Uncanny Collateral

Chapter 10

It was almost three in the morning when I pulled onto a quiet street just south of Mayfield Road on the eastern border of the Cleveland city limits. I sang along with Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” on the radio, squinting at signs until I found one advertising all-night parking. I got out, shrugging on an unlabeled hoodie and getting a Maglite from the passenger seat of my rental. I looked up and down the street, eyeballing the darkness for cops. The only sign of life I saw was a couple making out beneath a stop sign a block away.

The sight of them caused a stab of melancholy. It happened from time to time, especially when I was working late at night. I leaned on the car door, willing it away, trying not to think about the fact that my last girlfriend had dumped me after three weeks because I worked too much. That had been a couple years ago, and I’d had nothing but the occasional bar hookup since. As much as I liked Maggie, the fact that my only constant companion was a seven-century-old jinn was a tad dehumanizing.

The melancholy finally passed, and Maggie didn’t seem to have noticed. Hey, Mags, are we clear? I could see my breath as a white fog beneath the flickering of the street light.

We’re good, Maggie told me.

You’re sure about that?

Yeah. Closest cop is half asleep, eating a donut three streets over from here.

Oh, come on, I told her. That’s racist.

Cops aren’t a race.

Coppist?

Is it coppist if he really is eating a donut? she asked.

I should ask Justin.

I checked my pocket for a pair of plastic baggies filled with some draugr dust I’d scraped up after our fight the other day. There was more dirt, gravel, and glass from my pickup windshield than there was actual draugr dust in either bag, but Maggie claimed it was enough. I flipped up my hood and walked quickly down the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for passing cars.

I crossed Mayfield Road and pulled myself over a seven-foot concrete wall, dropping on the other side to land in an overgrown tangle of vines, discarded stones, and the trees that formed a screen between the road and Lake View Cemetery. I knelt among the vines, squinting through the trees to the open grass and winding concrete paths that made up the cemetery beyond.

I spotted a flashlight bobbing in the darkness off to my left just as Maggie said, Security, and I moved behind a tree until he passed.

Rub a little more of that draugr dust on my ring, Maggie told me.

Kinky, I replied, following her instructions. I could practically feel her rolling her eyes.

Okay, I got it, she told me. They’re both in the same tomb. Head north until I say so.

With Maggie guiding the way, I was able to navigate to the nearest path and follow in the security guard’s footsteps. There was just enough moonlight that I could manage without my Maglite, but I kept it in hand regardless. We passed hundreds of graves varying as much in shape and size as the people within them. Black obelisks towered high above, and shadowy mausoleums seemed to menace me from the darkness. Despite working with loa, vampires, and even Death, cemeteries still gave me the willies.

How much do you think you’d have to be paid to be a security guard at a cemetery? I asked Maggie.

I’m a jinn. I’m not really scared of the dead.

Not even the undead?

Only ghouls. They’re undead jinn.

Oh, that’s a pleasant thought. I considered the small amount of Maggie’s power she was able to use from within the ring and decided I didn’t want to see that in the hands of a vengeful undead.

Mean bastards, Maggie said. I’ve never had to tangle with one myself, but I’ve heard a pack of them can kill even the strongest ifrit. Ifrit were a class of powerful infernal spirits – a type of jinn to which Maggie was closely related.

I was about to reply when I felt her ring nudge me down a side path toward the northeast corner of the cemetery. I dodged another security guard, and within minutes I was standing before a marble mausoleum about the size of a one-car garage. I checked over my shoulder, then risked my Maglite.

The mausoleum was tucked into a space off the beaten path and behind several large trees. It was overgrown with moss and ivy, the lettering above the iron-grate door so worn it was impossible to read. Upon closer inspection, I found the door wasn’t locked or even closed all the way. A chain lay on the ground just inside the entrance, its links snapped rather than cut.

I took a hesitant step inside the mausoleum. There wasn’t a lot of space – just two stone sarcophagi in a dark, damp interior. It looked like something out of a vampire film, except with way less space. An old-fashioned light bulb sconce hung from the center of the ceiling. I couldn’t find a switch to turn it on, so I relied on my Maglite.

The sarcophagi had matching marble lids. One had the name Trevor carved into the top, while the other said Jacob. They were born in 1798. One died 1874, the other 1877.

Twins, I’m guessing, I said to Maggie. I wonder if that made it easier for the necromancer to raise them both. I did a quick examination of the lids and found scratches where lid met base. Definitely the right place. I set my Maglite on one sarcophagus and emptied my pockets beside it: a bag of draugr dust, a wooden stake, a two-pound iron ingot, and a thin piece of sturdy cord. I eyed the assortment dubiously. You sure this is going to work?

Oh, not at all. It’s not like I’ve tried all this shit out before – I found it in a book.

You’re really doing great things for my confidence. I leaned on the lid of the opposite sarcophagus and began to work it open. It scraped and screeched until I’d managed to get it as far off as possible without it falling off the side. I grimaced at the sound and listened carefully for either Maggie’s warning or the shout of a security guard. Taking a deep breath, I snatched up the Maglite and shone it inside.

The draugr lay peacefully in repose, arms stretched out at its side. It looked like a fairly ordinary corpse at first glance, but a closer look revealed that the flesh clinging to its bones was far too robust, the skin almost pink rather than black with age. An inexperienced eye would claim that the body laying before them had only been dead a short time, not a hundred and fifty years.

It says here, Maggie intoned, that draugr raised by a powerful necromancer are impossible to kill permanently unless you find their resting place.

What the hell are you reading from?

It’s called The Weary Dead, and it’s by some court physician. Fourteenth century, I think. It says that draugr will grow in strength each time you destroy its physical form. By virtue of its master’s magic, it will reassemble itself in its grave and become stronger and stronger each time it does so. By the third time it rises – which will be in a couple of days – its flesh will appear almost human, and it will have access to black magic, including shapeshifting, the force of wind, and control over lesser animals.

Okay, then. We should kill it ASAP.

Stop interrupting; I’m almost finished. The draugr’s fury will increase each time it is destroyed, blah-blah-blah, and it will stop at nothing to accomplish its master’s will so that it may be released to terrorize the world. Huh.

So that explains why they tried to kill me even with Nick being locked up and out of the picture.

Yup.

All right, let’s do this. I leaned over, wooden stake in one hand, and tapped the draugr on the forehead. It didn’t move. You sure it’s not getting up?

Not until we make it.

Good. I set aside the stake and picked up the cord, reaching underneath the lid to feel with one hand along the draugr’s shin, ankle, and foot. I grasped him first by one big toe, then by the other. This is really gross, I said.

You’re fine. It’s just an undead body.

Undead bodies are gross.

Maggie began to hum the way she does when she’s absently flipping through the pages of a book. Hey, this is cool. John D. Rockefeller is buried here.

The oil tycoon? I asked.

One and the same.

No kidding. Jesus, this is hard to tie.

The guy who invented the Salisbury steak is buried here too.

I should stop and pay my respects. I ate nothing but microwave dinners for most of my childhood.

That explains a lot.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Ah! Got it. I successfully finished looping the cord around the draugr’s toes and tied a one-handed knot before extricating myself from the sarcophagus and dusting off the sleeve of my hoodie. I took the iron ingot and laid it on the draugr’s chest. What now?

Now we wake him up.

A cord and a piece of iron are gonna keep him from trying to rip my face off again?

We should need only one of them, but I figured insurance wasn’t a bad idea.

You know he has hands, right? He can just untie the cord and move the ingot.

Not according to this. Trust me, this kind of thing works on all sorts of Other.

Man, magic sure is dumb sometimes, I said. I took one of the bags of draugr dust and sprinkled it on the body – along with bits of my ruined truck and some road gravel – then took Maggie’s ring and pressed the ruby against the draugr’s forehead.

The draugr immediately took a long gasp, like a man coming up for air after a long dive. It began to tremble violently, rasping and hissing, and I leapt back against its brother’s sarcophagi and let the creature thrash. Thanks to the narrow width of its resting place, it was able to do little more than flail its bony arms upward. I pointed my Maglite at it and took a cautious look inside to see that it indeed remained pinned to the sarcophagus floor by the iron. Its eyes fixed on the flashlight. Eyes. Those were new.

“Hey, big guy, how you doing?”

“Release me,” it demanded in a gravelly voice.

Well, at least it can talk.

That’s good and bad, Maggie said. Good because it can answer questions. Bad because it shouldn’t be able to talk until after it’s been destroyed three times.

So your book may or may not be accurate. Great. The iron is holding it down, at least.

“Damn you, release me!” it repeated.

I glanced outside. “Hey, pal, keep it down unless you want a security guard on top of us.”

“I will kill you and anyone who comes.”

“Sure, sure. Until OtherOps calls in a SWAT team. You don’t want to deal with that.” I shone my light on the sarcophagus lid. “Listen, Trevor, I just need you and your brother to answer one question, and then I’ll do exactly what you ask.”

Draugr Trevor went still and glared at me. “I only answer to one mortal.”

“Right, Nick the Necromancer. I just need to know who hired Nick.”

“Hired him for what?”

“To get the jinn from me.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

I cocked an eyebrow at the creature. It was, truthfully, more than a little terrifying. It and its brother had almost killed me the other day. But watching it lie there and flail its arms, unable to do something as simple as lift a piece of iron off its chest, made me crack a smile. “That iron – does it hurt?”

“It burns,” Trevor hissed.

“I could just put the roof back on your little house here and leave you to cook under that iron for the next few weeks. How would you like that?”

It made a strange sound in the back of its throat. “I know little of value.”

“Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll release you. Cross my heart.”

Its arm trembled, and I wondered what kind of horrible things it was imagining doing to me the moment it could get out of that sarcophagus. “Master…”

“Nick?”

“Yes, Nick. He spoke with her on the tel… tel…”

“Telephone? Who’s her?”

“A woman. We went to her home. It was a large, white house. Perhaps a mansion?”

“What was her name?”

“I did not hear it.”

“So where was the house?”

“It was in a place…” Trevor hesitated for a moment, and then his eyebrows rose. “Ah. The rich man. It is the land where he used to live.”

I leaned on the edge of the sarcophagi and eyed Trevor’s hands. I had no doubt he’d snatch for me, given the opportunity. “You need to be more specific.”

“The tycoon. I don’t remember his name.”

“Rockefeller?”

“Yes!”

“Huh.” Where did he used to live? I asked Maggie.

I’m sure we can find out.

I considered this for a moment, digging through my memories of local history. I snapped my fingers. “Cleveland Heights! Gotta be it. So a white mansion in Cleveland Heights. That’s not super useful, but it’s a start. Is that all you’ve got?” I asked Trevor.

“It’s all I know. Now release me!”

“Here’s the thing,” I said, and brought the wooden stake up over my head and buried it between Trevor’s ribs. The draugr let out a wild moan, its claws tearing my sleeves to ribbons as it grasped at me. Maggie, a little help. The ring flared, and fire shot down through the stake and washed across the draugr’s bones, consuming it in moments. By the time I righted myself, there was nothing left of the corpse but ash. My wooden stake remained undamaged, and I retrieved the cord and iron. Is he gone for good this time?

Should be.

See, the word should does not help me sleep at night.

Would you prefer I lie to you and say, “Yes, I am one hundred percent certain we killed that draugr”?

Yes, I think I would.

I pushed the lid back on the sarcophagus and gathered my equipment before going through the exact same process with Trevor’s undead brother. Ten minutes later, with nothing more to go on than the information Trevor had given us, I climbed the wall out of Lake View Cemetery and headed back to my rental car. I turned on the radio, volume low, and listened to Paul Simon’s “American Tune” while I meditated on the events of the past week. The draugr hadn’t been as helpful as I’d hoped, which meant I still needed to get Nick to talk. There was no telling how long he’d be able to hold out. With the clock ticking on Ferryman’s job, I wasn’t exactly flush with spare time – but with someone out there trying to get Maggie’s ring, I couldn’t just put it off.

I put my chair back and closed my eyes. Wake me up in two hours, please, I said to Maggie.

What’s in two hours?

Presti’s opens. An hour after that, the morning shift arrives at the OtherOps office.