Dead Jack and the Old Gods, page 11
“You can get through,” Dana said. “Some of my people have gotten through.”
“And if I can get through, so can Nyarlathotep.”
“Not if we strengthen the barrier once you’re over to the other side,” Zara said as she continued to tattoo a sword on Dana’s back. It was a gleaming thing with a long sharp hilt. “My coven can handle that. It shouldn’t take as much energy as blocking the vortex, but it will still take some doing.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Why am I taking the Necronomicon anywhere and living on the run?”
Zara tilted her. “Jack, you and Oswald are the only two who should be doing this. Do I have to remind you who opened the portal?”
“You don’t have to remind me. It was Oswald.”
“It was an accident,” Oswald said, putting down his diary. “And at the time I was trying to save you from Lucifer, which I did.”
“There’s no argument,” Zara said. “You’re going to the Outer Lands. Tattoo’s done.”
Zara picked up a rag and dabbed the blood from Dana’s back. When she was done, Dana stood up, groaning. The topless leprechaun queen walked over to a three-sided mirror at the back of the parlor and inspected Zara’s handiwork. “It’s beautiful,” Dana said, after a moment. “Can I use it?”
“Not yet,” Zara said, and rose from her stool.
She stood behind Dana, traced the outline of the tattoo with her finger, and mumbled under her breath. Zara said, “It’s all yours.”
“I just touch it?”
“Say the magic word first.”
“‘Please’?”
Zara laughed. “No. You have to come up with your own word. Without a word, you couldn’t scratch your back. Every time you reached back there, your sword would appear in your hand.”
“Stand back,” Dana said.
Zara hopped back a few steps.
“Schwing!” Dana shouted and reached back for her sword, which appeared in her hand. She swung the blade in a wide arc over her head—it made a whoosh sound—and she laughed as she sliced the air.
“Now it’s my turn.” Zara sat back on her stool, picked up her tattoo gun, and prepared to ink herself.
Dana returned her sword to her back and put on her shirt. “Jack, I think they’re right. Go to the Outer Lands. You can get through with a simple entrance spell. If things get ugly, you all know where to find me.”
Dana the Leprechaun Queen and her henchmen left Jimbo’s Tattoo Parlor.
Zara began to tattoo her arm in the mirror.
“So, it’s settled, I’m being exiled from the Five Cities,” I said.
“Come on, Jack,” Zara said. “If you don’t leave, there won’t be a Five Cities. Maybe you’ll find a solution there or a way to destroy the book and you can come back.”
“I don’t feel like I’ll ever be back.”
“I’ll go with you,” Herb said. “I’ve always wanted to see the Outer Lands. See the sights. There’s nothing for me here. Besides, I want to be as far away from Nyarlathotep as possible.”
“See, Jack,” Zara said. “You’ll have a buddy there.”
“Great. Just what I need—a psycho to come along. Sure, why not? How about you, Jimbo? Want to come along?”
“Me? I always hated New Jersey. Maybe if you were going as far as California.”
I sat next to Oswald, brooding. I didn’t like this plan. The Outer Lands could be worse than the Five Cities.
“Are you asking me what I think?” Oswald said, not looking up from his diary.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
After a while, Zara put down her tattoo gun and then wiped the blood from her arm. Her new hammer was bigger and badder than the old one. This one was like an anvil or torpedo on a stick. It was massive. She mumbled, touched her arm, and the monster hammer appeared in her hand. It must have weighed a ton. She swung it and I felt the wind rush past me.
“Like it?” she asked.
“I think you could knock down the Empire Snake Building with that thing.”
“Good. I just might.”
28
Oswald’s Journal
Maybe I should let Jack go to the Outer Lands by himself. He’s getting worse. We barely talk now. I’d prefer an insult or scolding, but the silent treatment is the worst.
He used to ask my advice, even at the worst of times.
He’s forgotten or is ignoring everything the therapist said. I had such high hopes when he finally agreed to go. But now I can’t see how we’ll ever connect. I think this case is getting to him, and that worries me. Usually Jack doesn’t care one way or another if he solves a case. He’s just in it for the dust. This time there’s an air of doom over him that I’ve never seen. Though he’s pressing on, I feel as if he’s already given up. We’ve been through some tight jams before, but this time it feels overwhelming.
Have we bitten off more than we can chew? A zombie and a homunculus are going to stop this catastrophe? It doesn’t seem possible. And the idea of leaving the Five Cities, the only home I’ve ever known, and going with Jack to a foreign land, where we don’t know what we’ll face, doesn’t sit well with me.
But what choice do I have? If I don’t go, Jack will certainly lose the Necronomicon on the first day. Jack thinks he’s protecting the world from my hoodoo, but in truth, all this time, I’ve been protecting the world from his recklessness. So, for now, I’ll tough it out. I know the truth.
29
New Jersey or Bust
Zara headed back to Witch End to prepare the covens if they were needed to strengthen the barrier between the Five Cities and the Outer Lands. Dana was back in Finn MacCool’s swinging her sword. And this stupid zombie detective was left holding the bag. Or the book, for that matter.
Me, Oswald, and Herb silently walked to the Studebaker. I felt like a condemned man. Then a horrible thought entered my head. What if there’s no fairy dust in the Outer Lands? Then what? I didn’t bring it up to Oswald. I surrendered to the fact that this was the only solution, and I was tired of fighting and complaining. We’d go to the Outer Lands. We’d run and run and run. And if we got caught, the world would end. It had to at some time, right?
I got in the Studebaker, turned on the ignition, shifted gears, and drove toward exile.
“The three caballeros,” Herb said. “This is going to be exciting. A road trip.” The dope’s attitude took a one-eighty. His dejected mood had disappeared. Now he was Mr. Happy Pants. I immediately regretted taking him along.
“How does one get to the Outer Lands,” he asked from the backseat. “Can you just drive there?”
“No, dunzy. You have to cross miles of the Undead Sea. We’ll have to take a ferry and I hate taking ferries, so cool it with the questions.”
“And the ferries to the Outer Lands are controlled by some unsavory characters,” Oswald said.
“And I’m sure ghost pirates are involved.”
“Don’t you mean pirate ghosts?” Herb said.
“Okay, you can get out now.”
“Just drive, Jack,” Oswald said.
I made a quick stop at a tobacco shop to get what was probably my last pack of Lucky Dragons, and then I cruised up the West Side Highway. The port was on 55th Street and 12th Avenue. On one side was the dark churning Undead Sea, and on the other were warehouses, strip joints, underground clubs, and the occasional bar.
On 53rd was a ramp that led up to the port. The Studebaker struggled up the incline. When he finally made it up, we could see the port, and what we saw was a deserted port. Not one ship. Not one dock worker. Just the black waves of the Undead Sea crashing against the docks and the mist obscuring the Outer Lands. Few citizens of the Five Cities left for the West, and the ones who did never came back. Rumors swirled about the Outer Lands. Some said nothing was there, that it was just a wasteland. The mist made sure no one knew what the Outer Lands looked like or if it even existed. Some people thought you went off into the fog and just fell off the face of Pandemonium. Others claimed it was filled with nightmare creatures unknown to any mythology.
“Where are the ships?” Herb asked.
“Hopefully, they’re out to sea,” Oswald said.
I found a place to park the Studebaker beside a garbage bin. It dawned on me that this would probably be the last time I saw the old girl. It got me through quite a few messes. Now I had to abandon her at the edge of the Five Cities, where she’ll most likely rot from the salt air.
I sat in the Studebaker, stroking the steering wheel. “We can’t wait too long. If a boat doesn’t come soon, we’ll have to figure out where we can go until we can find a way out of the Five Cities.”
“Look! Someone’s coming now,” Herb said, squirming in his seat, his nose practically pressed against the back window.
He was right. A light shone in the mist far off the shore, a dim diffused yellow beacon pushing its way through the gray fog.
“Let’s get to the dock, so they don’t turn back,” I said.
Before I left the Studebaker, I patted her on the front bumper. Goodbye ol’ gal. Hopefully, they don’t junk you.
The light got closer. The boat must have been moving at a good clip.
“This is exciting, isn’t it?” Herb said. “We’re really going to the Outer Lands. I wonder what it’s like.”
Finally, the ship broke the mist. I didn’t see any sails. I could tell right away this wasn’t a clipper or schooner. This was a modern, steel-hull vessel, and it was heading straight at us. The mist played tricks with your eyes. I had thought the ship was far away, but now I could see it was only a few hundred yards off. I had never seen a ship coming in from the Outer Lands, but something seemed off. When it was about fifty yards away I knew what it was, but Oswald beat me to it. Well, almost.
“Jack, isn’t that ship—”
Then he went silent. His last word was slurred. I turned and saw Herb standing behind Oswald, pulling a syringe out of his neck. Oswald dropped to the ground as I reached for the psycho, but he held up the syringe and threatened to stick me.
“What the hell did you do to him, sicko?”
“He’s just sleeping. I gave him the same thing they give me at the Home when I can’t hold things together.”
“Why the fook would you do that?”
He was backing away as he held up the syringe. I didn’t move, staying close to Oswald, who didn’t stir.
“Jack, it’s better this way, trust me. We’ll all be better off with them having the book. They’re my friends.”
“In the boat? They’re your friends. So, you were—are in a cult. You lying bastard. And you think I’ll just hand over the Necronomicon to them.”
I noticed he didn’t cry when I uttered the name of the big bad book.
“They don’t think that. They said you’d be difficult, but they have their ways.”
The boat was nearly upon us and I could see figures on the deck. It was exactly who I thought it was. Fookin Nazis.
This time they wore impeccable sailor suits with big brass buttons, white piping on black fabric, black caps positioned rakishly on their heads.
“You’ve been a Nazi the whole time?” I asked.
“They’re not Nazis and it only happened after I went to the Home. You couldn’t believe how many of them were there, too.”
“I could believe it.” I picked up Oswald, slapped him around a bit, but he didn’t budge.
“It’ll wear off in a little bit.”
The boat docked and off stepped two strapping Nazi sailors. They waited on the dock, and then Ratzinger appeared.
“Hey, Skipper,” I said as the former Nazi scientist limped toward me with an ebony cane in one hand and a blonde in a black leather overcoat in the other. He looked terrible. The last time I saw him he was just a pimple growing out of some magilla’s side. Now I didn’t know what he was. Ratzinger resembled a prune with eyes.
“We meet again,” Ratzinger said, and coughed blood into a handkerchief. His hands were badly scarred, red and raw. The last time I saw him he was engulfed in fire.
“We really need to stop meeting like this,” I said.
“Well, it seems, you once again have something I want.”
“Funny how that works out, isn’t it?”
“We make plans and the universe laughs.” Again, the deep, phlegmy cough.
“You Nazis get me sick.”
“We’re not Nazis.”
“Sorry. The Children of Thule.”
“Wrong again. You can call us ‘The Red Order.’”
“A piece of shit by any other name still stinks of shit.”
I’ve had a long history with Nazis, and they’re all the same. Well-dressed and sadistic little shits. I always suspected they were more interested in spreading misery than taking over the world. Ratzinger was the swell guy who removed my soul long, long ago, and turned me into the lovable, irascible zombie you see before you.
Ratzinger’s had a hard-on for me ever since I escaped his clutches, and most recently for me foiling his evil plans and setting him on fire. Oh well.
“You know what you’re up against with these eldritch horrors?” he said.
“They’re not anything I can’t handle myself.”
“Jack, you’re way in over your head. You’re dealing with the powers of the universe itself. Nyarlathotep is as serious as it gets. He is fear itself. The way I see it, you have two choices: give the book to us or to Nyarlathotep.”
“If I give you the book, you’re going to hide it?”
“No, no, no. We’re going to summon Cthulhu and the Old Gods.”
“Then why the hell would I give it to you?”
“The Old Gods are eventual, just like old age and death. If we are the ones who summon them, we call the shots.”
“Says the guy who refuses to die. You’re nuts. You can’t control these forces.”
“With the book, we can. We are well versed in the occult.”
“I’d rather take my chances with Nyarlathotep. I know you guys are scumbags.”
“Ingrid, release the Fuhrer.”
The blonde ran back to the boat.
“The Fuhrer?” I said.
“Yes, I was just a prototype. We’ve now perfected the method of revivification through hybridism. Das Fuhrer is back and he’s better than ever, baby.”
Something howled. A long deep baying. A wolf’s howl that trailed off into the churning ocean. A shaggy black head rose up from below decks. I watched in amazement as Werewolf Hitler stalked off the boat, led by Ingrid, who held his leash.
Werewolf Hitler snarled as the blonde pulled him toward me. His face was covered in fur, but his upper lip still sported his iconic brush mustache. Some things never change.
“You created a hybrid of Hitler and a werewolf?” I asked.
Ratzinger stroked the shaggy dictator’s lush mane. “Beautiful, isn’t he?”
“You said you perfected it.”
“He is perfect.”
“Then why is he on a chain?”
“You’re about to find out. Release the Fuhrer.”
Ingrid unclipped the chain from his collar, and Werewolf Hitler sprang at me.
I had no choice but to drop Oswald.
The werewolf swiped at me with a hairy paw decked out with five stiletto claws. I turned too late and his claw ripped into my left arm. I backpedaled, trying to get as much distance as possible between me and the wolf.
I really could have used a magical gun right about now or a stick or airline tickets to Peoria.
Werewolf Hitler squatted and roared a bloody roar. I wasn’t impressed, though. Sure, this hybrid was a werewolf, but he was also Hitler, and Hitler never struck me as a tough guy. Deep down, he was a coward.
The werewolf eyed me hungrily.
I charged. Werewolf Hitler didn’t expect that. He was caught off guard and stumbled back.
“Hey, look behind you, a non-Aryan!” I shouted. Unbelievably, Werewolf Hitler turned. I drove a right into his jaw, snapping the wolf’s back. I knew I couldn’t let up. I had the advantage and I needed to overwhelm him.
I threw a flurry of punches: right crosses, left jabs, uppercuts, haymakers. I kept backing up the werewolf, not giving him a chance to get his bearings. A right uppercut landed on his jaw, sending him to the mat.
I straddled Werewolf Hitler’s chest and pummeled his face until he stopped howling. It felt good to wallop Das Fuhrer. Like beating the hell out of an evil teddy bear. I hit him so much my hands went numb—and then the rest of my body followed. I slumped on top of the shaggy dictator. A syringe in my neck. As I fell asleep, I heard someone say, “Sorry, Jack. It really is for the best. Promise.”
30
Oswald’s Journal
Alberic’s experiments intensified. He severed each of my limbs over one particularly gruesome week. Each time, the limbs grew back. I have since learned that the starfish has the same ability. I didn’t feel any pain during the procedure, just a hard tugging. I wonder if it would be the same for the poor starfish. After these experiments, Alberic put me in a more secure prison, a glass container with a padlocked top. Apparently, he deduced that I could have escaped my meager glass container. Perhaps he even saw me as a threat, because he also began to secure my limbs to the surgical table whenever he worked on me. My restraints would have been a small chore to free myself from, but I never resisted, never tried to escape. Where would I go? I didn’t even know there was a world outside of the lab.
Over time, I grew wise. I watched as Alberic fawned over Mabel, rubbing her fur, feeding her from his hand, offering soothing words. I grew jealous of the cat. Why didn’t Alberic treat me with similar regard?
