The Uncanny Raven Winston

by Tammie Painter

  AS SOON AS Number Three’s hatchback bullied its way into traffic, I hurried around to the rear door and let myself in to find my latest client missing. Mr. Green was supposed to be spread out on my work table, waiting for an application of Dewy Beige foundation and Sunshine Rose blush.

  Instead, he’d not only figured out which door he needed (this wasn’t often the case, my first dead-alive person ended up in the storage closet), but he’d also navigated his way around the lock on my workroom door. From the workroom, he’d headed straight to the kitchen. Where he had pulled out drawer after drawer and upended the contents onto the linoleum. When I burst in, Mr. Green had his hand on the pull for the drawer that held the kitchen’s knife collection.

  "Cassie?" Mr. Wood called from his office where he was currently camped out. His living quarters were above the funeral home, but stairs tend to be tricky when your lower limbs are in more pieces than they should be.

  "Be right there, Mr. Wood."

  I approached Mr. Green. I couldn’t screw this up. If anything went wrong with him — for example, if he wandered away and got hit by a bus — Mr. Wood’s business would end up deader than our most recent clients. Although that was already a distinct possibility. After Mr. Green’s funeral, we had no other work scheduled. It was not good times for Wood’s Funeral Home. And yes, I was consuming extra portions of guilt pie over all of Mr. Wood’s current problems being entirely my fault.

  But enough wallowing. There’s a zombie to catch.

  Mr. Green stopped in mid-pull, but not soon enough to keep the knife drawer from slipping out of its cubby. A Kershaw chef’s knife went tip first through the center of Mr. Green's bare foot. I grit my teeth as an electric spark of phantom pain plunged deep into my own toes. I made a note to myself to get safety stops installed on the drawers.

  "Mr. Green, I'm pretty sure being stabbed in the tarsal bones wasn't your last desire."

  When the dead return to life — my dead anyway, I can’t vouch for other zombies — they come back to satisfy one last bit of business they left unfinished when they died. Oddly enough, for each of the five clients we’d had over the past couple weeks, this last desire turned out to be a food craving.

  Or maybe it wasn’t so odd. Think about it, you deny yourself for years in an effort to stay healthy, but yet you still end up dead. You can’t blame a corpse for reanimating with a major case of the munchies.

  Even though the additional grocery shopping had added an extra chore to my work schedule, I wasn’t complaining. Feeding hungry zombies was far easier than my previous waking dead who wanted to settle affairs with their significant others, or as in Mr. Tenpenny’s case, to find their murderer.

  Still, back then, in the good old days, my power hadn’t been supercharged by the watch and only those people with truly compelling desires woke from their final sleep. This new, stronger power had the nasty side effect of waking up every dead person who came through our doors. But thankfully, none of them had a score to settle other than to give the middle finger to their calorie trackers.

  I pointed to a magnetic chalkboard I’d stuck on the fridge and to the piece of chalk hanging from a string. I then realized I should have stopped to pull out the knife first.

  As Mr. Green stepped away from his impalement, there was a cringe-inducing tearing noise. While the knife remained sticking up like a sundial in the linoleum, Mr. Green’s foot ripped in half from mid-foot to middle toe. It was going to be a challenge to get that into a shoe for the funeral.

  Mr. Green, oblivious to his future footwear issues, picked up the chalk and jotted down, "Bacon."

  "I thought you were Jewish," I said. He shrugged in that way that said, "Yeah, but it's bacon." Luckily, with Mr. Wood being a junkie for BLTs, there was a bag full of cooked bacon in the fridge. "Is having it cold okay?" I asked, holding out a handful of bacon strips for Mr. Green.

  Mr. Green nodded eagerly and snatched at the bacon bouquet. I let him have two pieces at a time, forcing him to delay his gratification while using the other pieces as a lure to get him back into the workroom. By the eighth slice, a look of bliss had filled his face. By the tenth, he had willingly laid himself out on the slab once more. After the final slice, he died happy. Hopefully for the last time.

  "May you have eternal dreams of porky goodness, Mr. Green," I said as I covered him with a sheet. I then left the workroom, hopped through the obstacle course of cutlery in the kitchen, and hurried to Mr. Wood’s office.

  Mr. Wood isn't one of those guys who gets angry. With his rotund figure and perpetually jovial demeanor, he would've made an excellent Santa Claus. So, to enter his makeshift living room and see him scowling at me, wasn't just a slap in the face, but a full-throttle walloping.

  "Cassie, this can't go on. You…" He shook his head. "I'm going to have to fire you if this keeps up. Alice is scared out of her wits and I don't even know if she's remembered my BLT. Did you see her in there?"

  "Alice has tendered her resignation," I said carefully, hoping to bedazzle him with big words so he’d ignore what I was saying. It didn’t work. The scowl only got deeper.

  "Not another one. I'm sorry, Cassie, but this is the last straw. Is Mr. Green...?"

  "Satisfied. Dead."

  "And who do we have scheduled after his funeral tomorrow?"

  I swallowed hard. Mr. Wood organized the calendar. He knew exactly who we had after Mr. Green.

  "No one," I said, staring at my boots. I wiggled my toes to shake off the lingering, ghostly tingle from Mr. Green’s little mishap.

  "Exactly. I'm mobile enough to get my meals. I still can't get up and down the stairs, but if you can bring down a few of my things, I should be fine taking care of myself for a couple days. But as soon as I find another nurse, if nothing changes with your, well, with this situation, you're going to have to go."

  "I don't know if the agency will send another." My ruse with the licenses had worked so far, but there’s only so many times you can get away with the same trick before someone starts asking questions.

  Mr. Wood let out an exasperated puff of air then turned his wheelchair around to stare at the blank screen of his television rather than look at me, at the person who was destroying a business that had been in his family for three generations.

  I didn’t want to leave Mr. Wood alone. Even if he was healing, I'd still worry. The Mauvais, or someone working for him, had attacked once. What if he came back? The Mauvais had done this to Mr. Wood because he thought the watch might be somewhere in the funeral home, and even though the Mauvais now had the watch, what if he used Mr. Wood to get to me, to take revenge for me tricking him?

  "What if there was another way?" I asked.

  "You’ve figured out how to stop this—" Mr. Wood waved his hand vaguely toward the kitchen. "This problem? Wasn’t that what you were supposed to be doing the past few weeks?"

  I walked around behind the TV so I could speak to him face to face.

  "No, but I might have an alternative to hiring another live-in nurse."

  "I am not going to a care facility."

  "No, of course not. I was thinking of live-in care, just in someone else’s home instead of here."

  "Whose?"

  "You remember Mr. Tenpenny?"

  "The dead guy?" he asked as if we had a stream of Mr. Tenpennys coming to the funeral home. Busby Tenpenny was my third experience with the dead refusing to stay dead and had quite literally introduced me to a whole new world.

  "At least he's not going be scared of dead people," I said with a grin, hoping to rally Mr. Wood’s normal good cheer.

  "That’s not funny," he said gravely, but the corners of his eyes lifted ever so slightly. I watched as he seemed to rummage through his mind for arguments against the proposal until he finally said, "Fine. I’ll give it a try."

  "Just give me a bit to clean up the kitchen. Mr. Green did…" I hesitated, my feet shifting as if they co
uld dance me into the right word. "Well, he did a bit of rearranging." I shouldn’t have said that. Mr. Wood groaned and dropped his head into his hands in disappointed disbelief. "I’ll be going now."

  "Just remember to bring me my BLT when you come back."

  5 - NEW ROOMMATES

  ONCE I’D GOTTEN the kitchen back in order, I pieced together a couple BLTs that were lighter on the bacon than Mr. Wood normally preferred. But I think he’d agree it was worth sacrificing some bacon to keep the place from being ransacked by a corpse.

  I gathered up a few of Mr. Wood’s belongings, placed the bag in his lap, then double checked that Mr. Green was still dead. With one sandwich in hand and another in his belly, Mr. Wood remained silent as I wheeled him out the front door.

  I could have magicked Mr. Wood from his chair into his Prius, but the funeral home parking lot was clearly visible from the street and the neighboring houses. Using magic in front of Norms was a no-no except in emergency situations.

  But the real problem was that, as with my clients, my unsupervised use of a Lifting Charm risked flinging my boss clear across the Willamette River. Which would not win me any points with him or with the fine folks of MagicLand. No, the best course would be to wheel Mr. Wood the five blocks back to my place. Seriously, you had to do a lot of thinking when you were hopped up on magic.

  Once to my building, I entered the code on the security keypad, then performed some gymnast-type moves to get Mr. Wood’s wheelchair through the doorway while also trying to keep the door from closing and locking again. Mr. Wood barely had time to comment on the gnome out front when I looked up to find Morelli leaning his bulk up against the stair railing.

  "I know for a fact that your lease says no roommates."

  Not yet, I thought, and bit back a smile.

  "He's not a roommate. He's just staying until a friend picks him up."

  "And how are you planning to get him up the stairs?"

  Inwardly, I groaned. It’s annoying when you start relying on magic, then you can’t use that stupid magic without risk to life and property.

  "You lift at the front and I wheel him up backwards?" I asked encouragingly, like we helped each other do things like that all the time.

  "No," Mr. Wood insisted and shifted his hands against the arms of the chair as if he might try to stand despite his left leg still being fully encased in a cast.

  "Sit," I commanded. "We’ll figure this out." I had been planning to take Mr. Wood through my portal. From there, I could wheel him the few MagicLand blocks that separated my place from Busby’s, as opposed to the few miles that separated our homes on the non-magic side of Portland. I guess I missed the part of the equation where I got him to my portal in the first place.

  "How about he stay at my place?" Morelli suggested in a very creepy, very if-this-were-a-horror-movie-it-would-be-time-to-run kind of way. But Mr. Wood couldn’t run. The tips of my fingers vibrated, the magic surging to them in preparation for a fight.

  "His friend won't be looking for him there," I said cautiously.

  Morelli leaned in. I expected to be hit with the stench of sweat or stale cigars, but instead I smelled a certain something. Spicy, but not peppery. Ginger?

  He whispered, "I know you changed your lease. And I know how."

  "You’re—?"

  "Not exactly," he said with a snide grin. "But I know what you are."

  And like my own brain giving me a slap in the face, I recalled the way he and Fiona had exchanged glances when they first met. Or when I’d thought they’d first met. If I had a bit higher social IQ, I might have realized it had been a look of recognition that had bounced between them.

  A sudden chill ran through me. Morelli despised me. Could he be an ally of the Mauvais? I told myself it wasn’t likely. First, I’d like to think Fiona would have known and warned me. Second — and far more convincing — was Morelli had had plenty of chances to do me harm, but he’d never done anything more than verbally threaten me with eviction. Well, and offend my eyes on a daily basis, but that was the least of my worries lately.

  Before I could stammer out any of the gazillion questions popcorning around in my head, Morelli said, "You left your magic stink all over your lease papers. Not that I wouldn’t have figured it out anyway. You messed with the wrong guy, Black."

  "What does that mean?" I asked, my certainty that he wasn’t plotting to kill me crumbling to dust.

  "My specialty is detecting forgeries in the community."

  "Is that why you're such a jerk to me?"

  "Nah, that’s because you're such a pain in the ass. Plus, me treating you like dirt kept your talent on the back burner."

  He filled the word talent with utter derision, and I had no idea what he meant about back burners, but that was a question for later. Right now, Mr. Wood had already had a busy day of recuperating and dealing with freaked-out nurses and self-mutilating corpses. I wanted to get him settled.

  "Do you happen to have a door? And do not point to the one right behind you. You know what I mean. I need to get to Busby’s."

  "Is that where you’re taking him?"

  "He needs a caretaker for a little while."

  "Why? You scare away all the nurses?"

  Mr. Wood laughed. "Something like that."

  "You want to stay with me?" Morelli asked Mr. Wood.

  "I hardly know you."

  "I like to crochet and I make the meanest BLAT in Southeast Portland."

  "BLAT?" Mr. Wood asked eagerly. "What’s the A stand for?"

  "Avocado."

  Mr. Wood perked up. With eyes wide and eager, he sat a little straighter in his chair.

  "Well, if you don't think I'll be in the way."

  "He needs care," I insisted, "not just sandwiches. He also needs protection."

  "You ever see anyone near my door? Even a salesman?" I shook my head. "I got protections. And as for care, I served in the Medi Unit of the Magical Armed Guard Elite during the worst of the Mauvais period. I know care."

  Before I could even fathom, comprehend, or file away the extra two thousand questions I had regarding the Magical Armed Thingamajig, Mr. Wood was agreeing to stay if it wasn't too much trouble. Morelli said it was no trouble at all and wheeled Mr. Wood into his apartment. He stopped and turned to me once he’d gotten the wheelchair over the threshold.

  "When you’re ready to come by and discuss that lease, my portal’s on the side of the pink house at the end of Lola’s street."

  6 - PIPPI PROBLEMS

  I TOLD MR. Wood I’d come by in the morning and collect him for Mr. Green’s funeral, then grumbled out a thanks to Morelli who replied with a snorting chuckle. Before Morelli had even closed the door, the two men, who had forged an instant friendship based on pig products, were already discussing the perfect crispiness of bacon for a BLT, or a BLAT. I trudged upstairs. I was just pouring Pablo a few treats from the bag when my phone’s alarm squawked.

  I rolled my eyes. I mean I’d just intimidated a hard-working nurse, filled a corpse full of bacon, faced the possibility of soon being jobless, and learned my landlord had connections with MagicLand. You’d think I deserved at least fifteen minutes for a donut break. But nope, it was time for another class. I let out a long, weary sigh, scratched Pablo behind the ears, clambered back through my portal, and high-tailed it to the kitchen classroom within Spellbound Patisserie.

  After facing down the Mauvais, I had asked to be properly trained. Since prior to this I’d been doing my damnedest to get rid of my magic, the request shocked a few Magics, but my actual lessons came as a shock to me. I foolishly thought I’d just continue on with the private tutelage I’d been receiving when my only goal had been to rein in enough of my magic so I could be drained — that being the process in which a Magic gives up his or her power, whether that giving up is forced or done willingly.

  Although I was still attending some of my one-on-
one lessons, it turns out when you say you’ll start training, you literally start training like any other Magic. This was terrible for what little pride I possessed, because most Magics begin their training at a young age. All that is to say, there I was, a self-sufficient, twenty-eight-year-old woman having to attend classes full of thirteen-year-olds.

  By the time I reached Spellbound’s classroom, all the kiddies were sitting in pairs at their work benches, their faces bright and eager as Gwendolyn stood at the front of the room explaining what they’d be doing that day.

  Gwendolyn, baker of delicious desserts, was even taller than me, with short, brown hair that grew in untamed corkscrew curls. She didn’t have the eastern seaboard accent, but she still reminded me of Julia Child, the famous chef.