“Re-Sprite” Part 4
Jerry had been driving like a responsible adult, aware that his little passengers had no seatbelts and he was in a vehicle that looked like a matte black laundry truck, but was filled with communications and tactical gear, including weapons. He didn’t want to get pulled over. That made G-Raff unhappy.
“Jerry, my man, can you step on it? We got to ta’ get ta’ my burrow. My ladies aren’t safe!”
G-Raff heard one of the girls speak, loosely translating what he had said. Gasps came from behind him where the gnome girls sat on the ground. They were staring up at him with worried looks.
“We’ll get there in time to save them, ladies. Just keep wiping that Gremlin paint off, okay?” G-Raff said. “There are more alcohol wipes in that medical box on the wall.”
“We need to go faster?” Hedda asked.
“Yes, but this guy drives like an old man.”
“We fix,” Hedda replied, whispering something to two of the others and they popped away.
The van started accelerating.
“What the heck?” Jerry said, lifting his foot off the accelerator. The van went faster.
“I think our back-seaters are the drivin’ type. Pedal to the metal. Might want to pay attention, because I think they’s capable of making this thing redline.”
Jerry hunched his shoulders and focused on the road. “What if the police start chasing us?”
“Whoa. Yeah, we don’t need that problem. Let me make a call,” G-Raff replied as he reached into Fuzzy Monkey and pulled out his phone. He got Dr. Forrester on the first ring. He told her what he needed. His second call was not so fruitful.
“The burrow phone is going to voicemail and the compound phone just gives me a busy signal. Some shit is up.”
Twenty minutes later, van blasting down the highway in excess of 130 mph, Jerry was looking more at ease. The van shook and rocked with each adjustment of the steering wheel. Jerry was still sweating but seemed more determined than ever to get to their destination. Two of the former gremlin slaves where helping G-Raff stitch and wrap his leg wound.
“I have the map punched into in the phone,” G-Raff croaked out, sliding his phone into a groove on the dashboard. “The Compound address doesn’t really show up, so I used Butcher’s Magic Gas Food Mart as the destination. It’s right up the road from the Compound. Once we get there, I can direct you the rest of the way.”
“Thirty minutes,” Jerry said. “I think we have the fuel. So, Mr. Raff, considering the last hour of insanity, there was one thing you said that I’m curious about, if you don’t mind?”
“Yeah, if I can tell you, sure, ask away,” G-Raff responded, looking over his shoulder to make sure their five guests were settling in. They all had their faces pressed against the rear door glass, watching the countryside and cars.
“When you used the axe souvenir to …do what you did to that other gnome, you dropped it and said that you forgot a rule of magic. The author in me would like to know what you meant.”
G-Raff pondered what he could tell a civilian without getting the guy in too much trouble. He quickly realized the Jerry was in for a helluva debriefing by the Feds just for what he’d seen up to that point. And what might happen when they reached their destination.
“You read in, Jerry?”
“Read in? You mean like briefed? About this stuff?”
“Yeah.”
Jerry paused as if he was thinking about his reply’s wording. “I saw something once. Not a direct participant, but the results of an event. Opened my eyes. I looked for other things. Similar occurrences. I started writing about them. Then I did some research and talked to folks that were near incidents. Most wouldn’t say anything, too scared. But some would. So, I started putting together their stories. I’m no reporter, but I can spin a tale. That’s what formed the basis for the Crypto Team Alpha novels.”
Jerry deftly moved the tactical van around a big rig and then continued, “Did some official entity brief me? No. But I get a lot of strange emails. Anonymous pictures, scanned documents and the like. Some on official letterhead. I can accept that there are some strange things going on and it’s not tinfoil hat stuff. That good enough?”
“For me? Sure,” G-Raff said, rubbing his hands together. “Here goes. When a magic weapon gets built and charged, there’s powerful spells involved. The artificer want ta prevent the weapon from being active all the time, so the maker puts in a sort of magic on switch. So, when a homie moves or handles it, it seems all normal. Plain Jane. But when they use it, when they wield it, that’s when the magical energies get released. Its true potential and purpose come out. That axe was made for a human to fight magical things. A demon. Otherworldly shit. Half of me exists in the Fey realm, a magical realm, so it bit me when I wielded it.”
“Huh,” Jerry replied. He quietly piloted the five-ton van down the highway. “And why was that axe made to battle magical things?”
G-Raff smiled. “You a thinka’, huh, Jerry? That’s why your shit read so tight! Even though you look like the Big Ugly guy, you’re more on the ball!”
“Are you saying I’m ugly?” Jerry asked, cocking an eyebrow and looking G-Raff up and down. “Because…”
“Moving on,” G-Raff replied, grinning. “Let’s talk axes. Ever hear of Paul Bunyan?”
They talked about magic things, beasts and their favorite “normal” weapons. The command van’s tires chewed through the miles.
******
An hour later, the conversation had taken a number of turns. When an urban fantasy author has a chance to talk with an actual magic creature, it’s bound to wander.
“Leprechauns aren’t gnomes, or even from the Fey realm, and you don’t see them here in the States,” G-Raff said, matter-of-factly.
“Why’s that?” Jerry asked, his interest, and writers curiosity running at full steam as G-Raff had regaled him with tales of creatures he had thought were myths, at best, but apparently roamed the modern world.
“Well, while that St. Patrick guy was getting rid of all the snakes, he found out the ‘Chuans had been the ones conjuring them to scare the locals off their pots of gold. Pat made their King swear a magic pact that they would never leave Ireland and it became their job to keep the snakes off the Emerald Isles. So they be stuck. Heads up, Dawg, we here.”
As they passed Butcher’s Mart, G-Raff spoke to the gremlin trained gnome girls and they popped away. When they popped back, the vans accelerator responded to Jerry’s foot and he took in a deep breath, relieved to have control again.
“Turn down the next road on the left and cut yo lights. They shouldn’t be no cars or nothin’ on it. We keeps it cleared. When we reach da’ gate, I’ll get out and you stay with the girls ‘til I say it’s clear. There should be some firepower in da’ back there if I don’t make it back.”
“That’s not going to work for me Mr. Raff,” Jerry said, hooking his thumb to toward the back of the van. “I don’t think they’re gonna leave your side and you’re hurt. I’ll need to go ahead and arm up. I’m a good shot and know how to handle weapons. I’ll follow your lead, since you know this monster fighting stuff better than me, but if you point at it and say fire, you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll get hit.”
“Good enough, my man, good enough,” G-Raff replied, pulling on Fuzzy Monkey and massaging his bound leg wound. “Maybe you get something fun to write about.”
“Your idea of fun leaves a lot to be desired,” Jerry said. But he was smiling, looking forward to what might happen next.
As the sun dropped below the horizon, Jerry parked the van 100 yards up the driveway from the main gate. G-Raff pulled his tactical binoculars out and scanned the area around the entrance. He didn’t see anybody. A fine mist blurred his vision.
“That’s not right. All the compound lights are out, and we usually have someone sit on the gate or a rover pass by. Nothin’s movin’. Somethin’s up.”
“Always this misty?”
“Nope. Not a mist. Smells funny. And there’s serious protection mojo in there to prevent any nasty magic, so I got no idea,” G-Raff replied.
“You folks normally have pig roasts out in the woods?”
“Pig roast? Nah, why?”
“Over there,” Jerry said, pointing to the West along the fence line. “In that stand of trees, I can see torchlights. And shadows moving.”
“Huh. Well, let’s go get ourselves invited, shall we?” G-Raff replied. “Now is the time to get yo’self equipped, Dawg.”
Jerry grunted agreement and stepped into the back. “Not much back here.”
“Try the gun locker,” G-Raff said.
“Locked,” Jerry said, opening and closing bins. “Doesn’t seem to be a key handy. Looks pretty sturdy.”
“Is the giant man wanting to get in there?” Hedda asked, pointing at the gun safe. G-Raff smiled.
“Do your stuff!” he replied. Two minutes later, the gun locker door lay on the ground and Jerry pulled three pistols and a rifle from inside, along with magazines and ammo. He cycled each weapon and adjusted. He also pulled out an armored tac vest and put it on, but it was too small for his large frame.
“At least it has lots of pockets,” he said holstering two of the pistols, putting one back.
“That gun’s never been fired. Brand new,” Jerry said, returning G-Raff’s questioning look.
As the author, turned Rambo, checked the magazines, filling the ones that were shy rounds or empty, he continued, “Don’t trust a new weapon that hasn’t had a few dozen rounds put through it. These others smell fired and are loosened up.”
“I didn’t even bring my piece, so you da’ punch,” G-Raff said. “This is gonna go quick if we get inta’ a fire fight.”
“What’s with these rounds? That’s not lead or a normal jacket,” Jerry observed spinning a bullet between his thumb and forefinger, letting the light reflect off it.
“Standard Fed silver rounds,” G-Raff replied. “Lower mass hollow points. Get wonky at a distance, but they’s effective against the shit we might …will…run into.”
Jerry grunted his acceptance of G-Raff’s insight. Why argue about how the bullets were made with a creature that existed in his imagination only a couple of hours prior?
“You girls stay behind me. Anything starts going bad, you pop a tunnel down to that big tree where that road splits,” G-Raff said, pointing into the Compound, reaching into Fuzzy Monkey for the medical kit. “Then you pop over to a smaller building with the white fence. It’ll be to your left. Go to the front door and knock. Tell Hanna that Rolf said to let you in. Don’t say G-Raff, say Rolf.”
The gnome girls, cleaned of gremlin goo, now white skinned and tattooed shaved heads, all nodded. They seemed excited about the prospect of meeting Hanna. G-Raff waved his cast-covered arm and they slipped out of the van. He was armed with his silver and rosewood inlaid M9 knife. The group headed for the torch-lights, following the two-track clay trail that showed fresh tire grooves. After 50 yards, Jerry held up a fist. They all stopped.
“Crickets,” Jerry said as he adjusted the strap on the SCAR 17S .308 rifle, sweeping it back and forth with a relaxed grip, the weapon pointed downrange and slightly up. He had the replica Katana from the show in its scabbard, hanging from his side.
“Huh?” G-Raff grunted.
“No crickets. No bugs. Everything’s quiet. I was raised on a farm. Out here? Should be something making noise.”
“Right you are Mon!” came a booming voice with a Caribbean accent. “I laid some serious mists on them folks. Legba told me they’s all sleeping like babies. Floated some living zombie powder. Me and my children can’t go in for some strange reason, so I got some help bringing the important folks out here to us.”
Jerry scanned the area around where the voice originated.
“Watcha think, Mr. Raff?” Jerry asked.
“Dis’ is the shit, but I can’t see through this friggin’ sawgrass. Mind givin’ a homeboy a lift?” G-Raff said.
Jerry smiled and extended his left hand, grabbed G-Raff, setting him up on his neck.
“We run into any of my homies,” G-Raff explained, “you just throw me over there and we act like dis’ never happened.”
“Got it. A gnome pride thing,” Jerry replied, grinning as they advanced toward the voice.
“Man, the view from up here is da bomb!”
Breaking past a copse of willows, they saw what they were up against. Two delivery vans had been parked on the grass, rear doors open. “Event Catering Services” plastered along the sides, all of the windows blacked out. The necromancer had set up his casting area right at the fence line.
In the middle of the lit torches stood the Voodoo-necromancer with almost a dozen vampires and five gremlins. Outside the torches, a pack of zombies started shuffling toward G-Raff and crew. There was motion off to the right, just inside the fence line.
“Fuck!” G-Raff said as he pointed. “Inside the fence. L.A. Gnomes and the werewolf.”
Jerry looked where G-Raff was pointing. The creatures stopped advancing into the compound and now looked at the interlopers. More than a dozen gnomes with blue hats, and a one-eyed werewolf, stared. Jerry swung his weapon between targets. “Give me a priority list, Mr. Raff.”
“The werewo—-no, no,no, no. Hold your fire,” G-Raff said. “Everybody waitin’ for Voodoo-man to give da’ go. Save your ammo. We need to take out the bad guy, then the rest can be mopped up. If the werewolf comes at us, you put everything you have into him.”
“Those look like vampires. Shouldn’t I worry about them?”
“Nah, G-Raff’s a vampire killin’ fool. They’z fucked and they don’t even know it.”
“Potty-mouth,” Jerry said as he cycled his sights to the various targets of opportunity. “How do I take down the zombies?”
“Head shots. With the rifle. Splatter factor. If you get down to the pistol, top of neck at the brain stem. Two rounds. If you can’t run, then save one for you.”
“Head shots. Brain stem. Got it,” Jerry replied. “And how do we make it so I don’t have to use that last one?”
“Let’s jus’ throw a party,” G-Raff said.
“Throw a party…?”
“Throw me, at that voodoo spewing mofo,” G-Raff said. ”Like you throwing a dart. A good lookin’ vampire killin’ G-Raff in da’ house kinda dart.”
Jerry paused, then released his hold on the SCAR 17S pistol grip and removed G-Raff from his neck, holding him as firmly as he felt he could. G-Raff’s adjusted himself in Jerry’s large hand, his lower ribs rested in Jerry’s palm, between thumb and index finger. The very model of a gnome sized dart. Jerry leaned back and threw G-Raff with as much force as he could muster, pulling the SCAR 17S back into firing position upon release.
G-Raff’s stomach reminded him about his disdain for heights. And he could add “Being thrown forty feet” to his list of activities that weren’t remotely fun. He wasn’t sure if a tunnel could pop through the torch ringed barrier. As he flew, he extended his cast and Orc salve encased wrist. The Voodoo man smiled at G-Raff.
G-Raff smiled back. He opened his cast-covered hand as wide as possible, exposing his Exemption coin, held in place by two pieces of medical tape. The coin was the first thing to touch the barrier.
The barrier disappeared in a flash.
G-Raff tucked, rolled forward in mid-air and did a 180 somersault, kicking out at the last, his feet lining up with the Voodoo man’s face. G-raff rode out the impact. A very surprised look gave way to a scream as blood burst from the necromancer’s nose and mouth. G-Raff pushed off and did a back flip, popping a tunnel on the way to the ground.
“Get them!” the voodoo man yelled. It came out more like “Gith-mum”, but his minions got the message.
Jerry opened up. Cycling through the advancing zombies. He wasn’t sure where G-Raff had gone, but he did see flashes of him as the gnome appeared on a vampire’s neck and severed its head. Jerry would see a Vampire freeze and he’d shoot it in the head multiple times, only to see it fall forward with G-Raff pulling his blade from its back, then the black-hatted Tallee would disappear again.
G-Raff popped over to Jerrys side, sweating and breathing hard. It wasn’t going as well as hoped. The Voodoo man was staggering, and there were still a half-dozen vampires, and a lot of zombies when Jerry let the SCAR 17S fall slack and went to his pistols.
“Girls, get ready to go. If we fall get to Hanna,” G-Raff yelled. He turned his head and saw the girls huddled together as the five Gremlin Frau moved toward them, claws extended, speaking German.
G-Raff and Jerry were back to back. More accurately, G-Raff’s back was against Jerry’s right calf. Jerry cycled the last of his pistol magazines, the slide on his remaining pistol locked open.
“Go! Now!” G-Raff yelled, after hearing the slide lock. The girls stood frozen in fear.
“Dammit. And I said to save one,” G-Raff said, speaking up over his shoulder to his favorite author.
“Heat of the moment,” Jerry replied, drawing the souvenir Katana. “Any final ideas?”
“Die like men. Just in case, grab the axe, too. Two hands swinging rather than one. Let’s see how many of these undead fucks we can take with us!” G-Raff yelled.
Jerry reached down and pulled the axe handle protruding from Fuzzy Monkey. He hefted it and moved it back and forth. “This is light,” he said.
The zombies and vampires were on them.
Jerry’s first swing of his sword went down through a zombie shoulder, it dropped. G-Raff dodged the crawling zombie. The gnome’s bad leg would only last so long, but he leapt on the mindless creature’s back and stabbed it in the back of the skull, twisting his blade.
He heard Jerry grunt with each swing, then the human screamed in pain.
G-Raff turned to look for Jerry but was blocked by a vampire reaching down for him. He could either drop the knife and pop away, or stab and roll. Stab it was. He was going to go out fighting hard. The vampire’s face lit up with a blueish hue, making the black emptiness of its eyes even more ominous. The glow grew, making it easier to see the creature’s horrible visage, hungry and mindless, pearly white fangs like vanilla icicles hanging in a cave of red death.
G-Raff’s eyes adjusted to the growing blue light. His first thought was the Voodoo necromancer was casting something awful to throw at them. The vampire’s mouth was a foot away, teeth gnashing as it dropped onto G-Raff. The gnome stabbed upward, leaning into it, his own face buried in his upstretched arms. He felt the weight as the vampire’s head stuck on his blade, the body falling to the side. G-Raff had a moment to look up, and before he could make sense of it, saw a giant cloven hoof, glowing deep-blue, step over him, followed by another. He’d only seen one other time. It was a Half-man, half-ox. A beast straight out of mythology. Muscular bovine legs and a human-like barrel chest, topped by a bull’s head, complete with horns.
A Minotaur. The new flourish was that it glowed an ethereal blue.
The beast twisted, dug at the ground with one of its hooves. It bellowed as it struck. Cleaving another vampire in half with its weapon, an obsidian headed hand-axe. G-Raff laughed.
The Minotaur spirit tore through the mini-zombie horde, separating heads from bodies with each forward swing and the back swings as well.
“Pawn-tau Jukutase. Mek maji-aya`aawish,” the Minotaur said in a deep gravelly voice. “Hikall, whan, weka Raff Jop bennat”
G-Raff knew he didn’t speak the language, but all the same he heard and understood the words.
“I am the Blue, the spirit of Jukutase. Evil men and spirits shall fear me. I am the final death. Save your family Mr. Raff.”
“Jerry?” G-Raff said as he looked around.
His human companion nowhere to be seen, weapons on the ground where he had made his stand. Then he understood. The glowing blue minotaur was Jerry. The Blue Ox Spirit was using him as a conduit to the Earthen plane, ready to fulfill the call of spells casted by the Minotaur Shamans over 200 years before.
The vampires tried a mob assault on the horned creature. They quickly realized their folly. They found out they couldn’t bite through the minotaur’s thick, enchanted hide to get to Jerry Corinthian’s body. The ancient avenging Minotaur spirit had fully engulfed and was protecting its Earthly conduit.
“Your friend will return when these evil things are vanquished,” the Minotaur said, grabbing Zombie heads in its large hands and popping them like ichor filled grapes. Blue swung his ax at the attacking vampires, decapitating them in a single swing. It then turned toward the remaining vampires huddled around the necromancer. The blue beast spun the axe and pointed it toward its targets.
The voodoo man pulled a Desert Eagle .44 magnum Automatic and let two rounds fly, the report ringing G-Raff’s ears. The Minotaur huffed twice, and snorted, but didn’t seem harmed.
“Dat’ a punk-ass wannabe gun!” G-Raff yelled, throwing the Westie sign and grabbing his crotch for emphasis.
The necromancer and vampires ran. The blue minotaur pursued.
G-Raff turned, sheathed his knife and popped a tunnel. Not toward his home, but toward the gnome girls, now being attacked by the gremlins. He popped out in their midst, blade pulled quickly and letting his training take over. The Gremlin Frau didn’t have a chance against him. In less than a minute, he had a few more scratches, but there were five dead gremlins laying on the ground, only two with their head still attached.
G-Raff turned toward the parked catering vans and saw the Minotaur nail another vampire as it tried to run. Then, the horned avenger ran towards the van which the necromancer was using to escape. As he watched, a voice he recognized yelled at him, “Dat’s right, G-Raff, yo past has caught up wit ya! We gonna burn your burrow and take yo bitches!”
G-Raff visibly shook.
“You know him?” Hedda asked, pointing into the Compound.
“Stitch. It’s his L.A. burrow. In a past life, he’s the one that set me up. I owe him.”
The L.A. gnomes didn’t pop away, they followed the werewolf, which was running back and forth, head low to the ground.
“They’re trying to pick up my scent. See where I’ve been walking,” G-Raff said, relief in his voice. “They don’t know where my burrow is. We can beat them there.”
He popped a tunnel. It fell way short of the split in the road.
“That is a very tiny tunnel for such a large gnome, is it not?” Hedda asked, bending over to look into the tunnel. “And the edges lack clarity. You try to move through this?”
G-Raff was about to vent. It wasn’t his fault the tunnel wasn’t right. He was ready to go off on the gnome girl, but he remembered how Signe reacted to direct confrontation, so he wound his temper back down.
“Do you have a better suggestion?”
“Yes. Heidi, come, we open a tunnel together,” Hedda said, as another gnome girl, that looked remarkedly like Hedda, stepped forward and the twins stood facing each other. “To the split in the trail there, by the tree.”
Instead of clapping their own hands, and then creating two tunnels, they clapped each other’s hands together, like a gnome game of patty-cake. A larger tunnel, twice the size of any G-Raff had seen, save some ancient tunnels in Fey realms, popped into existence. He saw all the way to the split.
“Let’s go,” he said, running into a popped gnome tunnel, without having to duck his head, for the first time.
The rag–tag troop came running out of the other end, G-Raff looking around as the girls assembled. He saw the L.A. Gnomes and the werewolf over by the main office.
“Good, dumbass thugs is way the fuck off,” G-Raff observed, turning and pointing up the road, and then flipping back to Gnimen. “See that fence and building? Get us as close to it as possible.”
Angry shouts emanated from the direction of the main office as G-Raff glanced over his shoulder and saw an L.A. gnome pointing his direction. It was Stitch. The werewolf looked up and snarled.
“Let’s go!” G-Raff shouted as he ran into the popped tunnel, waving the gnome girls to follow.
******
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Category: Short Story
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