Deader Still (2 page)
“Watch out for the elves, Simon,” Connor Christos said, tugging at my arm. And since I had come to trust my partner in Other Division, I didn’t resist.
He pulled me to my left, allowing me to narrowly avoid two “elves.” One wore glasses with black Buddy Holly frames, and the other couldn’t have been more than five feet tall.
“Lothlorien sure ain’t making ’em like they used to,” I said.
“Welcome to New York Comic Con, kid.”
“Nerdtacular,” I said. All walks of life crowded the hangarlike convention hall. The giant glass structure of the
“Would you rather be back at our desks at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs?” Connor asked.
“Lower your voice,” I said, looking around.
“Relax,” Connor said. “We’re the most normal-looking guys in here.”
Connor looked like the older and stranger of the two of us, with a white stripe running through his messy mop of sandy brown hair. His Bogart-style trench coat hid his rugged frame, but even that had been no match for the ghost who had streaked his hair. Comparatively, I was the picture of youth, with my own hair black, through and through, still untouched by ghostly harm. Even my knee-length black leather coat was more fashionable, and did double duty—both hiding my retractable bat and paying homage to the one the do-gooder vampire Angel always wore on television.
“Even so,” I said, “I’d prefer it if you kept it down about the D.E.A.”
Connor shook his head. “No one here’s even going to bat an eye at our supersecret government agency.” He cupped his hand over his mouth and shouted, “Paranormal investigators in the house!”
Very few people turned to look at us. A few
woot
s rose out of the crowd, and when I turned to look we were being cheered on by a group of guys dressed as Ghostbusters, pumping the business ends of their proton packs in the air.
“See?” he said. “Now don’t tell me you’d rather be in the office …”
I thought of the pile of paperwork waiting for me—ghost sightings, zombie infestations, demons rollicking through hipster bars out in
“Actually, this freak show is looking pretty good to me right now.” I held up my writing hand and flexed it, hearing it pop and crack as I did so. “Besides, if I have to fill out another form in triplicate, I think my hand will fall off. And not in the cool, zombie-rotting way, either …”
Connor shook his head. “Less than a year in the Department, and you’re already burned out on the red tape, huh?” He pointed at the crowd before us. “Then this place should take your mind off of all that for a bit. You’ve got every type of geekdom out here in full force. Your fans of everything come out for this one, dressed to the nines: superheroes, elves, robots, Jedis, Trekkies. Pirates are really big this year.”
“Great,” I said. “
That
should help me stay focused today.”
“Just relax,” he said. “Every agent’s been put through the Oubliette.”
“And passed it?”
“Well,” Connor said, pausing. “No …”
“I don’t want that to be me,” I said, feeling my nerves rising. I’d joined the New York Department of Extraordinary Affairs seven months ago. I was blessed (or cursed) with psychometry, the ability to touch an object and divine information about its past, so getting the job had turned a power that had ruined many a relationship and been a major burden into a highlight of my résumé. Connor had been assigned as my mentor for these past few months, and I appreciated that, but I wanted to pass the Oubliette and earn my stripes as his full-fledged partner. “I don’t want to wait another year to retake the test if I fail it.”
“Relax,” Connor repeated. “You’ll do fine.”
“Easy to say for someone who passed it years ago and actually got to test on the Oubliette the Department owns.”
“Owned,”
Connor corrected. “With the budget cuts down at City Hall, I don’t think the Department’s going to be able to afford to fix it. And trust me, from what I’ve heard, you definitely don’t want to be going into
that
Oubliette. Something’s living in it now. I don’t know exactly what, but Inspectre Quimbley said it was quite unsavory.”
“Well, who am I to argue with the director of Other Division?”
“And don’t forget he’s your superior in the Fraternal Order of Goodness,” Connor added. “Not that I’m part of your precious little organization.”
I noted the hint of bitterness in Connor’s voice.
“Hey,” I said. “I was just as surprised as you were when I got their letter adopting me into their ranks. Their initiation felt like a cross between a toga party and the Skull and Bones society.”
Connor started playing the world’s tiniest violin between his fingers, so I decided it was best to avoid the subject even though it had only happened a few short months ago. It was like being in high school all over again, except I was in all the advanced-placement classes now. F.O.G. wasn’t technically part of the official
“Still,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back to why we had come to Comic Con. “I wouldn’t normally think of a comic book convention as a place to rent a magical Oubliette.”
Connor shrugged. “But here we are. You’d be surprised at what can pass unnoticed in an environment like this. You ready to go all MacGyver?”
“MacGyver?”
“You know,” Connor said. “You ready to improvise on whatever harsh battle conditions the Oubliette decides to put you through?”
I shrugged. “As ready as I can be. I’ve studied as much as I could over at Tome, Sweet Tome.”
“Oh, so Jane helped?” Connor asked. At the mention of my ex-cultist girlfriend, I got a case of the warm fuzzies.
“Director Wesker’s been putting her through all this cataloging work while they try to figure out how
“I can’t tell which is worse for Jane,” Connor said, “having worked for the forces of evil or having to work for Thaddeus Wesker in Greater and Lesser Arcana Division. Still, sounds like she’s trying to help you live through this thing. Not bad for an ex-cultist temp.”
“Watch it,” I said, not really taking him too seriously. “She worked for the Sectarian Defense League more for the benefits package than anything. I think helping me pin their leader to the wall with a sword proves she’s turned over a new leaf.”
“Fair enough,” Connor said, stopping at an intersection to look around. “I’d like to think Jane and I have softened toward each other over the past three months.”
As I waited for him to pick a direction, I couldn’t help but eye all the tables full of collectibles. I adjusted the well-worn leather gloves I had on. With my psychometric ability, it was hard to keep my hands to myself near all this geeky merchandise. Part of me would love to have touched something and read the past of the object, but now was so not the time for that kind of distraction. While I had gotten better at controlling my powers as of late, I was pretty sure going into the Oubliette after having depleted my blood sugar over a bunch of knickknacks was a surefire way to fail it outright.
“Come on,” Connor said, heading off to our right. “I think Inspectre Quimbley and Wesker said it was set up down this way.”
“So why
is
Wesker going to be here?” I asked. “Does the director of Greater and Lesser Arcana have nothing better to do than come ridicule me? We’re Other Division. He doesn’t even hold any jurisdiction over us.”
“But he does hold it over anything magical happening in the tristate area,” Connor said, “so Inspectre Quimbley is letting him make sure that the Oubliette rental goes smoothly.”
“So Wesker’s hope that I fail is just a bonus for him today, is it?”
“Something like that, kid,” Connor said.
The traffic of humanity thinned out a little over in this section of the
“After you,” he said.
I stepped through into an open space about twenty feet square. The Inspectre and Director Wesker were there, and smack in the center of the curtained-off area was the Oubliette itself. I had only seen pictures of one before, but up close and in person the object that would decide my fate in the Department was a bit underwhelming. Essentially it looked like a prop from a stage show—a round stone well on a wheeled platform. It looked like the kind of well people made wishes on, complete with a little wooden roof and a winch bar running between the beams, with rope coiled around it. Although it didn’t look deep enough to even stand in, I knew that once I was lowered inside it, it would open up into the magic and dangerous well I had been studying.
As Connor and I crossed to the Inspectre, a hulking figure rose up from behind the well, a giant of a man who looked like he could be brothers with Penn Gillette.
“Don’t tell me I have to fight a giant, as well,” I whispered, hoping he couldn’t hear me.
“Heavens no,” the Inspectre chimed in. He had a booming British accent and a walruslike mustache. “Unless, I suppose, that’s one of the options on the challenge wheel for the Oubliette.” He waved the huge man over. “Julius, come here.”
The giant came over, moving much more nimbly that I would have expected for a man of his size. He held a wooden easel in his hand.
“
This
,” the Inspectre said, patting me on the shoulder, “is the young man who’ll be testing in the Oubliette today. Simon Canderous.”
Julius put down the easel and offered his hand. I took it. With hands that big, he easily could have palmed my entire head like a basketball.
“Julius Heron,” he said, sounding like that should mean something to me. He looked hopeful. “Of the Brothers Heron?”
I nodded uncertainly.
“Nothing?” he asked. “You’ve … never heard of us?”
“Sorry,” I said, “no.”
He looked disappointed. “We’re world renowned …”
“I’m sure you are,” I said, “but I’m kind of new to all this and I don’t get out much.”
His face brightened. “That’s probably it. Anyway, good luck,” he said, and headed back over toward the well.
Julius set up two easels and attached the Wheels of Misfortune to them, miniature versions of the one Pat Sajak uses. One Wheel listed the types of equipment I might be given to survive with, while the other listed the challenges, sporting names like Scarifying Scarabs, Sinking Sand Trap, Grievous Guillotine, Watery Grave, Leaping Lizards, and Ravenous Rats. A chill ran down my spine. Although I was a native New Yorker—and therefore rat-familiar by association—the idea of them in particular creeped me out like nobody’s business.
As I tried to shake off the heebie-jeebies, the Inspectre turned to Wesker. “Is everything about ready?”
Wesker walked around the well once and checked out the Wheels. He gave the Inspectre a nod.
“Now, then,” the Inspectre said, “all that’s left is the pat down. If you’ll permit me … ?”
