Dead Matter

by Anton Strout

  I sighed as he slipped back through the curtains and was gone. “And I’ll make sure to file an incident report to document that I filed an incident . . .” I said.

  Jane laughed, then grabbed my bear claw and took a bite of it.

  “Hey!”

  “Do try to have all of it done by seven or so,” she said. “We’ve got tickets to Mamma Mia, and if we’re late, they only seat during a break in the show.”

  The Inspectre popped his head out from the curtain, looking every bit like a magician. “Oh,” he said. “I nearly forgot. Ms. Clayton-Forrester, Director Wesker left a message with me for you. He assumed you’d be tethered to Mr. Canderous, and wouldn’t you know, there you are . . .”

  I bristled at the mention of the head of Greater & Lesser Arcana. Thaddeus Wesker had no doubt made the tethered comment, which made him not only Jane’s boss but an ass to boot.

  “Yes, sir?” Jane said with great earnestness. Being an ex-cultist meant she had to work twice as hard to earn respect around here.

  “Director Wesker is already up at Tome, Sweet Tome,” he said. “Several of the more rambunctious books seem to have been . . . picking . . . on a few less rowdy ones. He needs you up there to help straighten things out. He seemed out of sorts that you weren’t already there, but then again, he always seems out of sorts, doesn’t he?”

  The Inspectre gave Jane a soft smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back at him. Then he followed up with a curt nod, and disappeared again, but not before giving me and my pile of folders a get-to-work kind of look.

  “That’s me,” Jane said. “Librarian to the Damned.” Jane kissed my cheek, then grabbed her coffee and muffin. “Remember, theater tonight. Be ready or be dead.”

  “One’s more likely than the other in my field,” I said, but Jane was already running out the door, heading for the subway over at Astor Place. I hefted my stack of paper and walked to the back of the coffeehouse and through the black velvet curtain hanging there. The Silence of the Lambs was playing in the ornate old theater despite the early hour, but at this time of morning the theater was all but empty. I headed down the main aisle, turned right, heading off toward a short corridor at the end of it on the left. Across from the theater bathrooms was the solid oak door marked H.P. that lead into the secret offices. Without a free hand, I slammed my pocket with my keys in it against the sensor pad next to the door. I prayed my panel humping would set it off and was relieved a few seconds later when I heard the door click open.

  Arcane runes decorated the main bull pen of the office. I worked my way past the cubicle-farm part of it, past the myriad doors along the wall that lead off to God knew where. Farther along behind a set of ceiling-length red curtains, I found the next section of the office where Connor and I shared an old partners desk that was covered in far more paper than I had in my arms.

  I set my iced coffee down, then the stack of folders with my bear claw on it. I sat down, took stock of it all, and fought the urge to slam my head against my desk until I went unconscious. I’d get to it all, but not before I grabbed my bear claw and coffee. I was going to be damned if all this paperwork ruined my breakfast.

  The work day hours passed in a fog of mind-numbing filing and collation. Sometime in the late afternoon, Jane pulled up at my desk and kissed me on the head. She had changed from her jeans and T-shirt into a short black dress that highlighted all her deliciousness. “How’s it going?”

  I peeled my eyes away from her, taking both my hands and running them over the avalanche of forms scattered across my desk.

  “I’m drowning in paperwork here,” I said. “And half of it isn’t even mine!”

  Jane looked a little panicked. “You are going to get out on time, aren’t you? Mamma Mia, remember?”

  I laid my head down on my desk, the coolness of the papers feeling nice on my forehead. “I think I can pull it off,” I said. “Please tell me that someone in one of our divisions can bend time. There’s a space-time vortex around here somewhere, right?”

  “Aww, Bunky,” she said, tousling my hair. “I think Arcana has it closed for repairs.”

  “Really?” I said. “We have one?”

  Jane shook her head. “Nope. Don’t think so.” She went over and sat at Connor’s side of the desk. “But what you do have is me, to help you.”

  I lifted my head and looked around. “For real?” I lowered my voice. “What about Wesker? Doesn’t he need you up at Tome, Sweet Tome cataloging those books in the Black Stacks?”

  Jane shook her head. “I told him one of them bit me in a ‘lady place’ and I had to have it checked out. He didn’t really ask questions after that.”

  “Great, then,” I said. I started flipping through one of the piles in front of me. “Can you find me a T-642?”

  Jane pulled up a pile of papers off the top of Connor’s desk and held them up for me. “Are any of these them?”

  I stared across the partners desk at her.

  “What?” she said. “We don’t get all this paperwork in the arcana division.”

  I looked at the forms in her bunch and grabbed the appropriate one out of it.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Make sure you put them back the way you found them, okay? Connor was a bit anal about things before he left.”

  Jane looked at the neat towers of paper over on Connor’s side of the desk. “He is coming back, right?”

  “He’d better,” I said. “I mean, I’m glad he took the time when he did. He took it pretty hard when the address we found for his missing brother turned out to be a dead end . . .”

  “That wasn’t just a dead end,” Jane said. “The whole block had been demolished, probably to make way for another Trumptastic eyesore . . .”

  I sighed. “I just wish Other Division had the budget to get a temp in here.”

  “Like I said,” Jane said, batting her baby blues at me. “I’m here to help. Remember, I was a temp.”

  “Yes, for cultists.”

  She started sorting out several of Connor’s stacks. “Same diff,” she said. “Just less bloodstains on the paperwork.”

  The two of us fell silent for most of the afternoon, plowing through case files, research requests, and requisition forms. Several of the piles started to shift in size or dwindle away as I interofficed forms to the four winds. I was thrilled to find that several inches of Connor’s in-box could simply be shredded, as they were catalogs from Gravediggers Monthly, Parapsychology Today, or The Sharper Image . In the end, with Jane’s help I not only managed some progress in my existing caseload; I had a somewhat detailed report of the creature from the grocery store set to go off to the Inspectre’s office. I carried it upstairs and slid it under his door and ran off again before I could be cornered into anything else. When I got back to my desk, Jane looked ready to leap out of Connor’s chair.

  “We good to go?” she said.

  “If we leave now,” I said, scooping up my shoulder bag. “If traffic’s light, we can hit the Theatre District before curtain.”

  Jane jumped up from her chair and the two of us headed back through the office, out into the theater, and up the center aisle as Hannibal Lecter listed some of his favorite ingredients when dining on the census taker. Jane leaned over to me and spoke softly.

  “You know, all this paperwork? Kinda makes me long for the old days.”

  “When we started dating?”

  “No,” she said, “before that. My Sectarian days, back when I was all villainous and trying to kill you.”

  I pulled aside the curtain at the top of the aisle, the one that led back into the coffee shop. “Really?”

  Jane nodded and stepped through. “At least it was interesting. And involved less paper cuts.”

  “True,” I said. We fell in step side by side. I threw my arm around her and squeezed her tight as we headed toward the door and the street. I leaned into her. “I miss you trying to kill me, too.”

  3

  It was funny how quickly a lovely evenin
g could go straight to hell, all in a span of twenty minutes. The concrete and glass canyons of Manhattan zoomed outside the windows of our minivan cab. It sped along at a brisk pace, unlike the conversation between Jane and me. That had put on the brakes and skidded to a halt . . . possibly even spun out of control.

  “You could have let it go to voice mail, Simon,” she protested, turning away with a flip of her ponytail. She wouldn’t look at me. Instead she pretended to busy herself smoothing her short black skirt over her long, lean legs. “We haven’t been actually out in weeks.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off with her finger pointing in my face.

  “Taco Night does not count as ‘out,’ Simon. Especially when it starts off with a monster.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, flipping my phone shut and sliding it into the inside pocket of my leather half trench, “but duty calls. Even more so when it’s Inspectre Quimbley on the phone. It’s another graveyard call coming in. I have to check it out.”

  Jane let out a sigh. Her adorable mouth puffed out into a full-on pout. She was playful, but I could tell she was still tweaked by the interruption.

  “What if it had been Director Wesker calling?” I continued. “Are you telling me you would have ignored your boss?”

  “Fine,” she said. She looked a little mischievous. “But you owe me.” She ran her finger down the front of my shirt.

  “I know,” I conceded, trying to switch my mind from date mode to business mode. Her finger tracing its way down my body in the back of the cab wasn’t helping. I looked out the window and tapped on the partition between us and the driver. “Pull over here, please. Just through the light on the left.”

  Jane leaned her head over to look out the window. “The Financial District?”

  “Great for date night, I know,” I said. I slid a twenty through the window to the driver and got out of the cab before offering my hand to Jane. She took it despite being a little perturbed and let me help her out. To our right was the Port Authority station that now stood where the World Trade Center once had, but neither Jane nor I dared walk toward it. No one from the Department of Extraordinary Affairs went down to Ground Zero these days.

  I turned to look at the building nearby as Jane grabbed her purse out of the cab. Trinity Church loomed dark and quiet in front of me, but it wasn’t the church itself I was here about. What I was looking for lay just inside the enormous wrought-iron fence that surrounded the church. I was looking at one of the oldest graveyards in the city and from within it, I could already make out a tornado of ghostly figures swarming up through the air. I felt like I was watching something straight out of The Haunted Mansion. I slid back the side of my coat, and pulled my retractable bat free.

  “Drive away,” I told the cabbie. I flicked the switch on the side of my bat, causing it to shikt out to its full length. “Terribly fast.”

  The cabbie looked to my bat and then took a look at the swirl of ghostly activity coming from just beyond the graveyard gates. He stepped on the gas and the cab screeched away, its door pulling free from Jane’s hand, slamming shut.

  With all the Wall Street day traders and office jockeys in the area gone this time of night, it was as quiet as a crypt everywhere except, oddly, the series of crypts and graves before us. Jane flexed her hand and turned to check out the graveyard spectacle.

  “Lovely,” she said. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

  I forced a smile. “Nothing but the best for you.”

  The two of us stepped forward, looking up at the dark gates of the churchyard. The ironwork rose up at least fifteen feet. Jagged spikes peaked each of the bars that formed the barrier.

  “Up and over?” Jane suggested.

  I shook my head. “I’m thinking we find a better way in. These are high enough and pointy enough that I’m not comfortable with the idea of trying to climb over them. At least not without giving myself an interesting piercing in the process.”

  “Might be hot,” Jane said, giving me a wicked grin.

  I gave an uncomfortable one back. “Or disfiguring.”

  Rather than get into the finer points of damaging my junk, I shut my mouth, crossed the sidewalk, and edged along the outside of the graveyard until I came to an entrance around the next block that was closer to the main building of Trinity Church itself. The gates there were already pushed open with a person-sized gap in them. Without hesitation, I slid my way through into the cold darkness of the graveyard.

  Jane grabbed my hand through the bars of the gate. “You’re going in with just your bat?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  She wrinkled her nose and looked uncomfortable. “I know I’m relatively new to this whole doing-good thing,” she said, “and I’m not part of your precious Other Division, but shouldn’t this be a job for Things That Go Bump in the Night? Aren’t they the ghost guys?”

  I smiled and grabbed her hand, feeling the warmth of her skin in contrast against the late-March chill.

  “I’m not just Other Division,” I said, squeezing it. “I’m also part of the Fraternal Order of Goodness. Both of those more than qualify me to check this out. Improvisation is our middle name.”

  “Actually,” Jane said, “wouldn’t that make ‘Order’ your middle name?”

  “Shush,” I said. I pushed the gate closed between us. “Technically, this was a direct request from the Inspectre.

  That means I’m not supposed to involve other divisions. Just wait here, okay?”

  Jane looked worried. “You know, the feminist in me really wants to smack you for that, but the rest of me is a little bit too terrified to care. Just be careful, all right?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “I’m just going to scope things out. Hell, I’d rather you come with me, if it wasn’t for all the paperwork. You saw all the Other Division and joint-venture paperwork I had to do for the monster attack last night.”

  Jane nodded, but the look of concern in her eyes told me she was putting up a brave front. I was learning that getting closer to someone meant there was more freaking out to be had when danger crossed either of our paths.

  “I’ll wait right here,” she said with conviction in her voice. She gave me a thumbs-up. “You know, to avoid all that paperwork.”

  I turned away after giving her a final smile and concentrated on the graveyard. Despite the lights of New York City rising up all around us, most of the graveyard was hidden in the shadow of the church and all I could make out in the darkness was a flurry of activity about fifty feet away from me. A cool wind cut into me as I moved among the headstones with cautious steps, using my bat as a walking stick to help guide me. Moving closer to whatever was going on, my eyes began to adjust to the low light, and I almost wish they hadn’t. The ghostly activity I had seen from outside the graveyard was far more terrifying now that I was closer to it, the apparitions and specters looking far more solid up close. Numerous haunts in varying states of decay filled the center of the graveyard, all of them swarming around a lone shadowy figure pressed up against the side of one of the mausoleums. It looked like we had a live one. Who was this civilian and why wasn’t he running? The lifeless, rotting faces of the long-dead filled the air, and it was more than enough to get me shivering.

  As spooked as I felt, I forced myself to put on a brave front. If there was one thing that those four sessions of Cool with Ghouls had taught me, it was that bold talk was a convincing substitute for actual bravado when it came to dealing with the formerly living.

  I took a deep breath and tapped my bat on one of the sturdier-looking headstones. It rang out with a metallic clank that ground against the stone.

  “Everybody back off the civilian,” I said with anger in my voice. “The cleanup crew is here.”

  New patterns arose from the cloud of ghostly figures and a new energy seemed to fill the area. “Him,” a collective voice rang out from them.

  I turned to look over at Jane back outside the
gates. “They know me!” I said. I could barely contain my excitement. Pride swelled in my chest despite my case of frayed nerves. Clearly word had been getting out about me over the last few months since we nabbed cultist Cyrus Mandalay and shut down his paranormal freak show.

  “This is a good thing . . . how?” Jane said, killing my short-lived sense of pride in an instant.

  The cloudy swarm of ghosts turned toward me and started moving in my direction en masse. I stepped back, despite all the Arcana talismans and charms Jane had given me as presents. I was wearing enough of them to blend in at a Grateful Dead show. Jane might be convinced of their power to ward off most of these ghosts, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way if they worked or not. I backpedaled fast, but the floating apparitions were faster.

  I waited for the sensation of one of them passing through me to hit, but it didn’t come. Three of the spirits rushed me, but something stopped them just short of touching the leather of my coat. Their inability to get closer frustrated them and although I was thankful for the protection, it made me feel a bit like the Bubble Boy.

  “Ha!” I said, trying to avoid a fit of nervous laughter.

  The agitation in the spirits grew more apparent as they continued to try to lunge toward me, but it was having no effect. Frustrated, two of the apparitions dashed off across the graveyard heading toward the church. Before following them, I snuck a peek over my shoulder to check on the civilian, but I couldn’t see the shadowy figure anywhere. I turned back to focus on my two apparitions.

  “Hey,” I shouted after them, “I’m not done with you!”

  And apparently they weren’t done with me, either. They rushed toward the church, both spirits diving forward through the air into two of the stone figures decorating the side of the church. Gargoyles. There was the sound of grinding stone that vibrated in my bones as the creatures came to life, a loud rocky crack filling the air as they tore free from the wall. They landed on the ground and stood themselves up. Their wingspan was twice as wide as my six-foot frame and they stood several feet taller than me. The gargoyles’ eyes were filled with a hellish red glow.