Tomorrow Wendell

By R. M. Ridley

When predictions tell Wendell Courtney he’s going to die, he turns to the one man he hopes can help. Jonathan Alvey’s no stranger to the strange. But, unlike the private investigator’s run-of-the-mill zombie cases, he can find no trace of magic around Wendell, and no hint of an adversary. Alvey certainly has magic and wits enough to solve the mystery, but is his offering to the insatiable dragon black sufficient? Or is Wendell truly destined to die?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xchyler Publishing
• Release date: Jun 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940810201

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Tomorrow Wendell copyright © 2014 by R. M. Ridley

Published by Xchyler Publishing at Smashwords

an imprint of Hamilton Springs Press, LLC

ISBN (eBook Version): 1940810205

ISBN-13 (eBook Version): 978-1-940810-20-1

eBook License Notes:

You may not use, reproduce or transmit in any manner, any part of this book without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews, or in accordance with federal Fair Use laws. All rights are reserved. For information visit www.xchylerpublishing.com

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Penny Freeman, Editor-in-chief

www.xchylerpublishing.com

1st Edition: June, 2014

Cover Illustration by Luke Spooner, www.carrionhouse.com

Cover and Interior Design by D. Robert Pease, walkingstickbooks.com

Edited by McKenna Gardner

Published in the United States of America

Xchyler Publishing

Xchyler Publishing

To my wife, without whom, I wouldn’t be.

Chapter One

Jonathan parked his old Lincoln in front of 1932 Marlowe Avenue, squeezed the steering wheel, and shook his head. Three months prior, he hadn’t even heard of Apatedyne, or their nasty pyramid scheme. Today marked the fourth case, in as many weeks, involving that very con job.

Grabbing his doctor’s bag of paraphernalia from beside him on the seat, he got out of the car and into the early November cold. The wind, like a coroner’s scalpel, cut right through him. Entering through the glass front door of the five-story block of red brick got him out of the wind, but not significantly warmer.

The building owner thought it wasteful to heat a lobby only Jonathan used. The place would have been torn down by now except it had been deemed a historical building. The owner had never proven who instigated that crusade and Jonathan had worked hard to keep it that way.

Trusting the elevator to carry him, as much as he would a starving crocodile to ignore him, Jonathan started up the stairs. He figured if the elevator were ever upgraded, he would put on ten pounds by the end of the first week.

When he reached his floor, the third, he saw through the open door his newest secretary sitting at her desk. She was reading a gardening magazine. Jonathan thought it optimistic of the woman. He happened to know she lived on the fifth floor of an apartment building with a balcony not much bigger than the desk she sat behind.

Hey . . .  El—?

She looked up at his voice with a sigh. Her red curls fell back exposing her freckled face. Alicia. Ah-lee-sha.

Right, of course. Jonathan flashed her a broad smile. Here’s the invoice for today’s case. She’ll pay by check at the end of the week.

He opened the door to his personal office, but before swinging it closed, heard her ask, I thought this was the same sort of job as the last one?

Yeah, it was—removing some hexes and compulsion spells from Apatedyne products.

He stepped farther into his office.

It’s just, well, it’s less than you charged the last few.

Jonathan sighed.

All he wanted was to sit down, smoke, drink, and pretend his body wasn’t eating itself up because of the magic he had performed all day.

Breaking down stubborn hexes and curses made for a tedious and trying job, but it didn’t stop the craving to feed his addiction. Jonathan knew from experience that if he started drinking now, and drinking hard, he could get past the worst of the withdrawal.

He turned around and leaned on the doorframe.

It is less, Jonathan admitted, but the compulsion curses had used up a good bit of the woman’s savings. She’s a sixty-seven-year-old widow. What was I going to do?

I just wanted to make sure the figure was right, for the books.

Oh. Let me see? He leaned closer as she held up the ledger. Yeah, that’s right. He straightened up. I’ll be in my office . . . resting. If anyone comes in, I’m out working a case.

Okay, she said with a small nod of her head.

Closing the door, Jonathan crossed to his desk, where he collapsed with a groan into the chair.

There was a term, ancient in its origin, that practitioners used for the way he felt: ‘Bitten by the Dragon Black.’ The dark side of using magic was how it turned to sink teeth deep inside and tear at you once the energy stopped flowing.

The yellowed blinds were drawn over the two windows, filling the room with a murky glow that highlighted the dust motes suspended in the unmoving air and draped the rest of the room in dark gauze.

Jonathan opened the bottom desk drawer and removed a bottle of bourbon, which he promptly used to fill his glass. He tossed back the liquor and then refilled it.

The burn of the alcohol didn’t dull the pull of the addiction. He had worked too much magic for one drink to fully numb the withdrawal already digging through his skeleton to tear at his soul.

He glanced at the old clock ticking away above the door and couldn’t believe when he saw it was only just three. He was bushed.

He couldn’t argue that the Apatedyne jobs weren’t good for a steady paycheck. However, both the work and the company were tiresome and annoying. Jonathan didn’t feel like playing David to their Goliath; on the other hand, he couldn’t allow them to continue their malicious con jobs in his city much longer.

New Hades may have been a cesspool, but that didn’t mean everyone could just come to the city and dump their crap into the waters.

He dug out a cigarette and, resisting the urge to light it with a spark of magic, spun the wheel on his lighter.

The first drag sent nicotine flooding into his brain, easing neurons no longer infused by unearthly energy. Jonathan hoped to spend the rest of the day simply watching cigarette smoke float up into the cobwebs that festooned the ceiling.

As he sloshed bourbon into his glass for a third time, he heard the light, double rap on his office door. He refused to acknowledge the intrusion, but the door cracked open anyway. His secretary slipped her head in.

What is it, Alice?

The woman rolled her eyes. There are some . . . gentlemen, here to see you.

I told you to say— Jonathan leaned back. Fine, show them in.

She swung open the door and stood back. Behind her, three large figures loomed and Jonathan understood her hesitation over word choice.

The things that had come looking for him were not, strictly speaking, human. They had been, but once dead, the term doesn’t really fit anymore. That goes double if death hasn’t stopped them from making business calls.

All three wore cheap, grey suits that hung like water-logged flesh on them. They were well-preserved though. Hard to spot that they weren’t still living. Jonathan was willing to bet they had been turned within a day of their demise.

Fucking necromancers, Jonathan mumbled.

Zombies were the stock and trade of many practitioners, but since one had to use necromantic spells to accomplish the feat, Jonathan felt justified in cursing that particular lot.

All three of the animated corpses were over six foot and none of them lanky. Jonathan didn’t know why they were always giants—it didn’t matter if the corpse was four-foot-six or six-foot-four. A zombie’s strength and resilience came from the magic.

Everyone always thinks size matters, he muttered.

Although they didn’t look like the sort of animated corpses used to deliver verbal messages, there was always the chance. Jonathan decided to take it, but not being a fool, he slid the top drawer of his desk open a few inches.

What can I do for you boys? He got up from his chair and used the motion to slide the desk drawer farther open.

For a moment, all three corpses just stood, unmoving, unblinking, unbreathing.

Zombies could do a lot, or hardly anything. It depended on the spells used when they were reanimated. With the proper rituals, a zombie could be anything from a chauffeur, to a personal bodyguard, or even a nanny. Mostly though, they ended up being programmed for thuggery.

Jonathan figured the three in his doorway were just that after all—voiceless, single-thought, leg-breakers—then the middle one spoke.

Apatedyne wants you to understand that it doesn’t appreciate you affecting their profit margins by meddling in their business affairs.

Really? Well, I suppose that makes sense, but you can tell your—

Jonathan never got to finish his thought.

The two silent zombies came towards him in a flanking maneuver. They didn’t moan, shuffle, or lurch as popular media often portrayed; the corpses came at him like heartburn after bad Mexican food.

Jonathan tossed the glass of bourbon at the zombie on his left as he dodged the wide swing of its hairy-knuckled fist. He kicked his chair out at the one on his right, scooped his Beretta out from the top drawer, and vaulted onto his desktop. An avalanche of books tumbled onto the floor.

He took less than a second to aim the nine-millimeter before taking the shot. Shooting zombies is considered ineffectual at best. They felt no pain, were animated with spells, and also, already quite dead. But that didn’t mean a firearm couldn’t be put to use against them.

The key was to target the appropriate body parts.

The report of the gun in the small room was thunderous and followed by shrill screams from the front office. Jonathan dropped the Beretta; he wouldn’t get much use of it again in such a fight.

He slid off the front of his desk and ran headlong at the zombie in his doorway.

Hitting the body felt like tackling a hanging side of beef, but it did move, which is what Jonathan needed. The corpse toppled back and to the right, as its bullet-shattered kneecap gave way.

Jonathan scrambled over the chest of the creature and couldn’t resist giving it a kick to the head.

He had managed to get one down for the count. Now, he just had to draw the other two out of his office; there were too many valuable volumes and rare texts in there.

Once in the front office, the ear piercing shriek emanating from behind his secretary’s desk had become more strident. He tried to think of comforting words to tell her, but ‘shut the hell up’ was the best he could come up with.

He spun around to look back at the other two zombies.

Both goons had clamored into the front office. Jonathan moved to his left, away from the strident screeches, and further into the room. He hoped to draw them further in with him. It also put him out of the reach of the one-legged corpse.

The two came at him, one stepping on its felled companion.

Jonathan took another step and reached blindly behind him. His hand felt the smooth wood of the coat rack and he grabbed it. He attempted to swing it up, only to find its weight awkward and uneven.

With a curse, he spared a glance to figure out what was wrong and saw a pink, fluffy coat dangling from one of the tines.

Taking out zombies could be done with relative ease, as long as you had access to a hot enough flame. Once started, the things went up like balsawood carvings. The tricky part was stopping them from bumbling about, setting the whole building, or yourself, on fire.

Jonathan shook the coat rack, trying to dislodge the coat his secretary had, for some ungodly reason, hung on it. He finally managed to get the article unhooked and swung it around, hoping to corral the corpses long enough to set them on fire.

The coat rack collided into the side of the brute and cracked. It didn’t slow the creature. An upper cut lifted Jonathan into the air and he landed against the far wall. Jonathan found himself on the low bookcase, his face a raw ache, his back a single spasm. He had put up with enough.

Screw this.

He had them as close as he could hope for, and at least one of them wouldn’t be wandering about.

He brought up his right hand and rubbed his middle and ring finger together. He began to chant the words of power, of focus. After being hit by a ham hock of a fist, his jaw felt like rigor mortis was setting in, which made pronouncing the proto-Egyptian language of the spell tricky.

Luckily, it was a short invocation.

Jonathan felt his energy swell as though the earth itself were rising up through him, and reached further still. He tapped into the beyond and pulled the forgotten forward, through him.

He rode the White Dragon.

Sweat soaked into his clothing. His skin felt abraded with the heat.

He hated this spell.

His chest burned from the inside out, his heart pumped lava through his veins.

He hated necromancers.

As his mind spun through infinite harmonies, every molecule of his body danced violently.

The fire he had formed leapt from ethereal to physical. A flame that burned deep-orange engulfed his hand, its flickering edges sending swirls of black soot into the air.

Jonathan lashed out with his foot, catching the closest zombie on the chin and rocking it backward. Before it had a chance to close in again, he released the spell.

The flame rolled off Jonathan’s hand, growing as it absorbed oxygen from the air around it.

He shivered with the sudden cold.

The summoned fire smashed into the closest zombie. It pushed the corpse backwards and lapped over it. The overspill ignited the bourbon soaked fabric of the second zombie. The room quickly smelt of melting polyester and overcooked ham.

Still, they came at him. One thing that had to be said for zombie employees, they literally couldn’t quit.

Beyond the flames, Jonathan caught sight of his wide-eyed secretary as she bolted up from behind her desk.

Hey, Alice, while you’re up, grab the fire extinguisher from the hall would you?

She looked at him, or the walking flames, and darted out the door.

That-a-girl.

Jonathan relaxed a little. All he had to do now was keep them at arm’s length and wait for his secretary to return.

He wished he had the coat rack. Without it, he was reliant on his feet. That was a good way to ruin a perfectly serviceable pair of shoes.

All three of the corpses were blazing pyres now. Flames licked at the ceiling, and charred the cheap rug. The heat trapped in the room caused his arm hairs to curl and his lips to crack.

Any minute now . . . secretary.

He kicked the nearest zombie and hit its arm. The limb rocked backwards and just kept going—a flaming comet. Jonathan brought his knees to his chest and kicked out with both legs at the same time.

The zombie staggered back a few feet and then crumbled in on itself. Jonathan hastily beat at his trouser cuffs to extinguish the flames lapping up his legs.

He looked up and saw the other two had been almost completely immolated as well. What he didn’t see . . . was his secretary.

With a sigh, Jonathan slipped off the bookshelf.

Skirting the pile of burning bones, he went to the front door to look about.

There was no sign of the woman.

The fire extinguisher remained clipped to the wall. With a groan, he retrieved it, returned to his office, and sprayed down the flames that had found fuel for their appetites beyond the corpse flesh.

The office smelled like charred meat, burned bone, and, oddly, sour milk. The ceiling had a large scorch mark and the rug was ruined. Jonathan put down the fire extinguisher. He stepped over the pile of smoldering ash and entered his office. He closed the door, righted his chair, and sat back down behind his desk.

I hate necromancers, he said, pouring himself a fresh drink. They never consider the second-hand damage.

Chapter Two

The office, the next day, was thick with a fug that went beyond just the cigarette smoke trapped in the small room. The smell of bourbon clung to the blue-grey air, but it was his own fermenting emotions that thickened the enclosed space.

Frustration draped the walls, and Jonathan couldn’t deny the guilt that clung there as well.

The Apatedyne situation really needed to be handled on a level beyond simply freeing those affected by cursed products, like the widow yesterday. He saw little choice but to stop this company from operating in New Hades before their business went further than a few people being rooked of their savings. Preferably before more corpses walked through his door.

He had to admit he wasn’t enthused with the idea of another corporation adding him to their black list. Jonathan knew firsthand how difficult it was to force a company into a position where they decided to back off. They had their own practitioners. They had money. Industry, as a rule, didn’t sleep.

Still, he thought, if not me, then who?

Sitting back and fixing the mess afterwards—for a fee—made him no better than Apatedyne and Jonathan knew it. He just wasn’t as young as he used to be. Tilting at windmills hurt more than it had in the past.

He needed to find a method which would be effective, and hopefully, not drawn out. A prolonged siege wasn’t what he considered a good time. Devising ingenious ways to trip them up could be fun, however.

If he got his imagination going on this one, it might motivate him to act. Needing to get his synapses fired up, he reached for his cigarette case when a pounding on his outer office door resounded through the office.

Jonathan paused. His hand hovered over the silver case as he waited for his secretary to answer the door.

The pounding came again and reminded him he no longer had a secretary.

He couldn’t be blamed for forgetting; she had only left the day before. When she had failed to get the fire extinguisher, Jonathan had hoped she had simply decided to grab a breath of fresh air.

He had to accept that he’d lost yet another secretary.

The hand assaulting his door didn’t seem to be doing so in anger and so Jonathan assumed it wasn’t another attempt to dissuade him from meddling in company affairs.

As he got up, Jonathan realized the nature of the knocking belonged not to someone who wanted in but someone who needed in.

He opened the door separating the offices and the stagnant air escaped with the speed of a diesel truck backfiring. Through the frosted glass of the front office door, he saw the person turn away.

Jonathan slowed.

But the dark blob of a hand rose again. With a groan, Jonathan took the last few steps and swung open the door.

In the hall towered a lean man. His true height Jonathan couldn’t approximate from the way his shoulders rolled forward over his chest.

A wide-brimmed hat, squashed on hair that looked like a pile of straw, seemed designed to obscure the man’s identity.

Jonathan might have been worried about that if wasn’t for the other unmistakable oddity; the lower portion of the pallid face was spotted with tiny wads of tissue paper, most with a crimson center.

Mr. Alvey? queried the man with a voice possibly unused in the last decade.

That’s what the door says.

You are, though, right? You’re Alvey, the private investigator?

Jonathan reached up to the top of the open door with his fingers and studied the man’s face.

Resisting the urge to flick the pieces of tissue from the stranger’s jawline, he wondered why they always asked that question. What sort of sacrament made them want to hear him speak those specific words?

Yes, I’m Jonathan Alvey. I guess you’d better come in.

Jonathan stepped back, allowing the man he tried desperately not to think of as Lurch to enter.

The man slipped the hat from his head and walked in. Jonathan swung the door closed and marched past his guest into his office.

In the short time the door between the rooms had been open, a reasonable portion of the accumulated smog had dissipated. Jonathan felt somehow vulnerable without it.

He sat behind his desk and waited for his latest client to accomplish the feat of settling himself into a chair. Once the glum man was seated, with leg twitching and finger tapping the crown of the hat in his hands, Jonathan reached once more for his smokes.

Opening the silver case, Jonathan made sure he could actually see the man’s reflection in its smooth exterior as he withdrew a cigarette. Having satisfied one curiosity, Jonathan extended the case towards his guest.

Perhaps, Jonathan thought to himself, it’s the haunted look in his bloodshot eyes that makes me think he’s glum.

The man’s square jaw swung slightly from side to side. No, I quit— he started to say. But then suddenly, and vehemently, he exclaimed, Oh, what the hell does it matter now?

He leaned out and grasped the case long enough to slide a cigarette from it. Jonathan put the case back on the desk, relieved that the man had been able to touch silver. Made the odds better that he was human.

He lit his cigarette then slid the lighter to the scarecrow across the desk. Jonathan took one deep drag. So, how is it you’ve come to be in my office this evening, Mister . . . ?

It’s my life, the man blurted out.

Come again?

My life, the man croaked. I’m here for my life.

Someone stole your life savings? Jonathan tried to hook one single barb into the wriggling fish of this man’s conversational gambit.

No. He took a deep drag and Jonathan watched the tip burn bright and hot.

Why don’t you start at the beginning, Mister . . . ?

The man moved his mouth oddly. To Jonathan, it looked as though he was trying to tie a cherry stem—only this stem fought back.

After a minute, he vaulted out of the chair.

Just as Jonathan became convinced he’d have to ram a stick between this guy’s teeth while dialing nine-one-one, his potential client landed back in the chair.

He had produced a small card from his back pocket, which he smacked down on the desktop with one long arm before dropping back into the seat.

Jonathan leaned over to investigate the item before he considered touching it. It looked quite familiar and, as the protective wards tattooed like a necklace around the base of his neck were not flaring up, Jonathan reached out and slid it closer.

Made of stiff paper with an inked outline; it called to Jonathan’s mind the title card which popped up between scenes in silent movies. Inside the simple, yet elegant, border were six words. They did wonders to clarify his client’s statement.

Printed in a simple font was the phrase: ‘You will die in three days.’

Jonathan looked up from the card to the man across the desk from him. No hint of amusement tugged at the man’s tight lips. No humor danced in the wide, brown eyes. Truth be told, Jonathan only saw the hazard signs of someone breaking under the burden of stress.

Whether the statement was threat or prediction, his client seemed to believe the validity of those six words.

"All right, Mister—what is your name?"

Uh . . . Courtney, the man wiped a long-fingered hand over his face. Wendell. Wendell Courtney.

Okay, Wendell, is there anyone you know of who might have a reason—any reason at all—to want to hurt you, or even just scare you?

The head slowly went from one side to another. A single flake of crimson-dotted tissue paper floated towards the floor.

Are any of your friends pranksters? Jonathan asked, looking for a nice, normal reason for this man to be in possession of such a card.

Once more, the ponderous turning of the head one way and then the other.

All right, Wendell, I think you had better start at the beginning. Take your time and let’s see what there is to make of this.

When his client didn’t speak, seeming once more to have forgotten how to form words, Jonathan began to despair of having any patience left.

He wished he had thought earlier to call for an order of Singapore noodles from The Lucky Monkey restaurant across the street. Accepting it would be a while before he got to eat, Jonathan pulled out the bottle of bourbon from his desk drawer.

He filled his glass, took a coffee cup that didn’t appear to be dirty, and sloshed some of the bourbon into it as well. The mug he slid towards Wendell.

The gaunt man didn’t hesitate over the liquor. He took the cup, gulped back a slug, and did a damn fine impression of a consumptive cat ridding itself of an aggressive fur-ball. However, he took another drink and, eyes watering, began to speak.