Chapter 12

Charon and Lucille meet Mr. Saturday of the swamps, but the wicked man has no idea who he has let into his house.

“Ah, this is horseshit,” Charon mumbles to himself, rolling the hat off his bald head and reaching into the pit to pull out a lit cigar. He put the cigar in his old lips while Lucille stood beside him holding on to Stanley. She petted the cat while he stared ahead as well. Charon chews on his cigar with all of them staring at the large house. The house was once the big house for the cotton plantation swallowed up by the swamps. The massive house had been abused by time and decay, but the white of the house, which had gone dark, wasn’t the actual problem of the house. It was all the bones nailed and hanging from the wall. There were all kinds of bones all over the building, and some human skulls were sitting on pikes with fire dancing from the top of them. The burning skulls were leading them to the front door, and the whole house dripped with horror.

                “I’m starting to think we pissed off Azrael,” Lucille mumbled, and Charon nodded in agreement.

                “Let’s get this over with,” Charon said, “kick this fool's teeth in.”

                “Sure,” Lucille said, “that’s what's going to happen.” She dropped Stanley, ordering him to wait by the rowboat, and said that if they didn’t come back out, he should find Azrael and bite him. The cat sat there looking at her, understanding all her words before he watched the two of them heading for the door.

                “What kind of fuel is he using for the fire?” Lucille said, looking at the flames dancing from the human skulls, but Charon didn’t say a word, pulling her along to the front door. There were tons of snake skulls around the door. There was a dozen or so skulls of the snake bigger than the human’s skull all around them.

                Lucille huffed, studying the skulls, and said, “I’m starting to see a theme here.”

                “Yea, me too,” Charon said, kicking in the front door open with a hard boot and then sticking his hands back into his long legs’ pants, strolling into the main hallway. With each step, he could see the candles resting on skulls inside start to come to life with weak flames, as if they were scared to grow too bright.

                “Who comes knocking at my house?” a voice echoed in the dark. “Ah, a wizard of the void and a dream of a child, they come to what? Save the bones that are rightfully mine?”

                Charon glanced at Lucille, who rolled her eyes at the words, and they stopped between the doorways in the hall.

                “I had almost hoped Azrael Odd would have come himself,” the voice said, “face a true master of the dark.”

                Charon let the smoke roll out of his mouth, shaking his head.

                “We almost hoped it too,” Lucille whispered.

                “Are you going to show yourself?” Charon asked.

                “Surely will,” Mr. Saturday said and right before the words came to an end a massive fist came out of the darkness hitting Charon dead in the jaw. The force of the hit shoots the thin man back down the hallway and crashing on the floor among the skulls.

                Lucille jumped from the tall, black man dressed like a shadow, with a cane carved with skulls and a skull painted on his long face. He spun Lucille taking his long top hat off to show respect to her, but then before he put the hat back on his bald head, he swung the cane at her.

                She jumped back, seeing that the cane's tip was a blade that could cut deep. He quickly started to try to stab her with the cane, causing her to jump back into the room filled with skulls and nothing more. She raced around the room crying out when she was stab from the point.

                She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it until Charon came rushing back into the room, throwing a hard right hook and knocking Mr. Saturday square in the face. The hit threw the villain off his footing for a moment, but he recovered quickly, sticking the cane into the floor and going toe to toe with Charon.

                The problem they found out quickly was that Mr. Saturday was a better boxer than Charon, and the wizard of the void found himself bloody and knocking the floor. He shook his head, about to grab his hat, when Mr. Saturday jerked it from him, tossing it away.

                “Please,” Mr. Saturday said, smiling, “as if I would let you do something like that.”

                “Damn you,” Lucille said, finally jerking the cane free from the floor. She had been fighting with it the whole time Mr. Saturday was teaching Charon a thing or two about boxing. The cane came up in her hands, and she raced for the backside of Mr. Saturday.

                She was inches from him when the cane jerked down back into the floor. The sudden planting of the cane threw Lucille over it as she crashed into a pile of skulls upside down. The hit hurt, making her see stars for a second until Mr. Saturday led his ugly face over to stare down at her.

                “I’m going to send your bones back in a bag for Azrael,” he said smiling with teeth like shark. “I’m skin your cat alive.”

                “Where is the boy?” Charon asked, making Mr. Saturday look over at him.

                “Why do you ask?”

                “Just want to know so we don’t spend days looking for him in this house,” he said with blood between his teeth, and getting back to his feet.

                “You think you can see a win?” Mr. Saturday asked, and he started to laugh.

                “Not going to tell me, huh?”

                “No, but you’ll join him soon enough.”

                “Oh, well,” Charon said, reaching over to garb his cigar, “you’ll tell her.”

                “Her?” Mr. Saturday asked, looking back at Lucille, who was smiling up at him. “How so?”

                She shot her hand out, grabbing his leg, and said, “All my cats do as they are told.”

                “What?” Mr. Saturday asked, but then he felt it, or maybe he was trying to fight to be free, but it was all too late. Lucille had touched her magic, the only truly magical thing she held outside of herself being the queen of cats, and turned the wicked villain into one of her subjects. It happened in a flash, with the man shouting for only a second before the cries turned into a meow. The black cat with a white skull painted on its face sat there staring at Lucille as she got to her feet.

                “Took you long enough,” Charon said, watching her get up.

                “You know,” she said, “I hate doing that. It �"“she almost fell back down to the ground, but Charon jumped forward, catching her. The magic was powerful, and her body couldn’t always take it. There was a cost to magic; there was always a cost, and she had to fight to stay awake.

                “You’re okay, clown,” he said. “You’re fine.”

                “Yea, yea,” she said, looking at the cat. “Shows us where the bones are.”

                The Mr. Saturday cat jumped up rushing to take them to the bones which were laid out on a table. Charon took care to gather them up as they all headed back to the rowboat, and hours later, with Lucille still fast asleep, Charon was helped onto the docks of the Hades family dock. He handed them the bones and picked up the Mr. Saturday cat, giving him to the head women of the house.

                “As we agreed,” he said. “You have a cat now.”

                “Ooo,” she said, holding the beast up to her face and smiling, “one of great power, I see.”

                “Yup,” Charon said, picking up Lucille, who was asleep for the next few days, and he started to head for his truck.

                “What will you do when she finds out?”

                Charon stopped and looked back at the women petting the cat. Stanley was already jumping into the open window of the truck. He said, “Do what I am doing right now.”

                “Which is?”

                 “Love her like my daughter,” he said.

                “Kind of you, dark thin’,” she said, “tell Emelina to come home to us soon. We all miss her.”

                “She is home,” Charon said.