"Chiller Night With Gothicus"
"Chiller Night With Gothicus"
4/20-4/24/2011
I.
Sheng Mo-Yuan honestly could not tell what it was that had reeled clumsily into his office at two in the morning. Wrapped in what looked like burlap that had been ripped into strips and tied together into a sort of robe with a hood, the creature stood about four feet tall. But then, it was so bent over and had such a pronounced hump sticking up sharply from between where its shoulder blades should be that its height was debatable.
As the strange being swayed weakly, it held up a three-fingered hand with muddy grey skin, gesturing for help. Sheng was already moving around his desk to catch his visitor. The creature slumped bonelessly out of the Chujiran's grasp to stretch out on the bare hardwood floor. Sticking out from between the ribs on its left side protruded a wavy-bladed dagger with an ebony hilt. Black sticky blood covered that side of the wounded being.
In a wheezing gasp, the creature said, "Gothicus..." Then it shuddered once and its head fell back to hit to the floor.
Sheng Mo-Yuan rose to his feet. Since leaving Chujir and becoming an investigator into the Midnight War, he certainly had seen more creepy and inexplicable events than he had thought possible but things could always get weirder. Only five feet five but athletic and energetic, Sheng swung to rush out the open office door into the empty hallway. The other businesses in this building all closed up by ten at the latest; only his detective agency Chuan Lo Tsing ('Fist For Hire') kept the unusual hours of midnight until nine in the morning.
To his left was the wide staircase leading down to the second floor and from there to the lobby. Sheng leaned over the bannister, listening, tensed and ready for any attack, but there was only silence.
Returning to his office, Sheng snapped on a pair of latex gloves from an inner pocket of his suit jacket and crouched over the corpse. He had thought he was familiar with most of the creatures of the night, from Skinwalkers to Trolls to Ghouls, but this visitor was hard to identify. The skin was thick, hairless and a dull grey. The broad flat feet were bare and only had three toes. The hands were similar, with a thumb and three fingers which ended in sharp claws. The crude robe had no pockets, so no helpful clues would be forthcoming.
Argent studied the dead face. It was as distorted as the body, with a conical skull and huge floppy ears which reached from jawline to the temples. One staring eye was twice as big as the other and set an inch higher. From the wide fanged mouth, a purple tongue hung out. Death had not given this creature any dignity.
Standing up again, Sheng thought furiously about the best move to make next. He felt a twinge at realizing that he missed having Uncle Pao around. The old man was a barrage of complaints and insults but his advice was always sound and he was a better sidekick than Sheng usually admitted. The day before, Sheng had sent Pao to Hong Kong to spend the week of his seventy-third birthday with extended family. Uncle Pao had resisted and said it was too expensive a gift, but the old man had obviously been pleased and even touched.
Ah well, Sheng thought. He had expected that working without Uncle Pao constantly ragging him would be a relief but right now he had enough self-awareness to admit that he had gotten used to the old pain in the neck. Even though Pao was not literally his uncle, since all of Sheng's blood relations were still in the adjacent realm of Chujir, the Chinese custom of addressing friends and co-workers in family terms had established their relationship firmly as wise elderly uncle instructing young nephew.
Something strange was happening to the body in front of him. Sheng sniffed and made a disgusted face. Was it his imagination or was the corpse beginning to spread out on the floor...? He rushed to the closet to get an old rug with the intention to getting it under this decaying mass before it ruined his floor.
Footsteps on the stairs. Light, rapid footsteps hurrying up from the second floor. Now what? Sheng drew on his gralic attribute, channeling force to reinforce his body structure. He could become faster or stronger than normal if he chose, but when facing something undetermined, he usually went for resilience. In a flash, his bones became dense as granite and his skin like flexible steel. Sheng leaped for the office door and collided headlong with a petite blonde.
Ashley Whitaker bounced off him as if she had dived full tilt at a wall. She gave a yelp and landed sitting up in the middle of the empty hallway. Immediately, Unicorn rebounded up on her feet again and drew herself up to a full five feet zero of indignation. "Sheng, what's your PROBLEM!? Is that anyway to treat a teammate?"
At thirty, Ashley had never been more gorgeous. The silvery shoulder-length hair shone in the subdued light, the delicately-chiseled face with those crystal blue eyes was almost perfect. More than a decade of Kumundu training and the Tagra diet had refined her to a slim athletic peak. She was wearing white as usual, sneakers and jeans a long-sleeved pullover and a light windbreaker with dark blue trim on collar and cuffs. Fastened across her back was a white leather sheath three feet long, tapering at one end to a point. This held the actual Unicorn horn that was her talisman and which inspired her war name.
Sheng had long since gotten past being influenced by her looks or by her chirpy persuasive manner. As KDF members, they had gone through so many violent and horrible experiences that they shared the bond of combat veterans. "Look, Unicorn, you ran into me, remember? What are you doing here in the middle of the night anyway?"
Adjusting the strap across her chest so that the horn was balanced, the little blonde scoffed. "I'm doing what any Tel Shai knight and KDF member should be doing, sticking my nose into the dark scary corners of the world. I've been chasing a creep. Oh heck, is that him on the floor?"
"What's left of him anyway," Sheng said. He fought down an impulse to gag at the stench. The burlap had flattened on the wood as the creature's body dissolved in a vile dark goo with the consistency of stale maple syrup. "Ugh. I wish he hadn't done that. Vampires are more considerate, they fall apart into dry dust."
"Phew!" agreed Ashley. "Damn. That's an odor you don't forget right away. Okay, Sheng, break out the cleaning supplies. This mess isn't going to get any sweeter if we leave it like this."
II.
From the janitor's closet down the hall, the Chujiran wheeled over two yellow buckets filled with steaming hot water. The mops had new heads. They labored at unpleasant work that took over an hour until all traces of the late visitor had gone down the drain. The mops and buckets themselves were scrubbed and replaced. The creature's crude garment was rolled up in a plastic garbage bag to be ditched in some dumpster at the first opportunity.
"ACK!" whined Unicorn as she flung herself down on Sheng's couch. "That smell is in my hair. And I hate the conditioner you keep here so I can't shampoo right now. Oh, the life of a hero is filled with hardship and heartbreak."
Pulling over a chair from in front of his desk to sit facing her, Sheng held up a washcloth on which rested the dagger. Scrubbed thoroughly, it was revealed to be an unappealing object with a wavy blade and an elaborate handle carved of ebony. "Does this look familiar?"
"Not in the slightest," Unicorn replied. "Listen, Sheng, I trailed that little creep all over Chinatown tonight and it wasn't easy. He ducked in and out of doorways and alleys and crouched behind cars and in general tried to be impossible to follow. Luckily, I am just incredibly skilled as a tracker and could follow a leaf in a hurricane. I lost him right outside, but your office window was lit, so where else would he be headed?"
"Does Sable know you're here, Ashley?"
"I don't see how she could. I saved last month's personal leave day and took two together as a teeny vacation. But then I read the reports about various unsavory characters skulking around the city, so I decided to check it out."
Sheng leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. "Well, I'll take over from here. Thanks, Unicorn, but that... err, potential client came here. He's the responsibility of the Argent Investigation Agency."
"What? It sounded almost as if you were turning down my help. That can't be right." Ashley jumped to her feet and clapped her hands in barely restrained glee. "I got it! There's a clue you're not sharing. What is it? Did he hand you a cryptic note written in blood? Did you see a super-stealthy assassin throw that knife into his gizzard? Did he gasp out a dying word?"
"I give up," Sheng said. "I can't outtalk you. It was a single word that your creep managed to say."
"Hah hah, I knew it," replied Unicorn. She seemed on the verge of hugging herself at her own cleverness. "I didn't sit up nights as a kid with all those paperback mysteries for nothing. Come on, spill it!"
"'Gothicus.'"
Ashley frowned and studied the floor directly in front of her tiny sneakers. "Hmm, Gothicus, Gothicus. Doesn't ring any bells. Give me a minute. I have a lot of esoteric information memorized. The more I realize I don't understand, the more I remember to forget."
"I used to think my English was getting pretty good but half the time I don't understand what you say, Ashley..."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Unicorn replied. "I think Gothicus is a person's name, someone kinda obscure. Maybe on the outskirts on the Midnight War?" She unclipped her Link from her 22-inch waist and lit up its screen. "Lemme check with KDF records."
Getting used to the idea that Unicorn was going to be working with him on this case regardless of his preference, Sheng Mo-Yuan stood up and crossed the office. He stared down through the two high narrow windows at lower Canal Street but saw nothing suspicious. "Do you have a car?"
"No, I hoofed it after the creep," she replied absently. "Drat, there's nothing about anyone or anything named 'Gothicus.' That could mean any number of things. Gothicus could be someone new to the Midnight War or someone using a new nickname. Or it could just be some tiny fact hidden in the millions of books in the headquarters that we haven't typed into the computer records yet."
Still watching the sparse traffic in the street three stories below, Sheng said, "Gothicus. Sounds a little theatrical."
"Yeah," she agreed. "Like a stage name for a magician. Here, I'm going to scan that toothpick with my Link and do some analysis. Then I want to send the results to the KDF records. Maybe Sable or Jeremy might recognize it."
"I don't want this to turn into a KDF mission," Sheng said a bit sharply. "When someone comes to my office, that makes it an Argent case. I need to build my own career and my own reputation."
"But you still welcome MY contribution, right? I mean, I helped you mop up that revolting puke that used to be a creep."
"Sure," replied Sheng. "In fact... Wait. Don't come over here, Ashley. I see someone watching the building from across the street. She's in the doorway of the LUCKY DRAGON gift shop."
"Really? Great! Now things are going to pop. What does she look like?"
"Tall Caucasian about five feet eight, thin, maybe one hundred and ten, wearing an ankle-length black cloth coat with the collar turned up. Lank straight black hair parted in the middle and hanging down both sides in front. Age over thirty, probably closer to forty. Pale skin with dark red lipstick and heavy use of mascara," Sheng rattled off. "She doesn't realize I've spotted her."
"Heh, you ARE getting to be a private eye," Unicorn said as she hopped up and headed for the office door. "Nice observation. Let's see if she follows me or she's waiting to get a chance at you."
Turning from the window, Sheng went over to his desk and fetched a CO2-powered dart gun with an extended needle-thin barrel. As he snapped his detachable holster to the rear of his belt where his suit jacket would conceal it, he said, "I take it for granted you have your own dart gun?"
"Absolutely." Ashley reached behind herself and patted the weapon under the back of her windbreaker. "I'm not carrying the usual arsenal tonight but I did bring some useful gadgets. Most are already hidden in my clothes."
"Fine. Let's leave the lights on. Ashley, I want you to pause in the front doorway for a few minutes and then start walking. Any direction. I'll be coming out of the side exit. Megan rigged the alarm so it can be silenced for twenty seconds."
"Oh, that girl," Unicorn said. "She's gonna be hauled up before all kinds of safety and building code inspectors someday. Let's do this, Sheng. I will saunter down the street in my usual diffident manner and you keep an eye on the Suspicious Lady to see if she stalks me."
Three minutes later, Sheng silently closed the EMERGENCY EXIT door on the side of the building and flattened up against the dingy brick wall. The lapels of his black suit jacket folded over with velcro fasteners to hide his white dress shirt, leaving him a solid dark figure in the gloom. Sheng edged up to the sidewalk, peering out carefully.
There was Ashley, almost luminous in all-her white outfit and platinum hair under the lamppost. She had her Link out and was doing a pantomime of reading nonexistent text messages. After a minute, the Unicorn started tapping on her Link with her thumbs as she strolled slowly up Canal Street.
Sheng watched the gift shop doorway. Thirty seconds after his friend had crossed over to the next block, he saw the strange woman in black stealthily dart up a few doorways. The woman leaned forward, probably to satisfy herself that the little blonde hadn't seen her, then quickly followed.
The game is afoot, thought Sheng. He himself wanted to wait a half minute before moving after them himself. He wasn't worried about losing Ashley, since he could locate her Link with his own. Nor was he particularly concerned about her safety. Despite her flippant manner, she had been raised since childhood by her mother, the first Unicorn, to be an adventuress. Sheng had seen Ashley in action many times. She was as dangerous as a spinning buzzsaw blade that had flown loose.
As he began to step out onto the sidewalk, Argent froze. Across the street, a huge hulking form well over six feet tall and wide enough to fill a doorway had appeared. It lumbered after the two women with only a rudimentary sense of discretion. The figure seemed to be dressed in a fur vest that gave him a shaggy outline.
It seemed Ashley's stalker had a pursuer of her own. Sheng grinned in the darkness as he moved to follow the three of them. I love a parade, he thought.
III.
By the end of the next hour, Sheng was hopelessly confused. The line of individuals trailing each other had made so many sharp turns and double-backs that he was no longer sure where they were. He thought that they had crossed over into Little Italy but the corner signs were unfamiliar. Plum Street? Hodgkins Lane? Even worse, Unicorn had gradually stepped up her pace until she was almost jogging and the creatures behind her had started loping more quickly to keep up.
Then it seemed that somehow Ashley had gotten behind Sheng. To his consternation, he found himself leading the procession. At a loss, the Chujiran detective circled the block they were on and for several minutes the four of them trotted in a loop over and over.
This was intolerable. He felt ridiculous. Spotting a fire escape overhead, Sheng leaped up to grasp its underside and swung himself nimbly up to crouch against the dingy brick wall of the building. He turned his face away and became a darker blot in the murk. Passing below, Unicorn made a soft "Tsk, tsk" noise as she hurried on her enigmatic way. She had spotted him.
Right behind her, in plain sight at this point, the woman in black hustled to keep up. The shambler was right behind them. As the weird parade crossed over to the next block with the East River nearby, Sheng dropped lightly down to the sidewalk behind them. He was growing more irritated with each passing second, but that would not be any help.
Now he was baffled again by the situation and had to drop back further. At some point, Ashley had ducked out of sight. Considering how conspicuous her all-white outfit and gleaming hair made her, this was quite a trick. Then, somehow, the woman in black was now in the lead and she was marching with a stiff-legged stride that showed considerable anger. Unicorn was following the woman, the shaggy-tunic brute was behind her in turn and Sheng was bringing up the rear from the opposite side of the street. Argent shook his head and hoped his partner knew what she was doing.
Ahead of them, sitting by itself next to a vacant lot strewn with debris, sat a three story building that had once been white brick but which now was an off-tan color after decades of city air. No lights showed in any windows. On a post before the front porch was a sign reading FINAL REST FUNERAL HOME - Z. CARLEY AND SONS, and two boards had been nailed across the front door in an X shape that make it clear the place was out of business. As Unicorn came to a halt and stared thoughtfully at the woman in black, the ragged hulk pounced from behind and lifted Ashley up off the ground with an arm around her middle and a grubby hand clamped over her lower face. Laughing gleefully, the mystery woman hustled over to restrain the little blonde's legs.
Watching from a doorway across the street, Sheng decided that Ashley was deliberately letting herself be captured. He had seen her tackle more imposing opponents in a blur of punches and kicks that made an outraged bobcat seem sedate. Sheng drew closer and saw the two creatures carry the oddly compliant Unicorn to slip through a side door of the decrepit funeral home. Off course, Ashley knew that Sheng was following but still, the little blonde had remarkable nerve to allow herself to be willingly taken into an unknown situation.
Circling the funeral home from across the street, Sheng finally decided there was only one sentry outside. Leaning up into a nook where an empty pot had once held some plants, the guard had a dark head and a long white coat of some sort. That was all he could determine in the gloom at that distance.
Creeping up to flatten against the side of the darkened building, Sheng drew the anesthetic dart gun. He was glad it was a warm April night. The dart guns were silent and useful in many situations, but they could not be counted on to penetrate heavy winter clothing. As the sentry stepped away from the building and swung around as if suspicious, Sheng fired. The soft cough of expelled CO2 was barely audible at arm's length. Immediately, he knew he had hit his target because the sentry slapped at his chest. Normally, the pain of the dart jabbing him preoccupied the victim for the few seconds it took the Trom-devised sedative to get hold.
Slumping to the tarmac of the empty parking lot, the sentry showed surprising resistance to the drug. He stayed up on hands and knees for fifteen seconds before flattening out. This surprised Sheng. But then, this whole night had been full of the inexplicable.
The long narrow barrel of the dart gun raised, turning in circles to watch for anyone coming on the scene, Sheng stood over the unconscious form and realized he had been understating what a weird night this was. The guard's body in its black slacks, white shirt and lab smock was normal enough. The right hand was a bizarre lobster-like claw, though. Above the neck, instead of a normal Human appendage was a dark round shape with bulging compound eyes and a flexible proboscis where a mouth should be. The man had the head of a housefly.
IV.
The rapid padding of footsteps barely gave him the instant necessary to channel his gralic force into increased durability. His skin became bulletproof, his bones hard as steel bars and his muscles like rock. Instinctively, he raised up his left arm and drew back his right to strike with. Something smaller than himself tackled him headlong, spinning them both to the ground. Fangs gnashed eagerly at his arm. Although his jacket and shirt sleeves were immediately shredded, those teeth could not break his skin. He felt a vague pressure but that was all.
Dropping the dart gun in the tussle, Sheng tightened his free fist and slammed it down with the full strength of a Kumundu blow. The effect was identical to hitting his assailant with a sledgehammer. He felt the attacker's skull crack beneath the impact, so Sheng smashed his fist down again even harder. The creature convulsed and fell limply to lie on top of him.
Kicking loose, the Chujiran lunged to retrieve his dart gun and wheeled around but saw nothing else moving in the area. His heart was pounding. The attacker had been fast and savage, and if Sheng had not shifted to resilience, his arm would probably have been chewed clean through.
What kind of den of monsters were they tackling? Suddenly he felt real concern for Ashley's safety. She was good at what she did, but this....
There was just enough illumination from the corner lamppost to make out what his attacker had been. Wearing blue jeans, sneakers and a high school athletic warmup-up jacket with a large letter A, the creature was evidently covered with thick bristly fur. The face was more lupine than Human, with an elongated muzzle and upright ears. The legs bent backward below the knees so he would have walked on his toes like a real wolf. In the back of the pants, a slit had been cut to allow to a bushy full-size tail to protrude. It was the darndest-looking werewolf that Sheng had ever seen. The final silly touch was that the matted fur on top of the head rose up in a pompadour that would have been a credit to any 1950s juvenile delinquent.
By the side of the funeral home bristled hedges that had not been trimmed in years. Shifting to elevated strength, he threw the dead howler behind those hedges. Then, on second thought, he picked up the unconscious fly-headed man and concealed him also. Usually, the anesthetic darts had an effect for about an hour with some nausea and cloudy-headedness for ten or fifteen minutes afterward. But he had no idea how this monster would be affected.
Channeling the gralic force to reinforce his body to near-invulnerability, Sheng stepped up to the side door of the building and boldly walked inside as if he owned the building. A single candle sputtered in a pewter dish on an end table in the otherwise bare corridor. The stench inside was intolerable and he covered his mouth and nose with his handkerchief. Even the best funeral homes sometimes could not escape the smell of death but this place reeked of it. There was also a zoo stink of unwashed animals and the aftertaste in the air of burnt wood. Phew.
Sheng passed through a waiting room with furniture covered by mildewed sheets. Elaborate cobwebs stretched overhead and from one item to the next. Two more candles flickered in wall sconces next to a door that had a bronze lion head mounted in ita center. Sheng pressed an ear to the door and clearly heard voices as well as the sounds of people moving about. He checked the charge on his dart gun and slowly turned the doorknob. It was unlocked.
As he reached for that door, he saw the sleeves of his jacket and shirt hanging in strips where the werewolf had been chewing at it. Another tailored suit ruined and he didn't even have a client so he couldn't claim it as a business expense. Damn. Sheng found himself standing at the top of rickety wooden stairs which led down to a huge cavernous room lit mostly by the flickering white of a projection screen ten feet across. On a stand facing that screen was an old-fashioned 35mm projector with both reels turning.
"Settle down, settle down, you riff-raff of the netherworld," admonished a mellow, cultured voice. "Yes, that was a stinker, wasn't it? Worst movie yet. But our next entry in the dusk to dawn marathon is a beauty. BODY SNATCHERS FROM MARS, 1958 I believe. A good year for Mad Scientists!" A mocking sepulchral laugh rang out.
Watching from the top of the stairs, Sheng closed the door so none of these creatures would spot the candles behind it. He counted twenty shapes moving about in that room, plopping down onto metal folding chairs or laboriously lowering themselves to sit on the damp stone floor. No two of the beings were anything alike except for being misshapen and grotesque.
In one chair, wearing formal evening wear including white tie and gloves, holding a top hat in one gnarled hand, was an apelike figure with a brutal face beneath a tousle of wiry brown hair. Next to him sat a living brain in a fish tank filled with bubbling oily fluid; the brain sported both eyes on extensible stalks which moved about independently. Someone with an off sense of humor had placed an open bag of popcorn next to the tank. After that was huddled a skeleton wrapped in muddy robes, watching the screen somehow through empty black sockets.
There was a surgeon in blood-coated white gown and mask, playing with a scalpel he twirled in one gloved hand. An unmistakable bullet hole showed in his forehead. Next to him was a Ghoul with the typical long muzzle crammed with thick chisel-edged teeth. The creature was gnawing on a femur which still had pieces of meat hanging from its crevices. Sitting stiffly upright in the next seat, a resurrected Egyptian mummy blinked its rheumy yellow eyes and picked at the loose ends of his dusty wrappings.
Sheng felt an uneasy fascination. Most of these monsters were unfamiliar to him. What was that three foot high creature with warty yellow skin and bulging eyes over a snout shaped like a bugle? Who was that man with a second rudimentary Human head chattering on his shoulder? Sheng gave a start. That couldn't be an actual mountain gorilla with its upper head wrapped in surgical bandages? Could it? Sure it was, and it was sipping a big 32-oz bottle of Pepsi through a straw.
"Come on, Gothicus!" demanded a hollow echoing voice from the rear of the crowd. "Start the movie."
Stepping in front of the screen, arms folded, Gothicus was revealed as a tall thin man dressed as an old-time undertaker in a black frock coat. His white shirt had a detachable stiff collar from which hung a golden starbust of a military medal. The man laughed again, at least he was enjoying himself. Gothicus had his black hair parted in the middle and slicked down. His bony pale face was marked by eyes rimmed in black circles and an upturned snub nose. A leering grin showed he was not intimidated at all by the hellish assembly in that crypt.
"Relax, whatEVER you are," he chuckled. "Ah, there's the logo now. The beloved boulder on the foot of a cliff that means a Rock Bottom picture. Here we go. BODY SNATCHERS FROM MARS starring Yvonne Harkland from RACKS GALORE magazine fame and the same Ricky Decker who went on to co-star on TV's GUNSHOTS for years..."
As Gothicus hopped over to take his own seat, cheesy orchestral music filled the crypt with bombastic notes. The monsters fidgeted and leaned back to enjoy the show. Watching from the top of the stairs, Sheng was stunned. As many surreal sights as he had seen of the Midnight War, this was unprecedented. A crypt full of the Children of the Night watching a marathon of old black and white horror movies....?!
As his eyes adjusted further, he spotted Unicorn. The little blonde was seated in an ordinary kitchen chair, her feet tied together and her hands bound behind her with her arms around the back of the chair. Her Unicorn horn had been taken from her and her jacket was open, indicating she had been searched, but she seemed unharmed.
As Sheng took his first step down the flimsy stairs, he heard Ashley ask in the most relaxed conversational tone imaginable, "What, no cartoon?"
"Confound it, girl, will you behave?" grumbled Gothicus.
"I've seen this movie before," Unicorn continued. "The Army uses high-pitched sound waves to make the flying saucers crash!"
Several of the assorted creatures growled menacingly. Standing next to Gothicus was the huge brute who had captured Ashley. He had arms longer than his legs and a head with a flat-topped skull. A number of stitches circled his neck and ran up his side of his face. "No... spoil..ending," he rumbled. "Bad. Bad girl."
Ashley chuckled, apparently at complete ease in this horrifying situation. "It's just not the same when the villagers chase you with Maglites and hunting rifles instead of using pitchforks and torches, is it?"
"Girl bad! Girl be quiet!" The monster raised up one thick arm with the intention of backhanding the insolent prisoner. Three barely audible THWIP noises could be heard. He gave a jump and clapped that hand to the side of his neck. Two long metal darts were sticking out of the muscle. The third had gotten tangled uselessly in the sheepskin vest.
Turning halfway around, the creature fell stiffly backward to crash on the floor. Gothicus got up, "Confound it, NOW what? As if I don't have enough problems keeping you denizens of the darkness in line....!"
Sudden white light flooded the crypt, revealing all the monstrosities in heartless detail. Along one wall, niches were shown filled with delapidated coffins and a row of skulls. The creatures staggered wildly to their various legs and similar appendages, knocking over the folding chairs in their confusion.
Advancing briskly down the stairs, Sheng held up two of the pencil flares in his left hand. Their magnesium burned so brightly that the nocturnal monsters in that chamber could not bear it. Most covered their faces or fell to grovel on the damp floor in agony. "Unicorn! You okay?"
"Never better," Ashley Whitaker replied as she stood up, tossing the severed cords away from her. "A single-edged razor blade taped to the inside of each shirt cuff, ha ha!"
"I wasn't really worried about you." He stepped over next to her. "Where's your Horn?"
"That's what I was waiting to find out," she said. "I guess we'll have to do some interrogation."
"This is intolerable," Gothicus declared with a melodramatic sweep of one bony hand. "This movie club is a private affair and you are NOT invited."
Seeing that all the monsters were still disoriented by the flares, Sheng aimed the dart gun in his right hand at Gothicus. "All right, you. I assume you're the Gothicus we're looking for. What do you know about that poor little geek that fell dead in my office with a knife in his side?"
"Oh dear," replied the refined voice with mild distaste. "Yes, that would be Egan. Not the brightest homunculus. I warned him not to tease Gargula, you know how Nekrosim get. No ability to take even friendly teasing."
"Really. Why did he come to me?" Sheng continued to press.
"Hah hah, dear boy, I don't want to turn your head but your Fist For Hire agency does have a certain notoriety among the children of the night. Personally, I would have expected him to visit Jeremy Bane first, but then your friend the Dire Wolf does have the most appalling tendency toward mayhem and carnage."
"Hey! Sheng!" chirped Ashley in her squeakiest voice. "Here's my baby." She came hustling over from a corner with the sheathed Unicorn horn in her grip. "You better believe it'll take paramedics with the Jaws Of Life to get it out my hot sticky little hands again."
"Great," said Sheng. He was noticing with alarm that many of the creatures were recovering from the flares' light and were starting to straighten up again. "I have a feeling we may need it."
Ashley unsnapped the flat end of the tapering sheath. "Not a problem, buddy. I bet most of these critters are kept active by gralic force one way or another. I'll disrupt the charge and we can make a pile of the debris."
"Oh, we can't have that, now can we?" said Gothikus. "It's inconvenient enough to have to start BODY SNATCHERS FROM MARS over again. Fritz, open the cages if you please."
Both Sheng and Ashley were swept off their feet and tumbled over the floor by a wave of small flapping forms that bit and clawed at them. Bats, hundreds of black bats. The beasts swirled in a storm of flapping wings and snapping jaws. Instinctively, Unicorn had raised her arms to cover her face and the Trom armor under her clothes protected her from real damage. Sheng was still in his durability mode and his skin could not be broken. But they were confused and disoriented by the attack.
After twenty seconds, though, both KDF members regained their senses. There was not much they could do to break up the horde of bats snapping at them, though. Sheng had dropped his flares out of reach. He stood up, head down, and started swatting at the bats without noticeable results. Getting up next to him, still trying to protect her exposed face, Ashley said, "I have a dazzle grenade if I can get to it, Sheng."
Gothicus placed two fingers in his mouth and gave a high piercing whistle. The furious cloud of bats wheeled around and swept away. Left with their clothing hanging in strips and spotted with guano, Sheng and Ashley shook their heads and glanced at each other to be sure their partner was all right. In another second, they would have pounced on the master of this unholy assemblage but they did not have that second.
From behind them, a pink gelatinous mass without any internal structure heaved up and entirely engulfed the pair. Inside, its goo was warm and thick and vile. That was the last they remembered.
V.
"I hope you two are proud of yourselves," came the mellow voice of Gothicus through a haze of disorientation. Sheng Mo-Yuan blinked and groaned, tried to move but found he couldn't. He was treussed up from the neck down. The Chujiran detective managed to lift his head enough to find he had been tied up with heavy rope so excessively that almost nothing of his body showed. Where was he? Still in the crypt beneath the abandoned funeral home, sitting up with his back against one wall.
He felt movement next to him. Unicorn was propped up against his shoulder, her head hanging dowm. She was only restrained by regular handcuffs, one pair on her wrists and another on her ankles.
After going through a coughing and spitting jag, Ashley mumbled, "Hold my hair, mom, I've gonna heave." Then she seemed to come back to full awareness of the situation. "Oh God, Sheng, I don't feel that great. This is worse than my eighteenth birthday party."
That booming laugh echoed through the now-deserted crypt. Gothicus was standing before them with his hands folded across his chest. A full-length cloak of black satin was draped over one arm. "It's amazing that either of you are even alive, to be honest. That was an Amorph, yoo know. What the Zhunian philosophers called Pure Life. I can't imagine why it spit you two out."
"There's no accounting for taste," Unicorn managed to say.
"Look, you have to give us some answers. This is intolerable," yelled Sheng. "Who are you? WHAT are you? Where did all those monsters go? How can so many creatures like that move around the big city without being seen?"
"And why such mediocre grade-Z movies?" added Ashley with just as much indignation. "Why not show something good like CURSE OF THE SALEM WITCH?"
"I do not owe the pair of you any explanations," Gothicus replied as he swirled the cloak around him and clasped it at his throat. "But you should realize your interference has made the Humans of this town less safe. Not more. It would have been better if you had minded your own business."
Sheng was testing the ropes which were coiled around him in tight loops. Even at his greatest strength, he couldn't hope to break them. "What? How do you figure?"
"Two nights a week, I gather as many of the night wanderers as I can to sit and watch old movies. They love those drive-in classics." He laughed again and added, "Of course, they cheer when the monsters are killing people and they boo when the monsters are destroyed but I suppose you can see their point of view."
"Oh, now I get it," Unicorn said.
"Yeah," Sheng said. "For two nights a week, you keep all those things from claiming victims. You're... wait, you're actually protecting people?"
"Hah hah, I am indeed a benefactor. Not that I expect gratitude." Gothicus drew his cloak around him to leave only his pale skeletal face visible. "But because you busybodies have trespassed and learned too much, I must relocate. Chiller Night with Gothicus will start up again somewhere else. Philadelphia, perhaps."
As the macabre host turned and clapped on his beaver hat, he sighed sadly. "Fortunately, I travel light and keep most of my belongings in storage. Still, moving is such a nuisance. I will have to pack my son Etienne in a fresh burlap sack. Confound it."
"What about us?" Unicorn demanded.
Gothicus paused at the base of the of rickety stairs. Faint dawn light through some window glimmered from the open doorway. "Please! I know all about you wily Tel Shai knights. You'll be free before I drive through the Lincoln Tunnel." He started to ascend the steps, tripped and had to catch himself with one hand against the wall and muttered a final, "Confound that loose board!" before he was gone.
"Tonight has not gone the way I expected," Sheng admitted after a moment.
"Tell me about it! I'm covered with bat poop and whatever disgusting slime that glob wrapped us in. I smell like the inside of a penguin's intestines."
"A penguin...? What? Oh, never mind," Sheng said. "It's going to take me hours to wriggle loose even at my strongest."
There was a faint scratching next to him and the clink of handcuffs falling to a stone floor. "Lucky I could reach my sneakers. I always carry lockpicks between layers of the sole and these are standard cuffs. I am so good, you have to admit it."
She got free in a few minutes and started inspecting the knots in the ropes holding her partner. "Wow. These are a disaster. I am going to have to find a butcher knife or a saw. Don't go anywhere."
"Extremely hilarious," Sheng commented. He flopped around irritably. "Ash, do you believe his story?"
"It kinda fits together," she said. She had taken a pencil flashlight from her jacket and was searching the crypt. "I mean, now that I think of it, aren't some nights usually quiet on Midnight War horrors?"
"Yeah. I've noticed exactly that over the past few years. Wednesday and Saturday nights, both very slack as far as supernatural events in this city," Sheng admitted. "Maybe this Gothicus was actually performing a public service."
Unicorn gave a cry of triumph. She had located a wavy-bladed dagger under an overturned bench. Hurrying to Sheng, she started to industriously hack through a likely knot in the ropes. "Hmmph. I feel like Gothicus wasn't that bad. If we come across him again, maybe we'll can sit in on one of his movie nights. I'll bring Twizzlers."
5/13/2018
4/20-4/24/2011
I.
Sheng Mo-Yuan honestly could not tell what it was that had reeled clumsily into his office at two in the morning. Wrapped in what looked like burlap that had been ripped into strips and tied together into a sort of robe with a hood, the creature stood about four feet tall. But then, it was so bent over and had such a pronounced hump sticking up sharply from between where its shoulder blades should be that its height was debatable.
As the strange being swayed weakly, it held up a three-fingered hand with muddy grey skin, gesturing for help. Sheng was already moving around his desk to catch his visitor. The creature slumped bonelessly out of the Chujiran's grasp to stretch out on the bare hardwood floor. Sticking out from between the ribs on its left side protruded a wavy-bladed dagger with an ebony hilt. Black sticky blood covered that side of the wounded being.
In a wheezing gasp, the creature said, "Gothicus..." Then it shuddered once and its head fell back to hit to the floor.
Sheng Mo-Yuan rose to his feet. Since leaving Chujir and becoming an investigator into the Midnight War, he certainly had seen more creepy and inexplicable events than he had thought possible but things could always get weirder. Only five feet five but athletic and energetic, Sheng swung to rush out the open office door into the empty hallway. The other businesses in this building all closed up by ten at the latest; only his detective agency Chuan Lo Tsing ('Fist For Hire') kept the unusual hours of midnight until nine in the morning.
To his left was the wide staircase leading down to the second floor and from there to the lobby. Sheng leaned over the bannister, listening, tensed and ready for any attack, but there was only silence.
Returning to his office, Sheng snapped on a pair of latex gloves from an inner pocket of his suit jacket and crouched over the corpse. He had thought he was familiar with most of the creatures of the night, from Skinwalkers to Trolls to Ghouls, but this visitor was hard to identify. The skin was thick, hairless and a dull grey. The broad flat feet were bare and only had three toes. The hands were similar, with a thumb and three fingers which ended in sharp claws. The crude robe had no pockets, so no helpful clues would be forthcoming.
Argent studied the dead face. It was as distorted as the body, with a conical skull and huge floppy ears which reached from jawline to the temples. One staring eye was twice as big as the other and set an inch higher. From the wide fanged mouth, a purple tongue hung out. Death had not given this creature any dignity.
Standing up again, Sheng thought furiously about the best move to make next. He felt a twinge at realizing that he missed having Uncle Pao around. The old man was a barrage of complaints and insults but his advice was always sound and he was a better sidekick than Sheng usually admitted. The day before, Sheng had sent Pao to Hong Kong to spend the week of his seventy-third birthday with extended family. Uncle Pao had resisted and said it was too expensive a gift, but the old man had obviously been pleased and even touched.
Ah well, Sheng thought. He had expected that working without Uncle Pao constantly ragging him would be a relief but right now he had enough self-awareness to admit that he had gotten used to the old pain in the neck. Even though Pao was not literally his uncle, since all of Sheng's blood relations were still in the adjacent realm of Chujir, the Chinese custom of addressing friends and co-workers in family terms had established their relationship firmly as wise elderly uncle instructing young nephew.
Something strange was happening to the body in front of him. Sheng sniffed and made a disgusted face. Was it his imagination or was the corpse beginning to spread out on the floor...? He rushed to the closet to get an old rug with the intention to getting it under this decaying mass before it ruined his floor.
Footsteps on the stairs. Light, rapid footsteps hurrying up from the second floor. Now what? Sheng drew on his gralic attribute, channeling force to reinforce his body structure. He could become faster or stronger than normal if he chose, but when facing something undetermined, he usually went for resilience. In a flash, his bones became dense as granite and his skin like flexible steel. Sheng leaped for the office door and collided headlong with a petite blonde.
Ashley Whitaker bounced off him as if she had dived full tilt at a wall. She gave a yelp and landed sitting up in the middle of the empty hallway. Immediately, Unicorn rebounded up on her feet again and drew herself up to a full five feet zero of indignation. "Sheng, what's your PROBLEM!? Is that anyway to treat a teammate?"
At thirty, Ashley had never been more gorgeous. The silvery shoulder-length hair shone in the subdued light, the delicately-chiseled face with those crystal blue eyes was almost perfect. More than a decade of Kumundu training and the Tagra diet had refined her to a slim athletic peak. She was wearing white as usual, sneakers and jeans a long-sleeved pullover and a light windbreaker with dark blue trim on collar and cuffs. Fastened across her back was a white leather sheath three feet long, tapering at one end to a point. This held the actual Unicorn horn that was her talisman and which inspired her war name.
Sheng had long since gotten past being influenced by her looks or by her chirpy persuasive manner. As KDF members, they had gone through so many violent and horrible experiences that they shared the bond of combat veterans. "Look, Unicorn, you ran into me, remember? What are you doing here in the middle of the night anyway?"
Adjusting the strap across her chest so that the horn was balanced, the little blonde scoffed. "I'm doing what any Tel Shai knight and KDF member should be doing, sticking my nose into the dark scary corners of the world. I've been chasing a creep. Oh heck, is that him on the floor?"
"What's left of him anyway," Sheng said. He fought down an impulse to gag at the stench. The burlap had flattened on the wood as the creature's body dissolved in a vile dark goo with the consistency of stale maple syrup. "Ugh. I wish he hadn't done that. Vampires are more considerate, they fall apart into dry dust."
"Phew!" agreed Ashley. "Damn. That's an odor you don't forget right away. Okay, Sheng, break out the cleaning supplies. This mess isn't going to get any sweeter if we leave it like this."
II.
From the janitor's closet down the hall, the Chujiran wheeled over two yellow buckets filled with steaming hot water. The mops had new heads. They labored at unpleasant work that took over an hour until all traces of the late visitor had gone down the drain. The mops and buckets themselves were scrubbed and replaced. The creature's crude garment was rolled up in a plastic garbage bag to be ditched in some dumpster at the first opportunity.
"ACK!" whined Unicorn as she flung herself down on Sheng's couch. "That smell is in my hair. And I hate the conditioner you keep here so I can't shampoo right now. Oh, the life of a hero is filled with hardship and heartbreak."
Pulling over a chair from in front of his desk to sit facing her, Sheng held up a washcloth on which rested the dagger. Scrubbed thoroughly, it was revealed to be an unappealing object with a wavy blade and an elaborate handle carved of ebony. "Does this look familiar?"
"Not in the slightest," Unicorn replied. "Listen, Sheng, I trailed that little creep all over Chinatown tonight and it wasn't easy. He ducked in and out of doorways and alleys and crouched behind cars and in general tried to be impossible to follow. Luckily, I am just incredibly skilled as a tracker and could follow a leaf in a hurricane. I lost him right outside, but your office window was lit, so where else would he be headed?"
"Does Sable know you're here, Ashley?"
"I don't see how she could. I saved last month's personal leave day and took two together as a teeny vacation. But then I read the reports about various unsavory characters skulking around the city, so I decided to check it out."
Sheng leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. "Well, I'll take over from here. Thanks, Unicorn, but that... err, potential client came here. He's the responsibility of the Argent Investigation Agency."
"What? It sounded almost as if you were turning down my help. That can't be right." Ashley jumped to her feet and clapped her hands in barely restrained glee. "I got it! There's a clue you're not sharing. What is it? Did he hand you a cryptic note written in blood? Did you see a super-stealthy assassin throw that knife into his gizzard? Did he gasp out a dying word?"
"I give up," Sheng said. "I can't outtalk you. It was a single word that your creep managed to say."
"Hah hah, I knew it," replied Unicorn. She seemed on the verge of hugging herself at her own cleverness. "I didn't sit up nights as a kid with all those paperback mysteries for nothing. Come on, spill it!"
"'Gothicus.'"
Ashley frowned and studied the floor directly in front of her tiny sneakers. "Hmm, Gothicus, Gothicus. Doesn't ring any bells. Give me a minute. I have a lot of esoteric information memorized. The more I realize I don't understand, the more I remember to forget."
"I used to think my English was getting pretty good but half the time I don't understand what you say, Ashley..."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Unicorn replied. "I think Gothicus is a person's name, someone kinda obscure. Maybe on the outskirts on the Midnight War?" She unclipped her Link from her 22-inch waist and lit up its screen. "Lemme check with KDF records."
Getting used to the idea that Unicorn was going to be working with him on this case regardless of his preference, Sheng Mo-Yuan stood up and crossed the office. He stared down through the two high narrow windows at lower Canal Street but saw nothing suspicious. "Do you have a car?"
"No, I hoofed it after the creep," she replied absently. "Drat, there's nothing about anyone or anything named 'Gothicus.' That could mean any number of things. Gothicus could be someone new to the Midnight War or someone using a new nickname. Or it could just be some tiny fact hidden in the millions of books in the headquarters that we haven't typed into the computer records yet."
Still watching the sparse traffic in the street three stories below, Sheng said, "Gothicus. Sounds a little theatrical."
"Yeah," she agreed. "Like a stage name for a magician. Here, I'm going to scan that toothpick with my Link and do some analysis. Then I want to send the results to the KDF records. Maybe Sable or Jeremy might recognize it."
"I don't want this to turn into a KDF mission," Sheng said a bit sharply. "When someone comes to my office, that makes it an Argent case. I need to build my own career and my own reputation."
"But you still welcome MY contribution, right? I mean, I helped you mop up that revolting puke that used to be a creep."
"Sure," replied Sheng. "In fact... Wait. Don't come over here, Ashley. I see someone watching the building from across the street. She's in the doorway of the LUCKY DRAGON gift shop."
"Really? Great! Now things are going to pop. What does she look like?"
"Tall Caucasian about five feet eight, thin, maybe one hundred and ten, wearing an ankle-length black cloth coat with the collar turned up. Lank straight black hair parted in the middle and hanging down both sides in front. Age over thirty, probably closer to forty. Pale skin with dark red lipstick and heavy use of mascara," Sheng rattled off. "She doesn't realize I've spotted her."
"Heh, you ARE getting to be a private eye," Unicorn said as she hopped up and headed for the office door. "Nice observation. Let's see if she follows me or she's waiting to get a chance at you."
Turning from the window, Sheng went over to his desk and fetched a CO2-powered dart gun with an extended needle-thin barrel. As he snapped his detachable holster to the rear of his belt where his suit jacket would conceal it, he said, "I take it for granted you have your own dart gun?"
"Absolutely." Ashley reached behind herself and patted the weapon under the back of her windbreaker. "I'm not carrying the usual arsenal tonight but I did bring some useful gadgets. Most are already hidden in my clothes."
"Fine. Let's leave the lights on. Ashley, I want you to pause in the front doorway for a few minutes and then start walking. Any direction. I'll be coming out of the side exit. Megan rigged the alarm so it can be silenced for twenty seconds."
"Oh, that girl," Unicorn said. "She's gonna be hauled up before all kinds of safety and building code inspectors someday. Let's do this, Sheng. I will saunter down the street in my usual diffident manner and you keep an eye on the Suspicious Lady to see if she stalks me."
Three minutes later, Sheng silently closed the EMERGENCY EXIT door on the side of the building and flattened up against the dingy brick wall. The lapels of his black suit jacket folded over with velcro fasteners to hide his white dress shirt, leaving him a solid dark figure in the gloom. Sheng edged up to the sidewalk, peering out carefully.
There was Ashley, almost luminous in all-her white outfit and platinum hair under the lamppost. She had her Link out and was doing a pantomime of reading nonexistent text messages. After a minute, the Unicorn started tapping on her Link with her thumbs as she strolled slowly up Canal Street.
Sheng watched the gift shop doorway. Thirty seconds after his friend had crossed over to the next block, he saw the strange woman in black stealthily dart up a few doorways. The woman leaned forward, probably to satisfy herself that the little blonde hadn't seen her, then quickly followed.
The game is afoot, thought Sheng. He himself wanted to wait a half minute before moving after them himself. He wasn't worried about losing Ashley, since he could locate her Link with his own. Nor was he particularly concerned about her safety. Despite her flippant manner, she had been raised since childhood by her mother, the first Unicorn, to be an adventuress. Sheng had seen Ashley in action many times. She was as dangerous as a spinning buzzsaw blade that had flown loose.
As he began to step out onto the sidewalk, Argent froze. Across the street, a huge hulking form well over six feet tall and wide enough to fill a doorway had appeared. It lumbered after the two women with only a rudimentary sense of discretion. The figure seemed to be dressed in a fur vest that gave him a shaggy outline.
It seemed Ashley's stalker had a pursuer of her own. Sheng grinned in the darkness as he moved to follow the three of them. I love a parade, he thought.
III.
By the end of the next hour, Sheng was hopelessly confused. The line of individuals trailing each other had made so many sharp turns and double-backs that he was no longer sure where they were. He thought that they had crossed over into Little Italy but the corner signs were unfamiliar. Plum Street? Hodgkins Lane? Even worse, Unicorn had gradually stepped up her pace until she was almost jogging and the creatures behind her had started loping more quickly to keep up.
Then it seemed that somehow Ashley had gotten behind Sheng. To his consternation, he found himself leading the procession. At a loss, the Chujiran detective circled the block they were on and for several minutes the four of them trotted in a loop over and over.
This was intolerable. He felt ridiculous. Spotting a fire escape overhead, Sheng leaped up to grasp its underside and swung himself nimbly up to crouch against the dingy brick wall of the building. He turned his face away and became a darker blot in the murk. Passing below, Unicorn made a soft "Tsk, tsk" noise as she hurried on her enigmatic way. She had spotted him.
Right behind her, in plain sight at this point, the woman in black hustled to keep up. The shambler was right behind them. As the weird parade crossed over to the next block with the East River nearby, Sheng dropped lightly down to the sidewalk behind them. He was growing more irritated with each passing second, but that would not be any help.
Now he was baffled again by the situation and had to drop back further. At some point, Ashley had ducked out of sight. Considering how conspicuous her all-white outfit and gleaming hair made her, this was quite a trick. Then, somehow, the woman in black was now in the lead and she was marching with a stiff-legged stride that showed considerable anger. Unicorn was following the woman, the shaggy-tunic brute was behind her in turn and Sheng was bringing up the rear from the opposite side of the street. Argent shook his head and hoped his partner knew what she was doing.
Ahead of them, sitting by itself next to a vacant lot strewn with debris, sat a three story building that had once been white brick but which now was an off-tan color after decades of city air. No lights showed in any windows. On a post before the front porch was a sign reading FINAL REST FUNERAL HOME - Z. CARLEY AND SONS, and two boards had been nailed across the front door in an X shape that make it clear the place was out of business. As Unicorn came to a halt and stared thoughtfully at the woman in black, the ragged hulk pounced from behind and lifted Ashley up off the ground with an arm around her middle and a grubby hand clamped over her lower face. Laughing gleefully, the mystery woman hustled over to restrain the little blonde's legs.
Watching from a doorway across the street, Sheng decided that Ashley was deliberately letting herself be captured. He had seen her tackle more imposing opponents in a blur of punches and kicks that made an outraged bobcat seem sedate. Sheng drew closer and saw the two creatures carry the oddly compliant Unicorn to slip through a side door of the decrepit funeral home. Off course, Ashley knew that Sheng was following but still, the little blonde had remarkable nerve to allow herself to be willingly taken into an unknown situation.
Circling the funeral home from across the street, Sheng finally decided there was only one sentry outside. Leaning up into a nook where an empty pot had once held some plants, the guard had a dark head and a long white coat of some sort. That was all he could determine in the gloom at that distance.
Creeping up to flatten against the side of the darkened building, Sheng drew the anesthetic dart gun. He was glad it was a warm April night. The dart guns were silent and useful in many situations, but they could not be counted on to penetrate heavy winter clothing. As the sentry stepped away from the building and swung around as if suspicious, Sheng fired. The soft cough of expelled CO2 was barely audible at arm's length. Immediately, he knew he had hit his target because the sentry slapped at his chest. Normally, the pain of the dart jabbing him preoccupied the victim for the few seconds it took the Trom-devised sedative to get hold.
Slumping to the tarmac of the empty parking lot, the sentry showed surprising resistance to the drug. He stayed up on hands and knees for fifteen seconds before flattening out. This surprised Sheng. But then, this whole night had been full of the inexplicable.
The long narrow barrel of the dart gun raised, turning in circles to watch for anyone coming on the scene, Sheng stood over the unconscious form and realized he had been understating what a weird night this was. The guard's body in its black slacks, white shirt and lab smock was normal enough. The right hand was a bizarre lobster-like claw, though. Above the neck, instead of a normal Human appendage was a dark round shape with bulging compound eyes and a flexible proboscis where a mouth should be. The man had the head of a housefly.
IV.
The rapid padding of footsteps barely gave him the instant necessary to channel his gralic force into increased durability. His skin became bulletproof, his bones hard as steel bars and his muscles like rock. Instinctively, he raised up his left arm and drew back his right to strike with. Something smaller than himself tackled him headlong, spinning them both to the ground. Fangs gnashed eagerly at his arm. Although his jacket and shirt sleeves were immediately shredded, those teeth could not break his skin. He felt a vague pressure but that was all.
Dropping the dart gun in the tussle, Sheng tightened his free fist and slammed it down with the full strength of a Kumundu blow. The effect was identical to hitting his assailant with a sledgehammer. He felt the attacker's skull crack beneath the impact, so Sheng smashed his fist down again even harder. The creature convulsed and fell limply to lie on top of him.
Kicking loose, the Chujiran lunged to retrieve his dart gun and wheeled around but saw nothing else moving in the area. His heart was pounding. The attacker had been fast and savage, and if Sheng had not shifted to resilience, his arm would probably have been chewed clean through.
What kind of den of monsters were they tackling? Suddenly he felt real concern for Ashley's safety. She was good at what she did, but this....
There was just enough illumination from the corner lamppost to make out what his attacker had been. Wearing blue jeans, sneakers and a high school athletic warmup-up jacket with a large letter A, the creature was evidently covered with thick bristly fur. The face was more lupine than Human, with an elongated muzzle and upright ears. The legs bent backward below the knees so he would have walked on his toes like a real wolf. In the back of the pants, a slit had been cut to allow to a bushy full-size tail to protrude. It was the darndest-looking werewolf that Sheng had ever seen. The final silly touch was that the matted fur on top of the head rose up in a pompadour that would have been a credit to any 1950s juvenile delinquent.
By the side of the funeral home bristled hedges that had not been trimmed in years. Shifting to elevated strength, he threw the dead howler behind those hedges. Then, on second thought, he picked up the unconscious fly-headed man and concealed him also. Usually, the anesthetic darts had an effect for about an hour with some nausea and cloudy-headedness for ten or fifteen minutes afterward. But he had no idea how this monster would be affected.
Channeling the gralic force to reinforce his body to near-invulnerability, Sheng stepped up to the side door of the building and boldly walked inside as if he owned the building. A single candle sputtered in a pewter dish on an end table in the otherwise bare corridor. The stench inside was intolerable and he covered his mouth and nose with his handkerchief. Even the best funeral homes sometimes could not escape the smell of death but this place reeked of it. There was also a zoo stink of unwashed animals and the aftertaste in the air of burnt wood. Phew.
Sheng passed through a waiting room with furniture covered by mildewed sheets. Elaborate cobwebs stretched overhead and from one item to the next. Two more candles flickered in wall sconces next to a door that had a bronze lion head mounted in ita center. Sheng pressed an ear to the door and clearly heard voices as well as the sounds of people moving about. He checked the charge on his dart gun and slowly turned the doorknob. It was unlocked.
As he reached for that door, he saw the sleeves of his jacket and shirt hanging in strips where the werewolf had been chewing at it. Another tailored suit ruined and he didn't even have a client so he couldn't claim it as a business expense. Damn. Sheng found himself standing at the top of rickety wooden stairs which led down to a huge cavernous room lit mostly by the flickering white of a projection screen ten feet across. On a stand facing that screen was an old-fashioned 35mm projector with both reels turning.
"Settle down, settle down, you riff-raff of the netherworld," admonished a mellow, cultured voice. "Yes, that was a stinker, wasn't it? Worst movie yet. But our next entry in the dusk to dawn marathon is a beauty. BODY SNATCHERS FROM MARS, 1958 I believe. A good year for Mad Scientists!" A mocking sepulchral laugh rang out.
Watching from the top of the stairs, Sheng closed the door so none of these creatures would spot the candles behind it. He counted twenty shapes moving about in that room, plopping down onto metal folding chairs or laboriously lowering themselves to sit on the damp stone floor. No two of the beings were anything alike except for being misshapen and grotesque.
In one chair, wearing formal evening wear including white tie and gloves, holding a top hat in one gnarled hand, was an apelike figure with a brutal face beneath a tousle of wiry brown hair. Next to him sat a living brain in a fish tank filled with bubbling oily fluid; the brain sported both eyes on extensible stalks which moved about independently. Someone with an off sense of humor had placed an open bag of popcorn next to the tank. After that was huddled a skeleton wrapped in muddy robes, watching the screen somehow through empty black sockets.
There was a surgeon in blood-coated white gown and mask, playing with a scalpel he twirled in one gloved hand. An unmistakable bullet hole showed in his forehead. Next to him was a Ghoul with the typical long muzzle crammed with thick chisel-edged teeth. The creature was gnawing on a femur which still had pieces of meat hanging from its crevices. Sitting stiffly upright in the next seat, a resurrected Egyptian mummy blinked its rheumy yellow eyes and picked at the loose ends of his dusty wrappings.
Sheng felt an uneasy fascination. Most of these monsters were unfamiliar to him. What was that three foot high creature with warty yellow skin and bulging eyes over a snout shaped like a bugle? Who was that man with a second rudimentary Human head chattering on his shoulder? Sheng gave a start. That couldn't be an actual mountain gorilla with its upper head wrapped in surgical bandages? Could it? Sure it was, and it was sipping a big 32-oz bottle of Pepsi through a straw.
"Come on, Gothicus!" demanded a hollow echoing voice from the rear of the crowd. "Start the movie."
Stepping in front of the screen, arms folded, Gothicus was revealed as a tall thin man dressed as an old-time undertaker in a black frock coat. His white shirt had a detachable stiff collar from which hung a golden starbust of a military medal. The man laughed again, at least he was enjoying himself. Gothicus had his black hair parted in the middle and slicked down. His bony pale face was marked by eyes rimmed in black circles and an upturned snub nose. A leering grin showed he was not intimidated at all by the hellish assembly in that crypt.
"Relax, whatEVER you are," he chuckled. "Ah, there's the logo now. The beloved boulder on the foot of a cliff that means a Rock Bottom picture. Here we go. BODY SNATCHERS FROM MARS starring Yvonne Harkland from RACKS GALORE magazine fame and the same Ricky Decker who went on to co-star on TV's GUNSHOTS for years..."
As Gothicus hopped over to take his own seat, cheesy orchestral music filled the crypt with bombastic notes. The monsters fidgeted and leaned back to enjoy the show. Watching from the top of the stairs, Sheng was stunned. As many surreal sights as he had seen of the Midnight War, this was unprecedented. A crypt full of the Children of the Night watching a marathon of old black and white horror movies....?!
As his eyes adjusted further, he spotted Unicorn. The little blonde was seated in an ordinary kitchen chair, her feet tied together and her hands bound behind her with her arms around the back of the chair. Her Unicorn horn had been taken from her and her jacket was open, indicating she had been searched, but she seemed unharmed.
As Sheng took his first step down the flimsy stairs, he heard Ashley ask in the most relaxed conversational tone imaginable, "What, no cartoon?"
"Confound it, girl, will you behave?" grumbled Gothicus.
"I've seen this movie before," Unicorn continued. "The Army uses high-pitched sound waves to make the flying saucers crash!"
Several of the assorted creatures growled menacingly. Standing next to Gothicus was the huge brute who had captured Ashley. He had arms longer than his legs and a head with a flat-topped skull. A number of stitches circled his neck and ran up his side of his face. "No... spoil..ending," he rumbled. "Bad. Bad girl."
Ashley chuckled, apparently at complete ease in this horrifying situation. "It's just not the same when the villagers chase you with Maglites and hunting rifles instead of using pitchforks and torches, is it?"
"Girl bad! Girl be quiet!" The monster raised up one thick arm with the intention of backhanding the insolent prisoner. Three barely audible THWIP noises could be heard. He gave a jump and clapped that hand to the side of his neck. Two long metal darts were sticking out of the muscle. The third had gotten tangled uselessly in the sheepskin vest.
Turning halfway around, the creature fell stiffly backward to crash on the floor. Gothicus got up, "Confound it, NOW what? As if I don't have enough problems keeping you denizens of the darkness in line....!"
Sudden white light flooded the crypt, revealing all the monstrosities in heartless detail. Along one wall, niches were shown filled with delapidated coffins and a row of skulls. The creatures staggered wildly to their various legs and similar appendages, knocking over the folding chairs in their confusion.
Advancing briskly down the stairs, Sheng held up two of the pencil flares in his left hand. Their magnesium burned so brightly that the nocturnal monsters in that chamber could not bear it. Most covered their faces or fell to grovel on the damp floor in agony. "Unicorn! You okay?"
"Never better," Ashley Whitaker replied as she stood up, tossing the severed cords away from her. "A single-edged razor blade taped to the inside of each shirt cuff, ha ha!"
"I wasn't really worried about you." He stepped over next to her. "Where's your Horn?"
"That's what I was waiting to find out," she said. "I guess we'll have to do some interrogation."
"This is intolerable," Gothicus declared with a melodramatic sweep of one bony hand. "This movie club is a private affair and you are NOT invited."
Seeing that all the monsters were still disoriented by the flares, Sheng aimed the dart gun in his right hand at Gothicus. "All right, you. I assume you're the Gothicus we're looking for. What do you know about that poor little geek that fell dead in my office with a knife in his side?"
"Oh dear," replied the refined voice with mild distaste. "Yes, that would be Egan. Not the brightest homunculus. I warned him not to tease Gargula, you know how Nekrosim get. No ability to take even friendly teasing."
"Really. Why did he come to me?" Sheng continued to press.
"Hah hah, dear boy, I don't want to turn your head but your Fist For Hire agency does have a certain notoriety among the children of the night. Personally, I would have expected him to visit Jeremy Bane first, but then your friend the Dire Wolf does have the most appalling tendency toward mayhem and carnage."
"Hey! Sheng!" chirped Ashley in her squeakiest voice. "Here's my baby." She came hustling over from a corner with the sheathed Unicorn horn in her grip. "You better believe it'll take paramedics with the Jaws Of Life to get it out my hot sticky little hands again."
"Great," said Sheng. He was noticing with alarm that many of the creatures were recovering from the flares' light and were starting to straighten up again. "I have a feeling we may need it."
Ashley unsnapped the flat end of the tapering sheath. "Not a problem, buddy. I bet most of these critters are kept active by gralic force one way or another. I'll disrupt the charge and we can make a pile of the debris."
"Oh, we can't have that, now can we?" said Gothikus. "It's inconvenient enough to have to start BODY SNATCHERS FROM MARS over again. Fritz, open the cages if you please."
Both Sheng and Ashley were swept off their feet and tumbled over the floor by a wave of small flapping forms that bit and clawed at them. Bats, hundreds of black bats. The beasts swirled in a storm of flapping wings and snapping jaws. Instinctively, Unicorn had raised her arms to cover her face and the Trom armor under her clothes protected her from real damage. Sheng was still in his durability mode and his skin could not be broken. But they were confused and disoriented by the attack.
After twenty seconds, though, both KDF members regained their senses. There was not much they could do to break up the horde of bats snapping at them, though. Sheng had dropped his flares out of reach. He stood up, head down, and started swatting at the bats without noticeable results. Getting up next to him, still trying to protect her exposed face, Ashley said, "I have a dazzle grenade if I can get to it, Sheng."
Gothicus placed two fingers in his mouth and gave a high piercing whistle. The furious cloud of bats wheeled around and swept away. Left with their clothing hanging in strips and spotted with guano, Sheng and Ashley shook their heads and glanced at each other to be sure their partner was all right. In another second, they would have pounced on the master of this unholy assemblage but they did not have that second.
From behind them, a pink gelatinous mass without any internal structure heaved up and entirely engulfed the pair. Inside, its goo was warm and thick and vile. That was the last they remembered.
V.
"I hope you two are proud of yourselves," came the mellow voice of Gothicus through a haze of disorientation. Sheng Mo-Yuan blinked and groaned, tried to move but found he couldn't. He was treussed up from the neck down. The Chujiran detective managed to lift his head enough to find he had been tied up with heavy rope so excessively that almost nothing of his body showed. Where was he? Still in the crypt beneath the abandoned funeral home, sitting up with his back against one wall.
He felt movement next to him. Unicorn was propped up against his shoulder, her head hanging dowm. She was only restrained by regular handcuffs, one pair on her wrists and another on her ankles.
After going through a coughing and spitting jag, Ashley mumbled, "Hold my hair, mom, I've gonna heave." Then she seemed to come back to full awareness of the situation. "Oh God, Sheng, I don't feel that great. This is worse than my eighteenth birthday party."
That booming laugh echoed through the now-deserted crypt. Gothicus was standing before them with his hands folded across his chest. A full-length cloak of black satin was draped over one arm. "It's amazing that either of you are even alive, to be honest. That was an Amorph, yoo know. What the Zhunian philosophers called Pure Life. I can't imagine why it spit you two out."
"There's no accounting for taste," Unicorn managed to say.
"Look, you have to give us some answers. This is intolerable," yelled Sheng. "Who are you? WHAT are you? Where did all those monsters go? How can so many creatures like that move around the big city without being seen?"
"And why such mediocre grade-Z movies?" added Ashley with just as much indignation. "Why not show something good like CURSE OF THE SALEM WITCH?"
"I do not owe the pair of you any explanations," Gothicus replied as he swirled the cloak around him and clasped it at his throat. "But you should realize your interference has made the Humans of this town less safe. Not more. It would have been better if you had minded your own business."
Sheng was testing the ropes which were coiled around him in tight loops. Even at his greatest strength, he couldn't hope to break them. "What? How do you figure?"
"Two nights a week, I gather as many of the night wanderers as I can to sit and watch old movies. They love those drive-in classics." He laughed again and added, "Of course, they cheer when the monsters are killing people and they boo when the monsters are destroyed but I suppose you can see their point of view."
"Oh, now I get it," Unicorn said.
"Yeah," Sheng said. "For two nights a week, you keep all those things from claiming victims. You're... wait, you're actually protecting people?"
"Hah hah, I am indeed a benefactor. Not that I expect gratitude." Gothicus drew his cloak around him to leave only his pale skeletal face visible. "But because you busybodies have trespassed and learned too much, I must relocate. Chiller Night with Gothicus will start up again somewhere else. Philadelphia, perhaps."
As the macabre host turned and clapped on his beaver hat, he sighed sadly. "Fortunately, I travel light and keep most of my belongings in storage. Still, moving is such a nuisance. I will have to pack my son Etienne in a fresh burlap sack. Confound it."
"What about us?" Unicorn demanded.
Gothicus paused at the base of the of rickety stairs. Faint dawn light through some window glimmered from the open doorway. "Please! I know all about you wily Tel Shai knights. You'll be free before I drive through the Lincoln Tunnel." He started to ascend the steps, tripped and had to catch himself with one hand against the wall and muttered a final, "Confound that loose board!" before he was gone.
"Tonight has not gone the way I expected," Sheng admitted after a moment.
"Tell me about it! I'm covered with bat poop and whatever disgusting slime that glob wrapped us in. I smell like the inside of a penguin's intestines."
"A penguin...? What? Oh, never mind," Sheng said. "It's going to take me hours to wriggle loose even at my strongest."
There was a faint scratching next to him and the clink of handcuffs falling to a stone floor. "Lucky I could reach my sneakers. I always carry lockpicks between layers of the sole and these are standard cuffs. I am so good, you have to admit it."
She got free in a few minutes and started inspecting the knots in the ropes holding her partner. "Wow. These are a disaster. I am going to have to find a butcher knife or a saw. Don't go anywhere."
"Extremely hilarious," Sheng commented. He flopped around irritably. "Ash, do you believe his story?"
"It kinda fits together," she said. She had taken a pencil flashlight from her jacket and was searching the crypt. "I mean, now that I think of it, aren't some nights usually quiet on Midnight War horrors?"
"Yeah. I've noticed exactly that over the past few years. Wednesday and Saturday nights, both very slack as far as supernatural events in this city," Sheng admitted. "Maybe this Gothicus was actually performing a public service."
Unicorn gave a cry of triumph. She had located a wavy-bladed dagger under an overturned bench. Hurrying to Sheng, she started to industriously hack through a likely knot in the ropes. "Hmmph. I feel like Gothicus wasn't that bad. If we come across him again, maybe we'll can sit in on one of his movie nights. I'll bring Twizzlers."
5/13/2018