The Haunted Earth Read online

  "Demon," Brutus finished.

  "Thank you," the angel said. "I've nothing against Mr. Kanastorous, or his kind, you understand. It's just that I find it hard to say that word and others like it." He opened the inner doors and took them into the main club room.

  Because it was still light outside, some of the club's more exotic denizens, like Mabel, and vampires, and other beasts, had yet to leave their coffins for dinner. Though the club was half-filled, with maseni and humans and supernaturals, the spirits here now were rather plain. They passed a table of four big black men who were all wearing overalls and eating huge slices of watermelon. They laughed raucously and used phrases like "scrumptious good" and "lordy mama" and "dis a fancy sweet melon, all right." Jessie could see that all four of them hated the goddamned watermelon, but were compelled to gobble it up. They'd have to finish a slice apiece, spitting seeds across the room, before they could order what they really wanted. That was, after all, what the white-man-made myth said the "nigger" was supposed to do. At another table, a group of mythical Italians were suffering a similar problem. Three men (all dressed in baggy suits, vests, badly-knotted ties) and three women (in baggy, flowered dresses, slips showing, hair in greasy disarray, all wearing rosaries around their necks) were working on small plates of spaghetti, sauce running down their chins, laughing uproariously, speaking in heavily accented English, using phrases like "atsa good spaghet" and "you licka da sauce, or isa too tomatoey?" and "mama mia" and "atsa way to eat, Vito, bambino!"

  In some ways, Jessie thought, if you had to be a supernatural being, it was better to be a ghost, a hell hound, a demon, a vampire, a werewolf, a ghoul — almost anything other than a mythical Wop or Nigger. Those poor sons of bitches had it rough.

  "Ah, my friend the shamus!" Zeke Kanastorous cried, when the angel brought Jessie to the table at last.

  "Hello, Zeke."

  "Sit down, sit down. We'll order drinks and dinner, from the intercom, and then we can chat."

  They were served their drinks by a lumbering zombie whose eyes were pure white, containing no pupils or irises. In a sepulchre voice, the creature said, "Your dinner will be served in fifteen minutes." Then it stomped away, lurching down the crooked aisles between the tables.

  "They must be hard up for help," the demon said, clicking his long green tongue with distaste.

  "Yeah," Jessie said. "Now what about Gayla?"

  "And it better be good," Brutus added.

  Nervously, Kanastorous explained. "She was with this Aimes character for several hours, and when he was in the right mood, she tried bringing him around to this maseni you're interested in, this Tesserax fellow. His reaction was immediate and antagonistic. He revealed that he had been given special emergency powers for the detention of human and supernatural civilians, and he ordered her to remain on his bed, not to dematerialize and go elsewhere. Then he got on the nether-world communications network, and he called someone."

  "Who?"

  "We can't say for sure. But it was someone high up in Satanic rule, someone who could give orders to a demon like myself or a succubus like Gayla. In a minute, Moloch materialized in Aimes' bedroom, in answer to the call."

  "Moloch? Satan's secretary of state?" Brutus asked.

  "The same," Kanastorous said. "He ordered Gayla to break her contract with me, and with other clients, and to report for special work as Satan's envoy in Japan."

  "They've gotten her out of the scene, then, even though she didn't learn anything," Brutus said.

  "Maybe they're afraid she did know something, from her association with Aimes, something he didn't even realize he'd told her," the demon said.

  "Whatever their reasons for silencing Gayla," Jessie said, "they've proven there's something big brewing around Tesserax's disappearance."

  "Maybe too big for you to handle," the demon said.

  "Maybe," Blake said.

  "What will your next step be?"

  "I'll have to think about it," the detective said.

  "You won't expect my fee back, will you, old gumshoe buddy?" the demon asked anxiously, leaning toward Blake, his martini glass cautiously clasped in both hands.

  "You can keep it," Jessie said. "I may not have learned what I had hoped to learn from Gayla — but the incident has taught me other things."

  Their dinner arrived, along with a bottle of wine which Kanastorous was paying for, and they spoke no more of Tesserax or Gayla or the strange situation that Hell Hound Investigations had become involved with. Instead, they drank a second bottle of wine, which Jessie paid for, and they chatted about mutual acquaintances.

  By the time they'd finished dessert, Jessie said, "I'm afraid I must be excused for a moment. I suffer from a condition of the bladder which you people don't have to contend with."

  "By all means, go ahead," Kanastorous said, letting go of his glass with one hand to wave airly toward the men's room door. His other hand slipped on the wet glass, and he dropped his wine into Brutus' lap.

  "You clumsy little creep," Brutus growled.

  "Now, now," Jessie said. "It'll be all gone by the time I get back. Zeke can't help that he's got only four fingers a hand."

  "You don't even have fingers," Zeke told Brutus, petulantly.

  As Jessie walked away from the table, the zombie was lumbering toward the scene of the accident, a dish towel draped over one arm.

  "Don't be nasty with him," Jessie told the white-eyed monster. "He can't help it if he's not got any thumbs."

  "He could drink out of a dish, like that friend of yours," the zombie said. "I'm not paid to be a nursemaid."

  "He's a good tipper, though," Jessie said.

  The zombie's expression remained grim, his voice deep and monotonous, but he said, "Well, I guess anyone can have an accident now and then." He went on, heavy-footed, for the table where Brutus was barking at the demon.

  As Jessie entered the men's room, two of the mythical Italians were coming out. "Atsa nice-a toilet," the one Italian said.

  The other said, "Clean. Clean as a baby's bottom, that place."

  "Excuse me," Jessie said, sliding by them.

  "Sure-a, sure-a," the one Italian said. He had sauce all over the front of his shirt and a strand of spaghetti on his lapel. Poor son-of-a-bitch.

  In the men's room, Jessie found the place was as clean as the Italians had said it was, all white porcelain and plastic and polished glass, six stalls off to one side, eight urinals out in the open, half a dozen sinks. He walked to one of the urinals and was about to use it when one of the stall doors opened behind him and someone said, "Blake?"

  "Yes?" he asked, turning.

  Medusa stood there, in a toga, her eyes boring into his, her hair not hair at all but a furious tangle of writhing snakes.

  "Uh—" Jessie said.

  "Not to worry," she said, moving toward him. "It's only temporary, darling, until we can get you out of the picture."

  As he turned to stone under the Medusa's awful gaze, Jessie could think only two things: First, if he had not heard the legend of Medusa, didn't know the myth well, she would not have affected him this way — for she only had the power to petrify those who were conversant with her story; second, he wondered what a woman was doing here in the men's room.

  Chapter Seven

  In the office of Hell Hound Investigations, Helena and Brutus stood in the middle of Blake's private room and watched the company robot move the furniture against the walls. Soundlessly, it hoisted the desk, chairs, the day bed, and shoved them out of the way, then came back to stand dutifully in front of the hound, waiting for further instructions.

  "Do you think this will work?" Helena asked.

  "It'll work," Brutus told her. To the robot, he said, "That's all for now. Please retire to the waiting room — far enough away so your audio receivers can't hear us."

  The robot clanked out of the room, closing the door behind it.

  "You don't trust him?" Helena asked.

  Brutus said, "Anything a
robot hears is stored in its microdot memories. It can be subpoenaed in court, and that might be disasterous."

  "Is what we're doing illegal?" Helena asked.

  "It may be, depending on how it develops," Brutus said. He looked up at her and said, "You want to leave, too?"

  "Oh, no!" she said. "I'd do anything to help get Blakesy back."

  The hound tilted its head. "Blakesy?"

  Helena smiled. "I sometimes call him that, in private, when it's just the two of us."

  "Christ," Brutus said.

  "I didn't know you could use words like that."

  "They don't bother me," the hound said.

  She clapped her hands together as if she were making a starting signal, and she said, "Where do we begin?"

  "I had the robot put all the stuff out for you," Brutus said, crossing the room to a black, enameled tray filled with instruments. "First, I want you to fit a piece of chalk to that string compass and draw a big circle in the middle of the floor."

  "How big?" Helena asked, picking up the tool and the chalk, biting her full lips prettily as she tried to slip the white stick into the proper clamp.

  "A three foot radius ought to do it," the hound said.

  She got on her hands and knees, her skirt riding up behind, and she crawled around the room, outlining the circle. "There!" she said, when she was done, beaming as if she'd created a work of art.

  "Now, draw a smaller circle," Brutus said. "A foot and a half diameter, due north of the circle you just finished."

  "I don't see how this will get Jessie back," she said.

  "You'll see," Brutus said.

  She drew the second circle.

  "You know what a pentagram is?" the hound asked.

  "Sure."

  "Draw a pentagram inside each circle, with the points touching the circle walls."

  She needed a couple of minutes to do this, but when she was done, the pentagrams were tucked neatly inside the circles, never overlapping at any point, a detail Brutus had made sure of.

  "Now," he told her, "light the seven black candles and the seven white."

  She did this, while he directed the placement of each taper. Then she placed the leather-bound Bible in the center of the largest circle and went to turn out the lights, like he said.

  "What now?" she asked, as the glittering, orange candlelight cast eerie shadows about the room.

  Brutus' eyes shone a brighter red than ever, magnified both by the darkness and the flickering flames. "Come here and stand beside me in the largest circle, and don't step outside of it again until I tell you to."

  When she was beside him, she said, "What in the hell are we doing, Brute?" He didn't like her nickname for him any more than he liked "Blakesy" for Blake, but he didn't say anything. If she got mad and walked out on him, he'd have to rely on the robot for anything that needed hands, and he trusted Helena to keep her mouth shut, in court, more than he did that mechanical dodo.

  "We're calling forth a demon," he said.

  "With magic?"

  "That's right?"

  "Chants and spells?"

  "That's the sum of it, baby."

  She frowned. "Why don't we just use the nether-world telephone?"

  "Because that's legal," Brutus said. "And it doesn't give you any control over the demon; it only lets you talk to him."

  "Who are we calling forth?" she asked.

  "Zeke Kanastorous."

  "That horrible little creep?"

  "He's the one. He may know where they've taken Jessie."

  "And you want to have control over him, so you can force him to tell you. Is that it?" she asked.

  "Helena, you're a genius."

  She stooped and ruffled his furry head, pressed his cold nose between her hefty breasts. "I like you, too, Brute. Okay, then, let's get on with it." She pulled away from him and sat down, cross-legged, like an Indian. "I'm going to enjoy watching that little creep suffer."

  "So am I," Brutus said.

  For a time, they were both silent, letting the night settle down, the air grow still, the ethereal vibrations quieten.

  The walls of the room appeared to draw closer as they meditated, and the darkness between the fourteen points of sputtering candle flame grew even more intense.

  "Remain perfectly still," Brutus said.

  Helena didn't even nod in response.

  Lowering his head, closing his fiery eyes, the hell hound began to chant in a low, monotonous voice, reciting the names of the places where human souls were said, sometimes, to rest in preparation for Judgment Day: Hell, Hades, The Pit, Satan's Antechamber, Limbo, Purgatory, The Black Grotto, and a hundred others. Next, he went through the names of the hundred most powerful demons in the Satanic hierarchy, from that list to a rigidly worded chant which he said in Latin.

  Helena thought that the room was growing perceptively cooler, and she hugged herself for warmth, unconsciously shifting a bit closer to the hell hound.

  "Kanastorous! Ezekial Kanastorous, answer me!" The hell hound's voice was a great, thundering command as he finished the chant and raised his head like a howling wolf.

  In that same instant, before the echo of his cry had died away, the air inside the smaller circle, due north of them, seemed to shiver, to take on a vague phosphorescence.

  "It's working!" Helena cried, slapping the hell hound on the back.

  "Of course it is," Brutus said.

  Then Kanastorous was there: four feet tall, scaly, somewhat green, flicking his chartreuse tongue and looking anxiously about, bewildered. He caught sight of Brutus and Helena beyond the candle flames that separated them, and he said, "What is going on here?"

  "Just a little black magic," Brutus said.

  Kanastorous looked confused, then angry. He started forward but came to an abrupt halt, as if he had run into an Invisible brick wall, when he tried to step beyond the chalk barrier that Helena had drawn. He looked down at his feet and said, "A pentagram?"

  "Precisely," Brutus said.

  "But this is illegal!"

  "Illegal, perhaps, but effective," Brutus said.

  "I'll see that you're given eternal rest for this!" the demon said, his face turning a darker green.

  "You're in no position to threaten," Brutus said. "Your only choice is to be silent and answer only when spoken to."

  "Forget that, dogface," the demon said. "I have my rights, and I know what I can—"

  The hell hound padded softly to the edge of the largest circle in which he and Helena were protected, and he blew out one of the seven black candles, leaving six black and seven white, disturbing the delicate balance between the spheres of magical influence.

  Kanastorous jerked as if he had been struck by a whip, tottered back until his spurred heels came up against the chalk circle, then leaned forward, swaying dizzily.

  "Is he in pain?" Helena asked.

  "Some," Brutus admitted.

  "Good," the woman said. "If he hurt Blakesy in any way, he deserves every bit of it."

  "I'm an innocent pawn in all of this," Zeke Kanastorous moaned, staring across the remaining candles at the hound.

  "Ah, you've recovered sufficiently to talk," Brutus said.

  "You can't take your anger out on me. What could I do?" the demon asked. "How could I stop them?"

  "Stop who?" Brutus asked. "Who has kidnapped Jessie Blake?"

  "He hasn't been kidnapped," Kanastorous said. He was holding his round, green stomach as if it hurt.

  "You mean he's been killed and disposed of?" Helena asked, tense, her neck stiff, her jaw tight and fierce.

  "No, no!" Kanastorous said. "He's just been — well, put on ice."

  "Why?"

  "To keep him out of the Tesserax affair."

  "What is the Tesserax affair?" Brutus asked.

  "Oh, how should I know?" Kanastorous cried, still clutching his round gut with both hands, doubled over, blinking stupidly. "Would you please light that candle again?"

  "I'm out of matches," Brutus
said.

  "That's a lie."

  Brutus did not reply.

  "I'll have your supernatural neck for this!" the demon roared, his tongue flickering in and out, in and out like a snake that lived in his mouth.

  "I doubt that. Now, let's get back to the matter at hand. You were trying to convince us that you know nothing whatsoever about this Tesserax business."

  "But I really don't!" the demon wailed. "That's the truth, my old canine buddyboy, the bitter truth. I was approached by Mr. Willard Aimes and Mr. Holagosta Mur, the chief of the maseni embassy in Los Angeles; they solicited my aid in waylaying Mr. Blake."

  "They didn't tell you why they wanted this done?"

  "No, they didn't. I assumed that it had to do with the Tesserax affair, considering what they had already done to Gayla."

  "She really was transferred to Japan?"

  "Yes."

  Brutus thought for a moment, then said, "Okay, I'll believe you, so far as the Tesserax business is concerned. I doubt they did tell you anything. But you must know what they've done to Jessie, since you helped to engineer it."

  "My job was to get him into the bathroom," the demon said. "I arranged that by buying the first bottle of wine at dinner and by being sure that, beforehand, it was doctored with a bladder exciter."

  "Who was waiting for him in the men's room?" Brutus asked.

  Kanastorous hesitated, then said, "I don't know, Brutus. They didn't tell me about that; they only wanted me to be sure he went in there."

  "You're lying."

  "I swear I'm not!"

  "A demon's word…"

  "My part was to serve the doctored wine, which would not affect me or you, but which would send Jessie to the urinal."

  The hound walked across the large circle again and blew out a second candle, watched as the demon jerked back and forth, clutched his head and chest and stomach…

  "I'm glad you did that," Helena said. "I was about to take the initiative myself."

  Kanastorous went to his knees inside the smaller circle and, in a few minutes, had recovered sufficiently to speak, though he could not regain his feet. "This is despicable," he hissed. "This is the most barbaric thing I can imagine."

  "Come, come, Zeke," Brutus said. "We worked together in Hell for fifty years, remember? I've seen you perform more barbaric acts a thousand times — and usually on defenseless virgins."