Cannibal Dwarf Detective: An Ephemeral Beardening (10 page)

Chapter 25

           
Ranch and Baby look up in terror as the shockwave sends bits of tower flying in
all directions. Debris and people litter the ground around them.

           
“Good,” Ranch says. “The tower is crumbling! The sooner it’s gone the better.”

           
“Aren’t you afraid to die?” asks Water Baby, her foaming head peeking out of
the canteen on the raptors’ saddle bag.

           
“No. Not now that I know the truth,” Ranch replies. “Not now that I know this
planet has been dead for ages. I shouldn’t have ever been born. Hundreds of
billions of people living lives that should have never happened. It’s time this
story reached its conclusion.”

           
“What do you propose we do?”

           
“Jeac and I had a friend. I’m pretty sure he has… expired. But he had a very
large arsenal. It’ll prove useful. Follow me or get back in the canteen.”

           
Walking the many thousands of miles around the base of the tower would take far
too long, so once again the dinosaur takes flight. It’s only a few minutes of
super-sonic flight before they glide to a stop at what’s left of Ja-La Pe-Pe
Ecko Sanders Cactus Farm. The house is gone and black ink still stains the
rubble and the sand surrounding it.

           
Ranch walks up to the rubble and uses his tail to move it away from the top of
a steel-plated double door resting in the ground beneath. He pulls them open
and descends into the weapon-filled safe house. He grabs a duffle bag off a
table and starts filling it with guns, ammo, and thermo-nuclear explosive
charges.

           
Ranch looks over and sees the maintenance table where he, Jeac, and Ja-La Pe-Pe
spent so much time fixing and creating weapons together. Right in the center is
a project they never got to finish. A pair of shoulder-mounted guns that shoot
clusters of razor blades. He grabs it with his teeth and swings it over his
back and fastens the straps in front of his chest.

           
Water Baby sloshes about at the commotion and appears to ask what it is. Ranch
explains and asks the elemental if she can think of or see anything else in the
room that might be useful. Water Baby points out a suit of custom velociraptor
armor that was created just now in my brain for this exact moment in the book.
Ranch puts on the raptor suit as Water baby grabs the nuke. They then fly back
towards the tower.

           
Beams of light, bolts of lightning and balls of fire are flying in all
directions from an increasingly large hole in the center of the tower. A
massive figure, which Ranch recognizes as the golem, is rocking back and forth
as though it were trying to get out. Its arms are pinned within the tower. Only
its head and shoulders are visible.

           
The duo flies close and lands on a broken-up building in the city most visible
at the top. Water Baby gets out of the canteen and sticks close to Ranch as they
make their way down the building and into the Chandakan streets. As they exit,
people run about panicking and looting. Ranch conserves ammo but shoots anyone
who dares attempt to approach them and take their duffle bag.

           
They work their way street to street towards the colossal blood beast. The
nearer they get, the worse the carnage. Rivers of blood pour off the monster
and flood the roads. People and police are swept downstream and wash onto the
curbs of cleaner areas. Ranch opts to fly to avoid most of the trouble.

           
When they get close they can see the source of the magic. Go is doing battle
with the Ronin leader Mu. Ranch darts in between spells and avoids being swiped
out of the air by a massive golem arm and reaches an exposed opening to the
murder shaft.

Chapter 26

           
“Go, stop this at once!” Mu yells as he steps backwards and deflects a bolt of
lightning. “Can’t you see the folly in all this?”

           
“No! The only folly I see is perpetuating the lives that never should have been
only to kill them and continue a lie. Join me or die!”

           
“I can’t! I know you’re right, but I can’t!”

           
“Why can’t you?” Go asks.

           
“My code,” Mu replies. “I dedicated myself to defending this tower. Just as you
once did. You let your magic consume you!”
            “I let
knowledge manifest itself as power. Something you refuse to do. You know the
truth. Let it take hold! Truth is the spark of my power!”

           
“The truth is insane!”

Mu stops using his magic and jabs Go
right in the eye. He follows through with a hook and then uppercuts him so he
lands flat on his back. Go groans and rolls onto his stomach, holding his face
in his hands. The golem bellows and shakes below them.

“So that’s what’s containing it,” Mu
says. “Its life force is you.”

Mu drops to one knee and starts
repeatedly slamming his fists into the back of Go’s head. His face leaves an
impression in the fleshy red ground. Each blow causes a small shockwave that
spreads out through the golem. The blood holding the bodies of the fallen
starts to run everywhere. The jetpacks holding the golem stationary fall into
the cities below as its legs melt away and flood the tower with red.

A door slams open ten blocks away
from the golem and Jeac and Alfonzo emerge.

“What the hell is going on here!?”
Alfonzo drops to his knees and yells. “We will never recover from this.”

He does something Jeac has never seen
a banana do before. He weeps.

“Go on, Jeac,” Alfonzo says. “Save
the tower. I’ll stay here.”

“Why me?” Jeac asks.

‘Because you’re a tower cop. You’ve
sworn to defend the tower. Someone has to do it.”

Jeac frowns then sprints off through
the knee-deep river of blood filling the streets.

“I can do this,” he thinks.

The golem continues to deliquesce as
the Ronin leader grabs his brother by his scraggly homeless hair and slams his
face repeatedly into a skull. The skull fragments and Go, face bleeding
profusely, grabs a shard of the chalky bone fragments.

Mu sees Jeac running toward the
crater they’re doing battle in.

“Jeac!” he yells. “Head to the murder
shaft! I saw your old partner fly in there. I think he’s in league with this
janitor! You have to stop him and save the tower!”

Jeac nods and heads toward the
opening with reluctance.

“I don’t want to fight Ranch,” he
thinks.

“Brother,” Go whispers.

Mu leans in and asks, “Last request?”

“Yes,” Go answers as he swings the
sharp bit of bone up and into Mu’s neck. “Die.”

Mu rolls off Go and they lay next to
each other wheezing. The golem continues to melt beneath them and they ride a
short wave of crimson onto a nearby ledge. Once there, Go props Mu up next to
him and they stare off into the desert.

Chapter 27

Ranch and Water Baby work their way
carefully down a partly destroyed stairwell on one side of the murder shaft.
They reach an observation platform overlooking the flesh bucket. They head
through a door and onto a skinny platform that connects to a long railed-off
walkway that encompasses the circumference of the flesh bucket. It probably
serves as a maintenance access way so work can be done on the chains and ropes
holding the bucket.

“How are we doing this, Baby?” Ranch
asks and sets the bag of weapons down on the ground.

“You have to set the bombs up there
and over here,” Baby says. “If I even touch them they could short because I am
a being of pure water and throw one down in with the bodies while you’re at it
for shits and gigs.”

Ranch starts carefully making his way
across the skinny platforms and charging the explosives. He spots Jeac through
the window of the observation platform.

“Baby, stop him!” he yells as Jeac
kicks in one of the doors leading to the bucket access walkway. Jeac is pushed
back when Water Baby crashes into him with all his watery might.

“Out of my way, Baby!” Jeac yells. “I
will hurt you!”

He steps up and cracks his knuckles
before reaching around and pulling his mighty axe off of his back.

“There’s no way I’m letting you out there,
Jeac,” Baby says. “This is the last time you screw us over.”

Jeac brings his axe down over his
head and into Baby but Baby separates and moves around Jeac. Jeac throws his
entire body into his swings but the blade simply passes through the old water
goddess.

“Hold still you stupid element,” Jeac
growls. He kicks hard at Water Baby. Baby engulfs his leg and holds tight.

“Jeac, stop! Why are you doing this?”

Jeac reaches out to grab the water
which is impossible.

“Why are you doing that?” Jeac yells
while pointing toward Ranch Dressing.

Water Baby spits Jeac out. Jeac flies
through the single window of the observation platform. As Jeac smashes into the
metal platform beneath the window, Ranch looks over with a look of concern and
starts rushing to plant the bombs. Jeac rolls over, sees Ranch, and becomes
enraged.

“You left me there to die, Ranch,” he
says. “Back in chapter one.”

Water Baby scoops Jeac up and squirts
him toward a chain holding up the bucket.

“Screw you, Baby!” Jeac yells and
holds onto the chain.

Ranch finishes planting the
explosives.

“Let’s get out of here, Baby,” Ranch
says. “We did it.”

He begins to run towards the door,
but the sound of the dwarf jumping from the chain and back to the platform
stops him.

“No,” Jeac says. “We finish this
now.”

Water Baby sloshes across the metal
surface between the raptor and dwarf and rises up in the form of a liquid
leopard. She looks mean.

“You’ve been a decent friend,” she
purrs. “But now you must die.”

Water Baby launches herself at Jeac
in an effort to travel down inside him and expand and explode him. But she
misses. She lands in Jeac’s disgusting beard.

“Noooo!” Water Baby starts screaming
and flailing her arms around. Jeac stands proud with his hands on his hips.

“I didn’t think this situation could
get any… Bearder.”

Water Baby slowly dissolves within
Jeac’s beard before finally evaporating and cleaning his beard of blood and
scabs.

“You son of a bitch!” Ranch screams.
“You drowned Water Baby!”

He flies towards Jeac while shooting
razor blades from his dual-mounted back cannons that are really cool and bad
ass. Jeac chops them down with his battle axe. Ranch head butts Jeac and shoves
his cannon in his face. Jeac grabs the barrel of the cannon and bends it upward
which causes the razor blades to explode backwards within the gun. Ranch starts
clawing at Jeac but is tossed to the ground and curb stomped repeatedly. Ranch
manages to scoot out from underneath Jeac’s massive, metal feet.

“Wait!” he yells. “Jeac. You must
understand why this needs to be done, right?”

Jeac lets the disfigured talking
velociraptor have a breath.

“Nope,” Jeac replies. “All I know is
that you’ve betrayed the tower.”

Jeac steps back from Ranch Dressing,
who is pawing at his bleeding face.

“Like a million years ago a giant
being from an unknown place crashed into Chandaka and split it completely in
half,” Ranch says. “That being was you!”

 Ranch shoots his arm out and
points it at Jeac’s face. Jeac’s meaty eyes bug out of his face and his lips
quiver like some dumb child who’s just been told they can’t have any cake
because they’ve been bad.

“No, you’re lying!” Jeac cries like
the aforementioned child. “You can’t put this on me!”

“Jeac, you have known me forever,”
Ranch says. “Why would I lie?”

Ranch struggles to his feet. Jeac takes
a few steps back and pulls a shotgun from inside his beard. He cocks it twelve
hundred times because that’s funny and how guns work, yeah?

“Please, Jeac!” Ranch says. “Think
this through. The tower is evil and we need to destroy it.”

Jeac looks stupid and confused like
an alcoholic baby who has pooped himself.

“Jeac,” Ranch says. “You look stupid
and confused, but I’ve come too far now to quit.”

He screeches like an eagle.

“If you destroy the tower we’ll all
die, Ranch,” Jeac says. He levels his shotgun at his old Peruvian raptor.