by Dan Wells
"And we can't bring in a constable to collect," said John, "without risking that one of them might recognize you and throw you back in that jail you escaped from."
"I was thinking mostly of how little I want to say the sentence 'this mentally incapable senior citizen refuses to pay for the unnecessary funeral we've extorted out of him,'" I said, "but yes, your concern is a valid one as well."
"So let's make sure it works," said Mary.
"The funeral?" I asked.
"The magic duel," said Mary. "It wouldn't be the first time we'd rigged a funeral to fool an old man."
"I offer my humble assistance," said John, and fanned his arms dramatically. "With the power of words!"
"I like this idea," I said, ignoring him. "If we make him think he's had a successful magic duel, he'll be a happy customer, and happy customers pay."
"Then we have to talk to the necromancer," said John.
"You mean Mr. Tolliver," I said. "I don't want to call him a necromancer behind his back if he's really just a poor old man living next door to a madman."
"I hope he is a necromancer," said John. "I've never met one."
"It would make our job easier, too," said Mary.
"Fooling two men instead of one?" I asked. "What's easier about that?"
"We can stage a much more convincing duel if both men are participating," said Mary. "Otherwise we're stuck presenting one man with a duel and the other with a normal funeral, and that sounds impossible."
"Good point," I said. "Let's go meet Mr. Tolliver."
Chapter Three
"Who comes to darken the doorstep of a necromancer?" Mr. Tolliver's voice sounded feebly from behind his front door, and I nodded.
"Well," I whispered, "that answers that question."
"Stop whispering," Tolliver demanded, "or I'll haunt you all with the spirits of a thousand restless dead!" The door was still closed tightly.
"Good afternoon!" said John, to the door. "My name is John Keats, and these are my associates, Oliver Beard and Mary Shelley. We represent the Spilsbury and Beard Mortuary, and at this time we're afraid that we bear some bad news—"
"You're afraid that you bear it, or you actually bear it?" asked Tolliver.
"I think what he means to say that it saddens us to be bearing it," I said, but before I could continue he interrupted with another angry tirade.
"If it makes you so sad then why would I want you to give it to me?" asked Tolliver. "I have enough of darkness in my own life—do you even know what it's like to be the earthly husk of an ancient evil? The horrors I have to put up with on a daily basis? Come inside and smell this chamber pot, why don't you, and then tell me why I need so much more sadness in my life than I already have!" The chain rattled, and the locks began to jiggle on the door.
"I think what he means," I began again, and then the door opened and I become quite unable to say anything, so noxious was the smell that assaulted us. Mr. Tolliver, short and bony and quite devoid of trousers, thrust his chamber pot toward us, and it was all I could do not to retch in the bushes.
"There!" shouted Tolliver. "Is that the natural odor you'd expect from a mortal’s bowels? I've got death itself inside of me, and hell and all its angels manufacturing new terrors every night!"
"I think what he means," said Mary, taking over my twice-aborted sentence as John and I gasped for air, "is that the news makes us sad, but might very well make you quite happy indeed." Her nose, given her profession as a grave robber, was much more accustomed to foul stenches, though I could see that even she was gripping the porch handrail with a fierce desperation. She steeled herself and continued. "We have to discuss the recent death of one of your neighbors, Mr. Daniel Crow."
Tolliver pulled back the chamber pot and glared at her. "Crow's dead?"
"I'm afraid he is," I said. He seemed just as delusional as Crow himself, so there was no reason not to propagate the ridiculous story. "He died rather suddenly in his sleep last night, and we thought that you, as a necromancer, might . . . " I wasn't sure how to finish the sentence without insulting him. Should I suggest that we knew he had hated Mr. Crow? Should I go even further, suggesting that we knew Tolliver had 'killed' him? That seemed like too much, so after a painful moment of indecision, I decided on: ". . . that you might be pleased about the advent of more death into the world."
"Pleased?" he asked. "Of course I'm pleased, I'm the one that killed him!"
"You really just put it all right out there, don't you?" I said. "No secrets with Mr. Tolliver."
"I didn't mean to kill him," said Tolliver. "I had intended to make him a thrall, bound to my insidious will, but apparently things have gone wrong."
"How is it possible that they both tell the same story?" I whispered to Mary. "Did they confer at midnight? Is this all an elaborate jest on a mortuary? Who does that?"
"Mr. Tolliver," said John, "you have no idea how pleased we are to hear that. A mortuary, as you might imagine, already has more bodies than we could possibly find a use for. If you're interested in this one, you're more than welcome to it."
"Excellent," said Mr. Tolliver. "Bring it here, and I shall raise it immediately!"
"It's not that simple," I said, shocked as much by John's brazen statement as by Tolliver's. I tried to stay on top of the situation, hoping when I started to speak that by the time I was done I would have said something useful. "Extra bodies or not, we are not permitted, by mortal law, to distribute them so openly—which is not to say that we don't want you to have, only that we can't give it to you. I'm sure you understand. If, on the other hand, the body were to rise up and follow you home, well, who's to contest that?"
"My dark arts are too heinous for the populace to abide," said Tolliver, and I couldn't help but glance at the chamber pot still in his hands. "If they see that I have raised him from the dead, they'll storm my home with torches and pitchforks."
"Pitchforks are very hard to come by in the heart of the city," said John.
"More to the point," said Mary, "nobody else knows that he's dead."
"Exactly," I said. "In fact it's very safe to say that everyone but you, and I suppose him, thinks that Mr. Crow is still very much alive. When they see him on the street they won't think twice."
"At least not for now," said John. "Eventually he'll start to decompose."
"Don't count on that," I began, but Tolliver proved my point before I could even finish making it.
"My thralls don't decompose, impudent whelp! He'll stay as fresh as the day as he was born! I can even make him age, so no one asks questions—why do you think I look like an old man, because I enjoy it? It's because I choose to!"
"I don't understand why this is working out so well," I said, "but I'm glad that it is. The funeral is at four; Spilsbury and Beard. Our lavatory is out of service, so please . . . plan ahead." I tipped my hat. "Thank you very much."
Tolliver harrumphed and closed his door, and we all but ran down the street, desperate for fresh air. "Great gods above and below," gasped John, "and all the fairies in all the mushrooms in England. No wonder Crow hates the man. It smelled like a . . . pork loin made from sweat, left in the sun for three days and then boiled in a decomposing whale."
"It smelled like the cesspit behind a dysentery hospital," said Mary, "across the street from a pub that fries week-old fish in vomit they collect from potholes."
"It smelled like . . . ." I shook my head. "There's no sense competing with two writers. Setting aside the smell, this is good: he will come, thinking he can raise Mr. Crow from the dead, Mr. Crow will, in fact, rise up from what appears to be the dead, they'll insult each other, wiggle their fingers a bit, Tolliver won't enthrall him because he's not really magic, Crow will attribute his lack of enthrallment to his own skill with similarly non-existent magic, our man wins, our man pays us, our work is done."
"You're assuming they're not actually magic," said John.
"That is exactly what I'm assuming," I said, turning toward the mortuary and wa
lking briskly. "Out of all the assumptions I am making, that is the one in which I am most confident."
"Then how shall we choose to explain that?" asked Mary, and pointed at a man walking toward us from the far end of the street. He was dressed in the rags of what might once have been a workman's suit, but was now so full of tattered seams and moth-eaten holes it could barely be called a suit at all. He shuffled toward us slowly, dragging a lame leg and drooping one shoulder much lower than the other. His skin was ashen, his face poxed, and in his twisted hands he clutched what appeared to be a hunk of meat. We drew back, too shocked to run, and as he approached us I looked into his clouded, rheumy eyes and prayed he could not see us. John, of course, greeted him cheerfully.
"Good afternoon!"
"Uuuuuuuuuuh," said the man. He shambled past us without a nod, staggered up the stairs to Mr. Tolliver's door, and rang the bell. Tolliver shouted angrily, opened the door, and chastised the wretch.
"My lunch! Took you long enough." The gray man limped through the door with a groan, and Tolliver closed it behind him.
"That," said John, "explains a great deal about his intestinal health."
"It doesn't—" I started, "he's not—it's a—that's—"
"I agree," said Mary.
"I have rarely seen a man more dead than that one," said John, "and I work in a mortuary."
I raised my eyebrow. "Work is a very generous description of what you do in the mortuary."
"I'm more of a hobbyist than a professional," said Mary, "but I have to concur with John's assessment. The man looked very dead."
"What if he has the plague?" I offered. "Something that just makes him look dead. Maybe it's leprosy?"
"Would you hire a man with leprosy to fetch your lunch?" asked Mary.
"That depends," I said. "Am I me, in this scenario, or am I a delusional idiot? That might change my answer."
"We must lean on science," said John.
"Exactly," I said.
"So we resort to the wisdom of William of Ockham," John continued. "When choosing between multiple hypotheses we must look for the one with the fewer assumptions, so: which is more likely? That two men, despite a deep hatred for one another, would nevertheless fall into the same shared insanity, in perfect sync with each other, down to and including the times and details of a midnight attack that involved no coordination and left no evidence? Or, more simply, that they're actually magic?"
"Doesn't the second option rely rather heavily on the assumption that magic is real?"
"You have vampires in your basement," said John.
"Point taken," I said. "It is entirely possible that we are getting into more of a mess than we're prepared for."
"We could fight their supernatural forces with our own," suggested Mary. "Wizard versus necromancer versus vampire."
"Why not throw in a werewolf while we're at it?" I asked. "This isn't a pit fight between preferably-imaginary monsters, and it's not a cheap corner drama about young maidens swooning on gothic balconies. If they are really magic—and I maintain the right to consider the idea preposterous—we've just invited them into my place of residence. Our place of business. And let me remind you that said business is a mortuary: how much trouble could a necromancer get into in a building full of dead bodies? And if Mr. Crow can do anything more impressive than point out how quiet it is, goodness knows what chaos he'll cause."
"So we contain it," said John.
I laughed derisively. "Contain a magic duel?"
"We can . . . direct it," said John. "Like orchestra conductors. They do what they're going to do, and we just keep them on tempo, so to speak."
"So to speak," I said. "Mary, talk to Crow. Find out what he's expecting, what 'spells' he's planning to cast, and what he anticipates theirs result to be—then let us know and we'll make two sets of plans: one plan to fulfill his expectations if it turns out he's just crazy, and another plan to mitigate the damage if he turns out to be a wizard after all."
"That's smart," said Mary, "but if you're going to ask me to do the same for Mr. Tolliver, forget it."
"Mr Tolliver's not the one we need to keep happy," I said. "If he tries to cast a spell and it doesn't work, Mr. Crow will claim the credit for stopping him and the duel will continue. Mary, I need you to arrange the details of the actual funeral."
Mary protested instantly. "But I'm not—"
"I know you don't usually get involved with the office work," I said, "but I can't trust Spilsbury with it, and I won't have time to do it myself."
"I'm not comfortable with that—" said Mary, obviously nervous, but John interrupted her smoothly.
"What will you be doing?" asked John.
"Plan C," I said. "If they're really both magic, and if we can't keep them under control, we need a contingency plan: some way to cut the anchor loose and sail away without destroying the whole ship."
"We're holding the funeral on a ship?" cried Mary. "Why are you making this so hard on me?"
"It's a metaphor," said John, and smiled at me happily. "You used a metaphor, Freddy, that's wonderful."
"Oliver," I corrected him. "Now go—we don't have much time, and everything has to be perfect."
Chapter Four
The candles flickered in the sconces on the mortuary wall.
"Don't worry," said Mr. Crow. "That's just my magic power interfering with the flames."
"Thank you," I muttered, peeking through the curtain again. "The flickering candles were definitely the most worrisome part of this situation."
"The coals are in place," said John, rushing into the room. "Gustav and Spilsbury are ready to stoke them on my signal."
"And the mourners just arrived," said Mary.
"Do they know what's really going on?" asked Crow.
"Have them tell me if they figure it out," I said. "I've been trying to—aha! Tolliver's coming; everyone get in your places." I closed the gap in the curtain and surveyed the room a final time, eyeing the small string tied to the leg of one of the chairs. Would either man see it? If Crow knew we were rigging the duel, he might fly into a rage.
"You haven't told me my place yet," said Crow.
"In the coffin," I snapped. "Where do think?"
"Like I'm some kind of expert?" Crow snapped back, climbing awkwardly into the coffin. "How many time do you think I've been dead before?"
"Not enough," I whispered. "John, go to the door, but wait for my signal. Mary, bring in the—there they are. Mourners this way, please." A group of professional mourners filed in, dressed in black, the men with dour expressions and the women shrouded with black lace veils. I pointed them toward their chairs, then paused, smooth my waistcoat, and stepped into the hall. John saw me, we nodded, and he opened the front door right as Mr. Tolliver raised his hand to grasp the brass knocker.
"Mr. Tolliver!" said John, "it's a pleasure to see you again! And you even bathed."
"Nonsense!" cried Tolliver. "I'm an envoy of death, no one takes pleasure in my presence!"
"Morticians do, sir," said John. "Right this way." He led him toward me, and I greeted him with a handshake; his skin was dry and rough, like a workman's. Behind him came two men, one the possibly-dead man we'd seen earlier, shuffling as awkwardly as ever, and the other just as grey and miserable as the first. I nodded to them politely, but their only response was an unintelligible hiss. We led them to their seats, and Mary very nervously began her welcome speech.
"Friends, neighbors, and acquaintances of the departed, we gather here today to mourn the passing of Daniel Crow—"
"Something's wrong," said Tolliver, standing up.
"I'm sorry," said Mary. "This is my first time doing the intro bit and I—"
Tolliver shook his head. "Something's wrong with the flow of psychic energy."
"Psychic now?" John whispered. "We're not ready for a psychic duel."
"Somebody needs to make up his mind," I muttered.
"He's here!" shouted Tolliver.
"Yes," said Mary, "
I was just getting to that part—"
"Not just his body," said Tolliver, "his astral being. His soul." He whirled to face me. "Mr. Beard I'm shocked at the lack of professionalism on display in this mortuary—trying to hold a funeral for a man only partly dead—Arg!" He clutched his head, as if in great pain. "He's attacking me! It's a trap!"
"Of course it's a trap!" roared Mr. Crow, sitting up in his coffin. The mourners cried out in shock, but so weakly that their fakery was painfully obvious.
"We need to hire better liars," I whispered to John.
"They told us they were expert liars," he whispered back.
I shrugged. "There you have it, then."
"Mr. Crow!" cried Mr. Tolliver, turning toward him with a sneer.
Crow sneer back. "Mr. Tolliver!"
And then they stared at each other, for approximately five minutes.
We used every trick any of us had prepared; John discretely pulled a string and moved a chair across the room, unassisted, but the two men didn't seem to care. He tapped softly on the floor, and below us in the basement Gustav and Spilsbury threw dry grass on piles of hot coal, stoking them to flame and filling the room with noxious smoke, but the two men ignored it completely. Mary gave a sign to the mourners, who lifted their veils to reveal horrifying masks and make-up, but the two men seemed not to notice them at all. We made strange sounds in the attic; we released a swarm of frogs from the adjoining room; we put colored glass filters on hidden lamps, plunging the funeral into an otherworldly glow. Mr. Crow raised his finger slightly, the biggest reaction we'd managed to produce in what felt like ages, but all he said was "Not now, Oliver, I'm busy."
John and Mary and I looked at each other helplessly, out of ideas. I put a hand on the shoulder of a wailing mourner in bright skull make-up. "Feel free to ease up on the lamentations of the damned."
