Dead Jack and the Case of the Amorous Ogre

 

   

  Dead Jack and the Case of the Amorous Ogre

   James Aquilone

   

   

  Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device

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  Also by James Aquilone

  Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device

  Madness & Mayhem

   

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  Published by Homunculus House

  Staten Island, New York

   

  "Dead Jack and the Case of the Amorous Ogre" copyright © 2016 by James Aquilone

   

  Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device copyright © 2016 by James Aquilone

   

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

   

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

   

  Cover image: daver2002ua / Shutterstock.com

  Dead Jack Logo: Ed Watson

  Cover design: James Aquilone

  Contents

   

  The Case of the Amorous Ogre

   

  Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device

   

  About the Author

   

  The Case of the Amorous Ogre

   

   

  GWENDOLYN

  She was thirty-two inches of nauseating cuteness in an itty-bitty emerald dress that made her seem, somehow, more naked than if she wore nothing at all. Her skin was snowflake white, her hair torchlight red, her eyes tiny blue moons. And if I wasn’t such a smart guy I’d have thought she was a child. But she was probably five centuries past her sweet sixteen. The little lady sat across from my desk, her thin, see-through wings twittering nervously.

  She said her name was Gwendolyn. She was a pixie.

  I poured myself a shot of Devil Boy. “Care for some?” I said. “Looks like you might need it.”

  She pulled on one of her pointy ears. “I don’t drink formaldehyde.”

  Lilith, my secretary and the resident office ghost, told me the pixie was in trouble. Of course she was in trouble. Why else would she be in the same room as a zombie?

  I threw back the formaldehyde, most of which poured out from the bottom of my skull. The pixie’s face scrunched up in disgust.

  “Gwen, let me ask you something. Any of you pixies not so goddam adorable?” It wasn’t a compliment.

  She tugged down on her flimsy get-up. She covered an extra inch of thigh, but also managed to expose a healthy chunk of pixie cleavage. If I wasn’t a zombie, I’d be sweating buckets now.

  “Can we, please, get down to business?” she said. “I was told you’re the best detective in Pandemonium. Was that a lie?”

  I don’t know who told her that, but I should hire him to do my PR. I wasn’t the best, just the cheapest. Which is why I got the dirtiest cases in the Five Cities.

  “Gwen, everyone lies in this business, but you got the rare truth.” I threw back another shot of Devil Boy.

  “Then you should have no problem rescuing my daughter.”

  “I rescue daughters all the time. It’s one of my specialties.” Actually I never even rescued a gremlin from a tree. But, as I said, everyone lies in this business.

  Finally the pixie got into it. “My daughter, Willa, she’s a very naïve girl. But that’s to be expected: she’s only two hundred and twelve years old. And if you know anything about pixies, especially young ones, they’re always getting into mischief. It’s usually harmless pranks: stealing horses, leading people astray, that sort of thing. But lately she’s been getting into real trouble. Running with a bad crowd, going places a pixie shouldn’t go. I forbid her to go uptown. There are bad types there—”

  “Ogres.”

  “Yes, ogres. And one of those vile, disgusting beasts has taken a fancy to my Willa. I believe his name is Mad Dog.”

  “Madgogg?”

  “Yes. You know him?”

  “Heard of him. I told you I’m the best. In fact, I already know why you’re here: Madgogg abducted your daughter, is holding her in his ogre lair, and demands that she marry him, right?”

  “Yes, yes, it’s horrible.”

  “It’s an old story, Gwen. Happens every day.”

  “An ogre in the family! I’d never stand for it.”

  “Ogres are stupid, predictable creatures. I’ve dealt with a few in my time. No worries.”

  I didn’t mention that ogres also like to eat pixies, but she probably already knew that. I also didn’t mention that zombies like to eat pixies, too, and just about anything else with succulent, sweet, so juicy flesh. But I kicked that habit (mostly) long ago. I said, “I just need one kilo of fairy dust a day plus expenses.” I didn’t tell her how badly I needed the dust. It had been a while since my last fix and I was getting hungry.

   

  A SIMPLE PLAN

  Black, tentacled clouds drifted across the blood red sky as I drove toward the Upper West Side of ShadowShade. The forecast called for more dry heat with a chance of firestones. Creepy shit. But par for the course in Pandemonium, the twilight realm of nightmare creatures, legends, the undead, and everything in between. Home shitty home.

  ShadowShade was actually the more cosmopolitan and sophisticated of Pandemonium’s Five Cities. It has streets and a subway (though you don’t want to go down there if you’re afraid of eyeless mole people), unlike those other Podunks.

  I watched blood-drunk vampires stumbling out of the Full Moon Saloon, the most notorious watering hole in Hell’s Kitchen, and werewolves playing patty-cake with virginal waifs at the edge of the Wood of Shadows.

  Madgogg had a brownstone on West 93rd that overlooked the Wood. It was a high-rent area for the well-to-do ogre, and many ogres were well-to-do these days. Droves of the brutes were leaving their cramped huts in Ogreville, nestled in the eastern corner of the Broken Lands, and buying up ShadowShade’s most expensive real estate. Their success must have something to do with their big bodies and little brains.

  My plan, like all my plans, was simple:

  1. Disguise myself.

  2. Infiltrate Madgogg’s brownstone.

  3. Rescue the captive pixie.

  In and out. Easy-peasy.

  I parked around the corner from Madgogg’s place, on West 92nd, nearly running over a careless succubus who was walking her pet midget dragon. As I walked toward the brownstone, I was having second thoughts about the disguise. The hump was biting into my back and the wig was itching like mad. The itching made me wonder where Oswald was. I hadn’t seen him in a while. And that worried me.

  I knocked at the servant’s entrance on the ground floor of Madgogg’s brownstone, and a few minutes later an ancient-looking zombie opened the door. He must have spent a long century dead before being reanimated, which was good—because his brains would be mush and the dummy would be a pushover.

  “Hey there, bones,” I said.

  The dummy stared at me, his lifeless eyes wide and protruding from their sockets. He was a skeleton in a suit. Most l
ikely imported from the Zombie Islands to be a domestic. These guys made me sick.

  I said, “I’m the new hunchback handyman.” I pointed to the hump for emphasis. “The agency sent me over.”

  The creature stood there silently, his exposed jaw hanging open. I wasn’t so sure if he was reanimated after all. Then he nodded and let me in.

  The kitchen was huge. The cauldron in the middle of the room was huge. The three-headed dog inside the cauldron was pretty huge, too. The middle head looked particularly nasty, but none of them were gonna do me any harm. They were ogre lunch. It stunk worse than a zombie’s armpit in there.

  I walked through the kitchen and entered a long hallway paneled with the heads of trolls, gremlins, and at least one goblin. There weren’t any zombie heads, so I stupidly felt safe. But then I figured zombie heads probably aren’t worth much as trophies.

  I heard a series of low moans coming from behind the door at the end of the hall. The door was unlocked. I opened it.

  It was the door to the basement. Nothing good is ever in the basement, so naturally I went down.

  At the bottom of the staircase, the moans were clearer. I heard some grunts, too.

  Another door stood before me, iron and heavy and unlocked, too. This Madgogg must be a real dummy or real confident. The plan was working to perfection. I could already taste the fairy dust on my desiccated lips. I could also taste flesh and blood and brains—and without that fairy dust to kill the cravings, I was liable to eat half of ShadowShade. And most likely get a stake through the head, too.

  I entered a long, brightly lit hall. On the right was a rough stone wall, and farther up on the left was a prison cell.

  The moaning sounds were coming from inside the cell and now I could make out what they were. Someone was eating and they were enjoying it! I felt a pang of jealousy, but I curbed the zombie in me and rushed down the hall. I had to kick aside garbage that littered the floor—wrappers, empty containers, dirty plates. Ogres had mighty