Chapter 19 #2
They exchanged a look and they both mumbled, “Doctor.” They ignored the rest of us and turned their attention to the tablet the man was holding, obviously going over a patient’s chart.
They departed on the next floor. In their place came a janitor, pushing a rolling bucket and mop.
He was young and skinny with a neck tattoo of a fish—a trout if I was correct—and he glanced at us from beneath the brim of the ball cap he wore.
He looked past Jasper and said, “If you need a body bag, they’re in the morgue in the basement. ”
“That’s where we’re headed,” Jasper said.
The janitor looked at him and hit the B on the elevator panel. “You weren’t, but you are now.”
“Thank you.” Olive nodded at him.
The elevator opened and he stepped out. A woman in a blue blazer and matching skirt with her auburn hair in loose waves about her face went to step in. Olive blocked her.
“We’re going down.”
The woman glanced past Olive at the stretcher. “Oh.” She stepped back, letting the doors shut.
I sagged against the wall. My nerves were ratcheted to the breaking point. I did not think I could handle one more interaction.
The elevator dinged and we arrived at the basement. The doors slid open and I pushed off the wall, ready to start looking for a body bag, not a task I ever thought I would have to do.
“What the hell are you doing down here?” a voice barked.
The man in front of us looked like someone you’d find if you wandered off the path deep in the woods.
He was short and wide with a head like a melon.
His jowls flapped when he spoke and his nose sported the broken red capillaries of an alcoholic, making it seem red in appearance.
His eyes were narrow slits tucked into the folds of skin that draped over his eyelids.
He smelled faintly of tobacco, and despite his small stature, I found him terrifying.
“I think the better question is what are you doing here?” Olive demanded. “I thought your kind wasn’t allowed near the dead anymore.”
The man barked back a laugh. “This from the likes of you.” His gaze narrowed. He sniffed the air like a dog catching a scent. Then his eyes went wide. He stared at Olive with equal parts fear and excitement. “What are you?”
“At the moment? Annoyed.” Olive glowered and waved her arm. The man moved aside, but I could have sworn it wasn’t of his own free will.
I glanced at Jasper. He didn’t seem surprised at all. I then looked at Eloise. Her eyes were as wide as mine. What did Olive mean when she’d said your kind to this man? Was he another otherworldly being that was going to give me nightmares?
I braced for the worst when I exited the elevator, still pushing the laundry bin, and moved aside so that Jasper could wheel out the stretcher.
“Body bag, ghoul,” Olive ordered.
Ghoul? The man was a ghoul?! My brain raced to remember the origin of ghouls. They were first noted in Arabic folklore as a demon class of jinni. Oh. My. God.
“The name is Malachi,” the ghoul said.
“Don’t care.” Olive crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him.
The man licked his withered lips and said, “What’ll you give me for it?”
“More like what I won’t do to you so long as you do my bidding,” Olive countered.
She lifted her hand and I watched in fascination as the tips of her fingers were suddenly engulfed in blue flames. Eloise gasped and the ghoul, Malachi, blanched.
“All right, fine, you’ve proven your point.
” He backed away and I took in the room where we were standing.
It looked like an operating room. Sterile, with big steel tables, overhead lights, and lots of equipment.
Along one wall I noticed large metal drawers, the sort that stowed bodies. I felt my knees get weak.
Malachi tossed a big black bag at Jasper, who snatched it out of the air with reflexes that seemed almost too fast to track. Almost.
Jasper removed the sheet and Eloise and I assisted him with getting Moran stuffed into the sack.
The rot that had been evident upstairs had increased exponentially and I thought I might pass out, except Moran didn’t smell as bad as he had before.
Maybe my sense of smell had been blown out by the stench.
How no one had noticed the effluvium of the corpse in the elevator was a mystery to me.
I glanced at Olive. I was certain she had contained it somehow, but I didn’t think now was the time to ask.
On the far side of the room, Olive was having a heated conversation with Malachi, which ended with him stomping away from her in a full sulk.
To me, pissing off a ghoul— a ghoul! —was the stuff of nightmares, but Olive didn’t seem to care.
She sauntered back just as Jasper finished zipping the body bag.
“Malachi is going to get us transportation,” she said. “The four of us and a corpse will never fit in the vehicle we came in. I’ll have someone from the rental agency pick up the SUV and deliver it to our hotel.”
“Where is Malachi getting this vehicle from?” Jasper asked.
“I don’t care so long as we can fit the four of us and our deceased companion in it,” she answered.
“Just keep him away from me,” Eloise said. “I have enough body parts falling off. I don’t need a ghoul helping himself to any others.”
A wave of dizziness hit me and I grabbed the edge of the steel table to steady myself. This was an actual conversation. A dead person was announcing that she didn’t want to be left alone with a ghoul so he wouldn’t make a snack out of her.
“You all right, Zoe?” Jasper asked.
“Nope, not even close,” I said. “How is a ghoul working here? Aren’t they known for eating the dead?”
“Yes, they are,” Olive said. “Usually they stick to cemeteries, but Malachi apparently has some sort of special dispensation from the local witch’s council to work here. His father is a very powerful mage.”
“Supernatural nepotism?” Jasper asked, but before Olive could answer, she was interrupted by Malachi.
“Here are your keys. Now go.”
He threw a set of keys at Olive with, I suspected, the intention of hitting her. Jasper caught them before they had the chance. He handed them to Olive, and she glanced at the tag and smiled. “This will do. Good work, Malachi.”
If the ghoul was capable of blushing, I swear he would have been. “Sorry about the…er…I don’t know my own strength.”
“Apparently.” Olive stared at him until he looked away.
“Where’s the service exit?” Jasper asked. He hoisted Moran’s body up over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.
“Follow me,” Malachi said. He shuffled toward the back of the room and we followed, although Eloise kept a body between him and herself at all times.
Malachi led us up a flight of stairs that opened to the delivery area. No one was there, and he strode across the concrete receiving room to the large metal doors at the back. He pressed a button and the door on the left slowly lifted.
Parked just beyond the loading dock was one of the facility’s shuttle buses. It looked like a short school bus but was painted in the same signature teal and purple as the outside of the building.
“I can’t be seen with you,” Malachi said. He gestured for us to go ahead without him.
Olive looked him over and said, “Just so we’re clear, if you cross me, I’ll come back for you and you won’t like the outcome.”
Malachi blanched. “Much as I love your company and your veiled threats, I have a good thing going here. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Then be sure that you don’t.” Olive gestured for us to go around her and get in the shuttle. Jasper led the way, jogging down the steps. I hurried ahead and opened the back doors for him. He rolled Moran into the space for shopping bags and whatnot. He stepped back and I shut the doors.
“Thanks,” he said. The man wasn’t even winded.
Jasper turned back around and met Olive at the base of the steps, taking the keys from her. Malachi stood on the loading dock, watching us as the metal door lowered. His eyes met mine, a slow smile curved his lips, and then he pursed his lips and blew me an air-kiss.
My insides shivered with cold. Could ghouls do that or was it my own horror icing my internal organs?
“Ignore him.” Olive took my arm and led me onto the shuttle where Eloise was already seated. “Ghouls are the worst.”
I fell into a seat and rubbed my temples.
Ghouls were real. Dead bodies came back to life.
Necromancers existed and I was one apparently.
And Olive was…I had no idea what Olive was.
A witch? Yes, but that seemed too tepid for her.
What was more powerful than a witch? A sorceress?
Maybe. Okay, I was living in a world where all of this was in-my-face real. Cool, cool, cool.
“Where to?” Jasper asked as he slid into the driver’s seat.
“The Newtonian.” Olive settled back into the seat behind his.
Jasper raised one eyebrow. “That’s rather posh, isn’t it?”
“Four-star hotels don’t ask questions.”
“True enough.” He started the engine and pulled out of the lot. The shuttle bus bounced over a speed bump and we all turned to see how Moran’s body had fared, as if expecting him to groan or something. He didn’t.
“Also,” Olive continued, “Moran’s grave is in the neighboring town, so this will give us easy access for when you two return him.”
“ You two? ” I asked. I hoped Olive didn’t mean what I thought she meant. After the deranged Viking episode, I’d made a vow to myself not to spend another night in a cemetery until I was six feet under myself.
“Yes, you and Jasper,” Olive clarified. Damn it.