Digging Up the Dead

by Willie E. Dalton

  She bit her lip, exposing a fang, and sniffed back tears. “I’m just afraid it will too late by the time we find him. How does a vampire just disappear?”

  I put my hand over hers and shook my head. “Boude is smart and tactful; I’m sure he’s managing OK wherever he is,” I tried to reassure her.

  Another knock at my door shortly followed. “Come in,” I called.

  Billy and Soren walked through the door. Billy looked the best I had even seen him look.

  “Wow!” I whistled. “You look sharp.”

  Billy was dressed in a long-sleeved forest green sweater, that made his bony body look almost warm and inviting, and covered his poorly-done tattoos. His jeans weren’t the ripped, mud-stained pairs I was used to seeing, but a fresh stonewashed blue pair that had barely been worn. His brown shoes had been polished, and his normally sweaty hat-hair was clean and brushed to the side.

  He ducked his head at my compliment, but I noticed he straightened his back a little with pride.

  I got up from the bed and tried to discreetly adjust my shorts from where they had worked their way up. Soren saw me and gave a half grin.

  I motioned for them to have a seat in the kitchen, and they did. Grace walked into the kitchen and stood against the counter in front of the sink. We were quite the mismatched crew.

  “So, Billy, was Margaret OK?” I asked, trying not to skip over that important issue before asking what was pressing on our minds.

  “Yeah, she wasn’t turned. She works in the basement with the older files and stuff, so I guess that helps,” he smiled.

  I sighed and smiled back at him. “So did she know anything about what was going on?”

  Billy shifted in his chair with unease. “She just said she tries to keep her head down and do what they ask her to do. She doesn’t want any trouble.”

  “Of course not!” I jumped to her defense. “We don’t want to cause her any trouble, but if she can help us she might be able to prevent trouble for a lot of people.”

  His face was serious, and I hated asking anything of Billy or his friends. I never wanted him to think I would take advantage of him.

  He pursed his lips and smoothed his hair. “She said she’d be willing to meet you for lunch and tell you what she knows. But only if it’s just you and me—nobody else.”

  I glanced at Grace knowing she would have wanted to tag along. She gave an almost undetectable nod.

  “Sure, that’s fine,” I told him. “How soon can she meet us?”

  “Three hours from now. Does that work for you?” he asked.

  I would be tired by then, not that I kept a regular bedtime or anything. I just knew I had been going for a while now. That was one of the most confusing things about the underworld: no day or night; everyone kept different schedules. But… ”Yes, of course,” I replied.

  “OK,” he nodded, “I’ll meet you here and we can walk into town together.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  Billy stood up and waved to us as he went out the door; Soren followed behind him and gave me a wink.

  I turned to Grace. “Well, that might be something. Do you think Andreas might be finished ‘talking’ to Jeremy?” I asked.

  She shrugged, “I don’t care if he isn’t. Let’s go find out what he knows.”

  Grace was sad and frustrated—feelings I understood all too well.

  “Guess I need to find some pants,” I said.

  Grace knocked hard and rapidly on Andreas’s apartment door.

  A shirtless and tousled Andreas answered, wearing only a pair of loose black velvet lounge pants. He grinned at us. “I was wondering when we would be interrupted.”

  I shrugged and made a face, trying to convey, “Sorry, but it’s important,” as we walked by him.

  His normally pristine home, decorated in luxe reds and golds, looked a little more lived in, with furniture just a little out of place and pillows scattered on the floor. I took a guess that the foreplay started in the living room.

  “Is he still here?” Grace asked, referring to Jeremy.

  “He is,” Andreas grinned. “He’s asleep in my bed, hunting.” Then he leaned and whispered, “He had to replenish.”

  I rolled my eyes but Grace was not in the mood to hear about his sexploits. “Please tell me you learned something from him.”

  Andreas’s amber eyes sparkled, and he opened his mouth to say, “Actually…” Before he was quickly cut off by Grace.

  She put her hand up to stop him. “I mean learned something that will help us find Boude or figure out what Rasputin is up to. You will have to wait to tell me about your corruptive sex games until I’ve found Boude.”

  “Oh fine,” Andreas sighed. “Nothing about Boude, but Jeremy said Rasputin has been going around to the shops asking if anyone remembers the old regime. Apparently Hel was right:” he glanced at me, “he’s wanting to rule over the vampires again.”

  I didn’t care about being right; I wished I wasn’t right in this instance.

  “But why is he trying to infiltrate the Assignment Hall and change where the souls are going? If no new souls are staying in the underworld, he can’t make more vampires, which I would think would be his goal,” Grace queried.

  We were all silent and confused.

  I kept finding my eyes lingering over Andreas’s chiseled abs and his lovely golden hair. He was so pleasant to look at.

  He caught me staring. “Should I go put on a shirt so you can concentrate?” he smiled, very happy that he was distracting me.

  “Andreas, I do enjoy the view, but I have as much interest in being with you as you would in being with me.” My tone was light and amused.

  “Fair enough,” he shrugged. “I have found myself admiring your ass upon occasion.”

  It was my turn to shrug. I refocused the conversation: “Maybe Rasputin is directing souls away from the underworld so there will be fewer people to come up against him in a takeover.”

  “But why would it matter how many people are in the underworld if he’s only trying to become king of the vampires?” This from Grace.

  I felt something rising up deep from the pit of my stomach: dread. I looked up from the floor to see if they’d had the same thought occur.

  They were wide-eyed, staring at each other, and slowly, they turned their gazes to me. It was unnerving to see a vampire go white with fear.

  “He’s not trying to be king of the vampires. He’s trying to be king of the entire underworld.” I choked out the words in a hushed voice. It almost hurt to get them out. “That’s the only reason he would have infiltrated the Assignment Hall: he needs records on everyone. He has to be able to corrupt the system from the inside.”

  “We still don’t know where he’s sending the new souls, or why he’s doing that,” Grace said.

  “It’s just a puzzle piece we don’t have yet,” I said. I looked down at my watch. It was almost time to meet Billy. “But maybe we’ll get that soon.“

  “Do you need to go?” Grace asked, motioning toward my watch. When vampires gave up their souls to turn, they no longer needed their watches, or were obligated to work like the humans.

  “Yes, I think I better be getting back,” I said.

  “Do you want me to walk with you? I’m going back to the boutique,” Grace smiled.

  “Sure,” I agreed.

  Andreas made a big show of yawning and stretching his arms overhead to give me a good final view of his body. He was going to make this a thing, I could tell. “I’m going to see if my houseguest has returned, and if he’s feeling re-energized.” He winked and sauntered off towards his bedroom.

  Grace and I exchanged exasperated looks, but giggled softly.

  As we walked back toward the city, I realized I hadn't been paying attention to the other vampires we were passing in the Quarter. Maybe I had spent so much time here I was starting to get comfortable; I doubted that was a good thing. Grace and I discussed possible reasons for Rasputin's underworld-wid
e takeover, and what I hoped to learn at lunch with Billy and Margaret. Anything—I would be happy with learning anything, even the smallest detail.

  I hugged Grace goodbye in front of the boutique and headed back to the fields to meet Billy. He was ready and waiting for me just in front of my house, still looking sharp from earlier. He must've decided not to change or work before our meeting.

  "Hey," I said, "I hope you haven't been waiting long.”

  "Nah, I just walked over a mite early. I'm a little anxious I guess." He shuffled his feet in the loose dirt.

  “Why are you anxious?” I laughed.

  “I don’t know, Margaret just makes me nervous—in a good kind of way! But introducing her to you just makes it worse.” He had the sweetest “aw-shucks” kind of attitude.

  “You’ll be fine, Billy,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.

  We started walking back towards the city, the direction I had just come from, and he was much more serious and quiet than normal. He was nervous.

  “Tell me about your life. I don’t know too awfully much about you. I think I recognize that accent of yours, though,” I smiled and nudged him.

  He eyed me suspiciously. “Where d’you think I’m from?” he asked.

  “Eastern Kentucky? Maybe somewhere around Harlan or Hazard?” I made my guess.

  He shook his head and laughed with surprise, “Yeah, technically our little turn in the road didn’t have a name, but we drove into Hazard for groceries and stuff. How’d you know?”

  “I lived in a part of southwest Virginia; every now and then Ray and I would go out for a day trip. We went to Kentucky several times; it’s an accent I always recognize,” I said.

  He nodded. “Eh, we were poor; I had three brothers and a sister. We were wild as hell, always lookin’ for somethin’ to get into. There’s a story to how I lost this tooth,” he grinned. “We had a lot of fun though. I tried to do good in school so I could make a better life for myself and maybe have something. And I did pretty good—went to college and was about halfway through getting my teaching degree when somebody found my roommate's booze in our dorm. The school was zero tolerance, and he got kicked out; I lost my scholarship, so I might as well have gotten kicked out too.” He shook his head. “All I wanted was to find a way to pay for school so I could finish.”

  As I listened, I knew his sad story was about to take an even sadder turn. I was feeling bad that I’d started this conversation.

  He continued, “My older brother was dealing meth and pain pills, and whatever he could get his hands on. He had some connections with the local police department, so everyone turned a blind eye. I started making deliveries for him, and it was going OK,” he shrugged, “other than the fact that I hated myself—but I was able to stay in school.” He swallowed and pointed for us to turn down a different street as we walked. “Then one day when I made a big delivery, the guy tried to short me on payment. I wasn’t even mean about it, I just said, ‘Hey, man, that’s not enough.’ He walked to his car, I thought to get more cash, and came back with a crowbar. That was the end of me.”

  My heart hurt so badly for Billy. He was truly one of the happiest, kindest people I had ever met. “I’m sorry,” I told him.

  “That’s been three years ago,” he said and smiled. “Do stupid things and bad stuff happens. I get to help people now, so it’s OK.”

  I tried to fathom having that kind of attitude if I had been in his position. “How much time do you have to work off?” I asked.

  “It was forty-four years when I got here. I can’t remember what it is now.”

  “Where do you think you’ll move on to?” I asked.

  “Momma always worried about me not getting saved, so I’ll probably see if I can get to heaven. It would be nice to see her and dad again,” he sniffed, and tried to cover it with a cough. “The cafe is just up here on the left,” he said.

  I was happy to see it was the same place Soren and I had eaten breakfast at recently. We took an empty table, and asked the server to wait until our third was with us before we ordered drinks.

  Billy was still nervous, fidgeting with everything on the table.

  “Relax,” I said, and put my hand on his to quiet the clanking he was making with his fork against the empty water glass.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  I gave him a smile, and noticed a woman walking towards the cafe; she was obviously looking for someone. I turned to Billy and asked, “Is that her?”

  His smile told me that it was. He stood up and waved to her, and when she saw him, she smiled back.

  It was obvious that she had been older than Billy when she died. Billy had been mid-twenties; this woman was someone I would place in her mid to late forties. She was pretty, though: her hair was shoulder length and layered, light brown and streaked with silver. Her face was incredibly kind, and her makeup was minimal. She wore a plain white t-shirt with a gold necklace, and a pair of red capri pants with neutral wedges. She was very cute and stylish—I liked her instantly.

  Billy walked his friend over to the table and I stood up to shake her hand.

  The woman pulled me into a hug and said, “It’s so nice to meet you, Hel-ena.” She paused as she said my name—like she started to just call me Hel, but thought it sounded too much like swearing.

  I hugged her back and said, “Likewise!”

  We sat down , ordered our drinks, and looked over the menus. Billy and Margaret decided to split a turkey sandwich and fries. I was hungry enough to eat the whole thing on my own.

  Once our orders were placed, the light and cheery mood faded as we knew the time had come for us to talk about the situation at hand.

  “So, Margaret, can you tell me a little about how things have been at the Assignment Hall lately? When did the vampires start coming in?” I asked, hating to be the one that got this unpleasantness started.

  “Well I can’t say exactly how long. It started slowly, and since I work away from most of the other employees, it took me longer to notice. I knew one of the men upstairs had decided to turn, but kept his job. I don’t really pay attention to what most people do, though. Then his friend turned; then one day I came in and everyone in records was a vampire.” Margaret’s eyes were large as she told the story, but her voice was sweet, even when dramatic in tone.

  “Has your job description changed, or the way they run things in the Assignment Hall?” I asked.

  “I’ve gotten busier!” she laughed. “I file things away once the souls move on to other places: religion, reincarnation, all that. The people upstairs keep active files out, so files of anyone who is currently living in this world.”

  The food arrived and we all dug in. While I ate, I tried to process all of the information Margaret had just shared. I watched her and Billy giggle and stare into each other’s eyes every few minutes. They were adorable.

  After her half of the sandwich was gone, Margaret looked up and asked me, “Did you need to know anything else?”

  “What happens to someone’s file when they turn? Are they considered active or not?” I asked. Maybe that could help find Boude.

  “No, the minute they change, their file comes to me to be put away,” she said, taking a sip of her iced tea.

  “So the files update automatically, magically?” I asked, and I felt myself frowning more than I wanted to. My brain was having trouble making sense of everything.

  “If the person has registered at the Assignment Hall and has a watch, that’s how we track everything. So if you have a watch and turn to a vampire, we get the code that that’s happened, and turn the tracking off and put away your file. If the person goes straight from death to another area of the afterlife, we just see what’s in their soul contract that we have on file, and file it that way.”

  I thought I was starting to understand. There was going to be no way to track Boude. “So the employees at the Assignment Hall have access to soul contracts. Can they change them? And do they know who is going to be dying ahea
d of time?” I asked.

  She shrugged, “That’s not part of my job description.”

  Fair enough. I glanced at Billy, who was leaned forward on the table listening intently, but hadn’t had anything to say.

  “Has there been much talk about the fact that no new souls are staying in the underworld? Isn’t it raising some eyebrows that they’re all disappearing?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine no one noticing.

  Some of the softness faded from Margaret’s face. She looked visibly uncomfortable now. I watched as Billy took her hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “We were told not to ask questions about that—just that soul assignments are going through a transitional period, and would be back to normal shortly.” Her voice was more serious than before, and more hushed.

  The way she said it made it sound like the one giving the information had been more threatening than informative.

  “Who told you this?” I asked.

  “One of the head men upstairs; he runs the department. He’s a vampire, but wasn’t always.” She ducked her head. “I don’t like to speak ill of vampires. I don’t really know them that well, but since they’ve moved into the office, it just doesn’t feel the same.”

  I couldn’t argue, even though I had vampire friends. They just put off a different, dark energy. But what else could you expect of a creature that gives up its soul for eternal life, and lives off of human blood.

  “Yeah, they’re… different,” I smiled, and tried to show I didn’t think ill of her for her observation.

  “I’m glad I work away from them. There’s one vampire in particular… he doesn’t work there, but he comes by a lot.” She made a face and rubbed her arms. “He scares me.”

  “Dark hair, black eyes, long scraggly beard?” I asked her.

  Her eyes sparked with surprise. “Yes! Do you know him?”

  I nodded. “Unfortunately, that would be Rasputin. I’m pretty sure he’s behind all of this.”

  “Oh dear,” she sighed. Margaret struck me as a sweet little church wife who baked cookies every night and taught Sunday school.

  Billy rubbed her shoulder and shook his head, looking at her with concern. “I’m not sure it’s safe for you stay there,” he said. “What if they try to turn you?”