Dead Set

by Martin Shannon

  Some guys like to say their wives look cute when they’re mad—I was not one of those guys. Don’t get me wrong, Porter was the love of my life, but when she’s had her mad on, it was safer to have the solid glass shower door between us.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed the soap over my face to avoid my wife’s death-stare.

  “Didn’t have a choice? What the heck happened to ‘I’ve made them special jewelry, it’ll hide them from the bad things, honey.’” Porter held up her engagement ring; it was the first Logic Loop I’d ever made. Only two stones remained from that three-stone setting. They weren’t real diamonds—I was a Magician, not a lawyer—and the gold was plated on, but the real power wasn’t in how it looked, it was in the Magick I’d packed inside.

  Porter’s ring and all the Logic Loops held a tiny piece of me locked inside them, and as Magick went it was pretty damn potent.

  “She took it off,” I said, turning my face into the cascade of water.

  “Damn it.”

  I let the water soak my hair. “Yeah, she left it on the bench. For twenty minutes or so, that was the safest piece of group seating in the supernatural world.”

  Porter stood up and prowled the tiny bathroom like a jungle cat.

  “Gene, we’ve gotta come up with something better. The kids aren’t going to keep jewelry on indefinitely—they’re kids. They’ll take them off.”

  “I can’t enchant her phone, honey.”

  That wasn’t technically true, but I wasn’t great at mixing Magick with high-tech gizmos.

  Calling them gizmos is probably why…

  “I wasn’t asking you to enchant her phone—but that would be helpful—that girl’s phone is just an extension of her arm.”

  “I won’t argue that point.”

  Porter rolled her eyes. “Or you could just enchant Tristan. She spends far too much time with him as it is.”

  “Who? Oh right, our daughter’s super-genius boyfriend who burned himself with sparklers.”

  Porter shook her head. “The girl can pick ‘em. Still, he’s better than the last guy, who I swear only showered once a month.”

  “How did I forget that one?” I said, reaching for the shampoo. Porter waved me off what was sure to be a rabbit-hole conversation. “Still, Kris keeps his charm on, right?”

  “He’s five—do you know what I have to do to keep it on him?”

  No, but I know better than to ask.

  “That’s why you are such an amazing wife and mother.”

  Nice one, Gene.

  “Stow it, naked man. That’s not going to work on me tonight. Tell me what happened.”

  I worked the shampoo in my hair into a glorious soap-mohawk and checked my reflection in the shower glass; instead of my goofy head all I got was Porter’s laser-eyes.

  “Right, so… there was New Dead.”

  My wife’s face darkened. She may not know everything about Magick, or the rest of the world I inhabit, but she knew about the dead, New, Old, or otherwise, and that they were a serious problem.

  “How bad?”

  “Bad.”

  “Did it go after you?”

  “No…” I said, letting the word hang in the air, knowing what she would say next and hating it just the same.

  “Why would it go after Cathy? Did it know you two were related?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  That was technically a lie, but if Cathy had smelled the New Dead then she just might have Magick in her blood and it was starting to show up.

  One problem at a time, Gene.

  My wife had enough to deal with right now with Kris in kindergarten and Cathy’s boyfriend of the month—I didn’t want to add Magick to the ever-growing list of worries.

  “Damn it, Gene. What did you do?”

  I rinsed the shampoo from my hands and avoided Porter’s eyes. “Opened a portal to Hell.”

  “You what?!”

  “It was a small one,” I said, holding my hands roughly a basketball’s width apart. “Tiny, barely there, minuscule by Hell-hole standards—”

  “Of all the reckless, stupid things you could try. There was no salt? Didn’t I tell you to bring some anti-possession supplies? Is it really so hard to wear that fanny-pack I bought you?”

  Magicians do not wear fanny packs.

  “You work with what you have available. The New Dead is back where it belongs, and nothing came through.”

  Porter pointed at the small burn marks on my chest and arms. “Nothing, eh?”

  Damn woman is like Arthur Conan Doyle’s great-great-granddaughter.

  “Just Hell Fleas. Don’t worry, I got ‘em all. Besides, they can’t survive long in the real world.”

  “Why do they come after you?”

  “The Fleas? They are just looking for tasty flesh to dig into—”

  Porter rolled her eyes. “No, you ninny, the dead. Why do they hate you so much?”

  I let the shower water roll down my back.

  “I don’t know, but it’s not just me; there are a lot of Magicians the dead hate—”

  “Name one,” Porter said, crossing her arms.

  “Ah. There’s—” I shoved my head under the water, washing away the glorious soap-hawk and making it impossible for Porter to understand my nonsensical response.

  “Nice try, but there aren’t any that you know of because there aren’t any other Magicians in this part of the Sunshine State.”

  She was right again. There’d been a real drop-off in practitioners of the Magickal Arts as of the last decade or so, and Florida was no exception. Most of the great Magicians that had lived in the area were either dead themselves, or getting up there in years and had moved out to Key West where the shuffleboard and Piña Coladas flowed like milk and honey.

  “Yeah, well there are a few—just can’t put my finger on their names.”

  I turned off the water and wiped the steam off the shower door.

  “Whoa, honey, turn around,” Porter said, her face suddenly close to the glass.

  “What?”

  “Turn around—your back.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s got all these little scratch marks on it,” my wife said, now standing in the shower, scant inches from my shoulder blades.

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s just Hell Fleas—little bastards were everywhere.”

  “Are you sure, these look like tiny claw marks…”

  I pulled the towel off the hanger and dried my hair. “It’s nothing. Could have just been me rubbing my back against the seat.”

  “I guess. Still, someone should put something on all those little scrapes and burns—they could get infected.”

  I snapped the towel out and wrapped my wife’s butt, pulling her against me. “You volunteering?”

  “Another night, Magick man. I’ve got my trainer in the morning—but make sure you put something on those scratches before you go to bed. They look bad.”

  Porter kissed me on the lips, a staccato-style peck that shut the door on any extracurricular activities, and then shimmied out of my towel and the bathroom all together.

  I stole one last look at her butt, then tried to angle my back to see what she was fretting about. The shower door reflection didn’t offer much, and in the end I gave up and trudged off to bed—it’d been one hell of a night.

  8

  Dead End Driving

  I sat in the driveway and stared at the check engine light. The Dad Wagon rumbled beneath me, its engine sputtering ever so slightly.

  Damn it. What now?

  I’d just gotten it checked out by Rob and his crew at The Qwik Fix a few weeks ago. Even though the Mazda was getting up there in miles, Robbie rarely charged me for services. A few years back I’d taken care of a small problem he’d had with a Succubus, after which Rob and I had had a long conversation about the girls, or in his case, the sexy demons you can meet on those dating apps.

  He’d taken my advice and uninstalled the app altogether. Last I’d
heard he’d met a nice girl on the force—might need to see her about some tickets my wife had accumulated. Still, I was looking forward to hearing all about her when I brought the Dad Wagon in today.

  She just better not be a Demon.

  I honked the horn and my kindergartener piped up from the back seat. “Do it again, Dad!”

  With five-year-olds it was always the little things—I honked again.

  His cherubic giggle in the back seat put a short-lived smile on my face.

  Come on, Cathy, we’re going to be late.

  I was on child delivery duty this morning, with Porter at the gym getting her flex on, and my teenager wasn’t making that easy.

  “Do it again!” Kris shouted, hammering his tiny fists against the car seat. A medical alert bracelet bounced up and down with each thrust and looped expertly around that chain was my rambunctious son’s Logic Loop.

  That’s how you get him to wear it? I married a genius.

  I had only just placed a hand on the horn when my white-hot ball of teenage angst stormed out the front door and slammed it behind her.

  “Good morning, Cathy!” Kris screamed from the back seat as his sister yanked open the car door.

  “Morning, midget,” Cathy said, but her tone gave every indication there was nothing good about it.

  My teenage daughter crammed an overstuffed backpack onto the floor and threw herself into the Dad Wagon’s faded passenger seat. She leaned over to slam the door shut, and I noticed just how little she was wearing underneath that sweatshirt she’d wrapped her butt in.

  “Cathy…”

  “I know, ‘Hooters called and they want their shorts back,’” she said, her tone so close to Porter’s I had to do a double-take. “Mom said they were fine.”

  “Did she know you were going to wear them? Or was she thinking they were purely decorative?”

  “Dad!”

  I contemplated sending her back in to change, but I glanced at the clock, then hit the garage door button—we were already late.

  “Hold on, kiddos,” I said, backing down the winding driveway then putting the Mazda into drive. Porter’s sleek new Honda rolled around the corner and pulled up alongside the rattling Dad Wagon.

  With a smooth hum her window rolled down, and she leaned out to wave at the kids. My wife is beautiful, but with a light sheen of sweat and her hair tucked back in one of those wide fabric bands she could stop traffic.

  “Krissy, you gonna have a good day at school?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call him that, his name is Kris.”

  “Yeah!”

  Porter smiled, then took a sip of her post-workout coffee.

  “You look great, Cathy.”

  Our daughter was already lost deep into the vapid black hole of social-media photo feeds, likes, and posts—too bad I didn’t have a Magickal charm to protect her from that.

  “The shorts are a little—”

  “They’re shorts, Gene. Get over it.”

  “But…”

  Porter blew me a kiss. “You’re gonna be late. Don’t forget, it’s Friday.”

  My wife let the word hang in the air, where it was kept aloft by my unbridled hopes and the subtle twinkling of her eyes.

  Date night.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her the perfunctory man-nod and rolling up the window. The glass only made it halfway before grinding to a halt and shuddering inside the door frame.

  Porter didn’t notice, she was already up the driveway and rolling into the garage.

  “Bye!” Kris shouted.

  I didn’t have time to deal with a busted window—or a check engine light for that matter. It was after seven, and that meant the Mad Max road race to get your children to school was upon us.

  We’d made good time thus far; the Dad Wagon may not look like much, but looks could be deceiving. We’d already woven our way through a set of semis coming off the highway and deftly avoided two school-bus stops. We were cooking with gas, but so was the radiator.

  I rolled to a stop at the light while the needle dipped into the red, not certain I could make it to school as well as The Qwik Fix without a minor miracle.

  I turned off the AC and rolled down Cathy’s window. The sudden change in environmental temperature was enough to bring my daughter out of her social-media zone-of-judgement to throw a little shade on her old man and his car.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The car’s overheating. I can’t run the AC while we’re stopped.”

  “Ugh!”

  We weren’t far from Kris’s kindergarten, and Cathy’s high school was only a block from there, but if the Dad Wagon overheated, it would be a long walk.

  Cathy clicked her phone off and shoved it in the folds of her butt-warming sweatshirt. “Are you really going to make me learn to drive in this car?”

  I decided against taking the bait and instead followed the movement in the rear-view mirror that had caught my attention.

  A middle-aged woman was working her way between the cars asking for change. Her hair was tangled and dirty, and her once-white shirt had long since yellowed with sweat. She circled a few coins in a tall plastic cup for the car behind us; I couldn’t see her face yet, but the clunk of more coins being deposited was unmistakable.

  Could use a little karma after yesterday’s New Dead fiasco…

  I reached into my center console to grab some of my toll money, but first I rolled back up Cathy’s window—just to be safe.

  The woman worked her way from car to car behind us, stopping at a white van to collect a donation, and as she did, I kept one eye on my dash and the fluttering temperature needle embedded in it.

  Just hold up…

  I couldn’t roll my window down all the way—it was still stuck in that highly stylish yet wildly impractical half-down position—but I figured I could toss a few coins in.

  The woman reached my window and placed a tanned and dingy hand on the glass. The smell hit me first. It wasn’t the odor of the unwashed masses, or even the funk of yours truly after a few hours in the yard. It was the same unmistakable scent I’d practically marinated in last night.

  New Dead! Twice in two days is a record, even for me.

  “Got any spare—” she started to say, then stopped the instant we made eye contact.

  “Magician…” she hissed as the skin around her eyes blackened like the edges of a scorched paper.

  “Dad!” Cathy cried, covering her nose with one hand and pointing past me at the New Dead. “What the hell is that!”

  The New Dead dropped the plastic cup and shot a hand in through the open window, grabbing hold of my neck.

  “I’m going to crush your pencil-dick neck,” she growled, her words deep and rumbly in my ear.

  The light turned green, but the car in front of me hadn’t moved yet. I laid on the horn, making Kris shout from the backseat.

  “Do it again, Dad!”

  My daughter froze, her mouth open and lost in an expression of complete terror—all of which was perfectly typical for a new Magician, or anyone coming face to face with the supernatural for the first time.

  So, we now have two Magicians in the family. I wonder if there’s a sympathy card for that…

  I pried at the New Dead’s wrist, but she held on tight, hard enough to make me wonder just how much force it would take for her to succeed in snapping my pencil-dick neck.

  I really need to start working out with Porter.

  I laid on the horn. The car in front of us shot off, but not before giving me a single finger salute from the rear-view mirror.

  Right back at ya buddy.

  I punched the accelerator down and the Dad Wagon roared in full-throated defiance, then stuttered to a halt.

  The cars behind us started laying on their own horns and my ever-happy five-year-old shouted along with them.

  “More, Dad. More!”

  We’d overheated—it was the only logical explanation—but try telling that to the chorus of
car horns and the Hellspawn trying to perform successful DIY surgery on my trachea.

  “Cathy!” I shouted, pulling at the possessed’s scorched digits. “Glove box!”

  My daughter remained frozen, her doe-like eyes unable to pull away from the withering, burnt flesh of the New Dead.

  “Cathy!”

  The possessed slammed a rotting fist against the glass while the irregular symphony of car horns rattled my brain. My loving son, who thankfully couldn’t see me or the enraged panhandler from his car seat, was in heaven.

  “More!”

  A couple of cars roared up onto the sidewalk and around us, their drivers following the same single finger gesture we’d seen earlier. I’d have loved to return the salute, but was far more concerned with keeping my head attached.

  I reached for the glove box, but came up just short. Seeing me leaning for it jarred Cathy from her trance and she popped it open.

  A burgeoning stack of papers along with various odds and ends tumbled onto my daughter’s overstuffed backpack.

  I really need to clean the car out from time to time.

  I scanned the floor, looking for anything I could use to complete the Magick.

  Crack!

  The New Dead’s fist slammed against the glass and created a crack in my window—a long and jagged split in the already dirty glass.

  “What do I do?” my daughter shouted, digging through the pile of loose items at her feet.

  There were a couple packages of wet napkins from Hooters—part of the pre-Porter era—as well as the normal glove box citizens: insurance cards and registration.

  “Get the—”

  Cathy picked up a tire pressure gauge—it wasn’t Magickal, except in that no one else in my family had mastered the simple act of using it.

  “—the scraper…”

  She dropped the gauge and picked up an ice scraper, holding it up like some alien artifact.

  “That’s it!” I shouted.

  Porter’s old window scraper, an object of ridicule in the early years of our marriage, but now exactly what I needed with New Dead and an over-heated engine.