The Deplorable Phil Ossiferz Stone-Cold

Open your laptop. Hit Alt+Tab+F7 and suddenly there's a perfectly polished mirror where the screen should be. Unholster your pistol. Hold it in front of the mirror and repeat the words you memorized phonetically, with an Agency archeo-linguist coaching you every syllable of the way. Very throaty language, with lots of hisses and murmurs and tongue-pops in it; our alphabet doesn't really do it justice..... And push, do not shove, the gun through the mirror and into whatever lies beyond.

Then withdraw your hand.... gently... there you go... and find to your wild relief that it hasn't shriveled up or broken off. Holy shit. I got away with it. Again.

And at this point you couldn't give a damn less about my name (none of your business, thanks for asking), or what kind of gun I picked for the job (CZ-75 SP-01 Phantom, custom trigger job, tritium night sights, very nice). You're not even interested in the story. Oh no. You've got that little-kid-on-Halloween gleam in your eye. You've got so many delicious questions -- and the answer to all of them is no.
MJ-12 treats weapons-grade sorcery as a sort of controlled substance. A memetic weapon. The vast majority of people out there, even if they get it right, succeed in nothing more than freaking themselves out. But a very few -- the ones that don't set themselves on fire -- get to the point where they can duplicate their results. And a few of those few aren't content with the traditional blessings of health, long life, and prosperity. Oh no. They start hurting people with it. Or they hurt people so they can do more of it, like the covens of Thule-Gesellschaft. Worse yet, they call attention to our anthill from things we don't even want looking at us.

So occasionally, the Agency decides to cull the herd. Which is where I come in. Hey. A contract's a contract's, and I gotta pay the bills somehow. MJ-12 is willing to pay good, if it prevents the Sahara Effect from popping up again. (All that crap about space aliens is just that. Disinformation. Sorry, UFOlogists. It's crap crap crap). I won't even go into what your average poltergeist is capable of. Come on. You really think an entity that can steal your car keys has any difficulty loosening the valves on your gas stove? or pinching one of the capillaries in your brain?

Oh all right. Tell you what, I'll throw you a bone. You want to know what percentage of home and medical emergencies in the United States are supernaturally occurring?

Anybody...?

Less than you fear, kids. But more than you think. Way more. I'm not allowed to quote figures, obviously, but it's in the mid-high single digits. That's in a magic-secular society. Ours.

Now. Imagine every angsty teenager in the country has access to a working spellbook -- a real one. Leave out the stuff that makes poltergeists look like cockroaches. Do I need to draw a picture here? The stove is hot. Don't touch.
Protip: the vast body of magical ritual is not designed to make anything happen. Nope. It's to prevent things from happening. It's to keep things away you don't want, and prevent collateral damage in case something goes wrong. It's the arcane equivalent of trigger discipline. Because with magic, even given all the precautions, you are never completely in control. Ever. Magic has a momentum and an agenda of its own and you have to be clean to handle it. Calm, pure, contemplative -- all that monkish crap.

Me? I'm not monk material. I drink and I swear and I don't hold the door open for little old ladies. Also, I did a lot of wet work for the cartels before somebody nailed me with an old-school hex and MJ-12 reeled me in with hopes of a cure. Protip #2: before accepting a contract on a Mexican drug lord, make sure the man's brother is not practicing the Old Faith on the top of his own private pyramid out in the middle of the jungle.

I've killed all sorts of people. Cops and lawyers and stoolies and nightclub owners. Men and women, rich and poor. Some I killed in front of their friends and-or family. Most were only a few yards away when I pulled the trigger, and at that range you see every nasty last-second emotion the human animal can conjure up. I don't know how many of them were actually guilty of anything and I still don't care, because if it hadn't been me it would have been someone else getting paid and the exact same people dying.

Wow, you say. Pretty cold. Yup. I am not a shiny happy person and the Judeo-Christian ethic does not figure greatly in the scheme of my being. So despite the fasting and the bathing and the bland assurances that it's perfectly safe, I get pretty fucking nervous whenever I do the thing with the mirror. Because this sort of thing is dangerous, extremely.
And whatever space the gun goes into -- that's cold too. At least with ice water you get a feeling of substance, something to swish your hand around in. With the mirror there's nothing. Your hand isn't cold when you pull it out again, either, so you're not losing any body heat. You just feel it somehow. Maybe Stephen Hawking could grok what's going on in there, but I sure as hell don't. All I know is every time I do it I feel like I got away with something, like a kid shoplifting a candy bar.

Cold. It's cold in there, wherever it is. And I hate coming into contact with it. Fuck magic. It's not as much fun as you think it is.

Now, guns? I like guns. A gun doesn't know whether you're a good Samaritan or a mass murderer. It doesn't care whether your fingernails are dirty or if you said your prayers. Pull the trigger and it goes bang. You are the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of what that weapon does, and why. You provide the moral and the physical force for that firearm to do its thing. Total control.

Which brings us back to the story I know you're just dying to hear.

I pay the cabbie a fat tip and tell him when to pick me up. Then I trot up the shallow steps, where a couple of security guys wave a wand over my body. Heavy security for a nightclub. The owner is a cautious man. He's right to be. He knows he's on MJ-12's naughty list. But there's nothing on me except a Gerber multitool. Oh geez! I'm sorry guys, I didn't even remember I had that! I can get it back later, right....?

Then it's in past the heavy double doors, past all the stone carvings of men and gods and animals killing and screwing each other, and into the exhibit area. Half the one gigantic room is taken up by little cocktail tables surrounded by high-backed chairs. The rest is taken up by a cluster of stone pedestals. More carvings of lizard people and monster-warriors... but the real draw is what each one is displaying on top. That's why everybody's here tonight. All the trappings of Mesoamerican ritual magic are on display tonight, from the owner's private collection. How nice of him to share.

The attention-getter is this bigass chunk of stone in the middle of the room, rising out of the floor. I shoulder my way through the crowd. Looks like it's draped in some kind of ornamental tablecloth -- no, scratch that. It's a ceremonial cloak. The little sign informs the onlooker that Aztec priests used to wear ones just like it, made out of human skin.

"Ewwww!" goes a blond chick in front of me. Bleached hair, fake tits sticking through a clingy dress, square fake nails. "What's this one made out of?"

The owner favors her with a toothy smile. "Skin of monkey, senorita."

"Oh my God monkey skin! Can I touch it?"

Blond Chick receives a nod and a gracious gesture, so she extends a forefinger, traces one of the designs, giggles. All around me people are doing the same thing. The cup used to hold the blood. The stone knives. All real, all recovered from actual sites in Central America. Things dipped in the blood of thousands of terrified human beings. People bend over them and touch them and chuckle breathlessly, wide-eyed like little kids. Fascinated by death. Turned on by the pornography of power, as they are intended to be.
And that 'monkey skin'? Came off a highly intelligent upright primate that walked across the Sonora desert in bare feet last year, fighting against fear and thirst and La Migra to get a job washing dishes in Los Angeles. I admit I feel a pang looking at it. What a helluva way to end up.

Apparently it shows. "You don't like, senor?" The owner leans into me, brows raised in a thick bushy question mark.

I wrinkle my nose. "My brother's a plastic surgeon. Hanging around him, I hear more than enough stories about... you know. Body parts." I wave my hands like I'm flustered, resisting the urge to put them around his throat.

And I smile at him. I've got a terrific smile. Always taken great care of my teeth and I enjoy showing 'em off. Be brisk, be friendly, and turn on that boyish charm like a lantern in the dark. It works, too. He nods and instantly switches his attention to the next customer. He's got a good smile, too.

I wander back over to the bar. The bartender's short, Hispanic, heart-shaped face with a big smile. Helluva a rack on her. "Sorry sir," she calls, and points at a sign. "Bar is closing." They stop serving drinks half an hour before the exhibit ends, apparently. Don't want any barflies hanging around. Well, that's good. She won't be here come closing time.

"Can I get a refill on this first?" I raise the glass and jangle the ice around in it.
She obliges with a laugh, so I wander around and pretend to be interested in the less-grotesque exhibits and nurse my soda water and ignore my growling stomach. Kill time until it's right before closing and people are filing out. Excuse myself and go into the men's room. Wash my hands and treat myself to my own smile in the mirror.

Okay. This is why you earn the big bucks. Showtime.

Right now. Here we go.

Hooboy --

I'm there for a lot longer than I intended, whistling tunelessly between my teeth and trying to get my nerve up, when a big security guy comes in. Now, some big people are gentle. They move as though acutely aware that they could accidentally hurt something and they never raise their voice. This guy wasn't like that. "Hey mother fucker, time to go. You back here shoving snow up your nose, I kick your -- "

I turn around and whack him in the windpipe, then grab his head and twist. Snap. On the floor. Push your heel into his windpipe and keep it there until he quits moving and you smell urine from a relaxing bladder. That gives me a solid golden minute of peace and quiet until they start wondering where he is. One minute, and that's all. No more stalling.

Face the mirror. Wash your hands again real quick and calm your thundering heart. The incantation again. Last two syllables are different, very harsh on the tongue. Push your fingers against the slick surface -- a split second of oh-crap-it-isn't-working, then your hand goes right into the cool glass and the deeper chill behind it. Extend your hand and twist your palm at a certain angle, and... yes. There it is. Pull the CZ out and it's still room temp. Thank God or Whoever it worked again. As always.
And now things start clicking into place. Check the chamber. Yup. Eighteen in the mag and one in the pipe. Stick the plugs in your ear. Start walking in smooth powerful strides on the balls of your feet. Bash the bathroom door open with your shoulder and keep going. No more magic. From here on out it's just you, doing the one thing you do best.

There's another security man walking towards the bathroom door as I come out. Right on top of me and completely flatfooted. His eyebrows go up and his mouth contorts in a yell, and his hands come up -- not to snatch his own weapon, but in surrender. All this in half a second, and then I put the muzzle over his heart and pop him. He's still groping in the air as he falls, still trying to find a way to beg me not to do what I just did.

The pretty little bartender is more on the ball. She screeches in fury and pops out from behind the bar with a knife in her hand, the long thin kind they use to cut fruit for drinks. Her lips are skinned back far enough to show pink gums. Total animal fury. Automatically I crouch, and give her the Mozambique drill -- two to center of mass, one to the head. That's how you stop an adrenaline-crazed human being at in-your-face range. folks.

Jesus. Was she a college kid working a part time job? or something else? Why was she in here after closing? Why did she hide, instead of running? Did she think she'd stop an armed robbery all by herself? Did she know it wasn't an armed robbery? Why charge a gunman with a knife? Questions, questions. Compartmentalize them, save them for later. Or better yet, for never.
Right on cue the guys outside the door come bursting in. One's still holding the metal detector for some goddam reason while he fumbles around under his jacket with his other hand. My finger tightens of its own accord and his head jerks like he has a nervous twitch. No big dramatic explosion of blood and brains. He just collapses. The other guy has that little briefcase. It falls open, and in the time it takes to put my sights on him his hands come up with an ugly little submachine gun. I hit the ground, brace myself in my best Tactical Breakdancing stance, and put one through his stomach. Low shot. Ouchie. He howls and falls, and I put one, two more through that shrieking red hole of a mouth. He never even gets a shot off.

Not pros, then. Thank God. Cult members are generally selected for reliability, not expertise. For their total willingness to do what they just did -- die for the cause. General Patton would approve and so do I.

Up again. Keep pivoting to the left. Take in the whole room. Everything's quiet. Nobody left except the owner, sitting very still at his private table in the corner. And bless my soul, Blond Chick is sitting next to him, head lolling. Doped up and drunk for what was to follow. That's fine. Makes my job easier too.

"Stand up, please." I motion at the owner, with the gun. He smiles softly and starts talking some kinda smooth movie-villain bullshit about how I don't know what I'm messing with or -- I dunno, something like that. Several seconds into his spiel I get tired of waiting and pop him once in each knee. His face goes into a chimpanzee-rictus of pain, but he doesn't make a peep.

I yank the blond up and out from her seat and slap her a couple times. No, not rough. With my fingers. Like you spank a baby. She's hyperventilating and trying to hide her face, but I grab a handful of that fake blond hair and force her to look at me while I fish an anesthetic patch out of my pocket and rip open the little foil packet.
"Hey. Listen. I have something very important to tell you, okay?" I clear my throat. "The planet Venus is often mistaken for objects of manmade or extraterrestrial origin. Atmospheric flutter can make it seem to move around a lot. Especially in the desert. Okay? You got that? Good. Say it."

She nods frantically and mumbles. Vee-nus. Good enough. I slap the patch on her neck and watch her drift off to lah-lah land. Then I sling her over my shoulder and put her over by the double doors, well out of harm's way.

It's part of the canned spiel. The more formulaic nonsense you recite when you show up, the dumber witnesses sound when they try to describe what happened. And even people that believe them will look in the wrong direction. They'll be scanning the skies with binoculars looking for little green men and occasionally getting the shit kicked out of them by Air Force security. Not down at the earth beneath their feet. Not inwards at themselves. Not back at the past, and all it holds.

Up. Out. Towards the future. Which is just fine. It's where we belong, if you want to get a little preachy about it.

I drag the owner over to the big rectangle of granite. The one with the monkey-skin-that-ain't cloak on it. After a certain obligatory amount of violence I get him to lay down on it, shove a bunch of holy wafers in his mouth, and cut his throat with the bartender's knife. All the way around, down to the bone.

No blood. Just wet red flesh. He rolls his dead eyes and laughs at me through the hole in his neck. I go back to the corpse next to the doorway, retrieve my multitool, flip open the bone saw, and cut through the vertebrae. Still no blood, but the ragged laughter stops. I leave the head on the altar with the bloody wad of wafers still in its mouth and reach behind the bar, snag a few bottles of high-proof liquor. Bust the tops off. Hose the remains down. Toss a match -- foomp.

Finally, now, with the soul beginning to loosen its grip, the corpse starts to bleed. It's the last blood that altar will ever soak up... and now, with the consecrating priest dead on top of it, it's broken. Well, unless you feel like bulldozing the club and excavating the site to the depth of a hundred fifty feet. Just uncover the whole structure and lay a new cornerstone, with another bunch of sacrifices beneath it. Again. Yeah. Even with all the drug money in the world -- and all the illegals you think nobody'll miss -- that's kind of an expensive proposition. Not to mention risky.

Go build a new pyramid with a nightclub on top, you assholes. Warrantee's expired on this one.

I carefully clean myself off with a couple baby wipes, throw them into the fire, and hightail it out of there before the sprinkler system can go off. I don't bother to police my spent brass. I use a different gun for every job. Ballistics testing? Ho ho. Go right ahead.

The cab driver was drowsing at the wheel, but he detected my presence out of the corner of his eye and yawn-stretched his way into full wakefulness. Then his eyes get all huge and he starts fumbling around and drops his keys on the floor, jabbering and whining to himself... and I hear the latch on those huge wooden doors go clack as they close softly behind whatever just came out behind me.
Being the nervy professional I am, I went for my gun upon the instant and pivoted around, ready to deal all kinds of death.

And started laughing my ass off.

I couldn't help it. The headless corpse of the high priest -- still sozzled with expensive booze, still on fire -- was wandering down the steps with its arms groping around like an old-time movie monster. It was hilarious.

You know how chickens run around with their heads cut off? That's called a rudimentary nervous action, and every now and then a body near a strong magical discharge will do the same thing. Sometimes for days, as long as there's blood and oxygen and calories to burn. And yes, this phenomenon is what is popularly termed a 'zombie'. They're weak and they're non-aggressive and they don't eat BRAAAINS. You just don't want them to bleed on you, is all. Disease vectors, etc. Whatever killed them could start working on you. But other than that? absent any intelligent direction? They're harmless.

Obviously this one was gonna bleed out pretty quick. But I didn't want it lurching around the outskirts of Las Vegas for those few minutes. On fire, yet. That was just wrong. Funny as fuck, but wrong.

I took all the time in the world with the CZ and gave the not-quite-corpse two shots to the heart. Then a third right above it to blow out the aorta, and another double-tap on the other side to hole the liver. Finally, after that last shot, the smoldering shambling pile of meat collapsed on the sidewalk. It spasmed a bit and made an unhappy noise. Just leaky lungs and nerves doing what comes naturally, magic or not. I shot it again anyway. Made me feel better.
I found myself glad it wasn't the bartender. I didn't like shooting her the first time, either. Would have sucked to do it again. And suddenly the humor is gone. Back to business. Meaning the hell out of here.

By this time the cabbie'd found his keys and was bent over the wheel like a man possessed, getting ready to hightail it out of there. I short-circuited his flight impulse by rapping on the window with the barrel -- the universal way of saying STAY WHERE YOU ARE, ASSHOLE -- and slid into the back seat. "Okay, guy. McCarran International. Terminal one. Let's go."

I used the smile on him. Like I said, that's my crisis management tool. Gotten me out of more awkward situations than I can remember. But he doesn't react well to the grinning murderer in his rear-view mirror. Maybe the Attack of Flaming Headless Guy ranks a little too high on the awkward scale. "Oh my God." he gasps. "Don't kill me. Oh Jesus what was that? Oh God, my God you killed him." Blah blah blah. The usual terrified babble.

"No I didn't." I held up the CZ again. Still smiling. "The bullets killed him. All I did was pull the trigger. Alpha and Omega, that's me."

He's kind of -- not cowering, at this point, but shying away from me. Like a dog that's expecting to get kicked. "Look, man don't shoot me please, please I gotta wife. I got me three kids -- "

"Oh come off it." I peeled off a handful of nice crisp twenties, rolled them up to cigarette-size, and shoved them through a hole in the scarred plastic screen. "Look. That's for the ride. Once we get to the airport I'll give you a nice fat tip and you can spill your guts to the tabloids or the barkeep or, you know, whoever. Trust me. I've been through this gig plenty of times. Nobody will believe you, and we are therefore perfectly safe. I'm okay, you're okay. Hit it."
The money kinda-sorta calmed him down and he drove smooth and fast through all the late-night traffic, and by the time we pulled up to the terminal he seemed to have full possession of himself. "You going to shoot me now?" he asks as I get out. His jaw's clenched. Takes balls to ask me straight out like that, and I like him for it.

"Already told ya." I slapped my hand on the roof of the cab in what I hoped was a reassuring gesture, and saw him jump. "Go ahead and sell your flaming-zombie story to the National Enquirer. Nobody's gonna believe your crazy ass. Here's another... sixty, eighty... hell with it." I tossed him the roll of money. "Take the night off."

Then I went straight to the airport bar and had such a jolly old time I barely managed to make my flight back to New Mexico. Because, hey. The job was over. That meant the holy-roller fasting thing was over, too. And you would be amazed how stoned you can get with just one vodka martini on an empty stomach. Or two or three. And then a beer, and then another.... and God those jalapeno poppers taste good when you're wasted, but they make you thirsty, and the only cure is more beer....

The Homeland Security guys weren't super happy to see the silly-drunk guy with the gun, but I flashed them my ID and staggered on out to my ride. I was asleep before the wheels left the tarmac.
When I woke up back at Area 51, first thing I did was brush my teeth to get the little-bit-hungover fuzz off my tongue. Went to the gym and worked on a cramped muscle that was bothering me. Showered and shaved. Then I strolled over to the cafeteria.

You know all those unmarked aircraft that fly in and out of here? You know what they're carrying? aside from me, occasionally? Not spare parts for flying saucers. Nossir. Consumables. Toilet paper, bottled water, like that. And food. Oh yes. Mountains of world-class food, much as you want at any hour.

Filet mignon. Pastrami Reubens on fresh-baked pumpernickel bread. Piles of Gulf shrimp -- fresh, not frozen -- with catfish and hushpuppies. Black Forest cake and boysenberry pie. No alcohol and no opportunities to get laid in this place, so I go to the cafeteria with a good book and basically live there for a day and a half, catching cat naps in the lounge. Feeding my face after a job is as close to a holiday as I get.

After pigging out, I go downstairs -- I mean the next downstairs, there are four levels here that I know of and probably more -- strip naked, and the people there help me get into the insulated bodysuit. Put on my headphones, heat blanket, all the things that keep me from going batshit from sensory deprivation. Stick an IV drip in my arm so I don't starve.

Then they draw the black silk curtain aside from the big mirror. Takes up the entire wall. They're doing everything for me, so oddly enough there's no sense of impending doom. Even though we'll both suffer if they screw up. It's easy. Like taking a shower.

I carry a curse, I think I told you. More like a giant tangled bundle of them. My friend in the club was an enthusiast. Maybe that's why they offered the contract to me. Thought I'd show more zeal in taking him out or something. Nah. Revenge is only gratifying while you're thinking about it. And all I ever think about is the next job. Well, okay. Screwing a good-looking redhead kind of ranks up there too.

Anyway. The curse. Too-long didn't-read, it's bad news. Let the moon rise three times in the night sky without the correct series of counterspells (if there are any) and your hair falls out. Your teeth, too. Your knuckles swell up from arthritis like Ping Pong balls. You vomit maggots and shit blood. Thorny brambles sprout out your nose and ears and the tip of your cock. Whenever you lie down you feel ice-cold, and when you get up you feel like you're on fire. Within two weeks important parts of you start shutting down and you die, but your mind goes around the bend long, long before that. They lost three agents like this before they found a way to stop it....

...or at least hold the bastard at arm's length. There's no cure for what ails me, not yet... but turns out if you take yourself out of the world, the curse sort of reboots itself every time you come back in. Giving me another three days to do what I do best, every time, and plenty of rest in between.

So here I am, the one place where I'm safe, while the R&D guys work on a cure, or an exorcism, or whatever. I prefer to think of it as paid vacation. Yeah, they're paying me a retainer. Like I said, I'm a contractor and I foot all my own bills. Buy my own suits, pay for my food in the cafeteria. Even ammo. Wade through mountains of paperwork and fight for every goddam nickel, and no bennies except they keep me alive as long as I work for them.

Such is the life of a Man In Black. Selah.

God damn it's cold in here.