Chapter 22: Unexpected Dentistry

Mister Gentry held up the pendant. It seemed to pulse with triumphant malevolence. “I hope we have gotten through to you, magic users, in spite of what Addison says or does. The pendant was never any of yours.”

He plucked off the pendant’s chain and flicked it away. The black rectangle lay flat in the palm of his hand, and he crushed the gem with a sharp snap like a sprung mousetrap.

Plumes of black smoke seeped out between his fingers, swirling together and flickering like miniature storm clouds. Slowly he unfurled his hand. In it lay Purrberus’s restored tooth.

“Open up, Purrberus,” he said. The demon kitten did so.

The Lord of Purrberus set the tooth in its spot in the hell realm’s mouth with reverence. He spoke some strange language that was probably older than time. There was a sound like static.

It was done, the tooth restored. The kitten mewed and headbutted Mister Gentry, causing the chandelier to come crashing down on the broken stone slab.

The infernal gavel crashed again. “Court is adjourned,” said the League. “Mister Gentry will arrange for Ruddy to receive his robes and join the League.”

With Roanna and Harte screaming and struggling for their lives, they floated back into Purrberus’s open mouth and disappeared.

“Very well,” said Mister Gentry. He waved his fingers and Ruddy’s trapdoor chains unraveled themselves.

“Hey!” shouted Rufus. “I didn’t say you could leave.”

Ruddy climbed out. I prayed to whatever deity might be paying attention that the ghoulmon had forgotten about me, with his threats to eat everybody’s eyes and toes. I shuddered violently at the thought.

He ignored Rufus. Instead he faced Mister Gentry and asked, “Why didn’t you recognize me? We’re kindred.” He sounded hurt.

Mister Gentry peered into Ruddy’s face for several moments and then grinned. “Of course we are kindred. I didn’t recognize you in that body.”

“Then you know my real name isn’t Ruddy. It is just what I called myself while in this meat suit. My true name must not be spoken,” the ghoulmon said slyly.

Mister Gentry nodded. “I know the name, but I won’t speak it because great calamities will happen and then the world will be destroyed.”

“Speak it, speak it!” not-really-Ruddy shrieked with excitement.

“Shut up,” said Rufus. “Your powers are not that spectacular. You decided to possess a man who died drunk in a public fountain!”

“Give me a break. It was my first time possessing someone,” he scowled.

“What about the daily preservatives I give you? Without them you’ll rot away,” Rufus said.

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“What about how you just decided to keep the body after you were supposed to cremate him,” said not-really-Ruddy.

“It worked out well enough for you, dimwit, considering you hijacked the man I was trying to communicate with, and wreaked so much havoc all over my house I needed to put you inside the trapdoor,” Rufus said. “But by all means, go rot away inside the demon kitten until the end of time, if that’s what you want.”

“As much as I hate to say it, the necromancer is right,” Mister Gentry said quickly. “Why don’t you leave that body behind. That way I will always know who you are, and nobody will have to smell the stench of incense and whatever else you reek of.”

Ruddy agreed. The body he was inhabiting began to shiver. A squirrel-sized, dark purple skinned creature with a wizened, mischievous face and cricket legs leaped out of the corpse’s mouth, which flopped heavily to the floor with a splat. The creature hopped atop Mister Gentry’s shoulder.

I cringed. Rufus looked grim.

“Wait!” said Astrid. “What about us?”

“What about you?” Mister Gentry said. “You zapped me with the exterminator’s weapon. Don’t I look enough like a bug to you for that to matter?”

“We regret our actions and don’t want to stay here in the realm of the living,” she said. The other undeads agreed.

Mister Gentry decided to let bygones be bygones with the bug zapping baton incident, and invited them to start new undead lives inside another realm.

“We have one more matter to settle before we leave,” said Astrid. She confronted Rufus about how he changed their forms into what they became, and why he placed them in the glass prisons.

“You were my early student projects. Theoretically you shouldn’t have lasted this long. I’m sorry you don’t like being what you are. Necromancy is part of what I do,” he sighed. “And those are terrariums, not prisons. I put you there so you would be safe from Yvette.”

Yvette broke away from Tobin’s passionate embrace long enough to sputter a protest about not being so depraved that she’d eat an undead anything until he started kissing her again.

“You acted with courage. I hope you get home soon,” Astrid said to me. The undeads and I said goodbye to each other, and Mister Gentry waved them and former-Ruddy into Purrberus’s center mouth.

I heard the little purple demon whooping as he leapt into the darkness.

Mister Gentry put his face extra close to mine. I was paralyzed, staring at the rows of needle sharp teeth in his mouth.

“You are but a cog in the cosmic machinery that returned what was stolen. I regret that you made it so difficult for us because of the choices you made,” he said. “Give Addison my regards.”

There was an ear-splitting crack from everywhere, and the demons were gone.

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