommunications one." I whipped out my phone and pressed a few buttons.
"Who are. . .you calling?" he asked me.
"Uncle Seward and Aunt Ma. I don't think Ralph would come to our rescue," I quipped as I put the phone to my ear. The phone rang a couple of times before someone picked up.
"Hello?" Aunt Ma answered.
"Aunt Ma, Roland and I are in a little bit of trouble. Think you or Uncle Seward could come pick us up?" I pleaded.
"Of course, Misty. Where are you?" she asked me.
"Out in Portham Cemetery," I told her.
"What in the world are you doing there?" she scolded me.
"Trying not to become a lifetime member of the Dead Club, now could you please hurry down here?" I insisted.
"All right. Uncle Seward and I will be right there," she promised.
"And tell Uncle Seward to break some speed limits. This is an emergency," I added.
"Very well, but you've got a lot of explaining to do when we get there," she warned me.
