Dead Set Page 15

  “Coffee?” I asked, holding off on pancakes for my still-zombified daughter.

  Cathy raised her fist and popped out a thumb—that was a lot of communication for my daughter before noon.

  I placed the coffee beside her; it was still strong enough to stand on its own without the cup, but Cathy pumped it full of so much milk and sugar I figured she’d be fine—if a step closer to diabetes.

  “Today’s the day,” I said, waiting for a response.

  Cathy didn’t budge, her head still solidly wedged in her arms.

  I left her at the table and slipped into my bedroom. Porter was soundly asleep—the noises of the morning hadn’t gotten past her little white-noise fan—and in the still-darkened room I navigated my way to the closet. I located my suits and let my hands slide down the wool fabric to the floor. Before they reached the bottom, they brushed across a bright red duffle bag cleverly hidden behind my most ill-fitting formal wear. I patted the bag gently, eliciting a faint squawk from its contents.

  “Not today, Gertrude.”

  I moved on from the bag and brought my hands across the top of a rough chest tucked in the corner of our closet. I laid one hand on the wooden lid and traced a pattern in the dust with the other. An audible pop sounded, and the chest’s lock released. I gently lifted the lid and let what little light there was in the room illuminate my personal library of grimoires.

  The collection had started in college.

  It had been back in those dorm-living and patchy-facial-hair days that I’d laid my hands on the first real book of Magick. Those original volumes hadn’t been mine of course, but I’d ended up with them just the same.

  College had been where my Magickal journey began in earnest, and from there the collection grew, until it took a very dark turn. I let my fingers play across the bindings, but stopped before they touched a certain mottled gray-green spine.

  It should have been called E. Evilson’s Guide to Evil and Other Dark and Nefarious Stupidity. My eyes traced the Magickal symbol inked into that drab gray skin—yes, that was actual skin. Yes, I tried not to dwell on that stomach-churning fact.

  Ten Spins Infernal Constructs.

  I gave the book a wide berth. It held Magick, but it also held memories of a dark and scary time in my life, a time I had no interest in returning to. The book provided details, far too many details, on the blackest of evil Magick. Armed with the knowledge tucked inside those covers, even a junior Magician could bring about terrible destruction. In the end that was why I kept it: it was safer here than anywhere else.

  I ran my fingers over the rest of the covers until I found Flaterhaus’s beginner tome. There was still a bookmark sticking out of the top; I opened it to the page and chuckled to myself—How to catch an Imp, and what to do if you succeed.

  “Dad, is that Magick?!” an overly excited teenager whispered behind my back, effectively taking away at least three of my nine lives in the process.

  “Holy crap, Cathy,” I said, checking to make sure my heart was still inside my chest before tucking the book under my arm and gently closing the chest’s lid.

  “Is that where you keep the Magick books? Can I see them?”

  “Yes… and no.” I guided my daughter out through the bedroom door and past the sleeping Porter.

  “The books in there are way too advanced for you. Heck, a few of them are even too advanced for me, but this one is a great starter.”

  I held up the book so Cathy could get a look at the cover. “Now listen. We don’t do Magick without your old man around, it’s just too dangerous right now. Second, we don’t do Magick without your old man around, and third—”

  “We don’t do Magick without my old man around?”

  I shook my head.

  “We don’t skip breakfast—get back in the kitchen.”

  Cathy danced about like she’d gotten a second Christmas—she’d all but forgotten about her mom’s ‘fall’ with the excitement of real Magick so close. Truth be told, I’d gotten a little excited too. It was going to be fun to have another Magician in the house—once she got past the awkward phase—and Cathy would be learning from me, and not some old guy who made her clean his toilets and cut limes for his tequila.

  And who turned out to be a less-than-perfect role model…

  If I’d been paying attention, I would have made sure to go back and lock the chest, but at the time I was too caught up in the excitement of it all. I’d forgotten the first rule of my chosen profession. Magick demands sacrifice, and as such, is more than happy to gobble up your children—just like lizards in the tall grass.

  32

  Imperative

  Tabitha dropped by around noon, and Kris was more than happy to take a ride in her car. I was a little surprised, but I should have known better. The kid had his mom’s adventurous spirit and didn’t hesitate to try new things. After all the worrying I’d done lately, perhaps I could stand to take a page out of my son’s playbook.

  Porter stirred briefly and came out long enough to scare the crap out of Cathy. “What is she doing with that book?!”

  I ushered our daughter into the den before guiding Porter back to the bedroom.

  “Gene, I can’t take more Magick in my house!”

  “I know, I know, but her Magick isn’t going to stop. In fact it's only going to get more powerful—that’s just how this works.”

  My wife stopped to stare at her bandage in the mirror. As I’d predicted, my stitches had already dissolved by morning, but Porter wasn’t Magickal, and her stitches were going to be there a while.

  “It’ll heal up, and before you know it you’ll be in great shape. I happen to have a tiny amount of Pixie dander in the office. Funny thing, Pixie dust is actually Pixie dander. Most people don’t know that but wow, do Pixies have scalp problems. Anyway, a little Pixie dander and any scar will just fade away—Magician’s honor.”

  Porter looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Gene, I hate this—all of it. I feel so helpless. Everything is changing. Cathy is getting sucked up in your world and I’m so afraid of what’ll happen to her.”

  I wiped the tears away and stood behind her in the mirror. “We can’t stop it—she’s going to be a Magician, but I’m going to make sure she has the power to keep you and Kris safe, even if I’m…”

  I tried to stop in time, but the unspoken words were still there, hovering like vultures in the dim light of the bedroom.

  Gone.

  “Where’s Krissy?”

  “He’s at Tabby’s.”

  “What! Is he safe, I—”

  I wrapped my hands around Porter. “He’s safe. Tabby’s old chemist friends are visiting today. The kid’ll be steeped in science sauce, and he’s wearing his Logic Loop. He’ll be fine.”

  My wife pushed my hands down and pulled her body away. This wasn’t just frustration, there was something more.

  “I remember it, Gene…” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  “I don’t understand…”

  “I can close my eyes and still feel him, every inch of his grotesque—whatever the hell it was—forcing me to… to—”

  “Stop, honey, don’t relive it.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to do that? Every time I close my eyes, every time I look in the mirror I see it, the burning skin, the black tongue, my black tongue. Gene, I feel his hands—my hands—I…”

  I didn’t know what to say. The average person never remembers a possession. I didn’t know why my wife would remember it now.

  “Porter, I don’t know what to say. That almost never happens…”

  “Does it? You said it yourself those things were everywhere last night. How many more lives are they going to ruin? How many more are they going to…” my wife’s words broke up on her quivering lips.

  “I don’t—”

  “And you, why haven’t you found a way to stop this? Why haven’t you fought back?”

  “I’ve been trying to keep my family safe,” I said, reaching
for her hands.

  My wife slammed those fists on the dresser. “You call this ‘safe?’” She pointed at the bandage on her face. “Maybe Magick is different, but here in the real world safe doesn’t mean stitches.”

  “If I teach—”

  “Teach? Yeah, that’s just what I need, more Magick in my house, more people to worry about, more monsters at my door. Gene, you haven’t taught your damn apprentice how to do much more than get a free parking space in downtown, yet you’re going to teach Cathy?”

  “I’m starting today—”

  “I see, so that was after you ducked out in the morning for an hour and left us all alone.”

  Porter’s words pulled the air out of my lungs. “The spike, it’s important and I—”

  My wife whirled around and put her face inches from mine. “It is important. More important than your family, more important than your children, and clearly more important than me.”

  “The House was there last night, it wants me—”

  “Sometimes I wish you’d just said yes, maybe it could solve our problems.”

  My stomach bottomed out. “You don’t mean that.”

  Porter turned away and covered her face. “Just go. Do what you have to do, but I want no part of it. I can’t stand to look at myself, let alone you right now.” She wiped her eyes and crawled back into bed.

  “I…”

  “Just go, Gene.”

  I backed out the bedroom door and let it close gently behind me.

  She’s right. She’s completely right. You’ve spent this entire time thinking about yourself. That stops now.

  “Cathy, where’s my bag?”

  My daughter popped out from the den. “Last I saw it was on the couch, why?”

  “We’ve got some work to do.”

  Cathy’s ears perked up. “Magick work?”

  I found my bag and beat a path to the garage to see what I had on hand, and like a stray puppy my daughter followed.

  I set the bag on the work bench and started pulling out supplies.

  “Hey, a Demon’s trying to get some sleep here,” the hoodie-covered 3D printer box grumbled, forcing Cathy to jump back.

  “Dad, what’s—”

  “He’s an Imp—Minor Demon, and we’re going to banish him shortly.”

  “Who you calling minor?”

  Cathy stared at the hoodie-draped box. “What’s he saying?”

  “He’s telling me that I’m an amazing Magician and that he only wishes to be set free so he can bask in my greatness.”

  “Gah!” the Imp shouted, banging his tiny fists against the case hard enough to slide the blanket-sized hoodie onto the floor.

  “Holy shit,” Cathy said, her voice jumping a few octaves at the sight of a bright-pink and rubbery Minor Demon on my workbench.

  The Imp smiled and threw his tiny wings wide. “Wow, how did you get a daughter that hot? I mean, you aren’t exactly a perfect specimen of man-flesh or anything? She’s adopted, right? You’re adopted, right, sweet-lips?”

  “No,” I said, trying to ignore the chattering Demon.

  “Hm, I know! You did it with a Succubus didn’t you? You dog, I love it. I should have known—”

  “She’s not a Succubus!”

  The Imp frowned. “Half-Succubus?”

  “No.”

  Cathy leaned in closer to stare at the Imp’s bulbous features. “So, what’s his name?”

  “We don’t name the Imp, Cathy.”

  “Why not?”

  The Minor Demon folded its fingers and gave me its best doe eyes. “Yes, why not, dearest father?”

  “Because, giving something a name makes it far more difficult to get rid of it. Think of it like this. Remember when your grandma had that chicken.”

  “Yeah…”

  “And you named it Mr. Cluckers?”

  Cathy nodded.

  “How hard was it to eat Mr. Cluckers?”

  My daughter’s jaw dropped. “We aren’t going to eat it?! Right?”

  “No!” the Imp and I said in unison.

  The color returned to my daughter’s face.

  “But,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “If I name it, then I’ve bound it, and once bound to me it takes a lot of Magick to unbind it.”

  “I get it. Sort of.”

  “Now, let’s go over some of my standard items for handling what we in the business call ‘New Dead.’”

  “New Dead? Does that mean there’s an Old Dead?”

  “Yes, but they’re way the hell out of your league and even mine. So let’s stick to the simple stuff, okay?”

  Cathy nodded.

  “Salt,” I said, slamming a container of Morton’s Iodized Salt on the workbench.

  “What’s that for?” Cathy asked, getting closer, but still giving the Demon a wide berth.

  “Spirits of the dead cannot cross a salt line,” I said, pouring some of Morton’s finest out on the workbench. “Also, it really annoys Minor Demons if you trap them in—”

  “Hey! Don’t go getting your grubby salt on me.”

  “What’s he saying, Dad?”

  “It’s best to ignore the Imp, Catherine.”

  I removed a thin cloth sack from inside my work bag. The sack jingled in my hand, and I counted out a few oversized coins.

  “What are those?” Cathy asked, craning her neck to get a look at them.

  The Imp brushed off my bag of old coins. “Fifty-cent pieces, really? For the boat man on the River Styx? You should know that Charon retired a few eons ago—everyone uses a multi-pass now.”

  “These are Walking Liberty half-dollars, made in 1916. Each one contains a little silver, and a lot of Magick.”

  “Wow—what do they do?”

  The Imp shrugged. “Well they don’t get you a ride on the River Styx.”

  “You can trap an unfettered soul by ‘buying’ it off with a Walking Liberty. You can’t hold it for long, but once you’ve got it, you can exorcise it.”

  My daughter picked up one of the coins and turned it over in her fingers. “Amazing…”

  The rubbery Demon dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “Whatever, half a soul? That’s kid’s stuff. Why I could—”

  “Cathy, run in the house and get me the bottle of bourbon from the liquor cabinet.”

  “Uh…” My daughter tilted her head.

  “Grandma Jude’s favorite drink—the orange-looking stuff.”

  “Oh, be right back.”

  Cathy shot out of the door.

  “You let her have access to the liquor cabinet?” the Imp asked, scratching at his chin. “I take back some of the things I said about you… I think I could really do well here.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “Got it!” she yelled, racing back into the garage with a half-empty bottle of premium liquor.

  “Whoa, Grandma Jude likes the good stuff!” the Imp shouted, perking his head up upon seeing the label.

  “Dad, did he just say Jude?”

  She’s starting to understand him—her Magick is getting stronger.

  I shrugged and placed the bottle on the table next to the salt and coins. “It’s best to not listen to Imps.”

  “What’s the bourbon do?”

  The Imp rubbed his hands together. “Gets us all good and drunk—plus I’m sure it makes your dad one hell of a dancer.”

  I frowned at the Imp, then poured the bottle’s contents into a small metal flask. “It’s for raising up the spirits of the dead.”

  “Wait, I thought you wanted to get rid of the dead?”

  “He does,” the Imp said, rolling his beady eyes. “The bourbon’s there to bribe the idiots on the other side to do the heavy lifting for him.”

  “I do, but—”

  My phone chirped, and I scooped it up. It was Rob from The Qwik Fix.

  Hey, Gene… Any chance you could come by and talk to Justine? I know it’s a big ask, but she’s really torn up.

  I wanted to tell him no
. I wanted to say I didn’t have the time for this, but then I caught sight of Cathy, staring at the Imp and my various Magickal tools. She needed some hands-on experience if she was going to help keep her brother and mother safe, but she also needed to know that Magick wasn’t always about monsters, evil, and death—although they did make up the lion’s share. Sometimes it was about making people whole.

  I should bring her along. It would be good for her to see something genuine.

  I punched out a response to Rob.

  Yes, will come over now. Send me her address.

  Thanks, Gene…

  “Cathy, get some shoes on, you’re coming with me. I’ve got an errand to run and I think you should be there.”

  “A Magick errand?”

  “Gah! Yes, just get your dang shoes on!”

  33

  Medium to Well Done

  Ice-cold AC from Porter’s sweet new ride washed over all three of us. Cathy, the Imp, and I sat quietly in the car and waited for the light to change. It had been the longest stretch of silence we’d had since leaving the house and, like most good things, it didn’t last.

  The Imp had wanted to get out of the box, which wasn’t going to happen. I wanted to put him in the trunk, but my daughter, the ever-sensitive creature, thought it would be better to strap the whole box into Kris’s car seat.

  The Minor Demon didn’t seem to mind; it gave him a great view of this part of Florida, which while it wasn’t much more than block-and-stucco homes with an occasional car wash or 7-11, thrilled him to no end.

  “Wow, you can almost feel the domestic tension. Oh, that house, see that one there with the badly trimmed tree? Yeah…” The Imp took a deep breath as if savoring the air. “… Oh yeah, his wife isn’t speaking to him, and… there’s a hint of something else…” Our backseat bloodhound sniffed the air again. “Yep, we got some emotional infidelity—the choicest kind. Somebody’s been on the Facebook talking to an old flame.”

  “Dad, what’s he saying?”

  I glanced at the almost giddy pink Demon in the back seat. “Honestly, honey, you don’t want to know.”