Dead Jack and the Soul Catcher: (Volume 2)

  Also by James Aquilone

  Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device (Book 1)

  Madness & Mayhem

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  Published by Homunculus House

  Staten Island, New York

  Copyright © 2018 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 book 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 Art by Colton Worley

  http://coltonworleyartist.blogspot.com/

  Cover Design by STK•Kreations

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  Interior Art by Ed Watson

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  ISBN 978-1-946346-06-3 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-1-946346-05-6 (paperback)

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  About the Author

  Full Table of Contents

  For Louis, who has the soul of a ninja.

  Sho’nuff!

  CHAPTER 1: The Most Dangerous Game

  A moleman with a smirk as greasy as a succubus’s thighs limped out of the shadows and dragged the orc’s body toward the back of the Little China dust den. A thick, milky-white liquid rivered out from the gunshot wound in the giant goblin’s right temple, leaving an ominous trail on the grimy floor.

  I rested on a milk crate in the middle of the room, opposite Carlos, a junkie brownie with a twitchy eye. Between us sat a table covered in fairy dust and around us crowded some of Pandemonium’s biggest degenerates. You know, the type of guys who tripped sea hags for laughs. Tonight, the crowd of dragon men assassins, ogre gangsters, and vampire pimps got their kicks betting on which of us idiots bit the magic bullet or won the sparkly powder.

  They howled and hollered over the orc’s death, but finally quieted down when Frod, the werewolf dust den boss, picked up an enchanted revolver with a ridiculously huge barrel and spun its fat cylinder. He handed the weapon to Carlos. The oversized gun looked like something you’d see in a Looney Tunes cartoon or a novelty shop. I didn’t understand how the ’chantment worked, just that it could kill any supernatural stupid enough to be in the way of its blast. And there’s no one dumber than me in all of Pandemonium’s Five Cities.

  With the orc down (as well as three other sad sacks before him), that left Twitchy Eye, and everyone’s least favorite zombie detective.

  For good luck, I sat the comatose Oswald in front of me. Why not? My homunculus associate hadn’t done me any good since he fell asleep at the end of our last case. The runt was due.

  Obviously, things hadn’t gone well since I returned to ShadowShade a few months ago. I had been on a non-stop dust binge, with shots of Devil Boy thrown in for good measure. I hadn’t taken a job since that whole Pandemonium Device business. Oswald was a lump of fluff now. A good for nothing, as usual. But he had zero to do with my decision. I didn’t have the heart to bother with the detecting business anymore.

  The dust I had gotten from the Goblin Queen went straight up my nose and I didn’t have a penny to my name. If I couldn’t score any dust, I was as good as dead anyway―after I ate through half of ShadowShade. (Without dust, my zombie hunger takes over, and no one wants that.)

  The brownie held the enchanted revolver to his tiny temple with a trembling hand. His left eye blinked rapidly. Either he had some spastic condition or couldn’t flirt with a succubus. The sleazeballs placed their bets.

  Dark smoke mingled with the stench of death and desperation.

  A few minutes later, the werewolf boss held up his hairy paw and shouted, “No more bets!” The horde fell silent.

  Russian Roulette is played a bit differently in Pandemonium. Instead of putting one bullet in the six chambers, they start with five. We were down to one now, after the orc, a gnome, a banshee, and a two-headed thing called Gus got carried off by that creepy moleman. He looked like a furless sea otter with eyes like pinpricks. I had no idea what he did with the bodies and didn’t care to know. Molemen, I’ve heard, have weird sexual predilections.

  Fat beads of sweat dripped off the brownie’s chin.

  I blew a kiss at him, hoping to soothe the pipsqueak’s nerves. “Nervous, little guy?”

  Carlos nodded. His long, pointy nose wagged at me like a crooked finger.

  “Don’t be,” I said. “Your head is so small it’ll be like blowing out a dandelion with a howitzer. You won’t feel a thing.”

  Twitch-twitch-twitch. That eye gave me the creeps. “What the fook would you know, zombie?” He practically spit out the words. “Your brain is nothing but dust and snot.”

  I had never heard that one before. I had to laugh. “Are you trying to send Morse code messages with that eye of yours?”

  “After you blow your non-existent brains out, I’m going to take that giant marshmallow of yours and roast him on a stick. Homunculus s’mores sound de-fooking-licious.” He rubbed his round tummy to emphasize his lame joke.

  “I lied. That Bugs Bunny cannon is going to hurt like a bastard. You’re going to have a headache for weeks in the afterlife.”

  “It’s not going to be me, brain licker. It’s going to be you.” He pointed the ’chanted gun at me. “I’m one lucky son of a goblin. Always have been. I was born the seventh son of a seventh son on the seventh day in the seventh year. I even have seven nipples. I can’t lose.”

  “Seven nipples? Can I milk you? I could go for some chocolate milk.”

  “Get on with it already!” the fat werewolf shouted. Even with my dulled sense of smell, his fetid breath made me gag like someone dunked my head in a cesspool.

  “Pull the trigger already or we’ll all blow our brains out!” some creature yelled from the back of the room.

  The crowd jeered and hissed. Frod held up a paw to silence the demonic delinquents. “Click-click.” He pointed a finger gun at the brownie.

  “I need to turn away first,” Carlos said. “I don’t want this ghoul’s ugly face to possibly be the last thing I see. He looks like the offspring of a burnt piece of toast and a giant turd.”

  I let him have the last laugh, because I figured it would be his last ever.

  The brownie turned his head, screwed his eyes shut, pulled the trigger, and―click―the damn runt didn’t blow his brains out. The first miss of the night. The others had all gone down on the first try. If Carlos really had some magic mojo, I was in trouble.

  The fairy let out a sigh and, with a filthy grin, passed the gun to the werewolf. “I told you I was lucky, you soulless fook.”

  Frod spun the cylinder and handed me the gun. The dust den dirtbags placed their bets. I removed my fedora, set it beside Oswald―no use ruining a seventy-year-old hat―and raised the gun to my temple.

  “Aren’t you already dead?” someone from the peanut gallery shouted. Everyone laughed. Har-har-har. What a bunch of morons.

  The warm revolver burned my skin. A howitzer blowing out a dandelion. Maybe I should make a wish. A wish that I had never gotten involved with that damn Pandemonium Device. I thought of Ratzinger, but blocked it out. I didn’t want that Nazi scum to be my final thought. He had plagued too many of my thoughts. The sick doctor ruled my dreams ever since he’d been resurrected on Pandemonium. Every night, I revisited Room 731 and the terrible things that happened there. But even
while awake or high on dust, I felt as if I floated in a dark abyss of despair, more so than usual for a zombie. I thought it might have been because Oswald fell into a coma. I did miss bossing around the homunculus and chiding him for his error-laden reports. (I had even bought the dunzy a dictionary.)

  If I was an honest corpse, I’d admit wanting to scramble my brains just to stop the misery. But I’m not, so I won’t. It had been an anguishing afterlife these past seventy-two years in Pandemonium. Maybe it was time to go bye-bye.

  I wrapped my index finger around the trigger, but that fookin suit of bones showed up before I could squeeze it.

  “Jack! Jack! Don’t do it! You have so much to live for, buddy!”

  Garry stood there waving his arms around like a maniac. The obnoxious twit barged into my office about a week ago, blathering about lost souls. The creep had been watching my office for days and only fueled my already increasing paranoia. I burned through a dozen kilos of dust because of him. I thought he’d been spying for the resurrected Nazi doctor, but he turned out to be another pathetic corpse with a pipe dream. Me and Garry went way back―back to the war where we both served in the U.S. Army as well as Ratzinger’s dirty little band of undead brothers.

  “Scram, Garry.” I jabbed the gun into my skull for emphasis. Calling Garry a zombie would be a bit of an exaggeration. He was the zombie’s ultimate nightmare: a skeleton in an ill-fitting zoot suit. The ridiculous bouffant wig on his skull didn’t help. “Aren’t you due back at anatomy class by now?”

  “Jack, pal, please, hear me out.”

  “How did you even know I was here?”

  “Lilith told me. She’s worried sick about you. She says you haven’t been the same since Oswald died.”

  My ghost secretary had a big mouth.

  “He’s not dead!” I slammed my fist on the table. The dust jumped.

  “Help me find our souls, Jack, before Ratzinger does. You know what that’ll mean, don’t you?”

  Garry had the biggest and whitest teeth I had ever seen.

  “I don’t even know if I believe in souls anymore. I’ve been fine without mine.”

  “Cripes, you don’t look fine to me. You’re holding a gun to your head in front of a mound of fairy dust. I’d say you’ve hit rock-bottom, buddy. You need an intervention. I can get you into a twelve-step program. The first thing you have to do is admit you have a problem.”

  “The first thing you have to admit is that you’re wearing a dead gremlin on your head. I can’t take you seriously with that stupid wig, Garry. There’s no shame in being a skeleton. Embrace it. You’ll be much happier.” I wasn’t crazy about the purple and black zoot suit either―or the gold watch chain that hung from his belt down to his ankle and back into his side pocket. Real snazzy.

  “Does it really look that bad, Jack?” He adjusted the toupee. “It’s made of real elf hair. They donate it to skeletons, you know? It’s a great program. They use only the best elves. Real top-notch supernaturals. So don’t poop on it, alright? If you’re going to be that way, I might not tell you how you can revive Oswald.”

  “Seriously, less talking and more bang-bang,” Frod said. “It’s like you guys don’t even want to blow your brains out. I can have the moleman take your friend into the back room, Jack.” His yellow eyes lit up when he said back room and his voice had a tiny bit of mischief that made my skin prickle. I made a mental note not to ever go in the back room.

  “Wait, Frod.” I lowered the gun. “What was that about Oswald?”

  “Now who’s stalling?” The brownie stroked his curly brown hair.

  “I said I know how we can revive Oswald,” Garry said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I know a guy.”

  “You don’t know anyone but bad tailors.”

  “Buddy, I’m no liar. I’m as honest as the day is long.”

  “Pandemonium days are pretty short. Why didn’t you say any of this before, dunzy?”

  “I tried back in your office, but you were acting irrational and sweating like a vampire in a cross factory. You kept ranting about Ratzinger. You weren’t making much sense, buddy. Quite frankly, you were scaring the bejesus out of me.”

  He was right. I didn’t listen to a word he said that day. I might have been a little messed up on dust, and by a little I mean a whole lot. I kept seeing tentacles emanating from Garry’s hairpiece.

  “If you’re lying to me,” I said, “I’m going to use your bones to beat your damn wig to death.”

  “Come with me and I’ll explain everything.”

  What did I have to lose? I could always blow my brains out another day.

  “Okay, Garry.”

  “Hey, arsehole, what about the game?” the werewolf boss shouted. “We have bets placed!”

  “Get some other loser to fill in for me.” I slammed the gun down on the table―and the damn thing went off. Oops! The brownie flew out of his seat and landed halfway across the room, his head fully evaporated from the blast. I warned the dunzy. I guess having seven nipples wasn’t so lucky, after all.

  In the ensuing commotion, I grabbed my hat, Oswald, and a handful of dust, then hightailed it out of there with Skeleton Garry. I’ve had much worse ideas.

  CHAPTER 2: Driving Mr. Skeleton

  Garry, if you turn out to be a Nazi, I’m going to be pissed.”

  The skeleton tried to ride shotgun, but I pushed him away from the Studebaker. “In the back, boney.” I took Oswald out of the shoulder satchel I used to carry him and placed him in the passenger seat.

  Garry gave me a queer look. “Lilith said you had a thing for the little guy, but I didn’t believe it.”

  It took all I had not to punch him in the hyoid bone.

  I got behind the wheel and started the Studebaker. The jalopy wasn’t in such good shape before a crazy leprechaun slammed into it. Now it was a corpse on four wheels. The car coughed to life like a dragon with lung cancer, and I pulled into downtown ShadowShade traffic.

  Something in my throat tightened, and my skin crawled with imaginary maggots. The dust in my pocket shouted, “Just a bump, Jack! You know you want it!” I glanced up at the rearview mirror. The sartorial skeleton rubbed his phalanges over his femurs. No dust. Not now. I needed to be clear-headed as I spoke to this assemblage of bones in a clown suit. He looked a bit squirrelly, like the least popular ghoul in cemetery school. My bad feelings about him got badder. Back in the war, Garry had been a bit of a flake, the sort of guy who told knock-knock jokes during air raids.

  “You weren’t pulling my leg back there, were you, Garry? Because I don’t have anything to lose at this point. I will dismantle you bone by bone.”

  “No, buddy, I’m not pulling your leg. I swear on the Great Unicorn.”

  “Why so nervous?”

  “I’ve never seen you like this, buddy. You look to be in bad, bad shape. What was that business back there?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You were going to kill yourself, take the final dirt nap. Do you have a therapist?”

  “I was just trying to get dust.”

  “That’s not how it looked to me. Are you okay? Are you getting enough flesh? You can always talk to me, buddy. I’m here for you.”

  “You’re here for me? You’re a skeleton, Garry. It doesn’t get much worse than that.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t find me in a dust den playing Russian Roulette.”

  “I’ve been in places that would make you piss yourself. That is, if you still had genitalia.”

  I drove north on Broadway. The Studebaker glided along the snaking thoroughfare, past the goblin sweatshops and the underground gambling dens run by ShadowShade’s most notorious ogre gang; past the bustling pawn shops whose windows advertised gently used wizard wands and amulets that promised protection from any danger; and past the vampire blood banks where down-and-out fangers waited on lines that stretched entire blocks. The Pandemonium sky, as dark as dried blood at a day-old murder
scene, lit the nasty little city. Things would get much darker before this ended. Garry’s reappearance in my life didn’t bode well. I preferred keeping the past in the past.

  “Just how are we’re going to find these souls?” I asked. “Because, quite frankly, I don’t see how in the holy heck we can find them when Ratzinger’s been tearing up Pandemonium with no luck. He’s even got soul suckers. Nasty creatures. I saw a bunch of them on Monster Island. The souls can be anywhere in in the Five Cities, maybe even in the Outer Lands, and if that’s the case, they’re as good as gone. I don’t have the first clue where to look.”

  “I have the first clue, buddy. Actually, it’s a whole lot more than a clue. We don’t have to find the souls. Because they’ve already been found. Do you know what an alchemist is?”

  “Aren’t they the nut jobs who are always trying to turn lead into gold?”

  “They’re into a bunch of other stuff, too.”

  “Like?”

  “Souls.”

  “And you know an alchemist who found the souls.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you think he can revive Oswald too.”

  “Right again. You’re a pretty good detective. I don’t know what those people are talking about.”

  “What people?”

  “The ones who say you’re the worst detective in Pandemonium.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  Garry didn’t answer. I turned and saw him staring into space.

  “Hello, Garry. You okay?” I waved a hand in front of his face.

  He remained in a trancelike state for a few more seconds before snapping out of it. “Yeah, I’m good. I just got lost for a second. You have quite a reputation, buddy. You seem to have pissed off everyone in the Five Cities.”

  “You know how it is, Garry. Zombies are the lowest of the low in Pandemonium. They hate to see us shambling around.” I hit a pothole and Garry flew up and banged his head on the ceiling. Luckily, his wig cushioned the blow. “But back to this alchemist.”