Chapter 6
1563 Words
6
Archimedes led them over to the same berth from before and clicked on a button on the left wall. The target was pulled along its cord until it reached them. Archimedes turned to Nena with pursed lips and held out his hand. “If you would give me your hand.”
Nena set her hand in his and he drew out a small knife from his pocket. With a flick of the blade and a wince from Nena a dot of blood appeared on the end of one finger. Archimedes used the blade of the knife like a painter’s tool and swiped the blood onto the broad edge of the weapon. He held the back of the target and smeared the center thinly with her blood.
“Now we’ll see if this works,” he commented as he pressed the button.
The target moved back to the rear of the range. Archimedes took the gun from Jack and loaded four rounds from the previous exercise. He aimed at the target and fired two shots. The target fluttered a little.
Archimedes lowered the gun and turned to the onlookers behind him with a tense expression. He pressed the button and drew the target to them. Nena’s blood was still smeared in the middle, but small round indents were visible in their pool.
Archimedes grabbed the paper target and slightly turned it to study the back. “The bullets didn’t penetrate the paper.”
Jack frowned. “So the gun can only hit Death Touched?”
Archimedes nodded. “So it would appear.”
Nena shuddered. A gun that couldn’t even tap a paper target had just pierced her blood.
Archimedes looked down at the weapon in his palm and pursed his lips. “Scratch is going to be very interested in this-” Jack took the gun from and pocketed it inside his overcoat. Archimedes lifted his head and frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll tell Scratch about it,” Jack offered.
Archimedes crossed his arms over his chest and arched an eyebrow. “This century or the next one?”
“Whenever he asks about it,” Jack replied as he turned his attention to Nena. Her eyes were cast to the floor and her expression was sorrowful. His face fell for a moment before a sly grin slid onto his lips. “How about it, Nena?” She lifted her gaze and blinked at him. He nodded at the nine other targets at the end of the range. “Think you could shoot one of those?”
She shook her head. “I-I don’t know. I’ve never shot a gun.”
Jack drew a pistol from a holster hidden underneath his overcoat and held out the grip toward her. “There’s a first time for everything, even when you’re dead.”
Nena pursed her lips, but took the weapon and reluctantly walked over to the center stall. She gripped the weapon between both hands and raised her stiff arms.
Jack laughed and shook his head. “You’re stiffer than a salmon in winter. Let me show you how it’s done.” He stepped up beside her and tapped her legs so she had a wider stance. Then he lifted her arms so they pointed straight out in front of her. “Now grip the gun a littler lower in your left hand and don’t set your finger near the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”
Nena blushed at how close he was to her. Their cheeks nearly touched as he aimed the tiny scope at the end of the barrel. “Now look through both lines of sight when you aim.”
Nena nodded, but her hands were shaking. She shut her eyes shut and squeezed the trigger. A shot rang out. It made her jump and her twitchy trigger finger shot off the gun a couple more times. The echoes were just fading away as she peeked open her eyes. The target stood unscathed as though mocking her efforts. Her face fell as Jack walked up to her and plucked the gun from her hands. He clasped her another gun in her hand. “Take this one.”
Nena glanced down at her hand and frowned. It was the gun that had shot her. She looked up at him and frowned. “But it doesn’t work on anything except me.”
“Exactly. I’ll be safe around you and you’ll be safest behind the gun.”
She frowned. “I wasn’t that bad.”
Jack nodded at the target that hung in the first berth. “That fellow begs to differ.” The paper was riddled with a half dozen bullet holes.
Nena winced. “Oh. . .”
There came a knock on the range door. Archimedes smiled as he walked over to the entrance. “That would be Peter. Only he is polite enough to knock before entering my experiment rooms.” He opened the door and revealed Jack’s pale partner.
Jack furrowed his brow as he left Nena and strode over to Peter. “You have something?”
“A lead,” Peter replied as he held out a slip of paper.
Jack took the slip and studied the contents. He frowned and his eyes flickered up to those of his partner. “This isn’t much to go on.”
“Our foe is very good at hiding his tracks,” Peter returned.
Nena walked up to the m and glanced from Peter to Jack. “Is it about me?”
Jack shook his head as he tucked the paper into his overcoat pocket. “No. We’ve been trying to find out where Death keeps himself between troubles and we might have a lead.” He glanced over his shoulder at Archimedes. “Could you take to her room? We’ve got a job to do-”
“Going on an outing?” a voice spoke up. Everyone spun around to face the shooting range. Scratch stood in the stall Nena had formerly occupied. Jack’s gun still lay on the tray. He looked down at the weapon and brushed his long fingernails down the barrel. “Surely you haven’t forgotten my command, Jack.” He raised his red-hued eyes to Nena and smiled. “My new employee is to go on your next outing.”
Jack glared at him. “I took her on an outing to the range. Besides, she’d only get in the way.”
Scratch’s eyes flickered Jack and narrowed. “Perhaps, but that isn’t for you to decide, is it?”
Jack frowned. “No, I guess not.”
A wide smile with a hint of a sharp tooth slipped onto Scratch’s lips. “Excellent.” He turned to Nena who shrank beneath his red eyes. “You have nothing to worry about, my dear. Jack and Peter are two of my finest employees, and I’m sure they’ll take good care of you. Now if you will excuse us, Archimedes and I have some things to discuss.”
Jack grasped Nena’s elbow and led her from the room with Peter behind them. Once past Archimedes’s workshop she shuddered. “He almost seems normal, but then he smiles. . .”
“That’s how he gets his kicks,” Jack told her.
She looked at the men who flanked her as Peter moved to walk by her side. “So what’s this ‘outing’ stuff about?”
Jack released her arm and pursed his lips as he strode down the hall. “It’s a mission, like what we were on when we found you.”
She furrowed her brow. “What were you doing when you found me?”
“Looking for Corrupted, but our scanner picked up on a large portal only Death could have made, and that’s where we found you,” he revealed.
Nena arched an eyebrow. “‘Corrupted?’”
“Our biggest problem thanks to Death,” he explained as they reached the elevator and stepped inside. He pressed the top button that had the number ‘one’ stamped on it and glanced at her. “They’re souls taken over by Death Shadows and transformed into monsters.”
“And Death Shadows are-?”
“Death can’t handle everyone who dies, or at least he didn’t before he started breaking the rules. Death Shadows helped him collect the souls of the dead so they could go where they needed to,” he told her.
Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head. “Death. The Devil. Death Shadows. This has got to be a bad dream.”
Jack lit a cigarette and took a puff. “If it is I’d like a pinch to wake me up, too.” He sighed and stuck the cigarette between his pursed lips. “But until that happens we’ll just have to deal with it.”
A thought struck Nena and she swallowed a lump in her throat before she looked up at Jack. “So are we going to go fight monsters now?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Pete here found a lead on a bunch of Corrupted we’ve been dealing with. They might have more of a connection than just turning into monsters.”
She breathed a sigh of relief as the elevator came to a stop. “Good. . .”
A sly grin slid onto his lips as he glanced down at her. “Don’t get too comfortable. We get to meet with some zombies.”
Nena whipped her head up and stared at him with wide eyes. “With what?”
The doors opened to reveal a long, rectangular parking garage. Dim inset lights revealed concrete columns and walls. A hundred cars young and old, expensive and cheap were lined up in their berths ready for action.
He tossed his cigarette onto the pavement and shrugged. “Just a couple of zombies,” he told her as he took a step out.
Nena grabbed his arm and dug her heels into the floor of the elevator. “Zombies? How many zombies?”
He chuckled. “Just one. He’s a chief.”
She shrank back and released his arm. “Um, can’t I stay here? Just this once?” she pleaded.
Jack set his hand atop hers and smiled down at her. “Not this time, but let’s see if we can’t make your first outing something to remember.”
- Writer
