Page 27 of Any More Questions for the Corpse?

The dead streamed past them, no longer concerned with the living. Mal watched as the horde fought to squeeze through the tiny entranceway at the far side of the room. The same one that he had come down not too long ago. They were not a patient horde, and it took several minutes for them all to fit through. The living watched with confusion and relief.

The only things left standing in the room were the pockets of battered witches and wizards and a stone statue. Tentatively, they all let down their auras. Mal regarded any bodies that remained as one might regard a crocodile just below the surface of the water. The smell, which up until that point had been the least of their worries, was suddenly unbearable. It was the end of a horror show, and somehow they were left with the cleanup. Limbs and blood scattered the floor where once comfy furniture had been. Soon, people from every recess of the headquarters began filing into the atrium, all shaken and paranoid.

Mal spotted Amrit, the leader of the Order, among the survivors and watched as they beelined straight for them.

“No matter what happens, you four don’t leave my side, understood?” Walters muttered. They all nodded in agreement.

“Was this him?” Amrit yelled, their walk filled with the rage of loss. As Amrit got within arm’s reach, their eyes went a chromatic silver and they snatched at Mal. Walters caught Amrit’s arm, and Mal watched as Walters’s eyes rolled back in his head. Mal remembered just how unpleasant Amrit’s mind-fucking had been; it had felt like an eternity. Within seconds Walters’s eyes returned to normal and he released Amrit’s arm.

“See,” Walters said, calm and in control.

“Then who did this?!” Amrit said, their body jittering. At that moment someone entered—a short man with blond hair. Mal vaguely recognized him from the files.

“You need to see this,” he said, in as grave a tone as a man can. Amrit set off with Walters in tow; the group followed. Mal’s death sense started to throb slowly. This wasn’t going to be good.

They arrived at the metal slab Walters had taken them to earlier. It was wide open; both layers were. You could see straight through into the hideous statues inside. As they got close, Amrit referred to it as the Bone Vault, a fitting name. As they entered, Mal tried very hard not to be sick again. They walked back up to Mazino’s statue where it still stood, silently screaming. Everything seemed exactly the same, except the jar was missing. He’s escaped? Mal thought. He looked around to see all the other jars still there, with their grotesque tokens still inside.

“It gets worse …” the same short, blond man said. They followed him out of the vault, shutting the doors behind them. They came to an empty crypt. To Mal this seemed underwhelming, but Walters seemed all the more disturbed by it.

“Where are all the bodies?” Amrit said, glaring at the blond man.

“I think we just watched them leave,” Walters said, his face collapsing with grief. It was only then Mal realized that Kosh would have been among them; a puppet and a weapon. Mal remembered trying to bring Kosh back, but finding nothing. Walters had told him he’d have to be leagues stronger to do it. How strong had the necromancer been who’d done this? Could it have even been Mazino? They’d seen his token there earlier. How had he escaped? Who had helped him? More unknowns. More questions for the corpses.

They left the empty crypt and made their way back to the atrium. Most of the Order was gathered now; everyone who’d survived, at least. It seemed most had, though Mal couldn’t be sure. They followed Walters to the back of the room, keeping close to the walls. The others seemed shaken. Hala, Des, and Yu were clumped together as if still inside Walters’s protective aura.

Amrit barked orders from the center of the room, dwarfed by the statue. Mal listened as they called for tactical units to be mobilized as soon as possible and that everyone not involved in that should remain here on lockdown in the headquarters. Mal thought of the chaos that must have erupted out onto the surface, hundreds of dead spilling into the street. That was going to be hard to cover up. Once Amrit had finished their speech, the crowds broke off, roused and determined. Then they made straight for them and Mal tensed in anticipation.

“You need to get them out of here,” Amrit said, face-to-face with Walters. “I don’t want to know where, just take them somewhere no one here knows about. We’ve got to prepare.”

“Is there anything else I can do?” Walters said.

“We’ve got this covered. We’ve got our sources keeping things quiet, we just need to keep the situation contained.” Amrit eyed Mal with suspicion. “Once they’re safe we’ll need you back here. Everyone’s coming.”

“From the other Orders?” Walters said, a look of concern gripping his face. Now Mal was worried.

“Everyone they can spare,” Amrit said. “It will take a few days, but we’ll need you here.”

“You can count on it.” They shook hands and Amrit moved off into the crowd. Walters turned to the group and ushered them away down a corridor. They passed the turn to the library and swerved left and right, delving deeper into passages that were gathering dust. Walters brought them to a tiny broom cupboard and held the door open for them to enter. Confused, they did as instructed. Walters entered and closed the door behind him. To say the room was snug would be to exaggerate the comfort of having shoulders pushed into your face; to say it was crowded would be much more accurate. Walters placed his hand on the inside of the door. Locks clicked in turn: one, two, three … four. The room shook, then silence. Walters replaced his hand on the door and again the locks clicked. One, two, three … four.

Walters pushed open the door and the group stepped out into the corner of a dimly lit pub. The ceilings had wooden beams running through them, making the already low ceilings, headbuttingly low in places. Beige brick lined the walls, and mismatched furniture held mismatched patrons in dark corners. None gave any mind to a strange group appearing from within a broom cupboard. The wooden floor boards creaked beneath Mal’s feet as he followed Walters toward the bar. Mal kept his eyes down, as to not draw any attention or ire. When they got to the bar Mal found the pub’s name upon a coaster: the Wrong Tree Tavern.

“I’m not here to bark,” Walters said to the bartender, a man who appeared to shower in dirt. “I just need to get through.”

The man said nothing; he simply nudged his head to indicate they could go through the doorway to his right. Which they then did. They found themselves in a cramped gray courtyard, not much bigger than the cupboard they had arrived in. They waited, and after a few seconds, the wall in front of them gave way. Twisting and moving, bricks shifted one after the other to reveal a long, bustling, cobbled high street.

The vaguely literary among you may be aware of a cultural touchstone containing magic that thus far has not been referenced. There is a wonderfully simple reason for this. Real wizards don’t like that franchise. Many witches and wizards feel it grossly misrepresents the real wizard community, and makes them out to be weirdos, with names like Shanko Cobblepatch, Forsouthly Ringlebort and Octavium Grabble. The real Octavium Grabble, from the long and honorable line of Grabbles, was most upset to be included in this list, and has personally sent me several letters of complaint (not by fucking owl). However, as is inevitable, there will be some similarities between that fictional world and this very real one. Unfortunately, this is one of those similarities: a hidden street, at the back of a pub, behind a brick wall. Unlike in that franchise, where the street was a magical wonderland for children to explore, this street is quite the opposite. It is known as an Understreet, for illegal markets and the like. If you do ever have the opportunity to go, please leave your children at home.

13The Understreet

Skelmir Alley.

Mal read the name off a brass plaque on the ground as he took his first steps out into the Understreet. A secret street, in a secret city. If iniquity had dens, then this was where you’d find them. It was cramped and narrow, and much busier than Mal had expected. Crooked buildings loomed over each side of the cobbled path, as if the buildings were trying to hide the street from the rest of the world. Between shop fronts and windows were dark crevices and side alleys with no signage. The sun was starting to set, but the street was still hot with city heat. No breeze could find its way here, just a blanket of warm fog that smothered your body. Mal caught the tail end of a lungful of smoke that added to the street’s off-putting bouquet: chemicals, sweat, sewage, urine, burnt rubber, BO, avarice, lust, and weed. The smells combined into a sludge that filled Mal’s nose and coated his tongue. The street was packed, from crowds cheering and chanting, bingeing on drink, to quiet, sleek individuals trying to go unnoticed. Mal was starting to get a headache from all the noise, but he was just happy it wasn’t his death sense’s doing. Was he really going to keep calling it that? It seemed to have stuck.

The real attraction, and the reason everyone was there, were the shops. Mal saw monks in beige hoods coming out of a brothel named the Idle Hands. Mal peeked in and saw things that would put the internet to shame. Every other shop seemed to be a pub or bar full to heaving, their inhabitants overflowing into the street. Between them were odd shops, with odder names, selling objects of obscure origin. A narrow shop, about the width of a door frame, named For Keeps Sake, boasted having the finest collection of magical knickknacks in the world. Wanders and Broom was a sophisticated shop, hosted by a very posh gentleman, that had wands, staffs, and broomsticks lining its wood-paneled walls. A transmutation service called Gold for Cash blared brightly at them with artificial lights; Mal thought the sign was the wrong way around until he saw a man leaving the place with a solid gold turd. Of Bugs, Bezoars, and Birds seemed pretty straightforward as shops went, but Mal didn’t recognize any of the ingredients or creatures within, and was worried that some fell under more than one category. Backchannels had a line of people out the door, all of them holding personal items. Its sign implied they could tell you secrets about an object’s owner; most of the patrons seemed to be holding something belonging to their partner. A shop with no signage except for a skull had a dog-headed man standing at the door. Walters assured him that if anything in there was legit, the Order would have already taken it. Mal looked through the window of a shop called Prolific Potions, hoping to see some interesting wares, but it was just another pub. Finder’s Fee, a shop for tracking down missing objects. Port’s Porters, a teleportation moving service. Devil’s Due, a cabaret club full of, you guessed it, horned dancers. On the street a rough-looking man attracted a small crowd with a stand. At first Mal thought he was selling toy cars, but as Mal got closer he saw their prices and realized it was a shrunken car auction. Walters told the man he had ten minutes to pack it up or he’d be back with uniforms. The man, and the crowd, quickly scarpered. Alchemical Revels sold potions, Enchantdress sold enchanted clothes, and Ogden’s Augments sold what Mal assumed was just magical steroids.

Mal had never seen anything like it. Every time he thought it couldn’t get any stranger, a new and weirder shop emerged around the corner. Knights Night took the biscuit: it had a wooden boxing ring at its center, and within it men and women would fight with swords and full suits of armor. Cheering and betting shook the place as the combatants went at each other. Mal watched as a man had his arm taken clean off, causing blood to spew out over the crowd. As soon as his arm hit the floor five or so medics jumped up, and stuck it back on; the once-armless man raised a drink with the unsevered limb, and the crowd roared.

Neon lights popped to life as they snaked farther down the street; the sun was setting. Mal couldn’t tell if the place was about to break into a riot, or if this was just business as usual. Des seemed extremely unimpressed by the whole show, but Hala and Yu were enjoying its spectacles as much as Mal was. It had taken them about twenty minutes to get past the hustle and bustle, and now they walked along the quieter end of Skelmir Alley. The path split, delving the lost into yet darker corners, but Walters knew the way. Now that the noise had softened, Mal had regained the ability to hear his own thoughts. He wondered where the hell Walters was taking them. As if reading his mind, at that moment Walters stopped them in front of a shop called Avec Le Bois. It appeared to be a music shop selling violins and woodwind instruments. Having taken GCSE French, Mal should have known what this meant—he didn’t. Walters went down a narrow passageway on its side and stopped in front of a sunken door.