Dead Set Read online

  Any air left in my wife’s lungs was expelled in a single burst. It was like she’d been kicked in the gut and couldn’t recover fast enough to speak.

  “Mom?”

  “Hi, Kris,” I said, trying to keep our youngest from getting worried. “I’ll be there in a little bit. Are you okay?”

  “Oh yeah, there’s popcorn and snacks and—”

  “He’s fine,” Morgan said, returning to the phone. “And he’ll stay that way, provided you bring me what I want.”

  My wife regained her composure enough to respond. “What do you want?”

  “Tell her, Gene. Tell her what I want.”

  I looked back at the car, and the sigil-covered skull tucked under the seat.

  “She wants the skull.”

  “What skull?” Porter said, then ripped the phone out of my hand. “You touch my son and I’ll tear off your skull and hand it to you.”

  “That’s sweet, Porter, but your threats still ring hollow—just like in college. Gene, you sexy Magician, get me the skull—and who knows, perhaps I can convince you to come back to the winning team.”

  “Morgan—”

  “Meet me at the theater in one hour, just you and the skull, and I’ll have Lucina return your son to you.”

  Movies and television are so good at telling you all the rules for a hostage negotiation—smart things like choosing the place, asking for proof of life, and calling the police, but what they forget to tell you is just how hard all that is to remember all that when your son’s life is on the other end of the line.

  “Fine.”

  Porter pushed past me and stormed toward her still-idling car.

  I clicked off the phone. “Porter, where are you going?”

  My wife yanked the passenger door open and tore into the glove box. She retrieved a small, matte-black handgun with trembling fingers. “I’ll find her and make her give me my son back—or I’ll show her what a real mother is capable of.”

  43

  The Unholy Hand Grenade of Porter

  I approached my wife slowly, her hands still shaking. “Where did you get that?”

  “You think you’re the only one that worries about the family? I worry too—a lot.” My wife ejected the magazine and checked the contents like a well-practiced pro.

  “I see you’ve done that before.”

  Porter rammed the magazine home, the gun giving off a satisfying click as the metal locked into position. “Terrible things follow you, Gene. They find you wherever you go. I learned that lesson in Miami a long time ago. Since that time I upgraded to heavier artillery. You remember Miami, don’t you?”

  “I do…”

  “Yeah, well, I got tired of being helpless.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Porter checked the safety. “We can worry about that later. Right now, I have a son to find.”

  “Damn, Magician—this one is tough as testes!” the Imp said, crawling out from under the seat and dragging behind him one sigil-covered skull.

  A startled Porter jumped and fumbled with her gun before training it on the Minor Demon.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Don’t shoot!” I yelled, not so much for the Imp as for the barely contained mass of sigil-locked Magick currently inhabiting the skull between the tiny monster’s legs. “Porter, meet the Imp. Imp, this is—”

  “One mighty fine specimen of raw female power—and she’s packing, to boot. I gotta say I’m impressed, Magician. I took one look at your khakis and didn’t figure you for much of a ladies man, but was I ever wrong.”

  “What’s he talking about? Actually, you know, I don’t care. What is an Imp and what the hell is it doing in the back of my car?”

  “An Imp is a Minor—”

  “Hey, I thought we talked about that,” the Imp said, cutting me off.

  “He’s a Demon, but the small and mainly concerned with screwing things up kind.”

  “You mean, like a ‘from Hell’ sort of Demon?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “What’s he doing in my car?”

  “He is guarding that Old Dead’s skull. It’s jacked up with Magick that Morgan wants to draw from—ostensibly to destroy you and get me back or, barring that, usher Asaroth the Defiler into this world. Or if all else fails, just turn us into hosts for the most vile New Dead she can find.”

  The Imp nodded. “That does sort of cover it really well. Nice work, Magician.”

  “And why is this skull battery thing on the floor of my car?”

  The Imp shrugged. “It seemed better than putting it on the seat.” He reached out and ran a hand over the leather. “I mean, this is nice leather, and I just figured…”

  “It’s a long story—”

  “That I don’t have time for,” my wife said, waving her gun toward the driveway. “Get the hell out of my car—now.”

  “Wait, Porter, you don’t understand. Morgan will kill for that skull, and if she gets it back, then she’ll use the power inside to—”

  “The bitch wants the skull, huh?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Porter grabbed the Imp’s tiny wings and tossed him on to the driveway, then kicked the door shut with her foot.

  “You don’t even know where they are,” I said, pleading with my wife to stop.

  Porter didn’t listen, instead she climbed into the driver seat and jammed her handgun in the cup holder. “They’re at that stupid movie theater over by the Karate school.”

  “Wait! What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to do something. I’m not going to sit around for an hour while God knows what happens to my son.”

  “Honey, get out of the car, we need to put together a plan. Trust me, I’ve done this before, I’ve gone off half-cocked and it doesn’t end well.”

  My wife pulled the skull out of the back and set in on the seat next to her. “I’ve got a plan—either she gives me my son, unharmed and in one piece, or I’ll smash this thing into a million pieces in front of her.”

  “That’s a terrible idea—”

  “You got a better one?”

  “Yes! Please come inside. I don’t like the fact that Morgan has our son any more than you do, but driving over there and threatening her is going to get you killed. You don’t have any protection. Your ring is gone, remember? Unmade! That means whatever she wants to throw at you, she can, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

  My wife paused for a second, one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift. “How did you handle her the last time?”

  “Adam aimed an Imp at her head and threatened to unravel any Magick she performed, but it was insane; the unraveling could have just as easily undone the protections on that skull.”

  Porter unlocked the passenger door and pushed it open. “Hey, pink-demon-thing, you want to take a ride?”

  The Imp looked at me. “Ah?”

  “No, you don’t.” The tiny Demon shook his head.

  My wife slammed the door shut.

  “Don’t do it, Porter, you’ve got a damn Magickal hand grenade in your front seat. You shatter it and we’ll have a lot worse problems on our hands.”

  Porter put the car in reverse. “Magickal grenade, huh? Sounds to me like Morgan better get her shit in order, cause if I don’t get my son back I’m going to fuck it right the hell up.”

  My wife tore out of the driveway and down the street, leaving the Imp and me alone.

  “You sure know how to pick ‘em,” the Minor Demon said, rubbing his head with a tiny clawed hand. “Are all your women, so… expressive?”

  Porter’s car tires squealed as she rounded the corner, leaving a trail of smoke behind them.

  “Yeah, I guess they are.”

  44

  Home Bound

  The Imp and I entered the house to find Adam and Tristan standing over a slowly waking Cathy.

  “Give her some room,” I said, pushing the two men to either side. “You okay, honey?”
<
br />   Cathy blinked her eyes a few times. “Yeah, ugh—I feel like I was hit by a garbage truck. What was that, Dad?”

  “That was some seriously shitty Magick—I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “She left.”

  “She what?” at least two of them said in unison.

  “Morgan has Kris and wants the skull. Porter, it turns out, has a loaded gun in her glove box. She’s trucking the Old Dead skull to the Brighton 8 in exchange for Kris.”

  “You can’t let her have the skull back,” Tristan said, his eyes pleading. “You don’t know what she’ll do to me, or my family.”

  “Trust me, Morgan being reunited with a Magickal battery at nigh-full charge is basically the last thing I want, but she dragged Porter into this, and now there’s no telling what’ll happen.”

  “She’ll get possessed again, I know she will,” Tristan said, running a hand through his thick young-man hair.

  “Wait—how did you know she was possessed before?” I said, turning my attention to the boyfriend of the month.

  “Because I drove the van. The skull is more than a battery, Morgan uses it to control these ghost things—”

  “New Dead,” Adam and I said for him.

  “Yeah, something like that. Anyway, she uses the skull to summon and command them.”

  “I figured as much. We’ve got to get there before my wife does.”

  Adam rubbed at his beard. “How are we going to do that? We don’t have a car.”

  Shit.

  “Let me figure out that. Tristan, you stay here with Cathy—”

  “Dad!”

  “Don’t even start with me, young lady. You’ve had a more than a full day and I don’t want to go into this worried about you.”

  “But I can help,” my daughter said, struggling to pick herself up from the couch.

  “I know you want to but honestly, right now you’re a liability, along with Tristan. It’s damn hard to possess an experienced Magician, and the New Dead know that. Adam and I will go, I need you and Tristan here and safe.”

  “But I am a Magician!”

  I was my turn to raise my voice. “Not yet you aren’t. Right now, you are a sweet young woman with a flair for speaking to the dead. You don’t know the first thing about what it takes, what it really takes, to be a Magician. There are sacrifices, Cathy. Hell, the whole damn thing is a bunch of sacrifices. You aren’t ready for that.”

  “I’m not ready? There’s a whole stack of books in there that says otherwise. I think you’re the one who isn’t ready.”

  So much of her mother.

  “Cathy—”

  “No, Dad, this is my family, too, so I deserve some say in what happens.”

  I threw my hands up. “I don’t have time to argue with you. Stewart The Annoying, do not let my daughter or Tristan leave this house.”

  “It is done—gah, that’s a terrible name,” the tiny Demon said.

  “Dad!” Cathy cried, pushing herself up from the couch. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m keeping you and Tristan safe, the best way I know how.”

  “Gene, what have you done to him?” Adam asked, taking a step back from the once-jovial Minor Demon now perched on the coffee table like a trained attack dog.

  “I’ve given him a purpose. Now he’ll do what I say, exactly how I say it, until I release him.”

  “But he looks so… dark?”

  “The Imp is fine—which is more than I can say for us. Adam, go into my closet and get the red duffle bag from on top of my safe. Don’t worry, but it might squawk.”

  “You got it—wait, what? Did you say squawk?”

  “Yes. Is there a problem?”

  “What’s in it?” my timid apprentice asked.

  “Spare socks and underwear—what the hell do you think? It’s a bit of Magick I keep secret for rainy days. I’d say this counts as a rainy day, wouldn’t you?”

  “What does it do?”

  “Adam—red duffle, top of the safe, behind an ill-inspired tan suit. Do not shake it!”

  Adam hesitated, then raced off into my bedroom.

  The bag wasn’t going to be enough, Morgan had become far too powerful since her college days—it was the skull. What had Porter called it? A Magick battery?

  I stared at Kris’s toy cars. Even though the rug was back down and covering the Seal of Ariadne, my son’s cars and the few batteries I’d removed from them remained pushed up against the wall where I’d left them what seemed like forever ago.

  Pull out the battery and the toy dies—but that move is textbook insanity. Still she’s got Kris, and by now Porter too. Desperate times…

  I pulled my phone out and scrolled through the texts until I found Rob’s last message. I mashed the dial button, and the compact mechanic answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, Gene. What can I do for you?”

  “I need a couple of favors—like right now.”

  Rob’s voice switched to serious mode. “What do you need?”

  “First, I need a ride.”

  “I think the guys are all done with the Dad Wagon. I was going to roll it around the block a few times to make sure—”

  “I need it here.”

  “You got it. What else?”

  “Is Justine around?”

  “She’s over at the precinct right now, but I think she’s going on a break shortly. Is everything okay?”

  “It will be. Can you give me her number?”

  “Sure,” Rob said, then rattled off Justine’s phone number. “You sure you’re okay, buddy? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “Porter’s in trouble, Rob—or at least she will be unless I take care of a major problem. Now, when can you get here?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Great, see you in a few.”

  I clicked off the call as Adam rounded the corner with my red duffle. The mission-oriented Imp continued to guard my frustrated daughter and her boyfriend. I punched up the digits for Justine and was pleasantly surprised when she answered on the second ring.

  “Justine, hi, it’s Gene Law. Yes, from earlier… I’m so happy for you too. Now, I hate to do this, but I have a favor to ask—and it’s a big one.”

  True to his word, the best mechanic in West Florida was at my house in less than ten minutes. The Dad Wagon purred in the driveway, ready for action.

  After a few last-minute admonishments to the Imp and my daughter, I joined Adam and Rob on the old concrete in the dusky half-light of early evening.

  “All good to go, Gene.”

  “Thanks, Rob. Listen, I need you to stay here. I don’t have time to drive you back, and it’s really not safe where we’re going.”

  The compact mechanic waved me off. “I talked to the crew—we want to help.”

  “We?”

  A second car pulled into my driveway—a large truck with six monster wheels and a rich black paint job. All in all, it was not unlike the ill-fated Banshee-shredded vehicle from the other morning, but this one had far fewer fairies and a lot more tough-looking dudes.

  “Yeah, I got the whole crew to come along. They know you and your wife. You guys have been coming to us for, what? Seven years?”

  “Yeah, but it’s—”

  “Right, you’re practically family. So I told them your wife was in trouble and they all decided to come.”

  The driver of the Mack Truck of manliness waved to me from behind the glass. His five o’clock shadow appeared to be a semi-permanent fixture, but it went well with the scar along his chin, and expertly complemented the tattoos on his neck.

  “Rob,” I said, guiding my mechanic away from the lynch-mob-on-wheels. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but these aren’t people problems, these are Magick problems.”

  “I figured as much, but the guys want to help. They’re tough as nails, Gene.”

  I don’t doubt that for one minute.

  “They’ve all done their time
and they’re good people. People you want on your side.”

  Rob was right. I did need people on my side, and his crew were some of the toughest-looking guys to ever grace my driveway, but what was tough when compared to the spirits of the damned?

  “Rob, let me be blunt. This is New Dead, a lot of them. These are the spirits of the damned, summoned up from Hell to possess the bodies of the living. I don’t care if your guys are swinging tire irons and lug wrenches, it’s not going to make a difference.”

  “But—”

  “They’re ghosts, Rob. It’s not like you can hit them.”

  I hated taking the wind out of his sails, but what could I do? If I let his crew roll in, there was just as good a chance they’d turn into rides themselves, and we’d have an even bigger problem on our hands.

  “I understand,” my mechanic said, turning back to the truck. “I’ll get the guys to drive me back to the shop.”

  Rob walked past my apprentice, who was lost in thought staring at the rippling man-muscles in the black pickup. He unconsciously ran a hand along his waist and grazed an already overloaded belt.

  I should get him one of those jiu-jitsu belts—wait, that’s it!

  “Rob, wait! I’ve got an idea. Tell your crew to follow me.”

  45

  Tire Iron Physics

  It was good to be back in the Dad Wagon. Even with everything that was happening, it somehow felt right to be driving to near certain-agony and death in the Mazda. The Lone Ranger had his horse—I had my car.

  “What’s the plan?” Adam asked.

  “The plan? The plan is simple: save Porter and Kris, and don’t get killed, maimed, burned, or possessed in the process.”

  I kept an eye on the black truck behind us. Rob and his crew of prison-grade mercenaries hugged close to our tail.

  “I meant for the… the help you have coming with us.”

  “Oh, you mean the muscle?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Back when this all started I had a particularly vicious New Dead come after me at Cathy’s jiu-jitsu school.”