Uncanny Collateral

Chapter 9

I sat in my office in the Valkyrie building later that night, long after everyone else had gone home. I leaned back in my chair, feet on my desk, flipping through the soul mirrors that I’d recovered from that bonfire. To the casual observer – even to someone who knew a lot about the Other – these were just a couple of handheld mirrors. They could have come from a car or a discarded child’s play set or a makeup box. I doubted that half the people at OtherOps would have given them a second glance. Whoever had thrown them in that fire had known enough to want to destroy them but had not known that soul mirrors are next to impossible to break. A bonfire certainly wouldn’t crack them.

I set the mirrors on my desk and picked up my phone, scanning through the hundreds of pictures I’d taken over the last few days. Most of them were different angles of dead imps. I moved through them quickly until I got to a number of pictures I’d taken of Judith Pyke. I zoomed in on her emaciated face and thought over our conversation. Hopefully she’d already left town, ahead of whoever or whatever was trying to clean up loose ends. After a few moments, I exited out of the pictures and searched through my wallet until I found Ferryman’s business card.

I turned it over, looking at the mirror on the back, and then set the card facedown on the table in front of me. I pressed three fingers against the glass.

The world crinkled around me, and I immediately found myself standing in murky darkness. I’d been through enough stepping mirrors that I didn’t stumble upon arriving in this new place. I tried to get my bearings, failed, and cleared my throat.

A light winked into existence a few yards to my left. It came from a bedside-style reading lamp clamped to a card table, at which Ferryman sat regarding a game of solitaire laid out in front of him. He clutched a cigarette between his fingers. Ferryman didn’t seem to notice my presence, so I walked over to join him, my boots echoing like I was walking across a blackened gymnasium at night.

“Is this your place?” I asked. My voice whispered back at me, more like a mocking mimic than an echo.

“It is,” Ferryman answered.

“Is it really a good idea to hand out business cards that have a stepping mirror directly to Death’s realm?”

Ferryman put a jack on a queen and leaned back, giving me a distracted look. “You don’t think I can control who uses my stepping mirror?”

“Fair point.” I rounded the table to stand in front of Ferryman, briefly wondering what Death’s realm would look like if I shone a flashlight through the darkness. It was probably filled with skulls or spirits or something equally macabre – either that, or endless nothing. I thought of the description he’d given of himself doing paperwork for the dead. Maybe filing cabinets? I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

You there? I nudged Maggie.

No, she said. I’m hiding.

Come on. You’re being a huge scaredy cat lately.

That’s because we’re getting mixed up in things out of our league. You can wander into Death’s realm if you’d like, but you should have left me at the office.

Yes, because I can just slip your ring off whenever I want, remember?

“I assume you’re here because you have a status update?” Ferryman asked. “Your clients are getting antsy about this whole thing, you know.”

I snorted at both him and Maggie. “It’s been what, five days? And I’m pretty sure you’re my client. The fact that you’re a middleman for the Lords of Hell has little to do with our business arrangement.”

“Me, them – it doesn’t matter all that much, does it?” Ferryman gave me a sallow smile.

“If you’re so worried, you should have come forward earlier.”

Would you please stop being sassy with Death? Maggie grumbled.

“I didn’t know about it earlier,” Ferryman claimed.

I thought about Judith Pyke. “I’m pretty sure you’re lying.”

Jesus Christ, Alek!

Ferryman finally turned his attention entirely away from his card game and scowled at me. “Now, why would that be in my best interest?”

“Because there’s something going on that you’d rather not tell me, even in confidence. But I’m neck-deep in your investigation. Time to fess up.” Ferryman glared hard at me, unresponsive. Once the silence had gone on long enough to be awkward, I removed the soul mirrors from my pocket and tossed them on the card table. “Do these have souls in them?”

Ferryman inhaled sharply. He picked up one of the mirrors and held it under his reading light. He checked the next mirror, then the next. “Five of the missing souls,” he proclaimed, setting them to one side. “I am pleased.”

“If you’re pleased, tell me what’s going on.”

Ferryman’s eyes narrowed.

“I did the math,” I continued. “That soul on top of the stack? I pulled that out of a woman named Judith Pyke. It had been sold to her secondhand by a group of imps. Having it in her body was killing her – fast. As far as I can tell, the imps planned on taking the soul back from her when she was too weak to fight them. They kill her, sell the soul to another poor sap, and the cycle continues. A way to make money in the mortal realm with otherwise useless souls, right?”

Ferryman nodded unhappily.

I went on. “Now, you told me that when a person dies, their soul returns to your realm to be reunited with their shade and become a full spirit again. You also mentioned that physical possession of the soul upon the death of the body is important. What I want to know is what happens when someone other than the Lords of Hell is in possession of the soul upon the original vessel’s death. And why is it such a big deal to you, personally?”

Ferryman let out a long-suffering sigh. I doubted anyone had ever questioned him this closely about how all this stuff worked. To most mortals, it was beyond their care or comprehension. To the Other, it was just business as usual. He dragged his arm across the table, erasing the game of solitaire and gathering the cards into a stack. He shuffled them twice and set the stack to one side. “Ada did warn me that you were persistent.”

“I’m just doing my job,” I said with a spike of annoyance. “And it’s easier to do when clients are honest with me.”

He leaned back in his rickety folding chair and took a drag on his cigarette. “It’s all about contracts. The Lords of Hell, the Avatars of Heaven, and hundreds of other organizations contract with me to store the shades, reunite them with souls, and send the spirits on to wherever they’re meant to go. If a person dies and is still in possession of their soul, it naturally seeks out the shade to be reunited. I don’t actually have to do anything in that case. If they are not in possession of their soul, then the soul must be brought to me by whoever has it.”

“So stolen souls means that you’ve got shades that can’t be reunited with their other half?”

“Exactly.”

I tried to ignore the goose bumps on the backs of my hands. “What happens if a soul and a shade are not reconnected?”

“It’s annoying, but I deal with it. The soul will always end up here eventually.” Ferryman grunted. “That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

Ferryman took another long drag on his cigarette. I could practically see him deciding how much to tell me. “The problem,” he finally said, “is that shades are dying.”

I frowned. “I’m guessing that’s not normal?”

“It’s not. Just like souls and spirits, shades are forever. Immutable. My realm is made up of billions of shades, all waiting to be reunited with their souls.”

“And when a shade dies?”

“It sends my realm into chaos.”

Something in Ferryman’s voice set off alarm bells in my head. I wasn’t the only one. I could sense Maggie’s presence listening carefully from within the ring. “What do you mean?”

“Imagine…” Ferryman picked up a single playing card and tapped it against his chin. “Imagine that you own a home, and the ground shifts very slightly beneath it. Not a proper earthquake, but a definite shift. Cracks appear in the drywall. Pipes come out of alignment. Now imagine that as the shifting intensifies, so does the damage. As the keeper of this place, I’m tasked with maintenance.”

“You’re running around with a can of stucco trying to keep things looking nice?”

“Something like that.” Ferryman gave me his wan smile again. “Now imagine that your house has a mind of its own, and when the maintenance isn’t properly kept up, it likes to lash out against the mortal realm.” He began to lay out a new game of solitaire. “The last time my realm became unbalanced was when it was affected by a war between minor gods back in the fourteenth century. It lashed out in pain. Humanity got the Black Plague.”

My eyes widened. “Didn’t that kill two hundred million people?”

“One hundred seventy-three million, eight hundred forty-two thousand, six hundred and one, to be exact.”

That number was way too specific for my liking. My goose bumps intensified. “You’re saying that if shades keep dying, your realm is gonna murder humanity?”

“Oh, it won’t be anything that large. It’s more likely to be an earthquake or a flu epidemic or something relatively minor. But it’ll still hurt. A lot of people will die.”

I ran through my hair. “That’s a damn lot of pressure you’ve put me under.”

“There’s a reason I didn’t tell you this in the first place.”

“Thanks,” I said, not bothering to hide my sarcasm. I began to pace. “Okay, so what’s killing the shades?”

“All of those two hundred seventeen missing souls should have been processed into my realm over the new year.”

“You mean that all the original owners died?”

“Yes. It’s their shades that are dying.”

A light went on in the back of my head. “It’s because they’re putting the used souls into other people’s bodies?”

“I couldn’t figure it out myself until you brought me the information on Judith Pyke, but I suspect that is the case.”

“And what do we do about it?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re doing it.”

I threw my hands in the air. “You’re Death! Can’t you just deal with this?”

“You of all people should know how important the Rules are. This is as involved as I can get in the mortal realm.”

“Then you should have handed it straight to OtherOps. The actual cops should be doing this this, not me.”

Ferryman snorted. “OtherOps might get results, yes, but they’re a bureaucracy. Those results will come in six months, or maybe a year. That’s not quick enough. And even if I convince OtherOps of the severity of the situation and they move lightning fast, they will let it slip to the public. It’ll cause mass panics, suicides, and humans and Other turning against each other. The Lords of Hell will see their business dry up overnight.”

“This is corporate protectionism?”

Ferryman stared at his newly laid out game. “I suppose it is.”

“You’re a prick.” For once, Maggie didn’t scold me. She floated on the edge of my awareness, still quiet, still listening.

“I’ve been called worse,” Ferryman said as he leaned over his game and began to move cards. “I do think I have time, though I’m not sure how much. A couple of weeks? A month? I’m giving you ten more days before I pull the contract and alert OtherOps.” He looked up, fixing me with those black, galaxy-speckled eyes. “I do have faith in you, Alek. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered. OtherOps may have resources, but you know this world. You know the clients and their customers and the equipment being used. A reaper is a far better agent to deal with this than an entire OtherOps office.”

“Kind of you to say,” I responded wryly. If Ferryman pulled the contract, I would have failed to stop a disaster, and Ada would be pissed as hell over losing out on however much Ferryman had offered her. Millions, no doubt. The two different sets of stakes seemed immeasurably imbalanced. But one would happen to the other people. The other would happen to me.

I took a few calming breaths and tried to pull myself together. Nothing to do now but go through with my investigation. I pointed at the mirrors on Ferryman’s table. “I’m on the right track.”

“It seems you are. As I said before, I am very pleased. You mentioned imps. Do you think they’re behind this secondhand soul business?”

“I know they’re involved. I doubt they’re behind it. Imps are rarely behind anything but petty theft and drug dealing. I think they’re working for someone both bolder and stupider.” I paused, massaging the gums of my lower canines. “The truth is, I need the resources of someone like OtherOps. I haven’t even explored where they’re getting all these souls – how they’re stealing from reaper agencies or the Lords of Hell. Unfortunately, I have a thousand different angles to work, and it’s just me.”

“Keep on this trail of dead imps,” Ferryman advised. “As I told you before, the Lords of Hell have conducted their own investigations and come up with nothing. Searching around in their trash cans isn’t going to help.”

That reminder tickled something in the back of my head. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “That’s… discouraging,” I said. “It’s possible that whoever is running this business has already figured out that we’re on to them. He killed a whole bunch of his imps and tried to destroy some soul mirrors. If I had to guess, I’d say we have a few days at best before he finishes liquidizing his business and skips town.”

“You’d better hurry, then.”

“Thanks for the advice.” I turned around, searching the darkness for the other side of the stepping mirror I’d come through, expecting a glint in the darkness. Nothing stood out. “I’ll try to pick up the pace. In the meantime, make sure that Lucy and her friends answer their damn phones the moment I call.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Ferryman promised.

“Good. Now, how the hell do I get back to my–” I hadn’t finished my sentence when I found myself sitting back at my desk, my fingers still pressed to the stepping mirror. “Office.” I blinked at the bright lighting and sighed, wishing I could go back and undo that whole conversation. My stomach was a knot now, a ball of stress that might just kill me before Death’s realm could lash out at humanity like an angry child.

Answers aren’t always fun, are they? Maggie asked.

No. Definitely not. The thought tickled the back of my brain again. There was something there, just outside of reach.

I do have some good news, Maggie told me. I managed to find out how to put draugr to rest.

At least that’s something. How long until they show up and try to kill me again?

Based on the last time, you’ve got two more days. Maybe less. If we catch them while they regenerate, we might be able to get some information out of them.

I like the sound of that. Okay, tell me what we need, and we’ll go have a talk with our undead friends.

Maggie hesitated. My anniversary starts Friday afternoon.

I know, I told her, feeling a flash of guilt. That’s why I want to get info out of them. If I can’t spend your anniversary with you, at the very least I can give you a lead on who it is that knows you’re still alive.