Jazz, Monster Collector in: Downtown Clowntown (Season One, Episode Three) Read online

mind in check. As I watched the wraith passed effortlessly through the door. Rage and pain and torment filled its droopy lidded eyes. Its lower jaw hung on its chest, leaving its mouth opened into a huge black cavern with no apparent end. It’s unnaturally long fingers were bent, twisted, malformed, and curled over like claws. Its wrinkled skin was a deathly shade of blue. It had no apparent feet as its form faded into mist somewhere below its knees, and it floated toward me, absolute fury burning in its huge, black eyes.

  Time to panic.

  I spun, leapt over the bed and shot to the window. A second story jump was a better risk than tangling unprepared with a wraith; two broken legs beat an eternity of torment and damnation anytime.

  It didn’t try to intersect me, but kept its slow, torturous approach; its howls echoing in the small room. I whipped the curtains apart to reveal nothing but brick wall. I’d love to act surprised, but I didn’t have time too. I ducked under a furious swipe of the wraith’s hand, rolled away, clambered over the bed and tore the other pair of curtains to the floor. I didn’t expect to see glass, but when the wraith phased through the bricks I nearly lost my lunch, or would have if I’d eaten any.

  I broke for the door, I needed out of that house, but a terrible chill sent me into shivers as it flew past me at a blur of speed. I crept backwards. Bricking over windows, moving faster than I could see—this thing was strong, probably the strongest wraith I’d ever faced, or had heard of; I was in deep doo-doo with no way out. When my back hit the bricked over window I realized my only remaining option; my revolver was still loaded. I drew the gun knowing all to well that flying projectiles wouldn’t do a wraith any harm. I cocked the trigger and set the barrel against my temple. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d died, but this time I didn’t expect to come back again. With the cold steel pressing against my head I wondered if death might be the thing that would propel me back home, as I still had a strong suspicion that this whole screwed up, dimensionally merged planet was some kind of vision, or hallucination, or delusion. Real or not, I knew I could feel pain, and a bullet in the head’s an eternity less painful than wraith torment.

  I began squeezing the trigger, it felt harder, and the gun felt heavier, than I had remembered it being. Then I smiled; time to say goodbye. But it suddenly looked scared, its grotesque mouth snapped shut, its eyes arched up, and it clasped its hands and drifted away from me.

  I released the pressure from the trigger, watching it, trying to understand. Does it want to turn me? I doubted that something a base as a wraith would care about such things—they’re all evil instinct. I started taking in the room’s décor and a thought struck me. “Mickey?” I said, lowering the pistol. A mix of fear and anger painted its expression. “Mickey,” I said, more confidently, and took a step toward it. It began shaking its head, looking from the door behind it and back at me. It seemed confused and in turmoil, but I had something on it, a word as a weapon. So I took another careful step and said it again, pointing at the engraved baseball bat. “You’re Mickey, little Mickey.”

  The creature laid its head back over farther than any person could have and bailed out a horrific wail. I grimaced and covered my ears. I could feel the fear lighting a candle in my mind. It quickly began to grow, spreading like wildfire that threatened to consume my grip on my senses. I bit my cheeks until I tasted blood. The sharp pain kept the fear from overcoming my thinking, but just barely; I surely wouldn’t last a minute more. The name had backfired; I’d struck a nerve and needed a new advantage. It was coming for me. I was paralyzed, locked in an internal combat, fear battling for control of my mind. It was reaching for me, and since it didn’t breathe, it never stopped its terror-bellow. If just one of its icy fingers touched my flesh I would die a terrible and painful death—death by wraith poisoning is no pretty sight. Then I spotted it, there, on the bedside table, a photograph in a frame. A young, chipper lad in a little-league uniform posed with an old lady with a kind smile. They looked happy, and normal, and completely unaware of the coming of Mirth.

  I released my head and dove for the picture. I grabbed it and shoved it in the wraith’s approximation of a horrid, human face. It spun its head away, breaking the terror bellows at last. I took my chance and, after dropping my revolver on the bed (not something easy for me to do), ripped the back from the frame and held the photograph in two hands. It was glaring at me with a tangible hatred that pressed against my heart. I glared back with an intent so intense that there was no need for me to vocalize it—back off or I rip it in half, destroy perhaps the last record of this abomination’s in-life appearance, of the time it was happy, and safe, and alive.

  Its expression kept switching back and forth from horrible anger to terrible sadness, from a monster to child, with no muscular effort and at such a rate that its face seemed to strobe from one to the other—freaky. The important thing was that I had it. And what I had I could destroy.

  Fire was the answer here. The wraith was tied to the hose and the life it once had here, very strongly tied, unusual for its kind but not unheard of. Without the tie it would loose its hold on the physical plane and fade into one of the dark neither-realms. It would suffer horribly forever, but it would pose no more danger to this world.

  Holding it off with the picture like a vampire with a cross, I drew a chili pepper bomb from my deep skirt pocket and began working my way to the door. I laid the photograph flat so I could toss it Frisbee style and make my run for the door, but the wraith began to sob…I think it was sobbing, hard to tell with the deep, echoing bales—totally weird.

  Then the ghost, the old lady, floated into the room through the wall. I figured it would have stayed scared of me, it would be right too. But it didn’t pay me any mind. It floated over to the wraith and began to comfort it. I could feel my forehead wrinkle. I’d seen a lot of weird and unbelievable things in my life, more than anyone I’d ever known, so it wasn’t all that easy to surprise me, but I can tell you surprised doesn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling just then. Ghosts can imitate life; sure, they try at least. But wraiths, they’re pure evil, there’re tormented and hate all living things; they’ll destroy life whenever they can. But here was a big, nasty, powerful wraith being comforted by a ghost—man, I hate this world.

  The wraith had its face literary shoved inside the ghost’s chest, its tattered rags quaked with powerful sobs. The ghost looked up at me with eyes all of white and a grandmother’s judgmental scowl. Now I was being reprimanded by a ghost, and I was still perfectly alive.

  Most people will tell you that I’m all but heartless, and I would never publicly do anything to teardown the reputation I’d worked so hard to create, but it didn’t mean it was true. I dropped the chili pepper in my pocket and walked to the bed, sliding my revolver back in its holster. The old woman stared at me; it looked uncertain and nervous about my intentions and stroked the back of the wraith’s head. Maybe this ghost was something more than a flicker, but, in my weary, hungry, and strained state, I wasn’t coming to any conclusions just then.

  I picked up the frame, laid the picture back in and stood it on the little table. Her spirit face relaxed some, but I won’t go so far as to say I felt that she thanked me. Can’t blame her though, I did invade their house—darling Mickey and his adorable grandma.

  I left them and moved down the stairs. It was fairly irresponsible of me to leave a wraith intact, but this was only Clowntown after all. Crud, I’d forgotten all about the clowns, I still had them to deal with. But perhaps I had an advantage now.

  Me, that ghost, and my trusty chili pepper bomb had a little conversation. I’d let them exist and I felt they owed me—fair is fair. They may have disagreed; I didn’t know and didn’t care if they did, either way the bomb was a powerful bargaining chip.

  Now invisible, the old lady swung the door open with a vigor to display how badly it wanted me out of its house. The clowns were still milling in the street. At the sound of the door opening they gathered up around the
big clown, who was smoking a cigar the size of a doll’s leg. He started laughing and his chorus joined in, though they had absolutely no sense of harmony.

  I had my macdaddy revolver in hand as I crossed my arms, leaned against the door jamb, and looked just as smug as I could muster, and I could muster a lot of smug. The ringleader lost his smile first, then the others slowly and stupidly followed suit. Jerks. The leader’s head spun right and left, scanning the exterior of the perfectly preserved brick house in the middle of the monster ghetto. As the wraith sailed out over my head the gang of make-up caked monster faces screamed and broke into a mad scramble of panic, all except for the big boss clown, who’s mouth dropped open and let his cigar fall to the cracked and weedy asphalt.

  Bailing and wailing, the wraith flew circles around the house. I sauntered down the concrete steps to the street, waving my gun to insure they hadn’t missed it. As I crossed onto the sidewalk I heard the door slam closed behind me. As if in warning, the wraith circled out wide over the remaining clowns. They ducked down, covered their heads, and screamed. Then the wraith, with a loud baneful wail, passed though the brick wall and back inside the house.

  As my moccasined feet walked up to the big, painted goblin he looked up at me and squealed, falling back on his hands in surprise. He collided into the goblin behind him. The leader’s face switched from scared and back to angry in a flash. Snorting and cursing in goblin-speak, the leader slugged his goon hard in the gut then scrambled to his leather-booted feet.

  I stuck the revolver barrel in his ugly mug, though, being that he easily had a foot and a half of height on me, I had to be up on tip-toes to do so. “So clown, are we going to have a problem here?”

  He growled, showing me half of his pointed fangs. He shoved me away with an inhumanly strong hand and drew a serrated-edged dagger from his belt. I quickly caught my balance and shot him in the hand. The dagger hit the street with a tinty chime. He began wringing the hand, cursing me in goblin. I cursed him back in goblin. He growled again, his beady eyes were burning red, and this time showed me all his teeth. In response, and now returning from where they’d hidden, his gang members gathered around drawing weapons of various sizes and styles and numbers of killing edges.

  I drew the hammer back and took careful aim at the boss’s head.

  He grunted, growled, and then began to laugh. “Cretan, you can’t shoot us all with that pop-gun.”

  I couldn’t keep the smile from my face. “I’m all too happy to die if I get to take a slum-lord like you with me. But the real question here is how many of your gang will it take to kill my little friend in the house there?”

  “Friend?” he asked, unable to hide the quiver in the words, and glanced at the house. His troops looked too, their eyes filling with trepidation and their grips weakening such that their weapons drooped down.

  The ringleader barked and his troops jumped in surprise. “Stow ‘em!” he ordered and they sheathed their weapons. Clutching the hand that ran with black blood he cut the distance between us in half with a single sytep, his eyes fixed on the business end of my macdady. “Aren’t you going to lower your weapon?” he said in English.

  “Not to a gang of clowns.”

  He stared at me for a moment; I figured he was sizing up whether he could break my neck before I shot him. “You’re Jazz, right?”

  I had to admit, his English was flawless. Goblins normally had terrible accents. He must have spent a lot of time