Death by Cliché (22 page)

“Must… make… deadline.”

—Bob Defendi

hey came in one by one. Barmaid Bunny told first one
then another who had fed them this evening. They came to Damico, and they touched him, and they thanked him. Mothers wept as their children laughed and ate. Damico took up another collection and ordered seconds for everyone.

They came into the room as automatons, but as they touched him, they lit up one by one. With each touch, he felt himself getting weaker.

He was fading. He had to stop this. The food would have to be enough. He called Bunny over.

“Yes,” she said, bouncing over to stand next to him.

“I have to leave.”

“The people want to thank you.” She beamed at the villagers, crowding the inn, spilling out onto the streets.

“It’s taking a lot out of me.”

It’s killing me.

“You’ve given them a meal,” she said, confused. “You don’t want to give them this?”

“I can’t.”

Too much.

He felt a tug on the back of his pants. He turned to two children. One had black hair and one had blonde. A boy and a girl, in identical dirty smocks. They gazed at him with dead eyes.

“Thank you, sir,” they said in a hollow unison.

“Aren’t they cute,” Barmaid Bunny said.

Dead eyes in dead faces. Dead souls in dead bodies. It was as if someone had ripped everything good and pure out of these children. They had no hope, no dreams, no drive. They were nothing but vague, embodied want.

Damico went to one knee. He gathered both children into his arms, and he shuddered. The sound that came out of his mouth was wet, thick. Wordless.

He pulled back and looked into brilliant, inquisitive eyes. “Eat as much as you can. Then go play.”

And they did.

He stood and watched these people. He swayed slightly as he compensated for the lost life force. How many people had he brought to life so far? This village. Would he die if he kept it up?

He had done enough. It would
have
to be enough.

“See,” Barmaid Bunny said.

He grabbed her arm, pulling her close. Then he kissed her chastely on the cheek.

“Tell them all they have to come shake my hand,” Damico said. “Find any who already left.”

“Shake your hand?”

“I’m Italian. I can’t break bread with someone I haven’t met.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Tell them it’s payment for dinner.”

Barmaid Bunny smiled and moved away. Damico watched her go.

He turned back to the people and continued to dole his life to them in measured sips.

Chapter
Thirty
-Nine

“If the effects of this chapter last more than four hours, please consult a physician.”

—Bob Defendi

ne by one, the party members went to bed, and
Damico felt a twinge when Lotianna left. Not because of her sudden absence but because he felt vaguely like his attentions on the barmaid were a sort of infidelity. But it wasn’t; he knew that. He’d forged a relationship with two different women, and both had left him. The fact they’d left the body behind was no matter. He was alone, uncommitted, without even implied promises to hold him down.

Finally he sat alone, smiling as he watched one small boy work his way through the food line for the third time. He could tell by the wry expression on Bunny’s face she noticed too. She smiled.

Eventually the crowd dissipated, and the cook collapsed face first onto one of the tables. Bunny came over and did the same on the bench next to Damico. He shook with the loss of life, diminished, half a man. Still, it didn’t matter how sick and weak the drain left him. In spite of it all, he felt so damn
good
.

“Good work,” he said.

“Yeah.” She leaned against him slightly.

He smiled and inhaled the scent of her. He’d never seen anyone bathe in this world, and yet they didn’t stink. She smelled sweaty like she might after a workout or lovemaking, but no more. Maybe bacteria didn’t exist in Carl’s world. For anyone other than him, that is.

“I just want to go to sleep,” she said.

“Go ahead,” Damico said.

He basked in the warmth of her. They eased their backs to the wall, and her head fell against his shoulder.

“It’s inappropriate,” she mumbled. “I need to get up. The cook will talk.”

Damico nodded and caught the eye of the big, matronly cook, now the only other person in the room. He smiled at her and said in a loud voice, “Bunny thinks you’ll start spreading rumors about us.”

The cook nodded as if that were an instruction. “Honey, Bunny’s sleeping with that new guy!”

“That’s nice, dear!” a voice called from the back.

Bunny hit him. She didn’t lift her head, but she
did
feel awake now.

“See,” Damico said. “Taken care of.”

She chuckled, and Damico couldn’t see her eyes, but from the cook’s expression, the two women shared a look. Then the cook rose to her feet, grabbed the huge pot, and waddled out of the common room.

Damico stared down at Bunny and found her staring back up at him. He leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back, then in a breath between that and what he hoped were
more
kisses, she said, “I thought you only wanted me for my mind.”

“Aren’t I kissing your mind?”

“Not hardly.”

“I better try harder,” he said, kissing her again, passionately.

“Still not there,” she murmured.

“Let me try one more time,” he said, kissing her so deeply it should require a license to practice medicine.

“Oh, that was it,” she said between gasps.

They kissed for the next ten minutes, one thing leading to another, then he rose and led her to his room. Still kissing, he fumbled his way over to the big bed. They fell in together.

“I can’t do this,” she murmured between kisses.

“I beg to differ with you,” he said. “You’re pretty good.”

They kissed some more and somehow they seemed to lose clothing. Evaporation.

“No really,” she said. “We need to stop.”

“You’re on top,” he said. “You have to stop first.”

“I can’t have sex with you,” she said.

“I didn’t offer it,” he said.

She stopped, pulling back and giving him a look as if she couldn’t decide if he were for real. Her expression was one of puzzlement, confusion, and just a little bit of hurt as if she wasn’t sure whether he rejected her.

“I’m not that kind of a boy,” he said with a straight face.

A smile blossomed on her face. “I only want you for your mind.”

“Oh, well. That’s okay, then,” he said.

They fell back into the kissing. This was what he meant by
fun
games.

Damico woke to the light of dawn slanting through the window. Bunny was gone, but his lips tingled as if she’d kissed him good morning. For a time, he stared at the ceiling, feeling good and whole for the first time since he’d come to this world, despite the loss and the spent life.

He’d needed it so badly. The sex had almost been an afterthought. He’d needed that emotional connection, and he’d gotten it.

As he dressed, he felt a strange sensation, not as if someone had walked over his grave. More like someone had crumpled his character sheet. A moment later he felt a great noise—he didn’t hear it. It felt like someone was rubbing a cat against a big pile of laundry. In his genitals. He reached out and caught a ladder-backed chair while he waited for the nausea to pass.

He’d gotten as far as putting on his pants so he rushed out the door, through the common room and out into the street. Omar came out in his small clothes and Arithian in a long shirt with a village woman on each arm (dressed in more of his shirts). Jurkand exited bootless and cloakless but otherwise dressed, and Gorthander came out in full kit. Lotianna wandered out probably homing in automatically on the largest concentration of party members.

“Did you feel that?” Jurkand asked.

“What was it?” Gorthander asked.

“I can’t describe it,” Jurkand said.

“You keep saying that!” Gorthander said, probably talking to Carl, not Jurkand.

“As I dressed,” Damico said, “I felt a strange sensation, not as if someone had walked over my grave. More like someone had crumpled my character sheet. A moment later I felt a great noise—I didn’t hear it. It felt like someone was rubbing a cat against a big pile of laundry. In my genitals.”

Gorthander just stared at him woodenly. “I didn’t catch that.”

“It felt like a foreshock,” Damico said.

“A foreshock of what?” Gorthander asked.

“The end of the world,” Damico said. “I think Hraldolf found the Artifact.”

Chapter
Fo
rty

“Uh oh. They’re in trouble now!”

—Bob Defendi

amico found the village reeve. At least he assumed
the man was the reeve. Everyone else kept asking him questions like: “What the hell was that?” and “Are we all going to die?” and “Have you thought about that little problem I brought up last week?”

The man looked harried, as if his car horn had stuck behind a pack of Hell’s Angels. He looked like a grown man who just discovered that to get into Heaven, he needs to have a Bris.

“Sir?” Damico asked, walking up to him.