My Friends Are Dead People (18 page)

“
Duma?” said Katie. “You
named her Duma?”

“
She didn’t like Silky. So
I let her pick one for herself.”

“
But
Duma?
Your cat?”

“
I told her, but she
didn’t seem to mind. And there is nothing wrong with that
name.”

Katie went over to Slim and gave him a quick
rub. “Seeya, Rose.”

“
Rose?
” I laughed. “You gave him a woman’s name?”

“
Nooooo. It’s
interchangeable. Just like Duma is. Rose, don’t listen to him. He’s
a ballerina.”

Rose bowed his head.

“
Good. He agrees with
me.”

“
I - am - not - a -
ballerina,” I grumbled. “Wait, you taught her to – I mean him to
communicate?”

“
Yes. He lowers his head
for ‘yes’ and taps his paw for ‘no’.”

Both of us saw Jacoby striding over. He
looked cranky.

“
Close your eyes,” he
ordered.

The psyclin was becoming easier every time.
The hardest part was the sudden change in supporting surface. It
felt like the ground was ripped away from under my feet in one
yank, and somehow I had to catch myself.

From the looks of it, we had psyclined
further inland. We were on a well-trodden dirt road, edged by a
broken stone wall on the right side and an open field on the left.
Hints of eerie music drifted from a town in the distance. With the
huge storm clouds above, there was no telling what time of day it
was.

“
Jacoby, where are we?” I
asked.

“
The precinct of Berlin,
Germany. That town there is home of eighty percent of the most
dangerous halloweens. It’s always dark here. We aren’t going
through the town, so we should be okay. When I say stay near, I
mean it. You two go strolling off on one of your little adventures,
you’ll get yourself killed. You two understand?”

We both nodded. Why did he have to keep
scaring us? I peeked back at the ominous town. Its lights kept
getting dimmer and dimmer until the town disappeared into the dark.
I hurried up to the pack and caught up with Dorian.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

THE LAIR OF THE
TORTICS

I hated how Jacoby kept making me more
scared than I needed to be. He had said at the Jack O’Games that we
would probably be cursed, but no one was. I was just glad to be
next to Dorian. He would never say such a thing. I talked to Katie
about this, and she agreed. Jacoby liked scaring people.

“
Katie, run ahead with Lin
and Dorian,” said Jacoby. “I don’t trust you two together. Jesse,
you’ll stay with me. We are in the nether regions of Halloween: no
one likes humans here.”

I understood that, but he didn’t have to
separate us. It wasn’t like we were going to go wandering off in
the dark. But Katie went with Lin and Dorian without arguing, and I
followed Jacoby, who walked way too slowly. They were out of sight
in minutes.

“
So what are we going to
ask Lorseria?” I ventured.

“
What am
I
going to ask him?”
corrected Jacoby. “Nothing. I’m hoping the Bellnicsi will come up
on its own.”

“
I’m not going?” I was a
bit disappointed.

“
No. You’re staying with
Dorian.”

We walked for two more miles. Katie and I
could usually cover that in twelve minutes, but with slow Jacoby it
took close to an hour.

“
Alright,” murmured
Jacoby, stopping at a clearing in the forest.

Katie, Lin, and Dorian were already there,
sitting together on a wide tree trunk.

“
Katie and Lin, you’re
both staying behind with Dorian.”

“
No!” protested Lin. His
ears were fluttering. He hopped off the trunk and approached
Jacoby. “I am coming with you. You’re going to need my help. I am a
brave boy. I’ll take on a tortic any day.”

As Jacoby reached for
Lin’s head, Lin pulled away and screamed into the trees,
“
Lorseria!
Jacoby, stop being such a mons mummy. They probably heard us
already.”

Why would Lin do that? There was a rustle in
the branches of a tipped over tree. Dorian psyclined
immediately.

“
Come out so I can see
you,” said Jacoby calmly, staring into the branches. “I’m here to
speak to Lorseria.”

The branches magically parted, and a giant
tortic stepped through. They were a lot taller up close. This one
was maybe nine feet tall. His thin stomach was making a grating
noise as he breathed. The big-eared tortic looked my way.

“
We’re not here to cause
trouble,” informed Jacoby. He then spoke in German. The tortic
seemed displeased with the last thing he had said and gripped his
neck.

“
I’m fine!” said Jacoby,
louder than usual, grimacing a little.

Confused by his words, the tortic twisted
Jacoby’s neck slightly. “Who you speak to?” he said in broken
English.

He took a sniff as Jacoby quickly summoned
some kind of cold-air spell, causing the temperature to drop so the
tortic couldn’t smell Dorian. The tortic gave up and said, “All of
you, follow me.”

We followed slowly behind. I started saying
something, but Jacoby immediately turned around and put his index
finger to his lips. “It won’t be long!” he called out to some
shrubs. “Nothing will happen!”

The tortic glanced back irritably, finding
only the four of us. When he turned back around, Jacoby slipped a
small piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me.

Under no circumstance tell
them that Dorian is here.

The tortic is going to
take us to Lorseria. Don’t worry,

I will get us out faster
than you can say Happy Halloween.

Now hand the note back to
me.

The cryptic note got me worried sick.
Whenever Jacoby told us we were in serious danger, I’ve learned to
expect for everything to turn out fine. But whenever he assured us
that there was nothing to worry about, things always went
badly.

Katie snatched the paper from me, seeing
that I was brooding, and slipped it back into Jacoby’s pocket.

“
Jacoby, you up here,” the
tortic instructed him, who was trying to reach for the top of Lin’s
head.

We ducked into an opening in a bulbous tree
and were taken down into an underground stairway. As we walked down
the steps, it got darker and darker. The tortic extended his
fingers, and small flames flared out of the tips, illuminating the
black brick tunnel.

Jacoby slowed down, waiting for Katie, Lin,
and me to catch up to him, and brushed us to his left side. He was
evidently shielding us from whomever the tortic was speaking German
to in the dark.

The tunnel got wider and more ornate.
Halloween faces were carved into the walls, and the tortic’s fire
spell was no longer needed as the tunnel was lit by spinning balls
of flames. We could now see that there were a total of ten tortics
escorting us. None of them looked our way or acknowledged our
presence. They were definitely scary monsters.

As we turned down another corridor, I
repeated “Happy Halloween” for the umpteenth time in my head,
foolishly hoping Jacoby’s words were true. The next time I did it,
Jacoby roughly squeezed my hand. I didn’t know what to make of it
at first, but then I noticed four sharp fingers snapping over my
head. I couldn’t stop flinching. With each snap of the fingers, I
felt like I was being pierced. The tortic stepped in front of me
and waved his fingers in my face.

“
Jacoby?
” I cried softly while tears
ran down my cheeks. “
It hurts. It
hurts.
”

The tortic lifted my sleeve and studied the
fake hole in my wrist, carelessly scraping my arm with his claws. I
looked around hoping Dorian would come barging through the walls
and kill every single one of them. Why was no one helping me? I
kept searching the walls and looking down the corridor. Then, the
pain was gone. Jacoby had grasped the tortic’s claws. The tortic
hissed at him before he joined the others who were stooping to get
through a set of two tiny doors.

“
You okay?” said
Jacoby.

I nodded. Jacoby waited for Lin to catch up
so we could all enter together. The round cavern was surprisingly
warm for holding so much ice. Pillars of ice and giant ice cubes
were melted into the brick walls, and in the middle of the room a
throne of ice sat in-between two life-size statues; one bald like
Dorian and one with Jacoby’s crazy hair.

One tortic separated from the group and sat
in the chair. This had to be Lorseria. He wasn’t much older than
the rest. His wrinkly arms rested calmly on the armrest, and his
floppy ears draped over the sides.

Jacoby took a step forward. “Halloween, I
was wondering,” he said, very poised and calm, “if I could consult
you about the events that happened earlier this evening.”

Lorseria looked over Jacoby’s shoulders at
Katie and me. He sneered and then turned back to Jacoby. “Saw you
at the games,” he said in a dark voice. “Did not expect to ever see
you there.”

“
You dummy,” said Lin,
stepping forward.

Lorseria ignored Lin. “I’ve heard you
possess extreme magic, Jacoby.”

“
I don’t know of any,” he
replied truthfully.

“
But you are able to look
at a menala . . . at Dorian,” he corrected himself, “while none of
us can.”

“
I truly don’t know the
reason for that, halloween.”

Lorseria squared his shoulders and sat up
taller. “Lorseria,” he snarled. “I have a real name and I want it
to be used.”

There was a long silence as Jacoby bowed
apologetically, and I was able to catch the sound of accordion
music playing quietly nearby. To my surprise, I liked it and found
it pleasant to listen to. It had an enchanting quality to it like
the gently haunting melodies sometimes played on
merry-go-rounds.

Lorseria smirked, this time directly at Lin,
who was approaching him.

“
Don’t treat my friend
like dirt!” Lin protested. “Jacoby, come on, let’s fight him. I can
take on his ears–”

Lin’s body went rigid and fell like a tree.
Lorseria carried his sardonic smile over to Katie and me. “And who
are these two?” he asked.

“
Lorseria
, please let him go,” said
Jacoby.

“
Sure,
Jacoby
.”

Lin came back to life, coughing up blood.
Jacoby helped him up while he slid his hand on top of Lin’s
head.

“
They’re friends of mine,”
said Jacoby.

“
Friends who are not
samhains,” added Lorseria.

“
No, they are. Lin is
a–”

“
A melflin,” Lorseria
finished, “but the other two look like humans. They smell like
humans.”

“
Katie is Murlie’s
granddaughter from nineteen-fifty-five.”

“
And Murlie is a
wiskchickian?” asked Lorseria.

“
A welchick. And Jesse is
a kitis skeletis.”

“
A Jack’s victim costume.
Is that right, Jesse?” Lorseria took a long stare at the hole in my
wrist.

“
Uhhh . . .” I said
nervously, unsure of what to say. “Yes. Because I was killed as a
human by Jack in–”

“
In nineteen-forty-five,”
completed Jacoby.

I was glad Jacoby cut in because I was about
to tell Lorseria I was killed at the beach in Arizona.

“
I found him days later.
He’s been accompanying me ever since.”

Lorseria took some time to think, glaring
from one person to the next. “So, you know what Jack looks
like?”

I didn’t know how to reply to that.

“
Did you see him or
not?”

“
No. He was invisible.”
That was a good answer.

“
I always wondered if he
possessed a Ugo-aye. That was something I doubted for a long
time.”

A rat scurried across the icy flagstones,
and Lorseria summoned it into the air as it squeaked loudly. He
didn’t even raise his arms off the armrest, only his fingers, which
went straight through it, killing it on the spot.

“
Why did you hurt Kala?”
scoffed Katie, coming up right next to me.

Lorseria smirked, looking rather amused.

“
You are a creep!” she
yelled. “You had no right to hurt him!”

“
Katie, be careful,”
Lorseria said calmly, but appearing ready to unleash his wrath on
her. “My day has been much worse than yours would ever–”

“
You don’t know anything
about me
!” she thundered as she moved
forward. “
You ever hurt Kala
again–
”

“
It wasn’t me–”

“
You better watch who you
mess with! Right outside is
–”

“
Katie!” said Jacoby
firmly.

“
Kala is alive,” said
Lorseria. “So why are you furious? If I had been playing, I would
have probably killed it for what it did.”

“
Did you injure Soundrec?”
I barked.

“
You need to keep quiet,
Jesse and Katie,” he said sternly. “You’re beginning to get on my
nerves.”

Jacoby grabbed me. But I wasn’t going to
just let this horrible samhain feel in charge. I pulled out of
Jacoby’s grip. Katie was already approaching Lorseria.