Anton Strout: Deader Still

“Still,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back to why we had come to Comic Con. “I wouldn’t normally think of a comic book convention as a place to rent a magical Oubliette.”

Connor shrugged. “But here we are. You’d be surprised at what can pass unnoticed in an environment like this. You ready to go all MacGyver?”

“MacGyver?”

“You know,” Connor said. “You ready to improvise on whatever harsh battle conditions the Oubliette decides to put you through?”

I shrugged. “As ready as I can be. I’ve studied as much as I could over at Tome, Sweet Tome.”

“Oh, so Jane helped?” Connor asked. At the mention of my ex-cultist girlfriend, I got a case of the warm fuzzies.

“Director Wesker’s been putting her through all this cataloging work while they try to figure out how Mandalay had the place organized before we took it over,” I said. “But even with all that busy work, she found some time to help me go over various Oubliette scenarios. We read up on the two carnival wheels that determine my fate. Then we played out the various combinations of weapons it could give to aid me and what the different challenges thrown at me might be. I’m hoping I get a good combo. I’d love it if the Oubliette gave me a silver-tipped crossbow and matched it up with a werewolf. Fingers crossed!”

“I can’t tell which is worse for Jane,” Connor said, “having worked for the forces of evil or having to work for Thaddeus Wesker in Greater and Lesser Arcana Division. Still, sounds like she’s trying to help you live through this thing. Not bad for an ex-cultist temp.”

“Watch it,” I said, not really taking him too seriously. “She worked for the Sectarian Defense League more for the benefits package than anything. I think helping me pin their leader to the wall with a sword proves she’s turned over a new leaf.”

“Fair enough,” Connor said, stopping at an intersection to look around. “I’d like to think Jane and I have softened toward each other over the past three months.”

As I waited for him to pick a direction, I couldn’t help but eye all the tables full of collectibles. I adjusted the well-worn leather gloves I had on. With my psychometric ability, it was hard to keep my hands to myself near all this geeky merchandise. Part of me would love to have touched something and read the past of the object, but now was so not the time for that kind of distraction. While I had gotten better at controlling my powers as of late, I was pretty sure going into the Oubliette after having depleted my blood sugar over a bunch of knickknacks was a surefire way to fail it outright.

“Come on,” Connor said, heading off to our right. “I think Inspectre Quimbley and Wesker said it was set up down this way.”

“So why is Wesker going to be here?” I asked. “Does the director of Greater and Lesser Arcana have nothing better to do than come ridicule me? We’re Other Division. He doesn’t even hold any jurisdiction over us.”

“But he does hold it over anything magical happening in the tristate area,” Connor said, “so Inspectre Quimbley is letting him make sure that the Oubliette rental goes smoothly.”

“So Wesker’s hope that I fail is just a bonus for him today, is it?”

“Something like that, kid,” Connor said.

The traffic of humanity thinned out a little over in this section of the Javits Center. We turned down one aisle and walked until it dead-ended at a hanging blue curtain. Connor pulled it aside.

“After you,” he said.

I stepped through into an open space about twenty feet square. The Inspectre and Director Wesker were there, and smack in the center of the curtained-off area was the Oubliette itself. I had only seen pictures of one before, but up close and in person the object that would decide my fate in the Department was a bit underwhelming. Essentially it looked like a prop from a stage show—a round stone well on a wheeled platform. It looked like the kind of well people made wishes on, complete with a little wooden roof and a winch bar running between the beams, with rope coiled around it. Although it didn’t look deep enough to even stand in, I knew that once I was lowered inside it, it would open up into the magic and dangerous well I had been studying.

As Connor and I crossed to the Inspectre, a hulking figure rose up from behind the well, a giant of a man who looked like he could be brothers with Penn Gillette.

“Don’t tell me I have to fight a giant, as well,” I whispered, hoping he couldn’t hear me.

“Heavens no,” the Inspectre chimed in. He had a booming British accent and a walruslike mustache. “Unless, I suppose, that’s one of the options on the challenge wheel for the Oubliette.” He waved the huge man over. “Julius, come here.”

The giant came over, moving much more nimbly that I would have expected for a man of his size. He held a wooden easel in his hand.

“ This ,” the Inspectre said, patting me on the shoulder, “is the young man who’ll be testing in the Oubliette today. Simon Canderous.”

Julius put down the easel and offered his hand. I took it. With hands that big, he easily could have palmed my entire head like a basketball.

“Julius Heron,” he said, sounding like that should mean something to me. He looked hopeful. “Of the Brothers Heron?”

I nodded uncertainly.

“Nothing?” he asked. “You’ve . . . never heard of us?”

“Sorry,” I said, “no.”

He looked disappointed. “We’re world renowned . . .”

“I’m sure you are,” I said, “but I’m kind of new to all this and I don’t get out much.”

His face brightened. “That’s probably it. Anyway, good luck,” he said, and headed back over toward the well.

Julius set up two easels and attached the Wheels of Misfortune to them, miniature versions of the one Pat Sajak uses. One Wheel listed the types of equipment I might be given to survive with, while the other listed the challenges, sporting names like Scarifying Scarabs, Sinking Sand Trap, Grievous Guillotine, Watery Grave, Leaping Lizards, and Ravenous Rats. A chill ran down my spine. Although I was a native New Yorker—and therefore rat-familiar by association—the idea of them in particular creeped me out like nobody’s business.

As I tried to shake off the heebie-jeebies, the Inspectre turned to Wesker. “Is everything about ready?”

Wesker walked around the well once and checked out the Wheels. He gave the Inspectre a nod.

“Now, then,” the Inspectre said, “all that’s left is the pat down. If you’ll permit me . . . ?”

I held my arms apart and spread my legs farther apart. This felt dangerously similar to my past brushes with the law, but I knew it was simply to make sure I wasn’t bringing anything into the Oubliette that would prove helpful in the test.

The Inspectre stopped when he felt the leather holster I usually hung my retractable bat in. It didn’t help that I had forgotten to remove the bat from it. He gave me a stern look.

“Sorry,” I said, reaching inside my coat and pulling the bat out of it. I handed it over. “Force of habit.”

“You mean being a cheater?” Wesker asked, moving closer, no doubt to keep an eye on me.

I ignored him, but after the Inspectre was done with his search, Wesker started looking me over as well.

“What’s that?” he said, pointing at a rectangular-shaped item in my front pocket.

“My cell phone,” I said, “but if I get to the point where I have to throw it at whatever challenge awaits me down there, I’ve probably already failed, right?”

“Leave the boy alone now, Thaddeus,” the Inspectre said. He turned to me. “Shall we?”

I stepped over to the well and looked down. The shaft plunged into darkness, and I got a sense of disorienting vertigo from the difference of its depth compared to the shallowness of the showroom floor. With little effort, Julius helped lift me up onto the edge of it and then handed me the winch rope to secure around my waist. I pulled off my gloves and tied the rope around myself. Julius gave it a tug.