Ghouls: A Milo & Fairfax Story

Photo by Fred Johnson on Unsplash

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Dr. Frank Torosian’s secretary, Julia, was a competent young goblin of about twenty-five with green skin, cat’s-eye glasses, and a magpie’s eye for anything shiny. She was wearing too much costume jewelry, as goblins tend to, and her rings and bangles clinked and clanked as she came around her desk to greet me.

“Good morning, Milo,” she said with a bright smile. She crouched down to scratch Fairfax behind the ears. The little Atomic Schnauzer sat down and pawed the air ingratiatingly, in case there was a biscuit in the offing. Julia went into her desk drawer for a Milk-Bone and held it out for Fairfax, who took it politely and crunched it with every sign of enjoyment.

“Hey, Jules,” I said. “Frank in his office?”

She rolled her eyes. “He sure is.”

“He in one of his moods?”

She sighed. “Oh, yeah. Someone broke into the library last night at three in the morning and stole a Tome of Summoning from the restricted section last night, and he is not happy. You better go on in.”

I gave her my best encouraging smile and waited while she went back around the desk and hit the buzzer that opened the sculpted iron door. It had a big brass plate on it that read “Miskatonic University—Office of the Dean of Dark Arts,” under the University’s coat of arms. I pushed the door open and went in, Fairfax at my heels.

Frank was stalking back and forth across the red-and-gold Aubusson carpet with the base of the office phone under his arm and the receiver pressed to his ear, his carefully trimmed white beard bristling with indignation. He was a small, neat man in his sixties in a navy blazer with gold buttons, grey flannel slacks, and a rep tie. He tended to gesticulate when he talked, but I had never seen his button-down come untucked.

“Yes, I understand that,” he said, waving distractedly to me and pointed at one of the wing chairs next to the coffee table. He had a thick Brooklyn accent—Frank had been a New Yorker back when baseline humans still lived on Earth Prime. “And I’m telling you,” he continued, “that there’s what we at the University like to call cause and effect. When somebody in your jurisdiction steals something very dangerous from my library—the cause, if you will—the effect is that I have to send someone to get it back, which means you get a troubleshooter sent to your jurisdiction whether you like it or not. I’ve got my best guy here now. Yeah, with the dog. He’ll be there in a few hours. Stay out of his way.”

He got the base out from under his arm and slammed the receiver into its cradle, then put the phone on the desk. “That was Dean Wilkie, the Federal consul over on Transylvania Prime,” he said sourly, straightening his tie. “Lazy shitbird.”

“What happened?” I said.

Frank sat down at his big Stickley desk and found his pipe among the mountain of papers that covered it. He filled it from a leather tobacco pouch he kept on the bookcase behind the desk, tamped it with a long silver pipe tamper, and lit it with a kitchen match. “Last night, Jimmy from Public Safety noticed that the door to the restricted section in the University Library was flapping open,” he said. “He found one of the T.A.s from the Thaumaturgy and Divination program lying half-in, half-out of the doorway, unconscious. Further investigation determined that the T.A. had been deliberately infected with some kind of neural parasite over spring break. The parasite compelled him to open one of the school’s dimensional gates and let somebody—we’re not sure who—onto campus. Whoever it was knew what they were looking for. They got into the stacks, cracked the lock on the shelf where we keep the Tomes of Summoning, snatched one of the grimoires, and skedaddled.”

I whistled. “That’s not good. Do we know which one they stole?”

Frank puffed at his pipe. “The Maudelosian Grimoire. You familiar?”

I nodded. “I know it summons one of the Ancient Ones Who Lie Beneath. Can't remember which one offhand.”

Frank grunted. “Gerekk Gel-Teth.”

Fairfax raised her head and growled at the name.

“Oh, great,” I said. “One of the Ecthroi.”

“That’s right,” Frank said. “The Witch. The school’s ESPers haven’t registered its presence yet, which means there’s still time before the cultists that financed this fiasco get ahold of the Grimoire and actually summon it.”

“Do we know where the Grimoire is?”

“We traced the jump signature from their teleporter to Transylvania Prime.” Frank jabbed the stem of his pipe at me. “Let me make this clear to you, Milo. I do not need an Ecthros running around loose on the Many Earths.”

I stood up. “Should be a straightforward kill,” I said.

Frank relit his pipe, which had gone out. “I’d prefer that you get the book back before the Ecthros cultists use it to summon the monster. And try to avoid causing too much property damage. Wilkie isn’t happy that I’m sending a troubleshooter over to his house as it is.”

“We’ll do our best,” I said, and patted my thigh. Fairfax jumped to her feet and followed me to the door.

Frank stood up and went to hold the door for me. “Good hunting, kiddo,” he said. He leaned out into Julia’s office. “Jules, Milo’s going to need a contract.”

Julia nodded briskly and got a sheet of vellum out of the filing cabinet next to her desk.

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After two days spent asking, cajoling, and outright intimidating all of the usual suspects on Transylvania Prime not dead, fled, or imprisoned, I had exhausted all of my leads. I stood in line at a food truck selling some kind of kebab outside my motel, trying to decide whether to tell Frank he needed to send in Amos Bridegroom to knock heads together, which would ruffle everyone's feathers, or tell him we needed to cut Miskatonic’s losses and that he might as well send in Fafnir to play orbital flamethrower. An Ecthros manifesting on an inhabited planet with ready access to dimensional gates would be a catastrophe, and my preferred solution was Fafnir, but calling in the dragon to do housecleaning on a planetary scale would lead to far more paperwork for Frank. I weighed my options as the line inched its way forward.

Eventually it was my turn to order. I got a kebab for me and one for the dog. I pulled the meat off Fairfax’s skewer and put it down in front of her, and was just about to take a bit of my own when a fat, long-faced twerp in a black robe rushed past me, knocking my dinner out of my hand.

“You mind watching where you're going?” I asked irritably, then noticed the package under his arm. It was about the right size for a stolen library book. Our eyes met. He goggled at me for a moment, glanced down at the dog, and hurried down the street as fast as you can walk before you're running.

I clicked my tongue for Fairfax and went after him.

The twerp disappeared inside a bar called “The Cracked Femur.” I looked up at the sign, saw the characteristic lettering, and groaned. It was a ghoul bar. I hate ghouls, like every right-thinking humanoid. Werewolves will eat you, but it doesn’t feel personal. Ghouls, on the other hand, will intentionally creep you out before they murder and butcher you; there’s something about adrenaline and cortisol that, to their minds, improves the flavor of food.

You don’t get to choose the job, sometimes. I squared my shoulders and followed him in, Fairfax close at my heels.

The place didn’t smell like death, which was a relief, and I couldn’t hear any screaming. I walked up to the bar and cleared my throat.

“Guy that just came in—you see where he went?”

The bartender looked over his newspaper at me. “Can you narrow it down a little bit?”

I sighed. “Hooded black robe, carrying a Book of Forbidden Magic, scurried in here a minute ago. Looked like a cultist.”

The bartender rolled his eyes. “This is Transylvania Prime. Do you have any idea how many hooded, robed cultists carrying Books of Forbidden Magic there are scurrying around here?”

I glared at him. He sighed and turned to his bar back.

“Francis, who’s using the basement tonight?”

The younger ghoul put down his Styrofoam takeout box. I resisted the urge to look inside. “The Solemn Order of Gerekk Gel-teth. Do you want me to grab their guy?”

“The Teeth of the Witch?” I demanded “You rent out your basement to Ecthros worshipers?”

The ghoul shrugged. “I rent out my basement to anyone with fifty-five bucks a day. What of it?”

“What of it is that I’m getting tired of chasing down ignorant, suicidal fools who think magically rearranging ley lines so as to drag a living nightmare onto this plane is a productive way to spend Saturday night,” I said. “Last time it was the bloodsuckers, this time it’s you. Christ, at least the werewolves have enough brains to leave Ecthroi alone.”

The bar back laughed. “Not for long, not if they come into this neighborhood.”

The bartender smacked him upside the head. The takeout box fell out of his hands and upended its contents onto the floor. Fairfax trotted over and sniffed at it. Instinctively, I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. She turned to me with an expression of wounded dignity. I let go and she wandered over to the jukebox.

The bartender leaned over the bar, an appraising look on his long grayish face. It said, there’s a meat hook, a marinade and a basting brush in your future. “You a cop?”

“Troubleshooter,” I said.

He frowned. “Huh. That some kind of bounty hunter?”

“Little more official,” I said.

The bar back raised his hand. His insolent smile seemed somehow out of place. “Do you have a badge you can show us?”

I cracked my neck. I can get along with just about anyone, but I make an exception for people who think I’m going to be a mid-morning snack. “You got a basement you can show me?”

The bartender undid his apron and began to pull off his shirt. Even for a corpse-eater, he was big, with gray skin, ragged fingernails and yellow teeth filed to points. “Troubleshooter was what they said. Lock the door, Francis,” he said. The bar back grinned and licked his chops.

I shook my head. “You don’t want to do that,” I said.

He smiled. “Why? If you aren’t back by a certain time, somebody’s going to come looking, something like that?”

“No,” I said. “Because I’m giving you a chance.”

The bartender’s smile got toothier. “To do what?”

“To point me toward the basement and stay out of my hair.”

He looked as if he’d seen a porterhouse jump off the grill and menace him with a switchblade. “Why would I do that?”

I stepped back to give Fairfax some room. She jumped onto the counter and stared at the bartender. He stepped back reflexively.

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to let her do the asking,” I said. I tried not to look at the take-out container on the floor. “Stay back there. I’m going to go deal with the jokers in your basement. If you leave her alone, she’ll probably leave you alone.”

The bartender jerked his head toward the door. Francis took a complicated key ring from next to the cash register and leered at me.

I looked at the take-out container on the floor. A couple of fingers had rolled out of it and come to rest under the sink. They were covered with soft gray hair, the kind that turns coarse when werewolf cubs get old enough to run with the pack.

I squeezed the bridge of my nose to stave off what promised to be a very bad headache and turned back to the bartender. “If you come out from behind that bar, I’m going to kill you and burn down the building with everyone in it.”

The bartender growled and vaulted over the counter. I subvocalized the words that activate the dragon tattooed on my neck, took a deep breath in and exhaled nuclear plasma. It vaporized the bartender and cut a neat hole through the bar and the retaining wall opposite. Somewhere along the way it hit a barrel of the embalming fluid that ghouls drink neat.

In a moment flames were licking merrily up the wall. I admired my handiwork. If the wind was right, the place would be a total loss in short order, which suited me fine.

The bar back tried frantically to get the front door open, but he’d dropped his keys, and ghoul bars are built for the express purpose of keeping people from leaving. I glanced over at Fairfax, but she was already a blur. I heard a glass break behind me and turned in the direction of the bar proper. Corpse-eaters are loathsome, but they aren’t cowards, and there were three of them moving toward me with intent.

(Over my shoulder I heard the crisp, resonant sound of a skull smacking against a concrete floor. Francis would probably live if he didn’t antagonize Fairfax further. Ghouls are incredibly tough.)

The biggest ghoul swung his long leather coat aside and came up with a blunderbuss. The other two made practiced, repetitive motions with their hands. I smelled brimstone. I leaned back against the burning remains of the bar to watch the show.

Fairfax and I make a good team because we complement one another’s strengths. If you take away the magic tattoos, I’m just a well-trained Ph.D. with good reflexes and a talent for lateral thinking. Fairfax, on the other hand is an entirely bulletproof, high-speed projectile with teeth like an angle grinder. I let her handle this sort of thing.

Which is why I got concerned when the little dog vanished in a puff of smoke.

One of the magicians stepped back and wiped sweat from his forehead. “The Witch says hello, Mr. Vitre.”

A dozen or so hooded figures filed out of the back room. Three of them had old-fashioned water-pump fire extinguishers, which they used to put out the flames.

I sneered at them. “It’s kind of you all to wait for me in one place rather than making me go kicking in doors looking for you. I’m touched.”

“You’re a human sacrifice is what you are, mate,” said the ghoul with the blunderbuss. “You’re my dinner. Come sniffing around after us. Setting a dog on us. After the last time you came to this planet with that fucking animal, we circulated your description. Knew you’d come in here sooner or later.”

They had ‘circulated my description.’ That was a relief. Electricity doesn’t work properly on Transylvania Prime, except in the form of lightning bolts hitting laboratories, and humanoid creatures here and everywhere else stopped using mechanical cameras a hundred years ago. With no photos or any kind of cross-planar communication, they didn’t know who or what I was, only that I was nosy and that I had a dangerous dog. Fairfax was safe—the neutron star in her stomach wouldn’t let anything hurt her. Better still, they weren’t making inquiries about my tattoos. On the other hand, there was a gun in my face.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I won’t be staying long.” It takes between fifteen seconds and five minutes for my tattoos to recharge, depending on whether or not I’ve recently been punched in the face. I supposed that was probably going to happen sooner rather than later.

The ghoul brought the butt of his gun down hard on my shoulder, badly dislocating it and knocking me to my knees; the pain was nauseating. He kicked me in the chest, completing my journey to the floor.

He took a knee next to me. “You got that right, chum.” He smiled grimly. “I’m going to start with your feet and eat my way upward. I can kill you first or leave you alive to enjoy the experience. Up to you. Who are you and what do you want with the Witch?”

“I told your friend,” I gasped. “I’m a troubleshooter.”

Ghouls are the intellectuals of the undead. This one didn’t look the slightest bit stupid. He nodded slowly, put down his gun and sat down cross-legged in front of me. “What’s a troubleshooter?”

I could feel my tattoos pulling gently at my karmic field. Even with the wet popping noises my shoulder was making, I figured I’d only need about two minutes until I could make the corpse-eater with the scattergun and every one of his friends regret the day they had been born.

The big ghoul looked at me for a long minute, then nodded at one of the magicians.

“Where’d you send the dog?” he asked.

The magician, a smaller ghoul, tugged at his cap. “Sixty feet straight down, Mister Frederick.”

“That’s it?”

“Herbert didn't think we'd be able to get any more range on the teleport spell, sir,” the magician said, “and he was right. That damn dog’s unusual.” Fredrick glared at the magician, who waved his hands anxiously. “Cecil knows some salamanders, sir,” he said. “He got them to tunnel into the bedrock under the bar last night and fill the cavity with molten lava.”

Frederick sighed. “Probably dead, then. Doesn’t matter. This one’s going on the altar as soon as we’re finished chatting, and then we’re going to have a monster of our own to play with.”

I couldn’t help laughing. The big ghoul kicked me in the ribs. I forced laughter through the pain. “You think you’re going to boss an Ecthros around? You think the Witch takes orders?”

The big ghoul grabbed me by the shirtfront and got nose-to-nose with me. “What the fuck are you?” he shouted. “What do you know about the Witch?”

What I knew was that the corpse-eaters were in the process of biting off more they could chew. Some Tomes of Summoning claim that an Ecthros will grant a wish to anyone fool enough to bring them into the Daylight World from their home in the Planes Beneath, or steal some of their essence from Miskatonic University’s Museum of Strange and Terrible Manifestations. Unfortunately for the kind of spiteful malcontents that go in for this kind of thing, Tomes of Summoning have almost always been written by the monster that wants to be summoned and left where someone only slightly less mean-spirited will find them. Without exception, ritually inviting an Ecthros into a world that any humanoid can survive in drives the celebrants irreversibly insane, strips them of free will and leaves them the Ecthros’ helpless puppets, aware of everything their bodies are doing but powerless to do anything about it.

I sat up, trying not to throw up from the pain in my shoulder and ribs. If Fairfax didn’t show up soon, I was going to have to kill them all myself. That presented a challenge. Most of my tattoos are only incidentally lethal, like the wave elemental on my left thigh (which could certainly drown everyone in the room, including me), or the gears on the back of my neck, which would summon an eighty-foot mechanical monstrosity called a titan (which is great for demolishing buildings, but isn’t what you’d call “surgically precise”). I could use the dragon again, but it probably wouldn’t get all of them, and I didn’t think much for my chances with the survivors.

Frederick growled. “I’ll ask you one last time. Who are you?!”

I looked around at his soldiers, who were getting restless. “Are you not allowed to play with sharp objects?” I said, grinning at them. “Is that blunderbuss the only reason you listen to this guy?”

Two ghouls produced old-fashioned Colt Peacemakers. I nodded, still smiling. That would save me some time. The big ghoul picked up his weapon and stood up. He jabbed the barrel into my dislocated shoulder. “I’m going to eat your arm. You’re going to watch,” he said, and squeezed the trigger. I felt my tattoos recharge.

The world turned monochromatic just as the hammer of the blunderbuss snapped downwards. Time stood still.

I forced myself to my feet. It was a good thing the ghouls with the revolvers had called my bluff—chronomancy requires an enormous amount of power to maintain, and the alarm clock on my wrist only stops subjective time for seven seconds. If they hadn’t drawn down on me, I would have had to waste time hunting for a gun. Luckily, neither was much more than man-sized, and one of the pistols was small enough for me to operate one-handed. I blew all the ghouls' brains out and tossed the pistol to the floor. Color returned to the world.

I knelt down and went through Frederick’s pockets for the key to the basement door. Suddenly, someone grabbed me and spun me around. I looked up to see Francis the bar back. He was a mess. Fairfax must have accelerated from a standing start to Mach 3 directly into his face; his jaw was broken, his forehead was caved in, and one of his eyes was missing. But Francis was still ambulatory, and he was half as big again as I was.

He squeezed my bad shoulder, hard, and kicked me in the chest. I bounced off the wall opposite. Francis snapped his jaw back into place with both hands and drew a big Bowie knife from a sheath on his belt. He strolled over and squatted down next to me, a grim smile on his face. He took my hand, held it to the floor and raised the knife.

Just then the ground shifted beneath his feet. He looked down, confused, and his good eye widened. The floorboards exploded, and then so did Francis. As I blacked out I heard the enraged snarling of a small, protective dog.

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Frank had me airlifted to Chiba Prime later that day. Mister Frederick had crushed my shoulder too badly for reconstructive surgery, and they had to grow me a replacement arm from substrate and graft it in place. I spent three weeks R&R on Albion Prime, walking around the moors of England with Fairfax at my heels, then Dire Watchword spent a day putting new ink on my new arm so I could go back to work.

It’s the job, sometimes.

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