The Black Heart Crypt

Crazy Izzy Ickleby walked up the main drag of North Chester inside Norman Ickes’s body.

His new skin suit didn’t quite fit right, so his feet kept slip-sliding sideways, like he was walking around in socks on a just-waxed wood floor. Izzy didn’t care if he looked like a loose-limbed palooka. He had a body. He was breathing again. He was alive!

And he had a job to do for the big cheese, Barnabas.

He needed to get hold of a gun and some money.

Fortunately, while shoving Norman’s soul out of the driver’s seat, Izzy was able to tap into the sap’s memory banks. He now knew everything Norman had ever known, including all sorts of useless bunk about solving puzzles and the different sizes of crescent wrenches.

He also knew where Norman’s coworker, Stephen Snertz, stashed his heater—a six-shot Smith & Wesson.

Izzy walked Norman up the sidewalk to the hardware store. Some jingle-brained mug was on a ladder, painting over “Son” in the Ickes & Son Hardware sign.

“That’s Snertz! Stephen Snertz!” said whatever bit of Norman was still awake inside his brain. “Kill him! Kill Snertz!”

“Later,” Crazy Izzy thought back. “I promise.”

“Hiya, Steve,” he had Norman say out loud, just to sound sociable-like.

“Norman? What are you doing here, you idiot? You’re fired.”

“Yeah. Thanks for reminding me, pal.”

Izzy gave the ladder a swift kick.

Snertz and his paint bucket went splat all over the concrete. The big lug wasn’t dead, just conked out. Of course, he wouldn’t be dancing no time soon, neither.

“Ooh, that felt good!” sighed the Norman inside Izzy’s head. “Real good.”

“Don’t worry, kid,” Izzy thought back. “That’s just the start of what we’re gonna do to that big lug.”

Whistling nonchalantly, he had Norman amble into the hardware store, hop over the counter, and grab Snertz’s pistol, which was stashed on a shelf with a box of bullets. Since no one was looking, Izzy popped open the cash register and pocketed a couple hundred clams, too.

“Can we go shoot Snertz now?” asked the Norman voice.

“Not yet, kid. First we need to stash the black heart stone, hide it someplace safe where no one can find it.”

Fortunately, the raven had told Barnabas exactly where Izzy should squirrel the rock. And if anybody tried to tag along to see where he ditched the stone, he’d drill ’em full of lead.

Because, thanks to Norman, trigger-happy Izzy had a brand-new trigger finger.