Any More Questions for the Corpse?

Chapter 1

The Corpse and the Bairn

Malowin Gladstone was not a fan of corpses.

Very few people are, it turns out. It could be because he witnessed his own orphaning at age ten.

But it’s probably because, unlike most orphans, Mal’s parents continued to raise him posthumously.

Being raised by the dead was, in Mal’s own words, a living nightmare.

He was convinced the only thing worse than watching them die was watching them come back.

The fact that he was the one to bring them back just served to complicate matters; for both within our world and the magical one, necromancy is but myth and legend.

To say necromancers were rare would be grossly overstating it; necromancers simply did not exist—and yet here Mal was.

He often wondered who kept this secret from the world, his secret.

Maybe he was the first? The first necromancer.

That sounded nice, but it didn’t seem very likely, what with all the zombies in folklore and ghost stories.

Maybe necromancers weren’t all that evil?

Maybe they lived ordinary, simple lives?

That too seemed unlikely. If others had a power like his the world would surely know about it.

Which left only one option: Someone or someones were working very hard to keep the dead, dead.

All of Mal’s wondering stopped, however, when they finally found him.

Mal stared down at a new and very different corpse.

He tried to steady himself but all he could think about was the day his parents came back.

The memories sent chills through his flesh and raised the hairs on the back of his hands.

He felt his world sway beneath him. He pushed his curly black hair from out of his eyes and adjusted his glasses, trying to appear calm.

It was not the corpse he was trying to fool, but the man who’d presented him with it.

Detective Walters.

A man he’d only met last week, but who seemed to know everything about him.

Most notably, the secret he’d been keeping from the world for just over a decade.

Walters wasn’t a scary man, but his presence unnerved Mal all the same.

He saw Mal, truly saw Mal, in a way that made his bones crawl.

He could feel Walters’s stare permeating through the back of his head, urging him to bring the corpse back.

“We’ve not got long,” Walters said. Mal nearly jumped at the words.

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest; he hated using his powers; he hated watching them come back—but he didn’t have a choice.

He crept closer to the body, whose endless sleep he was about to interrupt, and examined him.

He was a white man, short and wide, with a ginger fuzz (most wouldn’t have called hair) circumnavigating his face.

Mal had no idea who he was or why he’d been killed.

He had an inkling as to how he’d died, though.

There was a large hole where the man’s stomach once was; so big you could stick your head through, if you were so inclined.

The wound was black and cauterized along its edges, keeping the rest of his insides, inside.

Mal’s eyes watered from looking at him, not because he was squeamish, but because a pungent, suffocating smell scratched at him from the air the closer he got.

Walters had assured him upon entering that this was pleasant, as far as mortuaries were concerned.

Walters took a solid step forward. They only had the room for a few more minutes.

Mal closed his eyes and dug deep into his thoughts, his feelings, his memories, and as always, found something there that did not belong to him.

As if blindly reaching your arm under the bed and finding an object you don’t recognize; you know it’s there, you can feel it, but you can’t put words to its shape.

His breath quickened, and he focused on the part of him that did not belong.

When Mal opened his eyes again, they were not his own.

The whites of his eyes had turned black and hard, and his mossy irises had been replaced with three concentric white circles.

He moved his hand out in front of him, hovering it over the dead man’s face.

He watched as ethereal shadows of his arm echoed his movement.

Lapping and clawing at his skin. He held his hand out still, and waited.

The longer they’d been gone, the longer this part took.

Mal felt something pulling on his hand, and he knew the soul was close; the man must only have died a few days ago.

One of Mal’s shadowy echoes plunged down into the dead man’s face, and with a rupturous breath, the man awoke.

“Good job, kid,” Walters said, pushing forward to witness Mal’s hideous deed. Mal watched the motionless face tense and contort. He shuddered.

“Murray, Murray,” Walters said, leaning over the body. Mal took a careful step back.

“Took you long enough,” Murray said, in a thick Scottish accent. He tried to sit up and quickly found that the part of his spine he needed to do that had been eviscerated.

“Sorry, are we interrupting?” Walters said, with a trim smile.

“You ol’ dog, you. Who’s the bairn?” Murray said, nodding to Mal.

“Kosh is having problems, so I enlisted help.”

“They won’t be too pleased with that,” Murray said, chuckling heartily at the thought. “Get on with your questions. I tell you, you won’t like my answers.”

“Did you see who did it, then?” Walters said. Mal instinctively went to retreat, but found himself stuck, too curious to move.

“If I hadnae seen it myself, I wouldnae’ve believed it,” Murray said, coughing and spluttering.

“I saw ’im, just like the others. Merlin.

Beard an’ all. I didnae see where he came from, but I saw the lightnin’.

Next I knew, I was keeled over. Then I heard a girl, said she was sorry.

I think they blinked away right after. That’s the last thing I remember. ”

“I’m sorry,” Walters said, putting his hand on Murray’s.

“Ahk, what can you do, eh? Just catch this fucker, will ya.”

“You know I will. Can you describe the girl?”

“I didnae get a good look, just heard the voice.” Murray took a useless breath, filling the room with silence. Mal felt the dead eyes staring at him. “Go on, then. That’s all I got. Send me on.”

Mal looked to Walters, who gave him a slow nod. Mal let go, dropping the part of him that did not belong; that part stayed with him, it always did, but the corpse fell back to its silence. Mal’s eyes returned and his extraneous shadows vanished.

Walters balled his hand into a fist and pushed on the metal slab next to the body. Mal had so many questions, but could tell this was not the right time to ask them. After a moment, Walters started to speak.

“He’s the fourth to drop in the last month … all saying the same thing. Fuckin’ Merlin. Fuckin’. Merlin. No evidence, no connection between the victims, and now he’s taken one of our own. The girl is new; we can see where that leads, but this … this is only going to get worse.”

Mal said nothing. Mostly because he was about to pass out and he didn’t want Walters to know it.

He could still feel his heart pounding in his chest. His breaths were quick and shallow, and the tips of his fingers were starting to tingle with numbness.

Mal knew what would happen next. He muttered some words that he hoped were “I’ll give you a minute,” then raced outside.

As he pushed through the doors of the hospital mortuary, the blaring sun struck him about the face.

Mal’s head spun as the panic attack he’d been holding at bay wrestled control of his breath.

He ignored a woman waiting by the front door and ambled down the steps, sitting on the final one.

He curled up, bringing his knees to his chest, and pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth.

He cupped his hands to his face, as you might do if you wanted to warm them up, and breathed into them through his shirt.

His world grew small. His breath sharp and harsh.

In his head he repeated, It’s over, it’s over.

Thoughts of his parents’ faces tensing and contorting ravaged his mind as he scrapped with his fight-or-flight response to seize back control.

He forced out long, slow breaths. One, and then another, and then another.

Eventually his world returned to balance.

His fingers stopped tingling, and his heart stopped pounding.

He was in control again. He felt the hot sun against his skin and pushed back his shoulders, forcing them to relax.

“So this is the ‘consultant’ you let contaminate our evidence?” a woman’s voice said behind him.

“Whose evidence? Sergeant Anastos? Are you leading this investigation?” Walters said. He must have spotted Mal as his next words were, “Kid, what are you doing down there?”

Mal quickly righted himself and made his way back up the stairs.

At twenty-one years old, Mal only mildly objected to being called “kid,” but he wasn’t about to correct Walters any time soon.

I must look a right state, he thought, trying to temper his curls and readjusting his glasses.

He’d dressed up when the detective told him he’d be heading to a hospital; he’d changed his usual hoodie and jeans to a shirt and jeans.

He wasn’t sure if his baggy, un-ironed shirt was giving off a better impression, but at least he’d tried.

The sergeant, however, in her formal white shirt and black dress trousers, didn’t have a crease on her.

Mal was befuddled as to how he’d ever ignored her presence in the first place.

Her long dark hair was tied back, and her olive skin glowed in the sun.

She had piercing green eyes, which Mal realized were now staring right at him; he actually had to talk to her. Right now. Speak, gods damn it. Speak.

“DS Desdemona Anastos,” the woman said. “And you are?”