The Last Death Worm of the Apocalypse (Kelly Driscoll Book 3)

by Nina Post

  “It’s pretty isolating, actually,” Thaddas said. “I haven’t met any women in the same field yet. Well, one, but there’s too much of an age difference, and she’s with someone, anyway.”

  Af wasn’t really listening. He noticed that some of the chamber people had started giving Papp some side-eye and whispering among themselves, as though beginning the preparations for an old-fashioned hanging or burning.

  One of the men, white-haired with chubby cheeks, approached Papp, wolfing his food down at a high side table. “My friends and I were wondering who you’re with,” the chamber man said to Papp. “I don’t think we’ve seen you here before.”

  Papp didn’t bother to stop eating. “So?”

  “So, this event is for paying members of the Danville Chamber of Commerce, and I’m asking if you’re a member or a guest of a member.”

  “What are you, the secret police? The Stasi of Danville? Is there a West Danville I can go to?” Papp laughed, spitting a piece of macaroni and cheese on the man’s suit lapel.

  For a fraction of a second, Af thought there were things he could like about Papp if he weren’t so… himself. He put his plate down and hurried over. “I’m sorry for my friend—he’s going through a contentious divorce.”

  The chamber man was implacable. Af tried again: “We can’t make most of the meetings owing to our busy travel schedule, and I admit that we’ve been putting off our memberships. Can I sign up now?”

  “We’re not buying memberships,” Papp said, mouth crammed full of food.

  The chamber man reached out and tried to take Papp’s plate. “We don’t appreciate crashers,” he said, tugging at the plate. Papp didn’t like this at all; he set off the sprinklers—Af was surprised the chamber building had functioning sprinklers—called in several feral cats from outside, and made the record player in the main room play sea shanties.

  “You want my food, which by the way, he already paid for?” Papp gestured to Af, shouting over the music. Af didn’t know Papp had even seen him do that. “Take it!” Papp shoved his half-full plate in the man’s face and a few other sons of the Danville Chamber of Commerce tackled him to the floor.

  “You should be so lucky to get crashers!” Af heard Papp dimly shout from inside the pile.

  Af and Thaddas came forward and were caught in the ensuing melee. One of the men shoved Papp, who fell against the fish fry table, overturning the giant platter of fish and coating Af and Thaddas with the now-cool frying oil.

  The brawl started in earnest, with insurance salesmen, realtors, flooring specialists, morticians, accountants, and dentists (Af supposed) all piling on like they’d wanted to start a fight club for some time but had never gotten the chance.

  Amidst crashing and shattering and screaming and hissing (cats and indeterminate sources), fists flew, sports jackets were ripped, plastic platters and cups were thrown, cheap wine was spilled.

  Then the police came in.

  As a Chaos Demon, I’m Pretty Much My Own Boss

  f sat in the county jail and glared at Papp. “First the cheese wheel, and now this.”

  Papp was supine, arm under his head, taking a carefree catnap.

  Af wondered who was more awful—the death-wormery breeder or Papp. It was a close race, with the guru running third by now. “They’ll probably leave us here for a month until our trial.”

  “Trial? What trial?” Papp said with scorn.

  “You know what I’m talking about. The cheese. The chamber meeting.” Af ran his hands through his hair, appalled. His hair felt disgusting. All of him was disgusting: he was coated in a kind of congealed fat and reeked of fish as did Thaddas, who looked at least as bad.

  Thaddas sat cross-legged on the floor. “I’m probably going to be sacked over this. Bad enough to take a few days off this soon into a new job.”

  “We’re doing you a favor, Thadd,” Papp said, eyes still closed. “Break out on your own, start your own business. I mean, junior representative? That sounds like a fancy title for a kid’s paper route.”

  “I don’t want to start my own business,” Thaddas said. “I’m not good at responsibilities. Better that I do my job, and let the company take care of things.”

  Papp snorted. “Oh, right, like you pay taxes.”

  Thaddas shrugged. “No. They’ve never sent me a form, anyway. But I’m actually quite lazy. And the company has a connection to whatever ultimately employs me. I don’t know how it all works, exactly. OK, I don’t really know at all. But I don’t think it would make sense to break out on my own. I wouldn’t be a grim reaper, separating a body from its soul and sending its soul to its next destination; I would be an assassin, really. A contract killer, like you mentioned before. Grim reapers can’t start their own business. It doesn’t work that way.”

  Papp put both hands under his head like he was getting some sun on the lido deck. “What about you, Af? Does it work the same way? Because you know, as a chaos demon, I’m pretty much my own boss. No one tells me where to go or what to do. If I want to cause chaos, I do it. No signature required. No expense reports. No performance review. So what’s your deal?”

  Af stood up and pointed at the cell. “My deal? My deal is that I’m in the county lockup. My deal is that they stripped me of all my belongings, processed me, and gave me this jumpsuit that’s practically rubbing my skin off. By the time I get out of here, I’ll look like I have ringworm.”

  Papp blew a raspberry and closed his eyes again. Af didn’t let up, knowing Papp wasn’t really sleeping. “My deal is that I made the horrible mistake of procuring the services of a chaos demon on Craigslist, even though I’ve found some nice, mid-century furniture there before, and that I’ll probably end up in a maximum security prison before this trip is over. My deal is that my girlfriend probably despises me by now and since I’ve lost all conception of time, has probably already married a viscount or someone who specializes in private equity buyouts.”

  Papp blinked and gave Af a tiny shake of his head. “Oh, no, I meant, like, your job. What’s the deal with being the angel of destruction?”

  Af was close to turning back into his original form and letting loose, especially when Papp turned and propped his head up with his elbow like he wanted to hear a story at a sleepover.

  But he was in enough trouble as it was. He had to focus on getting back home to Kelly and never, ever, ever, never ever, never, never ever leaving again, at least not like this, not without her.

  Thaddas leaned forward. “Yes, I’d like to know, too.”

  Af had to try to forget that Papp was there. His presence was infuriating. Af took a seat again and turned away from Papp. “There’s not much to say.”

  “Oh, you’re being modest,” Thaddas said. “You are the angel of destruction, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one and only. There aren’t thousands or hundreds of angels of destruction.”

  “There are more specific ones,” Af said, thinking of Raum, who he hoped hadn’t made Kelly’s job any harder than it already was, at least not yet. “But it’s only me in that category.”

  “Isn’t that an awful lot to do?” Thaddas asked.

  “Yeah, do you get, like, instructions?” Papp said.

  “And whom do you get instructions from, exactly?”

  Af really didn’t feel like answering any of these questions. He wasn’t a very good angel of destruction, after all. He’d been wondering, actually, if he could retire or switch with someone, like the angel of casseroles or the angel of national parks, or something along those lines. From what he had heard, you couldn’t switch, but maybe it was that no one had ever asked, like that irritating thing he heard a lot in his human form: “Well, no one’s ever complained about this before.” Madness. Like something the Red Queen would say.

  “I can’t say. I’m not really sure.” Which is true enough.

  Some kind of jail official went up to their doors and pointed to Af. “You got one phone call.”

&nb
sp; “Sweet!” Papp said. “Order pizza, I’m starving!”

  As Af left the jail cell he paused to look at Papp. “You can’t be serious. I saw what you ate at the chamber of commerce.”

  “I have a fast metabolism,” Papp protested.

  “You do not.” Af followed the officer down a hall to a phone.

  He called Kelly, of course, and felt immensely relieved that she answered.

  “It’s me,” Af said.

  “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “I’m calling from the Danville county jail in Danville, New York, near the Ohio state line.”

  “Jail? What happened?”

  Af massaged his forehead and grimaced. “The chaos demon started a brawl at a chamber of commerce and now I’m covered in fish fry oil.”

  Kelly snorted. He thought she might have sneezed but she started laughing, and so hard that she had to put the phone down and walk away. “I’m sorry. I—” And there were more paroxysms of laughter before she took a deep breath and said, “Sorry. Really. It’s… fish fry oil?”

  “The table was tipped over. On us.”

  “You and Papp?”

  “No, on me and Thaddas. Thaddas is a grim reaper Papp picked up hitchhiking in Ohio.”

  “You’ll have to explain that later. But obviously you need someone to bail you out.”

  “Oh. Um, yes. I don’t think anyone at the Danville chamber will come forward. And it has to be both me and Papp. And it should probably be Thaddas, too, to be nice. I will recompense you as soon as possible.”

  “OK. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I really want to shower,” Af said, closing his eyes. “I want to get some reasonably decent motel and take at least three showers. However many it takes. But I want to warn you that it may take weeks to really come out. Perhaps the CDC has some off-site cleansing facilities I can use.”

  “I hope you’re back before that,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry I left. I feel like a monumental idiot.”

  The phone voice interrupted. “Please deposit twenty-five cents to continue.”

  “Hello? Kelly?” No answer. And he didn’t even have a quarter. He hung up the phone emphatically, trying not to slam it down. “Stupid human money!” He followed the impassive officer back to the cell and got locked back inside.

  “Hail, brother!” Papp said.

  “Don’t you have a memory palace you can go into?” Af said.

  “No, that’s Thaddas.”

  “Why don’t you work on making one?” Af suggested through gritted teeth.

  “Eh, not interested.” Papp got up and paced around the cell, silently boasting, Af presumed, that he was the only one not coated in congealed fish fry.

  He put his faith in Kelly that she would somehow find a way to get him out of here, even though she undoubtedly had a thousand fires to put out at work. He wished she would realize that she was an even better manager than Roger.

  “So, like, what’s in your memory palace, Thadd-o?” Papp asked. “Helicopter landing pad? A Ferrari?”

  “What? No, the usual things: the periodic table, a list of world capitals, US Presidents, a table for how to factor common polynomials, uh… languages, metric conversions… things like that.”

  Papp made a disapproving sound. “Who cares?”

  Roger had it in his nature to be helpful, Af knew, his mind turning to Kelly’s job, but Roger had spent too much time dealing with individual unit owners. He drained his time and energy trying to be there for everyone.

  Kelly was better at saying to no to those kinds of things, and better at taking care of larger responsibilities for the building. Roger was more likely to seek additional approval from the board and Claw & Crutty, whereas Kelly was more competent in making decisions and spending money to address building issues. She fixed problems faster, and Amenity Tower had more problems than other buildings its size.

  He hoped the residents would stop acting like petulant children because they didn’t have the manager’s undivided attention.

  “Don’t you have anything worthwhile in there?” Papp said.

  “Like what?” Thaddas asked.

  “Song lyrics. Batting averages. Deets on Corvette models.”

  “I could find some room in the kitchen, I suppose.”

  Af thought Roger and Kelly were similar in their genuine dedication to their work, but Kelly was more pragmatic. Roger couldn’t really separate his emotions from his tasks, while Kelly did. Her priority was achieving something, not making every resident feel special. Roger needed to feel needed, Af had believed, but it was also important to Kelly to feel valued, though they sought that approval in different ways.

  He wondered if she missed doing what she used to do. It was likely that she missed the excitement and variety of finding monsters for bounty. It probably gave her a clearer sense of achievement.

  Af approached the bars. “Excuse me. Excuse me? Could I possibly get some napkins?”

  “Nope,” the officer said.

  “I want to wipe off my shirt and—”

  “It’s your own fault.”

  Af didn’t respond. He turned away and pressed on his temple.

  “Didn’t you have to get somewhere?” Thaddas said.

  “Yeah, I did. But I have no idea where that guru is by now, and I can’t check his updates because they confiscated my phone.”

  “What about your… um, powers?” Thaddas said.

  “I don’t have any like this.” Af gestured at himself. “I’d have to change back.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “If I changed back, I’d obliterate this jail and who knows what else. And I’m in enough trouble as it is.” Plus, Kelly wouldn’t be pleased. But he didn’t know how much longer he could take this—and take being human, which was harder than he ever would have expected, even with a certain level of comfort.

  “Well, I’m going to take a cat nap,” Papp said and proceeded to sleep the oblivious, unconcerned sleep of a baby for the next three hours, until the officer returned to the cell.

  “You made bail.”

  “All of us?” Af said, at first hoping that Papp hadn’t, but realized he still technically needed him.

  “Yup,” the officer said.

  After they picked up their belongings, Af saw a short, heavyset blonde woman with a sensible bob wearing jeans and a red sweater over a blouse. She was knitting by herself on a row of plastic chairs.

  “Excuse me,” Af said. “Are you the one who bailed us out?”

  “That’s right.” The woman had a deep, husky voice.

  “How did you—who sent you?” He was curious how Kelly knew her.

  “I got word from Dave, water insects.”

  Dave, Kelly’s majordomo.

  “And who are you?” Af asked her.

  “Oh, I’m in charge of fines, fees, and tariffs.”

  Af raised a brow. “You’re an SP?”

  “SP?” She cracked a smile. “Yes.”

  You really couldn’t assume when it came to SPs. “And may I ask how much?”

  She handed him a receipt. He balked. “OK. Well, thank you for coming here and doing this. I hope it didn’t take you too much out of your way.”

  She waved this off. “Nah. I was north of here, helping someone negotiate to bring in a Cluck Snack product by paying a customs fee instead of having them confiscated. Some kind of salad dressing.”

  “I hear it’s better in Canada,” Papp said.

  The woman got her handbag and stood to leave. “Good luck.”

  Af shook her hand. “Thanks again. If I can ever be of help, ask Dave.”

  After she left, Af wanted nothing more than to be as far away from Papp as possible, but he still wanted to track down that guru.

  “Hey man, you want to go hang out?”

  Af closed his eyes and sighed. Papp. He turned and faced the chaos demon who had become his own personal chaos demon, seemingly created for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc i
n his life.

  “Why would you want to hang out? We were in a jail cell.”

  “Yeah, well, Thadd-o took off—something about work.” Papp rolled his eyes as though he’d never heard anything so preposterous. “And don’t you need to be in the Papp perimeter?”

  Af had never in his life heard anything so horrifying as “in the Papp perimeter.” He deflated; any potential for enthusiasm or joy in the near future was utterly destroyed.

  “Yes,” Af said, putting a hand to his forehead. He still wasn’t free.

  “I saw a bowling alley from the police car on the way here. I’ll drive. But first we’ll have to walk back to the fish fry place.”

  He was in some kind of hell, obviously.

  A Pheromone-Coated Hammock

  he bridge players noshed on raw vegetables and other snacks from the table in the larger enclosed meeting room in the club room.

  The camel spider, whose first name was Karl, ambled in wearing glasses that made his eyes look bigger, and a cabled, cardigan sweater. He put a loaf of his specialty sourdough bread with the other food. “Made it from scratch,” he said with pride.

  Alvin, the wasp-moth, who wore striped antennae warmers, and Dusty, the caterpillar, who had reading glasses suspended on a beaded chain, practically swooned.

  The Jackal, also at the table, laughed at the notion. “Sourdough bread from scratch? I can only make my own drinks. Elysia does all the cooking.” He hesitated. “Did all the cooking.”

  The other players glanced at one another, not sure what to say.

  The camel spider, who enjoyed giving the bread he made to other residents in the building (he could eat only so much bread and work out only so much), smiled and took a seat with the three other players.

  The assassin spider remained unseen from his vantage point in the corner at the ceiling, owing to his petite figure as well as his brownish-gray color, which blended in nicely with the wallpaper and curtains. His cephalothorax made him look like a miniature pelican.

  Although he was a contract killer, and a well-compensated one, and although he took his work seriously to the point of traveling for it beyond his natural endemic range in Australia, his work did not hold a priority in his life.