Fantasmagoria (14 page)

“I noticed you were having a little trouble moving before, Jack. World grinding you down?” Pugs laughed in short snorts and took out a cigar.

Jack didn’t say anything. He could feel the pseudoflesh from the side of his face was missing. He moved his jaw in circles.

“So, it’s true.” Pugs was giddy. “Would you look at that?” He pointed at Jack and smiled at the handful of others in the warehouse. “The tin man is winding down.”

“He’s still dangerous,” Zeek warned.

“Naww . . .” Pugs waved her off and lit the cigar. “Look at him. He got his shit kicked into next week and now he can barely lift his head. Is it ready?”

Zeek nodded. “We removed the drip an hour ago. It will wake up soon.”

Jack closed his eyes and tried to clear the cotton from his mind. They had done something to him. Something wasn’t right in his chest. He looked down but couldn’t see anything but clothes. His arms and body were strapped longways to the underbelly of a large, horned saurus, which was sleeping on its side. The spikes that ran along its armor heaved up and down in deep, rhythmic breaths, and Jack watched the room do the same with each draw. Pugs was right. The sledgehammer had rung his bell good and he was having trouble focusing. He tried not to think about what he must look like.

“Set me down, asshole,” Pugs barked at his handler. The little ass-faced man-dog paced back and forth in front of the saurus’s heaving belly. “So, have you puzzled it out yet?”

“What’s that?” Jack asked. “That you whacked your boss?”

Pugs scowled. “Well, aren’t you just the clever little ’noid?” He turned to Zeek. “Did he tell you how I did it?”

Zeek shook her head.

“Of course not.” It was a half-growl. “No one’s figured that out.”

“Where’d you get the Fury?” Jack asked.

“Trying to buy some time, big man?”

Jack shook his head. “I just like to hear the sound your ass makes when it talks.”

Pugs puffed on his cigar. “Jack,” he began, “I want you to know right now, we’re not gonna kill you. No, sir. We need you to kill the Pimpernel gang.”

Jack and Pugs traded glances while Pugs puffed on his cigar.

“What makes you think I could kill Erasmus Pimpernel?”

“Not just Pimpernel. All of them. All your old pals. The whole lot. You’re the only one who can, Jack. He thinks of you like a son, you know. Broke his heart when you betrayed him. That’s why he didn’t have you killed.”

Jack laughed, but it took everyone a few moments to realize it. He was a hiccupping moose. “That’s rich.”

“What’s so funny?”

Jack caught his breath. He wanted to explain Erasmus’s brilliance, his cunning, his unbounded narcissism, his complete and total insanity. But they wouldn’t see it, and he didn’t have the energy anyway. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m like his son.” Jack smiled. “Back when he had a body, Erasmus fucked a toaster, and look what popped out.”

“I lied in the car,” Zeek broke in. “Erasmus did talk about you. He talked about you all the time. Every week he’d drag one of your friends in, those losers at The Dive you hang out with. What are their names?”

Jack looked up at her, moving up and down with the saurus’s breath. The monster’s rumbling furor filled the room. They were in an old steel mill. The overhead crane that had once moved ingots of ore would be strong enough to lift the massive saurus. Light beamed in from high windows.

“They never told you Erasmus interrogated them, did they?”

Jack didn’t respond.

“They’d come in and cower before him, and they’d tell him everything you’d been doing. ‘He just sits in the corner,’ they’d say. ‘Reading. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t talk to anyone.’ Then Erasmus would go on a tear. He’d scream about how you weren’t moving around, how you were conserving your energy to spite him. He expected you to have frozen up weeks ago.”

Jack watched her talk. He started to suspect she wasn’t lying, but then you never can trust someone pretending to be something they’re not.

Zeek stepped closer. “He was waiting for you. One day, he said, you’d just stop moving, and then he’d send some guys to collect you, and they’d get a tinker to open you up. He was going to reset the gears in your head, Jack. Erase your memory. Start over.”

Jack looked down. It sounded familiar.

“He said he’s done it before, Jack. More than once.”

“If that’s true, then why did he call me back?”

Pugs smiled. “We did that.” He motioned to Zeek and puffed on his cigar. “Go ahead. Tell him. This is good, Jack. You’re gonna love this part.”

Zeek’s face darkened. “He doesn’t have the key anymore, Jack.”

Jack scowled. “Bullshit.” Erasmus kept the key, along with his collection of ancient artifacts, locked in a huge vault behind the painting in his office. He never let it out. “Now I know you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying, Jack.”

“Wait, wait,” Pugs interrupted. “I wanna tell this part. So, after you left, LaMana, gods rest his soul, he didn’t believe you’d be gone long. He figured Pimpernel was teaching you a lesson. But after a while, it started to sink in. The Jackrabbit, the fastest gunman ever, was waiting to die in a shit hole in Parkus!”

Zeek broke in. “Erasmus was getting desperate.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Pugs screamed. “God-damned cunt.” He turned back to Jack. “Your boss was getting desperate. He started making the drug.”

“How?”

“Kids. Slaves. Ex-whores. Keeps ’em locked up. No one in or out. He’s making money hand over fist. LaMana gets worried. Only he figures Neverod is some nasty shit. Pimpernel’s gotta be making some enemies. Sure enough . . .” Pugs motioned to Zeek. “So, we get this guy, what the fuck was his name?” Pugs didn’t wait. “Doesn’t matter. He loses his wife, right? She ODs on the shit. So . . . this is the good part. He agrees to steal the key for us. Bastard swallows it to sneak it out. Only Pimpernel finds out it’s missing.” Pugs took a long draw off his cigar. “Tortured that fucker to death. The poor sot knew he was a dead man. He wanted to see Erasmus squirm.”

Jack watched Pugs gloat.

“Your friends, those stupid bastards, they buried the body with the key inside!”

“Four or five children a month,” Zeek said.

“Huh?” Pugs turned.

“That’s how many little bodies come out of the Dark Red. They’re hairless, emaciated. They look like their souls have been sucked away.” Zeek tried to wipe a tear without smudging her mascara.

“And we’re gonna end the nightmare.” Pugs smiled and blew smoke at Jack. “Without the key, you’re useless as a gunman, but we took out that tank you ’noids call a gut and packed in enough explosives to level a small building.”

Jack grimaced. That’s what it was.

“All you have to do,” Zeek begged, “is get inside the office. Whoever doesn’t die in the explosion will drown when the squid tank floods the sub-levels.”

Jack shook his head. “I’ll never get close. That’s twice I fucked up. Rabid’ll kill me on sight. And if not him, then Zen-ji.”

Pugs motioned to the heaving beast. “Why do you think you’re strapped to a saurus?”

Jack scowled.

“You’re riding the world’s largest Neverod fiend, Jack. Right now, it’s pumped with enough Thaloximine to knock out the entire city, but when it wakes up, it’s gonna have some killer withdrawals.”

Jack looked up and down the creature. It was bipedal, easily 75-100 feet tall and heavily armored. Rows of spikes and horns ran up and down the rim of its thick plates. A pair of horns jutted from its eyebrows.

“It’ll tear through the city looking for a fix.”

Jack knew Pugs was right. Sauruses had excellent senses of smell. “You’re gonna let this thing loose on the city?” He looked at Zeek. “How many people is it gonna kill?”

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Zeek went on. “You’re already dead. But you can do some good. You did once, that night. You saved a child, Jack. Remember? My child. He’s my son now. You’re already dead, but you can stop Pimpernel.”

Jack didn’t know what to say.

Pugs laughed and snorted. Smoke blew in and out of his nose. Then he clutched his sides and started laughing harder. It was out of place. He snapped the fingers of his paw and the minotaur drew a gun from his jacket. In one smooth move, the beast shot Zeek in the head. The sound echoed through the warehouse, but the saurus didn’t stir. It kept breathing, up and down, as Zeek’s limp body fell to the floor with a thud. Her blood covered the concrete like the splattered paint of an artist’s studio.

Jack closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Pugs said. “I couldn’t listen to that cunt anymore. ‘Oh the children!’” He mocked.

Jack shook his head. Zeek had to know Pugs was using her, and that if he didn’t kill her, Pimpernel would sooner or later. She risked everything for the kids. Jack was willing to bet his life she had already said her last goodbyes and smuggled her family out of the city. She sacrificed it all to shut down the Dark Red.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen.” Pugs never shut up. “We’re gonna leave now, and in an hour or so, this beast is gonna wake up with one helluva headache. In a rampage, it’s gonna sniff out Erasmus’s factory and tear it to shreds, like a smart bomb. The devastation will be massive. No one will have a fucking clue how or why it happened. If you survive, Erasmus will want answers. He’ll drag you into his office, and you’ll have your chance. All you have to do is empty your waste bin. That’s how you all take a dump, right? Take a big explosive shit right in Pimpernel’s face!”

Jack stared at the bloody wig half-fallen from Zeek’s head. He could see her brains.

“Face it, Jack. You’re a dead man. The only question is how. Because if the saurus doesn’t kill you, and Erasmus doesn’t kill you, time sure as hell will.”

Pugs motioned for the minotaur, and as the pair headed for the door, the little aminal called back. “But I’ll give you a little time to think it over. Just don’t take too long!”

And with that, Jack was alone with his steed.

(SIXTEEN) Mortiscience

Vernal awoke in the trunk of a car. He was naked, gagged, and bound with electrical tape. The vehicle rocked back and forth. From the well-rehearsed feminine moans drifting through the back seat, he could guess what his captors were doing.

Vernal struggled against his bonds, but the more he pulled, the more the black, rubbery tape bunched into tight straps that cut into his skin. He took a deep breath and cocked his wrist. The serrated stinger nicked a corner of the tape, and Vernal made a face as he wriggled his arms, which were twisted behind his back, trying to get the stinger to make a clean cut.

He stopped when he heard the single blare of a siren. Police.

There was shuffling in the back of the cab and car doors opened and closed. The lid of the trunk opened and Vernal squinted under the bright but overcast sky.

Yunique stared down at him. She wore a colorful print t-shirt and her hair was pulled back in a tight pony tail. She checked the bonds on Vernal’s hands and feet as he protested through his gag.

The periodic yelps of the siren inched closer, and there was a voice drifting from a loudspeaker, some kind of warning, but it was too far away and Vernal couldn’t make out the words. From the tree cover overhead, he guessed they were in some kind of city park.

Yunique looked up. “He’s still tied. Did you get it?”

“Yup.” Dobie appeared and set a red tank of gas in the trunk next to Vernal’s head. He tossed some rags on top of the naked scoundrel. “We’re all set.”

Vernal could guess what that was for. He stared.

The couple kissed. As Yunique hung on the big man, her shirt lifted to reveal her belly. From his vantage in the trunk, Vernal could see the small latch on her back and the thin fold of her pseudoflesh. Mechanoid. That made more sense. Dobie, like Cecil, was too stupid to try anything like this on his own. He wouldn’t have come looking for Vernal after they left The Dive. Vernal hadn’t planned on a calculating machine. Bad luck.

Dobie turned and smiled down at his captive. He held the key in his hand. Yunique was holding onto his arm. Horns honked from the street in between the occasional yelps of the approaching siren.