Dead Jack and the Case of the Amorous Ogre, Page 3

better then, except for the gnawing at my rotten innards. The hunger was reaching critical mass. All I could think about was fairy dust. I reached for my Lucky Dragon hellfire sticks, but they were gone. The ogre must have stolen them!

  The sack was now banging against the wall.

  “Let me show you the problem,” Oswald said and hopped down from the table. He ran over to the sack and untied the string that held it shut. Out tumbled a small, and terribly confused, white goose.

  “I was able to make the jackal puke up the goose,” Oswald said. “But it won’t work on the goose. He won’t give up the box!”

  I picked up the creature and knocked on its stomach. I heard a dull thud. Indeed, the box was there.

  “Do you have any ideas?” Oswald said.

  “Yes, of course I do!” I said and sunk my teeth into the goose. It squawked twice, perhaps three times, and then went silent. I tore through the creature, swallowing feathers and flesh. It was electric, life coursing through me and warming me. I felt like a phoenix burning back into existence. If Oswald hadn’t stopped me, I’d have eaten the box, too.

  “What has gotten into you?” Oswald shouted. “I thought you were done with that! We don’t need another episode.”

  I dropped the goose carcass, wiped the blood from my mouth. Already the rush was draining from my black veins. “I need that fairy dust, Oswald. I’m on the verge of eating all of ShadowShade and maybe even parts of the Red Garden.”

  “Just hold it together. We’ll get the damn dust.”

  I held up the box. It barely weighed a thing. But before I could ponder the insubstantial nature of souls, I heard a deep-throated grunt.

  The ogre stood in the doorway.

  Madgogg had to duck to get inside the room. He was green as a goblin, bald, and uglier than a vampire exposed to the sun. A gold earring dangled from one of his sharp, bat-like ears.

  “Just the man I wanted to see,” I said.

  The ugly sucker was trying to look mean—and doing a damn good job of it. Thank goodness I had this guy’s soul in my hand or I might have been petrified.

  “Listen, you overgrown gnome,” I said, flipping open the box. Inside, nestled in velvet, sat a small white egg. “The dance is over. You’ve been outsmarted.” I held up the egg between my thumb and forefinger. “Madgogg, I hold here an egg—a very special egg—that I took great pains to retrieve.”

  In my mind, I felt Oswald’s eyes roll.

  The ogre remained silent, but he huffed and his face burned a bruised red.

  “It’s gonna go like this, Reg,” I said. “You’re gonna give up this obsession of marrying a pixie—which, quite frankly, is pathetic. You’re gonna give up the girl and we’re all gonna march out of here unharmed.”

  The ogre lumbered toward me.

  “Let Willa go and I’ll return your soul,” I said. “Fair trade.”

  I backed up, but just a dozen steps.

  The ogre kept lumbering.

  “I happen to know that if I destroy this egg, you’re finished. Walk another step and I’ll make myself an ogre omelet.”

  The ogre walked another step. In fact, he walked quite a few steps.

  I gave the dummy ample warning. “Buddy,” I said, “you’d think being eight feet tall you’d have some room for brains.” Then I reared back and hurled the egg at him. It exploded on his forehead. There was a bright purple flash of light and a release of brimstone. Madgogg stopped dead, his face covered in a thick, black yolk. It oozed down his chin and fell in fat drops onto the floor.

  Then—

  Madgogg grabbed me by the throat with his big, meaty hands and lifted me. Oswald made some snide comment about a zombie omelet, but I was too busy trying to keep my head attached to my body to pay him any mind.

  “But I just destroyed your soul!” I shouted, though it sounded more like a whisper from a frog with laryngitis.

  “Not my soul,” the ogre grumbled.

  Oswald said, “But I went to Black Rock and got the goose from the jackal, like you said in the cell.”

  “This jackal,” the ogre said, “did he have a bushy tail and a white-gray coat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your jackal was a coyote. I think his name is Sam.”

  I sunk my teeth into the ogre’s arm—and nearly broke them. I never tried to eat an ogre before, and I didn’t think I would be trying that again. Their skin is tougher than petrified troll.

  I heard a sickly tear from the back of my neck. It was just a matter of time before I was beheaded.

  “Reginald Belial Madgogg, take your hands off that disgusting corpse!” a voice squealed.

  Instantly the ogre dropped me and I crashed to the floor. When I looked up, I saw Willa standing in the doorway. The ogre rushed over to her. She wagged a finger at him and he shuffled his feet.

  I stood up.

  “Willa, you’re free!” I said, too stupid to realize what was going on.

  “Of course I’m free. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Why would I do that? We’re getting married. Right, Reginald?”

  The ogre nodded, stared at the floor.

  I saw my fairy dust blowing into the four winds, an imminent zombie rampage in downtown ShadowShade. “But, Willa,” I said, “your mother hired me to—”

  “Listen, you stupid carcass, getting married was my idea—no matter what my bigoted mother might think. In fact, it took a bit of chasing and prodding to get this dumb oaf to finally propose. You and my mother won’t stop that!”

  “But he locked you in the dungeon.”

  “It wasn’t locked, you brain-licking ghoul. We’re in the middle of converting the dungeon into my boudoir. It’s the only room in the house that doesn’t stink like hellhound soup.”

  “Well something sure stinks around here.”

  “And what’s this talk about destroying souls?”

  I remained silent, and then Madgogg said, “Remember, honey, what I told you before about giving you my soul as a wedding gift? Well, I actually had it shipped here this morning. It was going to be a surprise. But considering what just happened…”

  The ogre retrieved the small wooden box from the front table. It was nearly identical to the one I retrieved from the goose’s insides.

  “My soul, my love,” he said and handed her the box.

  This ogre really was a smooth-talker.

  “Thanks for ruining the surprise, corpse!” Willa spat. “Reginald wants to stick your head on his trophy wall, but the idea of looking at your rotten, dead face every day gives me the willies. So get out of here before I change my mind. And tell my mother the wedding is happening whether she likes it or not.”

  “Well, it looks like our business here is done,” I said. “Good luck to the both of you. You’ll need it.” To Oswald, I said, “You’re completely useless, you know that? If I don’t get that fairy dust, I’m eating you first.”

   

  EPILOGUE

  “It was a lovely wedding, wasn’t it, Jack?” Oswald said.

  I took a deep drag of my hellfire stick and then threw back a shot of Devil Boy.

  “Would have been nice if they had a bottle of formaldehyde. No one considers zombies.”

  Madgogg insisted we come to the ceremony as his guests. Probably to piss off his new mother-in-law. I didn’t need much prodding to piss off Gwendolyn. That was the last time I’d take a job from those double-crossing pixies.

  “I did find the goose pâté in bad taste,” Oswald said.

  “I got my fairy dust. That’s all I care about.”

  “But there’s one thing that’s still bothering me.”

  “Oswald, you’re such a woman.”

  “Whose soul did you destroy?”

  “Listen, souls are destroyed every day. Such is the cruel world of Pandemonium. Besides, what are the odds of it ever getting back to us?” I looked out my office window and watched a black-winged nightmare glide east toward the
Broken Lands, a limp elf in its talons.

  Oswald shrugged. I poured myself another hit of Devil Boy, but the intercom buzzed before I could throw it back.

  “Yeah, Lilith?”

  “There’s a rather large and angry ogress here.”

  I looked at Oswald. He started morphing into a blob. That was a bad sign.

  “Yeah, Lilith, what does she want?”

  “Something about her recently deceased husband and a coyote named Sam.”

  I wondered if the fire escape would hold my weight. It had been a while since I last used it.

  “Thanks, Lilith. Oswald will be right out.”

   

  (Pick up Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device to find out just what Oswald was up to on Black Rock.)

  Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device

   

  If you enjoyed "Dead Jack and the Amorous Ogre," don't miss Jack's first novel-sized adventure.

   

  Turn the page to read the first chapter…

   

  1. Waiting for My Wee-Man

   

   

  I reached into my jacket for a Lucky Dragon once the shakes began. The undead aren’t known for their dexterity so I had a bit of fun getting that hellfire stick. I was like a drunken mummy trying to do jazz hands. I burned off half the skin on my left index finger lighting the damn thing. That made three fingers now that were practically nothing but bone. If this continued, I’d end up a skeleton inside a cheap suit and fedora. I doubted anyone would notice.

  Being a member of the great unwashed dead isn’t all bad, though. I was happy for my dulled sense of smell. The alleyway stunk like rotten cabbage and sour apples.

  I had tried everyone in downtown ShadowShade, but no one was holding. Out of desperation, I came here to Irish Town in search of Fine Flanagan, my old dealer.

  Without dust, the hunger becomes overpowering, and when I’m