Брайан Макклеллан - Uncanny Collateral

Yup.

All right, let’s do this. I leaned over, wooden stake in one hand, and tapped the draugr on the forehead. It didn’t move. You sure it’s not getting up?

Not until we make it.

Good. I set aside the stake and picked up the cord, reaching underneath the lid to feel with one hand along the draugr’s shin, ankle, and foot. I grasped him first by one big toe, then by the other. This is really gross , I said.

You’re fine. It’s just an undead body.

Undead bodies are gross.

Maggie began to hum the way she does when she’s absently flipping through the pages of a book. Hey, this is cool. John D. Rockefeller is buried here.

The oil tycoon? I asked.

One and the same.

No kidding. Jesus, this is hard to tie.

The guy who invented the Salisbury steak is buried here too.

I should stop and pay my respects. I ate nothing but microwave dinners for most of my childhood.

That explains a lot.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Ah! Got it. I successfully finished looping the cord around the draugr’s toes and tied a one-handed knot before extricating myself from the sarcophagus and dusting off the sleeve of my hoodie. I took the iron ingot and laid it on the draugr’s chest. What now?

Now we wake him up.

A cord and a piece of iron are gonna keep him from trying to rip my face off again?

We should need only one of them, but I figured insurance wasn’t a bad idea.

You know he has hands, right? He can just untie the cord and move the ingot.

Not according to this. Trust me, this kind of thing works on all sorts of Other.

Man, magic sure is dumb sometimes, I said. I took one of the bags of draugr dust and sprinkled it on the body – along with bits of my ruined truck and some road gravel – then took Maggie’s ring and pressed the ruby against the draugr’s forehead.

The draugr immediately took a long gasp, like a man coming up for air after a long dive. It began to tremble violently, rasping and hissing, and I leapt back against its brother’s sarcophagi and let the creature thrash. Thanks to the narrow width of its resting place, it was able to do little more than flail its bony arms upward. I pointed my Maglite at it and took a cautious look inside to see that it indeed remained pinned to the sarcophagus floor by the iron. Its eyes fixed on the flashlight. Eyes. Those were new.

“Hey, big guy, how you doing?”

“Release me,” it demanded in a gravelly voice.

Well, at least it can talk.

That’s good and bad, Maggie said. Good because it can answer questions. Bad because it shouldn’t be able to talk until after it’s been destroyed three times.

So your book may or may not be accurate. Great. The iron is holding it down, at least.

“Damn you, release me!” it repeated.

I glanced outside. “Hey, pal, keep it down unless you want a security guard on top of us.”

“I will kill you and anyone who comes.”

“Sure, sure. Until OtherOps calls in a SWAT team. You don’t want to deal with that.” I shone my light on the sarcophagus lid. “Listen, Trevor, I just need you and your brother to answer one question, and then I’ll do exactly what you ask.”

Draugr Trevor went still and glared at me. “I only answer to one mortal.”

“Right, Nick the Necromancer. I just need to know who hired Nick.”

“Hired him for what?”

“To get the jinn from me.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

I cocked an eyebrow at the creature. It was, truthfully, more than a little terrifying. It and its brother had almost killed me the other day. But watching it lie there and flail its arms, unable to do something as simple as lift a piece of iron off its chest, made me crack a smile. “That iron – does it hurt?”

“It burns,” Trevor hissed.

“I could just put the roof back on your little house here and leave you to cook under that iron for the next few weeks. How would you like that?”

It made a strange sound in the back of its throat. “I know little of value.”

“Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll release you. Cross my heart.”

Its arm trembled, and I wondered what kind of horrible things it was imagining doing to me the moment it could get out of that sarcophagus. “Master…”

“Nick?”

“Yes, Nick. He spoke with her on the tel… tel…”

“Telephone? Who’s her ?”

“A woman. We went to her home. It was a large, white house. Perhaps a mansion?”

“What was her name?”

“I did not hear it.”

“So where was the house?”

“It was in a place…” Trevor hesitated for a moment, and then his eyebrows rose. “Ah. The rich man. It is the land where he used to live.”

I leaned on the edge of the sarcophagi and eyed Trevor’s hands. I had no doubt he’d snatch for me, given the opportunity. “You need to be more specific.”

“The tycoon. I don’t remember his name.”

“Rockefeller?”

“Yes!”

“Huh.” Where did he used to live? I asked Maggie.

I’m sure we can find out.

I considered this for a moment, digging through my memories of local history. I snapped my fingers. “Cleveland Heights! Gotta be it. So a white mansion in Cleveland Heights. That’s not super useful, but it’s a start. Is that all you’ve got?” I asked Trevor.

“It’s all I know. Now release me!”

“Here’s the thing,” I said, and brought the wooden stake up over my head and buried it between Trevor’s ribs. The draugr let out a wild moan, its claws tearing my sleeves to ribbons as it grasped at me. Maggie, a little help. The ring flared, and fire shot down through the stake and washed across the draugr’s bones, consuming it in moments. By the time I righted myself, there was nothing left of the corpse but ash. My wooden stake remained undamaged, and I retrieved the cord and iron. Is he gone for good this time?

Should be.

See, the word should does not help me sleep at night.

Would you prefer I lie to you and say, “Yes, I am one hundred percent certain we killed that draugr”?

Yes, I think I would.

I pushed the lid back on the sarcophagus and gathered my equipment before going through the exact same process with Trevor’s undead brother. Ten minutes later, with nothing more to go on than the information Trevor had given us, I climbed the wall out of Lake View Cemetery and headed back to my rental car. I turned on the radio, volume low, and listened to Paul Simon’s “American Tune” while I meditated on the events of the past week. The draugr hadn’t been as helpful as I’d hoped, which meant I still needed to get Nick to talk. There was no telling how long he’d be able to hold out. With the clock ticking on Ferryman’s job, I wasn’t exactly flush with spare time – but with someone out there trying to get Maggie’s ring, I couldn’t just put it off.

I put my chair back and closed my eyes. Wake me up in two hours, please, I said to Maggie.

What’s in two hours?

Presti’s opens. An hour after that, the morning shift arrives at the OtherOps office.

I was waiting at the door to the Cleveland OtherOps offices when the day shift arrived – nine men and women wearing either sharp black suits or OtherOps polos and black slacks. They were laughing at a joke someone had made as they approached the building, carrying their morning coffees. The laughter broke off when they spotted me, and one of them disengaged from the group and approached.