Un2talented (Book 3 of the Un2 Series)

The Ferryman held the breastplate at arm’s length, relishing the moment.

“If I had a heart, it would be racing!” he laughed.

As he drew the armor to him, it jumped from his hands and enveloped his torso, startling everybody. The trio readied for something, but nothing of note happened. Charlie twisted and turned, checking its fit. “It feels pretty comfortable, but it could use. . .”

“. . .a little more room in the armpits,” DeLeon said in tandem.

“So, how do I pilot this little beauty? How do I select a time peri. . . guhckk. . .”?

Sparks raced around the engraved ouroboros border that defined the outermost edge of the emblem at the center of the breastplate. Charlie stiffened, vibrated, and then folded at the waist. He looked up.

“That was different!” he gasped.

No sooner than he finished coughing that statement, the koi “ying” and the phoecock “yang” contained within the crest began to glow.

“This is going to suck, isn’t it?” Charlie sighed.

He braced his back against the cave wall and wedged his fingers into a couple of fissures on either side of him. The pair of glowing creatures clicked three times clockwise and then stopped.

“That wasn’t. . .”

The yin-yang of fish and fowl spun furiously counter-clockwise, spraying sparks like a pinwheel firework. The joyous whistling sound usually associated with the whirling display of light was replaced with the anguished howls of the Ferryman. The sparks stopped. Charlie collapsed to the grotto floor.

“I bet the pinchy armpits seem less significant now,” DeLeon smirked.

“There’s the asshole we all know and love!” Leslie chided. “Are you okay?” he called to Charlie.

Charlie inched his way up the wall to a standing position. “Oh, a little winded. Does it do that every time someone puts it on?”

“I have never seen it do that before. You must be special,” DeLeon replied.

“I’d prefer being a little less special, thank you,” Charlie rattled. He inhaled choppily, followed by a cough. Something discharged from his mouth and landed on the ground in front of him. He staggered over to it.

DeLeon and Leslie approached Charlie and the projectile. An ancient dime-sized coin lay at their feet.

“It’s an obol,” Charlie stated.

“Why would you cough up a coin?” Leslie asked.

“It’s the price of crossing into the underworld. I would be given an obol as fare to pilot a soul to the proper section of the afterlife. If it tasted pleasant, I would deposit them in the meadows. If it tasted rancid, they were headed for fire and brimstone. ”

“Ingesting coins doesn’t seem very sanitary.”

“I’ve put worse things in my mouth!” DeLeon chuckled.

Charlie was about to pick up the obol when it began to spark. A column of black ash began to rise from its surface.

“You’re just full of fireworks, aren’t you,” Leslie commented. “It looks like one of those black snake things we used to light on the Fourth of July.”

The column sparked, crackled, and continued to rise. As it grew, it transitioned from a singular pillar to a pair. The columns merged as they approached waist-high. It had increased in diameter from the size of the coin to a few feet across.

DeLeon raised one of his foils to poke at it. Charlie pushed the blade aside.

“Let’s see where this goes.”

The three widened their circle. The ash grew quickly to shoulder height and then divided into three segments. The center section continued to grow upward and formed a bulb while the outer segments rerouted toward the grotto floor. They tapered as they dropped and then each divided into five root-like tendrils. The ash stopped growing. The crackling and sparking subsided.

Leslie stepped around the form and viewed it from all angles.

“Congratulations, Charlie! It’s a boy!”

“Or not,” DeLeon added.

“It’s not like any lady I know,” Leslie opposed. “It lacks any sense of style or grace.”

“But it lacks something protruding from its nether regions,” DeLeon countered. He raised a foil to tap at the gap between the lower columns, but his blade was intercepted by an ashy, tendrilled hand. It yanked the sword away from the unwary conquistador. It flipped the foil, grasped it by the hilt, and whacked DeLeon in the groin in one fluid movement. The creature spun away and readied its sword.

“Scratch that style and grace comment!” Leslie jibed.

The creature’s charcoal jawline moved down and tore open the lower half of the bulb. A chuckle slid through the gash.

“I like it!” Charlie clapped. “What shall we call you?”

“Draugr,” the creature murmured.

“What an unusual name!” Charlie replied.

“Charlie, it’s a revenant!” Leslie replied.

“It’s not irrelevant. All creatures serve a purpose!”

“No! It’s a revenant! A reanimation! You certainly are ignorant about the undead for a guy that works in the underworld.”

“Hey, I traffic the dead and the occasional time traveler. The undead is outside of my purview!”

“Wow, I bet that ‘it’s not my job’ mentality is what keeps you a lowly punt pilot!” DeLeon jabbed.

“I am the ONLY punt pilot and a middle manager! I have an assistant!”

“Assistant? Do you mean that cat with the heads?”

“Her name is Cacckk…”

A second obol was discharged from Charlie’s mouth. Ash sprouted from its face as soon as the coin came to rest. He coughed again and produced a third. It too began to transform. The Draugr quickly moved into a protective stance, placing himself between the growing columns and the threesome.

“I think it might be a good idea to remove the armor,” Leslie strongly suggested.

Charlie stuck his thumbs beneath the pectorals of the breastplate and pushed. The breastplate didn’t move. It actively resisted by spinning its ouroboros ornamentation, producing a shock collar effect on Charlie. He shuddered and coughed, producing a handful of obols. Now there were seven coins in various stages of transformation. The Draugr hovered back and forth in front of them.

“Does anyone else see this as a harbinger of doom, or is it just me?” DeLeon asked rhetorically. “Anyone know how to kill one of these things?”

“Try slicing it in half!” Charlie urged.

DeLeon stepped forward and readied his sword. The revenant turned to face him. “On guard,” wriggled from the gaping hole that functioned as its mouth.

DeLeon lunged and put forth a series of swift slashes. Rather than attempting to block his advance, the Draugr raised its arms and stepped into the attack. Its torso dropped to the grotto floor. DeLeon stepped back, perplexed.

“Something isn’t right,” he said.

The top half of the Draugr laughed. Sparks sprayed from the fresh wound as a new set of legs began to emerge. Its counterpart began to sprout a torso.

“Oops!” Charlie shrugged.

“Beheading usually works in the movies. Maybe try that?” Leslie suggested.

“By all means.” DeLeon stepped aside.

Leslie stepped up and hesitantly raised his sword. He looked back to DeLeon.

“Go ahead. How much worse can this get?”

Leslie swung his blade and sliced through the creature’s neck as if it were butter. A deafening screech shattered the air as the Draugr’s head crumbled to dust. It didn’t reanimate.

“Whew! So, all we must do is wait for these guys to grow heads and then chop them off. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Then I will duel Chuckles for the right to wear the armor,” DeLeon nodded to Charlie, “and we’ll all get back to where we belong.”

Charlie nodded in agreement, but then suddenly turned pale.

“Uh, what’s wrong?” Leslie asked.

Charlie covered his mouth with both of his hands and began breathing heavily through his nose. He lowered them quickly, eeked out “Run!”, and then replaced them as quickly and tightly as he could. His cheeks puffed. He struggled to contain the expanding contents behind his interlaced fingers, but the levee broke. Charlie became the slot machine from hell as thousands of obols spewed first from his mouth, but then from anything that could be considered an orifice.