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

  “Thanks, Grover.” I took the cap and paid the boy his gum. “If you see Luella,” I called after him, “tell her we need to talk.”

  Ruth snagged the last stick of Wrigley’s as the boy scampered home.

  “I saw that van.” She unwrapped the gum and popped it in her mouth. “It was driving away when I came out. I might be able to hunt your cousin.”

  “Find him, you mean?” I bit my lip. “Can you do that without running around as a cheetah?”

  “Sure.” The genie changed to hellfire mist. A moment later she took the shape of an innocent-looking spotted tabby.

  “Okay,” I said. “The Umbridges own a funeral parlor with an icehouse about a mile from here. Start there. Then check their private home and the Hollywood Grand. Don’t hurt anyone. Find Bernie and bring him back if you can. And don’t dawdle! You two have got to work on your Charleston.”

  The cat lifted a forepaw in salute and trotted away.

  “No chasing chickens! Or anything!” I called. “Make sure you’re back by four o’clock.” The quarter-finals judging started at six. “No matter what!”

  I wasn’t worried about my cousin. The Woodsens and Umbridges had what might be called a supernatural detente. Her family had money, political power, and social position, but only weak ghost magic on their side. We were broke and obscure…but could summon demons. Luella and I both knew we’d be skinned alive if we ever upset that balance.

  Which reminded me, I really needed to go check on George Junior.

  At that moment, I caught the smell of Jacques and turned to find Luella’s brother looming in the door. His skin was gray. His finely tailored suit looked awful. The round wire glasses were bent and twisted on one side.

  “Khlara.” His mouth worked side to side, frothing slightly around the stench of undigested ginger spirits.

  “Poor George.” I doubted the man had ever touched a drop before. It had been monstrous of Luella to get him so drunk. “Let’s take you somewhere to sleep it off.” I used my handkerchief to wipe his mouth and then lifted his arm and helped him through the door. Inside, just past the mudroom, an alcove opened on a narrow staircase to the second floor.

  “Khlara.” George bumped against me as we struggled up the steps. I panted. He was a serious, slender young man, but no feather. The liquor gave him a smell like rotting flesh.

  “Easy.” I halted on the landing to catch my breath. “We’re halfway there.” Where was Beau Beauregard? I could have used his help. Hadn’t I told him to look after—

  George Junior wrapped me in his arms.

  “Georgie!” I squeaked.

  He pulled me against his chest. His face was blank, his body rigid and unyielding.

  “Now George.” I pushed my hands against his shoulders. He was astonishingly strong. “We’ve never been that sort of pals!”

  “Khlara.” George crushed me. Something flickered in his eyes. Something hungry.

  He squeezed tighter. I gasped.

  “George Junior!” I slapped him clumsily. “You let me go right now!”

  The man ignored me. “Khlara.” His jaw moved up and down convulsively. White froth began to spill over his tongue.

  He bent lower as if to kiss.

  “Please, George!” I flushed hot with embarrassment. “Please, don’t—”

  Drunk, fetid breath caressed my cheek. I rammed my knee into the fork between his legs.

  He didn’t even notice.

  “Geo….” My voice faded as I ran out of air.

  I should have screamed.

  The building was full of people who would have run to help.

  Stupid! I should have screamed while I still had the breath.

  George squeezed tighter. I heard my own ribs creak.

  “Khlara.” His mouth came down onto my neck. “Khlara.”

  My head was floating. My chest hurt terribly. And it was all my fault. Mine and Luella’s. I’d been stupid, and she’d gotten George drunk. The poor man wouldn’t hurt a fly in his right mind. Now he was going to murder me…or worse.

  I still had hellfire, magic, in my pocket. But I was too weak, too dizzy to reach for it. The world rippled. The air around me stank of loss.

  At the last moment, Beau Beauregard skipped up the stairs.

  “Not so easy issuing orders now, is it?” Beau asked. “My Voodoo Queen.”

  He trapped me. He must have brought George to the door.

  But I loved Beau. How could he do this when I loved him with all my heart?

  I’ve been beaten before. Whipped till I couldn’t stand. Locked in dark cupboards. Made to scrub floors until the soapy water ran with blood.

  Beau’s bitter triumph hurt worse than any punishment I’d ever known.

  Worse than George Junior’s teeth sinking into my shoulder.

  Worse than death.

  IX: My Buddy

  Ghost (n): A human being that has out-died its usefulness.

  —The Boy’s Book of Boggarts

  Bernard:

  “BERNIE, WAKE UP.”

  I’ve taken a lot of knocks over the years. Childish knocks, for the most part, but since I was a child at the time, they felt like large knocks to me. My family history, combined with Clara’s unfailing nose for trouble, has lent my life an almost constant edge of underlying terror.

  “Leave him.” Stoneface Gibraltar spoke out of darkness.

  “I can’t,” Luella Umbridge answered. “He’s hurt.”

  Well, college chums might query, if you’re unhappy, if you don’t like trouble, why not saunter away? A young man like you of semi-independent means. Why trail along after young C. like a red-haired French poodle?

  Short answer: “We Woodsens stick together.” Even the older cousins, who may someday chop off my head, can be relied upon to rally ’round should someone else attempt to do the chopping.

  Long answer? “Poodles can be deceiving.” Despite the efforts of four half-sisters well-skilled in methods of oppression, my cousin Clara has managed never to be oppressed. And, through courage by association, she’s saved yours truly from being oppressed as well. Life lived in Clara’s orbit is alarming, but it’s never dull.

  “He’s a hostage,” Stoneface grumbled. “A scrawny stuffed potato. Not the goddam King of Siam.”

  Scrawny? I groaned in protest. Slender, granted. Of medium height, perhaps. But I was reasonably well-muscled for my size.

  “He’s a Woodsen,” Luella said. “You’ve no idea what that means in this town.”

  “He was a Woodsen. He’s our meat now,” Stoneface replied. “I’ll give you five minutes.”

  A door banged loudly. Fireworks exploded inside my head. My brains began to liquefy and leak from my ears.

  “Avatu Gaspar,” Luella whispered.

  Incense slithered inside my skull and joined the mush. I drifted on a sea of fragrant poppies which, one by one, died, reincarnated, and gave their strength to me. The fireworks began to settle down.

  “Bernie.” An angel, smelling of Narcisse Noir, leaned close and kissed my brow. “Wake up.”

  Mmm. “Do that again.”

  The angel patted my shoulder. “No such luck.”

  I’ve been nursed to health by experts in my day. Priscilla’s potions, though bitter, are highly restorative, and no one quite applies a poultice like a family retainer who’s been stitching wounds since King Ethelred forgot to pack his BVDs. But neither Gladys nor Priscilla had anything to teach Luella Umbridge about medicine. I blinked awake, expecting aches, bruises, and possibly a fractured brain, to find myself reclining on thick fur, feeling extremely well.

  “There, see?” Luella’s graceful features floated above me. “All better.” The tiny wooden ankh she’d worn since childhood sparkled faintly green around her neck.

  Behind her, unfinished pine beams stretched up in dappled light. Dust motes sparkled among blocks of ice stacked between layers of straw. The smell of embalming fluid and Jamaican ginger meant we were in the icehouse behind the U
mbridge Funeral Emporium, Luella’s family business. The even stronger smell of raccoon meant I was lying on her brother’s coat. I raised my arm and checked the military-issue Waltham wristwatch I’d inherited from my father. One fifteen. I’d been unconscious for over half an hour.

  Luella poured a measure of home-brewed jake spirits, used it to finger-paint a symbol on my forehead, and held the rest to my mouth. “Drink this.”

  I swallowed but tasted nothing, as if some being other than myself had done the drinking.

  “Namaste, Gaspar,” Luella murmured.

  The air around me blurred. Grayish-green mist, ghost magic, rose from my prickling skin. Luella pulled an obsidian cliquet pin from her hat, pricked one finger, and touched it to the mist. A drop of blood blended with ectoplasm and started forming a human shape.

  “Thank you, Gaspar,” Luella said.

  I rubbed my neck—all previous injuries appeared to have healed—and watched Luella’s spirit guide take form. There and not there, real and unreal, I’d been hearing about Gaspar since we were kids but, before becoming an unwilling witch, had never seen him. Now I could hardly believe my eyes.

  The ghost was grayish green, dressed in a black mask, dark fencing shirt, red sash, and flat, Zorro-style Andalusian hat. He wore a glittering épée with just the faintest sparkle of hellfire at his side which—as I goggled—he drew, bowed over, and sheathed with a swashbuckling flourish.

  “That’s Gaspar?” Too late, I realized I should have pretended not to see.

  “So it’s true,” Luella said dangerously. “You and Clara are warlocks.”

  “What?” I sat up sharply on the wooden bench. “Me?”

  Luella picked up the raccoon coat and wrapped it around her yellow and orange frock. The place was freezing. Freezing and cramped, I realized. The Umbridge icehouse had never been palatial, its single largish room crowded with stacks of ice and people headed for the ground. Now crates of what I took for Priscilla’s burgled booze had been piled, floor to ceiling, adding to the crush.

  “I’m not a warlock!” I protested.

  “Don’t act stupid, Bernie,” Luella warned. “You aren’t nearly bright enough to pull it off.”

  I thought I was. Nearly. “I’m not!” I shivered in my linen suit. “Clara….” How to put this? “We had a sort of magical incident.”

  “That’s not what Gaspar says.” Luella re-pinned the cliquet on her hat. She looked charming. Perfect as always, skin bronze against the summer colors of her frock, wrists clad in colored bangles, a dangling rope of onyx beads around her neck.

  Clara had provided the lion’s share of courage when we’d run wild as kids. Bernie brought financial means and muscle, in modest measure. Ned Aimsley, son of Aimsley’s Dry Goods, had been our moral chief. But ah, Luella. Swan-like Luella had brought more beauty, intelligence, and dash than all the rest of us combined.

  Sadly, she’d been too smart to stay in love with me.

  “Gaspar tells me” —Luella scowled— “your coven stinks of blood.”

  “Yes…well….”

  “He says your janitor is dead.”

  “Yes…well….” I frowned. How would he know?

  “He says you summoned a demon straight out of Hell.”

  “Not Hell, actually.” I could answer that one. “Only across the street. It’s an amusing story—”

  “Gaspar tells me,” Luella accused, “you’ve made Beau Beauregard into your zombie slave.”

  I bit my lip. “We didn’t exactly make him.”

  “How could you, Bernie?” Luella’s brow lowered. “How could you enslave a living soul?”

  “We didn’t!” I protested. “It was an accident! And anyway, Beau Beauregard isn’t alive!”

  “Monster!” Luella slapped me. “What have you done with George?”

  “Ow! Who?” I shrank back. “Your brother, George? Nothing.”

  “Liar!” She swung again, but I’m not completely helpless. As Falstaff University’s reigning (second-place) featherweight champion, I’ve beaten men half my size in the ring.

  I caught Luella’s wrist, making the bangles clank. Her dark eyes blazed. I caught the other wrist, as it whipped up, and pulled her close. Narcisse Noir perfume caressed my lungs.

  “I don’t know,” I said firmly, “what happened to your brother.”

  Rosebud lips called me above her pouty chin.

  To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure what I should do from there. If this had been a film, I’d have become six inches taller on the spot. We’d share a kiss, the last three years of cruel neglect would fall away, and she’d be mine the way I’d once imagined. Flowers, engraved white invitations, and church bells would ensue, followed by troupes of golden daughters for Gladys to boss around.

  This, sadly, was not a film.

  Also, Luella’s ghost had placed his épée against my throat.

  “In case you’re wondering whether this blade will kill you, young man,” the ghost said quietly. “The answer is no.”

  He pricked my skin. A trickle of lethargy flowed from the point.

  “But it can slice your soul to ribbons. I promise you, that’s not a pleasant thing.”

  I let Luella go.

  She stood, a sparking goddess in her raccoon coat.

  “I sent George into the coven basement,” she snapped. “Will you swear you don’t know what happened?”

  “Upon a stack of Ouija boards. I swear.”

  “Can you swear Clara doesn’t know?”

  I closed my mouth. What young C. doesn’t know could fill encyclopedias. But this? My suit jacket, I saw, was covered in chicken feathers. One-by-one, I started plucking them off.

  “That’s what I thought,” Luella said coldly. “That’s why you’re here. I’m going to keep you until Clara releases George.”

  “Did you ask her?” I queried, reasonably enough.

  Luella shook her head. “Not yet. We’ve been too busy.”

  The door slammed open framing Stoneface Gibraltar. He ducked his head under the sill. “All right, doll. The pipsqueak’s conscious. Let’s stack these last boxes and then we’ll go.”

  A spotted tabby cat strolled in and jumped onto a wooden crate.

  “I’m sorry, Bernie.” Luella crossed her arms. “But something bad is happening in this town.”

  “You mean apart from stealing booze?”

  She shrugged. “You know I’ll work that out with Clara. No. People are acting crazy, fighting, staggering and foaming at the mouth. The man who came up from your basement bit three workmen before we tied him down, and now they’re acting strange as well.”

  I thought of my brief tussle in the van. Luella’s magic had healed my bitten hand. “Then let me out of here,” I said. “I’ll help.”

  “You and your demon? The one who’s staying in our hotel? No thanks.”

  “Hans isn’t—”

  Stoneface reached for Luella. “I said, doll-face….”

  I watched, aghast, as he kissed her.

  “…It’s time to go.”

  “Harry!” Luella shot me a blushing glance. “Harry, not here.”

  “Why not? The runt don’t mind.” He grinned. “Or if he does, we better show him who’s your Daddy.”

  “We’re partners.” Luella slipped away. “I’m doing this to help my father launch the Hollywood Grand.”

  “Is that a fact.” He took her shoulders into his hands, grasping Luella, pulling her close. Kissing her neck, her cheek, her soft and willing mouth.

  I looked away. My heart felt like a lump of ash.

  Luella sighed.

  I scowled at Gaspar, whom Stoneface Gibraltar obviously couldn’t see. “Why don’t you slice his soul?”

  “We think alike.” The ghost sat on the bench beside me. “The problem is, she seems to favor him.”

  “Harry!” Luella broke free laughing. “You’re such a brute!”

  The mobster traced a spit-curl on her cheek. “Don’t sweat. I’m only doin’ thi
s to help your dad.” He shoved Luella against a stack of crates and lent further assistance to Dr. Umbridge.

  There are times, Emily Post tells us, when a young man has overstayed his welcome. I stood and started edging toward the door.

  “Good luck.” Gaspar stretched out along my bench which, I now realized, was made of two stacked coffins. “Mind the cat.”

  He placed the Andalusian hat across his eyes.

  I tiptoed forward. The tabby cat hopped down and rubbed itself along my slacks.

  “Hey, boss.” Two thugs appeared, carrying a crate of booze apiece. “These are the last of—”

  They stopped, looked at me, and scowled.

  I dove between them as the crates thumped to the ground. Outside, afternoon sun glinted off the idling Ford van. No one was in it. I ran three steps, tripped on the tabby cat, and came down hard.

  One of the thugs caught up and dragged me to my feet. “Upsy-daisy.”

  “Ooph.” I’d have stayed more upsy without his fist in my gut. But on the other hand, the low punch left him open. I threw a hook that caught him on his jaw.

  A glass jaw, evidently. He went down like a sack of bricks.

  I turned, sprinting, and tripped over the cat again.

  Thug Two pulled out a wicked-looking knife.

  Gaspar stood just inside the doorway, laughing.

  “How about cutting his soul?” I asked the ghost.

  “Too bright, old man. I can’t come out.” He swung his épée at the sun. “Besides, I’m not entirely sure whose team I’m on.”

  I backed slowly, watching the thug’s blade, wishing I’d shown more promise when, as a child, Gladys had trained me to repel Vikings. All I remembered now was lesson one: if someone comes at you with a sharp, pointy object, be somewhere else.

  The man charged. I stepped aside, scooped up a handful of dirt, and threw it in his eyes. He snarled and charged again, shaking his head.

  I dodged, aiming a kick, intending to break his knee, but only hit the shin. Three knife slashes ruined my coat and linen vest as I hopped backward. Too close! But I was lighter, faster, and he was over thirty, already short of breath.

  A large tree stump stood in the yard. I rolled across it and then skipped back and forth around a circle, slinging dirt, tiring the thug—hopefully faster than I tired myself. The sun beat hot on my uncovered head. I whipped off my jacket and held it by the collar like a defensive flail.