Page 25 of Any More Questions for the Corpse?

PORN. Graphic and vibrant, filled every page. Boobs and butts, penetration and passion, steamy and sweaty. He turned to the first page and read the foreword. The book was a fantasy re-imagining of the movie Romancing the Stone; it was a fanfic, asitwere. The contents of which added more magic and much, much more sex. Apparently the author had gotten a few things correct about necromancy and the Order had deemed it worthy of covering up. Mal flicked through a few pages where Danny DeVito’s Danny DeVitos were illustrated in graphic detail, and decided he should study—but maybe from a different book. He left the book open on a page depicting a very pleased-looking Michael Douglas and went to find an actual book on necromancy. He returned with such a tome and found the group gawking at the page he’d left open.

To be sure of his new volume, he cracked it open and prayed. Text. Only text on every page. This book was called Necromancy and Other Undead Oddities and was written in London during the 1880s. Mal perused its contents page and was pleased to find it had many practical insights on offer, although how the author had acquired them concerned Mal slightly. But beggars can’t be choosers (for some reason) and Mal dove headfirst into the book. After reading for what felt like an hour, a question emerged in Mal’s mind that he felt the need to ask.

“Why aren’t you just arresting Taran?” Mal said, looking to Des.

“Because there’s no evidence,” Des said. “It’s all circumstantial. We can’t just arrest every storm mage over sixty, there’s hundreds. Also he has an alibi; his nurse was with him at the time of the murders.”

“What about the connections though? With the first few victims,” Yu said, also curious.

“They aren’t hard connections,” Des said. “They could just as easily be coincidences. You yourself have seen how hard it is to narrow down suspects.” They looked at the pile of files on the floor. “And don’t forget, he doesn’t know about the Order. The others are all Order members. How could he know about them?”

“More coincidences?” Hala said, skeptical.

“Now that would be unlikely,” Des said.

“How would you even arrest a guy like that?” Yu said.

“With great difficulty. Not to mention Taran has some serious connections. Walters got it in the neck just sending me to talk to him.” Des sighed, looking at the girth of her book. “Anyone found anything good?”

“I’ve been reading about how ghosts are formed, so no. Not really,” Mal said, to an annoyed chorus from Hala and Des.

“I’ve been similarly helpful,” Yu said, showing the title of the book they’d been reading: Hidden Cults and Where to Find Them.

“Wonderful,” Des said, giving the pair a jovial glare. “Well I’ve found fuck all in mine. The history is mostly them killing necromancers, then turning their bodies to stone.”

“Why stone?” Mal said, concerned.

“It says they do it so they can’t get back into their bodies,” Des said. “Burning them just scatters little bits about. Must be what they did to Mazino.” It’ll be what they do to me, Mal thought. The concern must have shown on his face as Des looked at him pitifully for a moment. “Maybe not, though. They didn’t do it to the other guy, although a spike doesn’t sound much better.”

The other guy in this instance was Kosh. Mal wondered why he hadn’t been made a statue but then it clicked. Murray. The first victim Mal met had been the Order’s transmutor; he would have been the one to do it. To stone-ify him. Mal flicked through his book hoping to find some process involving spikes. He found a page called “Death Spikes” and thought that looked about right (right in the correct sense, not right in the moral sense).

A death spike was a magical artifact used to see if a corpse was faking or not. Mal hastened to think how or where it was placed, but “thankfully” the book had diagrams so he didn’t have to think. Apparently, it worked on both the living and the dead, but the living didn’t survive the procedure, making the point a bit moot. Standard practice was spiking once within twenty-four hours of death and then again at the same time the next day. It must be Order procedure to make sure everyone stays dead—to spike or stone, whichever they fancy. Mal wondered if there was anything in his book that could help him cheat death, but if Kosh hadn’t found a way, he doubted he could.

“I haven’t found anything either,” Hala said, “but I do have a question. Why were we attacked by zombies?” The group paused. They had all considered the attack weird (weird in the “out of the ordinary” sense, not weird in the “that’s so crazy” sense, although it was so crazy). But they had never considered why it had happened. Why them? Why there? Why now?

“Unlucky?” Yu said, shrugging.

“You think it’s a coincidence that zombies happen to attack a necromancer?” Des said.

“Good point. We had a close call the other day too,” Mal said, looking at Des and touching his right shoulder. Des’s eyes lit up.

“You think they’re connected?” Des said, “Merlin and the dead?”

“I love that band,” Mal said. Apparently it wasn’t as funny as he thought, though Des smiled. “Maybe they’re connected. Would be odd; two separate attempts to kill us in so many days.”

“If they are,” Des said, “Mazino would be perfect. He ticks all the boxes. Shame he’s—”

“Super dead,” Mal said. “And why kill us? We weren’t even on his trail.”

“I was surprised by how calm they all were,” Yu said. “When they weren’t attacking us, I mean.”

“The dead?” Hala said.

“Yeah, them,” Yu replied. “If I’d come back to that, I would have lost any and all sense.”

“Some of them did,” Mal said. “Most asked politely what was going on. I’m surprised they didn’t form an orderly queue.”

“I can’t believe you managed to calm them down,” Yu said, looking to Hala.