Scary Dead Things - 02 (35 page)

“When someone says, 'And now you must die, Freewill', it doesn't leave it open to much interpretation.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he finally admitted. “I'm thinking she and I need to sit down and have a long talk about things.”

“Talk!?” Sally snapped. “Are you that desperate for a piece of ass that you're actually considering having a little sit-down over lunch to discuss things with the same psycho witch who tried to kill your best friend last night!?”

“Do you really want to know the answer to that?” Ed asked her before turning to me. “And this Decker dude? He was actually dating your wannabe lady friend just to mess with you?”

“Yep.”

“That's cold, man. Bet you wished you had let Gan gut the sucker.”

“I don't know,” I replied. “Maybe. But the whole thing is like a slippery slope. What if he had just been some normal dude out on a date?”

“If pigs had wings, they'd be eagles,” Ed answered.

“All's fair in love and war,” was Tom's response. Damn, my roommates just weren't being helpful at all. If I listened to their advice, I'd be Jack the Ripper within a week. Who'da thought Sally's would have been the voice of sanity amongst us all? Oh well, best not to dwell on it too much now. That way leads to madness.

“OK,” I said, trying to get us back on track. “You know what happened to us...sorta. I'm still not sure what went down after Sally got turned into a southpaw. But that's not important right now. What I'm curious about is what the hell happened to you two?”

Ed answered, “Like we said. No idea. We woke up with no memory of any of that. Gotta be honest, I'm still not one-hundred percent convinced that you and Sally aren't screwing with our heads just for the hell of it.” Sally glared at him, showing him a little fang in the process. “Don't get me wrong! I believe you. It's just weird.”

“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “We woke up, and there was nobody else here. No vampire toddler, no wizards, nothing. Stuff was out of place, but it's not like back when Jeff trashed the place. Didn't look like there was a fight or anything. Although, there was one weird thing...”

“What?”

“Someone left us a new Playstation.”

* * *

Tom's revelation did give us something to check. The games I had bought were all there, but the bags of clothing for Gan were missing. She had been here after all, although
when
she left and in
what
condition were still up for debate. I assumed she hadn't waited in ambush for Decker and Christy...there would have been blood splattered about, a lot of it probably, if that had happened. I hoped that the reverse didn't occur and they managed to take her out of the equation. My fondness for Gan was limited, but seeing her become a casualty in a war she had nothing to do with wasn't what I wanted either.

“So what's the plan?” Tom finally asked.

“Gan is priority number one. We need to find her.”

“Nice to see you care for the little hellion,” quipped Ed.

“I care more about the damage she can do if she's not contained. As far as she's concerned, there are over eighteen million walking snacks in this city.”

“Let's not forget that she's probably pissed to all hell,” added Sally. “Those wizards did a job on her and then casually dismissed her. If that's not a mindset to put someone with the emotional stability of a preteen into rampage mode, I don't know what is.”

“Almost forgot about that. If it were me, I'd probably be hunting those fuckers down right now.”

“And she could do it, too,” Sally continued. “Don't forget how easily she found you, Bill.”

“Gives us a place to start, at least,” I concluded. “Tom, give me Christy's address. We'll check there first.”

“You're not going to hurt her are you?” he asked after some hesitation.

“We'll try not to.” I looked at Sally. “
Won't
we
? Seriously, Tom, she's not my favorite person on the planet right now but, when push came to shove, she got you and Ed out of danger. I promise I’ll try to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Maybe I should come, too?” he added.

“No!” spat out Sally. That wasn't too surprising. I knew that Tom drove her bugshit with his incessant comments; however, she was right this time.

“Sally's got a point. We're gonna need to move fast. This isn't like last time, when we knew where shit was going down,” I said.

“How about this?” chimed Ed. “If you find out in advance where the action will be, you call us in.”

I wanted to say no, but Sally interrupted me. “You still have that popgun?” she asked, no doubt referring to Ed's twelve-gauge.

“You bet.”

“Then if we have enough warning, you're in.” I gave her a disbelieving look when she said that, but before I could open my mouth, she answered my unspoken question. “Don't give me that look. I'm not an idiot. Backup is backup, and as much as I hate to admit it, they helped just as much against Jeff as I did.” Tom opened his mouth to speak, but Sally help up her hand to his face. “Doesn't mean I like it, though.”

I jumped in before this turned into either a hug-fest or a homicide scene. “Ed, while we're doing that, can you find out Harry Decker's address?”

“What if he's not listed?”

“Call HR. They'll have him on file. Besides, Barbara there likes you. Lay on the sweet talk, and I'm sure she'll give you whatever you want.”

“Barb the beast?” he replied with a look of horror. Barbara was the HR admin for our office. She was a sweetheart, but not exactly the easiest thing on the eyes.

“We must all make our sacrifices,” I said with a solemn voice, which earned me a chuckle from Sally and a stare of death from Ed. I just hoped that his look was the deadliest thing I would be facing tonight. None of us had spoken about it, but we still knew the assassins were out there waiting for us.

Two Mongolian assassins, a revenge-bent vampire princess dressed in expensive schoolgirl clothing, and a couple of wacked out magic users trying to fulfill an insane prophesy...damn, it was gonna be a long night.

Christy's was our first stop. That was easy enough. As it turned out, she lived only a mile or so away from my place, a convenient location for Tom's girlfriend. Too bad she had to go and spoil it by being a backstabbing harpy. Oh well; nobody's perfect, I guess.

We easily made it past the front door security for her building. This was one of Sally's specialties. When you looked like she did, doors were opened for you...literally. We went up to Christy's floor and walked to her door. I then did the only obvious thing I could think of: I knocked.

“Step aside, idiot,” Sally said. She gripped the doorknob with her left hand and started turning it. As the tumblers hit their limits, she kept putting on the pressure until the whole apparatus started groaning under the strain.

“Hold on a second,” I said to her. “What if she has, I don't know, wards or stuff?”

“Wards?”

“Yeah. You know: circles of protection, explosive runes, that type of shit. I used that crap all the time in my game to keep thieves and the rest of the party away from my gold.”

“I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. I don't speak dork.”

“Fine. Be my guest.” I made an
after-you
gesture to her and then backed several steps down the hall. If this thing opened up a fiery gateway to Hell, then at least I'd live long enough to shout, “I told you so!”

The lock cracked and...*
KABOOM
!!!*  Well, in my mind it did anyway, and let's face facts: if this were a game being run by my usual Dungeon Master, Dave, Sally would now probably be thoroughly ventilated; however, instead there was nothing.
Real world mages are rapidly starting to disappoint me
, I thought as the door just swung open.

Sally pushed it open all the way and then stepped through the doorway. She had no more than put her foot down when suddenly the door flew back at her face as if
Conan the Barbarian
had just decided to slam it shut. It crashed into her, and she went flying back into the opposite wall as the door clicked itself back shut again. On second thought, I felt my opinion of real world witches rise back up a notch again.

Sally was dazed but didn't seem to be otherwise worse for the wear. Thus, I didn't see any reason to fight my mind's compulsion to stroll back up to her and say, “Told ya so.”

* * *

Turns out that Christy wasn't home anyway. This didn't surprise me too much. I had considered it a long shot. If anything was going down tonight, chances are it would be in Manhattan. That was where my coven was headquartered. That was where the assassins were hunting. That was where all of last night's shit had gone down. Thus, I wasn't all too surprised to find us on a train heading back there. During most of the trip, I couldn't help but notice that Sally kept reaching inside her purse to stroke the enormous handgun within, all the while chanting, “Fucking witches!” It was an effort, but I somehow kept myself from grinning the entire time.

It turned out our timing was good. We had just gotten out of the subway, close by coven territory, when my cell phone rang. It was Ed.

“I’ve got Decker's home address for you.”

“Good job!” I replied. Ed gave it to me. He had a place in a building on the Upper West Side. I knew the area: monthly rents higher than most mortgage payments, twenty-four hour door service, and mostly home to executives, high paid professionals, and other assorted yuppie scum. It didn't surprise me in the least. I don't care what kind of dark wizard he thought he was, at the end of the day he was just another asshole corporate suit that more or less contributed nothing to society other than making the lives of people like me more difficult.

“You owe me,” grumbled Ed.

“What happened?” I asked into the phone.

“I have to take Barbara out to lunch sometime this week.”

“Aw, but you make such a cute couple.”

Ed grumbled something back that would have made me blush had I been a good, God-fearing family man.

Sally, overhearing most of the conversation thanks to her vampire ears, said, “Tell him I'll make it up to him.”

“What was that?” Ed asked back.

“Sally said she'll send flowers to your wedding,” I replied and hung up.

“That was mean,” she commented. “As I said before, you're obviously jealous.”

“Nonsense,” I replied. “I just believe Ed should stick to dating his own species.”

“Oh. Then what about you and that girl you're still pining for?”