Free Unkillable by Patrick E. McLean

leather jacket, a t-shirt that seemed to be fashioned from an actual British flag and jeans of an impossibly tight variety. The man looked heroin thin, but there was something almost too alive about his eyes.
    “What do you want?” I asked.
    “What do I want? You’re the Happy Jasper what called me,” he said. I looked at Marie. She looked back at me and shrugged.
    “You know,” he said, managing to sound exasperated and amused at the same time, “The summoning and all that? What? Ye expected a puff of smoke?”
    “I thought voodoo spirits were supposed to be black,” said Bruce.
    “Clearly, there are more things in heaven and earth than what’s dreamt of in your philosophy,” the man in leather and the battered top hat said with a smile.
    “Okay, who are you?” I asked. “Who is he?” I asked Marie. She just shook her head and put it down on the floor. This was grand. What a help the crazy voodoo broad was turning out to be. How screwed? All the way.
    “Who am I then? That’s an impertinent question from one so young as yourself. And the answer might take more time than you have, my son. So for the sake of moving the polite discourse along a bit, you can call me JACK.”
    He took off his hat and bowed deeply. There was something about the way he said “Jack” As if it was something to be proud of. More than a name. A legacy, an identity and ringing far, far off, an ancient war cry.
    “So, are you here to help us?” asked Bruce.
    “‘Help you? Help YOU? Thought never crossed my mind until you mentioned it.”
    “What spirit are you Jack? What do you do?”
    “All trades really. That’s why they call me Jack, isn’t it?” And here he smiled a smile that was hideous in its feigned innocence. “But I think what you need, is a man what’s good with a knife. No leech will cure what ails you. Especially you, sir,” he said, raising his voice to address The Nameless Man. “No, no, I should think not. What you need is a real artist. A sure-handed surgeon with the courage to make the cuts that need making. Do the needful, as it were.”
    “Wait, why are you here?”
    Jack smiled wistfully. “Well, I was somewhere else, doing… well, it scarcely matters now, when I suddenly found myself at the bottom of a dark alley. Not terribly unusual that, but what was curious were the strong urges I was having to climb, to ascend the stair and knock on this very door. So I follow me urges -- always do you see, that’s what gives a man his power. So I knock on the door and then your voice saying come in. And here I am in the colonies. So your dress fits as well as mine, so to speak.”
    “Great,” I said to Marie, “You summoned a chimney sweep.”
    “I take exception to that remark,” he said, bristling and straightening his battered leather jacket, “I’m no working man, I’m a genteel man, I am.”
    I said, “You are the chimney sweep from Tim Burton’s wet dream remake of Mary Poppins .” He was on me before I could blink. As he held a straight razor to my throat, I realized I had never seen anyone, or anything, move so quickly, yet be so utterly at ease. Marie breathed in sharply. Bruce scuttled backward like a fat, fleshy crab.
    “Just a little off the back and sides,” I said in a bored tone. ‘Cause screw him. Maybe I didn’t have any clue who he was, but he had no idea what I was. How could he? I didn’t even know.
    “Oh, you’re a special one then,” Jack said as he flicked a few strands of hair from my face. It was the kind of thing that could be mistaken for a loving gesture. He waved the razor away from my neck using only his wrist. “Not like them, then? Soft, warm, full o’ red sap, the juice of life.”
    I just looked at him. Fairly cool, but having no idea how in the hell I was going to speak if he cut out my vocal cords. Maybe I’d get one of those vibrating boxes that old smokers used. As if I wasn’t scary enough to small children already.
    The razor disappeared. In its