Undead to the World Page 4

  He gets in and drives away, carefully.

  I’ve got a lot to think about on the walk home.

  * * *

  “Jace!”

  I jump three feet straight up and my eyeballs bug out six inches from my skull. Okay, not really, but that’s what it feels like.

  I’m a block away from my house. I’ve got the book—wrapped in a plastic shopping bag—clutched to my chest. And standing directly in front of me on the sidewalk, blocking my path, is Vince Shelly.

  Vince is, not to put too fine a point on it, the town drunk. He’s got a crappy little house I think he inherited and some sort of disability pension, which is enough to keep him inebriated pretty much all of the time. He’s more into beer than the hard stuff, though, which means he’s usually just wobbly as opposed to falling-down wasted. He’s bald on top, with long, greasy gray hair to his shoulders, and a ridiculous pair of muttonchop whiskers that seem to go with the Harley-Davidson hoodie he’s wearing, though I’ve never seen him on a bike. Stained gray sweatpants and scuffed loafers finish off the outfit, no doubt handy when you don’t want to fiddle with anything as complicated as zippers or laces.

  “Hey, Vince,” I say. He’s not all that bulky, but the way he’s swaying from side to side keeps me from darting either way around him. “Uh, excuse me.”

  “Why? Did you fart?” He grins at me, blinking bloodshot eyes. “Fine evening, ain’t it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Yeah. Sure is.” He’s studying me like a drunken cat trying to focus on a mouse. “But you can never tell, right?”

  “I—what?”

  “Might not be so nice.” He nods, giving me an exaggerated look of secrecy. “You look under things, they’re not always nice at all. Sometimes they’re nasty.”

  I stare at him. “What are you—are you trying to tell me something?”

  He stares back. Suddenly he doesn’t seem all that unsteady on his feet. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe I am.”

  We’re frozen like that for a few seconds, just studying each other, until he abruptly says, “You like tattoos?”

  I’m rapidly approaching non sequiter overload. “I … guess?”

  He yanks up his sleeve. His arm is covered with tats of superheroes—Spider-man, Superman, Batman, the Hulk. Lots of others. It looks like a ten-year-old’s idea of heaven. “Cool, huh?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  He beams at me with pride. “I know. But lately, I’ve been having problems with ’em. See?” He points at a tattoo of Thor swinging his hammer. “They’re running.”

  “From what?” I’m only half joking.

  He shakes his head. “Not running away. The colors are bleeding out … see?” He points. I’m no expert, but some of the lines look a lot blurrier than others.

  “Something’s pushing the ink out,” Vince says. “Something underneath. I don’t know what it is yet, but I can feel it. Inside me.”

  “I … I have to go,” I say, and push past him. Whatever it is inside him—other than Coors and cheap pizza—I just can’t have this conversation right now. I need to get home, lock all the doors and windows, and hide in a pillow fort. With my dog.

  Vince doesn’t chase me, or say anything as I hurry away. I’m afraid to look back. I’m afraid he won’t be there anymore. Or worse, that something else might be standing in his place.

  When I get home, the very first thing I do is turn on the TV.

  The second is to dig out my stash of Bloodhound Files DVDs from where I’ve hidden them under the fridge. Nobody looks under a fridge, unless they’ve desperate to add to their dust-bunny-and-moldy-Cheerios collection. I put a DVD in at random and hit PLAY.

  While I’m doing this, Galahad regards me with a very concerned look on his face. I grab the remote before he tries to bury it again, and he lies down on the floor beside the couch with his chin on the floor as if to say Oh, crap, here we go again.

  And then, as the opening music kicks in over the credits, I pull the grimoire out of the bag and sit down to take a long, hard look at it.

  “Okay, Jace,” I say out loud. “Let’s get to work.”

  * * *

  One of my favorite things about The Bloodhound Files is the golems.

  Most people have heard of golems. They’re basically men made from clay, sort of mineral-based Frankensteins brought to life with magic. That’s the traditional kind, from Jewish mythology.

  On the show, they’ve been updated; they’re mass produced, made from sand poured into human-shaped, thick-skinned plastic bags, and animated by the life force of an animal. They come in a variety of colors, and are largely used for their muscle power.

  There are no golems in Longinus’s notes, or his supposed book of spells. I find that oddly reassuring, though I’m not sure why.

  But there is something else, something I missed on my first reading.

  A drawing of a hangman’s noose.

  It’s in the grimoire, which is somehow worse than being in the notes, but at least there’s no mention of my name on that page. I just wish I knew what it meant—is it a reference to the Gallowsman, or are creepy drawings of nooses just the kind of thing that pop up in tomes like this, like doodles of a happy face in a kid’s notebook?

  I glance up at the TV screen. It’s showing a fake commercial at the moment, coincidentally enough for a golem product. A smiling golem wearing boxer trunks is demonstrating a polish called Gleam Cream, which apparently gives your plastic skin the kind of supple, shiny, and clear appearance all golems desire. I guess you can sell anyone beauty products, if you try hard enough.

  The doorbell rings. Galahad pads over and sniffs at the door, but he doesn’t bark. He’s pretty laid-back as far as being a watchdog goes. I hit PAUSE and open the door a crack, hoping it’s Charlie.

  It’s not. It’s one of my neighbors, a kid named Billy. He’s around eleven and a born salesman.

  “Hi, Jace!” he says with a big smile.

  “Hi, Billy. I’m a little busy right now—”

  “Too busy for chocolate?” He holds up a bar you could club someone to death with. Damn it, the kid knows my weakness.

  “I’ll get my wallet,” I say.

  Billy hangs out in the foyer with Gally as I scrounge up some cash. If he notices the paused image of Jace Red Dog on my TV, he doesn’t comment on it.

  “Here,” I say, giving him a bill. “What’ll that get me?”

  He grins. “Two of these bad boys.” He digs into his satchel and hands over the bars. Extra Dark—like I said, the kid knows me.

  “Thanks. You’re going to college on my dime, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “But what I really want to do is drive a truck.”

  I frown. Déjà vu, but not quite. Because …

  “Thanks, Jace,” he says. “See you later!”

  It’s gone. I wave goodbye as he trudges off down the sidewalk to his next sales pitch, and then I sink back into the couch.

  Which is when I notice the screen is no longer frozen on an image of Red Dog.

  The Sword of Midnight stares at me calmly, a digital onscreen statue. I pick up the remote, study her nervously, then unpause the image.

  “Thanks,” she says. “That’s a weird feeling, you know? Like your whole body is on hold.”

  She’s talking directly to me.

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  I must sound a little stunned, because the Sword frowns and says, “Okay, Jace, get it together. Communicating like this isn’t easy, and I can’t do it for long. I need you to listen, resist making smart-ass remarks, and trust me, okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” I say faintly.

  “First of all, you’re not crazy. This isn’t a hallucination, or a dream, or anything simulated by technology or magic. It’s going to get strange before you’re done, but it’s all real. You with me?”

  I swallow, and nod my head.

  “Good. Because—Jace, look out!”

  I scream and dive
for the floor. Galahad starts barking. There’s a sudden swell of dramatic music—

  Wait.

  I look up. The Sword and Red Dog are battling a vampire street gang that call themselves the Lugosis—they all wear black capes and talk in ridiculous accents. I watch the fight for a few seconds, but I’ve seen it a dozen times before.

  “Um,” I say. “Hello?”

  No answer. I’m talking to a DVD.

  “Now that is just goddamn annoying,” I say. Gally comes over and licks my face in a vain attempt to put a positive spin on things.

  I watch until I fall asleep, but the Sword doesn’t talk to me again.

  Not even at midnight.

  * * *

  I wake up the next morning on the couch in the blue glow of the TV. I yawn, turn it off, and do my best to pretend it’s just another morning. I stash my DVDs—putting the grimoire and the notes in with them—shower, and get into some fresh clothes. I feed Galahad and pour coffee in me, then take him out for his morning walk.

  Which is when normal crashes and burns.

  I can see the flashing red and blue lights before I reach the end of the street. I wonder if something went wrong and Charlie’s been arrested, but he lives in the opposite direction. The lights don’t seem to be coming from anywhere near the Longinus house, either.

  I walk toward them. I probably shouldn’t, but I’m not the only one; a police car with its flashers going is a relatively rare sight in town, and I’m not the only citizen strolling down the sidewalk and trying to look casual.

  The police car is blocking the entrance to the church’s parking lot. A deputy is trying to keep people back, but it’s impossible to hide what’s dangling from the third-story eaves of the church.

  It’s Father Stone. And even from here, I can see the distinctive knot of a hangman’s noose in the rope around his neck.

  FOUR

  There’s a small knot—sorry, unfortunate choice of words—of people gathering on the sidewalk outside the church. I join them. Nobody’s saying a word, we’re just all standing there in shock.

  “Folks, you should really go home,” says the deputy. It’s Quinn Silver, the guy I was serving coffee to this time yesterday. He was just another customer, then. Now, he’s …

  Someone who could send me to prison.

  But none of us leave. We’re hypnotized by the sight of the black-clad body, swaying and spinning in the wind. I wonder how he got up there—I don’t see a ladder. Maybe there’s a hatch in the roof.

  “Awful,” someone finally mutters.

  Me, I can’t stop looking at his shoes. I keep expecting them to fall off, but they don’t. “Are those lace-ups or loafers?” I say. “I can’t tell.”

  I get a glare from a woman in a jogging suit. Uh-oh, what’s the crazy lady going to say next? “Well, I can’t,” I mutter. There, that’ll show her.

  Thropirelem has two police cars. The other one pulls up, with the town fire truck right behind it. The sheriff gets out and confers with the two volunteer firemen about exactly where he wants the ladder.

  A few words here about the sheriff. He’s the town’s most eligible bachelor, and probably the only guy who could take Charlie in a fight. He grew up here but went to school back east, all on scholarships; his brain is apparently as muscular as the rest of him. He’s a lot better than we deserve—though there are rumors that the reason he took a job in his hometown was because of some sort of trouble he got into while he was away. That’s probably just the usual small-town whispering, but I do know you don’t want to make him mad. I’ve seen him lay out a belligerent drunk with a single backhand slap, and the drunk wound up losing a tooth, too.

  He doesn’t much care for me, though. Too bad, in too many ways.

  And then the sheriff spots me in the slowly increasing crowd. The look on his face is hard to read, but it’s not the usual mild irritation or restrained tolerance. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked confused.

  Oh, wait. I don’t know better. In fact, I don’t know much of anything at this point, other than I’m looking at my second dead body in twenty-four hours. That, and—according to that always-reliable source of hard data, Voices from the TeeVee—all this is really happening. Whatever it is.

  I tug on Galahad’s leash and step forward. The sheriff sees me coming and tries to retreat behind the yellow tape that Deputy Silver’s putting up, but he doesn’t have it taut yet and Galahad and I just hop over.

  “You can’t come any closer, Ms. Valchek,” he says. “This is a crime scene.”

  “Is it?” I say. “Looks like a suicide to me.” I keep my voice low—I don’t want this conversation broadcast all over the town grapevine.

  “It’s the subject of an ongoing investigation, which as far as you’re concerned is the same thing.” He’s studying me intently as he talks—as if he’s decided that if he has to talk to me, he’s going to pay attention.

  “Of course, if it was a suicide, you’d expect to find a ladder,” I point out. “Since the fire truck’s here, I guess you didn’t. Is there a hatch in the roof? I don’t see one.”

  “We don’t know how he got up there. Not yet.”

  I’m looking up as we talk, taking advantage of being a little closer than the rest of the crowd, and now I can see that the other end of the rope is tied around a rafter at the corner of the roof. There’s something strange about the knot, though.

  “Any idea why he’d do such a thing?” I ask.

  “I can’t speculate at this point, Ms. Valchek. Now, please, step back behind the tape.” He takes my elbow and leads me there as he talks, and there’s nothing hesitant about his grip.

  When the ladder’s in place, the sheriff himself climbs up with a camera and takes lots of pictures. Then they rig a harness up to the body with a cable going over the top of the roof before they cut the rope and lower it to the ground. I’d really like a good look at that rope, but there’s only one idea I can come up with to do so. It’s both stupid and unlikely to work. But since it’s all I’ve got …

  I take Galahad down the sidewalk, about twenty feet away from the crowd. I lean down and whisper, “Gally. I need you to do something for me, okay? When I take off your leash, I want you to dash over there by the policemen and make a nuisance of yourself. Don’t let them catch you. Run around, bark, paw at the ground. I’m going to call for you, but don’t listen. After a few minutes, head for home. Do this, and I’ll go out and buy you a steak.”

  Galahad looks at me with the same sort of undisguised affection he always does, and licks my hand. Sure, Jace. Would you like me to stop off at the supermarket and pick up some milk on my way home, too?

  I sigh. Then I unclip his leash. I know he’s just going to sit there until I start moving, at which point he might be motivated to go pee on a bush—

  He takes off at high speed. Right toward the sheriff.

  The sheriff isn’t really paying attention, so Gally starts barking while he runs. It looks like Galahad might try to bowl him right over, but he darts to the left at the last second. Now he’s on a collision course with the deputy kneeling next to the corpse.

  “Hey!” the sheriff yells.

  Me, I just stand there dumbfounded. Apparently Galahad has Lassie genes somewhere in his DNA.

  “Valchek!” the sheriff snaps. “Control your damn dog!”

  Galahad slams to a stop, but now he turns and starts digging like crazy. Sod and dirt spray in the direction of Father Stone’s body, as if my dog’s decided he needs to be buried right now. Gally pauses for a second, though, and looks at me. I swear the expression on his face reads Well? What are you waiting for?

  I stride forward, shouting, “Galahad! Stop that right now!”

  Gally lets me get close before bolting away again. I give chase, which brings me within a few feet of the body. As if reading my mind, Gally abruptly changes direction, giving me the opportunity to swerve and fake a fall.

  “Ah,” I say. “My knee!”

  I
pause, favoring one leg as I slowly pull myself up, studying the corpse as I do so. The face is horrible, but I’m actually more interested in the rope. It’s thick, old, and grayish white, tied in the classic hangman’s noose with—I assume, since I don’t have time to count them—thirteen loops around the central cord.

  But it’s the other end, the one that was tied around the rafter, that’s really interesting. Deputy Silver was about to stick it in a clear evidence bag when Galahad went into his routine, and right now it’s lying on top of the bag while Silver tries to corral my wayward pet. It’s tied in the most intricate knot I’ve ever seen. The thick rope weaves in and around itself in an almost organic way, reminding me of strands of muscle or a tangle of vines. The end is buried somewhere in the pattern, tucked in so cleverly I can’t find it. It must have taken a long time to create.

  And somehow, it was done around a solid piece of wood three stories above the ground, in plain sight.

  I get to my feet, trying not to overdo the limp, and wave the leash at Galahad. “Go home!” I call out. “Go home, you bad-ass dog!”

  I think he’s having a little too much fun now, because he doesn’t stop right away. Well, Lassie was a ham, too.

  He finally makes a break for it, and I limp after him. “Sorry!” I call back over my shoulder.

  I swear I can feel Sheriff Stoker’s eyes on my back as I leave.

  * * *

  Charlie’s waiting for me when I get home. He’s sitting on my front steps with Galahad, looking relaxed and not at all like he’s just disposed of a dead body.

  “Hey,” he says.

  I stop and give him the quizzical eyebrow, a move I practiced as a snarky teenager and mastered as a snarky adult. “Hey? That’s what I get, a hey?”

  “Would you prefer a hi? The more formal hello? Or are you looking for something in, say, a howdy-do?”

  I crank the eyebrow down a few notches. “If you ever howdy-do me, I’ll be forced to reconsider our relationship in a more critical light.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “Anyway, I just thought hey was a little flip. You know, all things considered.”

  “If I took the time to consider all things, I’d never get anything done.”