Jabberwock Jack (10 page)

Avalon Brass was a metal only found in New Avalon area mines and a source of local pride. Long thought to be just cosmetically pleasing and otherwise useless, nowadays people are finding surprising uses for it. Unfortunately the mines are tapped out now, so unless someone scrapped a bunch of jewelry, light fixtures, and building furnishings, it wasn't easy to obtain. It looked similar to gold or brass, hence it's name, but metallurgically it was nothing like either. It was also well known by its distinctive shimmer when light reflected off it.

"So he's got like a robot leg?" said Szandor. "Damn, as much as he's an ass, I don't know if I'll ever be as badass as him."

I nodded. "If I ever lost my leg, I'd want a cool robot leg too."

"I know, right?" said Szandor. "Maybe like with a rocket jet. Not functional, since I'd need two, but like I could kick someone in the face with it and have the jets burn them. By them, I mean like zombies or ghouls, not real people."

"Or it could have a built-in holster for a gun like in Robocop," I said.

"I advise you two not to say anything like that around him," said Meat. "As you may have guessed, he's quick to anger. And the leg is a very sore subject."

"Point taken," I said with a nod.

"And what's with the chick? Fela? Fala, I think?" said Szandor. "Are they banging? I bet they're banging."

Meat turned from the road (thankfully at a stop light), to shoot Szandor a glare.

"I mean," said Szandor, "uh, are they in a fine, healthy, and mutually consenting relationship which may or may not consist of regular boot knocking? Which probably is not any of my business, but fuck, I still want to know."

Meat shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine." He pulled the car to a stop in front of my apartment. "I think you two need to think this over. Don't just decide recklessly. This isn't a normal hunt. This isn't even a Call to Arms. It's a big decision, But unfortunately, time is short. You need to decide quickly. The briefing is tomorrow, and after that, the hunt begins."

"So what are we doing?" said Szandor. He was lounging on my couch. He had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. His feet were up on the coffee table. I kicked his feet off the table as I sat down in the armchair with my own beer. After Meat dropped us off, we had come up here to enjoy the delight of an afternoon beer on a weekday.

"About Jack?" I said.

"Yeah, are we down for this hunt? Because I have my reservations."

"Of course, so do I, who wouldn't?" I took a sip of beer.

"On the one hand, it's a fucking sea serpent! When would we ever get a chance to hunt a goddamn sea serpent? It's a once in a lifetime opportunity! No hunter gets that chance."

"Just the dead ones," I said soberly, remembering that others had tried to kill Jack before. Surely it had cost some of them more than Jericho's leg.

"Right," said Szandor, "it's dangerous. But what an opportunity! This is like something that happens in a movie."

I gave him that. Books and movies are the only places you see sea serpents. Outside of being in the Age of Piracy, Deep Space, or a Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, you really don't get the opportunity to see a sea serpent, much less kill one. I hoped that we wouldn't have to travel a thousand leagues under Avalon for this one though.

"For better or for worse, you're right, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity," I said. "Do we want to be old men in our fifties regretting we didn't do it?"

"Exactly! And yet..."

"We already saw Jack and it scared us shitless?"

"Not shitless," said Szandor diplomatically, "but it was fucking scary. And huge! What do we even do with that thing once we kill it?"

"Skin it for boots and luggage," I suggested.

"I would totally love a pair of snake skin boots," said my brother. "Jack skinned, I guess."

"But you're right -"

"About the boots?" interrupted my brother with a smile.

"About it being scary," I said. "Let's be frank. You and I alone couldn't kill Jack."

"Agreed."

"So if we figure that for us two it'd be a suicide mission, the question is, do we think it wouldn't be a suicide mission with other hunters?"

Szandor opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.

"Not an easy answer, is it?" I didn't have the solution either.

"Who are the other hunters?" said Szandor finally.

"We don't know for sure. Let's say Meat and Jericho. I'm pretty sure they're both in. Maybe Paulie."

"I'm not sure. Jericho seems pretty badass. Meat I'm not sure about."

"Oh come on!" I said. "You complain about getting into arguments, but Meat has had your back every damn time we've worked with him. Stop being an asshole. He's solid."

"Fine... then with Jericho and Meat... I guess maybe? Paulie helps. But Jack was huge. We'd need some serious firepower. I don't like our odds."

"I don't like our odds either," I said.

We both sat back and drank more beer.

"So we're not doing this?" said Szandor.

"Fuck no, we're totally doing this, it's a sea serpent! Once in a lifetime opportunity!" I said with a devilish smile. My brother returned the smile. We clinked bottles together.

We make a lot of dumb, reckless decisions. Often they still end up working out for us. We knew this was an iffy idea, but we were willing to gamble on it. We were both single, barely employed, and both hadn't been happy lately. This seemed like the job we needed. So at the time, I thought that even though there was some risk, it wasn't a bad idea. I hoped it wasn't a bad idea.

In the end, I was wrong.

It wasn't a bad idea.

It was a
terrible
idea.

Once in a fucking lifetime opportunity.

Blood and Tears

After we agreed to join the hunt for Jack, I called Meat. He had been expecting our call. He was pretty sure we would say yes. He was surprised we said yes so quickly, but he merely shrugged that off. He told us to show up for the briefing the next morning. The same warehouse. He rattled off the address. He did tell us to bring the gear we needed. The hunt started after the briefing.

To Szandor, this was even more of a reason why we should be going out and partying. I'm sure in his mind, he saw himself going out, getting drunk, impressing some hot girl who would want to go home with him, then he'd wake up in the morning, magically rested and not at all hung over, ready to be the best team member ever. I had a feeling that he'd resorting to his fake hangover cure tomorrow, but I wasn't about to tell him his business. Well, not seriously, only as cutting jabs between siblings. Mentally I prepared to haul his ass out of bed tomorrow. I'd done it before.

Szandor went home to clean up and relax before our night out. I laid down on my couch and threw on a movie. If I fell asleep and took a nap, that would be fine, but I didn't want to force it. I looked for something sea serpent related, but I didn't find a related movie that I wanted to watch. I settled on 1981's
Dragonslayer
with Peter MacNicol. Few would call it a great movie, but it had its charms. Honestly, it's far underrated, especially for when it came out. It was from long before my birth, so I can't claim nostalgia, but I dig fantasy movies. And a dragon was still a big old serpent, so it at least sort of satisfied my urge.

I did fall asleep. I vaguely remember bits of the film: befuddled mages, fire breathing, and unreasonable medieval politics, but it was mostly all a blur of a dark and dirty age. I awoke to the sound of my phone. It was Szandor, telling me he was leaving and would meet me at the bar. I was groggy, but I texted back that I'd be there soon. It was already nine and I had slept through most of the afternoon and evening. I pulled myself out of bed and microwaved a Hot Pocket as I changed into some halfway clean clothes. Then I groggily chewed on that Hot Pocket while I ran a brush through my hair. I turned to the mirror and grunted
Good enough.

I didn't drive over to Southend. It was walkable even if it took half an hour, and I saw no reason to risk a DUI. Szandor and Lem were closer than I was, so they didn't need me to give them a ride. Dickie was around the corner from the bar, so I didn't expect him to show up until an hour or two after we got there. The day's rain had stopped and there was just a damp mist over the city, so I didn't even need an umbrella.

The name of the bar was the King's Crown, a name that seemed to be attempting to appeal to both bohemian Southenders and the working class from the east side neighborhoods, since it was right at the edge of Southend. I had never been there before, but if it was like many Southend bars, I expected the next time I was by this way it would be called something else - Southend bars were volatile in ownership, name, and style. You'd never find a solid and stable neighborhood bar in Southend unless the owner had deep pockets to survive the whims of trendsetters. Since King's Crown wasn't a dance club but just a bar, there was no line for entry tonight. Despite that, I did see my brother and Lem standing outside.

As soon as they saw me, their concerned faces became even more worried.

"Oh, hey, Mikkel," said Lem, nervously. "We were thinking we should go to another club."

"Why?" I said.

"The girls in this place are..." said Szandor, his hands up as if to stop me. "Well, they're not good tonight. We should go elsewhere. I called Dickie and he's going to tell us a better bar.
When he wakes up.
" Szandor rolled his eyes.

"How are the women 'not good'?" I asked. I was confused. That was just a strange thing to say. I'd expect Szandor to say they were ugly, that it was a sausage fest, or that he had already struck out with all the women. Saying this instead was weird. "I thought this
was
Dickie's favorite bar for seducing women."

"Yes, but not tonight. We should go somewhere else. And!" Szandor said with an abrupt suddenness that made the word almost its own exclamation. "And this club was severely lacking in men for Lem. We discovered that this place was not as friendly to gay dating as most other Southend clubs."

"Yes!" said Lem with a very quick nodding motion. "That's exactly right. The men here are dogs too!"

"Why are you two acting so weird?" I said.

"Dogs, Mikkel!" restated Lem with urgency.

"Let's just take a walk and find another bar," said Szandor.

"Yeah, let's find another club." said Lem.

"First round is on me!" said Szandor.

Okay, now I knew something was wrong. Szandor never buys the first round unless he's already stinking drunk. In fact, that's usually the only time we can get him to buy the first round in any mood other than begrudgingly.

"I'm just going to take a look in the bar, then we can look elsewhere if you want," I said.

"No, bad idea," said Szandor. "Let's just go."

"What is it you're hiding?" I said, attempting to walk past them to the bar.

Szandor stepped in front of me and gently put his hand on my shoulder. "Really, don't go in. Just between you and me. Trust me. This is just you and me talking. Brother to brother, blood to blood. Don't go in. You're going to regret it."

I shrugged him off. The more they persuaded me not to, the more I wanted to go in. Us Nowaks have a stubbornness in us. It's what amplifies our recklessness to almost danger seeking. Once we get an idea in our heads, we do it. And all their persuasion has just reinforced my desire to go into the bar. I brushed past Lem and Szandor.

With a quick move, Szandor stepped back in front of me. His face close to mind. "Please. You're going to regret it."

I pushed him aside and went inside the bar.

I went through an old wooden door and then down a set of stairs, as the bar itself was below street level. As I descended the stairs, I saw all the familiar bar elements, the same here as nearly any bar in Avalon, nearly any bar in America. Smokey interior, faded neon over the bar either as a joke or advertising brands of beer, the smell of spilt alcohol, and out-of-date radio singles playing on the jukebox. The club wasn't full by any means, probably because of the iffy weather, but it wasn't empty. We could get a table pretty easily and not find ourselves in a remote, uninhabited corner of the bar. And contrary to Szandor, I did see a few attractive women in skimpy outfits, even a few attractive men, which meant Lem had lied too. Why? I walked down to the bottom of the steps, wondering what had made my friends so reluctant to be here.

And then I knew why. It was in the moment my boot stepped off the last step onto the tacky floor. My vision which had passed over the room, taking it all in, ambiance, tables, and dating possibilities, had fallen on one last figure. A head of blonde hair. And then I realized exactly what my friends had been protecting me from.

There was something familiar about that hair. It would always be familiar to me. Even if she changed the style, even if she changed the color. Somehow I'd always know, somehow it'd always be familiar. I don't know why - call it fate, call it chemicals, call it energy. I'd always know.

As I saw that familiar hair, she turned her head, as if she felt the weight of my eyes upon her and knew to turn. While realization was dawning on me, her gaze fell upon me. I was out in the open. Nothing to hide behind and an exposed stairway my only retreat. I had caught sight of her just a split second before she saw me. I couldn't hide. And as our eyes locked, neither of us could turn away and pretend we hadn't seen each other. No escape, no hiding. We were locked in the mutual gaze and mutual acknowledgement regardless of what we wanted.

Did I want this? Did she want this?

The universe sure wanted this. With adrenaline coursing through my veins, a tightness in my heart, and something resembling a panic crawling up my spine, I looked upon the former love of my life, gone some months now.

This was my ex-girlfriend Carly.

I don't really know how to discuss Carly. How do you really tell someone about the past? You can discuss the things that happened, but that's just acting like the past is only a collection of events to be listed off like a mind numbing history lecture. It doesn't tell you the significance and the emotion, the love and the hate, the pain and the euphoria, the rage and the grace of everything that happened. I'm faced with the challenge of having to tell you this in a way that doesn't make you roll your eyes, in a way that doesn't make you wonder why you should care, in a way that doesn't make you wonder why I'm bothering. Yet to me, this was one of the greatest and most terrible things in my life. How can I really encompass it all in just words and communicate it to you?