Chapter 11 - The Talkative Corpse

“I had to get up for a domestic disturbance call,” Crook muttered.

She and Darius were standing side-by-side outside the interview room, looking through the small window in the closed door. Inside the room, a figure was seated behind a small square table.

Darius had hated to leave the mansion site, but Big Jacky could stay to meet the Torr teams, and someone needed to help manage this mess. Besides, there was a chance that it might have something to do with the missing mansion.

Crook continued, “On my way back, I saw it walking through the middle of town.”

Darius silently noted the “it.”

It, if consulted, would probably have preferred him, but people didn’t go around consulting corpses. Corpses were things.

Crook went on, “The way it moved was…off. I pulled over to make sure it wasn’t some drunk who needed help getting home.”

Darius didn’t bother asking how she knew it was a corpse. The thing looked and smelled like something that had crawled out of the grave. A blind man couldn’t have missed it. The corpse’s brown hair was matted with dirt, his sunken skin was a rainbow of sickly hues, and his decaying clothes were practically crumbling from his body.

Darius tried to place the clothes. They reminded him of something…or someone…but he was distracted by the thing’s stare.

The skin around the corpse’s eye sockets had sunk as well, making his vivid blue eyes stand out and giving him a horrible, pop-eyed appearance. He was watching Darius and Crook through the small window in the door.

“And when you saw what he was, you brought him in,” Darius said.

“What the hell was I supposed to do? Huh?” Crook hissed. “Let it go on its merry way?”

Darius glanced over. Since he’d arrived, Deputy Jaylen Crook had put on a good show of being calm, but he could hear how fast her heart was beating, and now he could see the flush in her tan cheeks. She’d rolled out of bed for a late-night call and managed to get her hair and uniform in perfect order, but this situation had her so exasperated that her expression alone made her appear disheveled.

“I meant no criticism, Crook,” he said. “If I say anything obvious or dimwitted, you can put it down to shock.”

Darius looked back through the window at the corpse. It—he—was sitting calmly in the chair with his folded hands resting on the table in front of him. He was missing several fingernails and the tips of at least three fingers. Darius could see the small points of bone.

“I’m still trying to process all this,” Darius added.

Crook frowned and returned her attention to the room.

“Did you put him under arrest?” Darius asked.

“On what charge?” Crook said. “Being disgusting? As far as I know, being dead isn’t a crime.”

“Did he fight when you brought him in?”

“Not exactly.”

“How ‘not exactly?’”

“He tried to talk me out of it.”

Darius’s eyebrows rose. “He tried to talk you out of it…but he came along?”

“I had my gun, Vasil.”

“Ah. And he knew what it was?”

“He certainly did.” Crook’s gaze dropped to the door handle. “Did I screw up?”

Darius was impressed. He knew that Crook hated being vulnerable even more than she hated him. For her to ask that kind of question—to him—was a testament to her integrity. She never would’ve pulled her weapon on an unarmed person under normal circumstances, but the circumstances had been far from normal, and she, understandably, was disinclined to touch the corpse. It had been a reasonable choice, but it still bothered her.

“Not at all,” Darius said. “You did it exactly by the book.”

Crook’s frown deepened, but she nodded. Her brow creased. She looked up. “By whose book?”

Darius buttoned the top button on his white shirt and straightened his tie. “I’ll be going in to talk to him, and I have colleagues on the way who’ll help take over this case—”

“By whose book?”

“They’ll present you with all the paperwork you need to step away from the matter, and it will include the name and number of the judge who issued the orders. If you have any questions, you can ask me, or you can call the judge. We can’t tell you everything, but we’ll be happy to answer what questions we can. Otherwise, you may want to excuse yourself before I begin talking to him. The more you know, the more complicated things will get for you.”

“By whose book, Vasil?”

Darius offered Crook a friendly, closed-lipped smile, then opened the door and went into the interview room.

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The corpse leaned back in his chair. Otherwise, there was no reaction.

Darius walked to the side of the table so he could get a better view of the figure.

“Good morning,” Darius said.

When Darius had heard Crook's description of the corpse’s movements being “off,” he’d assumed the lack of detail was because the deputy didn’t have a way with words. When Darius saw the corpse tilt his head and try to raise an eyebrow, he discovered that even a poet would struggle to describe it. The head moved a fraction of an inch too far. It jerked when it stopped. The movement of the eyebrow was familiar and alien at the same time. Darius had to repress a shudder.

“Good morning,” the corpse said.

The corpse’s voice, at least, was normal. The pitch was slightly high for a male, but that could be attributed to his surprise—and he was surprised. The tone made that clear.

“I’m Agent Darius Vasil of the FBI.”

The corpse hummed. “By the use of the word ‘Agent,’ I have to surmise that you’re some type of law official.”

There was a hitch in Darius’s movements, but it was so small that only another vampire might have noticed it.

He knows what a gun is, but he’s never heard of the FBI.

“That’s correct, sir,” Darius said. “My colleague called me in when she—”

“That colleague of yours is female?”

Darius’s answer was slow and thoughtful. “Yes.”

The corpse let out a short, high bark of a laugh. “Ha!”

He bent his elbow up to rest a ratty hand on his sunken cheek. Darius could hear the creak of flesh, but there was no heartbeat.

“I thought she was, you know,” the corpse said. “One can tell. Still, I was surprised.”

“You were surprised to meet a female officer?”

“No, I was surprised to meet a female with such atrocious manners.”

Darius studied the figure in the chair. He could see the moldering clothes clearly now. Worn leather boots, the cut of the suit, the coat, the tie—they all looked familiar, but it wasn’t until he heard that cavalier comment that he could place them in his long memory.

They reminded him of his father. Darius Vasil was looking at something from his childhood.

The corpse eyed him with his startling blue eyes. “You, however, seem to have some manners. I’m glad.”

“May I ask your name, sir?” Darius said.

“May I ask why I’m being detained?”

Darius briefly pursed his lips. It was a deliberate, casual expression. A person might read regret, thoughtfulness, puzzlement, or indifference. What they wouldn’t read were any of the vampire’s actual emotions.

“I’m afraid we have some questions for you,” Darius said.

“Yes, I’ll bet you do,” the corpse replied.

“Do you have any questions for us?”

“I assume you mean aside from, why are you detaining me?”

“Yes.”

The corpse shrugged. One shoulder tilted forward. The other tilted back. Darius would have punctured his eardrums if it meant he wouldn’t have to listen to that body move. He was used to the dry shifting of Iset’s limbs, but this was different. There was too much moisture and matter, but it all moved reluctantly. It sounded like a forensic pathologist arranging a body for an autopsy—only there was no pathologist. Just a body.

“No, but thank you—Vasil, was it? I’m eager to be on my way. That’s all.”

“On your way to where?” Darius asked.

The corpse smiled at him. The edges of the mouth pulled back in a straight line, the discolored lips narrowed, and the face creaked around the expression. Otherwise, he gave no answer.

Darius looked down—mostly so he wouldn’t have to see that horrible smile. “You don’t want to know what year it is?”

“Somewhere in the two-thousands, I understand,” the corpse said.

Darius’s eyes shot up. “How did you know that?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Did you talk to someone?”

“Not recently, if that’s what you’re worried about. That’s why I could only estimate. It doesn’t really matter to me. One year is very like another, don’t you think?”

Darius agreed with him. But Darius had been alive for a hundred and forty-four years. This man…well, he hadn’t been alive.

“You’re not a zombie,” Darius noted.

“I will have to bow to your expertise,” the corpse said. “You sound sure of yourself, and I’ve never heard the word before.”

Darius checked himself. The term ‘zombie’ hadn’t been adopted and defined by the American Torrs until 1931.

“May I ask when you died?” Darius said.

The corpse folded his fingers together and sighed. The air was forced for the effect of the sigh; otherwise he didn’t breathe.

“I wondered when we’d get to these questions,” the corpse grumbled. He raised his head. “1895, if it matters to you. Now, why am I being detained?”

1895. Darius would've been twenty-one.

“How are you reanimated?” he asked.

“What do you plan to do with me?”

“Is there a reason you won’t answer my questions?”

“I don’t feel like it. Have I done anything wrong?” When Darius didn’t answer, the corpse went on, “I had hoped that law and order would’ve improved over the century, but it seems my hope was ill-founded. Is it common these days for officers to hold a man without charge when he’s done nothing wrong?”

A tick of annoyance made Darius’s fangs itch, but he kept them back.

It wasn’t so much the words, but something about the tone dug under the vampire’s skin. That snide humor—as if the corpse was laughing at a world that would never be smart enough to understand his jokes.

Darius kept his voice calm: “No, sir, it isn’t common. But neither are you.”

“Ah! There, at least, we agree with each other. Tell me, Agent Vasil, the men you work for—what do they oversee?”

Darius was suspicious of the corpse’s sudden interest. At first he’d had no questions. Then, when one occurs to him, it has nothing to do with him or his situation, but with the people whom Darius worked for?

Could he have been conscious as a corpse since his death?

Unlikely. If he’d managed to elude discovery for that long, why would he be captured now?

But the corpse was still waiting for his answer.

“In my case, that’s a complicated question,” Darius said.

“Huh.” The corpse leaned forward. Darius almost winced at the sound. “It seems what little curiosity I display won’t be rewarded. Tragic. Still, it does simplify matters. Now, if you’ll let me go, I would prefer to be out of town before sunrise. I’m afraid I’m not looking my best right now, and I wouldn’t want to upset anyone.”

“How do you know what you look like?”

“There was no shortage of reflective surfaces in town, Agent Vasil.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you go.”

The corpse raised his hands and said in a grand show of spectacular indifference, “Then we’re at an impasse! I’m in no mood to answer your questions, and you won’t let me go. I suppose we’ll have to sit in this room and stare at each other until one of us rots. I wonder who’ll go first.”

“That would be an interesting experiment.”

“Shall we make a wager?”

Big Jacky suddenly appeared in the room. It happened so fast that not even Darius’s eyes could follow. A tiny whiff of displaced air rushed over him, and the spot beside him that had been empty was occupied.

Big Jacky was leaning over the small table, all ten fingertips pressing on the surface, staring down at the seated corpse.

“You,” Big Jacky sneered.

Darius’s eyes went to the corpse. All his indifference, spectacular or otherwise, was gone. He was trembling with irrepressible rage. He jerked his eyes away from Big Jacky and fixed them on Darius. His voice was tight and his words were clipped.

“Here. You say that you’re an officer of the law?”

Darius nodded.

“Duly appointed?”

“Yes.”

“Then I would like to report a murder.” The corpse jabbed a decayed finger at Jack Noctis. “This is the bastard who killed me.”