Michele Lee

How could I not, really? From Keene’s Blog:

My death, as Jack Haringa’s death before me, benefits the Shirley Jackson Awards. Sometime today, while you’re reading of my various demises, please consider purchasing a copy of Jack Haringa Must Die, featuring stories by myself, Christopher Golden, Jack Ketchum, Mary SanGiovanni, Mike Oliveri, Nick Mamatas and dozens more. All proceeds benefit the SJA. If you already own a copy, please consider making a donation.

Die! Brian Keene, Die!
By Michele Lee

Two blue skinned djinn and a shadow elf walked into the bar. It wasn’t a joke, it was a bad, bad situation, the kind that made me reach for blade at side. But I stopped myself, because The Cabal was the kind of place where everyone kept an eye or two, three if they could, on everyone else and my move would not go unnoticed.

I recognized one of the djinn and the shadow elf. They made no attempt to hide their faces, marked with maps of scars that I could nearly name. They worked for Dane Stein, a lich king from somewhere up north, and they were here for Brian Keene, the owner of The Cabal.

As dives go, it was a fine place. The peace was kept by a team of toughs who names outweighed their recognizablility. Big Joe, crouching across the room under the exposed wood rafters gave the Dane’s men a slow, assessing look. His cauliflower ear looked like it might sprout something soon and his skin was a nobbily green that could have been just it’s tone, or caused by the soft growth of moss.

Coop, I didn’t see. Dickie, the notoriously irate dwarf, was missing as well. Probably at home, guarding Keene’s family from the fall out. Behind the bar two woman commanded an audience with their charisma and culinary deliciousness. They were part of the Keene toughs as well, though customers were quick to forget that. I wondered if Dane’s men would remember, or if the women flying over the counter and burying stilettos in their colorful faces would be the end of them.

The trio split, the elf and the djinn in the knotted armor taking places along the bar among the crowd trying to catch a word or two with the females of the Keene entourage. The other djinn headed back to the water rooms. My perceptions hyper focused. I wished again that I had some sort of means to detect magic.

The others did though. Their partner was only out of sight for a few moments when the shadow elf casually pulled a small black vial from his pocket and flung into onto the floor. The tinkle of glass as it shattered barely carried through the loud, smokey room. But the primary effect of the fluid within was much more noticeable. Almost instantly a darkness overtook everything.

There were a couple different kinds of people that frequented The Cabal. Some were just friends, patrons, familiar faces. But a number were hanging close, waiting for a chance to take out one of the Cabal’s inner circle in the hopes of taking their place. Rumor said that being part of the operating of The Cabal was a lucrative, privileged position. Whether it was true or not, people believed and that’s what counted.

The magical darkness presented an opportunity for those types and I was sure that Dane’s men had counted on that. I hit the floor immediately after the darkness fell and crawled under my table before trying to navigate the explosive dark.

Would they try to take out Big Joe first? Or use the darkness to avoid him? The shadow elf could see through it, I was sure of that. But the joke was on them if they tried to take out the half ogre, because Big Joe could see through the dark, too.

I suffered three hard kicks and someone tripped over me while I made my way to the back of the room. Briefly something flared up, then the darkness, and the metal smell of an organic fluid, swallowed the light.

I followed the wall out of the range of the dark spell before standing. Another few feet back I found the door to Keene’s office. I reached for the handle and felt—and smelled—the unmistakable mass displacement of air as a magic horde of undead suddenly appearing in the area. The lich was putting all his cards on the table again Keene. For the first time, I wondered what Keene had done to piss Dane off.

The door opened with ease and Keene, a man giving in to middle age, but not bad looking if half the stories attached to his name were true, met my eyes. I opened my mouth then went for my blade instead as the second djinn materialized in a small tornado of wind and dust behind Keene. Keene’s eyes widened as my blade slid over his shoulder and into the cerulean flesh of the djinn. I twisted and a magical pulse erupted from the sword, dis-incorporating the beast. Somewhere out there a djinn was reappearing in its reliquary, exceedingly pissed off.

Re-sheathing my blade, I gave Keene a little bow. “I am here to help.”

He looked skeptical. I didn’t blame him.

“There is another djinn and a shadow elf engaging Big Joe outside. Beyond that are zombies, but I cannot say how many.”

“Let me guess, a horde?”

“Sounds about right.” Keene slammed his laptop closed and went for the drawer where he kept his gun. A combination of the traditional and the modern, I thought taking a brief moment to study the office which was far less hokey than the rest of The Cabal. The kitchen and the water closets too, were much more modern than the front. Living in a world that merged modern technology and magic had its benefits and Keene seemed able to take advantage of many of them.

I hazarded a guess. “Do you have a panic room?”

“Yes, but you’re daft if you think I’m going to miss a fight like this.”

“You aren’t a young man anymore, Keene. You have a wife and a young son that are depending on you. Your job is no longer to go in guns blazing. You have to be the plucky survivor.”

He weighed my words. Then he took his gun to the fake wall on the far side of the room and opened the door to the panic room. “I fucking hate this.”

“I know,” I said with true sympathy. Then the door closed between us.

With Keene safely tucked away I went back into the main room. Moments later there was an audible pop. Someone mutter a counter charm and the darkness dropped, revealing a mess.

A short, squarish knight stood in the center of the room in armor that gleamed, even under the partially clotted fluids of the undead he’d already diced into manageable bits. That would be Mamatas, the most feared and ill-tempered paladin on both coasts. With another word a ring of force swept around him sweeping the undead, and the undead parts, away. In the corner Big Joe was bleeding badly—I couldn’t tell if it was from his eye, or above it since the socket was swollen and green-purple. But he had the sword arm of the shadow elf in his hand—the elf’s hand still gripped around his blade in rigor—and spun it at the remaining djinn who was flitting between wind form and flesh form.

I joined the fray, severing limbs, heads, and ligaments of the undead with a fervor I hadn’t felt in a while. Letting loose—I see why Keene’s toughs enjoyed their jobs, for the unpredictability that forced them to keep improving, keep advancing in their craft. Even if their craft involved tearing off elf arms and beating people with them.

With Mamatas in residence the undead were soon defeated. By that point, I’d carved myself a path out through dead flesh and living and vanished out the door.

As much as the past few months had given me an appreciation for The Cabal, Mamatas would heal Big Joe soon, and after they’d go to the office and find Keene dead in his panic room. Flashy battles and muscle-bound maniacs had their uses, but in the end it had been easier, and more certain, to just arrange a carbon monoxide leak in the sealed panic room. I still didn’t know what Keene had done to piss so many people off. But I wasn’t paid to ask questions, I’d been paid to help.