Necropolis PD

by Nathan Sumsion

  “Let us get you attuned to our new detective here, and we shall see how he does.”

  Chapter 10

  The attunement process, or ritual I guess they call it, doesn’t take long. When I think of a ritual, I expect to see dark rooms, black robes, candles all over, with choruses of chanting. Like a bad album cover.

  It starts here, with Captain Radu asking me to scoot my chair forward and lean closer to his desk. He pulls out a crystal about the size of a softball. It is a milky teal color, rough and blocky, like a hunk of quartz. I expect it to shimmer or glow in some mystical way, but it sits on the desk like a lump of ordinary rock. It’s an ugly paperweight more than anything. Ms. Greystone floats next to me, her eyes fixed on the crystal, focusing her entire attention on it. I look at the captain, then at Marsh. What am I supposed to do? Radu elaborately points at the crystal with a ragged, long fingernail.

  “Look into the crystal, Mr. Green,” he instructs.

  I shrug uneasily. “I am looking at it.”

  “No.” He shakes his head slowly, but his eyes never stray from looking at mine. “Look into it. Cast your gaze into its depths. Regarde là-dedans, à l’intérieur. Not just ‘at’ it.”

  Sure. I stare at a crystal on the desk in front of me, trying not to blink. Maybe if I look long enough, I’ll see something stir to life in its depths. Captain Radu mumbles some words I don’t understand, harsh, guttural sounds. Then comes the expected chanting. I’d like to think it’s some magical language, but for all I know, it could be German or Pig Latin. It lasts the space of a few blinks. The captain falls silent, appraising me with a satisfied expression. Ms. Greystone looks smug. Marsh looks bored. I scan myself internally.

  Do I feel any different? No, not really.

  “Voilà. That is all. It is complete,” Radu says, grabbing the crystal and putting it back into a desk drawer. “From what I have been able to ascertain, the Ritual of Strengthening and the Loyalty Ceremony will have no effect on a mortal, so we will forgo these.”

  I look down at my hands, flex my fingers. They feel exactly the same as always. I try to hide my disappointment. What is going on here? I would have felt more bonding if we’d all put our hands together and shouted, “One for all and all for one.”

  Is the room darker than before? Even though the office has a large window looking out over the city, the clouds are pretty thick. The black curtains are held back on either side of the window, heavy folds of thick material pulled out of the way, so they are not the cause of the office’s lack of light. The gaslights overhead give the room a soft glow, and the kerosene lamp on the desk provides enough light to read by.

  Wait.

  Out of the corner of my eyes, shadows move around Radu. But they look normal when I turn my attention to them. I look away and then look back to him a couple of times. It seems like shadows are building around him, gathering to him. Then they are gone.

  Or maybe I’m just trying to find something that is different no matter how weird it might seem. The captain’s eyes flick away from me. “Detective Marsh, take him to meet the team.”

  “Wait, what was that supposed to . . .” I start, then stop. As I move, I can sense Ms. Greystone behind me. I know where she is without seeing her. I turn to look at her. Then I close my eyes. Sure enough, I can feel her in my mind. I have a sense of where she is, how she is feeling. This is weird. I open my eyes to see her looking back at me, amused.

  She arches her eyebrow at me. She’s expecting my next questions, clearly, but I ask them anyway. “Ms. Greystone, what does this mean? Can you read my thoughts? Can I turn it off?”

  “We can sense each other’s direction and general distance,” she explains primly. “If you concentrate, you should be able to sense my demeanor. You’ll note that it is not impressed. If you mentally ‘shout’ at me, I should be able to hear you. It shouldn’t take long before we can both fade into the background of each other’s thoughts and only be noticeable upon concentration.” She pauses and shrugs her shoulders. “Of course, we’ve never attuned someone to a living mortal before, so there may be some unexpected turns.”

  Ms. Greystone turns to the captain. “If that will be all, Captain Radu, I’ll be away on my tasks.” She nods smartly, turns, and floats quickly through the wall and away. All three of us watch her go. Great, a ghost will know where I’m at and how I’m feeling all times of day or night. That can’t possibly go wrong somehow.

  The leash is back on me, it seems. Any hopes I might have of planning an escape have been dashed. If she can sense where I am at any time, or even what I’m feeling, I’ll never be able to get away.

  I turn back to Marsh and the captain and realize in surprise that they’re both staring at the wall where Greystone just passed through.

  “Damn,” Marsh mutters. “She is a knockout.”

  Captain Radu mutters something under his breath, shrugging. I’m guessing vampires have different concerns than the physical appearance of ghosts. Either way, I am totally floored by their reactions.

  A ghost? A knockout? I think of Ms. Greystone’s hair wrapped in a bun, her plain clothes, and her disapproving scowl. Then there’s the chill when she’s around, and the involuntary shudder I get from standing next to a ghost. She’s attractive, but only under the right conditions, like if there’s ever a time when she won’t be looking down her nose disdainfully at me. Or creeping the hell out of me. Or if she weren’t a ghost.

  “How did the kid rate Greystone?” Marsh asks the captain. “Why isn’t she going to one of the others in our squad?”

  “We do not have enough of the incorporeals strong enough to be liaisons, as you well know. And I wish to see if she can work in that capacity with a mortal. If it is indeed possible, I wanted one of our best liaisons for Mr. Green. There are several questions I’m hoping her years of expertise can answer.” He turns his gaze to me and looks at me in a way that makes me feel very uneasy. Calculating. Weighing my worth. I try to deflect their scrutiny.

  “Wait, if she’s been doing this for a long time,” I say, “what happened to her last partner? Where is he at? I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

  Captain Radu looks at me levelly. Marsh stares. Neither are in any hurry to answer.

  “Don’t worry about that right now, kid. Let’s meet the team.”

  Marsh grabs me by the shoulder again and steers me out of the room. The captain’s eyes bore a hole through me as we leave and walk to an office a few doors down. I sigh in relief to get away from him. I don’t realize how tense I am until the captain is out of sight. Greystone is out in the main room, I feel a strange tickling sensation in my brain that lets me know exactly where she is.

  We walk into a new office, one with eight desks crammed back-to-back in two rows of four. Papers are piled on desktops. File cabinets line one wall, some with drawers open and stuffed full with files and loose documents. A chalkboard and corkboard are stashed in a corner, ready to be rolled out on a moment’s notice—every century or so by the looks of them. Smoke curls lazily in the air from ashtrays heaped with cigar and cigarette butts. Clearly, they don’t worry about cancer anymore. Two of the desks are empty. The occupants of the other six all turn to look at us.

  “This is Detective Green,” Marsh announces, slapping me in the back and almost knocking me off my feet. “Being detectives and all, I’m guessing you’ve figured out the kid here is a living, breathing mortal. Don’t eat him. Let’s get this off to a good start.”

  Detective? People are going to call me Detective Green now? Hopefully, they won’t be snickering while they do it. It doesn’t even seem real. It is more ironic. Like when my friends would call me genius after I had just done something stupid. Great.

  Marsh points at the first pair of detectives. “Burchard and Meints.” The first, Burchard, is slightly taller than me, stocky. Like everyone in the room, he has a sour expression on his face, li
ke he’s pissed I’m even breathing the air around him. His yellowing eyes have examined me thoroughly, and he’s clearly found me wanting. His hair is dark, cut short, his skin is greener than most, pulled taut over his cheeks and jaw. His mustache is thick, almost completely hiding his mouth. He might not be as physically intimidating as Marsh, but he’s still plenty scary. He has a vest on underneath his suit coat, a chain attached to a pocket-watch in a pocket. The other, Meints, is several inches taller than me. He looks older, more distinguished than the others. His gaze is not friendly, which is reinforced by an obvious sneer directed my way. He dismisses me almost as soon as he lays eyes on me. His desk is piled with books on philosophy and various sciences. Where Burchard’s skin is smooth, Meints’ is wrinkled, like twisting vines. They both grunt and turn back to their desks. Looks like I’ve managed to give another good first impression.

  “Finnegan and Clark,” Marsh says, indicating the next two. Clark salutes me with a grin. He’s the first person I’ve seen here who is actually dressed nicely. His suit is clean, pressed, his shirt free of holes and stains. His hair is black, combed and full. If it weren’t for the exposed tendon and muscle on his face, where his partially rotted skin is missing, he would pass for a living human. Finnegan is thin. His clothes hang on him like they are on a hanger. His hair is short and so sparse that I can’t determine its color against his skin. He looks completely uninterested, fixing me with a bored stare that cuts right through me. My skin crawls. I think he’d have the same look on his face if I were screaming in pain. I keep my nervous smile in place. Neither of them says anything.

  “Armstrong and Kim,” Marsh introduces the last two. Kim is Asian, about my height, thin. I can’t get a good read on his demeanor. He looks at papers on his desk emotionlessly, without care or interest. He just waits. Analyzing. The skin around his left eye has been stripped away, which makes his gaze intense. Armstrong is easier to read. His hair is balding on top, and what remains is long, curly, and almost covers up the patches of skull I can see underneath. He’s a big guy, tall and wide. Solid. He’s nowhere near the Marsh-side of the size spectrum, but definitely the largest of the other detectives. His hat sits on his desk, crumpled, looking like it has been run over a few times or left out in the rain. It’s remarkably similar to Marsh’s. On the surface, he isn’t paying attention to anything at all. He is scribbling in a notepad. Sketching, I realize. Doodling. I try to see what he’s drawing, but he angles it out of the way of my view.

  Marsh wanders over to one of the empty desks and sits down in the chair, which groans in protest. The chair has already been reinforced with some steel supports, and it’s still having trouble.

  “You guys ready?” he asks the others. Not wanting to be the only one standing, I go sit down at what I assume is now my desk. No one complains, so I’m guessing it’s alright.

  “Remind me why we have to be nice to lunch, here?” Burchard asks, pointing at me. He looks at me coldly.

  “Captain’s orders,” Marsh replies. “So, suck it up, or take it up with him.”

  Detective Burchard and the others scowl but say nothing further.

  “Let’s hit it, kid,” Marsh says to me. “I’ve been telling them you know when people are lying to you. Dazzle us.”

  Eleven Weeks Ago . . .

  My eyelids scrape like sandpaper across my eyes, and I blink rapidly in confusion for several seconds. I never expected to wake up again. Some man, some thing had attacked me. My head is still spinning as I blearily look around me, struggling to stand. Attempts to stand repeatedly fail as I fall back into a metal chair. Looking down in confusion, I see ropes tying me down. A single dim bulb high overhead lights the room, and a handful of animated corpses surround me, looming over me, studying me with very unfriendly faces. Seeing a group of dead faces staring at me, that wakes me up fully and instantly.

  Sweating, I grip the wobbly folding chair so hard I fear my fingers are going to snap. Babble erupts incoherently from my lips as the monsters shuffle closer to me. I hear my own screaming and crying.

  Marsh is here. He towers over the others, a hulking silhouette in the dim light. Occasionally I see a gleam from his one good eye. I want so desperately to get away from him, but there is nowhere I can go.

  These walking corpses close in around me and start asking me questions. Their voices wheeze out from dry throats, from behind broken and jagged teeth. Some are debating killing me. Some are sniffing at me, salivating. They are asking all kinds of questions. How did I get here? How had I found my way through the doors? One of them grabs me by the scruff of my neck and picks me up in the air with one arm, letting me dangle still tied to the chair as Marsh leans in close. Marsh clocks me one, and I lose track of time.

  “Spill it,” Marsh says once the world comes back into focus. He’s already bloodied my nose, and it is throbbing with pain. I’d blacked out for a while. I don’t know what to say. I can feel my nose pulse with every beat of my heart, taste my blood as it trickles into my open mouth gasping for breath.

  They are talking about eating me. Eating my body while I watch. I am in full-blown panic at this point.

  “Start talking, or I start eating. You right-handed or left-handed? Which will you miss the least?”

  I would say anything right now, anything they want to hear. But something surprises me, driving through even my terror.

  Marsh is lying. I’m sure of it.

  He has no intention of eating me, regardless of my answer. This confuses me, and the confusion starts in some weird way to calm me down. Why would he lie? I mean, why bother?

  But I’ve always been able to do this, even when I was growing up. Some kids are good at sports, some kids can sing or play music. Others are good at puzzles or math. For me, I’ve always been able to tell when someone was lying to me. I got so good at reading people correctly that it just became second nature. I could tell when my brother was lying about breaking one of my toys. I recognized when one of my mom’s boyfriends was pulling my leg. I knew when my girlfriend was sleeping with my best friend.

  I even knew when my mom was lying.

  Between the pain and the terror, I check out for a minute, thinking back.

  Dad was long gone. My older brother was serving his first stint in prison, so it was just my mom and me. I was going to start middle school in the fall, so that made me eleven or twelve. It was a lazy Saturday. The rain outside was intense, so I was sitting on the floor looking at some Aquaman comic. I had cleared myself a small patch of carpet, making it devoid of debris and was quietly reading while my mom was ignoring me nearby on the couch. She was getting cozy with her friend Jack Daniels, the bottle pretty much a constant companion, and was watching some forgettable movie.

  We had been sitting like this for some time when, out of the blue, I’d asked, “Do you like having me around, Mom?” No particular reason, just a dumb thing a kid asks to ask to fill the silence in the air as the movie ended.

  “Of course, honey,” she’s said, not paying much attention to me, taking another healthy swallow from her bottle. And I was stunned.

  She was lying.

  I could tell she didn’t mean what she had said. I don’t know if it was just the hassles of raising kids by herself, the stress, the holy pain-in-the-ass I was, or the headaches my older brother gave her, but whatever it was, she didn’t want it. I was about to ask her whether or not she liked me, but I stopped. Did I really want to know the answer to that? I decided then not to ask, and I never did. I was too scared to ever clarify with her.

  I stared at the colors on the page in front of me, not really reading it or even seeing it. Just processing what I’d learned. This was a defining moment in my childhood. I could feel my youth rocketing away behind me as I grew up years in a single moment. My own mother didn’t want to be with me. I had never thought of that as even a possibility.

  That was when I knew I loved my mom.

>   I know that sounds weird. Knowing my mom didn’t want me around made me realize I loved her. But she could have walked away. She wanted to. But she stuck with me. She stuck it out for me.

  She waited a few more years after that, about the time my brother would have made parole. His disappearance robbed her of any joy I remember her having. We barely talked those last couple years. But she stayed.

  She gave me until I’d graduated from high school. A few months after I moved out, she picked up and left, got to finally do what she wanted to do. She found some new ex-con to love and ran off to do who-knows-what.

  She showed me what love was. Sticking with it, even when you don’t want to. She earned my respect. And I learned a valuable lesson at a young age.

  Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.

  Thinking of my mom calms me down. It makes me sad to think of her. I wish I could have done something to actually make her like being with me while we were together.

  I meet Marsh’s gaze, still wincing from the pain. They want answers. But I know he isn’t going to kill me, not yet anyway.

  “Why aren’t you going to eat me?” I ask between gasps. Something changes in his expression. Maybe he realizes he’s lost momentum with me. Maybe he thought he’s gone too far and I won’t recover. But he knows something has changed.

  “I guess you didn’t hear me right, kid. I AM going to eat you. I’ll chow down on your guts while you sit there and watch if you don’t answer my questions.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say.

  I’m light-headed, a little loopy, wondering if I should be saying this to him. I don’t want to accidentally change his mind. If he is lying to me, though, that means they want something from me, which means I have at least a little value. It gives me a glimmer of hope. I grasp at that lifeline rather than drown in fear.