part 5

Traffic is a bitch. I sling Jennifer’s duffel out of the car and head inside. She can have it back when she gets some fucking help. Ahead of me looms the grey cement of the precinct house. The newer ones are a lot nicer, but this serves its purpose well enough. Glass walls may look fancy, but they’re an unnecessary liability for a law enforcement building. I check in with my badge and nod my greetings to the SPD. A couple of people glance my way, but their eyes are narrow, assessing me. Word must have gotten around. Leo stands up abruptly as I pass his desk, grabs me aside.
“You doing okay, man?” He looks concerned.
“Yeah man, just doing my job. About fucking time, right?” Leo opens his mouth, then pauses, shrugs, considering me.
“I meant with Jenn. But yeah, that too, I guess. You’ve got all the fucking luck lately.” He scratches his thinning black hair, then claps me on the shoulder. The gesture is awkward. “Listen, you want to go out later? A bunch of us are hitting Norm’s later.” I smile, but I know the offer’s empty. At the best of times, I am an outsider at these gatherings. An incident like last night’s just reinforces the divide between what I do and what they do.
“Sounds good, but you know, with my recent track record I’m not sure it’d end well.” Leo laughs, pats my shoulder again. “Hey, do you know a good locksmith?” He eyes the duffel, eyebrows narrowing in.
“That bad? Shit. I know a guy, real discreet, but he’s out of town. Check Craigslist.” I wave him off, and he wanders towards the coffee machine.

I set off down the hall to my office. Cubicle, really, but I like to give myself airs. I shove Jennifer’s bag beneath the desk and boot up the ancient PC. There’s a massive pile of paperwork on my desk, and a violently pink post-it note attached to my monitor. I recognize Rachel’s cramped scrawl. Reading it is another matter, but I make out something about a meeting. At…about 30 minutes ago. Shit.

I sprint down the hallway to the conference room, tucking in my shirt before I open the door. Robert looks up at me, annoyed, gestures towards a chair. Volya glares as only a Russian can. I have clearly overestimated my leeway.
“...were able to trace the blood’s signature back to the scene. Inadmissable in court, but police were able to strip some DNA from the alley, they’ll handle that from here. So the issue for us right now is not finding the murderers, it’s finding whoever is fucking up the lines around Capitol Hill. As you can see from the chart, they should be passing from…”
I drag out a chair and sit down, glancing at the Powerpoint. Robert’s right, the way the lines lie, any free magic in that area of the city would be minimal. During a line surge you might get enough for some phenomena, brief visitations, stuff like that, but nothing corporeal. You’d have to be living a lot closer to a line for reanimations. And accidental resurrections, even with minimal brain function, that takes a shitload of ambient power. The kind that shouldn’t be running loose in West Seattle. The captain stands up, planting his massive hands on the desk. His jowls wobble as he coughs loudly.
“Thank you Robert. I’m sure we are all aware of the gravity of this situation. Robert will be out measuring the depth of ambient power in the area and checking for any traces of interferences. We do not yet have an exact estimate of the amount of line flow diverted, and we’ll need Mitchell’s statement to corroborate the witness testimony, but it appears that this was a partial resurrection. Minimal function, likely undirected, likely accidental. And you all fucking know what that means.” He pauses for breath, long enough to squint in my direction. He swears the Lasik worked, but his vision is the best argument for avoiding discount ophthalmologists that I’ve ever encountered. “I know you guys haven’t seen a lot of action lately, but that just means that the media will ream us harder if there are any screwups. Robert here saw what went down in DC, and I guarantee you we do not need any of that shit from the local anti-bureau loonies.” Robert’s smile strains as he stares at the Captain. He excuses himself and sits down as the Captain moves to the front. “We checked the registry. No one on the West end. Big fucking surprise. Now, the cops have been doing interviews in the building itself, about the murder, nothing else. We almost got the Times to hold it, but fucking KIRO showed up and then the papers got pissy and decided to run it after all. So whoever it is, they know the game is up. They’ll be hiding any trace of their activities, and playing it cool. We need some of our folks out in the field, checking with neighboring buildings, nothing blatant.”
I can see the clipboard already. Do the objects in your house seem to move when you’re not looking at them? Have you received any calls with cryptic, cut-off speech? Have any dead loved ones lately appeared in your dreams? Have you seen any animals with severe injuries, still moving around? Dogs, cats, pigeons? Unusual levels of plant growth? Messages in Ouija boards, fridge magnets, left on your notepads in strange handwriting? It’s a paranoid’s wet dream, when we come knocking. Half of them want to tell you about how their neighbor is a reptilian alien trying to steal their genitalia, the other half greet you at the door with a gun and call you a government-mandated murderer. Which I suppose in a way, I am.

“Frid, Green, you pull survey duty.” Volya frowns, and Lydia stifles a groan. “Wilson, you’ll be assisting Rob. Mitchell, I’m sorry, but we can’t have you involved in this. After last night, the media would eat us alive. Good work though. You’re on call for routine stuff. Check with me before you go out on anything.” He nods, and I sneak a glance towards the empty box of donuts. “Alright. Get out there. Mitch, do your fucking paperwork.”

Everybody stands to file out. Lydia arches her back with an audible crack. She smiles at me and flashes a thumbs up as she passes out of the room. I give one last mournful look at the empty pink box and follow her out.

part 4

It’s ten in the morning and Jennifer wants her gun back.
“…and my bullets, and my pills, and all of my knives. You fucking asshole, did you think I was going to slit my wrists with a cheese spreader?” In the background I can hear someone moving around her apartment. A voice, muffled. Male. I stare at the ceiling. “No, Richard, he’s a fucking asshole and this isn’t funny. God you’re such a dick sometimes. Stop fucking laughing!” A crash, silence. Her voice is soft now, quiet. “I mean it, Mitch. I know you were just trying to help, but, fuck. You knew I needed it all for. Shit. I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t deal with you. Just. I want it back, Mitchell, all of it.” Silence, then the machine cuts out with a beep. I turn onto my side, burying my face in the unwashed bed sheets. Downstairs the elderly couple is fighting again, and outside my window the street blares with morning traffic. For all last night’s rain, the sun streams down outside, and the air bakes with the last of the summer heat. I should have been at work hours ago. They’ll cut me some slack after last night, but any later and I’m pushing it. I pick at the nicotine patch on my arm. It’s not helping.

In the bathroom mirror I watch myself rip off the patch, drop it in the trash. There’s dry blood in my hair. I look like shit. My fingers press into my chest, probe its surface for sign of cracks. Nothing. I’m whole. Alive. It’s more than can be said for some. I turn the shower on, and I’m hit with a frigid sheet of water. I grit my teeth against the cold, sorting through the previous night’s events. I don’t kill people. Not often, anyway. And they’re usually a lot further gone than the guy last night. In my head, I know it was the right thing to do. He was dead already. Whatever, whoever he had been, all that was gone.

Something had to be left though. Enough to go looking for a drink. Enough to remember what he looked like, what he should have looked like.

The water is ice, but I make myself stay under the spray. It clears my head. I need to move Jennifer’s shit. I should get the locks changed too, or she’ll trash the place looking for it all. Leo will know someone, at the office. Shit. The office. I need to go in. Work to do. People to kill. Re-kill. Like it makes any fucking difference.

I dry myself off and consider the box of patches. What I need right now is something tangible. Something to chew on, to suck the smoke out of. I need a cigarette. I peel the backing off of a patch and slap it on my arm. You know what they say about old habits.

part 3

The van is old and ugly as sin but it drives, and it’s got the Bureau’s name on the side, so folks know it’s ours. John parks it along the curb and climbs out. He’s a wiry guy, tall, thin, excessively well groomed. Little round spectacles perch on the end of his scarred up nose, and his white plastic suit crinkles as he moves yanks open the doors on the back of the van. A couple more guys climb out, mops and industrial strength solvents in hand. John pulls out the bodybag and helps Robert down out of the van. Robert took a fall at SeaTac when he got here a couple weeks ago, on those metal salmon plates they put on the floor. Broke his ankle. He’s been gimping around in an ankle boot since he got here.
He smiles at John and thanks him, hobbling off towards the bar. He waves when he sees me and I return the gesture. Robert’s not a bad guy, for a yuppie necromancer spook. Used to be off with the feds in DC, but after the clusterfuck that went down this August it’s no wonder he transferred out. He won’t talk about it, but the word around the office is he was pretty close to the guy who did it. Anyway, we needed someone with some actual juice, and we got Robert.
“Hey Mitch.”
“Sorry to get you out of bed, Robert. He’s in the back.”
“Sure, sure, no worries. Better than a –“
He gets cut off as John sees me and charges towards us, bodybag swinging from his left hand, the vision of sleep-loving fury. He snarls.
“Where?” His face is livid. I point towards the back and he storms into the bar with long, crinkling strides. Robert grins sheepishly.
“Sorry, he’s my ride back later.” I wave him off and he limps after John. I should stick around to fill out the paperwork, but I’m exhausted, and it’s raining. I lean back against the wet building, letting myself get soaked. I need to sleep. John might give me a lift, but after the mess I made in there, it seems unlikely. I stand up, glancing around the street. The clean team has scattered most of the local color, but here and there a few people have come creeping out again. A couple of kids glare at me from the mouth of an alley, but I glare right back. The people in this neighborhood know me, and they know not to fuck with me. It’s a long walk, and the sky is just beginning to lighten as I scuff my way up the steps to my building. The rain is starting to lift, the fat drops trickling off into a light drizzle. Fucking Seattle. I go inside.

part 2

Afterwards I wash my hands in the gore-splattered sink. It doesn’t do much good.
This one was a mess, I didn’t do enough damage with the first shot, and he thrashed around a bit before whatever was keeping him moving gave up. Made a real fucking mess. As I step out of the washroom, the bartender already has the police on the line. I wave my badge at him and grab the phone from his hand.

“Jensen, King County Bureau of Resurrections. Can you get me cleanup on the line?” The guy swears, I don’t recognize his voice. Apparently he already sent out a car, but he promises to redirect them and he gets John on the phone for me. Seattle law enforcement are good guys, they generally work with us pretty well. We don’t have our own buildings out here, so we have to use bits and pieces of theirs. Federal doesn’t give us much because the way our lines are located, Canada and Oregon do most of the work. We’ve been having more trouble lately in the city, and we could really use a space of our own, but good luck getting any cash right now. Not with the budget the way it is. The hold music cuts out and John picks up. He sounds groggy, probably sleeping at his desk.
“Who the fuck is it?” I answer and he groans. “I’m on my way.”

I hang up, give the bartender back his phone. He’s new, some blonde kid, mid twenties. Grad student is my bet, with fat black earplugs and a truly lame cobra tattooed on his arm. I think about bitching to him about calling the police, but he’s just a kid, and he hasn’t asked me about the tab yet. So I perch on a battered stool, inspecting the damage to my coat. It’s just a shitty khaki trench I got at the Goodwill, but you get attached to things. It’s also the only trench I’ve found that doesn’t give me a fucking cape. No one makes clothes for short guys these days. Should have taken it off first. Brain is hard to get out of cotton. It’s another 25 minutes before John shows up with the van. I pass the time by watching the bar kid comfort Patty, who appears far more upset than is plausible. She sobs into his shoulder as he reassuringly feels up her back. I turn away and think about cigarettes until John gets there.

part 1

So a dead guy walks into a bar. He’s pretty fresh, and for a while it’s hard for me to tell. His baggy shirt is torn and stained dark with blood, and he’s pale as fuck, but this is Seattle. Pale people get in fights all the time and they usually need a drink after. I watch him out of the corner of my eye, size him up. He’s in his late twenties, a big guy, not fat but broad, and he’s got about six inches on me. I’m a little guy, so it doesn’t take much, but he’s still pretty damn tall. I give him one last once-over and go back to my drink. A man has a right to drink, and I have important work to do. After all, I’m still sober. I try to lose myself in thought again, but five minutes later he’s still there, standing in front of the counter, mouth hanging open. The bartender is a little bit wigged, but he figures the guy’s just dosed out, maybe suspects he’s trying to pull one over. I have my own suspicions.

The bartender scowls over as he pours tequila for the aging stripper at the other end of the bar. Patty. She’s a regular, and I nod at her. She raises her glass in salute and downs the shot. It’s still a few hours before closing, but it’s a Sunday night and only the losers like me are out. I glance back at the guy again. His chest doesn’t move, and his brown eyes are blank, unfocused. I hold up a finger, and the bartender grudgingly wanders over, filling a dirty glass with beer. I slide the glass over to the bloody guys. He doesn’t react until it scoots to a stop, just past him, sloshing most of its contents over onto the countertop. The man’s head twists sharply towards the glass, and he grabs it up greedily, shotgunning it down his throat. As he chugs, I watch the dark stains spread across his shirt, beer and blood leaking out of the holes in his chest. He doesn’t seem to notice, gripping the glass blankly, but the bartender does, recoiling as shock and realization spread across his face. I move to stand. I have work to do. I nod at the bartender and pull a crumpled twenty from my pocket. It’s not enough to cover my tab, but in about a minute he’s going to owe me. I put a hand on the dead man’s shoulder, feel him cold and clammy, and remind myself to wash my hands after I’m done with this.

“Hey, buddy, let’s get you cleaned up a bit, okay? Come on.” He turns slowly towards me, confused, searching for a sign of me in the vague instincts of his oxygen-starved brain. Finding nothing, he stumbles against me, and begins to shuffle towards the bathrooms. I follow, fingering the gun in my pocket. I would mean a lot of mess, and a lot of paperwork, using it here, but it would get the job done quick. A snapped neck might do the trick, but there would be no guarantee, and I would have trouble explaining it to any family that came knocking. I consider briefly, pausing as he bumps gently against the door. I could just call it in, but I’m not technically on duty, and the night shifters and I don’t really get along.

No, it’s going to have to be the gun. He hits the door again, heavier this time, perplexed as to why he can’t get through. I open the door and lead him in, kicking the stall doors to make sure no one’s passed out inside. All empty. Good. I grab his neck, searching for a pulse, just to make sure. You hear about that sometimes. It’s rare, usually someone on heavy shit, bad dose of PCP or something, gets hurt, starts causing trouble. The agent is young and he gets scared, and he does something stupid and his mind starts telling him it’s okay. The guy was dead already, he tells himself. The coroner says otherwise, later. I always check; anyone with half a brain does. This guy though, he’s done.

I close the door and lock it, considering the man. He is staring at the mirror, fumbling with stiff hands at his chest and at the glass, like he just can’t figure out how all those holes got in him. I pull out the gun, and I press it close against his head. I do my job.