The Imaginary Corpse, page 18
Hearing: “Spidey?”
I get a scared wiggle in return. They’ve tied me and Spiderhand together. Right. This is great.
Scent: Nothing but seawater. Taste: the same. Hearing: I’ve got total, pre-explosion silence inside the cave, and the faint movement of three small, pliable bodies approaching from above.
“They’re awake,” announces Cable, as the three octopi swim into view.
Plug looks detached. Cable looks pained. Breaker just looks shattered.
“I’m sorry,” Breaker says. “I’m so sorry, I tried to–”
“We have to,” Plug says. They’re not sorry.
“You know,” I say, “we might be willing to help if you, say, let us out?”
Breaker whimpers, looks at Plug. “Plug, we could let them out–”
“Breaker, you could shut up,” they respond. “We have no other options,” they say to me.
“With help, you could maybe find some,” I say, trying very hard not to wheedle.
“We cannot trust your help,” Plug says.
Cable looks down at the sand. They think Plug’s right, and it’s the worst thing they’ve ever thought.
I load another quip into the chamber, but drop it when I hear the faint shuffling behind me. Spiderhand goes board-stiff. I’d love to say I’m feeling any braver.
“I’m so sorry,” Breaker says. “I’m so sorry.”
The shuffling gets louder, closer, and here come the familiar footsteps. Boots, big ones, loud despite the muffling of sand and water. Board-stiff gives way to lava-fluid as Spiderhand’s panic spins up. I fight against him just enough to turn around.
This version of the Man in the Coat is a barrel-chested hunk of darkness even bigger than the one from Spindleman’s house, his clothes and weapons gone nautical to match his surroundings. Kelp and barnacles stick to his flabby, moss-green coat. His hat is a wide-brimmed rubber thing like the ones fishermen wear, but with more jagged edges. He pauses as he looks down at me with those hateful green eyes, hanging back a step like the others did. Then he nods, steps forward, and out of his sleeve comes his version of the club, a rusty length of metal with a barb on the end. It stings just looking at it.
The Man’s eyes flick wider the second before he moves. I roll to the side, but I’m anchored by Spiderhand. The swing barely misses me.
“Backwards!” I shout. “Backwards!”
But Spidey’s just stuck back there, vibrating, off the edge of the map of rational behavior. I push against him as hard as I can, but the next swing clips me on my nasal horn. It’s a glance, but it still leaves my face swollen and my legs struggling to work. No, please, no–
The Man brings his arm back around. His downward chop misses as I dredge Spiderhand backwards through the sand, but then a lateral swing gets me right across the temple, and my world turns into stars and blotches.
I know he’s right in front of me. I know he’s going to go for my head again. But my legs aren’t responding, and my head won’t quite move, and I know, in the pit of my stomach, that I am going to die here.
My world inverts. I get a perfect view of a missed swing as I go careening toward the mouth of the cell. Spiderhand has me up on his back, and he’s skittering at a speed only a terrified, determined Spidey can achieve. I lift my head, watching as the mouth of the cave rushes closer. At the last second, my view is blotted out by a kelp-streamered jacket.
“Drink,” says the Man in the Coat.
Spiderhand dodges a blow. It sends up a cloud of sand that blocks my view again. Spiderhand hesitates, as blinded as I am, and that gives the Man all the opportunity he needs to close in and give us a massive two-hand chop. The crack when he connects with Spiderhand’s knuckles is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. I feel the shift as his fingers curl under him, too stung to keep moving.
“Drink.”
I get clubbed in the belly. My torso is burning, my limbs tingling like their power cords came unplugged. Another head shot; the water is a black blur, except for a tiny white speck drifting away from me. It’s my stuffing. This jerk has ripped open my stitching.
“Fine,” the Man in the Coat gurgles.
The Man leans over us, and stumbles backwards as he’s drowned in an upward flurry of white-gold sand.
Spiderhand is shoveling handfuls at the Man in the Coat, as fast and furious as his wounded digits can go. The Man keeps lurching backward, shielding his face, trying to extract himself from the blur, but all that does is buy us time and distance. Spidey digs until the Man is totally obscured, then splays out on the ground. A single quaking digit nudges the back of my aching head. I don’t need to see him to know what he’s trying to say. ‘Your turn, roomie.’
We lever ourselves over, putting me on the bottom. My body tells me right away what a terrible idea this is, but the Man in the Coat is already waving the last of the sand away, and honestly, I’ve had a very, very bad day. I let anger and excitement and being a dinosaur take the wheel, and I charge.
The Man clears the sand out a half-instant before I plow horns-first into his stomach. He halves in size the second I connect, ragdolling against my horns. I barrel forward, aim us at the bars, trailing fluff as I go. In the background, I hear the octopi screaming.
We hit the bars with a meaty thud, and the Man in the Coat lets out a noise like he just swallowed an entire tube of saltines, a second before the bar bursts like a can of tomatoes hitting concrete, spraying rust in every direction. My own bubble of light surrounds me as I rocket out of the cave and into the open water, sloughing the limp form of the Man off into the sand. I swim, Spiderhand’s thumb still tapping at me, the octopi shrieking below. I swim as hard as legs meant for prehistoric Earth can manage, swimming for the trail of cups, for the lighter blue water above me, until something cold and gluey grabs onto one of my back legs. Spiderhand dances a manic two-step on my back as I’m dragged back toward the ocean floor.
“No!” Plug shouts, wrapping another arm around me, another. “You have to, you have to, it is the only way–”
There’s a wet, awful crunch, and the arms fall off me. I spin and see Plug tumbling through the water, down to the waiting Man in the Coat. He grabs Plug by a trailing arm, tosses them into the sand. The Man lets out a thunderous grunt before he drives the club barb-first into the octopus. There’s an explosion of bubbles, and a hauntingly familiar pop, and the only thing left of Plug is a tattered tool belt.
I have to go. I have to go now. But I’m looking at the tool belt, thinking of the screaming, of all the water around me, water just like you see in puddles on a highway. I shake my head clear, get moving, and get out three strokes before I’m dragged down into another blow to the head.
My world turns red. Up becomes down. Behind me, Spiderhand stiffens, and the light tubes come streaming down around me, broken in half. The attacks must have weakened them enough for Spidey to escape. I feel the water Spidey displaces as he swims up and away at a speed we’d never have mustered together. Yeah, that’s fair, I think, before the club drives me into the seabed.
“Drink,” growls the Man in the Coat.
I roll to the side, sand billowing around me as I get to my feet. I try not to think about how loose and airy my torso feels.
Sight: the Man in the Coat in front of me, Breaker to my right, a horrified Cable hovering over the remains of Plug’s belt. There’s nothing around us now but open ground. The other four senses don’t matter right now; that gives me all I need. Or all I can use, anyway…
I wait for the Man to step in close. As soon as he does, I back up, trying to seem like I don’t know where I am, like I’m scrambling for an exit route. The Man reads me like I’d hoped, and goes for a lunging chop. I dodge out of the way, and use his recovery time to back up even more, to force him to keep on pursuing. He does.
“Drink,” he says as he advances.
Good. I can work with this. All I have to do is keep him annoyed long enough for Spidey to think his way home. But maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll pull off more than that.
Back I go, and forward he comes; back, forward, back, forward. Whenever he seems like he might change tactics, I make a point of stumbling or wincing, giving him just enough opening to keep him taking the bait. It works, and it keeps on working, but eventually he grunts in frustration and starts glancing around, looking for a way to manufacture an opening. I give him one.
I stumble, let out a pained cry. It’s not a performance I find particularly difficult. The Man’s eyes widen. He closes the distance with that horrifying sprint, and nearly stumbles himself when I roll and come up to the side of him. I charge straight into his fully exposed belly – or that’s what I plan to do, before my left hindleg accordions into a stuffing-less heap.
So. I’m not lucky.
The Man grabs me by the neck and leans in. This close, the shadows of the coat don’t hide him anymore. His face is round, chubby, pale as a full moon. His eyes are just green human eyes, distorted through a thick pair of glasses. He pulls me in next to his leering mouth, and whispers in the tiniest, squeakiest voice I have ever heard, “We could have had so much fun.”
He tosses me to the ground like a piece of rotten fruit, and lets out a gross, wheezy chuckle as he puts a boot on my stomach. The blackout creeps in again. I look up at him, at the club above his head, at the surface of the water shimmering too far away – and at Spiderhand, streaking down toward me on the back of something blue and gold and fast.
Miss Mighty connects like a freight train. She and the Man in the Coat pile-drive into the seabed in a cloud of dust. Spiderhand comes flying out of the cloud, fingers flailing. A punch like a thunderclap sounds from inside the dust, and the Man in the Coat tumbles out head over heels, barely even my height now, his coat flapping loose around him. Miss Mighty strides after him, grabs his club before he can recover, and uppercuts him off his feet. When he lands, he’s about as tall as Spiderhand.
The Man scrabbles forward, hands out for Miss Mighty’s throat. Mighty lays him out with a spinning kick, and what’s left of him disappears into the coat. She grabs it before it can slither off, wads it into a ball, tosses the ball up, and swings for the fences with his own club. The connection is like a Mariners home run, a hollow crack that sends bubbles cascading in all directions.
The coat is gone; the bat, too. In their place is a battered, wide-brimmed hat and a single cracked teacup, drifting gently to the ocean floor.
I try to say something witty, and settle for collapsing.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I wake up on my back, staring at a white ceiling while someone tugs at the sore spot that used to be my legs. I try flailing, and get shushed and petted with a feather-soft hand until I slump back into bed.
I see more beds in either direction, all white with bright yellow polka dots on the sheets and pillows. The floor under the beds is made of cheerful sky-blue tile, reflecting fluorescent lights that feel like an afternoon sunbeam. I hear cloth swishing against cloth, feet marching back and forth around me. I smell cinnamon, alcohol, and fresh lemon.
It’s happened. I’m finally on the ‘patient’ end of Saint Sunbeam Hospital. Well, it could be worse – Spidey could have not come back for me…
“Spiderhand!”
I try to sit up, and again I’m shushed back into the mattress. I waggle my hind legs in a feeble attempt at a struggle, and find they’re both blissfully, agonizingly whole.
“Your roommate’s fine,” says a kind, twangy voice somewhere near my back legs, talking in a soothing stage whisper that I have to admit really does calm the nerves. “Got him in a bed down the way.”
It’s Nurse Simon Pawsome, the Red Panda RN. That explains the spice mixed in with the antiseptic. “And Miss Mighty?” I say to the ceiling, not relaxing just yet.
“Didn’t see any Miss Mighty,” he says. “But Spiderhand did say a flying woman dropped you off.”
I’ll need to get the full story out of Mighty later, after I’m done being grateful we’re both around to discuss it. Survival of companions assured, I check in on my body, and regret it. I’ve been stuffed with fresh ticking and sewn up with fresh thread, and I can feel every centimeter of it, still sore, still stiff, still Real. The groan I let out could be used as a torture tactic.
“I’m gonna need you to be quiet there, Tippy.”
“Will I ever run track again, doc?” I ask, in a voice too hoarse to be tough.
Nurse Pawsome makes an amused cluck, and tucks those soft hands underneath me. “Let me sit ya up so we can talk face-to-face, eh Tippy?”
“Detective Tippy,” I say.
“Takin’ that as a yes,” Nurse Pawsome says, and the entire length of my body is dipped into arctic waters of pain as he gently raises me up to a quasi-sitting position.
“Better?” he asks, coming up alongside me. He looks the way he’s always looked, a red panda, lithe and rosy red, with an always-sniffing nose and an always-busy tail, sheathed in polka-dotted scrubs to match the sheets.
“So,” he says. He gives me a grim smile that looks like it could use about seven naps. “What exactly happened to you there, bucky?”
“Nothing you want to hear about.”
“This about the murders, then,” he says, in a voice I can’t ignore.
I’m used to seeing Nurse Pawsome concerned, even used to seeing him worried ‒ but I’m not used to seeing him dread. If nothing else, that confirms I’m doing the right thing following up on this case. And also that I’m the worst detective in the Stillreal for letting it go unsolved for even a second.
“How many are we at?” I ask without wanting to.
Nurse Pawsome fumbles his words. The look of utter misery says it’s not a number I want to hear.
“We’re at eight,” says Miss Mighty from behind me.
I spin around, my midsection objecting strenuously. Miss Mighty isn’t wearing so much as a bandage. Her costume isn’t even mussed. When her person built her to save people, she wasn’t messing around.
Nurse Pawsome glances between the two of us, friendly face at a loss. “Your Panacea Potion should be ready soon,” he sighs, and backs away from my bed. “I’ll just check… I’ll tell Spiderhand to come see ya when he’s ready to be up and about.” He hustles off away from us, scrubs swishing just like all the other nurses.
Miss Mighty frowns at Nurse Pawsome, gives a ‘not my problem’ shrug, and sits down in the chair at my bedside.
“How long until you heal?” she asks, with a look at my torso that tells me it’s as bad as it feels.
“Panacea Potion brings back the dead if you use enough of it,” I say. “Spidey and I should be up and kicking butt again in no time.”
Miss Mighty’s lips quirk, amused and wistful. “He’s the only reason either of you are alive. You know that, right?”
“I’m a lucky roommate,” I say.
“You’re both lucky,” she says.
We trade a glance, both sure that’s the closest to an emotional moment we’re going to have in this millennium.
“How did you know to come rescue us?” I ask.
“Spiderhand dragged me out of the Cape and Cowl.”
I consider exactly how many shiploads of tea I’ll have to buy to feel like I’ve thanked Spidey enough. “Okay,” I say. “So, one: thank you. Two: I thought you weren’t talking to me until I apologized? Three: I’d like to apologize.”
Miss Mighty sits back in her chair, blinking. What can I say? Today has left me unwilling to beat around the bush.
“It was…” She clears her throat. “It was Spiderhand,” she says flatly. “He was really worried, so I figured now wasn’t the time to stand on principle.” She gives me a frank, loaded stare.
I start to respond, and then I catch myself. First things first. “Is it alright if I apologize?”
Mighty frowns, clears her throat, and gives me half a wave. “Fine.”
It comes barreling out of me. “I’m so sorry about what I did. I was so desperate to, to solve the case, and I got clue-drunk and – I told Spidey that it might be dangerous before we went in. I did. I promise.”
Miss Mighty exhales slow and heavy. “Yeah. I figured you might.” She runs a hand through her dark hair, looking off to the side while she gathers her thoughts. “I yelled at you because I was hurting, but I was mad at you because you didn’t trust me. You thought I would say no to danger, and not only is that a total misunderstanding of who I am, that is not a decision you get to take from somebody.” Her teeth clench. “Ever.”
“I was clue-drunk,” I repeat, nodding. “I’m trying to not let it–”
“You’re more than a machine for interpreting clues.”
My turn to stare. What did she just say?
“You’re an incredible detective,” she says. “You’ve helped a lot of Friends, including me, because of it. But you’re more than that.”
I blink, still trying to make sense of what she said.
Miss Mighty leans back in her chair, staring an exasperated stare at the ceiling. “I don’t team up with you because you’re the best at finding clues. I team up with you because I know where you go, there are going to be people who need help, and we are going to help them.” She scoffs, “And adventure. Not gonna lie, that’s a factor, too.”
I snort. It’s easier than having a genuine reaction. “Yeah, I’m really good at getting us in trouble.”
“Someone has to be.” She raises her head to look at me again. “I was going to miss kicking ass with you if you dropped dead on me.” She gives me a wan smile, shakes her head, and then she’s back to her usual look of disdainful steel.
My turn to clear my throat. “Eight, you said?” Maybe I’m not a machine for gathering clues, but I need a subject change.
Her smile fades as she recites her information. “Eight confirmed. He took down that octopus, the one Spiderhand said was called Plug.” She sighs, tension knotting up her voice. “And Azure Armadillo says Victor Crane went down trying to follow up the same leads you were. Sources say we’ve lost touch with some of the guys from the Mousehole Wars, too.” Her eyebrows raise, the only fear she’s willing to show me. “Everyone’s on edge.”
