Unkillable (8 page)

“What do I want? You’re the Happy Jasper what called me,” he said. I looked at Marie. She looked back at me and shrugged.

“You know,” he said, managing to sound exasperated and amused at the same time, “The summoning and all that? What? Ye expected a puff of smoke?”

“I thought voodoo spirits were supposed to be black,” said Bruce.

“Clearly, there are more things in heaven and earth than what’s dreamt of in your philosophy,” the man in leather and the battered top hat said with a smile.

“Okay, who are you?” I asked. “Who is he?” I asked Marie. She just shook her head and put it down on the floor. This was grand. What a help the crazy voodoo broad was turning out to be. How screwed? All the way.

“Who am I then? That’s an impertinent question from one so young as yourself. And the answer might take more time than you have, my son. So for the sake of moving the polite discourse along a bit, you can call me JACK.”

He took off his hat and bowed deeply. There was something about the way he said “Jack” As if it was something to be proud of. More than a name. A legacy, an identity and ringing far, far off, an ancient war cry.

“So, are you here to help us?” asked Bruce.

“‘Help you? Help YOU? Thought never crossed my mind until you mentioned it.”

“What spirit are you Jack? What do you do?”

“All trades really. That’s why they call me Jack, isn’t it?” And here he smiled a smile that was hideous in its feigned innocence. “But I think what you need, is a man what’s good with a knife. No leech will cure what ails you. Especially you, sir,” he said, raising his voice to address The Nameless Man. “No, no, I should think not. What you need is a real artist. A sure-handed surgeon with the courage to make the cuts that need making. Do the needful, as it were.”

“Wait, why are you here?”

Jack smiled wistfully. “Well, I was somewhere else, doing… well, it scarcely matters now, when I suddenly found myself at the bottom of a dark alley. Not terribly unusual that, but what was curious were the strong urges I was having to climb, to ascend the stair and knock on this very door. So I follow me urges -- always do you see, that’s what gives a man his power. So I knock on the door and then your voice saying come in. And here I am in the colonies. So your dress fits as well as mine, so to speak.”

“Great,” I said to Marie, “You summoned a chimney sweep.”

“I take exception to that remark,” he said, bristling and straightening his battered leather jacket, “I’m no working man, I’m a genteel man, I am.”

I said, “You are the chimney sweep from Tim Burton’s wet dream remake of
Mary Poppins
.” He was on me before I could blink. As he held a straight razor to my throat, I realized I had never seen anyone, or anything, move so quickly, yet be so utterly at ease. Marie breathed in sharply. Bruce scuttled backward like a fat, fleshy crab.

“Just a little off the back and sides,” I said in a bored tone. ‘Cause screw him. Maybe I didn’t have any clue who he was, but he had no idea what I was. How could he? I didn’t even know.

“Oh, you’re a special one then,” Jack said as he flicked a few strands of hair from my face. It was the kind of thing that could be mistaken for a loving gesture. He waved the razor away from my neck using only his wrist. “Not like them, then? Soft, warm, full o’ red sap, the juice of life.”

I just looked at him. Fairly cool, but having no idea how in the hell I was going to speak if he cut out my vocal cords. Maybe I’d get one of those vibrating boxes that old smokers used. As if I wasn’t scary enough to small children already.

The razor disappeared. In its place he offered his hand for a shake. “You’re one of the brotherhood then, a fellow traveller. Pleased to meet you, uh...”

I took his hand and as he shook it vigorously, I said, “Dan. My Name is Dan.”

Jack’s face fell a little bit at that. “Well you’ll be needing an alias then. A nom de guerre as it were?”

“So you’ll help us?” I asked as he climbed off of me.

“’Help them? Your friends?”

I nodded, realizing how strange it was to have friends for the first time -- friends of necessity, but real friends nonetheless -- only after I was dead.

Jack shook his head quickly back and forth. “No, no, no, you’ll not want me to give them my assistance. But you. Ye might learn a fthing or two. Walk with me. I get nervous without the fog in me lungs and the feel of the cobbles betwixted me toes.”

“It’s New York,” I protested, “There aren’t any cobblestones…”

But he was gone and my words addressed an open, empty door.

* * * * *

Chapter 15

The wooden heels of Jack’s boots made a strange sound as he walked through the city streets. His steps were light and fast and I struggled to keep up. He took turn after turn after turn, moving through crowds, alleys, cross-town traffic, and restaurants all with equal ease.

I have no idea how long we walked.

Finally, the sound of his boots changed. Somehow, the sound of his footfalls became more right, more fitting.

“Ah,” he said, “That’s better.”

I looked down and I’ll be damned if we weren’t walking along a street paved with large round stones. “Cobblestones?”

“They’re here my, young friend. Not on many streets, and none of them are long or, perhaps long for this world, but they’re. Here. And ‘tis long enough to serve our promenade. Now, questions.”

“Are you a good guy or a bad guy?”

“My son, my son, it’s not quite as simple as all that-- there’s a bit more commerce betwixt the light and the dark than yout might imagine. For example–” And here he did a little jig on the uneven stones, “Imagine I was a murderer most foul. Not a Bonny Jack, a Dandy Jack as you see before you, but a Red Jack, covered in the blood. And if in my revels, a small dove was to come and sit on my shoulder and say, “No, this one, no that one,” and move my hand ever so slightly. Well then, what’s it matter to me? I’m on the job anyway. And happy to help those that help me.”

“So what are you saying?”

“One hand washes the other, give and take. But your rat friend, he’s not playing along is he? He’s in it for himself. Got what you might call, ambition.”

“And what are you in it for?”

“Ho, ho, too right. Too right. Clever boy. It’s a wonder you didn’t manage to live longer. Well, you might say I’m grateful to you for bringing me back. But you didn’t manage to do that all on you own. So, let’s choose to believe that I’m here as a favor. Tell you what’s what -- sort you out a bit.”

“You’re a teacher?”

At this, Jack barked a laugh. “That coat doesn’t quite fit me does it? Look, if you’d know the truth of it, you’ve been presented,” and here a nervous little courtly bow, “presented as it were, with a marvelous opportunity. You’ve been given the chance to widen your horizons. It’s a great adventure.”

“That’s pretty easy for you to say, you’re still warm-blooded.”

“Oh, Dan. Daniel – you know that name doesn’t suit you. You really need another. A coronation name.”

“It’s my name.”

“It’s a shame is what it is.”

“Are you going to tell me what I’m mixed up in or not?”

“Alright, alright. It’s like this. Good, Evil, they don’t exist.”

“What do you mean they don’t exist?”

“Well, I mean, they exist in the storybooks, of course. But out here, in the night air, there’s no such thing. And it’s confusing, because people have instincts. Take this healthy lass,” Jack said, pointing to a women through a bay window. Her flesh pressed against the strictures of a woman’s business suit like meat pressing against a sausage casing as she hunched over a laptop computer.

“You see, she’s naught but a ball of stress that one. She’s worried about her job, she’s worried about having kids, about eating too much – but her body don’t know any of that. All her body knows, especially that grey bit at the top of her spine, is that it’s stressed. The same as if a tiger was trying to eat her. And so it reacts accordingly. Adrenaline, a desire to fight or flee…”

He turned to me and summed up his argument, “And there you have it, she’s nothing more than a prisoner of her constructs. More animal than human, despite what you may have been led to believe from her puffy opposable thumbs.”

“Yeah, she’s screwed just like me. Most people are. What’s your point about good and evil?”

“Well, it’s an instinct isn’t it? Just like the stress. See at one time, it had a point. Ye know, running from Tigers and all that. A mother’s insane courage when her child is attacked. But this good and evil, it don’t serve anymore.”

“But, Vlade isn’t evil. The Rat, okay, I’ll buy that he’s evil.”

“And where does that leave you?”

“Man, I’m just out here, doing what I have to do.”

“But you’ve killed, I can smell it on you. And you’ve felt nothing of it. Done it as neatly as parting your hair. Does that make you evil?”

I thought about it for a minute, “Well, I didn’t have a choice. I mean, I had to.”

“And ‘ow do you know that The Rat isn’t just doing what he has to do? I’d hate to stand in the dock with that as my defense. But they’ll never catch Auld Jack, he’s far too wiley for that.”

I hate people who refer to themselves in the third person. Also, I hate the English. And finally, I hate people who can never seem to come to the point. Auld Jack was winning on all counts.

“So there’s no good. No evil. Then what’s the point?”

“The point, me lad, is that it’s what you make of it. What you choose to believe.”

“Belief? Like that ever changed anything.”

“Au contraire, it changes everything. Take me for instance. People know Auld Jack. They fear Auld Jack,” he said with a smile that revealed a mouthful of horrible teeth, “And that gives me power. That’s how I go on.”

“Yeah well, what about me?”

“Nobody knows you, nobody fears you. You’ve no power whatever.”

“That’s a great help.”

“Ahh, ahh, but it’s a gift. It’s a gift. Ye see, in the normal course of affairs, a man like you would be born, believe things he never questioned, and then pass utterly from the earth. But you’re a special case. You’ve been granted an exception. You’ve had a chance to see through the veil of things as they are. The senseless hypocrisy of it all.”

“Yeah and ain’t that just grand.”

“Well, sure, it will most likely cost you your immortal soul, but it’s not like you believe in that kind of thing anyway, so you won’t mind.”

“Yeah, but what if it believes in me?”

Jack beamed. “Yes, exactly. It believes in you.”

“What am I supposed to do? About The Rat? About the deal? I don’t think I can kill Vlade.”

“My son, you’ve to figure what you believe. From that will come your course, and the power required sail it. Belief is the wind. And all these people,” he gestured at the city that surrounded us, “Their tiny little voices make the wind.”

“What does that mean?”

Jack drew close. Again I was shocked at how fast he was. I didn’t even have time to leap backwards. “We’re special you and I. You’ve something to become. Something beautiful and terrible that flashes in the night and glistens like wet blood on cobblestones. It’s lies. It’s all lies and always has been.” He pressed a straight razor into my hand. “Now let the rage out to play.”

He blocked my view, but it didn’t matter. I could hear her before I saw her. The rhythm of her walk against the irregular stones told me everything I needed to know. Here she was on an empty street, walking towards two men in the dark. She was confident. Contemptuous of danger. One of those who think to themselves, I’m a tough city girl, believes that she doesn’t have to be afraid of anything.

Jack was wrong about belief. Or maybe the girl didn’t believe strongly enough. But now I knew what horrible things lurked in the night, now that I was one of them.

That’s the other thing about those young, confident girls with their bitchy walks. They always have some stockbroker boyfriend. They never have time for the hardworking and the low – the peons like me. We were beneath them. Who the hell did she think she was? Being such a bitch to every regular, lonely guy who lacked a billion. I didn’t understand it. Never had and never would. Sure, maybe she was a princess of a priceless world beyond the reach of mere mortals, but there was no reason she had to be a bitch about it.

I could see it in Jack’s eye. He understood. He understood the pain. He understood what she was. He understood that no matter what I looked like, or what horrible things I had ever done, she would always be more of a monster.

The open razor gleamed in the darkness. It felt hungry in my hand.

“Excuse me, miss,” I began, trying to sound normal, non-threatening, holding the razor down by my side so she wouldn’t see until it was too late. She said nothing and kept walking. I moved into her path and tried again. “Excuse me.”

“Listen, jack-off, I don’t have time to pepper spray you, so why don’t you just crawl back into the bottle.” She said the words with a clipped accent that I found infuriating. My fingers tightened around the razor handle as she came closer, closer. I could feel the warmth of her as she approached. The presence of something young and alive, working its way into the womb of the dark alley. Rushing, as all life did, on its way to becoming something else.

The vibration of her heart was so strong I could feel it beating me like a drum. It was louder and louder and in perfect time with her footsteps. Closer. Closer.

I could feel the slash before it happened. I could hear the strange scream she was about to make. Not a vocalization really, but the rush of air through the crisp slit that would take the place of her throat. Her lips still whimpering, or perhaps praying as the hot stuff of her life sprayed across my face and she folded into the earth.

“Asshole,” she said as she stepped around me and kept walking.

I closed the razor and felt relief. I didn’t know who this Jack guy was, but from here on in, I was going to take it on faith that every supernatural thing I met was an asshole.

“‘Ow much then, sister? For a ride and squeeze?” I heard Jack say behind me. I turned around, but it was already too late. As the fog swirled in, he ran after her. His steps were muffled by thickening air. Her scream echoed off the windows and the cobbles. I wondered if the fat woman heard it. I wondered if she would be too self-absorbed to realize it wasn’t the neighbor’s television.