Chapter 13: Ruddy

Bile stung my throat. “Would someone please tell me who Ruddy is? What on Ransara was that noise?”

Did I really want to know? I was stuck in a necromancer’s house, so it could be anything. A ghost. A zombie. A giant, reanimated spider!

The barfing howl came again, louder this time. I gripped the chair arms and stared in terror at the basement door, still partly open. Wasn’t anybody going to answer my question?

Rufus sprinted down the basement stairs, followed by Roanna and Yvette. I sat paralyzed by my own indecision as to whether I should stay put in the creepy kitchen or face whatever noisy terror the basement laboratory held.

Curiosity won. I clutched the banister and crept down the stairs. My stomach was full of creeping willies and my feet felt like they were made of lead, but I kept going.

The terrible howls, slams, and chain-rattling grew louder. I reached the bottom of the stairs. Rufus, Roanna, and Yvette were huddled on the far side of the laboratory behind the boiler. Ruddy kept wailing to be let out full tilt and banging on what I saw to be a trapdoor held shut by a chain and ring in the floor.

“Shut up,” Rufus was saying. “You’re lucky I’ve put up with you for this long.”

Yvette scrambled onto my shoulder as a moldy-looking arm flopped about from beneath the trapdoor.

“Let me out, you sniveling bastards!” screamed Ruddy. “I’ll break more than just your phone this time.”

Disgust pooled in my belly like a cold slime. A sour mustiness tinged with formaldehyde lingered near the trapdoor.

“Ruddy’s a ghoulmon,” Yvette explained. “Half ghoul, half demon.”

Rufus gave Yvette a look that could’ve knocked her senseless. “That isn’t even a real word.”

“It’s real to me,” she said, preening her whiskers.

A ghoulmon? I had no idea such a thing existed, but at Rufus’s, anything was within the realm of possibility, including an undead demonic hybrid. And I’d been down in the basement twice so far with it!

Ruddy scratched at the floor. “Nothing’s ever good enough for Rufus, so why should a made-up word? Anyway I’m much closer to a lich than anything.”

“You can talk?” I said.

“I can, and I’m an amazing conversationalist,” Ruddy said. “You’d be impressed.”

“You should hear the story of how Ruddy got here,” Yvette said to me. “Rufus did this weird ritual involving graveyard dirt and coffin nails and the body, whom he got from the morgue— he was this guy who got drunk one night and drowned in the public fountain downtown. His face was all bloated and blue and gross.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Ruddy said. “You idiots don’t have to keep talking about me right in front of me. You won’t even help a fellow out by opening the trapdoor.”

“Enough, rat,” Rufus snapped. “You talk too much.”

“I was stolen by this son of a--” Ruddy said.

Yvette ignored them. “He was supposed to cremate him but he obviously never did.”

“Oh, my,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

Ruddy moaned as if to make a point.

Yvette plunged on. “Rufus used a handheld battery-and wire reanimating device to shock him back to life with. There also were some sort of chemicals he used with it. It smelled awful, like burned skin and hair and metal. And there was a low-ranking demon hanging around waiting to possess him and--”

“Scorched my poor head with that crazy device,” Ruddy said.

“ENOUGH!” bellowed Rufus, leaping upon the trapdoor like a great cat pouncing on its prey. The door clunked Ruddy on the arm, causing a new round of screeches.

“Phew, he stinks worse than ever,” sniffed Roanna.

“He smells fine,” Rufus said.

“Rufus tends to be fastidious about the odors down here,” Yvette said. “He has an entire system with air fresheners, incense, and candles. Ruddy is well-preserved for a demonic corpse.”

“Well-preserved?” said Ruddy. “I’m fresh as a daisy.”

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“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s only because Rufus force feeds you a preservative cocktail every day,” Yvette said. “Otherwise you’d just be rotting away.”

Ruddy pressed his sunken, gray-green cheek against the edge of the trapdoor. His eye socket looked like a small, pitch-dark cave except for a tiny red flame in it. “Come closer and say that to my face, rat. I’ll have you for an appetizer.”

“No thanks, Moldy Mouth. You wouldn’t like the way I taste anyway.”

“Then I’ll pull off all your limbs one by one, and then I’ll bite off your tail piece by piece and spit them into the toilet,” said the ghoulmon. “Then I’d nip off your nose and your ears. I’d save your eyes for last. And then I’d flush it all down.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Yvette said. “How many teeth do you have left?”

“Would you two shut up?” Roanna said. “Rufus, I thought you were supposed to get rid of him. Fling him onto a burning pyre or decapitate him or whatever your plan was.”

“You’re as rude as ever,” Ruddy said. “A regular old harpy.”

That was the second time I’d heard her referred to as a harpy. It was probably an insult to real harpies.

“I’ll blast you to oblivion,” Roanna said.

“I’ve been busy,” Rufus said, kicking at Ruddy’s arm. The ghoulmon was trying to grab his bare ankles.

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve been saying that for at least two years.”

Rufus stalked to a wooden cabinet and pulled out a glass jar filled with what looked like oversized pickled tadpoles. He tossed one of them toward the trapdoor. It landed with a wet plop and slid through the narrow opening.

Ruddy shrieked with delight and disappeared below. Rufus dragged a bookcase on top of the trapdoor.

“Hey, you bastard!” howled Ruddy, pounding on the door. “That’s a dirty trick. That’s the thanks I get. You wouldn’t even know about that ugly pendant if I hadn’t told you about it.”

“If you ask me, it’s high time you exterminate him,” Roanna said with a look of fury. “I’ll help.”

“He disgusts you, so that seems reason enough to keep him around,” Rufus said.

“I’m not disgusting,” said Ruddy, his voice somewhat muffled. “And I think those tadpoles are past date.”

“Excuse me, but why do you have him in the first place?” I asked.

Rufus didn’t look up. “Excuse you, but that’s none of your business.”

“He was looking for an undead servant, but the demon got in the way,” Yvette piped up.

“Shut up, rat,” Roanna and Rufus both said.

Ruddy chuckled.

“He wasn’t much use anyway,” Yvette said. “He stumbled around the house getting drunk on whatever he could get his rotting hands on. The last straw was when he smashed open the liquor cabinet and downed a bottle of champagne left over from Rufus’s wedding.”

At this remark, Rufus’s face went whiter than plaster. I could see it, even in the low light of the basement. His eyes glowed. My stomach clenched in horror.

“And it wasn’t even that good,” Ruddy said, before Rufus could respond. “Was a bit off, if I remember correctly.”

“Everything is off when you’ve got the taste of rubbing alcohol in your mouth,” Roanna said. “I know that’s one of your favorites.”

“No, no,” Ruddy said. “I know my wines. You were ripped off.”

Rufus gaped at them.

“Oh, boy,” Yvette said. “I think we’ve got a bigger problem than that right now.” She pointed at the opposite corner of the basement.

We all turned to look. I couldn’t see anything at first until there was a ripple of movement. Then, a shadowy shape leaped out and rushed at us. It took me less than two seconds to realize it was a giant black kitten.

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