Chapter 11 #2
“Because there’s no evidence,” Des said. “It’s all circumstantial. We can’t just arrest every storm mage over sixty, there’s hundreds. Also he has an alibi; his nurse was with him at the time of the murders.”
“What about the connections though? With the first few victims,” Yu said, also curious.
“They aren’t hard connections,” Des said.
“They could just as easily be coincidences. You yourself have seen how hard it is to narrow down suspects.” They looked at the pile of files on the floor.
“And don’t forget, he doesn’t know about the Order.
The others are all Order members. How could he know about them? ”
“More coincidences?” Hala said, skeptical.
“Now that would be unlikely,” Des said.
“How would you even arrest a guy like that?” Yu said.
“With great difficulty. Not to mention Taran has some serious connections. Walters got it in the neck just sending me to talk to him.” Des sighed, looking at the girth of her book. “Anyone found anything good?”
“I’ve been reading about how ghosts are formed, so no. Not really,” Mal said, to an annoyed chorus from Hala and Des.
“I’ve been similarly helpful,” Yu said, showing the title of the book they’d been reading: Hidden Cults and Where to Find Them.
“Wonderful,” Des said, giving the pair a jovial glare. “Well I’ve found fuck all in mine. The history is mostly them killing necromancers, then turning their bodies to stone.”
“Why stone?” Mal said, concerned.
“It says they do it so they can’t get back into their bodies,” Des said.
“Burning them just scatters little bits about. Must be what they did to Mazino.” It’ll be what they do to me, Mal thought.
The concern must have shown on his face as Des looked at him pitifully for a moment.
“Maybe not, though. They didn’t do it to the other guy, although a spike doesn’t sound much better. ”
The other guy in this instance was Kosh.
Mal wondered why he hadn’t been made a statue but then it clicked.
Murray. The first victim Mal met had been the Order’s transmutor; he would have been the one to do it.
To stone-ify him. Mal flicked through his book hoping to find some process involving spikes.
He found a page called “Death Spikes” and thought that looked about right (right in the correct sense, not right in the moral sense).
A death spike was a magical artifact used to see if a corpse was faking or not.
Mal hastened to think how or where it was placed, but “thankfully” the book had diagrams so he didn’t have to think.
Apparently, it worked on both the living and the dead, but the living didn’t survive the procedure, making the point a bit moot.
Standard practice was spiking once within twenty-four hours of death and then again at the same time the next day.
It must be Order procedure to make sure everyone stays dead—to spike or stone, whichever they fancy.
Mal wondered if there was anything in his book that could help him cheat death, but if Kosh hadn’t found a way, he doubted he could.
“I haven’t found anything either,” Hala said, “but I do have a question. Why were we attacked by zombies?” The group paused.
They had all considered the attack weird (weird in the “out of the ordinary” sense, not weird in the “that’s so crazy” sense, although it was so crazy).
But they had never considered why it had happened. Why them? Why there? Why now?
“Unlucky?” Yu said, shrugging.
“You think it’s a coincidence that zombies happen to attack a necromancer?” Des said.
“Good point. We had a close call the other day too,” Mal said, looking at Des and touching his right shoulder. Des’s eyes lit up.
“You think they’re connected?” Des said, “Merlin and the dead?”
“I love that band,” Mal said. Apparently it wasn’t as funny as he thought, though Des smiled. “Maybe they’re connected. Would be odd; two separate attempts to kill us in so many days.”
“If they are,” Des said, “Mazino would be perfect. He ticks all the boxes. Shame he’s—”
“Super dead,” Mal said. “And why kill us? We weren’t even on his trail.”
“I was surprised by how calm they all were,” Yu said. “When they weren’t attacking us, I mean.”
“The dead?” Hala said.
“Yeah, them,” Yu replied. “If I’d come back to that, I would have lost any and all sense.”
“Some of them did,” Mal said. “Most asked politely what was going on. I’m surprised they didn’t form an orderly queue.”
“I can’t believe you managed to calm them down,” Yu said, looking to Hala.
“I could tell they just needed some answers,” Hala said. “I tried pushing them to be calm. I’m not sure my powers work on the dead, though. They were confused more than anything else—the ones that weren’t throwing up, anyway.”
“Yeah, I’m never getting that smell out my nose,” Des said, smiling wide enough to bare fang. She quickly shut her mouth to conceal them, but in the process bit down hard on her tongue. A muffled yelp through closed lips rung through the room. Mal couldn’t help but laugh.
“I keep doing that,” Des said, a pained lisp permeating her voice. Mal wanted to ask how she was doing, but knew he had to wait. They were still being watched.
“Why didn’t you turn me in?” Yu said, quite abruptly. Hala and Mal watched in silence as Des thought for a moment.
“Because you’re you.” Des didn’t realize the pun she had made until Yu gave her a sassy stare.
“And what does that mean?” Yu said, clearly unsure whether this was a compliment or not.
“I mean,” Des said, “you weren’t hurting anybody. You weren’t stealing anything, other than maybe knowledge? But I didn’t see you sell on the information or send it anywhere. You were just solitary.”
“You mean you followed me?”
“Of course I did. You were a random shapeshifter breaking into libraries all over the city. I did my due diligence. As far as I could tell you were just a passionate bookworm.”
“That’s depressingly accurate,” Yu said, folding in their annoyance with a smile.
“This must be heaven then,” Mal said, gesturing to the library they were locked in.
“You have no idea,” Yu said. “I can read whatever I want. It’s glorious.”
“Until they wipe our memory,” Hala said, rubbing her head as if it had already happened.
“They can try,” Yu said with a smile. “But I intend to get back to my studies as soon as possible.”
The group sat for a moment, the silence broken only by the roaring fire that danced on its stage within the fireplace.
Mal should have been more somber, more bereft of spirit.
Attacked by zombies, about to be killed, locked in a library, all terrible fates; but he couldn’t muster the sadness.
He felt strangely at peace; whole, even.
The silence became close to awkward and smiles filled the group’s faces as they realized.
Mal had always felt like an outsider; secrets will do that to you.
But with these weirdos he had no big secrets, just little ones like everyone else; embarrassing preferences and naive wants.
Nothing that felt like it would end the world.
Mal breathed in the moment and held the feeling in his chest. A warmth. A happiness. A zombie.
A ZOMBIE?