Speakeasy Dead: a P.G. Wodehouse-Inspired Romantic Zombie Comedy (Hellfire Universe Historicals) (8 page)

“No corpses,” Ruth called. “But…um…ohhh mmmm.” Her voice sank to a growl.

“What is it?” I asked. “Is Bernie there? Where’s Mr. Vargas? What’s going on?”

“Poultry!” Ruth shuddered. Her dress transformed into dense, spotted fur. “An alley full.” She snarled. Powerful haunches leapt up the ladder and scrambled through the chute. Her long tail swished and disappeared.

A chicken burst into the basement and hit the ceiling. Feathers rained down.

“You know.” Beau slid drunkenly off of his crate onto the floor. The chicken landed in his lap. “This place is going to the dogs.”

“Oh, Beau!” I yanked my hair in aggravation. “Can’t you be helpful?”

The zombie hiccupped. Ruth’s magic light went out.

A long, low groan suffused the air.

“What’s that?” I froze.

It wasn’t Beau. The groan sounded again. It seemed to be back by the furnace, behind the brick dividing wall.

“M-Mr. Vargas?” I hated that furnace. Hated its dark, dusty, octopus arms.

“Khlaaah.” The groan changed to a name. “Khlaarah.”

Goosebumps popped up along my arms. Where was my cousin when I needed him?

“C’mon!” I shook Beau’s shoulder. “Get up. We’ve got to look.”

Beau staggered upright. “Your wish, oh Voodoo Queen, is my command.” He draped one arm, and most his weight, across my shoulders, letting his breath, thick with brandy, flow over my face.

“Khlaarraaah.”

I clutched my half-full vial of hellfire and marched with Beau around the brick dividing wall to where the furnace perched like an upside-down spider, its fat legs bent and twisting into ducts.

Someone was slumped across the furnace in the shadows. A man.

I blinked.

A man wearing a pale pink suit whose perfect grooming and round glasses—I knew—went with kindly, gentle intelligence.
George Umbridge, Junior
, Luella’s older brother.

“Khlara.” George’s skin, normally the tone of warm mahogany, was pale as ash. His right wrist had a ragged, shallow gash. “Khlaaaa—”

“What happened?” I squatted and caught the ginger stink of Jacques cocktails. A lot of Jacques! But that was crazy. George Junior was a medical student, a teetotaler, a soft-hearted advocate of vitamins and soap.

“Khlara.” The man lunged furiously, mouth snapping open and shut.

Beau intercepted him as I scrambled backward, gagging on the smell of booze.

“Woof, woof,” my zombie drawled sarcastically. “Don’t hurt my mistress. Bark. Bark.”

George stiffened. His arms and legs twitched violently.

“Oh dear.” I glanced from Beau and George up to the coal chute. “Oh, dear, what do we do?”

Outside, a child’s shrill voice began to scream.

VII: Under the Chicken Tree

Faint heart never won fair treatment.
—The Boy’s Book of Boggarts

Bernard:

IF YOU’VE BEEN READING closely, you may have formed the impression I do not always approve of young Clara’s behavior. Summoning a demon, for example, is nothing an affectionate cousin could recommend, although—growing up, as she did, in a family stocked to the gills with warlocks—it was pretty much bound to happen sooner or later.

Then there was the matter of hellfire, stolen from Priscilla’s lab. It would have to be repaid, which meant another deal with Hans in the near future…assuming Clara didn’t die in the even nearer future from forfeiting ten pints of Woodsen blood.

Such sober reflections occupied my thoughts during the short walk from the Ninepin Fellowship to my own modest stone-decorated bungalow, and you may rest assured a fair number of Benjamin teeth were ground together
en route
.

Nevertheless, the day was sunny. July breezes stirred the air. Robins twittered merrily on high, and a certain inner wisdom whispered that Clara could have done worse than start her supernatural career in an altruistic attempt to relieve Beau Beauregard’s suffering.

The result of all this physical and mental exercise was that by the time I rolled my red Nash touring sedan out of its garage, the cheerful Benjamin temperament was largely restored. Yes, we had a corpse on our hands—two, counting Beau—and no, I hadn’t missed the fact my blood was as much
Woodsen
as Clara’s, the only difference being that my mother had defied family tradition by taking her husband’s name and bearing a son.

Against these heavy concerns was weighed the fact that Blindour’s Bakery, halfway between my own door and the coven, discounts their wares each day precisely at noon. I made my way along streets cluttered with party-goers, purchased two cheese danish for the price of one, and was happily anticipating my first bite as I motored the Nash into the sloping gravel alley behind the Falstaff Ninepin Fellowship building.

Oddly, a Ford delivery van was blocking the coven.

Even more oddly, two brawny strangers were loading crates into the van.

I parked the Nash three doors uphill, slipped out to chock the wheels, and ducked around the wood and mesh chicken coop behind Aimsley’s Dry Goods.

Keeping one eye on the hens—no redhead is ever safe near poultry—I cast the other below. Someone was passing brandy bottles up through the coal chute and into the arms of two men who were, in turn, packing the bottles in crates and loading crates into the van.

In short, the Fellowship was being burgled. I wondered if this was some mad scheme of Clara’s. Had she decided to sell Priscilla’s liquor after all? Bribed someone to dispose of Mr. Vargas’ body?

The flow of brandy halted. The men gathered, talking, at the coal chute. My stomach rumbled. I was just about to fetch the cheese danish out of my car and circle around through the dry goods building to check with Clara when the delivery van popped open and, creaking heavily, disgorged Stoneface Gibraltar.

Well, well
.

The gangster joined his men. “Whaddaya mean, he attacked you?”

A man’s head and shoulders emerged from the coal chute. “Lemme out!” His face was bloody. “Ya gotta lemme out!”

Stoneface pushed him down. “Go get him.”

The head popped out again. “I ain’t kidding.” The man scrambled desperately. “I ain’t going back!”

“What’s happening?” a woman asked from the delivery van.

Stoneface lifted the bleeding man out of the coal chute. The fellow clutched his cheek and began sobbing drunkenly against the van.

“Okay, that’s it.” The gangster made a slicing gesture. “We’re done. Pack up.”

The passenger door opened. A pair of shapely rolled-stockinged legs descended onto the running board. They were followed, to my surprise, by the even shapelier person of young Luella Umbridge. Black hair, lustrous brown skin, enormous eyes containing—I knew—mysterious flecks of green, she looked stunning, as usual, in a broad-belted orange and yellow geometric print and matching cloche hat.

“What’s happening?” she asked again.

The basement man stopped crying. He raised both arms, flailed wildly, and then slid straight-legged down the side of the van to the ground.

Luella bent over him. “What’s going on? Where’s George?” She turned to Stoneface and they began a low debate.

Luella Umbridge.
That changed things, changed them a lot.

Luella and my cousin had a pact, a girlish bargain, sealed years ago, granting Luella all the liquor she ever wanted and promising Clara unlimited funerals in return. A girlish bargain, but no less binding. Ghosts might be insignificant, compared to demons, but the Umbridges were every bit as serious as the Woodsens when it came to keeping vows.

If Luella was taking liquor from the coven, that made this a prank instead of a robbery. Something the girls would have to work out on their own.

My car door thumped. Gravel scattered as a small, wretched creature approached my place of concealment. It had bare feet, ill-fitting overalls, and an expensive, oversized panama hat with an engraved PRESS card bearing the name of William Randolph Hearst.

“Hi, Bernie,” one of the Aimsley horde—
Grover
—chirped cheerfully.

Luella and Stoneface stopped arguing and glanced my way.

“Someone” —the boy held up a cheese danish— “left this in your car.”

There were fifteen Dry-Goods Aimsleys as of the last census, most of them kids. This particular accident of conception sometimes worked retrieving balls in the Fellowship’s ninepin bowling alley.

“You can place a missing pastry notice in the
Aimsley Examiner
,” Grover informed me, “for the
insubnificant
price of one small penny.”

“Beat it!” I doffed my cap and edged deeper into the shadowed space between the chicken coop and the Aimsleys’ back steps.

Down by the van, the man who’d come out of the basement lay thrashing and foaming at the mouth. As I watched, one of the thugs grasped him around the chest and then yelped in outrage as he was bitten on the wrist. The other thug delivered a roundhouse punch that ended the biter’s thrashing.

“In that case,” Grover asked, stuffing the danish under one armpit and flipping open his pad, “would you like to
deform
our readership about events?”

“We’re not leaving,” Luella told Stoneface. “We are not going anywhere without my brother.”

The gangster leaned close and spoke into her ear.

Luella slapped him.

“I’m busy,” I told Grover. “Go away.”

Stoneface picked up Luella by the waist and stuffed her, bodily, into the van. He walked around to the driver’s side and put one foot on the running board.

“For instance,” Grover piped shrilly, “who’s
flavored
to win your dance contest? Did someone biff Beau Beauregard on the bean? Informed
mimes
want to know.”

“Ow!” Something sharp pecked my scalp. “Ouch!” I ducked. “Ow!” A hen, perched on a nesting box, stretching its villainous neck through the wires.

Stoneface glanced up the alley. He spoke to Luella and then slid a pair of brass knuckles onto one hand. Sunlight glinted off of spikes in the steel rings.

Time for yours truly to make tracks. Unfortunately, there was a pint-sized cub reporter blocking my way.

“Your mother’s calling,” I fibbed.

“Is there any truth to the
murmur
,” the boy asked brightly, “that your cousin Priscilla’s a witch?”

Stoneface began lumbering up the hill.

I fished for change in my pocket. “I’ll give you a nickel for the danish if you’ll go back inside.”

Grover frowned. “It’s worth a dime.”

“Two nickels.” Stoneface was thirty feet away. “No, wait. Here, take it all.” I dropped coins into his grubby hand. “And keep the danish.”

“Are you trying to
imbibe
the press?”

“It’s a present.” I gave the boy a shove. “Go someplace else and eat it. Make yourself sick.”

“Say.” Young Grover planted his feet. “Is this thing poison?”

I’d like the record here to clearly state that I did not throttle, mutilate, or otherwise slaughter any person or persons of half my height.

“It’s deadly poison,” I assured him. “The most horrific substance known to man. Go feed it to your little brothers and sisters.”

Young G.’s mouth formed an enlightened, “Oh!” He took the danish and trotted happily up the cement steps and into the rear entrance of the Dry Goods building.

Footsteps crunched near my car. I hunkered into the pitiful shadow between the cement stoop and the chickens while Stoneface Gibraltar circled the Nash. He peered inside, squatted beside a tire and then, pulling his elbow back like a train piston, drove the spiked brass knuckles straight through the rubber. The red Nash tilted, first one way and then the other, as Stoneface punctured all four tires in turn. He stopped directly across from me, plucked the remaining danish out of the vehicle, and ate it in three bites.

“Not bad.” The gangster licked his fingers. “Not as good as we got back home in Chi-town, but not too bad.” He started my way.

Oops
.

Fortunately, I was home-team and knew the playing field.

Falstaff’s Main Street is mostly brick and sandstone businesses, wedged close together. Some share walls, but some are separated by narrow gaps, and one such gap lay just downhill between the Aimsleys’ building and the Tucker Tailors.’ Experience had taught me that Clara and I fit through this gap, whereas Cousin Priscilla did not. A goon like Stoneface wouldn’t stand a chance.

I left my hiding place and darted behind the chicken coop, squeezing between the dry-goods building and the mesh, snagging my vest buttons on the chicken wire.

“Hey, you!” Stoneface Gibraltar shook his fist at me across the coop. It would have been the height of childishness to answer with
digitus impudicus
, and I’d like the record to state that I did no such thing.

Stoneface bellowed. He thrust his arms wide, laced all ten digits into the mesh, and jerked the whole frame of the coop over his head. Chickens fluttered in all directions. Stoneface crumpled the frame and tossed it aside. I sprinted for the gap between buildings, stuck my foot in a water dish, tripped on a nesting box, and hit the ground crawling.

Stoneface lunged. A chicken flapped vigorously, driving him back. The gap was mere inches away. I laid on speed just as another nesting box flew through the air, clipping the back of my head, knocking me flat.

Strike one!

Small lumps of gravel poked my nose. The crowd began to roar.

Was I on base? An egg rolled over and smashed against my cheek.
Must be the minors
.

I closed my eyes.

An instant later, the umpire pulled me to my feet. “You and that cousin gettin’ cute?”

“Which cousin, coach?”

He slapped my face.
Strike two!

“Clara?”
The fans went wild.
“Is she playing?” That wasn’t good. Young C. hit like a girl. Which is to say, she punched me when we didn’t win.

“Youse two wants to get rough? Take hostages? You think, maybe, you can’t be scared?”

“I’m always scared.” The umpire’s uniform blurred to pinstripes and back again.
No, not an ump
. I blinked at Stoneface Gibraltar’s white fedora, sporting a forest of chicken feathers along its brim.