Written by Nohbodee
Jacoby
Detroit
Jacoby led the way down into a cellar where they kept all the booze and taps and barrels. Johnny dropped the body into a cell down there and locked the dead man inside. In the instant he locked it, the dead man reanimated and sat up straight, blood spluttering from his mouth. He looked sideways at Johnny, who regarded him like a rabid dog.
“My master will come for me,” Jorgie said. “Oh yes, and he’s coming for her, too. Don’t you know that Jacoby?” Then his dead eyes fixed on Jacoby.
Jacoby stood with his back to the ugly thing in the cell. He had taken off his jacket and proceeded to pull up his shirt sleeves. “I want my book back, Jorgie.”
“The master has it, oh yes, and he will never give it back! In fact, he wants your other books, too. The master wants them all,” Jorgie smiled with glee, the filth smudging his face like a happy joking clown who’d taken too many hits to the head. They were all like that. Ghouls. Happy, monstrous things, ugly things that beguiled the city.
“Where is your master, Jorgie?” Jacoby asked, taking a metal bat from a wooden table to the left of the cage. Jorgie saw it and whimpered.
“He has no roots, yet, master does not,” Jorgie scooted back.
“I want my book back, Jorgie,” Jacoby unlocked the cell and went inside, beholding the creature. “Tell me, and I’ll kill you quick.”
“You speak of saving the earth, but you’re nothing but nasty creatures, yourselves! You walk around as though you’re white knights and we are demons and must be expelled, expired, exiled!” Jorgie howled. “But who are you, if not fiends yourselves! You show no kindness to a creature weaker than you! And we’re evil and cold? You’d kill a member of your own family if you could feel the rush watching their souls escape from their eyes. I know. Takes a killer to know another.”
Jacoby knelt down. “How could I show kindness to a thing as ugly as you? I am no white knight. We are but bottom feeders, nothing, no one’s that will do whatever it takes to keep your spoiling flesh off this earth and into hell where you belong.”
Jorgie attacked then, pinning an unexpected Jacoby on his back. The bat against his throat, Jorgie thrust all his weight down, as he spit into Jacoby’s face. “You’ve never been in hell! How would you know, gatekeeper!”
Jacoby kneed up and Jorgie grunted with pain from his groin. The bat was back in Jacoby’s possession, and he beat Jorgie dead until his head had become entirely unrecognizable. Jacoby stood up, wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand, and locked back up the cage. He set the bat down on the wooden table and rolled his neck.
The bloody heap on the floor didn’t move. They were weak creatures, brought back with witchcraft, but they had something else in store. Something far worse. Jacoby washed his bloodied hands and wiped residual blood from his face with a cloth. He then pulled the sleeves back down over his arms and slipped back on his jacket.
Johnny was watching him from the corner of the room. “What’re we gonna do with him, now, boss?”
“Leave him. I’m not done with Ekko’s assassin,” he looked over at Johnny, then. The bouncer was watching his every move. Concern was there in his black eyes. Jacoby looked away. He felt ashamed. War made beasts of all men. Even the good ones.
His father had told him that. Once.
“He isn’t the only one Ekko is like to send,” Jacoby said. “Keep watch. Don’t let anyone else inside the bar tonight and don’t leave him unattended for too long,” Jacoby gestured to Jorgie’s body.
“But he’s dead, sir,” Johnny looked a little worried about the night ahead.
“He can’t die. Only the one who brought him back can destroy him,” Jacoby said.
“You mean the woman?” Johnny spoke Jacoby’s thoughts aloud.
Jacoby winced. “I need to pray,” he said.
Ignoring Johnny’s questioning eyes, he left the basement and made for his office located just behind the long bar on the west side of his pub.
