The Secret Dead (London Bones Book 1)

by SW Fairbrother

  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 floor. 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 s
ound 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.

  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.