Ok, so that gnome who was supposed to get Zack and Zoe out of the city on the weekend had to wait a while because of some BUNKER heat. When we finally met up, he explained how he knew a secret tunnel that could help them get to safety and handed over a map. Then he proceeded to haul ass, stating that he “wasn’t gonna take his chances messing with BUNKER.” This left little old me with the ohhhhhhhh so enjoyable task of escorting the two lovebirds out of the city. I brought a recorder with me because I figured instead of me telling you lot what everyone was doing, you might prefer their own words.

ZACK: Aw man, Cat, dude, it’s really groovy of you to be helping us out with this, man.

ZOE: Yeah, thanks a bunch.

CAT: Right, right. Just remember, the moment we reach the tunnel, pay up the cash.

ZACK: Aw, no problemo, Cat-Dude! I’ve got it all with me! We’ll give you what we owe you when the time’s right!

CAT: Why the hell is he talking like that? Did he always talk like a Goddamned hippie, or is that part of the “love magic” crap that brought him back?

ZOE: My poet’s always talked like that. I think it’s sexy!

At this point, she and Zack proceeded to passionately swap spit

CAT: I have two guns on me and a ton of ammo. Either knock it off, or I swear to Christ I will end you both!

ZACK: Aw, Cat, you gotta feel the love!

CAT: You touch me, I blow your freaking arm off.

It was at this point we proceeded to head towards the park, where the tunnel was located. It was also at this point that shit got complicated.

When we reached the park, BUNKER goons jumped out of every nook and cranny and surrounded us, ordering us to surrender.

BUNKER: Lay down on the ground now with your hands above your head! You are under arrest for necromancy! And you, Mr. Cat! You’re under arrest for aiding and abetting!

CAT: It’s been nice seeing you kids again, but I gotta go! Prison and me don’t go well together!

ZOE: Cat, wait! We’ll double what we owe you if you help us here!

CAT: Double? Back off, goons! Those kids are in love, and you’re not gonna ruin that! Back the hell off before I lay waste to your asses!

BUNKER: Open fire!

It’s at this point that the legion of BUNKER goons surrounding us learned why it’s a bad idea to shoot at a witch whose magic is strong enough to bring a guy back to life perfectly. Zoe sent out some sort of shockwave that knocked a lot of the BUNKER agents on their asses while I laid down some cover fire. As the BUNKER creeps fell back and looked for a position to fire from, I threw down a few smoke bombs.

Now, those are no ordinary smoke bombs. Those are laced with only the foulest smelling stench in the world: skunk gas. And the BUNKER agents were not wearing face masks.

As the elite agents fell to the ground, choking and gasping for air, we made a break for it under the cover on an invisibility spell Zoe threw up. After some running, we managed to make it to the tunnel. It was a manhole covered in runes which had the nice little effect of hiding it from anyone who didn’t need it. Hell, the only reason I could see it was my mask lets me see through crap like that.

ZOE: Thanks, Cat. As promised, here’s the money we owe you times two.

CAT: …Christ. I can’t believe I’m saying this… but keep it. You two are gonna need it more than I do.

ZACK: Cat, dude, that’s really nice, man!

CAT: Don’t you dare hug me! Now get lost before BUNKER shows up. And don’t worry about me, they’ve got too many uses for me to lock me up for more than a day.

And so, the lovers got away, I spent a night in BUNKER jail and got off by helping chase some gnomes out of a few human bars, and everyone lived happily ever after. Now I’m gonna go liberate some booze from the elves.

I’m in the plane with the Don’s pilot, who’s a damn fine pilot, and I ask when we’re landing. I should have know this would be an unpleasant trip when he started laughing his ass off. Then he gave me a parachute and shoved me out of the plane.

While the parachute helped me survive, it didn’t help me not land in the goddamn water, which happened to have some sort of freakish mutant sharks living in it! So I haven’t set foot on the island yet, and I’ve already had to kill something. Deeeeeeeeelightful. Thank God my guns work underwater and the sharks weren’t bulletproof. So I managed to kill one of those with a well-placed bullet and drag myself to shore. Instantly, I felt… off. I guess that was all the magic defenses I have turning off.

And that’s when the robots attacked.

Few things are more uncomfortable than talking to the man whose son you killed, especially if he can kill you in the time it takes you to sneeze. Something that makes it worse, though, is if he invites you to dinner.

So there I am, sitting across the table from a vampire crime kingpin and eating steak with a side of fine wine. The room’s dead silent and the various vampire bodyguards standing on either side of both me and the Don are being quiet as the grave. When the Don cleared his throat, he scared the shit out of me!

He told me that he’d be willing to have his man fly me to where I needed to go, on one condition. Apparently there’s something on that island he wants, some sort of magical artifact. Considering my options and my desire not to piss him off, I agreed to those terms and got ready to leave. Before I could, though, the Don made sure to let me know he still planned to kill me in the future and would only let me live as long as I continued to be of use to him. Y’know, usually people just say goodbye when folks leave their home. But “goodbye” just doesn’t feel as natural as a good old death threat, right gang? 

I leave on my trip in the morning and get back hopefully tomorrow night. If not then, then sometime before the weekend. Wish me luck!

I really didn’t want to have to do this, but I liked my jacket too much to throw out and still couldn’t get it cleaned. So I went to Henrich and asked him if he could do anything about it. Surprise surpise, he not only said he knew what to do, but he charged out the ass for the information.

If I want my jacket fixed, I have to fly to a volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean that completely negates magic. That includes the stuff in my jacket that already weakens or negates magic, and blocks any efforts to remove those spells so I can clean the jacket. So this is the one place on Earth I can wash the jacket. There’s a guy I know with the resources to get me there. The problem is that he works for Don Davidson. Yeah, THAT Don Davidson, the head of the local Vampire crime family who vowed to kill me someday for killing his insane son in order to help the vamps regain their supply of blad and keep them from eating people. This won’t be awkward at all.

It’s been Christ only knows how long, and my jacket still smells like Bug Man guts! Goddammit! It turns out all the anti-magic defenses and protection I’ve given it over the years makes it a lot harder to clean. So now I’m running around in whatever I can find that doesn’t smell like crap! I wish that the bug man was still alive so I could FREAKING KILL HIM AGAIN!

I just realized that when I was telling you guys the business with the shape shifter and all that, I forgot to tell you where my memory went and how I got shot. Yeah, funny story about that. When I got home from a different case, it turned out I had accidentally left the safety off on my gun. I tripped, it went off, and I accidentally shot myself. That was really damn humiliating, so I made a comment about wishing I could forget that happened. The damn elves decided to be helpful, and zapped me with some magic that would erase the last 24 hours of my memory. Goddamn elves. As for the note, it turned out I had actually seen the shape shifter leaving the theatre and chased after him. The bastard had gotten away, though. So when I got home and everything happened with the gun and the elves, I quickly wrote down what time I had gotten home and the name of the theatre, knowing I would go back there to retrace my steps and would get all caught up chasing the shape shifter.

The reason I didn’t mention any of this earlier is that I had in fact regained my memory when I got to the theatre, but didn’t wanna say how I shot myself. It was too embarrassing. Hell, the only reason I’m telling you all now is because I realized what a big plot hole that leaves in the blog so far. I knew the shape shifter wasn’t me because I did remember everything by the time I saw the recording.

So to recap, I accidentally shot myself after meeting the shape shifter, and the elves erased my memory. Let us never speak of me shooting myself again.

The thing about shape shifters is that they’re illegal. BUNKER naturally employes a few in “secret,” but the magic to do it is illegal for the most part. Because of this, he creeps who use it tend to run a high price for their services. And therefore, only the wealthy can afford to hire them. Gee, do I know anyone rich enough to employ the services of a shapeshifter with a desire to cause me trouble? I wonder who on Earth it could be. I bet the culprit’s my English professor! She always did look suspicious. Or maybe it’s the Rich Bastard who’s gotten on my bad side and has more money than God.

So after reaching this incredible and shocking conclusion, I grabbed pretty much every weapon I could get my hands on.

My 2 handguns

A few grenades

My grappling hook

Clawed gloves

and my usual anti-magic shit.

It wasn’t much, but hopefully this would be enough crap to give certain sons of bitches a reeeeeeeeeeeal headache and weed out an annoying shapeshifter.

So I took the heart to Henrich and got some absolutely DELIGHTFUL news. The heart is a human heart that had apparently been exposed to some insanely powerful magic in addition to some science crap I didn’t listen to. Apparently, the reason the Rich Bastard and my magical sparring partner from earlier wanted it can be traced to the powerful magic it had been exposed to. Essentially, exposure to whatever it was exposed to makes the heart act like an uber-battery for people with magical abilities. You take your heart out, put this heart in, and then boom! You go from throwing balls of fire to causing mass amounts of volcanic eruptions all over the east coast.

Henrich warned me that people can track the heart’s mojo, so my best bet is to get it to BUNKER for safekeeping. I’d rather not, though. Those bastards may not wanna contain it, and might wanna use it. Unfortunately, destroying it is the equivalent of setting off a nuclear bomb. So now I’m stuck with the damn thing in my freezer. Henrich has ensured that nobody will be able to track it to my place as long as the freezer stays closed. Thank God I own enough ramen to survive until I buy another freezer and some more food.

So I didn’t get paid and ended up with something that will only cause me trouble later on, but this job is complete.

I’m a goddamn psychic, I swear to Christ. Remember yesterday how I said that shit would probably go wrong today? It did. So yesterday night, I’m running around rooftops and trying to deliver a heart to some rich guy, and then… explosions. Of course. Explosions everywhere. I’m dodging explosions left and right while looking for an escape, when I see a conveniently safe alley. Gee, THAT’S not a trap!

I jumped into the alley and found myself surrounded by jerks with guns. Not even professionals, just random thugs. Normally, I’d have no issue with kicking all their asses, but then I saw their eyes. They were empty, unfocused, and showing no sign of intellect. All the signs of mind control. One of them started making demands to hand over the heart, while another’s hand began glowing as he armed another explosive spell like the ones used to lure me down here.

Here’s the thing about magic. You can’t do it if you’re under mind control. So the jerk powering up a spell was a pretty nice target. I raised my hand and shot the wrist-mounted grappling hook through his shoulder. Bullseye. He screamed and the goons all collapsed. Before I could lay into him, though, he threw off a wave of energy that smashed me into a wall. Ow.

So he starts glowing, his eyes begin burning, and he starts demanding the heart or he’ll “annihilate everything I ever held dear.” Very impressive, I know, but I had a deadline to meet. So I shot him. Twice. He was all confused as to how my bullets beat his magic shield. Guess he hadn’t noticed all the magic-proof shit I’ve got with me. It’s what kept his last attack from doing a lot more than just throwing me around. It’s also part of how I could shoot the bastard.

Naturally, I was a bit curious/violently annoyed as to why he tried to kill me, and decided to ask him in a violent manner. Before I could, the little prick teleported away and I hauled ass before the passed out thugs could wake up.

So I get to the mansion to drop off the heart, and guess who it turns out hired me. Remember the Rich Bastard who hired me a long while ago for the dragon thing? If not, just look back to the first posts in this blog. Anyways, he’s the guy that hired me through a third party! And it turned out he remembered me, I remembered him, and I still want him dead. Needless to say, I had to run out of a mansion as a ton of body guards and private soldiers shot at me. Joke’s on him, though. I didn’t give him the heart. Dunno why he and that jackass from earlier want this heart, but they ain’t gonna get it. I make a habit of not helping people who try to kill me, and if they both want the heart, that’s all the motive I need to keep it away from them. Later today, I’ll take it to Henrich and see what’s so special about this thing that someone was willing to use illegal mind control spells to get it. For now though, it’s in my freezer. Talk about a cold heart.

I finally got the thing with Zoe taken care of, and I have to say that I’m pretty damn thrilled with how it ended! Henrich and I met her in a cemetery towards the outskirts of the city around midnight. She was all antsy and scared-looking, like anyone would be being in a graveyard this late with a suitcase

So I helped her get the ingredients for the spell out of the suitcase and put them around the grave of her dead love, some guy named Zack. The whole time, I kept the key ingredient hidden in my pocket. When this was ready, then I’d decide if I’d give her the real virgin blood or the fake stuff I threw together. It all depended on how pissed I was at her for magic-ing me like that.

As we worked, she talked about how sad she was when Zack died, how he was a lousy poet, how he never forgot anything important to her, how he was a klutz, shit like that. Then she said something interesting. She said that, to prepare for tonight, she’d bought an enchanted necklace designed to heavily boost magic from some guy. Normally, I’d consider that to be a load of bullshit some piece of shit fed a grieving woman, but considering how she’d charmed me, it stood to reason that the silver W she wore around her neck probably was just what was giving her a boost.

Finally, we were ready for the big moment. This was it, my time to decide to help or not. And you know what I did? I handed over the virgin blood. Yeah, I was pissed off about being charmed like that, but watching her work caused it to hit me. Everything she was doing, as illegal and dangerous as it was, was for love. And a long time ago, somebody did something illegal and dangerous that saved me, too. Without a second thought, I handed over the virgin blood. I stood off to the side as Henrich, who has experience with magic, helped Zoe run the spell. Eventually, shit went down. Zoe’s hands began to glow as white lightning danced from them into the grave. Henrich looked confused first, and then thrilled as the grave began shaking. Finally, Zoe spilled the virgin blood.

THAT, though, is when shit went south. The necklace began glowing a dark violet as a beam of light, which was clearly dark magic, shot from it into the ground. Zoe screamed in pain and collapsed as Henrich ran to her side. I reached for my guns as a decomposing hand burst from the earth and the corpse of a dead poet pulled itself up from the ground.

The noises Zack made… Jesus Christ. He grabbed Henrich and threw him through the window of the nearby church as Zoe’s eyes rolled back into her head. The W necklace continued pumping Zack full of dark magic as he let out another inhuman noise and turned to me. Now, usually, a few gunshots to the head is enough to put any zombie back into the grave, but Zack just kept charging at me and smashing through tombstones as his body repaired itself. You ever been tackled by a psychotic dead man? It sucks.

So the zombie’s slapping the crap out of me, Zoe’s out cold, and Henrich’s yelling something through a window at me that I can’t hear too well over the sounds Zack’s making. Finally, I decided I’d like some peace and quiet so I fired my wrist-mounted grappling hook through him and onto the roof of the church. I managed to detach it and gave a friendly wave to Zack as he was yanked away onto the roof.

Finally, I was able to hear what Henrich was yelling: “CAT! THE NECKLACE IS CURSED! IT IS DRAINING ZOE’S LIFE FORCE TO POWER A CURSE TO MAKE THE ZOMBIE INTO A VICIOUS, UNCONTROLLABLE MONSTER!”

That was all I needed to hear. If the damn thing killed her, then I didn’t get paid or an apology for charming me. I needed to break the necklace fast, because I could hear Zack working his way back to me. Readying my gun, I targeted the very center of the damned silver W that had caused this mess. I fired right when Zack managed to slam me to the ground. I had no idea if that had thrown my aim off, but if it had then Zoe was lucky we were already in a cemetery.

When I pulled myself back upright, Zack was cradling Zoe. He’d fully regenerated and didn’t even look dead anymore. Now this was a bit confusing. Necromancy is dark magic. Any zombie raised by it was a mindless servant of whoever did it. So how was it that this guy looked alive and well? She was supposed to get closure from learning that the dead need to stay dead, and not actually bring her dead fiance back to life!

Fortunately, Henrich was able to explain things to me. Since he dragged my sorry ass back home, I thought I’d let him type his explanation here.

THANK YOU, CAT. ALL OF YOU, LISTEN CLOSELY AND LEARN A FEW THINGS ABOUT MAGIC FROM AN OLD, WISE MAN. THE MAGIC MISS ZOE USED TO BRING MR. ZACK BACK FROM THE DEAD WAS IN FACT DARK MAGIC. HOWEVER, ANY SPELL POWERED BY PURE LOVE IS REMADE INTO WHITE MAGIC. EVEN NECROMANCY IS NOT IMMUNE TO THIS EFFECT. THE SPELL, MIXED WITH WHATEVER ENHANCEMENTS WERE IN THAT AMULET AND SOMETHING ABOUT ZOE, COMBINED IN A WAY TO DEFY ALL THE LAWS OF MAGIC AND BRING ZACK BACK TO LIFE! IT SHOULD NOT HAVE WORKED, BUT THEN AGAIN I HAVE SEEN MANY STRANGE AND IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE THIS THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE WORKED.

Thank you Henrich.

AND REMEMBER, MY STORE HAS ALL YOUR NEEDS FOR DEFENSE AGAINST MEMBERS OF THE SECRET WORLD WHO WOULD ABUSE THEIR POWERS. COME ON DOWN!

Get away from my computer, you money-hungry bastard!

Zoe apologized for charming me. Apparently, the charm only made me willing to take a lower price. The closure thing was all me. Huh. As a means of apology, she gave me a bit more than she had promised. Zack’s thrilled to be alive again, and even happier to be with Zoe. They’re going to try to have a nice, quiet wedding sometime this month. Henrich and I are invited. I’ll go, only because I wanna see them try to explain a dead man walking to their friends, families, and a priest.

So yeah, everything worked out really well. I got paid more than expected AND got an apology out of the deal, and Zack and Zoe are reunited. They should be careful, though. Bringing the dead back to life should be impossible. If anyone finds out she did this, there will be trouble. But anyways, it was a good night.

This job is concluded.