Dead Jack and the Old Gods, page 4
9
Oswald’s Journal
I’ve been thinking about the past lately, or I should say I’ve been “remembering.” Much of my life before Jack had been lost to me after I awoke from my Pandemonium-Device-induced coma. But even before that terrible event, I had blocked out my time in Alberic’s laboratory. (I was so young!) I’m not sure how long I was with Alberic, but it couldn’t have been for more than a few months.
You could call Alberic my father. I wouldn’t, but he did create me. Sort of like Dr. Frankenstein. I learned about Victor Frankenstein after Jack brought me to his grandson, who promised to remove the Jupiter Stone from me. He turned out to be a madder scientist than his father. (Again, that’s a story for another time.) Victor Frankenstein was obsessed with creating life through science. (Apparently, he had never heard of sex.) Alberic didn’t know a thing about sex either, and he was as mad as the Frankensteins. He was an alchemist who specialized in homunculi.
Jack has always liked to call me a homunculus, even before he discovered Alberic’s lair and learned about my origin, most of which eluded me.
As far as I know, a homunculus is a miniature man created through alchemy. Jack told me after I awoke from my long sleep that he had found where I was created, an underground laboratory in Witch End. When I was asleep, Jack went on a quest to find his lost soul and that led him to Alberic’s bunker.
There, Jack found several other homunculi that looked like me but weren’t animated. Jack also found Alberic’s papers and notes. The alchemist tried for years to bring the homunculi, which he kept in glass jars, to life. He was about to give up when he stumbled upon a box in the woods. Inside were jars containing souls stolen from men in the Other World.
Alberic discovered a way to transmigrate one of the souls into one of the homunculi. It worked. The homunculus was me and the soul was Jack’s. A match made in a crazy alchemist’s subterranean lair.
I didn’t know any of this until Jack told me, and I didn’t remember much from my time in the alchemist's lab. Until now. Perhaps it’s the power of the Jupiter Stone, but I finally remember my beginning, even killing Alberic.
10
The Three Sisters
Zara drove us to the Witch House in a souped-up fire-engine red hot rod convertible with black flames painted on the sides and an exposed chrome engine that purred like a lion.
“Nice wheels,” I said, clamping my hand down on my fedora as the wind whipped over the tiny windshield. We were all jammed in the two-seater, with Oswald sitting in my lap. The pipsqueak must have been in heaven.
“I dig it, Zara,” he said.
“It’s not mine,” she said. “It’s Unicorn’s. I don’t go in for flashy rides like this.”
“About Unicorn—” I said.
Zara pressed harder on the gas, and my neck nearly snapped off.
“You don’t get to say ‘Unicorn’ ever again. If I want to talk about her, I’ll send you a telegram. Got it?”
I let it go.
Zara was never a flashy woman, but she was the biggest Kill Unicorn Kill fan I had ever seen, so she must have been sensitive about her relationship with such a big hero of hers. I didn’t understand how anyone could be a fan of Unicorn de Havilland. She hired me a few years back, early in her career, when she was in a tough jam. I was her last resort, too.
We climbed Abracadabra Hill, the hot rod bouncing over the dirt road like it was on a pogo stick. Lush pine and oak trees rushed by us. Red-eyed squirrels watched us from the ground.
The Witch House, an enormous, multi-gabled mansion, stood atop the hill. It served as a sort of headquarters for the 13 Covens, the uneasy alliance of wise women who presided over Witch End. Zara had become a high-ranking member ever since the vortex appeared. The six-foot terror wielded her hammer with such viciousness that she was appointed the guardian of the hole in the ground and the exterminator of those bothersome critters that emerged from it. From the looks of her handling of the crabs back at the portal, it seemed she was doing a bang-up job. So, if she called me—a poor, dumb zombie—to investigate our latest visitor to Pandemonium, it must be serious business because Zara was not one to ask for help.
The mansion came into view. A sprawling gothic mess of gables and turrets and dark, narrow windows, it definitely had the makings of a haunted house. A large ash tree with naked branches stood in the front yard. We pulled up beside it and got out of the hot rod.
“We’re keeping the Sisters in the attic,” Zara said. “They’re triplets, young witches, who had recently been given the duty of watching the vortex overnight. It was a mistake to let such young women stand guard.”
We walked up the rickety porch steps, each step creaking and moaning. A crone in a black kerchief sat on a rocking chair knitting. I tipped my hat at her, but she didn’t look up.
I saw why Zara liked the Witch House. The front door was black and heavy with a scarred knocker, a demon with a perpetual scream of terror, in the middle. Inside, most of the house was black, too. Floor, walls, ceiling. The place was lit by dozens of candles, which sat on practically every surface. Black cats patrolled the house or squatted on the floor. One cat with huge yellow eyes stared at me like he thought I was going to rob the place.
The entrance opened onto a parlor with expensive-looking chairs and sofas with carved wood and dark gold embellishments. There was one splash of color in the room, however. Unicorn de Havilland. The famous singer sat on one of the cushy sofas amid a bunch of fluffy pillows. Unicorn looked like a sentient rainbow. Her ivory horn protruded from a pink bob. Her dress was the color of a kaleidoscope. Glitter sparkled on her cheeks.
Unicorn sprang up when she saw me. “Well, if it isn't the famous dick from ShadowShade.” She placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head.
“Don’t speak to him, Uni, please,” Zara said.
“I’m not allowed to say your name...ma’am,” I said.
“Funny, because I say yours all the time,” Unicorn said. “Usually when I stub my toe or step in mini-dragon shit.”
“I can see why you two get along.”
“Hi, Unicorn,” Oswald said.
“It’s nice to see you, Oz. I hope you’re enjoying that box of unicorn horns I sent you.” She winked.
“What box of unicorn horns?” I asked, but Oswald and Unicorn only laughed and said no more about it.
Zara grabbed me by the arm. “This will have to wait. We have business to attend to.” She led me through the parlor and into a large living room full of haunted Victorian dolls. Their glass eyes seemed to follow us as we made our way to the staircase.
“Zara, I hope you have a Plan C,” Unicorn shouted as we climbed the stairs.
“Don’t mind her,” Zara said. “She’s mad at me.”
I didn’t ask.
At the second-floor landing was a stained-glass window depicting a scene of a witch hanging from a tree that looked eerily like the one in the front yard.
Six doors circled us on the second floor. All closed. Zara led us to a hall and up a narrow, twisting flight of stairs.
As we crept up to the attic, Zara said, “I have to warn you. The Sisters haven’t spoken to anyone since the incident. And since then they’ve—” Zara cleared her throat ”—well, they’ve been hurting themselves. We had to keep them in the attic for their own protection.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen Zara uncomfortable. I almost didn’t want to go into the attic.
Zara stopped in front of the attic door, reached her right hand to her left wrist where she had a tattoo of a skeleton key, and mumbled a few magical words. The key appeared in her hand. She inserted it in the lock, turned it, and it clicked. Before she opened the door, she returned the key to her wrist, where it turned back into a tattoo. She slowly opened the door, the creaking getting louder as long shadows spilled out.
Zara snuck in like there was a baby inside she didn’t want to awake, her footsteps echoing off the walls. Before me and Oswald softly followed behind, I whispered to the runt: “Let me do the talking.”
The attic was silent and freezing cold. Light came from three small dormer windows set in the pitched ceiling. Three wooden chairs in the middle of the room were the only furniture. The Sisters sat on the chairs facing the windows.
“Ethel, Evelyn, Esther,” Zara said, her voice low and slow, like she was talking to a lion about to lunge, “we have some visitors from ShadowShade. Jack and Oswald. They’d like to talk to you.”
The Sisters gave no indication they heard Zara. They sat as still as statues, and I wasn’t sure if they weren’t haunted dolls like the ones downstairs. They were dressed in simple white robes that hung over the sides of their chairs. White kerchiefs covered their heads.
“Mind if I smoke?” I asked, not expecting an answer. I reached into my pocket for a Lucky Dragon. I offered the packet to Zara, who waved me off. Oswald looked at me skeptically. I lit the hellfire stick and took a long drag.
The Sisters didn’t protest. I was beginning to like them.
“Witches make me nervous,” I said. “They can make you do funny things. Cluck like a chicken or take off your clothes or think you’re seeing a tower when it’s really a hole in the ground. Never get on the wrong side of a witch. That could spell bad news.”
The Sisters continued staring at the wall.
“That vortex down the hill is bad news, too. I knew it the minute it came into being. You could feel it. It emits dark energy, doesn’t it?” I snapped my fingers close to the witches’ heads. No reaction. I pondered burning them with my hellfire stick, but quickly decided it was a bad idea.
I continued talking. “What you three encountered must have been very powerful. What could have done that? Pop out of that portal and melt your brains? Another witch? A demon? An interdimensional being? Lucifer, maybe?”
I sauntered to the far corner of the room hoping to get a glimpse of the Sisters’ faces. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zara, wide-eyed, shaking her head. I backed off.
“Maybe we’re dealing with something completely unknown here. A being never encountered on Pandemonium before,” Oswald interrupted.
I glared at the pipsqueak. “Didn’t I say to keep quiet?” I mumbled under my breath.
Oswald’s X eyes formed into big O’s. I thought I had finally gotten to him, but then I noticed he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the Sisters, who each in their turn rotated their heads toward us.
Now I knew why Zara stopped me from sneaking a glance at them. The first sister had no eyes, just empty sockets that were raw and covered in red welts. Angry red claw marks ran from her eyebrows to her chin. The second sister barely had a face. Most of it had been peeled away, exposing bone and rotten sinew. And the third sister was the most terrifying of all. Her face was untouched except for the hideous expression of terror fixed upon it like a corpse frozen in rigor mortis. She was the one who spoke.
“The stars are right,” the blind sister said, in a distant voice. “This I see clearly.”
The second sister with the torn-up face said, “He plunged from his world to our world through the sky.”
“Who plunged?” I asked, trying to pull Oswald behind me, but the little bugger wouldn’t budge.
“After many strange eons,” the third sister said. “Deathless death crawls toward us. He has a message and a mission. He has come through the midnights of eternity, beyond knowing, to blow on the blasphemous flute and beat the maddening drums that sound the news of despair, to show the horrible path that lies before us.”
“From the vast graveyards of the universe,” the first sister said, “the infernal despair, he comes to bring hope in madness.”
They all faced Oswald now. Zara looked shocked. I was pissed.
“Who’s coming?” I asked.
No reply. It was like I wasn’t there.
“Oswald,” Zara said, “you ask them.” I held out my hands and shot Zara a look.
“Who’s coming?” Oswald asked.
“Call him Harbinger, for he brings dark tidings,” the first sister said.
“What does this Harbinger look like?” I asked. Zara punched me in the ribs, and then put a finger to her lips.
“How can we recognize this Harbinger?” Oswald asked.
The second sister: “The face that is not a face. The man who is not a man. The god who is not a god.”
The first sister: “All will be revealed soon.”
The third sister: “That is not dead which can eternal lie.”
“He dreams and waits,” Oswald said in an eerie, fascinated voice. “In the sunken city.”
“What sunken city?” I asked, seriously annoyed now. “It’s like I came into the middle of a movie. A bad movie.”
“It was in one of my dreams,” Oswald said. “I wrote about it in my journal.” Oswald reached into his stomach and pulled out the diary. I hated when he stored stuff in his gelatinous body.
“This isn’t the time,” I said, “to be reading from that damn book.”
“Don’t worry about my book, Jack.”
“The book,” the three young witches said. “He seeks the book.”
“Harbinger seeks my book?” Oswald asked, perplexed. The Sisters clammed up. Each, in turn, swiveled her head back to the wall. “What book does Harbinger seek?” Oswald repeated, but the Sisters were done.
“I think we got enough,” I said.
Zara nodded, and we left the witches to stare out of their little windows. Oswald put his diary back into his body. Zara locked the door behind her before we descended the staircase.
“You could have told us about their faces,” I said.
“Haven’t you seen everything?” Zara said.
“And you, Oswald, what is this some kind of exclusive group? You’re sharing dreams with other people now? You never told me about any dreams.”
“I tried to tell you about my dream before.”
“That stupid dream about you being a marshmallow in a mug of cocoa?”
“You had that dream. Remember? And then you drank the cocoa. I never dreamed I was a marshmallow.”
“I think you’re remembering that wrong.”
“Enough about the marshmallow dream,” Zara said. “I have no idea how you two idiots manage to save the world all the time.”
“I’m not an idiot,” the little idiot said.
“Sorry,” Oswald. “That wasn’t meant for you. Let’s sit in the parlor.”
Unicorn was still there. She was smoking from a hookah. I sat in an armchair as far away from her as possible. Zara sat beside Unicorn, but when she was offered a hit from the hookah she waved her off.
“Jack, Oswald, care for a hit?” Unicorn said, and blew out a thick stream of pink smoke that smelled like cotton candy.
We both shook our heads.
“What’s this book they were talking about?” I asked. “Oswald, did you dream about a book, too?”
“No book,” Oswald said.
“What did they mean by the dreaming one? Oswald, what was in your dream?”
“I can’t really say. I don’t remember seeing much except for tall structures and narrow corridors. Oh, and green slime. It was on everything. It was more the feeling I had. The worst feeling I ever had. Pure terror. Fear I never felt. Someone or something was chasing me, but I don’t know what. It still gives me shivers thinking about it.”
“I don’t think this Harbinger is looking for Oswald’s journal, no matter how riveting it is. He must be looking for a grimoire.”
“We need to find him,” Zara said.
“We need to find the book first,” I said.
“Can you do that without making things worse?” Unicorn asked.
“I’ll go with him,” Zara said.
“You’re staying here,” Unicorn said. “We had Lucifer knows what come through that portal right down the hill, those crabs are coming out more and more often, and who knows what’s coming next. You’re staying right here and protecting Witch End. Jack can go running around the Five Cities looking for this book and the Boogeyman. It’s the least he can do after opening that portal in the first place.”
“I opened the portal? It was Oswald.”
“Does it make a difference? You are two peas in a pod.”
“There's a huge difference. He’s not me, you know? He has his own ideas, his own will. We’re nothing alike.”
“Find the book, Jack, and catch the Boogeyman, maybe then you can make up for all the trouble you’ve caused. We’ll protect what’s ours for as long as we have it.”
“Zara, is this how you feel?” I asked.
She hesitated a moment, and then put her hand on Unicorn’s leg. “I think she’s right. I’m needed here, and if you need help, give me a call.”
I stood up. “On second thought, give me that hookah.”
11
The Garden of Fooked-Up Delights
The trip back to ShadowShade was less eventful than our trip to Witch End. Fortunately, no toad people were on the train and the molemen were quiet. Unfortunately, Oswald chewed my ear off about his weird dreams. He told me about the dark city he explored and the golden eyes in the dark. He even pulled out the diary and read from it. I didn’t say anything, but the little guy was a terrible writer. The journal was full of purple prose and ten-cent words I’m sure he didn’t understand.
I trusted only one grimoire expert: Wallflower, better known as Wally the Wizard. Wally had been released from Purgatory Island and now lived with his cellmate Lucius in retirement.
We got off at the Little Valhalla stop, as a group of drunken Valkyries got on. One of them called me a “draugr scum.”
Wally had a little bungalow by the water. It wasn’t much more than a hut, but the landscaping was impeccable. Multi-colored flowers abounded in the front yard, which was framed by a white picket fence. Very homey. A dirt path lined with painted stones led to the front door. I gave a knock and waited. I tried looking in the window, but the blinds had been closed. No one answered, and I didn’t hear anyone stirring inside.
