My Ex-Wife Said Go to Hell

by Zurosky, Kirk

  That was not the last time I killed for Bloodsucker Number One. My life became filled with lotus wine and death. It seemed anytime I was around her, a goblet of lotus wine was in my hand. One night before I had drunk all my wine, I grabbed her and tried to kiss her. But she stopped me, saying that vampire females did not like to kiss—there were just too many teeth involved. So most nights I just passed out in what had become our chambers. The only conjugal relations that occurred happened after I killed for her. Bloodsucker Number One paid for the killings in the oldest way known to mortal or immortal women. Looking back, I would much rather have had the gold. The emptiness and loss of my identity to the lotus wine and Bloodsucker Number One were growing unbearable, but try as I might, I could not leave her and Segovia.

  Bloodsucker Number One’s goal was to make Isabella the queen of Spain, so she brokered a marriage between Isabella and Ferdinand II of Aragon. Isabella and Ferdinand had a minor problem—they were second cousins. Thus, they could not marry without a special dispensation from the pope. Paul II was the pope in 1469, and he was more concerned with collecting jewels, being violated by page boys, and wearing the proper amount of rouge to grant their request. Bloodsucker Number One weighed the balance of killing Paul II with the power vacuum it would cause and decided against it. So she found another way. I accompanied her to visit Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia of Valencia. Her many sources told her he was in possession of a valuable secret.

  Bloodsucker Number One also had a secret—a secret weapon by the name of Vannozza dei Cattanei—and Borgia was instantly smitten with her. So smitten was Borgia with the beautiful and willing Vannozza that he gladly revealed his secret to us. Turned out Pius II, Paul’s predecessor, was not dead but a zombie being held captive by Paul II’s guards in the catacombs of a church in Rome. I took out the guards in a very unholy manner, and Bloodsucker Number One escorted out Zombie Pope Pius II. He was literally coming apart at the seams in his happiness at being freed and happily gave us a papal dispensation for Isabella and Ferdinand to marry. He gladly signed any and all documents that Bloodsucker Number One put in front of him, pressing so hard that he dislocated a few of his fingers, thanking us all the while for his newfound freedom. Mission accomplished.

  “What are we going to do with the Zombie Pope?” I asked Bloodsucker Number One, who was too busy packing the documents the pope had signed for safe transport back to Segovia to even bother answering me.

  “Where will you go?” I asked the Zombie Pope, who was busy flicking his now useless signing hand to and fro, creating a veritable snowstorm of skin flakes that fluttered all around us.

  “Home,” he mumbled.

  “Where is home?” I asked. “Do you need us to take you there?”

  “That is not going to happen,” Bloodsucker Number One interrupted. “This mission is about me and what I need. Excuse me, that was so rude. I mean this mission is now accomplished thanks to the Zombie Pope, but we have to leave in an inconsiderate manner not because we want to, but because our queen demands we return to Segovia without any undue waste of time.”

  “But what are we going to do—just leave him here?” I said. “I think that is wrong since he helped us.”

  Bloodsucker Number One sneered—or maybe that was just her face, I could never really tell—and handed me a wooden canteen filled with lotus wine. “You are not here to think, just to kill,” she said. “Here, drink this.” And I did. She walked off, leaving me with the canteen of lotus wine that by now was quite familiar to me. I turned to look back at the Zombie Pope, who seemed to be looking at me like I was the man who was undead and needed to be pitied.

  “Home,” he mumbled again. “Home is Corsignano. It is not far.”

  “But what will you do there?” I asked. “Everyone knows you to be dead, not undead.”

  The Zombie Pope pondered this for a minute and shrugged, stirring up some more choice skin flakes. “I used to be a writer,” he said. “I wrote something once called the Tale of Two Lovers.” He thought again for a moment, letting me drink the lotus wine while I waited for him to speak. “That is not you two, and yet you are the one calling me a zombie, hmm. Because right now, you are more undead than I,” he said, and with that last papal proclamation, he shuffled off.

  I passed those years in a lotus wine–induced fog, indeed feeling more and more like a zombie assassin and fighting in the various conflicts that led to Isabella and Ferdinand taking control of Spain. As the royal couple gained more control, so did Bloodsucker Number One. Since women other than the queen had no real power in 1400s Spain, in my position as the special advisor to the royal guard, I signed all sorts of documents, which my brain was far too foggy to try and read, for Bloodsucker Number One’s personal plots and subterfuge. Yeah, that was a bad idea.

  One day there was a big hubbub in the castle as some guy named Columbus had shown up to get an audience with Isabella and Ferdinand. There was much revelry and celebrating, for Columbus would find a new route to India, which would mean greater riches for Spain. Bloodsucker Number One wanted her piece of the action. She had herself appointed as a special liaison to Columbus’s team, claiming to have special knowledge of the route to India. Since all the conflicts had stopped, and assassinations were few and far between, I saw little of Bloodsucker Number One. The trade winds were blowing, and thus, I was of no use to her anymore. The dealer of death was out of favor in a court focused on the profits of free trade. All of Bloodsucker Number One’s time was spent with Columbus and his people, and I was not invited to the meetings and the parties. I took to sleeping in the castle barn’s hayloft, and I awoke one morning to feel something I had not felt in years and years. I was myself again. I realized I had not drunk any lotus wine for weeks, and its effects were mercifully out of my system. I also realized Bloodsucker Number One had been using me, and I set out for her chambers to confront her.

  Oddly, a guard was posted outside her door, and as I approached, he stepped in front of me gingerly, for my reputation as a death dealer was well known. “No one passes,” he said.

  “I am not just anyone,” I replied. “I kind of live here.”

  “Not anymore,” he said. “My orders are no one passes.”

  I knew the man in front of me was a good man. His name was Don Indigo, and he had a wife and children and was a loyal soldier. Truly, I did not want to kill Don Indigo, but I had business with Bloodsucker Number One. “How is your family, soldier?”

  “Good,” Don Indigo replied. He reached up and unconsciously rubbed a thin scar that ran all the way down the bridge of his nose. He had fought many battles in the name of the queen. He was no stranger to pain, but I could kill him in ways he couldn’t even fathom, and he knew it. “My family is well.”

  “Are you looking forward to seeing them tonight?” I queried of this weathered soldier who just knew I was going to kill him, and there was nothing he could do to stop me. Except run.

  “Yes,” he replied, his jaw tightening.

  “Your boy, the youngest, he resembles you. Has your heart, no?”

  Tears welled in Don Indigo’s eyes. “Yes, he does,” was his reply.

  I reached into my pouch and pulled out a fistful of gold coins. I rationalized it was more than his soldier’s salary for ten years, but I saw something in Don Indigo’s eyes that marked him for greater things.

  “The boy needs his father alive more than this door needs to be guarded, eh, Don Indigo?” I said, dumping the coins back into the pouch, giving him the whole pouch instead. “Take this gold and leave Segovia forever.”

  “I will,” he said. “But I will not be able to repay you for your kindness and honor if I live a thousand years!”

  I snickered at his choice of words, as there was nary a fat chance that he would see even two more decades on this fair earth. I watched him walk away, sincerely wishing this Don Indigo, whom I just inherently liked, all the best in life. I did not have such
sentiments for Bloodsucker Number One. I picked the lock on the door and eased into her chambers. There were navigation charts spread across the table, and from the bedroom I heard a great wailing and thrashing. Then I saw a tunic, characteristic of the kind that Columbus’s commanders wore, lying on the ground next to one of Bloodsucker Number One’s robes. I burst into the bedchamber to see Bloodsucker Number One bent over and completely naked, screaming in passion as Columbus’s navigator, Martin, repeatedly steered his rudder into her poop deck.

  “What are you doing here?” she screeched.

  “Leaving, don’t stop on my account,” I said. “Martin, if you have chosen your route to India as well as you have chosen your bedmate, Columbus is surely doomed. Good day.”

  I found my old pack abandoned in the entryway portico and left Segovia. Halfway toward Barcelona, I stopped for a rest, and rummaging in the pack found the Lazarus stone containing Carolina’s blood, which I placed around my neck. I had no memory of how it got from my neck to the pack in the first place, but I could only guess that it involved Bloodsucker Number One. Carolina was a pleasant memory, so I was just thankful that the unpleasant memory known as Bloodsucker Number One hadn’t maliciously thrown it into the Eresma River that ran near the royal castle in Segovia.

  I could not hope to figure out what that narcissistic nag’s true motivations had been, but I didn’t have to because, for the first time since meeting that horrible harridan, I was truly myself again. And I felt even more myself when I reached deeper in the pack and found a bunch of empty Lazarus stones. It was only a matter of time until they would be filled with the blood of my kills, for it was my destiny to return to my true calling as the cold-blooded assassin my parents raised. I vowed to never work for anyone again, and that included the Grim Reaper. And, I happily said goodbye, for what I thought was forever, to Bloodsucker Number One and to all the memories of being a lotus wine–addled patsy of the bitch of bitches.

  Chapter 3

  Garlic barked in my face, bringing me back to my quandary of Bloodsucker Number One suing me for alimony and child support. Buttercup said I needed a good lawyer, but was that really necessary, I wondered. Couldn’t I just explain to the judge that Bloodsucker Number One and I were never married and certainly never had a child together? It was surely a misunderstanding. I had never gone to see Hedley Edrick, and now wished I had done so. I couldn’t even understand what these papers causing me so much drama really meant. Surely, Hedley Edrick had a course at his College of Immortals on interpreting bombastic barrister blather?

  I glared at Garlic and began packing up. Garlic bounced around happily sensing we were going on a trip. We were—back to Harvis’s farm. But from there I would travel alone by transportation crystal to the only place I could think of to find an immortal divorce lawyer—Immortal Divorce Court, which, as expected, is located just outside of the Gates of Hell. Garlic was going to have to stay with Harvis because Maltese, even vampire ones, were not going to be allowed in court. Truthfully, I was not sure of how leaving her was going to work, since she was so attached to me. And if I was honest with myself, as I looked down at her scouting out the trail in front of us like a miniature dire wolf, I was beginning to grow used to her company. But if I disappeared out of her sight and traveled by transportation crystal, she would be unable to scent me and, thus, would hopefully stay with Harvis.

  As I walked back to Harvis’s farm, the sun dipped low on the horizon, and the road grew deserted, as most travelers did not deem it safe to travel alone or without sufficient weapon-toting numbers in the dark and predatory countryside. Thieves, highwaymen, and other shady characters lurked outside the city limits of London to prey on the weak, stupid, and simply unprepared. I was none of those and shook my head in irritation as I sensed lying in ambush in a copse of trees just ahead four thieves that, by the smell of them, hadn’t had a bath in months. Not that their hygiene choices were so surprising, but they stunk so bad that even a keen-nosed mortal may have smelled them at a hundred paces. And judging by the fact that these morons chose to lie in wait upwind, they were undoubtedly rank amateurs. Garlic had sensed them at the same time and did not utter a sound, looking to me as her Pack leader for what to do. Not even the barest hint of a growl escaped her little fanged snout. She was a rather quick study and seemed to grow smarter by the day.

  The one thing the ruffians did do was pick a good ambush spot, for to my right was a swamp I knew to be filled with snakes, hidden quicksand holes, and reputedly, one nasty, old bogeyman. To the left, up from the copse of trees where the thieves lay, the ground quickly rose toward a cliff trail that would add unnecessary length to my journey. I could have used a transportation crystal then and there, but I did not want to leave Garlic, vampire Maltese or not, by herself in this predicament. So we would navigate the swamp and dodge the Bogeyman.

  As we slid off the trail, my keen ears and Garlic’s picked up the sound of children giggling as a late-running caravan made its way down the road toward certain ambush. I waited for the expected sound of heavy hooves striking the ground and metal striking metal that would announce the presence of the hired soldiers that would surely be leading the caravan and repel the ambush, clearing the way for Garlic and me or allowing us to sneak along with it, avoiding conflict. After all, no one traveled at night unless they were heavily armed, or incredibly desperate. Yet only the sound of children’s dulcet voices graced my ears.

  “What in heaven’s name is that?” I exclaimed under my breath as a single covered wagon came around the bend. Garlic huffed quietly, echoing my sentiment. Steering the wagon was a beautiful young girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen, and seated next to her on the bench were two even younger ragamuffins squawking up a storm. The wagon top was adorned with flowers, and various plants stuck out the back. I could not see if there were any adults in the wagon, but as they passed our hiding spot, the look of fear in the young girl’s face was clear. They were fleeing someone, or something. But in moments they would be attacked and killed or suffer an even worse fate at the hands of the thieves. “Come on, pup,” I said to Garlic. We slinked soundlessly through the growth at the side of the road, one black blur and one small white blur easily matching pace with the wagon.

  As the wagon neared the copse of trees, I saw a previously invisible well-hidden rope dastardly stretched across the road, designed to entangle and incapacitate a normal-sized driver, but for the children in the wagon seat, it would surely be fatal. Losing the element of surprise, I swung up onto the wagon, then leaped onto the horses, hearing the scared screams of the children behind me. I briefly whispered in the ears of the two horses, bringing them to a halt with the rope hovering a mere foot or two in front of them.

  “Ruin our fun this night, will you, boy?” a cold, deep voice called out. “Now that was a really bad idea.” I could see the four men clearly in the dark and could smell the confidence that their numbers gave them.

  My fangs glinted in the moonlight as I grinned. I knew a little something about bad ideas. I turned to the children, and saw Garlic sitting between them. “Stay where you are,” I commanded. “You will be safe. She will protect you.” The children looked at the little white dog and wailed loudly. “Now, now,” I said, turning to the children as the men approached the wagon with their swords drawn. “I have an important lesson for you to learn, my little ones. It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but rather—” I leaped into the air, somersaulting into the midst of the thieves. My sword flicked soundlessly as it nicked jugulars, ending the lives of the men who dropped with nary a whimper. I sheathed my sword, and turned back to the wagon intent on completing my lecture. “But rather, it is the size of the fight in the—”

  A shadow crashed into me from behind, knocking me to the ground and my breath out of me in the process. I smelled the unmistakable odor of brine and musty death, and rolled over to face the unspeakable horror that was the Bogeyman. Mossy hair hung in unkempt hanks from a misshapen
head perched on a body as old, thick, and gnarled as a swamp oak. It stomped its clawed feet and tilted back its head and shouted its rage into the night. The children’s fear was palpable, and fear to this forsaken creature was like an easy kill for twenty bags of gold to a vampire assassin—absolutely irresistible.

  Then it came for me with the cold deliberation of the murky bog, single-minded in its intent to choke the very life out of me. I dodged its first lunge but not the second, moving a shade too slowly to avoid a crushing blow to my ribs that knocked me once more to the ground. It stood over me victorious, ready to deal the death blow it so craved. It reared both hands high in the air, but before it could bring them down on me and finish the blow, I saw a white shape out of the corner of my eye, and an instant later heard an earsplitting bark pierce the air. I could not believe my eyes for I could see the sound waves travel in the night, or perhaps feel them, and in an instant they enveloped the Bogeyman, and he exploded into a million fragments of peat raining down into the swamp and onto the road. I shook my head, and looked at Garlic in disbelief. “Well,” I said, gathering her in one arm and rising to my feet, “that was a neat little trick.” I saw one of the Bogeyman’s fingers inching across the road toward the swamp and crushed it into dust with the heel of my boot.

  The children, too stunned to speak, were visibly shaking. I climbed onto the wagon, and Garlic settled by my feet. I cleared my throat. “I stand corrected. It is not the size of the dog in the fight,” I said, “rather the size of the bark of the dog in the fight.” I took the reins and whispered to the horses, and we set out for Harvis’s farm. For a few short furlongs all was quiet, then the youngest buried his head—at least I think it was a he—into my side and blubbered snot and tears all over my finest travel cloak. “Hey, now,” I said. “Please stop with the tears! My name is Sirio, and I will take you to safety.” My words did nothing to stop the tears, and after escaping the Bogeyman’s wrath, I was now in danger of being permanently boogered by this snot-nosed kid.