Doppelgangster Part 10

"Esther, get down!" Lucky shouted. "I'm gonna blow it away!"

I turned around to find myself facing the barrel of a gun. I gasped and staggered backward.

I stepped on Max, who howled in pain. Startled, I lost my footing. I tried to regain it, but I instead did an involuntary barrel vault over the dog. I landed on my head and lay there in a helpless daze as an immense pink tongue started was.h.i.+ng my face.

The beast's breath smelled exactly the way you'd expect a h.e.l.l-sp.a.w.ned canine-demon's breath to smell.

"Esther?" Max said. Max said.

The disgusting facial was interrupted by a paw, which was the size and density of a baseball bat, poking me for signs of life. The creature's nails needed cutting.

"Get down!" Lucky shouted-presumably at Max, since I was flat on my back with a ma.s.sive paw giving me a dermabrasion treatment.

There was an explosion of noise so loud I thought my skull would shatter.

Lucky had fired. The shot missed the dog and instead hit a jar full of dried animal organs. The jar exploded, sending a spray of organs and organ dust all over me. This revived me enough to sit bolt upright and scream. Then I gagged on the acrid smoke and dust I inhaled.

Another shot convinced the now terrified dog to try to hide, and I nearly smothered when it chose my lap as the handiest refuge. Pinned down by the beast's weight, I was unable to escape when Lucky's next wild shot shattered a beaker that spilled some sticky blue substance all over me and the animal.

"Don't shoot!" I screamed, shoving at the dog and trying to see Lucky through the gradually clearing smoke.

If his next shot came closer to the dog, he might kill me me, since the creature was huddled on top of me, whining and drooling in my hair.

Max shouted something in another language as he pointed at Lucky. Suddenly the mobster's gun flew out of his hand and turned into a bat-the nocturnal kind with creepy looking wings. The bat hovered over Lucky for a few moments, as if contemplating biting him.

Lucky's eyes got as big as golf b.a.l.l.s. He fell to his knees and crossed himself.

Then the bat flew toward me. I don't like bats, so I screamed again and covered my head with my arms. The dog thought I was trying to play and, recovered from the emotional crisis inspired by Lucky's gunshots, it started jumping up and down on top of me.

"Max! Help!" I cried.

"To the rescue!" A moment later, Max grabbed the dog around the neck and heaved backward with all his body weight.

The dog resisted for a moment, then decided to play with Max instead of me. The two of them flew backward together and landed with a thud. The dog got up and wagged its tail, looking from me to Max, who lay p.r.o.ne and motionless.

I sat up, trying to catch my breath as I looked around warily for the bat. I saw it sinking to the floor on the far side of the room. To my relief, it was dissolving and oozing back into its original shape, the inanimate weapon which had given it such brief life. Moments later, Lucky's gun lay on the floor where the bat had been.

I glanced at Lucky. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was praying fervently in Italian.

"Max? Are you conscious?" I asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"More or less," came the faint answer. After a moment, Max sat up slowly, disheveled and panting. He rubbed his shoulder as he asked me, "Are you all right, Esther?"

"Sort of." I coughed again and waved smoke away from my face. "How about you?"

"I think I'm being robbed," he said, eyeing Lucky anxiously.

"Oh! No, no," I said, "he came with me."

Max looked confused. "Are you you being robbed?" being robbed?"

"I didn't know he had a gun with him. I swear." But I supposed it should have occurred to me that a notorious. .h.i.t man-even a semiretired one-probably never left home without his piece. "He's a friend of mine, Max. The gunfire was, um, a misunderstanding."

"Well . . ." Max watched Lucky praying. "At least he seems repentant."

After the smoke cleared and we felt strong enough to haul ourselves off the floor, it took us some time to convince Lucky to stop praying and have a seat while we restored order to Max's laboratory. It took even longer to clean up the mess.

The room was cavernous, windowless, and shadowy. The walls were decorated with charts covered in strange symbols and maps of places with unfamiliar names. Bottles of powders, vials of potions, and dried plants jostled for s.p.a.ce on the cluttered shelves. Beakers, implements, and tools lay tumbled and jumbled on the heavy, dark furniture. Today there was also a lot of shattered gla.s.s to clean up, as well as crumbling pieces of dried animal parts and a sticky blue liquid that was staining everything it touched, including me and the dog.

"Max, is this stuff ever going to come off?" I asked, rubbing at my arm.

Lucky, who still seemed dazed, muttered, "There's some on your face, too."

"d.a.m.n," I said.

Jars of herbs, spices, minerals, amulets, and neatly a.s.sorted claws and teeth sat on densely packed shelves and in dusty cabinets. There were antique weapons, some urns and boxes and vases, several Tarot decks, some runes, two gargoyles squatting in a corner, icons and idols, a scattering of old bones, and a Tibetan prayer bowl. An enormous bookcase was packed to overflowing with many leather-bound volumes, as well as unbound ma.n.u.scripts, scrolls, and even a few clay tablets.

For weeks, there had also been piles of feathers all over the lab. Today, for the first time since I'd met Max, the feathers were all gone.

"You solved your feather problem?" I asked as I swept the floor.

Max paused in his efforts to clean up the sticky blue ooze and gestured to the ma.s.sive dog, who lay on the floor a.s.siduously licking a blue-stained paw. "As you see," he said.

"I see a dog," I said. The huge animal had short, smooth, tan-colored hair, with a darker face and paws, and a long, square-jawed head. "Part Great Dane, I think?"

Max's baby blue eyes widened beneath bushy white brows. "Oh, no, no, Esther. No. This isn't a Esther. No. This isn't a dog dog." He glanced anxiously at the beast, as if fearful my comment had caused offense. "I have conjured a familiar!"

I looked at the dog. It looked back at me. Despite its immense size, its floppy ears were too big for its head. Its long pink tongue hung out of its mouth as it panted cheerfully at me.

"This is a familiar?" I said. is a familiar?" I said.

The dog burped.

"Yes." Max beamed at me.

I supposed this explained (somehow or other) the wet dog fur odor I'd smelled floating up from the cellar when Max first confronted his conjured companion down here. And the explosion Lucky and I had heard must have signaled the creature's arrival. Magic sure was noisy.

"What's its name?" I asked.

"She has chosen to be known in this dimension as Nelli," Max said, his flawless English bearing only the faintest trace of his origins in eastern Europe centuries ago.

"Your familiar is named Nelli? Nelli?"

He nodded. "I believe it's an homage to the great Fulcanelli."

"Who was that?"

Max look surprised at my ignorance. "An early twentieth-century alchemist of great renown. Author of The Mystery of the Cathedrals The Mystery of the Cathedrals. Fulcanelli's writings influenced my thinking on trans.m.u.tation, the phonetic cabala of Gothic architecture, and sacred geometry."

"I guess it's always good to keep learning," I said.

"Alas we never met. But no doubt Nelli chose her name because she shares my feelings of affinity with the great Fulcanelli's work."

"No doubt," I said, glancing at the drooling dog. "But you seemed sort of, um, disconcerted by Nelli when I arrived."

"I had not expected quite so large large a canine," Max confessed. "For a few moments, I thought I had made a dreadful mistake and conjured some sort of . . ." a canine," Max confessed. "For a few moments, I thought I had made a dreadful mistake and conjured some sort of . . ."

"h.e.l.lhound?"

"Precisely."

I looked at Max's familiar again. As we exchanged gazes, Nelli began wagging her tail. It was long and thick, and its wagging carried enough force to knock over a floor lamp.

I caught the lamp before it fell. "But, Max, I thought familiars were always, you know, black cats or something."

"Cats can can be familiars," Max said, "but it's not as prevalent as people think. That was mostly a rumor started in the sixteenth century by men who resented widows who preferred acquiring a good mouser to acquiring a second husband." be familiars," Max said, "but it's not as prevalent as people think. That was mostly a rumor started in the sixteenth century by men who resented widows who preferred acquiring a good mouser to acquiring a second husband."

"So a dog can be a familiar?"

"A familiar can take any animal form it chooses," Max explained. "My difficulty in summoning this one was-Well, in point of fact, my first first mistake was in a.s.signing the task to Hieronymus, as you may recall." mistake was in a.s.signing the task to Hieronymus, as you may recall."

"I don't think he was making the effort he told you he was making."

"Indeed, no. And since his dissolution-"

"Let's not use that word," I suggested, thinking anxiously about Lopez, various episodes of Crime and Punishment, Crime and Punishment, and my desire to stay out of prison. "Let's get into the habit of saying since he and my desire to stay out of prison. "Let's get into the habit of saying since he left left. Okay?"

"Of course, Esther. If that will make you more comfortable."

"It will."

"Since Hieronymus left, I have found the demands of protecting New York City from Evil to be a little overwhelming on my own, so I've been increasingly anxious to find a familiar to support my efforts until the Magnum Collegium can send me another a.s.sistant." He added a little bitterly, "Preferably one who doesn't want to take over New York by demonic means and, in the process, kill most of its citizens."

"So you kept trying to summon a familiar after Hieronymus left?" I finished my sweeping and poured a dustpan's worth of disgusting substances into the urn that served as a garbage can.

"Yes, but I mistakenly interpreted the spirit I was summoning as avian in nature when, in fact, it found the canine lifestyle more congenial." He shook his head. "I've been distracted by my various duties, as well as by a summons from the Internal Revenue Service, or else I'd have realized sooner that I was able to conjure nothing but feathers because the familiar offering its services to me wanted a different corporeal form."

"So a familiar, er, applies applies for the job?" I said. for the job?" I said.

"It would be more precise to say that a particular ent.i.ty chose to answer my summons," Max said. "An ent.i.ty that deemed itself equal to the task of helping me protect New York from Evil."

Nelli rolled over onto her back. Her tongue dangled sideways out of her mouth. Her paws flailed as she wriggled to scratch her back against the floor.

Lucky, who had been sitting immobile in a chair with a dazed expression on his face, suddenly became alert. "Did you say the IRS is bothering you?"

Max said to me, "Ah! I think your friend is feeling better."

" 'Cuz, you know, I can maybe help you with that," Lucky said. "Discourage unnecessary inquiries into your perfectly legitimate business interests. As a favor. For a friend of Esther's."

I was glad that the very first thing I had thrown into the garbage urn was Lucky's gun. I didn't think he had noticed its rematerialization, and I thought everyone would be safer if he didn't get his hands on it again.

I said firmly, "I don't want anything bad to happen to a civil servant, Lucky. On behalf of me or or Max." Max."

He shrugged. "If you change your mind . . ."

Despite some misgivings, I decided it was time to make introductions. "Lucky, this is Dr. Maximillian Zadok. He's sort of a specialist in strange events."

"Yeah," said Lucky. "I think I get that. How do ya do, Doc?"

"How do you do, Mr. . . ."

"Lucky Battistuzzi," was the reply. "I'm a hitter for the Gambellos."

"A hitter?" Maxed asked with a puzzled expression.

Lucky waved aside the question. "Mostly retired. I just come out now and then when something special needs doing. Like this problem we got here."

"Ah, a problem!" Max looked interested now. "I suppose that explains why you're here so late, Esther?"

"Late?" I glanced at my watch. "Max, it's not even nine o'clock in the morning."

"It's Sat.u.r.day morning?" he asked in surprise.

"Sunday morning. Just how long have you been in the lab?" morning. Just how long have you been in the lab?"

"Good heavens! I really did lose track of time." He explained to Lucky, "Conjuring a familiar is most absorbing work. Not to mention time consuming."

"Are you talkin', like, a sorcerer's familiar?" Lucky asked.

"Precisely."

"That's your familiar?" Lucky asked, pointing at the dog. your familiar?" Lucky asked, pointing at the dog.

"Yes."

"That dog dog?"

"Yes, but-"

"It's your your familiar?" familiar?"

"Yes."

Lucky took a long look at Nelli. She looked back at him. After a long moment, the gangster said, "In that case, Doc, I'm real sorry I tried to whack it."