Page 15 of Any More Questions for the Corpse?

The work had distracted him. He couldn’t help but feel responsible for everything terrible that had happened. Des being hurt, the commune having to move. While Mal hadn’t blasted her with lightning, and while he had no control over the Order—quite the opposite in fact—he still hated the role he’d played in all this. He didn’t even know if saving Des was the right thing to do. It felt right at the time but she might think differently. Maybe she would have preferred to die than become a vampire. Who was he to make that decision for her? They weren’t even that close and she had been nothing but a huge pain in his arse for days, but that didn’t mean he wanted her dead. Far from it; her persistence was growing on him. He liked that she was interested in him. Though he wished it had been for reasons other than a secret power he hated. And there it was, the simple pervasive truth of his life: If he didn’t have this stupid power, everything would be so much simpler. His parents would be dead (would have remained dead), but he wouldn’t be hurting people he liked and uprooting families with his incompetence. He had always wished to be normal, and this was exactly why. The hauling was literally the very least he could do, even if it was starting to hurt his arms.

After a few hours Des was stable. She was sleeping the sleep of the dead and her caregivers said she would stay that way for at least twelve to fifteen more hours. She seemed paler, but she wasn’t in any life-threatening danger. Her shoulder had started to heal and Mal could see that down her right arm was a spiraling fractal pattern, emanating from the shoulder wound. Guilt and shame sank Mal’s stomach. She’d saved his life and now he’d ruined hers. He felt an anger rise from his shoulders. Whoever was doing this wasn’t going to get away with it. His powers were evil, but he’d use them to stop this from ever happening again. He had never been more grateful that someone other than him was around to save her. For his money, being a vampire was better than being a zombie every day of the week.

They put Des on a floating stretcher, gave Mal his blood bag, and offered to warp them where they needed. Mal thanked them while apologizing profusely. Mal braced himself for the warp and held on tight to the end of the stretcher. His world swirled and the ground disappeared beneath him. He appeared, as if emerging from a fog, at the front gate of his family home, Des floating before him. It was a large but quaint house, surrounded by nothing but forest and countryside. No nosy neighbors, no busy high streets. It was as far out as far out could be while still having workable internet. He opened the gate and walked up the grassy hill the house sat atop of. He walked round the side of the house and forced open his bedroom window, forever grateful for his bedroom being on the ground floor. His room was piled with boxes and rubbish from his family, but his bed was clean and made. He pushed the floating Des in, then followed, shutting the window behind him.

He removed the covers and positioned her floating just a centimeter above the bed, then pressed a collapsing button on the side of the stretcher. It shrank down to a cube the size of a Post-it and Des fell into the bed. He covered her up, and thought about how if this was a TV show or a book, the person putting them to bed would change the person in bed into some kind of pajamas. Mal thought that was hideously creepy and decided she was best left well alone. He wrote a little note on the bedside table and quietly left Des to recover. Now he just had to figure out what he was going to tell his parents.

7Tea with Skeletons

Mal awoke to a scream. A visceral, terrified scream. Immediately, Mal knew what had happened, and he knew this because he’d done his best to make sure it wouldn’t happen. You must understand, even in the magical world where you see a great many strange and wondrous things, a simple fact still holds: Nothing can prepare you for what you do not expect. For example, waking up from a near-death experience to see a walking, talking skeleton offering you a cup of tea. Even a magical police officer, who has seen her fair share of weird, is still going to lose her fucking marbles. Mal had anticipated this adverse reaction and had emphatically told his mum (the walking, talking skeleton) not to disturb the recovering woman in his room. She, of course, didn’t listen.

Mal jumped from his couched slumber and ran for his room. He pushed open the door to find Des half under the covers, screaming at the skeleton at the end of her bed.

“GET OUT, MUM!” Mal said, to a chorus of “I was only being nice” and “I don’t see what all the fuss is about” and, of course, screams. Mal pushed the bones out of the room and leaned his back against the door, holding it firm as if to keep out hordes of the dead. Des, for her part, stopped screaming pretty quickly and sat staring at Mal in disbelief. It was at this point Mal realized he was only in his underpants. He reached for the closest item of clothing—an ill-fitting, ugly-colored dressing gown—and threw it on himself. After a good chunk of awkward silence, Des spoke.

“Mum?”

“Yeah, I wanted to tell you when you woke up, ease you into it. I guess that’s not happening now …”

“How did I get here?” Des said, holding her head. She moved as if to stand and pushed down on the bedside table for support. It broke under the strength of her hand. She looked at Mal with a face that said, What is happening?

“How much do you remember from last night?” Mal said, ushering her back into bed from a safe distance.

“Bits and pieces.” Des looked to her right and saw skin poking out of a seared and burned hole in her top. She winced in pain as she moved her right arm and inspected the strange fractal scar that swirled down it. Mal tried his best to explain everything, filling in the parts she either couldn’t remember or didn’t know about to begin with. He explained his necromancy, the Order, his assignment, and how the attack nearly killed her. He was struck with guilt and panic when she asked:

“How did you save me?”

“I didn’t save you, the vampires did.” Mal winced, hoping the implication wouldn’t be missed.

“They had a healer?” Des said.

Mal shook his head. “You were nearly dead. They said it was the only way.”

Now it sunk in.

“I’m a …” Des’s eyes grew wide with panic. “You turned me into a vampire!”

“I was trying to save your life. And technically Vlad turned you into a vampire.”

“VLAD? His name was Vlad? You let a ‘Vlad’ bite my neck?”

“No one bit your neck, as far as I know, and it was actually his underlings that turned you, he was just in charge.”

“So Vlad’s underlings turned me?”

“Yes?”

“But you told them to?”

“To save your life.”

“His name was Vlad? Really?”

“Yeah I think so, watch …” Mal touched a TV in the corner of the room and instantly it came to life. The screen flickered and a video started, detailing exactly what had happened through Mal’s eyes.

“Here’s me waiting in the bush. I’ll fast forward it … Then you come and scare the absolute shit out of me. Then you march up to the door, we argue for a bit. Then it happens. I lost this bit because you, y’know, saved my life.” There was a pause as blue light flashed across the screen, and Mal’s vision came to rest on Des just after the attack. Mal sped this section up, thinking it better not to force Des to relive the events from a different angle. “This bit’s all blurry, it’s roughly what I remember. Here’s you being carried away. This guy, he’s Vlad. And here is everyone after I calmed down. It’s some kind of commune. He gave me this to give to you.” Mal produced the USB. “It’s everything you need to know about being a vampire. Strange they had it on hand, really. I’ve been studying it. I figured you might not be up for reading it all right now. Least I can do is help you get back on your feet. I’ll skip me moving furniture for five hours. Oh, here’s you after. They teleported us here. See, this is where we are now, my parents’ house.”

Des watched it all in shock and horror. Tears welled in her eyes as she watched Mal plead for her life, and laughter filled her smile as she watched Mal fail to move a sofa, only for a little vampire girl to come along and carry it away for him. When the scary home movie from Mal’s mind was finished, he sat down next to her on the bed and she looked at him with an expression he couldn’t quite place.