The Order of Odd-Fish (18 page)

“Hey,” said Ian. “What’s this red, yellow, and purple feather doing here?”

For a dreadful second, Jo, Ian, and Nora stared at the feather on the ground.

And then something burst out of the dark corner of the garage—a gargantuan, flapping, snorting, screeching bird, crashing through the garage toward the exit, bowling them all over and blasting out of the archway with a triumphant screech. When Jo, Ian, and Nora got up, they saw the proud shape of the Schwenk soaring overhead, all four of its wings outstretched, turning slowly in the sky; then it plunged away from the city, toward the forest, with incredible speed, and was seen no more.

A few seconds later, Sir Festus, Colonel Korsakov, and a few squires came jogging up, their wild assortment of unreliable weapons cocked and wielded, but too late—the Schwenk was gone.

“Too late!” sighed Colonel Korsakov. “And we were so close!”

“Next time, Colonel Korsakov,” said Ian. “We almost had him.”

“Oh, come on, Ian!” said Jo. “That was pure chance.”

“Congratulations, nevertheless,” said Colonel Korsakov. “My digestion had deduced the Schwenk was in this neighborhood, but all my efforts to pinpoint its precise location were in vain. I blame the nearly indigestible soufflé I had for lunch, which had the effect of decalibrating my large intestine.”

“I thought you said the Schwenk didn’t fly,” said Jo. “I thought you said it was modest.”

“A disturbing development,” said Colonel Korsakov. “The Schwenk is getting cheeky.”

“Does this happen every time you hunt the Schwenk?” said Jo.

“More or less.”

“Have you ever even come close to catching it?”

“Not exactly. Not as such. No.”

“I’ve never asked—what’s
your
specialty for the Odd-Fish?” said Jo.

“Lost causes,” said Korsakov cheerfully.

B
UT
what about Ken Kiang?

Ken Kiang had come up against a wall—and that wall was the Belgian Prankster. Ken Kiang was overwhelmed. He was overpowered. He could not even think about the Belgian Prankster for too long before he would feel his soul dwindle and teeter on the precipice of being blasted to nothing by the sheer demonic grandeur that was the Belgian Prankster.

Ken Kiang had gone to the Belgian Prankster to prove himself; he had come away baffled and reeling. He had hit his limit, and his soul broke upon it. He had staked the meaning of his life on becoming the most evil man in the world, and now he was shattered against something so much more evil, so hugely, senselessly lawless, that he was staggered by the almost infinite gulf between the piddling mischief he was capable of, and the unimaginably gargantuan evil of the Belgian Prankster. He knew, like a slap in the face, that he could never bridge that gulf.

The envelope the Belgian Prankster had given him sat unopened on his desk. Ken Kiang had vowed never to open the envelope. He knew that would only play into the schemes of his incalculable foe. He understood that as soon as he opened it, he would cease to be the protagonist of his own story and would become a mere supporting character in the Belgian Prankster’s story, which engulfed all stories and made everyone bit players to his colossal personality.

But late one cold, sleepless night, Ken Kiang’s curiosity got the better of him, and he sprang out of bed, ran down the stairs, and threw open the doors to his office, where the envelope sat innocently on the windowsill. He tore it open and started to read.

His fascination only deepened as he read. When he realized he had been standing and reading for an hour, shivering in his thin dressing gown, he retreated to his cozy library, where he built a crackling fire and poured some brandy. He read the mass of papers until the early morning.

They were instructions: instructions on how to get to Eldritch City, and orders detailing what he must do when he arrived there. The Belgian Prankster had drafted him as a foot soldier in some vast, complex plan, and Ken Kiang was told only what he needed to know to fulfill his small part; nevertheless, he could feel the shape of the sublime structure of evil he was invited to join, even if he could understand neither its methods nor its aim. The plan, like the Belgian Prankster, was a bottomless entity that threatened to swallow Ken Kiang if he thought about it too hard. He could, at best, play around the edges of this abyss; he could never defeat it.

But it is the willingness to set oneself against the invincible that makes a hero. Of course, Ken Kiang wasn’t a hero in the sense that he would, say, save a child from a fire—the very notion nauseated him—but he was a hero in that he was willing to stake everything on a hopeless gamble. He was overwhelmed by the Belgian Prankster, but nevertheless he vowed to fight him. He might disrupt the inscrutable mechanisms and awesome calculations of the Belgian Prankster’s grand design; it might be impossible, for after all he was invited to be only a minor functionary in the great plan, but he would attempt it nonetheless. There was no swagger here, no vainglory. The Belgian Prankster had burned away Ken Kiang’s vanity. He resolved to fight the Belgian Prankster with the resignation of one who knows he will fail and die in the attempt.

Sadly, but with a quiet dignity, Ken Kiang put his affairs in order. He knew that wherever he was going, there would be no coming back. He sold his vast collections; he gave away the villainous costumes he had so lovingly and painstakingly sewn himself; and he left the black zeppelins and jet fighters of his “Fleet of Fury” to freeze in the Antarctic.

Ken Kiang felt he was saying goodbye to a kind of childhood. The nostalgia he felt was similar to what he’d experienced when, as a moody teenager, he had half contemptuously packed away his toys into cardboard boxes and stashed them under the stairs, vowing never to open them again. Just as then, when he had paused over a box of action figures, tempted to play with them one last time, Ken Kiang now lingered over a wicked-looking sacrificial knife. Should he perform that unspeakable ritual once more, on that blood-drenched altar deep in the New York subway tunnels, where the chanting of the damned reverberated with unholy magnificence and a crawling chaos was coaxed from the darkness to feed on innocence? Heck, just once more, for old times’ sake?

Just as before, Ken Kiang mastered his childish whim and mildly packed the knife away. Ken Kiang was still committed to evil, but now it was evil of a higher sort. He needed no silly props or showy fanfare. Purity of heart is to will one thing, and Ken Kiang’s heart was pure with a single wish: to destroy the Belgian Prankster.

But there was one last project from Ken Kiang’s former life that he had to attend to before he could wholeheartedly embrace his new cause. It was petty, yes, but Ken Kiang feared that to leave this task unfinished might disturb the peace of mind he needed to pursue his profound quest. Ken Kiang could not bear to leave anything undone; and so he resolved, before he left this world, to secure the damnation of Hoagland Shanks.

For Ken Kiang loathed Hoagland Shanks. No, it went beyond loathing: Shanks repulsed him, filled him with almost unbearable disgust. Ken Kiang didn’t understand why, but there was something so smug about Shanks, so stupid and self-satisfied, that Ken Kiang could barely tolerate his existence.

Thus Ken Kiang vowed to send the happy-go-lucky handyman to hell.

Ken Kiang knew how a man could make a hell of his own life. Fortunately, most people are not exposed to the temptations that destroy souls, and so they muddle through their small lives harmlessly, a little frustrated but more or less content, enjoying the humdrum happiness that is the lot of the common man.

Ken Kiang guessed that Hoagland Shanks led the life of the common man. But what if Ken Kiang provided Hoagland Shanks with the money and connections to experience wild pleasures that would inflame his appetites to unnatural heights? That is, what if Ken Kiang gave Hoagland Shanks unlimited access to any kind of
pie
he wanted?

Ken Kiang calculated that five months would be sufficient to get Hoagland Shanks addicted. Then Ken Kiang would suddenly put a stop to his generosity, and Hoagland Shanks would be a changed man. This new Hoagland Shanks would do anything to get his pies back. He would steal; he would do desperate things with desperate people; he would sell everything he had, and what he could of himself; in the end, he would kill, not once but many times, in order to keep coming the pies that, by then, would not even be pleasant, but at best would serve to numb him against his sordid existence.

Ken Kiang smiled. His work would then be complete. A real masterpiece, a last hurrah before he threw himself into the suicidal quest to dethrone the Belgian Prankster. Any idiot can fire a gun and kill someone. It takes real evil to ruin a soul.

Ken Kiang dwelled on these plans at length, patiently fussing over each detail, if only to distract his sickened intellect from the Belgian Prankster, who loomed around every dark corner of his mind and encroached upon every idle moment. Something had happened at that Country Kitchen and implanted in Ken Kiang’s heart a horrifying idea, about a man who was not a man but an unquenchable emptiness, a ravenous nothing that grew hungrier each passing moment. Ken Kiang’s mind would gingerly approach this Belgian Prankster, but a moment’s contact made him jerk back as though burned. It was too unnerving for him to think about it for long, and he would push it away; but invariably, in due time, he would circle around it again, and approach it once more, with mounting terror, and a fascination no punishment could subdue.

Ken Kiang summoned Hoagland Shanks to his Manhattan castle. Workmen had boxed up the last of the intriguing artifacts that had once filled his home. Now the cold hallways and empty rooms made Ken Kiang feel wistful. The next occupants were bound to desecrate his beloved castle, with their obligatory kitchen remodelings, their “rec rooms,” their ludicrous collections of what they took to be modern art.

The meeting was brief and businesslike. Ken Kiang had once fantasized about this moment, the beginning of the process that would end in Hoagland Shanks’s damnation. And yet now Ken Kiang regarded the handyman with neither pity, nor anticipation, nor hope. Crafting the plan was what had satisfied Ken Kiang; its implementation was a mere formality.

“Well, Mr. Shanks, as you can see, I am about to go on a long journey.”

Hoagland Shanks, hat in hand, sat down nervously across the desk from Ken Kiang. “I gotta admit, Kenny, I don’t feel good about being here. That was a weird message you left me. I almost…”

His voice died.

“Yes, but you did come, didn’t you?” said Ken Kiang softly. “You came.”

“Yes,” said Hoagland Shanks, staring at the floor in shame.

J
O
and Ian sat in a gloomy parlor, waiting for an old woman to speak. Even though it was a sunny afternoon, the room was dim and dreary: ancient lace drapes strangled the sunlight, and all was silent except for a loudly ticking clock. It was the sitting room of Lady Agnes, and the old woman sat far across the room, mumbling in the shadows.

Jo couldn’t stop her leg from jiggling. For weeks she and Ian had waited for Lady Agnes to call them about their quest, so long that Jo almost believed Lady Agnes had forgotten. Ian had gone sour on the whole enterprise—“It’s insulting to make us wait like this, even if she
is
Lady Agnes!”—and the last of his enthusiasm vanished when other squires told him just how ridiculous Lady Agnes’s quests could be. “Maybe we
should’ve
let Dugan do this,” said Ian as they rode the subway to her house.

The butler showed Jo and Ian into the parlor where Lady Agnes waited. She was a withered noodle of a woman, her ancient skin gray and wrinkled, her face hidden by thick dark veils. For a long time she didn’t speak. Then she suddenly rasped, in tones of incredulous disdain:

“
You
are Ian Barrows and Jo Larouche? I expected squires to look more impressive!”

“We are squires of the Odd-Fish,” snapped Ian, “and that should be enough for you.
We
expected something better than being ignored for two months.”

“Do you use a napkin when you eat?” Lady Agnes peered closer at Ian. “It seems you left bits of your breakfast on your lip.”

There was an icy silence.

“That,” said Ian with tightly controlled rage, “is a mustache.”

Lady Agnes lost it. She hooted, gurgled, and shrieked, her bony body shaking as though it might break into bits. “Hoo nelly, that’s rich! A mustache! Oh, you can’t make this stuff up!” she whooped. “Butler, get in here with some cake! Oh, the poor dear thinks he has a mustache!
Too much!
”

Ian silently seethed as the butler served cold tea and moldy cake. Lady Agnes fumbled with her fork, straining to lift a bite; finally she gave up, panting, “This cake is too heavy.”

After a moment Jo said, “Do you need help?”

“Ooo-hoo-hoo! Oh, I wouldn’t say no.”

Lady Agnes’s gray chin poked out from the veil, and her shriveled lips parted with relish. Jo guided a forkful of cake into the ancient mouth, and the lips closed with an effort, disappearing back into the shadows of the veil, smacking dryly.

Ian exhaled. “Lady Agnes, we’ve been waiting for weeks. What’s our—”

“Someone is trying to murder me!” croaked Lady Agnes with sudden energy, and Jo and Ian were startled into silence. Lady Agnes snickered, drawing from her robes a jeweled key on a necklace. “
That
is why I didn’t let you in my house for two months.
Nobody
comes in! This is the only key to this house, and I keep it around my neck at all times. Meanwhile, I was researching your backgrounds. Very carefully. Very
thoroughly.
Oh, there’s nothing about Ian Barrows and Jo Larouche that I don’t know.”

A rattling cackle emerged from the veil. Jo fidgeted.
She couldn’t possibly know about my secret,
she thought.
Could she?

Ian said steadily, “Why do you think someone’s trying to murder you?”

“I have received dozens of threatening letters,” said Lady Agnes. “And all signed with a mysterious name I do not recognize: Duddler Yarue! Have you heard of Duddler Yarue? No? Then that is your first task.
Who
is Duddler Yarue?
How
does—”

“I’m sorry, Lady Agnes,” said Ian. “But this isn’t a job for squires. If you really think this, um, ‘Duddler Yarue’ plans to kill you, you should go to the police.”

“Impossible! I committed spectacular crimes in my wild youth. If the police knew I was alive, they’d throw me in prison in a split second. You must stop Duddler Yarue on your own!”

“Oh, come on, this isn’t a proper quest,” said Ian with rising irritation. “It’s something out of a bad detective novel! Duddler Yarue—what kind of name is that? You obviously made it up! This is just another of your joke quests—we all know you’re just doing it to make idiots out of us!”

Lady Agnes growled, “Are you accusing me of lying?”

“Of course you’re lying!” Ian nearly shouted. “Nobody’s trying to murder you, there is no Duddler Yarue, you’re just a crazy old woman and
you’re wasting our time
!”

Just then a rock crashed through the window, flying through the crumbling curtains, sending clouds of dust blooming and swirling. Lady Agnes yanked a blanket over herself, shrieking, “Duddler Yarue! He’s come for me at last! I’m doomed, it’s all over!” Ian sprang up and flung open the curtains to see who it was, and Jo tried to help Lady Agnes, but she howled back, “Don’t touch me! And close the drapes—sunlight makes my skin itch! Oh, Duddler Yarue, make my death swift and merciful, ah, ah!”

Ian picked up the rock, looking at it in surprise. He poked Jo and handed it to her. There was something written on it:

Jo Larouche and Ian Barrows—

If you want to live, don’t try to help the villainous Lady Agnes.

Sincerely, Duddler Yarue

“What does it say?” screeched Lady Agnes from under the blanket.

“Um, nothing,” muttered Jo. She and Ian looked at each other in bafflement.

“I have a right to know what’s written on rocks thrown through my window!” wailed Lady Agnes, clutching her jeweled key in terror.

The butler ran into the room, out of breath. “What is the matter, milady? I heard a crash….”

“Duddler Yarue, it’s Duddler Yarue! Go on, get out, you two useless squires! Catch him! Oooo,” groaned the old woman, and fainted.

As the butler fussed over Lady Agnes, waving smelling salts under her nose and massaging her hands, Jo said to Ian, “What do you think?”

“We definitely should’ve let Dugan take this quest,” muttered Ian. “Come on—maybe whoever threw this hasn’t gone far.”

Jo and Ian ran out the door and onto the street.

The door slammed and locked behind them.

Jo and Ian searched the neighborhood, but they didn’t really know what they were looking for. It wasn’t clear what “Duddler Yarue” would look like, and anyway, the streets were almost deserted. After a half hour of wandering, Jo despaired of ever making any headway, and was ready to give up when they saw an effeminate boy smoking a cigarette on the corner. He watched Jo and Ian idly.

“Hey!” said Ian. “Did you see who threw a rock through Lady Agnes’s window?”

“What’s it to you?” said the boy.

“We don’t have time to explain,” said Ian quickly. “Have you seen anyone suspicious?”

The boy looked away, uninterested.

“Great, thanks,” muttered Ian. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, he might be our only clue,” said Jo.

“I have a name, you know,” said the boy. “And from the look of things, I have much more of a
clue
than either of you.”

Ian seemed ready to boil over, but Jo cut in, “I’m sorry. We’ve been rude. I’m Jo Larouche, and this is Ian Barrows. What’s your name?”

“Nick.”

“Nick what?”

“Nick—that’s all.” The boy shrugged. “Why, I’m just a lad of the streets.”

“Fascinating,” said Ian impatiently. “What do you say you use some of your ‘street wisdom’ to tell us where—”

“Where your guy went? He ran off that way.” Nick waved down the boulevard. “A half hour ago. You’ve lost him.”

“Really? What did he look like?” said Ian.

“I don’t know, he was just some guy.” Nick turned away from Ian with distaste; then he seemed to see Jo for the first time. “Say, you look familiar. Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“You don’t know her,” said Ian.

Nick snapped his fingers. “I remember. The newspaper. Came in with Lily Larouche in the fish, right? The new girl in town?”

Jo was startled and a little pleased. “I didn’t know I was famous.”

“You can’t ride into Eldritch City on a fish and expect people not to notice,” said Nick. “Is your Dame Lily as dangerous as they say she is?”

“That, and more,” said Ian. “Keep that in mind, lad of the streets.”

Nick ignored him. “You know, Jo, there’s more to this town than knights and squires. You want to see the sights? I know a couple of secret places. And I don’t show just anyone.”

Jo was intrigued, but Ian said, “Thanks, but no. We’re going.”

“Your friend can come, too, of course,” said Nick, barely looking at him. “I wouldn’t want you to miss it. I’m the only one who knows about it.”

“I doubt that,” snorted Ian.

Nick started toward the subway station. “Well, come on, if you want.”

Jo started following after Nick, but Ian touched her shoulder. “Jo, I don’t like this—there’s something funny about him.”

“I know,” said Jo, rather enjoying Ian’s jealousy. “I like him.”

“You’re taking a risk.”

“I want to take a risk. Are you coming?” Jo went after Nick a couple of steps, then stopped and looked back. Ian teetered back and forth and finally gave in.

“All right,” he grumbled. “But just to keep an eye on him.”

When they reached the subway entrance, Nick glanced around to make sure nobody was around, and then nimbly jumped the turnstile. “Don’t bother with tokens. Come on!”

Ian looked at Nick with contempt. “You’re supposed to pay!”

Jo usually paid for things, but she was sick of Ian’s attitude. She jumped the turnstile, too, leaving Ian alone on the other side.

Ian bought three tokens and went through properly.

“What’s got into you, Jo?” he said.

They descended to the crowded subway platform and waited for the train. But when the train finally came, Nick just shook his head. The train coughed out a few passengers and took some others on, and then it was gone, hooting down the tunnel. The last straggler climbed up the stairs, and for a moment the platform was deserted.

Nick hopped down onto the tracks. “Hurry! It’s this way. No point in paying if you’re not riding, right? Don’t touch the tracks!”

“This is ridiculous. Let’s go, Jo,” said Ian, and started walking away.

Jo hesitated, caught between two opposite pulls. Nick’s eyes reminded her of something; even if Jo didn’t exactly trust him, she wanted to follow him anyway. Almost without thinking, she climbed down.

“Jo!”
shouted Ian; but finally he, too, jumped down, and went after them.

They followed Nick down into the dark, dripping train tunnel. Soon they had gone so far that there was almost no light to see. Nick cleared away some trash, revealing a hole in the corner, and climbed down, jerking his head to indicate they should follow. And then he was gone.

“I suppose he takes all the ladies here,” said Ian.

“Will you stop it?” said Jo. “If you don’t want to come with us, then don’t.”

“
I
should stop it? Do you know how stupid you’re being?” Ian shouted. “You met this kid ten minutes ago, and now you’re following him down into who knows where! This is
Eldritch City,
Jo, not a game. It’s dangerous.” He took her arm.

“Let me go!” said Jo, twisting away. “I want to do this. I can tell he won’t do anything bad.”

“You can, can you? I’m not so sure.”

“I’m going.” The more Ian resisted, the more she wanted to go. “You don’t have to come.”

“But if anything happened to you—”

“I can take care of myself,” said Jo.

“No, you can’t,” said Ian. “Nobody can.”

Nick’s head popped out of the hole. “Hey! Are you two coming or what?”

Jo looked at Ian, and he slowly let go of her arm. Together they followed Nick down the hole.

Down, down, down. Nick led them deeper into the cramped and filthy passageways, and the farther they went, the less manmade the passages seemed, becoming darker, slimier, and rougher. Nick had a lantern, but it provided only the weakest dribble of gray light as they crept down ladders and stairways and corridors into the forgotten depths of Eldritch City.

After a half hour, they stopped in a small round room. There was a wet hole in the floor, coated with slick, spongy moss that gave it a disturbingly fleshy look.

Nick handed Jo the lantern. “I’ll go first. Wait for one minute and then follow me.”

“What is it?” said Jo, bewildered.

“That would be telling. See you.” Nick crawled headfirst into the hole, which suddenly contracted and slurped, and then he was gone.

“What is
that
?” Jo moved closer to Ian. “Where is he taking us?”

Ian looked around warily. “It could be anything. Eldritch City is thousands of years old, built on ruins built on ruins, going back to who knows when. We might very
well
see something only Nick knows about.”

Jo felt a creeping panic building inside her. She wanted out of these filthy, cramped tunnels. The lantern cast weird shadows, strange noises echoed through the darkness, and the hole was almost unbearably disgusting to look at—almost like a sloppy, drooling mouth.

“Ian…I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” said Jo.