59
I shuffled onto my elbows and looked around, but whatever the ghost had been looking at wasn’t visible to me. I sighed. I didn’t really care, but if there was something unnatural in the house, or rather something that wasn’t Stanley, Sigrid, or my mother, I was probably obliged to find it and tell it to go away before it did any damage.
‘Where is it?’
But the ghost, presumably satisfied that he had held up his end of the deal, had bogged off of his own accord.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Pain streaked through my foot. I put my hand out to steady myself. When I was sure I could walk without falling over, I hobbled to the bedroom door and pulled my dressing gown off the back.
The corridor was empty of unnatural phenomena, unless you counted Stanley’s winter sunflowers, so I followed the sound of voices into the kitchen. Sigrid sat in her wheelchair at the kitchen table. Lorraine sat across from her, scooping porridge with a plastic spoon and inserting it into Sigrid’s mouth. My sister ate each mouthful in the same manner: a look of confusion, then understanding, then a single swallow.
‘Goodness, sweetheart, you look awful!’
I scanned the kitchen. It was cleaner than usual, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. ‘Just flu.’
‘What happened to your foot?’
‘Harpies.’
‘I thought they normally drop from above.’
Suddenly everyone’s an expert. ‘Not always. Where’s Stanley?’
‘In his room, I think. He decided you were right about your mother. He was in a real snit when I left yesterday.’
I poked my head into the living room on the way, but if the unnatural forces were there, they were keeping a low profile.
I opened the door to Stanley’s room. He was a shapeless form under his duvet. The floor was clear for once, but not even a good bleaching could rid it of the usual stink of unwashed socks. I took a few more steps and became aware of an odd sound, almost like a rhythmic hissing: he he he he he.
It came from under the blanket. I pulled it off.
It was Stanley. His mouth was a slit, and his eyes were puffy but half-closed. His breath came shallow and fast.
‘Stan, can you hear me?’
He groaned. ‘I don’t feel so good.’
I pulled at his arms and tried to get him to a sitting position so his upper body would be elevated. That’s when I saw them, right in the middle of his bloated arm: two little holes.
I picked up his mobile from the bedside table and called 999. The emergency operator was quite emphatic in telling me not to try any cutting or sucking, which it hadn’t occurred to me to try. She promised me an ambulance within twenty minutes. It was there within ten, which gave me enough time to tell Lorraine what had happened and shove my poor foot into a boot. I opened the door to two green-uniformed men, one black and skinny, the other short and blond with an unconvincing moustache. I pointed them through to Stanley’s room and did what I hoped was a convincing portrayal of someone who didn’t have any injuries as I walked ahead of them. Lorraine poked her head out the kitchen when they arrived then ducked it back in.
The blond one’s name tag read ‘Payton.’ He kneeled next to the bed, felt for Stanley’s pulse, then shone a light into the old man’s eyes. The black skinny one—his tag read ‘Rickles’— turned Stanley’s arm over delicately and inspected the marks.
‘What happened?’ Rickles asked.
Stanley blinked in the light. ‘Something bit me.’
Rickles snapped open his bag and pulled out a pair of callipers. ‘Did you see what it was?’
Stanley shook his head. ‘I was sleeping.’
‘It was a snake,’ I said.
‘Did you see it?’ Rickles asked.
‘No, but I assumed it was a snake. Either that or a teeny tiny vampire.’
‘Those don’t exist, love.’ He laid the callipers next to the bite. ‘It’s more likely a fairy. We see a lot of this in winter. They’re attracted by the warmth.’ He stood up and put the callipers back in the bag. ‘The size isn’t right, but it’s difficult to tell with all the swelling. We’ll give him a shot of anti-fae. That should counteract it. All his vital signs are stable. If he was younger, I’d say he just needed to sleep it off, but we better take him in as a precaution.’
‘You his grand-daughter?’ Payton asked.
‘Yes.’ It was easier than explaining.
He gave me a look that was a little too appraising than I’d have liked from a medical professional. ‘You all right? You don’t look so good.’
‘It’s just flu.’
Neither looked convinced. ‘It didn’t bite you too?’ Rickles asked.
‘No. I’ve had a snotty nose for a week, and I think my body finally gave in to it this morning.’
The two exchanged glances, then Rickles said, ‘I’ve just got a few questions.’ I tensed, but he produced a clipboard and a ballpoint pen. ‘Has your grandfather got any allergies?’
I did my best to answer, giving them Stanley’s name and a chequered medical history, leaving out his suffocation in the trenches and making up a story about an industrial accident to explain the scars on his face. I hesitated a little over his date of birth, like a teenager trying to get into a nightclub, but neither of them seemed to notice. I remembered he’d broken his leg as a child, but I had no idea which one and it didn’t seem the sort of information that would be useful.
Rickles just smiled and said, ‘Anything could help, ma’am.’
A wave of dizziness washed over me. I sat on the bed. The men grew a little fuzzy.
Payton put his hand to my forehead. ‘You’re burning up. Normally we’d ask someone to come in with him, but I’m fairly certain your grandpa is going to be just fine. You’d better get back to bed.’
I nodded. They bundled him onto a stretcher and wheeled him out the door and into the back of the ambulance. I leaned heavily against the doorframe and watched them go. When the ambulance was out of sight, I closed the door and sank to the floor, shuddering. My skin burned, then froze.
This is it. This is the moment I burn off the fever and turn back to life. A small voice in my brain said, Or the fever burns off you. I ignored it and waited for my energy to return. It didn’t. I struggled to my feet and hobbled back to the bedroom. I sat on the bed and tugged off my boot then the sock and bandages. I pulled up my pyjama bottoms and saw that my leg had turned purple from toe to calf. Angry red lines streaked towards my knee. Colourful, but not pretty.
‘Hey, dead girl.’ The suited ghost blinked into existence in front of me. ‘You got my movies sorted yet? I mean, no offence or anything, but you’ve probably not got much time left to do it, if you know what I mean.’
A streak of pain shot up my calf. I doubled over. ‘I will. I promise.’ I wheezed.
‘When will you do it? When you’re in the pit?’
‘Not going into the pit.’ I began breathing out in short huffs like I was about to give birth.
‘Well, what then? If you’re going to start eating, you’d better find an appropriate food source quick smart.’
Appropriate food source. He sounded like Patricia Stull. ‘No.’ He folded his arms, raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘I’ll do it now. I swear it. Stop hassling me.’
I reached for my phone. Sweat dripped onto the screen. He waited while I dialled the theatre and passed on his instructions. Xanadu this time.
I breathed out. ‘Happy?’
‘I’m dead. I’m never happy.’
‘Just tell me where the snake is and go away.’
‘Snake? Is that what it is? It just feels all wibbly to me.’
‘Where is it?’
He smirked and pointed up then blinked out again. I fell backwards onto the bed. The sweat froze on my face, and I shuddered. I lay still, listening, and heard nothing other than the distant sound of Lorraine chattering to Sigrid.
For some reason I couldn’t quite fathom through my soggy brain, it had a
lready bitten Stanley. It might go for Sigrid or Lorraine next.
I hefted myself off the bed and climbed the stairs by the light of my phone, each step an effort. The steps creaked under my weight. Up ahead, in the dark, something rustled. I stopped. Listened. But there was silence, and the sound didn’t repeat. I reached the landing and shone my phone through the doorway. The darkness shifted just outside the beam of light.
I’m the hag, I thought. I may be almost a zombie. Stupid thing should be scared of me.
I risked electrocution and reached out to my left to flip the light switch. The fluorescent light overhead flickered to life, and I was uncomfortably reminded of the light in the pit.
The attic appeared empty. My mother lay exactly as I’d last seen her: a rotten, sunken corpse with one withered arm on her chest, the other buried in the gunk at the bottom of the coffin.
Stanley had changed the flowers. The roses from yesterday had been replaced by spiky giant nettles, passion flowers, and pink carnations. A National Geographic magazine lay spine up on his armchair.
It rustled.
The tension in my shoulders sank back into my spine, and I relaxed. It was a lot smaller than me.
I crept towards the chair.
I grabbed the magazine in one movement and ripped it away.
Underneath, curled into a defensive ball, was a small, green, ribbon-shaped snake.
I dropped the magazine. The snake darted towards me, a Barbie-pink mouth visible for the briefest of seconds before it sank its fangs into my wrist. And stayed there.
Pain shot up my arm. I grabbed the snake with my other hand and tugged at it, all the while shaking my arm and doing a little hopping dance on my injured leg around the room.
It dropped. And as it dropped, it changed in mid-air. Green became pale skin, the body lengthened and bulked out. He landed hard on his behind and scrambled backwards into the shadows, and I got my first real-world view of Alister Brannick.
And a lot more of Alister Brannick than I’d expected because he was completely naked. He had the same wiry body shape Samson did, but the resemblance ended there. In every other way, he was the male image of Leslie. Not the obese dead version, but the pretty smiling one I’d seen at dead Rosa’s barbeque. The hair that had been green tipped was now a solid green all over.
The twin punctures on my wrist ached all the way up to the elbow. I put pressure on them with my hand, but the pain didn’t diminish. My heart was racing, and my vision was a little blurry.
I swallowed. ‘I’ve been looking for you. Although I’m not sure what you’re doing in my house. Or why you bit my stepfather.’
He watched me with cautious eyes and didn’t answer.
‘Did you get my message from Margery? I’m Lipscombe. I’m not going to hurt you.’
In a blink he shifted, but I was ready. I raced to the door and shut it just as he got there. The green snake began to slither under the door, but I grabbed him by the tail with my right arm and pulled. With my left hand I reached out, and the first thing I felt was Stanley’s old army bag. I dropped the snake in and zipped it up.
He bumped against the canvas looking for a way out and then was still.
Snake in a case, part two. Sorry, Alister. I hefted up the bag with my uninjured arm and carried it carefully downstairs. He weighed almost nothing, and only the bump hanging at the bottom of the bag convinced me he hadn’t somehow escaped.
I set the bag down on my bed and sat next to it. I had Alister Brannick. Now what did I do with him?
60
I left the bag on my bed while I grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom. Again. I stared into the mirror above the sink. It was brown with age but clear enough to show my face was the dead white I was so familiar with. Yet another crop of warts had emerged some time during the night. They stood out on my cheeks like measles spots. I guessed if I’d been confronted with someone who looked like me, I’d make a run for it too. Especially if I knew that person kept an unburied corpse in the house. Another wave of fever washed over me, and my knees buckled. I sat on the edge of the tub and breathed in and out slowly. I could feel death eating away at my flesh and my internal organs. I was decomposing from the inside out. I counted to one hundred before I tried to push myself to my feet, succeeding on the second attempt. I limped to the kitchen, where I put the first aid kit onto a tray then filled the blue china teapot my mother kept for company and shuffled a pile of ginger biscuits onto a plate. My head felt like someone was slicing blades through it, and the sound of the biscuits hitting the plate was like an avalanche. I placed them on the side table next to the bed and the first aid kit on the armchair in the corner.
I retrieved two clean bed sheets and placed one on the bed. I crumpled the other under the door so there wasn’t an inch free and flipped the little switch on the cat flap so it stayed stuck when I pushed it. Then I closed and locked the door and pocketed the key. Finally, I unzipped the bag on the bed. I staggered over to the armchair and sunk into it.
I swallowed. ‘I’ve locked the door so you don’t try to run for it, but I just want to talk to you. Then you are welcome to go.’
The snake in the bag lay still. I propped the first aid box on my lap and popped the lid.
The puncture wounds were swollen, tinged with red, and still bleeding. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. I wiped rubbing alcohol onto the puncture wounds. The pad came away soaked in blood.
I looked up at a rustling sound from the bag and saw a small, green, arrow-shaped head emerge. It blinked at me twice. A pink tongue sneaked out to test the air before the remainder of the snake slithered out onto the duvet.
Black eyes surveyed me without blinking.
‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve been looking for Ben and for you. I’m a colleague of his... your father’s.’
The snake tipped its head, which I took as a sign for me to continue.
‘I just want to find Ben. I’ve been very worried about him. His... wings were found some days ago. If he’s still alive, he’s going to need urgent medical attention. I work for the Lipscombe. You know the Lipscombe?’
The green head nodded.
‘I’ve been working with the police. You’re not in any trouble with them.’ The snake continued to stare. ‘I brought some tea and biscuits. See? Civilised.’
Too much talking dried out my mouth. I tried to swallow, but it felt as if I’d stuffed one of the cotton pads in there.
‘At least tell me if you’re poisonous. Then I’ll know whether or not to worry.’
The snake lengthened, and a skinny and pale human body poured onto my bed. He looked around then grabbed the bed sheet.
Alister glared at me. ‘The word you’re looking for is venomous. Snakes are venomous, not poisonous. Something is only poisonous if you eat it. And you need to let me go.’
I ignored the request. ‘Okay, are you venomous then?’
‘Only mildly. Not enough to kill anyone. I’m sorry about the old man. I wanted to smell him, that’s all, and then he rolled over onto me.’
I believed him. Margery called it ‘shifterbrain’—the way a shifter’s thoughts changed and matched the animal they were. To a snake’s-eye view, we’re nothing but feet and nostrils—maybe feet, nostrils, and belly if you’re a bit chubby. He glanced at me then raced to the door and grabbed the handle.
‘I told you it was locked.’
‘You need to let me go.’
‘I want to talk to you. What’s the hurry?’
‘I’m not saying anything to you. Margery said I could trust you, but she didn’t say you were a zombie. And you have a corpse in the attic.’
‘That’s my mother. She’s dead, but it may not be permanent. And I’m not a zombie, not yet.’ It came out a croak.
He shrugged as if it were only a matter of time.
‘I’m not a danger to anyone. Not yet.’
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. We both knew that was also only a
matter of time. He folded his arms.
‘I’m not dead yet. I might get lucky. Maybe I’ll be a carrier.’
Alister gave me a pitying look. ‘Dad didn’t want to go into the pit either. He was going to be cremated.’
‘You saw him?’
He glanced at the door again and shifted his weight from foot to foot. ‘No. Ben told me. And I only saw Malcom... Dad when he was dead. He tried to hide it, but I could smell it. Zombies have a very sweet smell, like liquorice. I don’t know why. You’d think they’d smell of blood. Or dead things.’
I wondered how many zombies he’d met. ‘Do I smell of liquorice?’
‘Yeah, really strong.’
At least I no longer smelt like I was decomposing. Bonus point to zombiehood.
‘Alister, do you know who crushed you?’
‘My name’s Oliver. At least it’s the one I’m used to. And, yes I do. Can I go now?’ He glanced at the tea, seemingly seeing it for the first time.
‘Well? Are you going to tell me? Have you gone to the police?’
He gave me a look of contempt. ‘And why would I do that? You’re a zombie. You locked me in a bag. I don’t trust you. And the police don’t care about people like me.’
I couldn’t argue the point. I just had to look beyond him at the cat flap at the bottom of my door to see the proof of that. ‘What’s the hurry?’
‘I came looking for you because I needed help. Ben needs help. He’s so weak, and he can’t fly away anymore. But he doesn’t need another zombie.’
Per had been right. ‘You did it. You and Ben. Why on earth would you do something like that?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Because everyone’s looking for this boy with these huge identifying characteristics.’ Then his voice dropped, and he said softly, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘If he’s that sick, call Per Ogunwale. He’ll help.’
‘He has been helping. I can’t get hold of him. Per set up a bed and a drip for him in the spare room at Per’s dad’s house.’ I closed my eyes and suppressed a silent scream. All the time I’d been speaking to Moses and Florence, Ben had been upstairs. ‘But Ben’s not answering his phone. And neither is Per or his dad. There’s something wrong.’
‘Call 999. They’ll send someone out there.’ I swallowed. Alister’s face was beginning to grow fuzzy. I blinked and shook my head to try to clear my vision, but it just made my head thump harder.
‘They’ll just send Ben to prison. You’re the Lipscombe. You’re supposed to help people like us. If you’re not going to let me go, you need to send someone to help him.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like healers. And security just in case. Don’t you have, like, werewolf swat teams and stuff?’
‘You’ve been paying too much attention to the Human Preservation Front.’ A tickle rose in my throat. I began to cough, but it was stuck. I reached out for the cup of tea at my side. It smashed on the floor.
Alister’s gaze flicked to the cup and back to me. But evidently he wasn’t going to risk coming any closer. He said something to me, but the words came at me through a fog. I tried to catch them, but they slid through my brain and dissipated into the air. Burning bile blistered my throat. My body slid, hot and boneless, to the carpet. I blinked twice to try to rid my eyes of the wetness, but the world blurred further. My heart, which had been racing, began to slow.
Uninstructed, limbs pinned to the floor, my body began a familiar process.
61
I’ve died enough times that I’ve never been afraid of the real thing, but I’d always thought I knew what came next. I never thought I’d still be walking in this world, the same way it had never occurred to me as a child that I might spend my adulthood wiping Sigrid’s arse and worrying that someone would find out about the dead body in the attic.
I opened my eyes. The floor was hard under my nose and only an inch from my face. The nausea was gone, as was the fever and accompanying aches and pains. I stretched, a long glorious stretch, and rolled onto my back.
The door stood wide open. Alister was gone. No surprise there. The only surprise was that he had left me a note on the floor beside my head. In neat block letters, under an 077 mobile number, he’d written, ‘Not going to wait around for you to wake up. You know I can’t not say anything. I’ll wait twelve hours in case you want the other option. Please don’t’
Please don’t... what? Eat anyone?
I got up and sat heavily on the chair, or at least that’s what I intended to do. I bounced. My body was as lightweight as spider silk, dried from the inside. I was as light and inconsequential as a leaf. Did all zombies feel like this? I supposed no one had ever asked. I didn’t want to be light. I wanted to be heavy with muscle, tissue, and blood. Heavy with life.
I felt my teeth with a cautious finger. They felt the same shape but the tips were razor sharp, and when I tapped them, they made a light ringing sound. I stared at the floor.
I was a hag. My body was made for coming back from the dead. Maybe if I died then came back, it would trigger the reverse decomposition process. Maybe zombification didn’t have to be permanent.
I didn’t bother going to my bed or getting a sick bag. I closed my eyes.
In the underworld, harpies didn’t just cover the floor, they sat on each others’ shoulders four birds high and bickered and snapped and jostled. I gagged at the stink and ignored the squawking as I shoved my way to the door and back to the world of the living.
Where I was still dead. I sat still for a moment, even though I knew better, trying to feel for my heartbeat, but it wasn’t there. My eyes burned with tears.
Until a few minutes before, there had been the chance my body would fight the infection, that I’d be one of the two percent. Until a few minutes before, there had been hope.
Now there was none. I lay on the floor and thought about death.
I had options, but no hope. Stay in the underworld, get cremated, murder to eat, or go to the pit. None were particularly appealing.
I could just die and avoid the whole thing—spend the rest of eternity in the underworld. Alister would call the NRTs, and they’d come and cart my body off to the pit. It meant no coming back. If I did come back? Best-case scenario: I’d end up shambling, ravenous and insane, in the pit. Worst-case scenario: I wouldn’t be in the pit, and my family would be the casualties of the first rule of zombie club. If I was going to die, I might as well do it properly.
I certainly wasn’t going to murder anyone. There were plenty of people I didn’t like, but to casually stab them? Strangle them? I couldn’t picture myself doing it, not to anyone. It was one thing to say it was them or me, and quite another to go out and murder somebody. Relief washed over me. You never know until you’re tested, but I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t an option. Not a real one. I had alternatives. Nasty alternatives, but alternatives. And that left only one, because the pit was no alternative at all.
So that was it. The end of Vivia Brisk. I felt strangely calm, and that didn’t feel right. Wasn’t I supposed to be railing against the dying of the light? But all I could think was that all the things I needed to do—find Ben, fix Siggie—didn’t matter anymore.
If I couldn’t do them in twenty-four hours, they would be someone else’s problem. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. That was it. Game over.
My to-do list had suddenly been cropped a whole lot shorter. It shouldn’t have felt like a relief, but it did. Everyone else—Stanley, Obe, even Sigrid—would have to learn to stand on their own two feet.
I knew what being dead was like, and it wasn’t so bad. I’d get to find out if there really was an induction. And where all the dead people went once they were done with the underworld. Maybe I’d reincarnate. Start over. Or maybe whatever came next was something I just couldn’t imagine. I swallowed. It brought back the memory of Malcolm in his cell, trying to lick his dry lips with saliva that no longer existed.
I lurched
to the bathroom and stared into the mirror above the sink. My eyes weren’t cloudy, but they weren’t bright and glossy either. I didn’t look dead, but I did look seriously ill. I wouldn’t be able to pass for long.
I grabbed my makeup bag and began applying foundation. It went on a bit bobbly over the new warts, but with a bit of blusher and lipstick, I looked alive at least.
Malcolm’s words returned to me. You should wear more makeup, Vivvie. Laughter burst from my lips. It hit my stomach, and I couldn’t stop. I laughed until my stomach ached, and then I cried and had to reapply all the makeup.
62
I was hungry. Not ravenous. Not yet, but hungry. And I didn’t want a sandwich. Everything I’d thought about zombie hunger was wrong. The slim packages in Malcolm’s freezer were wrong. I didn’t want neat squares of meat. I didn’t want meat the way humans want animal meat. I didn’t want human steak, with maybe a little brain thrown in. I wanted the lot. Toes, ankles, genitalia, ears, and noses.
I stood in the bathroom and stared into the mirror, trying to find the part of me that found the thought disgusting. It was missing.
Another option occurred to me. I could go do the graveyard thing. It would be risky. Graveyards are patrolled. And the ghosts would be happy to give me up. The prospect of a zompocalypse holds little entertainment value. Who’d change the movie projector at the Graveyard Theatre?
‘And I don’t want to eat human slime,’ I said aloud. Except I did. I did very much.
It would mean no murdering. No death by fire. The pit was a risk, but not if I was careful. I had an answer.
A tap sounded at the bathroom door. Lorraine’s voice followed. ‘Vivia, sweetie? Are you all right?’
I took a deep breath and opened the door. ‘Yes, I’m...’ Fine, I was going to say. I was going to say I was fine, but I couldn’t because Lorraine wasn’t herself.
She was a candyman version—a fat dumpling made of sugar-flavoured red flesh and white marbling, and I understood human slime wasn’t really an option. From now on, everyone I knew was food. It was only a matter of time before I gave in and ate.
‘Are you okay? You’re giving me ever such a funny look.’
I mentally shook myself. ‘I’m fine.’ I gave her what I hoped was an innocent smile, but as anyone over the age of three knows, that only makes you look guiltier. ‘I hate to do this to you, but could you take Sigrid for a bit longer? I have something I really need to do.’
‘Sure, sweetie. As long as it involves going to the doctor. You really don’t look well.’
‘I know. I’m going to fix it.’ I risked another glance at her. She still looked edible, but she was also the woman to whom I owed an enormous debt. I’d still be stuck in my room if it weren’t for Lorraine. I wouldn’t have had my job if I also had to look after Sigrid during the day. No amount of checking on Lorraine’s dead husband made up for the time she gave me. I bit back tears. ‘I don’t say thank you enough. What would I do without you?’
She gave me a worried look. ‘I know you and Stan don’t always get on, but he’s going to be all right. He’s a tough old coot, and fairy bites aren’t usually serious.’
I gave her a weak smile.
She smiled back at me, ‘I don’t know how that fairy got in. Maybe the cat flap. I’ll pop into Tesco’s and pick up some repellent.’
‘Thanks. I’ve got to go out. I’ll... text you when I know what’s happening.’
I felt her gaze on me as I walked across the landing to my bedroom. I dressed for a funeral in smart black jeans and a black silk shirt. I brushed my hair into an up do I usually save for special occasions. Just because you’re going to burn doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look your best. Besides, this was going to be my outfit for all eternity.
And the things that were important to me? The key around my neck and two photos. One of me and Sigrid as children, the other of my friends at the Lipscombe. I folded them and tucked them into the back pocket of my jeans. I packed my laptop into my backpack.
I kissed Sigrid goodbye, but aware of Lorraine’s worried eyes on me, I didn’t cry. Then I put on my coat, grabbed the keys to Stanley’s van and left my home for the last time.
63
I drove around the corner and parked illegally on a double yellow line. Ticket? Nobody’d be collecting where I was going. I flipped open my laptop and, just as I’d hoped, managed to log on to the home Wi-Fi.
I spent five minutes tapping out an email to Obe, letting him know where to find my will and trying to explain what had happened. I spent a little longer figuring out how to set a timer delay on sending it out.
It took longer to write out the email to Dunne. I didn’t mention my impending zombiehood, but otherwise I left nothing out. I liked Jillie, but I was convinced she’d been the one to murder Berenice. She could have been telling the truth about Ben and the rabbit meat, but it made no sense to me. Annie knew nothing about it, and Ben had been in London almost two weeks before Christmas. Berenice had still been alive on Christmas Eve, and Jillie had also lied about seeing Berenice on Christmas Day. She’d been the only one home long enough to dismember Berenice’s body—when Malcolm took Finn out to the park.
I recalled the worried look Samson had given me when I’d visited Carapace, and the ground that at the time I’d thought had been disturbed by his shifter clients. I was willing to bet Dunne would find Berenice’s bones there. Poor Berenice. Dead for nothing. I wondered how Jillie had intended to tell her husband and what he would have said.
I wrote out everything I knew about Alister Brannick and added the new mobile number he’d put at the bottom of the note. I detailed my trip to the ZDC in the world of the dead, leaving out the bite, and explained what I’d seen of Rosa’s death.
When I couldn’t think of anything else, I set the timer on the email and shut the laptop down. I couldn’t procrastinate any longer.
I turned my mobile over in my fingers a few times before I found the courage to scroll to Patricia Stull’s number. She answered after a couple of rings.
‘Pat, it’s Vivia.’
‘Hello, was the spreadsheet helpful?’
I’d forgotten about that. ‘Yes, thanks.’ My mouth was too dry. I swallowed. ‘Pat, I need a favour. I need to know which crematoriums accept zombies.’
There was silence. ‘Why?’
I considered lying, then thought better of it. What would be the point? ‘It’s for me. I died about an hour ago. For good.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ She paused then said, ‘There are other options, you know.’
‘None I want.’
‘I have contacts. In the morgues. No one has to be hurt.’
I thought of how delicious Lorraine had looked. ‘I’ll end up hurting someone, Pat. I know I will. I don’t want to do it, but I can’t see another option.’
She sighed. ‘If you’re sure. I usually send people to Putney Vale, but our man there is still in prison. I’ll have to make a few phone calls.’
‘Thanks, Pat.’
I sat in the van and waited. Outside, the world seemed so ordinary. My stomach rumbled. I jumped when the phone rang.
‘How long can you last?’ Patricia asked.
‘Maybe a day at most. I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.’ I caught a note of hysteria in my voice.
‘I’ve got someone who can do it, but he’s on holiday. He can be back in six hours.’
‘Okay. Yes. Please ask him to come back.’
She gave me the address. I jotted it down on the back of an old invoice I found on the passenger seat. ‘Thanks, Patricia.’
‘Of course. Let me know if you change your mind.’
‘I won’t.’
I sat back on the leather seat. Six hours. That was six hours to back out. Six hours to lose my nerve. Six hours to kill. But not literally.
I turned the keys in the ignition. I couldn’t do anything more for Sigrid, but I still owed Malcolm. I’d sent him to the pit instead of the quick fiery dea
th he’d wanted. And he hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t murdered anyone. At the very least, I could check his son was okay.
It was daytime. It wasn’t raining. There was more traffic and my reasons for the drive were very different, but as I followed the route to John Line Terrace I couldn’t help remembering driving this route only a few days earlier after hearing Malcolm was dead. Thank God, I’d thought. What a bitch.
I parked on the side of the road opposite Moses’s house and stared at the front door. It was open just a crack—enough for me to see that something wasn’t right. No Londoner leaves their front door open long enough to do anything other than slip inside.
I closed the van door quietly and approached, silent as a cockroach. I nudged the door open with my foot.
The hallway was dim, but the body lying in it was easily identifiable by its shock of grey hair, now soaked with dark blood that pooled under Moses’ body and across the tiled floor to meet the skirting on both sides of the corridor. His right hand was curled around something, half-hidden beneath his body. I tiptoed forward and nudged him with my foot. He held Adam Brannick’s charm bracelet in a death grip. Was the killer Adam? He’d only been fifteen. A fifteen-year-old who’d witnessed his father killing his mother, I thought. A fifteen-year-old with a talent for magic. Was that why he’d wanted to find Ben? Not concern for his cousin, but concern for what he might know?
The floorboards in the room above creaked, and I looked up. Another creak, and then quiet. My stomach lurched. I quelled it. I was already dead. No one could kill me.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs, cocking my head and listening, but there was nothing to hear.
It would be a fairly stupid murderer to hang around in the house with his murder victim instead of getting as far from the body as possible before someone discovered them. I thought of the partially open front door. The clever murderer would shut that behind him, instead of leaving his victim’s body where it could be viewed from the road. You don’t get away with murder for so long by being careless. I considered calling in the police. It could be Alister up there, come to check on Ben instead of calling 999 like I’d advised.
Or it could be the person who had locked Drew Gillies in the boot of a car for over a decade, left a woman to die in a suitcase, and stamped on a toddler. I kept my mouth shut.
I climbed the stairs slowly, armed with nothing more than my handy ability to fall down dead.
The stairs creaked with each step, giving away my presence with each footfall. There were two doors on the landing at the top. One to my left and one to my right. Both were closed and painted an anonymous white. The landing was dark, the dim winter light from below not enough to brighten up the space without assistance.
I clicked the light on my phone and shone it at each door. At the bottom of the one to the left was something dark and sticky—more blood. A small movement in the corner of the landing caught my eye. I shone the phone towards it. Curled in the corner was a quivering green snake.
I mouthed ‘help me’ at it and made a beckoning gesture.
It shook its head. It shivered from head to tail then, fast as light, shot off down the stairs.
I watched him go. He smelled of snake—dry and sharp. His flesh would taste nutty. I shook my head then stopped and listened again; I heard nothing, but I could swear the dark listened back.
I switched the light off on my phone. Then I pushed the door open slowly. The curtains were closed, and the room was dim. I reached to my right to feel for the light switch. The room flooded with light.
Blood covered everything.
It seemed like too much for a single human, but there was only one red-soaked body in the room—Ben Brannick lying on the bed on his stomach, his eyes open and staring. The damage to his back wasn’t just the missing wings. It looked as if someone had taken a knife to it and cut him to pieces in neat strips. I took in an involuntary breath. The metallic odour of blood seared into my nostrils, along with the scent of camphor.
This was the reason the murderer had stayed here. Another soul spell, but reality hadn’t changed, as far as I could see. The truths of Rosa and Leslie’s deaths hadn’t been replaced with a fuzzy accidental version. The spell wasn’t complete.
Someone grabbed me by the neck and pulled me backwards, but my light zombie body must have slipped back faster than my attacker expected because the knife only skidded along my rib cage instead of sticking straight in.
Light and strong as a spider web, I turned under his arms and bared my sharpened teeth at my attacker. It was Adam Brannick. He was covered in Ben’s blood, but the blood wasn’t splattered. It was neatly painted onto this naked body, which was covered in symbols and runes. He had to be close to completing the spell. In a matter of minutes it wouldn’t matter. No one would remember any of this.
I shoved him across the room. He shot away and landed with a meaty thump on the body of the winged boy.
Adam scowled at me and raised his arms up. ‘I’m not going to prison, hag, and neither is my father. It’s too late. No matter what you do.’
He began muttering an incantation at me. I have a mild magic immunity, but nothing that would withstand a full-blown curse. I hurled myself across the room towards him and did the only thing I could.
I grabbed him with both arms and hugged him tight. And when I died, I took him with me.
64
The world was awash with blood. It sloshed around my knees, covered the walls, and dripped from the ceiling.
Wet blood covered both of us. Adam was heavy and slippery in my arms. I let go, and he fell into the blood, limbs flailing.
Dead Ben sat on the bed with a look of confusion on his face, his soul thin and tired. A patchwork of thin knife slices covered his skin. I lurched over to him, lukewarm blood sloshing around my ankles.
‘Ben?’
He raised his head slowly at the sound of my voice, but there was little recognition in his brown eyes.
I glanced back at Adam. He knelt with his hands and knees in the blood. He shook his head back and forth, disorientated. Tiny points of light jumped and flickered across his skin—the stolen soul trying to reconnect with what was left of it in its original body.
Adam shivered, teeth clenched with the effort of keeping it all inside. He muttered something under his breath—an incantation. I threw myself back across the room at him. If he managed to get the soul spell out, it would use up the power he had... and any chance for Ben to get the rest of his soul back.
I slammed my hand onto his mouth, anything to disrupt the incantation. He grabbed me by the ankle, pulled me down into the blood, and held me there. Blood filled my nose, my mouth. The world turned red. I choked.
I tried reaching out, but Adam had my arms pinned behind my back and was keeping them there with all of his stolen power.
I could hear him saying something above my head, but my ears were filled with blood and it was too muffled for me to hear it.
And then he let go.
His whole body disappeared from view. Other than haggery, soul magic is probably the only thing that could propel you to the living world from the underworld, and all I could think was that my body was there now, vulnerable.
I got to my knees, coughing. Ben was gone from the bed. I turned around. The boy stood by the blood-painted door, as did Adam.
I staggered towards them, but on my second step, Ben plunged both his hands into Adam’s chest. Adam retched. Ben solidified as I watched, his body gaining in strength as his soul poured back.
Adam’s hands rose and tightened around Ben’s neck. Ben pulled his hands out of his murderer’s chest and dug at Adam’s fingers, which were stuck fast. The boy made a choking sound.
I stumbled towards them, seized Adam around the waist, and pulled. He didn’t let go. I hammered blows down on Adam’s head, but he was still at least half-full of borrowed power and the beating had no effect. Ben’s eyes rolled back in his head. His body went limp and dropped to the floo
r. Adam turned to me. I took a step back.
Meaty arms grabbed Adam from behind. Leslie Brannick stood in the doorway, hugging her nephew to her in a tight embrace. Adam wriggled, but his arms were pinned to his side.
Moses Ogunwale, identifiable by his dandelion hair, now matted and bright red with blood, stood behind her, shuffling from foot to foot and anxious to get in. Leslie propelled herself further through the door. Moses followed.
The man behind him was someone I didn’t expect: Malcolm. He grabbed Adam around the head and pulled. Moses seized Adam’s waist as Leslie loosened her grip slightly. She seized Adam’s forearms. It was only when the limbs detached from his body that I realised what they were doing. I looked away as Adam’s victims pulled him apart and waited for the sticky sound to stop.
I’m not sure what I expected to see when I looked up, but I didn’t expect to see Adam’s body parts sticking out of the chests of Leslie, Ben, Malcolm, and Moses. After a moment, the body parts were sucked inside each of them. It was both the bloodiest and the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen.
The last of Adam Brannick disappeared with a little slurping sound. I sat down heavily on the bed and spat out the blood in my mouth. Now that I was properly dead, the taste of it wasn’t so appealing. Without a word, Leslie, Malcolm, and Moses turned their backs on me and started down the stairs, and I saw who had been on the landing behind them the whole time.
Sigrid.
Knee-deep in blood, my big sister wore a giant pair of wings—not the slightly grubby looking wings that Ben sported, but great snowy angel wings—spread out on either side of her without a spot of blood on their fluffy great expanse. She even had a giant sword.
Leslie and Moses hadn’t made it out of their own death nightmares alone. Sigrid was playing avenging angel, the same way she’d played zombie and skeleton.
She grinned at Ben, and the cuts on his body disappeared, along with the damage to his back. Even the acne on his face cleared up, and I was fairly sure Adam wasn’t responsible for that. His skin became as smooth and unblemished as the proverbial baby’s.
I stared at the boy I’d been seeking. He looked healthy, but he was still dead. He gave me the same searching look.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I tried to find you.’
‘It’s okay,’ Ben said. ‘It’ll be better this way.’
Sigrid’s expanded wings folded back with a loud snap, and she walked into the bedroom with them now neatly compacted. The blood tide began to subside.
I jumped up and down experimentally. I was my usual heavy self there. I wasn’t a zombie. Maybe I’d stay. The idea of being burned alive didn’t appeal anyway. How long would it take for my body to decompose completely in the pit? And would I know when I had nothing left to go back to?
Sigrid took me by the arm. ‘You have to go back.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s not natural to die this way. You need to do it properly.’
I thought of the crematorium waiting for me. I’d just seen what happened to murderers. I thought nothing happened to suicides, but now I wasn’t so sure.
I took a last look at Ben Brannick. He’d been too young to die. ‘I am so, so sorry.’
Ben gave a very adolescent shrug. I felt for the key around my neck. The painted door obligingly turned into dark wood. I closed it first so I could reopen it. I inserted the key, aware of Ben and Sigrid’s eyes on the back of my neck.
As I took the step through, Sigrid grabbed my arm and Ben’s, and all three of us fell through into the world of the living together.
65
The sticky carpet smelt like blood. I licked it, and only then thought that I shouldn’t have.
A second thought made me lick the carpet again. This wasn’t blood I had spilled, but it would keep me going longer. There was no reason not to. My phone buzzed in the back pocket of my jeans. I ignored it. The blood was lovely, not as fresh as it could have been, but tasty just the same.
I became aware of sirens. Not close—in the distance but getting closer. I needed to get out of the house before the police arrived with their sniffers and their dog-catching hooks. A few more licks. Then I’d go.
Somebody’s arms reached around my waist and lifted me off the floor. I squirmed and turned and gawped.
‘Siggie?’
The first thing I noticed was the giant wings. And standing beside her, looking a little confused but definitely alive, was Ben Brannick. He was shirtless and wore only a pair of boxer shorts. His back was bare and undamaged. There was no sign that he’d ever had wings. He looked completely human.
I sniffed. There was a dead body in the room. Adam had been pulled bodily into the underworld, and Ben was in front of me. I sniffed again. It smelled like seagull. If it wasn’t Ben’s, whose was it?
I struggled to see, but Sigrid had me tight. ‘Let me go!’
She held me as fast as a human holding a kitten. Sigrid turned with me in her arms, and I saw the bed. It was Ben’s body lying there. It was still and bloody, the damage as clear as it had been before I’d left.
Two Bens—a live one and a dead one. My thoughts were heady with the scent of blood and flesh, and I knew enough to know I wasn’t thinking clearly. This hadn’t happened when Sigrid died. Something had changed.
The sirens grew closer then stopped.
Sigrid took a few steps and drew the curtain open a crack. ‘The police are here. There’s a bathroom at the back of the house. We’ll be able to get out there.’
She carried me out, and Ben followed. The cramped bathroom had the kind of olive green bath and toilet that hasn’t been sold as new in thirty years, but the window above the bath was big enough. It creaked as Sigrid pushed it open. Sometime while we’d been dead, darkness had fallen.
Sigrid climbed onto it, still holding me under one arm. How was she so strong? She wasn’t supposed to be so strong.
She jumped and stood on the air, wings flapping as if she were treading water.
Ben clambered onto the windowsill and swung his legs over. Then he jumped onto my sister, holding her tight around her neck.
So close, he smelled delicious. Sigrid elbowed me in the face and tucked my head under her elbow, away from temptation. I wasn’t going to bite him, but she must have been quite sure that I wasn’t going to bite her either because she didn’t seem to mind my mouth pushed against her side.
Dark shapes flowed below us as the police surrounded the house. None of them had learnt their lesson because no one looked up, not even when Sigrid began moving. The great white wings flapped faster and faster, and we spiralled upward into the cold night sky.
66
Sometimes the cloud ceiling is so low in the city you’re not sure if it’s smog, fog, cloud, or some depressing combination of the three. It is, however, tremendously convenient if you’re hitching a ride three hundred feet up and don’t want anyone to see you.
Street lamps sparkled in the dark below as if we were looking at the stars from the wrong side. The city appeared deceptively silent and peaceful, although down in the depths, I knew it was all street weasels and severed wings.
Far below, police cars and ambulances raced the streets. They grew smaller and smaller as we rose higher. My blood-soaked clothes froze to my skin. The sound of Sigrid’s wings made a reassuring whooshing sound as we flew over the lights and sounds of the city.
‘Where are we going?’ My sister’s body muffled the words, and I don’t know whether she heard me, but she didn’t answer either way. We progressed through the air in slow rhythmic movements; I couldn’t see Ben or feel him, but Sigrid didn’t seem to be weighed down by either of us. We weren’t in the air long, only a few minutes—so much faster than taking the tube.
Finally we landed on a balcony lined with pots of dead tomato plants, fat with blackened fruit. Curtains covered the plate-glass door in front of us. No lights were on, but the flickering of a television screen was visible through the fabric.
&n
bsp; Sigrid let go. I stood on the cold concrete and stretched. My stomach rumbled again. I hugged my arms around my stomach and tried to ignore the pains that had begun to streak through it. Ben knocked on the balcony door. The television muted. The door opened to reveal Per in his pyjamas, cybernetic legs sticking out underneath. He looked surprised; I didn’t blame him. There was only one person he knew who could make it to a fourteenth-floor balcony, and he no longer had wings.
He looked past me at Sigrid. His eyes widened as he took in her wings and then Ben’s skinny form next to me.
‘Ben? What are you doing here?’ Per reached past me and pulled the boy inside. ‘Where are your clothes? It’s freezing. What’s going on?’
I followed them inside. The TV screen was paused on an ocean scene—an orca frozen in the middle of twisting out of the sea. Behind us Sigrid tucked her wings neatly behind her back, then followed me into the room. I closed the balcony door. I might have been dead, but I could feel the cold. It made me think of the heat of the coming furnace. I’d feel that too.
Per ran his fingers over Ben’s bare back. ‘What happened to you? How did you heal this quickly?’
Ben glanced over at Sigrid. ‘She did it.’
Per’s eyes widened at the sight of her wings, then he frowned. ‘Magic? That can reverse quicker than you think.’
‘No, Vivia brought me back from the dead.’
For the first time, Per really looked at me, rather than the ex-winged boy. ‘I didn’t know you could do that.’
‘This is the first time I’ve done it right. I think.’
I hadn’t had a chance to look Ben over carefully. He appeared healthy and healed, but something always went wrong. Even Stanley hadn’t come back just right. There’d be something wrong with Ben. I just didn’t know what it was.
For the first time, Sigrid spoke, ‘I was dead too.’
She didn’t look just healthy, she looked beautiful—like the angel she was pretending to be in the underworld. Maybe that was why she was so strong. Maybe I’d brought back an angel.
Per opened his mouth to ask me more questions, but I didn’t want to answer them. It was all too much. I was dead. My sister wasn’t. Ben wasn’t. And somehow both of them were magically healed. In addition, Per didn’t know his father was dead, and I couldn’t face being the one to tell him.
So before he managed to get anything further out, I said, ‘Can I use your bathroom?’
He pointed the way, and I walked off, horribly aware of my lighter bones and step. I took one self-consciously heavy step after another, but he didn’t seem to notice.
I followed his directions and took a door to the left. I pulled the light switch. The light and fan came on with a whirr. I closed the bathroom door. Their voices were still audible but not distinct.
The knife had left a long rip in my shirt. I lifted it to see a graze four inches long. Not worth worrying about, even if I’d been alive. It stung though.
My reflection in the mirror didn’t look great. I looked one way, then the other. Not obviously dead, but that wouldn’t last long. I wondered what Per had done with his discarded legs. It would have been a terrible waste if he’d just dumped them. It was a stupid thought. It was unlikely he still had them, or some other organically grown, ethically sourced human meat in his freezer.
The worst part was I knew I had to be missing something. I was a hag. I might not have always been very good at it, but coming back from the dead was coded into my genes. I should have a get-out-of-jail-free card. I just had no idea what it looked like.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and wiped blood off the screen. I ignored the six missed calls and glanced at the time. Four hours until cremation. I put the toilet lid down and sat on it, face in my hands.
I didn’t know what came next in the afterlife, but I had the horrible feeling I’d seen Adam’s soul dismantled in front of me. I’d never killed anyone, but suddenly the thought of true death was scarier than it had ever been before.
Someone tapped softly at the door. ‘Vivia? Can I come in?’
I was so used to my sister’s incomprehensible rambling that it sounded eerie when her words actually made sense. She opened the door before I could answer.
She didn’t look right in the living world. She was too real. Her eyes met mine. They didn’t wander all over the place. Her limbs moved normally. There was no sign of the jittery, incomprehensible creature I’d grown used to.
She sat on the edge of the bath. Her wing tips whispered along the bottom of the tub.
I had so many things I wanted to ask her. I started with, ‘Why now? If all you had to do was hold on, why didn’t you come back before?’
‘It wasn’t the right time.’
‘Seriously? Seriously? It wasn’t the right time? Is that the best you can give me? Do you know how hard it’s been looking after you?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.’ Sigrid ran her fingers along the rim of the bath. They were long and thin, and not at all swollen and sausage-shaped.
‘What about your body? Do you have two now, like Ben did? How does that work? Am I still going to have to look after it?’ I threw up my hands. ‘No, forget that. It’s your dead living body. You look after it.’
She met my eyes. ‘That body’s dead. You’ve been ignoring your phone. Lorraine’s been trying to get hold of you.’
I rubbed my eyes. ‘I have no idea how I’m going to explain this.’
‘You don’t have to, Viv. You’re dead, remember?’ She said it gently, but her words punched me in the gut nonetheless.
She was right. I was dead. I didn’t have to explain anything. All I needed was to get to the crematorium in time. No more responsibilities or duties. The only duty I had was not to kill anyone. A few days ago that would have been a doddle. Now it seemed a little harder.
Since I’d been responsible for Sigrid’s death, it was only fair she take responsibility for mine. ‘Will you fly me to the crematorium?’
‘No. You don’t have to be a zombie if you don’t want to. You’re a hag.’
‘How would you know? You’re not one. Neither is Charon. Everyone seems to think it’s just a matter of willpower,’ I said bitterly. ‘If it’s so easy, you tell me how to do it.’
‘Of course I don’t know,’ Sigrid said, ‘but you won’t have been the first hag to have been bitten. One of your own kind will know.’
I thought of the only other hag in London. ‘I’m not asking Anastasia. She’d turn me in in a minute.’
Sigrid burst out laughing. ‘Viv, you’re my sister and I love you. I do. But sometimes you can be incredibly stupid. Anastasia’s the only living hag close by, but she’s not the only one. Mum might know. Or one of the aunts.’
She was right. There were hundreds of dead hags. All I needed to do was find somewhere to stash my body long enough to find an answer in the underworld.
67
I stared at the glass box. ‘No, absolutely not. It’s too flimsy. I’d be able to get out of it in seconds.’
Stanley’s moustache drooped along with his mouth. ‘It’s the only one I’ve got.’
My eyes kept flickering to my mother’s glass coffin and then to the empty one alongside it. It could be me—present and future. I dragged my eyes back to Stanley.
‘Why on earth do you have another one of these anyway?’
‘Just in case, Viv, just in case. I’ve been using it as a mini greenhouse.’
I’d thought it looked familiar. I shuddered. It was bad enough Stanley sat up there all day with my mother without knowing he had imagined me in the attic too. The only thought worse than that was the knowledge that I now thought he looked delicious. Even the cane he was using to hold his bad leg steady made it worse. He was all wobbly like sweet jelly.
There was a rustling sound. ‘Ow!’
I looked up just in time to see Sigrid’s wings catching the top of the doorframe. Another white feather drifted to the floor, exposing yet more pink car
tilage on the arches of the great white angel wings.
‘You know, these things probably weren’t such a good idea,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you haven’t gone yet. Ben wanted to say goodbye.’
Ben Brannick appeared behind her in the doorway. He stepped into the attic hesitantly.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m still sane.’
‘Oh good,’ he said. He shuffled from foot to foot. ‘I just wanted to say thank you, and I wanted to let you know you don’t need to worry about Alister calling the police on you. I told him you’re going to stay dead if you can’t find a way to fix it.’
‘Thank you. Have you seen your mother yet?’
He shook his head. ‘I spoke to her on the phone. I think she didn’t know whether to be happy or mad.’ He thought about it. ‘Mostly happy, with a bit of sad too. She wouldn’t stop crying. She said she would go with me and Obe to the police station.’
‘What are you going to tell them?’ I was genuinely curious.
‘The truth. That me and Alister found those bodies, that Alister knew it was Adam because he could smell it, but we didn’t know who to trust. I still can’t believe no one knew they were there. I know the soul magic supposedly kept people away until it started unravelling, but Auntie Jillie’s a snake too. She should have smelt them once it started coming apart. How come she couldn’t smell them when Alister could?’
I told him the same thing I told Alister. ‘I think she did. She just wanted to protect your dad.’
He flushed. ‘By killing Berry? That wasn’t fair. Berry didn’t do anything.’
‘I know,’ I said. I’d had a call from Dunne thanking me for the email and letting me know they’d found Berenice’s bones buried at Carapace. Samson had admitted hiding them to protect his sister. They’d both been arrested.
I felt my heart breaking at the thought of little Finn. He’d lost everyone. His mother, father, cousin, uncle. Only Neil was left, and I wasn’t sure how long he was going to be free. Ben had said he was going to include Adam’s claims in his police statement. I had no idea how they were going to prove it. Finn was likely destined for foster care, like his father and uncle before him, unless they could find someone else to take him in.
Cramps shot through my stomach. ‘God, I am really hungry.’
Ben took a step back.
‘Not that hungry. Not yet.’ I looked over at Stanley. ‘Promise you’ll build something a bit sturdier. Just in case I get it wrong.’
‘I will,’ he said, twisting his moustache the way he always did when he was lying.
I stepped into the glass box and laid down. It was slightly too small, and my legs had to bend at the knee. The glass felt cool through my shirt. ‘And keep the attic door locked. If you hear anything moving and I don’t respond, call the police.’
‘I will,’ Stanley said, still twirling.
‘He will,’ Sigrid said. ‘We’ll be okay. Don’t worry about us. It’s our turn to take care of you.’
Pain wracked my body, and my brain went fuzzy. If I put it off any longer, I’d lose my mind. I closed my eyes. The world spun as my body shut down and I left the world of the living.
68
Malcolm sat beside me, our bare feet side by side in the cool water of the pool. A blistering sun shone overhead. Sweat beaded along the back of my neck, but I was quite stubbornly dressed in jeans, rolled up to mid-calf, and a long-sleeved shirt. Not-real waiters darted around, holding trays of cocktails and sun-hardened sandwiches. On balance, it wasn’t a bad death.
‘You remember this place?’ Malcolm asked.
‘Sure.’ I said, and I did. It had been the location of my first Lipscombe work function. We were supposed to do team building exercises. Instead we all got drunk and sunburned.
‘I’m glad you’re dead,’ I said.
He looked at me, startled.
‘That’s not what I meant. I meant I’m glad you didn’t last long in the pit. I’m glad your soul’s passed over.’
He gave a low chuckle. ‘Me too. They got me too fresh. Rest of the rotters got me down the gullet before my eyes had a chance to adjust to the darkness. Actually, now I think about it, I believe my eyes went first.’
I shuddered, and he laughed. He’d always been fond of making me uncomfortable. I couldn’t help but laugh with him.
Malcolm dangled his fingers in the pool and ogled a not-real woman sunning herself on the sun bed opposite. ‘You know I never touched her.’ He didn’t look at me.
‘Who?’
‘Rosa, of course. Who did you think I meant?’
I shrugged. I could feel the skin on the back of my neck beginning to burn. ‘How’d you get infected then?’
He glanced at me, then looked away again. ‘Promise not to laugh?’
I smiled despite myself. ‘No.’
He grabbed a cocktail from a passing tray and glugged half in one go. ‘It was Patricia Stull.’
‘Seriously? Please don’t tell me that’s the real reason you were avoiding her.’
‘Could have been.’ He gave me a sideways glance.
‘And you didn’t even think to use a condom? Jeez, Malcolm.’ I shook my head at the waste of it all.
‘Oh, come on, Vivvie. You know how it goes. Heat of the moment and all that.’
‘You’re an idiot,’ I said, but I was smiling.
‘I know. When do you think you’ll go home?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. When I figure out how to do it without eating my family.’
He laughed again, but this time it had no humour in it. ‘I know that feeling. God, I thought I’d have more time, you know? It’s so unfair. When Ben brought Alister to me, I thought I had a second chance. He was my firstborn. It doesn’t matter how many other children you might have, you never forget the one you lose. It was a dream come true.’
‘I know.’
‘And worst of all, I didn’t believe him. Not even when he showed me Leslie’s body in that car. I couldn’t believe my own nephew would do something like that.’ He snorted out a laugh. ‘I believed him after Adam held that pillow over my face. And even then I was too scared to call the police. Too scared they’d throw me in the pit. I just didn’t know what to do. I should have done it anyway.’
He sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. ‘Is it normal to have this many regrets after you’re dead?’
‘I think it is,’ I said.
He patted my knee and left his hand there. I moved it. Somehow it didn’t irritate me the way it once had. It was nice to talk to a familiar face. ‘You sure your body’s safe?’ he asked.
‘I hope so.’
I didn’t want to talk about my body. It gave me the heebies. Me, the woman who was used to coming back to life partially decomposed, who’d had a body in the attic for years.
Malcolm ran his fingers through his hair, and I caught a whiff of coconut conditioner. ‘I didn’t say thank you. For looking after my boys. I appreciate that. You didn’t have to do it.’
‘It was a pleasure.’
‘I owe you one. A big one.’ For once I didn’t catch even the slightest hint of innuendo.
‘Thanks, Malcolm.’ But there was nothing he could do. He was as dead as I was.
The underworld sun baked my skin. I could feel it burning and growing red, but I didn’t want to move. Going back with a sunburn was the least of my worries. It might even be a boon. Maybe I could use it to practice my haggery and finally learn how to get the underworld to do as it was told.
My thoughts strayed back to the living world. Some things were better there. Sigrid was alive. So was Ben. I wanted to go back. I didn’t mind being dead, but who would want it to be permanent? I didn’t want to find my mother or my aunts or any of the other hags. They were all crazy, ancient, and scary, and getting a life out of them would likely come at a price I wouldn’t want to pay.
So I stayed instead and waggled my feet in the cold water. I tried not to think of the living world where my
body decayed in the darkness next to my mother, two mildewy Snow Whites waiting to be awakened.