No, Sir Reginald Has Not Read How Stella Got Her Groove Back...

[benchilada]

AND THE PEOPLE DID REJOICE!!!

            Sir Reginald has always been proud of his library. It has a voluminous catalogue, ranging from recent children’s books to 13th century scrolls in dead languages like Sŏrruc, and Üter-Pelgin. One of his most intriguing pieces is the only copy of a book on necromantic sorcery bound in human skin. It dates from 1687, so you can imagine his surprise when the original owner showed up to retrieve it.

            The skin, not the book.

            Reginald had just stopped in to grab the second volume of his 1852 copy of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, LL.D., when he saw a grayish man dressed in rotting robes perusing the shelves.

            “Excuse me,” said Reginald very politely, “Could you explain both how you got in my house and why you’re touching my books.”

            The man turned his head—not his neck—looked straight at Sir Reginald with his complete lack of eyes, and began to hover a few inches off the ground.

            “REAAAAARGH!!! YOUR SOUL WILL BE MINE!!!” the man screamed.

            “Balls,” said Reginald, drawing his revolver and firing a few rounds, both of which passed straight through the man into the spine of a book.

            “Double balls!” he shouted and ran through the specter, “I’ve just shot one of my books! Oh, it was just The Da Vinci Code. Hell, I should probably do it a few more times.”

            “Did you…” the man paused and coughed, “Did you hear the bit about your soul…ummm…being mine?”

            “Yes. I was just ignoring you. Bit of a haunting tip for you—don’t be flipping through Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince when you’re trying to be terrifying.”

            “I, ah, picked it up by mistake?”

            “Of course. Now, back to how you got past the wards and salt rings.”

            “Nothing can stop the unquiet soul of a man who has wandered for three hundred and twenty years in search of the only thing that can finally set him to rest.”

            “Snape kills—”

            “Oh, no, Sir Reginald. Perhaps this will help jog your memory,” he grinned, showing broken and blackened teeth. He pulled his robes open and turned, exposing his back, which was missing a massive rectangle of skin.

            “Sorry, not helping,” said Sir Reginald, scratching his temple.

            “There was a tattoo of a serpent there.”

            “Hmmm…no, still not…oh. Oh. Oh dear.”

            “Oh dear indeed. Until the whole of my body is interred in the ground, I am cursed to walk the Earth. Not, umm, not doing much of anything really,” the man’s voice drifted off as he looked sheepishly at his feet.

            “Why haven’t you come to claim the book before?” asked Sir Reginald, withdrawing a key on a chain from inside of his shirt.

            “It’s not as though I just know where my skin is! I had to do research! Lots of research! Even then, it’s not the easiest thing to track in the world! It even vanished for over fifty years!”

            “That would have been right before I got it. It was buried inside a dead man’s chest.”

            “What, like the pirates used to do?”

            “No, no. In  a dead man’s chest.”

            “Oh...OH!”

            “Yes. Not a pleasant retrieval, I must add,” said Sir Reginald, opening the false spine on a hardbound copy of The Atkins Diet to expose a keyhole. He inserted the key and turned it, which in turn caused a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul to pop out. Reginald gave it a solid pull and the entire shelf rotated on its axis.

            “I’ve always wanted one of those…” mused the ghost.

            “Yes. It’s surprisingly satisfying to actually have one. Now, if you could wait out here, I have some rather delicate items in here that I’d rather you not see.”

            “I can pass through any physical matter, Sir Reginald, so if I wanted—”

            Reginald gestured at the ceiling of his hidden room and what appeared to be a gorilla skull wrapped in a garland of garlic bulbs burst into green flame.

            “Ah…perhaps I’m not in the mood to, umm…”

            “The Pungent Fire of Man’s Ancestry…gets ‘em every time,” murmered Reginald as he disappeared into his secret hideout. A few minutes later he emerged with the book, which he appeared to be caressing gently.

            “Could you not do that?” asked the man. “It’s a touch…disconcerting…”

            “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. So, we’ve got the skin, now where is the rest of your body?”

            “Beneath the northeast corner of where Quarry Street and Lambsquarters Way meet in Boston, a full eight feet beneath the topsoil.”

            “Right. Well, let me just slice the skin off of the book and we can—”

            “NO!” shouted the spirit. “They…ground my bones to make the glue that holds the pages together.”

            “How annoying. Well, I’ll cut the pages out, and—”

            “The ink is my blood.”

            “Now you’re just fucking with me, aren’t you?”

            “I’m afraid not. The book was crafted from my being, to imbue it with the power that resided in me.”

            “Which was?”

            “Oh, the usual. A powerful aura, an inherited predisposition for magicks, and a lot of iron.”

            “So, you’re asking me to bury the WHOLE BOOK?”

            “If you would be so kind.”

            “In Boston.”

            “Yes.”

            “Give me a moment,” said Sir Reginald, as he walked over to his desk and turned on his laptop. After a few minutes of clicking and typing, not to mention occasional outbursts of "Oh dear!" and "Really?" he gave a massive sigh and looked over the screen at his new friend.

            “I’m afraid…” he paused. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

            “Stephen.”

            “Well, Steve, using this box, which is called a computer, I have gained access to the electronic—”

            “Look, I’m the wandering dead, but I’m not mentally handicapped. Go on.”

            “Sorry. In any event, I’ve looked through a number of Boston history webpages here, and I’m afraid they have built, in succession, a stable, a private home, a hotel, a bank, a parking garage, and another bank on the northeast corner of Quarry and Lambsquarters.”

            “So…we can’t…”

            “I’m afraid not.”

            “Well. I’ve made a career out of being a disembodied spirit, so I suppose I could just keep wandering. I’ve not made it to Madagascar yet…”

            “I could…no, no, you wouldn’t like that.”

            “What wouldn’t I like?”

            “Well, I have several guest bedrooms. Perhaps, in exchange for occasional spectral assistance, you would like a room of your own?”

            “You’d do that for me?”

            “It’s the least I can do for being unable to bury the last of your corporeal body.”

            “That’s so kind of you! Oh, Sir Reginald, you won’t regret this!” said Steve, crying horrible tears the consistency of molasses.

            “I’ll give you the one at the end of the hall. It’s not got a bathroom, but I don’t suppose you really need one.”

            “You’ve given me a reason to not live again, Reginald! May I go see my room?”

            “Of course. Down the hall on the right.”

            The spirit sped through a wall and Reginald walked back over to his laptop. He closed his browser, which was displaying only a number of tabs open to Defamer.com. He shut off the power and stared at his reflection in the darkened screen with a scowl.

            “Don’t give me that look,” he told himself. “I mean, it’s a really cool book…”

b