Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“So many queries! Shitty Ritchie is fucking confused!” he lamented as we peppered the little guy with question after question.
“Focus, shitass,” Candy Vargo told him. “Relax that tiny mind and think. I know thinkin’ ain’t your forte, but there’s a first time for everything.”
“Shitty Ritchie is trying!” he screamed.
Unfortunately, Shitty Ritchie wasn’t sure what had happened to him. He also wasn’t sure if he’d chewed when he’d eaten the Higher Power. The little dude seemed to have lost his short- term memory. That wasn’t great.
He was agitated but didn’t seem all that concerned he couldn’t recall the recent past. He was far too fascinated with his new appendages.
“Shitty Ritchie wants to know if you can make the rest of his body large,” he said to a frustrated Candy Vargo.
The Keeper of Fate had tried multiple times to jog his memory with questions and even threats. She was failing miserably. All of us were. I thought at one point Gideon was going to punch him. I was able to curb that impulse with a stern look.
The main issue was that Shitty Ritchie was far too enamored with his new and improved body parts. “And if you can’t enlarge the entire body, Shitty Ritchie would be just fine with a super-sized wanker. I’d be pleased to take either Tim’s or Gideon’s member. They both appear to have big dongs.”
He was ignored. No one was going to do wank surgery on the idiot anytime soon.
“Do you have any idea where Alana Catherine and Jennifer are?” I asked for the umpteenth time.
His brow wrinkled in thought. “The exact location? No. Shitty Ritchie is not sure. But Cheese Dick won’t hurt them.”
“Cheese Dick?” I asked, confused.
He nodded while lovingly massaging his new leg with his new hand. “Yes, I named the fake Higher Power, Cheese Dick.”
“I thought that the term was Dick Cheese,” Candy Vargo said, squinting at Shitty Ritchie.
“Interesting,” the little guy said. “It’s possible.
Maybe, that’s why Cheese Dick tried to end me.
” He gasped as memories began to come back.
“Yes! That’s it! Cheese Dick got butthurt about me calling it Cheese Dick.
Perhaps if I’d said Dick Cheese it might have ended less violently.
Not sure on that, though. After the shite threw a tantrum about its new and appropriate moniker, it said something about only needing Alana Catherine and Jennifer and that I was worthless.
I got pissed and told Cheese Dick to shove its head up its ass, and then it got ugly. ”
“Can you define ugly?” I asked.
Shitty Ritchie rolled his eyes. “If you insist,” he grumbled.
“When Cheese Dick refused to shove its head up its own ass as requested, I helped. Apparently, that wasn’t a good move on Shitty Ritchie’s part.
Cheese Dick proceeded to dismember me as I returned the favor.
It was when I’d shoved part of its leg up its bunghole that I think I lost my head.
Kind of a blur, if you know what I mean. ”
I didn’t. The entire situation was insane.
“What were Jennifer and Alana Catherine doin’?” Candy Vargo asked.
Shitty Ritchie threw his one little hand and one big hand into the air.
He almost knocked himself over due to the massive weight imbalance.
“Cheese Dick dropped some kind of ward around my friends. They were fighting to get to me, but Cheese Dick is a wily fucker. I should have just eaten the bastard, but with Tom Hanks already in my tum-tum, I wasn’t sure there was any more fucking room. ”
Gideon scrubbed his hand over his chin and groaned. “You need to learn some self -control.”
“And work on that vocabulary,” Tim added. “You almost died, friend.”
I didn’t care about Shitty Ritchie’s manners. It was pretty much a given that the dude was disgusting and going to stay that way. I was more concerned as to why he believed that Cheese Dick wouldn’t harm Alana Catherine and Jennifer.
“Shitty Ritchie is gross,” I stated flatly. “That’s not the issue here.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Welcome,” I replied. “Tell me why you think that the thing won’t hurt Alana Catherine and Jennifer.”
“You mean Cheese Dick?” he inquired.
“Sure,” I said, getting annoyed. “Cheese Dick.”
“Cheese Dick acknowledged that there are three.”
“Three what?” Candy Vargo demanded.
“Three Higher Powers,” he replied with an eye roll. “There have always been three. That’s why Cheese Dick tried to eliminate me. I made four Higher Powers. HOWEVER, SHITTY RITCHIE CANNOT BE ELIMINATED! Cheese Dick failed.”
Gideon, Candy, Tim and I exchanged worried glances. We’d been under the impression that Tom Hanks had trapped the other half of the Higher Power to rule alone. However, Cheese Dick hadn’t said that exactly. We’d assumed. Never fucking assume.
The terrible exchange from earlier flashed through my mind—word for word.
“Who are you?” Alana Catherine asked. “And why are you here?”
“Oh my,” the being said with a laugh that sounded like tinkling bells. “I’m the other part.”
“Of what?” Shitty Ritchie asked, eyeing the creature with distrust.
“Another part of the Higher Power, sillies! There was always meant to be more than one.” The smile on the being turned into a vicious frown. “That bitch caged me billions of years ago, but now that Its gone I’m free to rule the Immortal Universe.”
“Keep talking, Shitty Ritchie,” I insisted. “Cheese Dick said there were three?”
“Oh yes,” he assured me.
“Cheese Dick said there were two when it showed up after Shitty Ritchie ate Tom Hanks,” Candy pointed out.
“No,” Gideon said, shaking his head. “Cheese Dick didn’t specify. The abomination said that there was always meant to be more than one.”
“FUCK,” Candy shouted. “Is some other freak caged somewhere that we don’t know about?”
My stomach cramped. With everything we learned, the story got more complicated and deadlier.
I had an idea. It might be smart or it might be stupid.
Standing here and talking was getting us nowhere fast. We had no time to lose.
I was about to do something that could move the mission along.
However, I needed solid information before I did it.
“Shitty Ritchie, I need you to think hard. Did you or did you not chew when you ate Tom Hanks?”
The dumb-dumb scratched his head with his huge fingers.
The hand was bigger than his head. It was a bizarre sight.
“Shitty Ritchie thinks he chewed just a little. Tom Hanks was too big to ingest whole. A bit of chewing helped get him down quicker. He tasted like rotten meat that had been left in the sun for a month. Shitty Ritchie, while proud of his accomplishment, didn’t enjoy it. Icky.”
“Okay,” I said, swallowing back my bile. “That’s disgusting, but helpful.”
“Helpful how?” Gideon asked warily.
I did a few jumping jacks to calm my racing mind. “If Tom Hanks is in there, I can get to him.”
Gideon wasn’t happy and was about to let me know. I held up a hand.
“I dove into the minds of the living before,” I reminded him.
It had been my Angel siblings. It had been an accident, but it had worked and we’d all survived.
It had taken a heck of a toll on me, but it could be done.
“If Tom Hanks is in there, I can mind dive into Shitty Ritchie and have a conversation.”
“Dangerous,” Candy Vargo commented, mulling it over. “And I don’t think Tom Hanks is gonna to be amenable to a conver-fuckin’-sation.”
“But he might be,” Tim said, clearly on my side. “If Tom Hanks did indeed cage the other two Higher Powers, he’d be furious about them taking over. Out of spite, he might help us find the third.”
“Or he might not,” Gideon said through clenched teeth. “He might trap Daisy inside Shitty Ritchie. If he’s in there, he’s still powerful.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. It made the entire idea riskier. However, my daughter’s life was on the line. I’d die for her in a heartbeat… and so would Gideon. I had to try.
“Hang on a fuckin’ minute,” Candy Vargo said, pulling out a box of toothpicks and putting a handful into her mouth. “If, and I stress the word if, Shitty Ritchie didn’t chew the bastard, there’s a chance he could crap him out while you’re in his mind.”
“Oh my god,” I choked out. Could this get any more f-ed up? No. No it could not.
“Not to worry about that! Shitty Ritchie only poops once every decade,” he overshared with great pride.
“I pooped two weeks ago and clogged the toilet off the kitchen at Daisy’s house.
The stench was dreadful. Thankfully, June, bless her cookie-making soul, put on a gasmask and helped Shitty Ritchie plunge the potty.
She’s such a lovely gal. If she wasn’t Charlie’s wife, I’d hit that shit.
Of course, it would be helpful if I had a larger love-rod. Just sayin’.”
That left all of us speechless for a full three minutes. I had no clue that my bathroom had been defiled. June really was a saint.
“Okaaaay,” Candy Vargo said when she finally found her voice. “It looks like the risk of Shitty Ritchie crapping Tom Hanks out of his ass is low.”
“Very low,” Shitty Ritchie confirmed. “Although, if you’d like me to poop the bastard out, I can command my bunghole to do so.”
“Hell to the no,” I said, gagging. “Let’s keep Tom Hanks away from your bunghole.”
“As you wish,” he said with a giggle.
The words that had come out of my mouth in the last few minutes were appalling. Whatever. It was what it was. Sadly, it was nasty.
“Daisy, before you do this, we need to set some ground rules,” Gideon said, tightly.
Even though I knew it took years off his life, he’d never fought me on me doing my job.
He respected me as much as I respected him.
It was clear he didn’t like it, but he’d never try to stop me.
And, if the roles were reversed, I support him even though it would be difficult.
Getting our daughter and Jennifer back wasn’t an option.
It was a necessity. The path to get to the goal wasn’t clear, but we had to start somewhere and we had to start soon.
“The Fonzies,” Tim said. “They helped with the chant. They aided Candy Vargo with the spell to heal Shitty Ritchie, and then they helped revive Candy. No one present is here by chance. I say before you dive into Shitty Ritchie’s mind, we go to Arnold’s Drive-In and have a few chats.”
I didn’t want to wait, but Tim made a valid point. Discounting logic could bite me in the posterior. In the past I’d leapt before I looked. This time I would not. There was far too much to lose to be sloppy. Information could be as powerful as magic.
It was time to get a little more educated.
Plus, if the burgers and fries were as good as Tim said, I could grab a bite before I did my thing.
Actually, I was a vegetarian. No burger for me unless Arnold’s had a veggie burger.
I doubted it, but one could hope. Working on an empty stomach wasn’t the best plan. Hopefully the fries rocked.
Only one way to find out.