Enemies Mine...Part 4

I let the carcass fall to the ground and glanced at the blade. The black blood was now dry and flaking off. I gave the flat of the blade a hearty tap on the edge of the table and watched the rest of the stuff fall off in jagged flakes.

Everyone watched in silence as I guided the end of the blade back into its special sheath with my left hand, the weapon, sheath and all slipping into the Shadowland as it clicked into place. I raised my hands in a belated show of peaceful intentions.

“Let’s have everyone put away the weapons. I don’t see any need for more violence tonight.”

The guard on the right was the first to visibly relax. He rose from his kneeling position, moving the muzzle of his pistol away from me and towards the ceiling.

El Diablito settled back into his chair as he regained his composure, allowing his power to dissipate. “That was an impressive display, Rusty. How did you know that Grimes was an imposter?”

Dick Arnold was still staring in disbelief at the monstrous smoking head that had landing directly in front of him. Hearing the name of his missing manservant seemed to restore the ability to speak. “Grimes! What happened to my Grimes?”

The brooding figure of Papa Locks crossed his arms. “You’ve changed a great deal since the last time we met, Bones, but so have I.”

“Yeah, Locks, I seem to remember you being killed in Miami. May I presume that you are not just a spokesperson for Bone Financial, but a client as well?”

He didn’t respond.

Ravyn stepped over the fallen form of the doppelganger with a look of disgust. “You had better have a good reason for requesting this meeting, Dr. Klimm.” Her voice dripped with acid as she spoke his name.

El Diablito’s facial expression shifted from smug to shock back to smug within in microseconds. “Ah yes, I’ve enjoyed our duels, young lady. But I am less than fond of your pet bird, I must say.” He rubbed his hands together as he spoke.

Enemies Mine...Part 3

Seizing on the opportunity created by the surprise of seeing Papa Locks standing across the room, I stretched my right hand up to my right shoulder and seized ahold of the hilt of Excalibur.

In a blindingly fast move that I had been practicing ever since that nasty encounter on South Beach, I drew the blade and lashed out with it. Even with surprise, however, I would have missed my target if the blade hadn't adjusted itself in mid-swing.

The magickal blade whizzed out faster than the human eye can see, taking Chandler's head and the hand that he had brought up in an attempt to ward off the blow that no one else knew was coming. Hand and head went flying up in the air as tremendous energies and a fountain of blackish ichor were unleashed in a gushing flood. The lights of the room flickered as the Spirit of the creature was destroyed by the blade's deadly magick.

Dick Arnold sat stunned, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. His hands clenched to the table as he watched the head of his long time servants head go flying, only to see the head of a monster land on the table with a thud. The empty eyes of an alien creature stared back at him.

El Diablito had the presence of mind to kick back from the table and stand up, a ball of powerful energy gathering around his right hand, ready to smite any who threatened him. "Bones, what is the meaning..."

The two guards reached for weapons at their sides, the guard on the right side ducking down to use the table as cover as he drew a weapon. The guard on the left had his pistol up and out in a standing postiion.

Only Papa Locks didn't react in utter surprise. Even though his head was obscured by the dark hood of the cloak, I saw it tip back as a laughter echoed forth, his shoulders shaking in mirth. "You see, Little Devil, I told you that butler was not who he seemed to be!"

I heard Zenny gasp in surprise, while Jim uttered a series of curses that would have shocked his students. I could feel Ravyn gathering her own power, whether in response to El Diablito or to my actions, I wasn't sure.

I reached down to the oozing form of the doppleganger on the floor, hooked my left hand into the hole at the top of its neck and pulled the body up for all to see. Excalibur still smoking in my right hand, I looked to my other enemies across the table.

"We need to talk."

(To be continued tonight...)

Enemies Mine...Part 2

We were met in the lobby by a thin, tall, middle-aged black man wearing a black tuxedo, highly polished shoes, and white gloves. He had been waiting in the middle of the room, calmly ignoring the never-ending stream of humanity that simply parted around him as they sought the golden spawning grounds in the gaming rooms behind him.

As we approached however, he came to life as if having been turned on. His spoke as we came near and bowed his head ever so slightly in my direction. “Agent Rusty Bones, I presume?” His accent distinguished as someone who trained or lived in England for a very long time.

I stopped. “Yeah. I’m Agent Bones. What can I do for you?”

He tilted his head again in the faintest hint of a bow of deference. “My name is Chandler Grimes. I have been asked to take you to your party.”

“Have you now? And just what party is that Chandler?” I stared directly into his eyes, trying to gain his measure, quite aware that many people found it hard to look directly at me for any significant period of time.

He returned my gaze, unfazed and unblinking as he replied. “I am in the personal employ of Mr. Richard Arnold. He has asked me to meet you and your party and to escort you to his private chambers.”

I extended my right arm, palm up and open. “Well then, my good man, why don’t you lead the way?”

He bobbed his head one more time, looked directly at my three companions for the first time. He bowed more substantially to Raven and Zenny while he barely acknowledged Jim’s existence. He turned on a dime and began a slow, march through the ever changing stream of customers, effortlessly avoiding contact with any of them as made his way towards a roped off elevator just off the side of the main lobby.

As we moved to follow, Ravyn leaned over to me. “What happened with meeting him in a public place?”

Jim’s quizzical look asked the same question without any words.

I brought my hand up to my mouth to prevent anyone from reading my lips while I pretended to cough. “It’s OK. Trust me.”

She arched an eyebrow at that, but didn’t otherwise respond.

A security guard pulled the velvet rope to the side, allowing us to follow behind Chandler into the elevator.

“Chandler, is an elevator necessary? This place can’t have more than four floors?”

The butler bobbed his head again before he spoke. “I am following my instructions, Agent Bones.”

The door closed as Jim brought up the rear of the party. It was just us and Chandler in the spacious elevator. I decided to take a chance and shifted in my vision into the Shadowland.

Chandler’s Spirit form was a very calm, deep blue in color and matched the shape and size of his body. His form looked right at me as I looked at him. It seemed that he gave me the same sort of slight nod that he had given me before. I shifted back into normal vision just as the elevator reached the third and top floor. The door opened with a chime.

Chandler somehow found a way through us and into the hall beyond before anyone could even shift out of his way. He didn’t seem to move that fast, but he was effortlessly leading the way again down a quiet, deserted hallway full of closed doors.

He stopped in front of a set of double doors, waiting for us to catch up to him. As we approached, he pulled open both doors so that they clicked into place and remained open without anyone holding onto them and stepped inside the beautifully appointed conference room.

Once inside, his announced in a loud, clear voice. “Mr. Arnold, it is my pleasure to announce the arrival of Agent Rusty Bones and party.” He turned to wave us into the room with his gloved left hand.

Stepping inside the large room, I saw Dick Arnold and El Diablito seated next to each other at the end of a long conference table. Standing behind them were three figures. Two of the figures, one to each side, were clearly guards, although they didn’t seem to be the same kind of goons that Drake and Dick Arnold had employed in the past. These two guys were clearly not your average soldier turned mercenary types.

But it was the third figure that caused me to stop in my tracks. I couldn’t make out any actual physical features because he was shrouded in a hooded dark cloak that obscured his face. But there was no mistaking that aura as soon as I saw him, I recognized him.

“Papa Locks!”

Enemies Mine...Part 1

We pulled into the unlighted parking lot on the edge of Detroit’s Greektown district. Jim backed the large white Co-op van into the spot the attendant had indicated, but not until the man had collected a $10 bill from the grumbling Jim.

Turning off the van, Jim turned to face the rest of us in the van. “I still think you should have agreed to meet him outside. Nothing good happens in a casino unless you happen to own the thing.”

“Yeah, well I was actually trying to keep everyone from freezing to death when we met with them. Plus the crowds will hopefully keep things from coming to blows between us and minimize any possible dirty tricks they can try to pull on us.”

Jim shook his head as he pocketed the keys to the van. “I don’t know about that, with Arnold’s money and influence, I’m worried that we’ll be walking into a trap.”

“Hey, they’re on my turf now, Jim. Trust me. I’ve got it all under control.”

Ravyn looked back from the front passenger seat, incredulous. “Trust you? After all of the times you’ve walked blindly into danger? Yeah, right. We’re not all dead, you know, and we’d rather not get that way! Let’s go.”

The four of us got out of the van, our boots crunching in the crusted snow that hadn’t been cleared in the week since the last storm. The cold winter air had enough bite in to show the breath of each of the other three in the party.

Zenny pulled her hijab closer to her forehead with her gloved hands. She stomped her feet and shivered as she waited for Ravyn and Jim to join us.

“How can people live in such a cold place?”

I shook my head. “Detroit’s not bad. A lot of your fellow Iraqi’s live here too.”

She looked down at her feet, pushing the snow side to side with her left boot. “I don’t know what could have brought them here.”

Happy to have a chance to talk about my native community and show a little of my local lore I decided to expound a little bit in her native tongue. “Well, Henry Ford and his $5 a day work day brought a lot of immigrants to this area starting about 80 years ago, including a lot of laborers from Yemen and Lebanon. I think the Iraqi’s are mostly refugees from Saddam though, they didn’t start coming in large numbers until the Iran/Iraq war started. The Detroit area is home to the largest concentration of Arabs outside of the Middle East. When we’re done here, we can probably get some good food for you from a really good bakery.”

Zenny replied in Arabic. “This is one Arab who wishes that it was warmer here in the winter.” She cracked a small smile and switched back to English. “Thank you, Rusty. It is always nice to hear you speak Arabic.”

As Jim and Ravyn joined us, we began the short walk to the casino. Jim carried a small backpack that he slung over his shoulder.

Ravyn walked silently next to him, her eyes darting between abandoned buildings and nearly empty lots. “This is downtown Detroit? I thought it would be a little more alive than this.”

Our crunching steps and hushed words were just then overshadowed by a siren as an ambulance screamed down a nearby street. “It’s actually better now than a few years ago. This entire area was empty, except for a few Greek restaurants. Before the casinos and the new stadiums, this entire section of the city was a wasteland.”

Jim harrumphed, waving his free right hand about as he spoke. “But how much public money was spent to attract and build those things here? I’ll bet that those tax dollars would have been better spent on something more productive than helping the wealthy get wealthier.”

I glanced over to Jim. “At least now there is something for people to do when they come to this city. Before this stuff, there wasn’t anything to bring them here.”

We rounded the corner and saw the glitzy signs of the casino and the bustle of patrons going in and out.

I stopped. “So is everyone ready? Any questions on the plan of action?”

All three shook their heads.

“OK, then, let’s get in, do our business, and get out.”

The Zombie King Revealed

In frigid night air, I crunched through the snow in the backyard of the Coop once more. I was alone, or at least as alone as a person with the partial memories and consciousnesses of hundreds of people inside him ever could be.

I brushed the snow off of the stone bench and had a seat just outside of the small stone circle that had served so many times as a makeshift transit point. I reached with my right hand to pull out the chain that held Drake’s ring. I needed to know more about the man we called El Diablito and Drake was the only person I knew who would have the knowledge I needed. The problem is, he had been giving me the silent treatment since I stopped honoring our deal. I hadn’t let him post any of his stories in quite some time.

I took the necklace off and held the ring in my left hand. Perhaps it was time to try a new approach.

“Alright Drake, I need to talk.”

No response.

“Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to give you the time I promised before, but I really need some information about El Diablito.”

Still nothing.

“Would you stop being such a baby about this? I’ll start posting your story again in March.”

The bastard was being really stubborn now.

“OK, OK, I’ll talk to Naomi about letting you meet Alexa.”

Now I felt some stirrings of interest inside the cursed ring.

“But I’m not going to do that unless you start answering some damn questions.”

“What do you want to know about him, Bones?”

“Finally! I need to know who the Hell this guy is and how he came to be so damn strong! How did you meet this guy?”

His droll voice chuckled inside my head. “I have a lot of respect for that little man, Bones. He has made himself into perhaps the most powerful Caster of his generation.”

“So he wasn’t always this strong?”

“No.”

“Then how did he get so strong? We’ve recovered an artifact of his, a Soulscope, from his old shop in Hialeah. Does that have something to do with who he is now?”

“Very good, Bones. I’m almost impressed. When I met Dr. Juergen Klimm for the first time it was in Munich, Germany sometime in 1936 or 1937. He was a psychoanalyst by training, but a Caster of some small talent. Perhaps more importantly than all, he was an inventor who was trying desperately to mix his magickal talents with his mechanical and technological devices. He felt that magick and technology should not be exclusive of each other.”

“What did he do for the Nazis?”

Drake chuckled again. “Well, his is not my tale to tell. But I will say that he developed this Soulscope that you have mentioned, as well as several other devices. He used those devices to further the interests of the Third Reich by helping to eradicate doubt and fear in the minds of certain cadres of soldiers and guards, and by helping to subdue the Casters among the populations that the Germans were working to eradicate. His devices became quite instrumental in the operation of the concentration camps, where he spent a great deal of his time. He earned several nicknames in his time there. My favorite was ‘The Zombie King’. He was called that because when he finished with his victims, they were docile creatures, empty shells of their former selves.

“By using those tools of his, he was able to pacify those folks while at the same time he was stealing the talents and knowledge of his victims, making himself more and more powerful.”

“He sounds like an evil mother fucker.”

“I see that you have yet to learn any manners, Bones. Dr. Klimm did not see himself as evil, of course. Most humans cannot conceive of themselves as evil, even when they are committing the worst of atrocities. There is always a higher purpose that their actions serve, at least in their own minds. Dr. Klimm was no different. He definitely believed in the Third Reich and the concept of the Aryan Race as superior. But he also believed that in some small way that he was helping even his victims.”

“How could he think that even as he stole their powers, pieces of their soul?”

“He knew that the people in those camps were going to be exterminated, but he felt that some of their essence should live on, in him, if no one else. Just think, Bones, he did much the same thing that you have come to do with the power over the Shadow that you acquired from the creature you called Ma Grendel. You taking the memories of Dr. Bernstein was very similar to what did with the tools he created. You and Dr. Klimm…oh excuse me, El Diablito, are very much kindred spirits. How does that make you feel now?”

“Like I might have to renege some more on that deal if you keep it up. So how did he escape from Germany and how did you two come to work together again?”

“By the end of the war, we had gone our separate ways. I joined forces with the Americans, eventually going there to continue my own work. Dr. Klimm ended up fleeing to Argentina and working his way up the South American continent to Haiti and Cuba as he continued to develop his tools and his powers. By the time I was ready to start the Omega Project, I had learned of a powerful little man in Hialeah who was now known by the name of El Diablito and who claimed to have some expertise in creating zombies. The rest, as they say, is history.”

“It seems like you are leaving out enough facts to fill a library.”

“Like I said, Bones, his story is not mine to tell. I have given you all that I care to at this point. You will have to make good on your many empty promises before I offer you any further assistance. Don’t get yourself destroyed before you live up to your obligations.”

I let go of the ring itself, letting it dangle from the chain, ending our conversation.

The nerve of that prick!

The Soulscope

The stethoscope head sat on the table between the professor and me. We had commandeered this room, the library at the Coop from the couple of drowsy young students who had still been pretending to be studying, and shut the doors while Ravyn helped get Zenny to her room.

The larger, flatter side of the piece was plain and unremarkable. That side was made entirely out of dull but unstained steel. Its shallow cone shape appeared to be designed to be placed directly on the skin of the victim, much as the flat side of a normal stethoscope would be placed on a patient to enable a doctor to hear the patient’s heartbeat.

The darker, more sinister-looking part of the device was the hard, enameled knob on top of it. That’s where the swastika sat staring back up. There was a pair of small nozzles onto which I presumed small rubber hosing could be attached. If this thing were a normal stethoscope, those nozzles would feed the sound of the patient’s heartbeat up to the pieces that the doctor would insert into his ears. I had no idea why the nozzles would be needed on this device, or what it actually did.

Jim shifted in his chair first, causing it to groan and creak as he did so. “So, what is thing? I know what it looks like, but I get the feeling that it isn’t really what it looks like. And why did El Diablito leave the thing there? It seems like it would have some value to him.”

“When I took it from Zenny, just touching that thing awakened the Voices inside me that have been pretty dormant for a while. This thing looks old enough to have been used by the Nazis. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if El Diablito himself hadn’t worked with the Nazis. Drake had originally told me that a lot of the secret stuff that the Allies took from the Nazis related to magick. He also said that a lot of those practitioners escaped to different parts of the world.”

The door opened and closed quietly behind me. I saw Jim’s eyes and face light up for the briefest of moments before his features settled back into a look of concern. “How’s Zenny doing, Ravyn?”

“She was protesting the whole way to her room, but she collapsed into a deep sleep as soon as she hit her pillow.” Ravyn pulled a chair up to the table, turned it around and sat on it backwards, looking intently at the device that lay on the table. “I don’t like the feelings I’m getting from that thing one little bit. When we’re done with it, I want it taken far away from here. I don’t want to risk any students getting a little too curious.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ll take it with me when we go to see the bastard in Detroit, tomorrow night.”

Jim’s lips pursed in thought. “Are you sure that’s wise? What if he left it there for just such a possibility? He did have that phone set up for you guys.”

Ravyn placed her hands on the table and leaned in for a closer look without actually touching the thing. “Zenny did manage to tell me that she felt that something was in that room, but that she had to dig around for it the corner of the room. I don’t think he left it there on purpose. There’s no way he could have known someone with Zenny’s sensitivity would have been in the group to check that place out.”

Jim watched as Ravyn leaned in real close to the thing and then backed away. He finally breathed when she was far enough away not to touch it by accident. “Then if it is something that he lost, are we really sure that we want to take it with us? He might want the thing back, and I don’t think this is something we want in his hands.”

I shook my head. “He’s not going to get the thing back. That much is for sure. What’s this ‘we’ stuff anyway, Jim?”

He cleared his throat and crossed his arms as he sat up straight again. “I’m going with you to Detroit.”

“Just like that, huh? No discussion about possible dangers or who else we might ask to come along?” I looked to Ravyn for some support. “I don’t think that they’ll let us take any visible weapons into the casino, Jim.”

Ravyn glanced from me to Jim, then reached out and touched Jim on the shoulder with her right hand, giving him a reassuring squeeze. “I think Jim should go too. We’re not planning on fighting in any event. But even it comes down to that, Jim can hold his own, even without his Louisville Slugger.”

Looking between these two, I saw that they had a united front against me, so I shrugged my shoulders and gave up. “OK, it just means I’ll have to watch out for another person.”

Jim’s brow furrowed at that. “I can take care of myself, Rusty.”

I shrugged again and reached out to touch the device on the table. “I just think we need to puzzle out what this thing actually is before we go…”

Behind us the door opened again, this time with a bang. As we turned to look back at who would interrupt us, we saw the slight figure of Zenny standing in the doorway, her head uncovered and barefoot in a heavy white bathrobe instead of the black outfit she had on previously.

Ravyn was already standing up and starting towards the door. “Zenny, dear, you should be getting some…”

Zenny brushed a stray strand of black hair from in front of her face and dismissed Ravyn’s concern with a shake of her head. “No. I’m OK.” She entered the room, closing the door behind her. She kept one hand on the front of the bathrobe, near her neck, keeping it closed more than it would have been if she had relied on the belt at her waist.

We all watched as she walked up to the table where the device still sat, she stood across from Ravyn.

There were dark splotches under her eyes and her cheeks were still moist with tears, but her mouth had a determined set about it as she stared down at the Nazi symbol.

When she spoke, her voice sounded hollow and distant. “That device was called a Soulscope. It was the first one of its kind. The man you call El Diablito designed it around seventy years ago as a Nazi researcher.”

Jim cocked his head. “A Soulscope? What does it do?”

Zenny choked back a sob as she remembered her intimate contact with the device. “In the hands of someone like El Diablito, it can be used to suck the soul out of living bodies, in part or in whole. In the hands of lesser talented individuals, its uses are more limited.”

“How so?”

Zenny shuddered pushed back another bunch of stray hair before answering. “Professor, you would probably only be able to ‘listen’ to the soul of another person, but you might know if that person were telling you the truth, or you might even hear what their darkest fears were.” She turned her head away from the thing, even as she still stood there. “That particular device was used both by El Diablito to conduct some of his early experiments and was later given to some SS guards at a death camp to learn more about what manner of death or torture scared the victims more. It had been lost in the war and was only recovered in the last five years. Even that heartless man couldn’t stand the way it feels now. That’s probably why he didn’t look too hard for it when his office was packed up.”

She looked back down at the device before reaching out to pick it up in a move that surprised all of us. She had it in her palm before any of could move to stop her.

Ravyn gasped, “Zenny, what are you…?”

Jim pushed back from the table as if getting ready to stand up.

I just sat there watching her with keen interest.

Zenny, one hand still holding the neck of her robe closed held the item up for all of us to see with her right hand. “I’m alright now. I was simply caught off guard by the evil of this thing and what it had been used for. This device is crude compared to the tools that he uses now, but he will not be amused to see that we have one of his early prototypes.

“I’m going to Detroit with you as well, and I think I should hold onto this for safekeeping. It has no more power over me.”

Opening Gambit...Postscript

I slammed the phone down. “That bastard has something up his sleeve.”

Ravyn nodded. “I’m very interested in what Zenny discovered about him just by touching that front door.” She glanced over to where Zenny had been standing moments ago and did a double take as she realized that Zenny wasn’t there any more. “Hey, where did she go?”

I looked around as well. “Zenny? Where are you?”

No response.

Ravyn shook her head and turned in a circle, looking about the empty room. “She can’t have gone very far.”

I nodded over toward the farthest door in the room, shifting my vision partially into Shadowland. “What’s that over there? I think she’s in there.”

My boots scuffed the cement floor as I walked, stiff-legged to the door, Ravyn close behind.
I pushed the door in, revealing a small back office that I hadn’t seen in my last visit to this shop.

Inside the cramped office, Zenny was kneeling on the floor and rocking back and forth in a rhythmic manner. Her bare hands were clasped together. Her eyes were clenched as tightly as her hands while her lips were moving in sync with her body. Zenny’s gloves lay stacked on the floor next to her. The office itself was lacking in any major furniture, but there was a blizzard of paper scattered about.

Ravyn slipped around me as I stopped at the doorway. She knelt down next to Zenny without actually touching her. “Zenny, what’s going on?”
No response. She continued to sway, her eyes remained closed, and her lips continued to move silently as if deep in meditation or prayer.

I stepped into the room. I reached deep inside the captured memories from Ma Grendel, looking for words in her native tongue. I spoke to her in Arabic. “Do you need help?” I reached out to touch her.

Ravyn stopped me from interrupting her. “No, Rusty. I think she needs to do this. There is powerful magick taking place right now. If we break her trance, there’s no telling what may happen.”

I stood back up and retreated. I let slip the connections between my body and Spirit form and slipped spiritually into the Shadowland. There I saw Ravyn’s fiery red form now focused back on the kneeling form of Zenny.

My attention was immediately drawn to Zenny’s form. Normally, Zenny’s Spirit form ranged from soft, dark violet to deep blue. Right at the moment, however, her colors had shifted to vibrant, pulsating hues of orange and yellow. The glow was strongest at her clasped hands, as if she were trying to contain something very powerful within them.

Using a portion of my essence, I stretched out a tendril towards her hands, getting as close as I could without actually touching her. It was quite difficult to do, because there are unseen fields of resistance between different individual Spirit forms. The resistance can be overcome through force of Will but it is exceptionally hard to push very close to another form without actually completely overpowering that resistance.

The closer I got though, the more I sensed something desperately wrong. I felt an overpowering sense of evil emanating from that source between her hands. I could also tell that she was trying desperately to shield us from the pain that she was so clearly experiencing.

That was enough for me. I snapped back into my body and dropped to my knees in front of her and took her still clasped hands in mine.

“Rusty, what are you doing? What’s wrong?” Ravyn’s voice was cracking with concern.

“She’s got a hold of something. Whatever it is, it isn’t good.” Her fingers were clenched tight. Gently at first, I began to pry her fingers away from whatever it was that she was holding.

Zenny gasped in pain as both her rhythm and her grasp was broken. Her left hand loosed and went limp as I managed to reach inside and grab the object. She collapsed into Ravyn’s arms, her chest heaving, tears running down her face. Her choking sobs were loud at first, but were quickly soothed by a deliberately calm Ravyn.

I opened my own palm and looked at what had caused all of this fuss. It seemed innocuous enough—the small metal head of what looked to be a stethoscope. But turning it over in my palm, the back side of it showed something far more sinister. A small symbol was engraved on the backside. It was symbol that even I recognized. It was a swastika.

“What is it, Rusty?”

Even without slipping into the Shadowland, I could feel the power of the thing. Deep inside of my being, the dark whispers of entities slain and consumed long ago by Ma Grendel awakened once again. Their voices ate at my consciousness, calling out in glee at the discovery of this evil tool.

“Feed us!”

“Let us take them!”

“We hunger!”

I closed my hand around the object and tamped the whispers back down into the bowels of my soul. The realization at what I had in my hands had shaken me to my very core. “It’s something from the Nazi’s. I think it was used by El Diablito in the concentration camps for something, but I can’t open myself to it just yet. It is stirring up things inside me that I can’t risk letting loose right now.”

Zenny had stopped sobbing now and seemed to be resting Ravyn’s arms.

“We need to get back to the Coop and find out what she has seen, both from this damn thing and from the door.”

Ravyn nodded. “Let’s get back there quickly.”

I shoved the stethoscope head into my pocket and reached down to pick up Zenny. “We’re taking the express road back, babe. Don’t forget her gloves.”

I stood up and waited for Ravyn to collect her gloves and join me. I called the Shadow as soon as she was ready. This time, Zombie Air provided direct, door-to-door service right back to Ravyn’s study.

A Little Zombie Love

Just a short little note to express my undying love to all of the luscious and inspirational ladies in my (un)life:

To Cerrydwen(Pat): My Soulmate Forever...

To Jasmine (Kerry): My Shining Light...

To Frau (Mom): My Strong Foundation...

To Ravyn (Candii): My Dear Friend...

Happy Valentines Day...

Next post due on Thursday, because tomorrow...(cue the cheesy 70's guitar music)...is for Zombie Lovin'....

Doug

Opening Gambit...Conclusion

The narrow doorway led directly into a cramped area that was still crowded with bookshelves, although these were now empty, except for dust, cobwebs, and a number of the small, green lizards that were so common to South Florida. They little critters scurried away as I entered.

Bob’s glow shed soft, yellow light upon the room, which only served to highlight how long it had been since any humans had been here. Ravyn and Zenny followed closely behind Bob.

I pushed past the rows of empty bookshelves towards the short hallway that led back to the room where in some small way I had lost a part of my humanity. It was back there that I had succumbed to the drugs in the tea and cookies that El Diablito had given me, only to wake up in the morning to discover the Chakra necklace handing around my neck.

There had been a small envelope with an airline ticket back to Washington and instructions to leave the necklace on at all times. I wouldn’t learn of the true importance of wearing that cursed thing for several more years, but that story has been told elsewhere on this blog.

At the moment, I was more concerned about any surprises the bastard may have left for unplanned visitors than I was about my own checkered past. Collapsed baton still held firmly in my right hand, I edged down the hall, ready for anything…or so I thought anyway.

A second curtained doorway obscured the large room that I knew to be in the back of the shop. I stepped up to the curtain, flicked out my baton to its full extension, and used it to brush aside the raggedy curtains. The only sounds to be heard were the heavy, expectant breaths of Ravyn and Zenny, the skittering of tiny clawed feet as the little lizards sought their refuge and Bob’s happy chirping sounds as he floated above us, happy to be exploring new environs.

When I had last been here, this room had been furnished with a number of mismatched, battered couches lined up along three walls, while the fourth wall had been taken up by a curtained off stage set between two doorways. The center of the room had been occupied by a cluttered table and its own mismatched wooden chairs. Now when I looked in the barren room, I was impressed with its size. It easily took up over half of the room of the entire shop. But what immediately drew my attention was the telephone sitting in the middle of the floor of the vast room.

It was one of those old rotary phones. It was deep red in color, reminiscent of the phones shown in old Cold War movies that sat on the desk of the President of the United States and in the Kremlin.

Bob floated into the room above me and naturally gravitated towards the center of this vast new space to explore, while Ravyn and Zenny slipped to either side of me.

I stood there unmoving, just inside the doorway, staring at that damn phone. There was something very odd about that phone sitting there, but I couldn’t place it immediately.

Ravyn was the first to break the silence of our group. “What is it Rusty?”

“That phone. It wasn’t here before.”

“So?”

“There something wrong with it. But I just can’t place it.”

Zenny touched my shoulder with her right hand and pointed with her left hand. “Why would someone leave an unplugged phone sitting in the middle of the floor?”

I smacked my forehead with my left hand. “That’s it. There’s no line leading up to. It’s not plugged in. They must have just left the old thing sitting there since it probably couldn’t be used anymore.”

Relieved at having figured out what had me so unsettled, I moved towards the phone.

It rang.

It was loud, bell clanging ring that caused both of the gals to jump back and catch their breaths.

It rang again.

I scanned the room with normal vision and then again with eye towards the Shadowland, just to be sure there wasn’t some hidden trap. The only thing that registered as out of the ordinary was that phone. As it rang a third time, I noticed that it glowed with a magickal energy that perhaps explained how it could be ringing without being connected to any actual phone line.
I moved to the center of the room, standing over the phone.

It rang a fourth time.

I reached down to pick it up, reasonably certain that I would be talking to an old foe. “Yeah?”

That familiar cackling laughter came through loud and clear over the phone’s hand set. “So you’ve finally come back home, eh Bones?”

“What do you want, old man?”

His voice took on a serious tone. “We need to talk, Bones.”

“What about?”

“We have many things to discuss, Jason. I understand that you don’t trust me right now, but we need to come to an understanding. I’m not Drake. He’s gone now, so there is a new order to be established.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed audibly. “Drake was driven by certain things from his past. You know about those things as well as I do now. I don’t have that same baggage that he did. I can acknowledge my failures in dealing with you and your friends in the past and I can move on from them. I would like us to arrange a meeting where we can hash out our differences in an amicable way. I have no desire to keep you as an enemy, Jason; we can do so much more together than we can separately.”

Ravyn and Zenny had both moved in close enough to me now to be able to listen in on the conversation as well.

I looked from Zenny to Ravyn to see if either of them had any input. Zenny pursed her lips in concentration, but just shrugged her shoulders. Ravyn’s eyes were narrowed in concentration as she motioned with one hand that I should keep talking.

“OK, I can see some possibilities. Where would you want to meet with me?”

He laughed. It was a hearty, deep laugh that sounded disturbingly normal for this crazy old coot. “Well, I doubt that saucy, red-headed wench friend of yours will allow me to set the meeting place. Why don’t you ask her where she’d like us to meet?”

Ravyn’s mouth dropped open as she heard that. “Why I never…”

“I think she should come along for our little meeting. I look forward to showing her my hand, thanks to that dreadful bird of hers.”

I waved Ravyn quiet with my right hand, letting the baton slip to the ground next to the phone. “Look, old man, where do you want to meet with us then? It should be somewhere nice and public. I don’t want any damn surprises.”

He sighed again. “Fine, take all of the fun out of this, will you? How about we meet near your hometown, in one of those casinos in Detroit? You name the particular place and time. That should be public enough for all of us.”

I nodded. “Fine. Let’s meet in Greektown exactly 24 hours from now, bring that prick Dick Arnold with you as well.” I looked at my watch to fix the time in my head.

“Done.” The phone went silent.

Opening Gambit...Part 3

I stopped just before I touched the door, hand still extended. “What?”

Ravyn reached out and brushed my arm aside. Her voice grew louder in her impatience. “Don’t you see the damn door isn’t locked? Do you think a Caster of El Diablito’s ability is going to leave one of his haunts completely unprotected? Sheesh! After all of this time and after everything you’ve been through, you were just going to barge in there without thinking, weren’t you?”

I raised my hands in surrender. There was certainly no arguing with her when she was this fired up. “OK, OK. Do whatever you think you need to do to make it safe, I’ll be a good little zombie and wait for the mighty Caster to do her work!”

Ravyn’s eyes flashed as she turned to respond. Her mouth opened as if she were about to respond when Zenny slipped in between us, her back to Ravyn.

She looked up at me with disappointment in her eyes as she placed a hand on my forearm. “That was uncalled for, Rusty. Ravyn is thinking only of our safety.”

Her almond shaped brown eyes reflected a level of sadness that drew me up short. I looked away from her in shame. “I’m sorry Ravyn. I don’t know why I said that.”

Zenny turned to Ravyn and spoke in a very soft voice before Ravyn could reply to me. “Please, allow me.” She nodded towards the door.

Ravyn alternated looking between Zenny and me as she backed away from the door to allow Zenny to use her skills.

Zenny pulled the thin deerskin glove off her right hand and stepped to the door. She leaned in close to the door, placing her palm flat on the door at about ear height. She turned her head to the side as she did and closed her eyes. Her lips parted ever so slightly as she began to concentrate on what the door could tell her.

Ravyn watched her with concern, her own hands clenched with the tension of the unknown that hung heavy in the suddenly silent and still night air. Even the creaking of the sign had finally stopped. It was as if all of south Florida was waiting for the results of Zenny’s contact with the door.

After several tense moments, Zenny stepped back from the door with a sigh. As she turned to face the two of us, she brushed a stray strand of her dark hair back under her hijab. “This door has not been opened in nearly a year. The last people to use it were manual laborers of some sort. I don’t sense any about the door that would be of concern in opening it.”

Ravyn nodded. “That’s good. At least we know it’s safe to open the door.”

Zenny shuddered. “I did get a feel for this person you have called El Diablito.” She looked directly at me. “Rusty, I don’t think that I will ever be able to think of you as Shaitan again. That man has truly earned that name.”

Concerned, I put a hand on her shoulder. “What did you see?”

She shook her head. “That is something we can discuss at another time. Let’s see what awaits us inside.”

Zenny moved to the side, allowing me to reach out to the door as she carefully put her glove back on. She wore them almost all of the time since her talent was always active—giving her impressions and information about everything that she touched, unless she was wearing something as familiar and safe as those gloves.

With my left hand on the handle, I glanced back at Ravyn to make sure that she was ready and then flicked my right wrist to allow that baton to drop into my palm. I let it stay in its collapsed form for the moment.

At Ravyn’s nod, I yanked the door open and slipped into the doorway just in case there was a surprise waiting for us. The dark, dusty interior of the empty shop greeted me with bored indifference.

I recognized the skeleton of the once cluttered shop that I had visited those many years before. But the racks and shelves that had once been full to the point of bursting now stood empty like the bones of a long dead beast picked clean by scavengers.

“It looks abandoned.” I walked in towards the counter where the cashier used to stand. The light switch on the wall next to the ancient cash register was unresponsive.

Behind me, I heard Ravyn whisper. “Bob, you stay close, OK?”

I heard the cheery warble of ‘Bob’ reply as I looked back to see Ravyn on one knee at the doorway of the shop. She had taken her small backpack off and was holding the top flap open so that Bob could float out.

The soft yellow glow that Bob gave off when he was happy to be exploring a new place helped to illuminate the shop further. As Bob floated happily to the top of the room, the harsh, skeletal shadows retreated to their corners.

Ravyn stood up and swung the now empty pack back across her shoulders as stepped into the shop. Zenny followed behind her, smiling in wonder at the bizarre, orb-like creature that was now happily whistling as he drifted along the ceiling.

After taking stock of the clearly empty and abandoned shop, Ravyn turned to me. “You were here once before, can you lead us back to any office he might have had? That’s probably the place where we are most likely to find anything he left behind that Zenny might be able to get a reading off of.”

I nodded and pointed towards the curtain hanging just to the left of the cashier’s counter. “If go through there, we’ll pass through the used book area that he had and down a hall towards the back. There’s a large ceremonial room where he drugged me when he was making my Chakra. There’s a small office and kitchen area back there as well. If he’s been here in the last year, that’s where he’s most likely to have been.”

Ravyn pushed back the holey curtains, putting her hand to her face to protect herself from the dust cloud that act generated, and waved me through. “After you.”

(Conclusion of Opening Gambit due tonight…)

Opening Gambit...Part 2

Ravyn, Zenny and I walked through the cold Chicago air, our feet crunching the crusted snow cover as we moved towards the small stone circle behind the Phoenix Coop. Jim followed behind.

Zenny hugged her arms tightly about her body, her teeth chattering as she shivered. “Why must it be so cold in this place?”

Ravyn reached out to touch her shoulder. “I’m sorry dear, I forgot. This will help.” Ravyn closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, uttering a word under her breath that was lost to the whipping winds. A soft red glow slipped from her hand and spread from Zenny’s shoulder to cover her entire body, fading gently as it did.

Zenny brightened up considerably as the glow disappeared. “That’s so much better. I wish I knew how to do that.”

Ravyn threw back her head in laughter, the sound echoing in the still night air. “We all have our own talents dear. Remember, there are things that you can do that I wish I could do as well. But the key is that we all use the abilities that we do have to their best effect. My affinity with fire does come in very handy in these drearily cold Chicago winters. I can’t wait to someplace where I don’t need to worry about making myself or others warmer!”

I led the way into the circle, passing the large, rounded boulder that I always remembered for the way that Betsy had introduced herself to me by killing and devouring a dark wolf-like Spirit that had followed me back from the Underworld into the Shadowland. I had used this place several times since then as a transit point, but that image stuck with me.

Zenny followed close behind, arms still held about her torso as if she were expecting the cold to return at any moment.

Ravyn was the last to enter, but only after she had turned to give Jim a hug. They exchanged a few whispered sentences between themselves in the darkness, but again the bitter, whipping winds rolling in off of the not so distant Lake Michigan claimed those words, preventing me from hearing what was said.

I leaned over to Zenny and quietly posed my own question. “So how long have these two been acting like this with each other?”

“That is none of my, or your, business, Shaitan.”

I looked at her in surprise, until I saw the sly smile cross her face.

‘Shaitan’ was the name that she had first called me when I had rescued her in the Jordanian desert from a bunch of mercenary contractors hired by Dr. Geek. She had been nearly delirious after having been severely damaged by multiple rapes and by a lack of food and water. She had believed me to be an avenging spirit that she had been praying for. Unfortunately for those mercenaries, that was one expectation that I had lived up to.

She had not called me by that name in many months. She hadn’t, in fact, spoken directly too me very much at all in the months since she had been with Ravyn healing and learning to harness her own magickal talents. The fact that she was willing to now joke with me was very promising.

Ravyn bounced through the edge of the circle and came to a stop directly in front of me, fists planted on her hips. “And just what did you mean by that quip?”

I looked up from Ravyn to Jim, who had his own arms folded across his chest as he looked down at us over his glasses. I saw no support there at the moment.

“I…uh…was just wondering…ah…never mind.”

“Good idea. Now, are you done gawking, or do you a question to ask me directly?”

I held up my hands in surrender. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

She glanced back at Jim briefly, a knowing look passed between them. “Good, then let’s go to Hialeah.”

As previously instructed, both Zenny and Ravyn took one of my hands. I summoned the Shadow, opening the path to the Shadowland, and stepped through.

In that place, this stone ring looked almost exactly the same as it did in the world of the living. Now though, I could see a dark stain on the rock where Betsy had dropped and then consumed that wolf-spirit. Jim’s Spirit form stood there watching us as well. His Spirit form was nearly as large and tall as he was in life, roughly in the shape of a bear, standing on his hind legs. The colors of his form shifted slowly from dark blue to a more violet color as he began to worry about us.

I knew that Jim didn’t have the conscious ability to see into the Shadowland, but it was hard to resist one last nod of acknowledgement as I shifted my concentration from getting to the Shadowland to now moving through it to where we needed to go.

Even though the Shadowland was almost a mirror copy of the world of the living, the world in which we experience on a daily basis, time and distance are different concepts here. Moving from place to place within this realm was both much easier and much more difficult than in the traditional world of human experience.

Here in this transitory place, there are portals to many, many different worlds. Not all of these portals, however, work in both directions. It takes a special skill and recognition of the different kinds of portals and where they might lead that can only be acquired through trial and error.

Luckily, I have a well-spring of hard won knowledge of the Shadowland that I gained first from the remnants of Ma Grendel that I still hold within me, and from my own hard-won experience.

I must admit that being (un)dead helps me to overcome almost all of the mistakes I make when traveling through this place.

When John Red Bear taught me to free myself from the bounds of my Chakra by slip my spirit form into the Shadowland and through this place into the Underworld, he taught me to travel as a Shaman, spiritually.

It wasn’t until later, when I was able to observe Papa Locks use the Shadow in this way that I realized that real physical bodies, living and otherwise, could travel here as well. Upon discovering that I had this ability after my confrontation with Ma Grendel, my existence fundamentally changed.

Once in the Shadowland, I could, as a matter of Will send myself flying at such extraordinary speeds that I could arrive in Hialeah within moments. But by flying through the Shadowland that quickly, there would be a risk of passing through some random portal to a world that I would rather not go to. Because I was traveling with Ravyn and Zenny, and because the places we might end up in were just as likely to be inhospitable to living beings, I couldn’t take that chance, unless it was an emergency.

So instead of a single, speed of thought flight through the Shadowland, I drew a cocoon of Shadow about our bodies to keep us hidden from any of the nasty critters and unassociated Spirit forms (those Spirit forms no longer tied to living bodies—but who have been unable or unwilling to seek the next stop in their Spiritual journey—often called ghosts) and made our journey in dozens of shorter, bouncing flights along paths I felt to be safe.

The whole journey took less than half an hour, although it felt like much more by the time I dismissed the bubble of Shadow and we emerged in the dark alley outside the entrance to El Diablito’s old metaphysical shop, NextWorld in the heart of the warehouse district of Hialeah, just a few miles north of Miami International Airport.

Ravyn was the first to let go of my hand as she stepped away, brushing away the fleeting tendrils of dark Shadow substance that still clung to her clothing as if were stray pet hair. “OK, I like my way a LOT better.” She gave me a wicked grin and winked at Zenny. “Remind me again why we decided to travel by Zombie Air?”

Zenny steadied herself against the hard brick wall of the warehouse with both hands, trying to regain her balance. Her normally dark complexion had whitened considerably, but was now beginning to regain her normal hues. “Is there a better way than this? I did not like that very much.”

I shrugged, brushed myself off and grinned back at Ravyn. “Well, coming into the middle of Metro Miami with either a great big flash of fire and smoke or on the back of a flaming Phoenix might have brought a little more unwanted attention than my way did, but hey, I’m open to better suggestions.”

Ravyn stuck her tongue at me before going over to Zenny and helping her.

Having no tongue to stick back out at her, I turned to check out the door to the old shop. It looked very much like I had left it, several years before, when I first received my Chakra. The Cuban-born cabbie who had dropped me off here seemed to have been quite afraid of this place, or the neighborhood, or both.

I crossed the alley and came to the door that led into the front of the shop. The metallic sign hanging overhead creaked as it swung reluctantly in the stiff night breeze. The door had a simple pull handle, no key hole for a lock and no hooks or latches for a padlock of any sort.

As the gals came up behind me, I reached out to the handle.

Ravyn called out in a hushed whisper. “Rusty, wait!”

(To be continued)