Undead to the World (6 page)

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.”

“That sounds like a quote.”

“It is. You said it to me last week.”

“Well, that makes me a genius and you a thief. Let’s go inside and celebrate the great
success we’re enjoying in our respective fields.”

We pull off our usual banter—it’s practically a reflex, at this point—but there’s
a certain hesitation underneath it, a little strain from forcing ourselves to be so
casual. As soon as we get indoors, we stop trying.

“Why are there cop cars down by the church? I saw them but I didn’t stop.”

I walk into the kitchen and unwrap the steak I picked up on the way home. We may be
a small town, but our local butcher is top-notch—I think he knows all the cows he
sells personally. “Father Stone apparently hanged himself from the eaves.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Three stories up, no ladder around, no hatch in the roof. I walked
up there with Gally and got a look as they cut him down—there was something really
weird about the noose. Not the one around his neck, the one looped around the eaves.
The knot was … I don’t know, really intricate. Would have taken a long time to do.”

Charlie sinks down onto my couch. “Damn. Guilt, you think?”

“One local religious leader kills another and then suicides out of remorse? Nice theory,
but it leaves a few questions unanswered—like how he tied that damn knot without being
seen, or even how he got up there in the first place.”

Charlie leans forward, hands clasped, elbows on his knees. “He could have tied the
knot in the middle of the night. Used a ladder that was taken away afterward by someone
else.”

“Okay, but why?”

He shrugs. “To make it seem mysterious? An act of God, maybe? Or maybe because a murder
attracts more attention than a suicide, and Stone wanted Longinus’s little cult exposed.”

I put the steak in Galahad’s bowl, which he promptly attacks. “One type of crazy bouncing
off another? I guess that’s possible—but you’d think Stone would leave something a
little more incriminating behind.”

“Maybe there’s a note inside the church.”

I nod. “Could be. In which case the police are going to be showing up on Longinus’s
doorstep really soon—and we just sanitized the crime scene.”

Charlie looks up at me. “I know what we did.”

“Yeah, but do you know
why
we did it?”

“Because you’re the obvious prime suspect. Those photos and that book indicate Longinus
had some kind of obsession with you. You have a history of violence and mental illness
and you’re the one who found the body. How am I doing?”

“Better than me. Are you sure I didn’t kill him? ’Cause I’m starting to wonder.”

“You been having blackouts?”

“No. Never.”

“Then you didn’t kill him. But there is one thing I’m a little unclear on.”

“Shoot.”

“Why were you there in the first place?”

“That’s … complicated. I think you need to take another look at Longinus’s notes,
first.” I pull them out from their hiding place and hand them over before sitting
down beside Charlie on the couch.

I let him read them over himself, first. Then we go over them together, helping each
other decipher bits of scrawled handwriting. He doesn’t comment on any of it, just
asks the occasional question about a specific word or letter he can’t make out.

When we’ve gone through the whole thing, he puts down the notes and leans back. Frowns.

“So,” I say.

“So,” he says. “Longinus was a loony toon.”

“Um,” I say.

“Vampires? Werewolves? He really believed all that? Makes the Satanic cult part look
almost rational.”

“Yeah…”

“So why
were
you there, Jace?”

I look at Charlie. I take a deep breath, and then let it out. “Before I tell you,
promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“That if I’m locked up in the psych ward, you’ll bring me food.
Good
food. The stuff they have stinks.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I promise.”

“You know that show I’m not supposed to watch anymore?”

I tell him the whole thing. About the first time the Sword of Midnight spoke to me,
and the second. I tell him what she said, emphasizing the “this is all real” aspect.
He listens, very carefully.

“And that’s about it,” I say. “I know how it sounds. I’m not going to try to convince
you I’m not crazy, because I’m not sure myself. But at least you know I’m not lying,
because who the hell would try to use a story like this to justify anything?”

He nods, slowly. “Hmmm. So, the next step is obvious.”

“Oh, it is, is it? Enlighten me.”

“We watch some
Bloodhound Files
. See if I see the same thing you do. And even if I don’t, maybe you’ll get another
message.”

“Wait. You’re not seriously suggesting any of this is
real,
are you?”

“No. But the Sword of Midnight is—kind of—and the first piece of information she gave
you was the trigger that kicked all this into motion. I think that’s earned her further
consideration as a source, don’t you?”

“Sure. If, you know, I’m not batshit insane.”

Charlie sighs. “You seem pretty rational to me. In fact, if anyone’s getting closer
and closer to an asylum it’s yours truly—mainly because I can’t handle you questioning
your sanity every thirty seconds. Let’s just pretend you’re normal and proceed from
there, okay? For my sake?”

I study him for a second. Suddenly I feel a whole lot better—because if someone as
hardheaded and down-to-earth as Charlie is willing to take my side, then I must be
better off than I thought. It’s like my feet finally found solid ground to stand on.

“Okay,” I say quietly. “No more crazy talk.”

Galahad gives a little bark of encouragement, then goes back to devouring his steak.

I play the last few minutes of the episode where the Sword mentions Longinus right
at the end. I’m tapping my fingers nervously on the side of the remote as the scene
begins to play, sure that either she’ll say something else or Charlie won’t hear what
I hear.

But it happens exactly the way I heard it the first time. And when I turn to look
at Charlie, he nods. “Yeah. I heard it, too. But it’s only one word—could be a coincidence.”

“That’s what I thought. But then the whole corpse/cult/pictures-of-Jace thing happened,
and I kind of gave up on that.”

“All right. Let’s check out the DVD—the one with the explanation.”

It’s still in the player, so all I have to do is find the scene. I’m sure that this
time, nothing weird will happen.

But I’m wrong again. The whole thing happens just like I remember it—including the
two little gaps in her dialogue when I responded to what she was saying.

Charlie’s leaning forward on the couch, frowning. He doesn’t say anything, not at
first.

“That’s really weird,” he finally says.

“You think?”

“She’s talking directly to the camera, not anyone else in the scene. The break in
the action makes no sense from a story point of view, not that I can see. Those pauses
were when you answered her?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see any signs of editing, either. No cutaways to another camera angle. It
looks legit to me.”

“So what does it mean?”

He leans back, puts one elbow on the back of the couch. “Well, two things come to
mind. The first involves a vast conspiracy that includes the actors on the show, the
evil cult that Longinus ran, and a part-time waitress. Frankly, it’s not really holding
together for me.”

“Me either. What’s the second?”

“That this is what it appears to be. Which isn’t a lot better, because all it does
is remove the Hollywood conspiracy angle and replace it with magic. Real, actual sorcery.
Or some kind of advanced technology that imitates it—but then we’re getting into science
fiction territory as opposed to the supernatural. Aliens, time travel, top-secret
government agencies, that sort of thing. Not really an improvement.”

“You sure you don’t want to reconsider the cee-arr-ay-zee-why thing?”

He gives me a look. “So let’s stick with the magic explanation for now, all right?
We’ve got a dead cult leader and a book of what seem to be spells.”

“Plus a dead priest hanging from the roof of his own church, with no explanation of
how he got there.”

“I want to give something a try, all right? Go in the kitchen and stay there until
I call you back.”

“Why?”

“Just humor me.”

I shrug and do what he says, taking the opportunity to make a fresh pot of coffee.
Galahad comes in and watches me, as usual. I hear the DVD start up again, but it must
be another scene—all I hear are sounds of combat and action music.

“Huh,” Charlie says. “How about that … you can come back in.”

I do. He’s paused the DVD. “Well?”

“Hang on a sec.” He hits
PLAY
.

The Sword of Midnight shows up and starts talking again. Same spiel. Charlie lets
her finish, then hits
STOP
. “Yeah, that’s pretty strange.…”

“What is? It’s the same as before.”

“Sure. As long as you’re in the room. When you were in the kitchen, she didn’t break
the fourth wall. You came back, and she did.”