He nodded. “Go on, then.”
I grinned and led the corpse to my truck. “Easy does it, buddy.”
As I loaded him into the passenger’s seat, I watched the cop join his partner inside. Maybe they were on Philip’s take, but I doubt things would have been so clean if they had realized I was smuggling a corpse out of the building.
I buckled the body into its seat and let it go limp before I got in the driver’s side. Philip and Josh emerged from the building as I was climbing in.
“Yo Rob, you dropped your wallet,” Philip said. He handed me a money clip loaded with bills, a disbelieving smile on his face. “Don’t know how you pulled that off, and I don’t care.”
Josh stuck his head close to mine. “Listen. We’re tight, alright? But if any word of this gets out? If the motherfuckers on Bodega find out their boy got iced? We’ll know it was you. And that fat Russian won’t be able to protect you from us.”
“He’s Ukrainian.” I turned the key and got the engine going.
“Hey. How’d you do it?” Josh asked.
I wiggled my fingers in the air. “Magic.”
Philip started laughing as I drove away.
TWO
I headed north for the city’s center, and when I hit a red light at a quiet intersection, I reanimated the corpse. It crawled through the back window of the cab, and flopped onto the cargo bed, hidden from sight under the camper shell.
The core of the city was divided by the Bogachiel River from east to west, and the 101 Highway going north to south. The difference between the two halves was night and day. Uptown was northeast, modern, all polished glass and bright, clean streets. Nothing north of the river was older than the Reagan presidency.
Downtown, my destination, was southwest, with older ‘goth deco’ buildings casting an oppressive shadow over neglected streets. It felt more east coast than west, a gloomy place of sunless alleys, wrought iron, and leering gargoyles.
I turned a corner on Old River Avenue and approached the Oakview Parking Garage. A burly security guard watched me from the toll booth as I came to a stop.
“Fossor,” he grunted.
“Kolisnyk.”
He hit a button. “Don’t make me come find you.”
I smirked. “Bless your heart.”
The barrier lifted. I entered the garage, descended two levels, and parked near a big box truck. I could hear footsteps clomping around in the back, so I folded my arms and waited.
The back door rolled upward, revealing a heavyset man with thin, greasy black hair and a maroon tracksuit. He hopped from the truck and aimed the biggest assault rifle I’d ever seen my way.
“Fossor,” he growled.
“Piotr,” I said. “That a S.A.W. or are you happy to see me?”
He broke into a rumbling, deep-throated laugh and leaned the weapon against the truck’s bumper. “Friend’s nephew’s birthday present. Ammo sold separately! You have my finder’s fee?”
I took out the roll of bills and tossed it to him. “Five hundred is yours, and I’ll take that big TV you’ve kept in there forever, but I’m keeping the extra grand because that building was full of people you didn't tell me about.”
One of his thick eyebrows perked up. “Eh, yes. But you came through! I knew you would.” He unrolled the money and flipped through it.
“I’ve worked with you for a year, and you still count your share.”
“You treat money like toilet paper. I am a businessman. Ha!” He stuffed the money in his pocket and climbed into the truck. The interior was wall-to-wall with unmarked boxes, satchels, and other cargo. A black market candy store.
“How’s your mom doing?” I asked.
“Good, good. Finally settled in that little place on Baker Street. Now she can see trees, and not just brick walls. Not that she will ever let me forget.”
He slid a flat cardboard box the size of a tabletop towards me, and we carried it to my truck. “Eugh! You brought the body here?”
I shrugged. “The building was hot, remember?”
He made a series of disgusted sounds, punctuated with some Ukrainian vulgarities, while we shoved the TV in beside the corpse. “I tell myself I am done with bodies when I come to America.”
“I’m used to it.”
He wiped his hands. “You’re paid to be. Go on, get it out of my sight.”
“See you around, Piotr.”
He gave me a Polish two-fingered salute as I headed out.
My neighborhood, Sutcliffe Street, used to be a housing block for a military base during World War II. After they moved the base, Sutcliffe endured a few decades of abuse and neglect, before being rezoned as off-campus housing for the nearby college. The semester had started, so cars crowded the street, and there were lights on in most of the homes despite the hour. College students can’t sleep. It’s a law, I think.
I wasn’t a student, or a member of the college staff, but I got the place on a discount. No renter had stayed more than a semester, so my landlord thought it was haunted. Being a necromancer, I’d have paid extra for it, but the house was empty of any lingering spirits. If there were bad vibes in the house, they accepted my presence.
I arrived home a little after 3 AM, and parked in the back driveway, next to a white Keller Funeral Home work van. I opened the back of my truck and cast another animation spell on the corpse, so it could help me carry the TV into the house.
My place was about the size of a pack of gum, but it was mine. A living room with a kitchenette covered the south side of the house. The north side had a master bedroom, a small office or child’s room, and a bathroom and laundry space sandwiched between them. I had a TV and an L-couch, but no other chairs or tables. The only decoration was a terracotta planter that sat near my front door. I had failed to grow dill in it, and meant to throw it out, someday.
I set the TV down and rolled a throw carpet away from the trapdoor in my kitchen. A cramped, cool basement waited below. The corpse descended the ladder while I stripped down to my waist, put on a pot of coffee, and followed it down.
I had lined the basement with plastic sheeting, and the concrete floor had a drainage grate in the center. A modern furnace sat in a corner, hidden behind a shower curtain I’d erected. A sturdy metal table sat in the center of the room, with a wheeled stand loaded with tools bought from butcher surplus or lifted from a hospital or two. I’d learned to respect splurging on the right tools. My first attempt at home butchery with improvised means had been messy, to put it mildly.
While I donned a raincoat, gloves, and a plastic face guard, the corpse laid itself on the table and went limp. I grabbed a knife and got to work.
Despite our size, the human body doesn’t have a lot going for it in terms of usable meat, but if you know what you’re doing, you can get your money’s worth. I opened the torso, draining its organs and fluids into a tub under the table. Next went the extraneous parts, feet, hands, head, genitals… I won’t say I wasn’t a little envious of what he was packing, but it wasn’t like it would do him any good anymore.
After that went the skin, which was always a pain in the ass. It doesn’t want to let go, so you have to take it off in strips. Once I’d freed the body of big arteries and other nastiness, I didn’t need the delicate tools anymore. I revved the bone saw and used it to remove the limbs at the joints, then sawed each one into portions. When I finished a section, I wrapped it in plastic and deposited it in my freezer upstairs.
The mouths I had to feed could eat everything, bones, skin and all that, but if you had a choice, would any of that stuff be first on your list? Or last?
When I’d finished, I sat on the slab and fed my fast-decay spell to the unused portions. Skin shriveled, bones crumbled, guts dried into raisin-like cords before turning to a powdery ash. While I worked my magic, I read from my favorite book—a handwritten journal from the life of a two hundred-year-old undead wight—and sipped black coffee. A garden hose hooked to my kitchen tap helped wash the substance down the drainpipe afterw
ard.
Sleep gnawed at my mind, but dawn was already shining through my windows. I took a quick shower, downed another cup of coffee and put on my good suit.
It would relieve the Gallows to know a delivery was on the way.
A busy night, but a quiet one. Just the way I liked it.
A crowd of people in somber attire had already gathered near the main entrance of Saint Mary of Bethlehem Church. I parked in the rear and opened the side door of my work van to free my four co-workers.
“Put on your game faces, guys.”
Donnie Edwards was the first to exit. He was an inch or two shorter than me, but had a similar build and big forearms from squeezing those little workout grip-trainer things. “It’s gonna rain. I can feel it in my bones.”
“You’re full of shit, Donnie.” Frankie Halsey was the shortest, made worse by a constant hunch. Only an outsider would assume he was the group’s unpopular tagalong.
“Guys,” I piped in. “Best behavior, huh? Respect for the dead.”
“Is that a joke?” Max Jensen asked. His long red hair hung over his dark blue eyes.
Jeb Rainsford stepped out last. He was taller than me by an inch, but skinnier than Donnie. He gave Max a clap on the shoulder. “Relax, Max.”
The four wore their old prom tuxedos, but at least they looked respectable. My suit was secondhand from a thrift store.
I knocked on the church door, and Dietrich Keller—my boss and a man five years my junior—let us inside. Dietrich was a funeral director and mortician, so he wore a tailored suit that matched his pay grade. His dark hair and blue-gray eyes reminded me of a storm cloud.
“You’re early,” he said.
“Couldn’t sleep. Any coffee around?”
He led us through a rear corridor to a banquet hall. The day before, Dietrich and I had hung heavy drapes over the windows, and decorated the tables with small bouquets of flowers and pictures of the deceased taken at various points of her life. Dietrich had prepared a snack table against one wall, with an assortment of unappealing grocery-store pastries. Dietrich was a decent funeral director and one hell of a talented mortician, but he was shitty at catering.
“Don’t go nuts on the snacks,” he said. “You know your jobs?”
“Max and I watch the coffin for the viewing,” Donnie said. “At eleven-thirty we’ll wheel it out into the church for the service.”
“Frankie and I will hold the fort here,” Jeb promised. “At noon we grab the hearse and bring it to the front doors.”
Dietrich nodded in approval, then left to check on the chapel. I helped myself to a cup of coffee, loaded with cream and sugar. Donnie took his black. Max folded his arms over his stomach, glaring at the food.
I leaned over to Donnie. “Is he getting enough to eat?”
“Who? Max? He’s fine, just restless. We all are. We don’t get out much, y’know?”
“Mmh.”
“Hey, Alex, do you think my boys and I could take a field trip? There’s this band planning to-”
“No,” I said, loud enough that everyone heard me.
Max cursed. “Told you he wouldn’t.”
Donnie leaned closer. “C’mon man, the Gallows is dead. Dead like ‘nothing to do,’ dead. And the other thing. Look, that’s not the point-”
I held out my arms. “You’re up here now, aren’t you? It cost a ton to get those IDs from Piotr.”
“C’mon, this is prison labor.”
“You wanted to contribute,” I said. “That doesn’t mean it’s a license to run off and party. I’m making a delivery tomorrow. Once everyone’s leveled off, we can talk.”
Donnie winced. “You said that back in April. You can’t leave us hanging down there, man.”
My turn to wince. “I can’t go making my own supply. I just need you to stay cool for a few more weeks. Maybe a month. We’re on probation, remember. Deb is still on edge about this scheme you four cooked up. Don’t give her a reason to hang us all up by the balls.”
He sighed but nodded and kept quiet.
Dietrich returned to the hall. “Alright. We’re ready. If anyone asks, the bathrooms are through those doors. No one goes in the kitchen. The viewing room is this way.”
Donnie nodded and gave Max a push. Max growled at him, then walked away, brooding. Dietrich and I opened the main doors of the church, and attendees filed in.
Dietrich didn’t schedule who viewed the body, so the deceased’s immediate family said their goodbyes first. Afterward, they went into the banquet hall to hug their relatives, sit at tables and talk, or just stare into their coffee.
In my time working for him, I had already seen grief in many forms. Grown men breaking down in tears over their deceased mothers, women rendered numb by the prospect of carrying on without their husbands, children struggling to process the dead thing in the coffin as the family member they knew.
And sometimes I saw the darker side of death. A daughter who spat on her father’s coffin. Brothers that came to blows over an old unspoken grudge. A man who confessed to a string of infidelities while his wife died a slow, lonely death from cancer.
But usually I saw sadness, or a kind of painful hope. I saw respect for the dead from people who didn’t know how to express it, but tried their best anyway. Death is a thing of inevitability and mystery, and our species can’t help but be honest before it. We’re afraid, confused, and we need reassurance, but we know it will never come.
So we cling to each other as tightly as we can and hope the pain fades with time. If that doesn’t define who we are as human beings, I don’t know what does.
The clock told me it was almost eleven-thirty, so I went to fetch Donnie and Max. They stood guard outside the viewing room, ready to move the casket. Donnie looked almost dapper, straight and still like a loyal doorman. Max was his opposite, nervous, hunched, and rubbing his lips.
I didn’t know the deceased’s name, but I’d helped Dietrich dress her for the casket. A woman of advanced age with curly silver hair, dressed in a sky-blue Sunday church dress and matching shoes. She held a pair of thick spectacles in her folded hands, leaving her face uncovered, as if she’d climbed into the casket to take a nap.
“They’re ready,” I said. “Release the brakes on the gurney and bring her into the chapel.”
Donnie nodded, loosening the brake with the tip of his shoe. “You gave any thought to that field trip?” He asked. “You know we don’t ask for much. You can chaperone if you think you gotta. We’ll pitch in some gas money.”
“I’ll think about it, but-” The words froze in my throat.
Max was bent over the body, and not in a way that suggested trouble pushing. I cursed through clenched teeth and yanked his head back by his hair. Dead flesh flecked Max’s teeth. He let out a gargled hiss and gnashed his teeth at me. I jabbed his forehead with my thumb, giving him a jolt of my magic that made his body stiffen like the corpse it was. He fell flat, like a plank of wood.
“What are you doing?” Donnie gasped.
“Get him up!” I snapped.
The door opened and Dietrich poked his head in. “We’re waiting.”
I put myself between him and the coffin. “Sorry, Max tripped. Give us a second.”
He made a disapproving face but stepped out and closed the door. I inspected the corpse and found a clean bite above the ankle. I closed the coffin’s lower half-lid and locked it, leaving only her upper torso exposed.
Donnie got a dazed Max to his feet, and I pushed my van keys into Donnie’s hand.
“He wouldn’t be this hungry if you were staying near your soil, which means you’ve been sneaking out. Get him back in his grave!”
I shoved them towards the door. Donnie let out a chorus of hushed curses, but he ushered Max out. If they were smart, they’d be in the Gallows before the service was over.
I gave Dietrich a low whistle, and he came over. “Max sprained something. Gimme a hand?”
He nodded, and we moved the coffin into the cha
pel.
The church service was quiet, somber, and best of all, uneventful. Before it ended, I slipped out and found Jeb and Frankie waiting near the hearse.
“What happened?” Jeb asked. “What did Max do?”
“He took a bite out of the body!” I snarled under my breath. “Have you guys been going out without telling me? Yes or no?”
They exchanged glances.
“Yes,” Frankie said, head bowed.
“Goddamnit you guys. Has this happened anywhere else? Anything else you wanna share?”
“We went to the bar,” Jeb said. “No longer than an hour. We-”
“N-nothing happened,” Frankie said. “Max just hasn’t eaten in a while.”
“None of you have,” I said. “But you wouldn’t be hungry if you stayed in the Gallows!”
My burner phone started ringing. I dug it out and muted it. Piotr knew better than to call me during the day, and I didn’t have time to deal with three problems.
Jeb put himself between me and Frankie. “We know the risks. But the Gallows is a tomb, Alex. We can’t live our lives down there.”
I clenched my teeth. “You’re dead, you’re not entitled to it!”
His face was a mix of hurt, anger and resignation. I turned away, hands on my hips. The strain of a long sleepless night tugged at me through my caffeine life-preserver.
“They’ll be out in a moment,” I said. “Get the engine started. We’ll do this job, and then I’ll be by tomorrow.”
Frankie perked up. “You got a delivery?”
I glared. “Just keep your teeth together.”
It was almost six when the funeral finished at the East Pine Cemetery. The casket stayed closed, no one saw the bite mark, and neither Jeb nor Frankie gave me any guff.
While the mourners departed, I used a bit of magic to scrawl my magemark on her tombstone. Two quick slashes in an anchor shape. It shimmered pale blue-green before it faded out of sight.
All mages can make their own mark, no matter what type of magic they wield. It’s like a signature, but distinct as a fingerprint. Depending on how much magic you put into it, a mark can last a few seconds or forever, as long as they’re written on something solid. They’ll turn invisible to normal humans after a few seconds, which was handy, because there were a fair number of graves in East Pine alone that glimmered with my mark.
Death Dealers Page 2