Vessels

Vessels

By Andrew Day.

Copyright 2015 Andrew Day

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Notes on Cover Art:

Images utilised in this book’s cover art were used under the creative commons licence 2.5. For more information, please look here.

The cover art was made by adapting the following images:

Sunset. by Diego3336.

Rutilated quartz teardrop by Mauro Cateb.

Contents:

Chapter 1: Dead Men With Excellent Penmanship.

Chapter 2: The Right Tool For the Job.

Chapter 3: No, Really. Duck.

Chapter 4: Don’t Mention The Omen.

Chapter 5: You're Never Getting That Out The Carpet

Chapter 6: The Place You Want To Be.

Chapter 7: Must Own Shovel

Chapter 8: I Told You To Do More Cardio.

Epilogue

Author's Notes.

Bonus Short Story.

Other Books by the Author.

1. Dead Men With Excellent Penmanship.

Lil paused in her work and looked up. A strange scent had suddenly filled her office. She sniffed the air, and called to her partner across the room.

Mike?

Michael Tome, ex-warlock and natural scryer, looked up from where he was pretending to work. What? he asked irritably.

Can you smell that?

Tome sniffed the air, then himself. Not me.

I didn’t say it was.

I mean, I have bathed today, unlike some people.

What are you implying? Lil asked. I’ve been working all night, haven’t I? Besides, even on my worse day I can honestly say I’ve never smelt of... She sniffed the air again. Formaldehyde? I’m strictly a lavender girl.

Her intercom buzzed.

Lil, the tiny voice of their secretary Amy came through the speaker. Ders a guy here askin’ for you.

Lil stared at the speaker. Are you holding your nose?

I’m sending him in, den I’m getting some air, Amy replied with infinite patience. I think he’s a client. But I’m not sure.

Why don’t you ask him?

I tried dat already.

Oh, just send him in, Lil said finally. She rolled her eyes.

I told you we should have hired that imp, Tome told her. Amy’s good. But she lacks the sort of qualities one looks for in a minion. All you need a few strokes of a whip, and an imp is yours for life.

I thought you said they were impossible to house-train?

A few newspapers would sort that problem out. Bloody hell, what is that smell?

The door to their office opened, and their visitor entered carrying with him the mystery scent. The man was tall and incredibly gaunt. The angles of his skull were all too visible beneath his dour face. His skin was pale, but tinged with a slight green hue, and his white hair was receding back across a high forehead. His outfit struck Lil as the kind normally seen on a particularly manic depressive undertaker. Black suit and tie, and a white shirt. A bowler hat was held in his hands, and he twisted it nervously.

The smell was overwhelming now, and clearly coming from the man. He stared about the office with glassy grey eyes, and did not blink once. Then his gaze fell onto Lil, and she felt shivers run down her spine.

Can we help you? Lil asked, trying to breathe through her mouth while appearing not to.

The man nodded, then cleared his throat with a dry rattling sound that made her wince.

"Brains," he said.

Lil and Tome exchanged looks.

Come again?

Brains, the man said solemnly.

See, said Tome. That’s what I thought he said.

Brains, the man repeated, this time with a hint of impatience. He sighed, again with an unsettling dry rush of air through unused passages, and reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it across the desk to Lil.

Lil unfolded the paper warily, and read through it.

What’s he want? Tome asked.

It says his name is Zachariah Jones, Lil read. "Good afternoon. I’m sorry I cannot talk to you through normal methods, but my current state of undeath sadly prevents the use of speech in anything but a descriptive sense. My name is Zachariah Jones, and I wish to hire your services. I am a good friend of Mister Eldred Holden, for whom you have previously performed a service..."

Holden... Tome said thoughtfully. The guy that wanted to know if his wife was cheating on him with his evil double? Except, turned out he was the evil double, and his whole family was being replaced by evil doppelgangers.

Brains, Zombie Zach nodded.

That family had more duplicates than Paris Hilton’s porn movie.

But we got it in the end, Lil remembered. And all we needed was a permanent marker. Anyway. She turned back to the letter. "I was told you were very skilled investigators and a situation has turned up with which I require aid. I have heard that you specialise in cases that involve the supernatural, and as you can imagine from looking at me, my situation is quite, if you will excuse the expression, out there.

"Please allow me to explain further. I was murdered in 1932 over a gambling debt I had failed to pay. For reasons that I am unable to satisfactorily explain, I returned from the dead as a zombie. It is not a lifestyle as exciting as the movies make it out to be. I retain all of my senses and memories but now have a one word vocabulary which, you can imagine, makes conversations quite difficult. Especially around vegetarians. The only job that I could get was as a grave digger. I have since taken over as caretaker of the Verdant Hills Cemetery, where I try to ensure that the new inhabitants have no reason to come back as I did, and that those who are among the restless dead are allowed some measure of comfort and dignity, and behave themselves.

"I do not ask to employ you for myself, for I have long since come to terms with my lack of life lifestyle. There is a matter of greater importance that I need your help with. A few days ago, my great-grand daughter went missing. She was always a troubled young girl, but I fear the worse, especially as her disappearance may be my fault.

"I have recently attempted to reconcile with my long estranged family. My granddaughter June was somewhat reluctant, while her husband Rick has been openly hostile. Sarah, June’s daughter, and my great-granddaughter, was a bit more understanding, and seemed to make more of an effort. We got along quite well despite, or perhaps in order to spite, her father’s feelings. A week or so ago I gave her a present that I thought she would appreciate. It was a small silver pendant with a red stone in its centre. Very goth. Sarah did not say anything, but I could tell she liked it. However, not long afterwards, she became quite sullen and introverted. At least, more so. Her mother told me that she was acting quite strange, even for a teenager. She would stay out later than she was allowed. And I am told she redecorated her room in a manner her mother tells me is quite frightening. Then she disappeared, and the police have no clues as to where she may be. They assume that she is just another teenage runaway getting back at her parents. But I know something evil has befallen her. And I just know it has something to do with that pendant.

"Sarah’s father was against my involvement, and they do not know that I am attempting to hire a private detective. But I feel so guilty, and I am afraid I may have caused my family to suffer greatly.

"I have little funds, but I am prepared to pay whatever is necessary if you help me find Sarah."

Lil looked up from the note to the zombie.

I’m very sorry for your loss,’ she said gently. ‘But I should tell you, we don’t really specialise in missing persons.

If she were a terrier, Tome added, we’d be all over it.

Is there any reason why you think Sarah’s disappearance is in any way, um... unnatural? Lil asked.

Zach nodded. Brains, he said with feeling.

The pendant you gave her?

Brains.

What was so special about this pendant?

Zach reached into his pocket and pulled out another sheet of paper which he again handed to Lil. As she unfolded it, Tome came over and looked over her shoulder.

On the paper was a detailed drawing of the pendant, surrounded by notes made in Zach's’ neat script. The pendant was apparently a circle of silver. Engraved on the front was a strange hexagonal shape made up of six lines of neat, linked writing of some unknown language. On the back was a series of curved lines running up and down its surface. Placed in the centre of the pendant was a small, tear drop shaped stone, blood red in colour. All this Lil discerned from Zach's careful notes. He was apparently quite meticulous.

What do you think? she asked Tome.

Looks nothing special, Tome said. But there is something vaguely familiar about it...

You didn’t sell it to him did you? Lil asked suspiciously. Tome had a habit of selling dodgy witch charms when she wasn’t looking.

Tome sighed over-dramatically. You have no faith in me whatsoever, do you? My days of underhanded malfeasance are well and truly behind me.

Since when?

Since Amos Zane discovered the Anasasi Witch charms I sold him weren’t made using the traditional components.

And what were they made of? Lil couldn’t help but ask. History had taught her to assume the worst when it came to Tome.

Afghan, Tome replied.

Rug, or hound?

Hound. I mean who would have thought the evil git knew so much about Native American enchantments. Or breeds of idiotic dogs. To be fair, where was I suppose to get locks of hair from a virgin, cut off under a full moon?

Lil shook her head. So, I guess you aren’t the only miscreant selling bogus magical charms in this city. Who’d have thought it, someone else with as little morals as you.

And muscling in on my territory, Tome said with annoyance. He turned to Zach. I don’t suppose you remember who sold you this thing?

Brains, Zach said, and nodded at the sheet on Lil’s desk. In the corner was written: Honest Hjel the Jeweller, along with an address.

Tome frowned. I’ve heard of the place, but I could have sworn it was downtown.

Brains? Zach asked expectantly.

Lil took this to mean: Will you take the job?

What do you think, Mike? she asked her partner.

Tome shrugged. I’ve got bugger all else to do today.

Lil gave Zach her most reassuring smile. Don’t worry, Mister Jones. I can’t offer any guarantees, but I can promise you that if your granddaughter is still in the city, we’ll find her.

What shape she would be in however, Lil thought, was out of their hands.

Okay, Lil, Tome said enthusiastically. Let’s go kick some evil arse. And if there’s time, some good arse as well. No sense in leaving them out. What’s first?

Well... The easiest thing to do would be to let you scry for her. But first, we need to clear up a few things...

The 84th precinct house of the Chapter City Police Department had recently had a makeover. Its glass front was now shiny and clean, as if to reflect the law enforcers within: Transparent, modern and streamlined.

And most likely on the take, if the rumours were true. The 84th wasn’t exactly on the front line of the war against crime. Most of the crimes reported were against bankers, stockbrokers, and other sorts who could afford a new BMW every year. Most of the crimes committed by them tended to disappear in the time it took to transfer a few funds.

Lil pushed through the glass revolving doors and found herself in a foyer that belonged more in some swanky new corporate building than in a police station. There was no graffiti, no mysterious stains of long lost vomit or blood, no message board with wanted signs pinned up. There weren’t even any suspicious looking perps in handcuffs lurking about. Lil was disappointed. It was like she was let down by every cop show she’d ever seen.

She caught the elevator up to the Robbery/Homicide Division. The room was filled with empty desks, all of them arranged in inhumanly neat rows, and so clean one could actually consider doing work on one. All of the desks, that is, except one hidden conveniently at the back.

Lil made her way over to where Detectives Louis Franco and Maria Richards worked. Louis was a big man who always seemed to have a stain of some description down his front. He was so slovenly that Lil, a woman whose idea of cleaning was if you can’t see the stains it was clean, considered herself a neat freak by comparison. His desk was carefully stationed so that visiting officials who looked in from the outside couldn’t see the piles of unfinished paperwork, the take-out food wrappers and the pair of old sneakers that had sat on his desk for as long as Lil had known him, and whose presence could never be satisfactorily explained. It wasn’t like Louis ever ran, he’d probably keel over and just die at the thought of chasing down a suspect. But there were the sneakers, awaiting the day that hell finally froze over and Louis got up and exercised his fat butt.

Maria Richards was the complete opposite of her partner, neat and methodical. Her desk always adhered to regulation cleanliness. On the surface, she was a pretty brunette who looked younger than the thirty four years her file listed as her age. But as Lil knew well, squeaky clean Maria had her secrets.

Hey, Lil, Louis greeted her. What new exciting case is Chapter City’s greatest private dick working on today?

Your murder if you ever call me a private dick again, Lil replied. Have you ever considered renting your desk out? You could make millions if you let other cities dump their garbage there as well.

Don’t give him ideas like that, Lil, Maria chided. You know what it’s like working downwind from him as it is?

What you talking about? Louis said with a hurt tone. I happen to have a natural, masculine scent.

A grown man should not smell of McDonald’s. Do you sweat secret sauce or something?

Hey, the ladies like my scent just fine.

Oh, yeah, Lil put in. Right now, it’s taking all of my self control not to throw myself on you. Self control and... is that a pickle on your tie?

Hey, I wondered where that went, Louis said in surprise and peeled the former contents of his lunch off his clothes. Then ate it.

Maria made a face. See what I have to put up with?

You think you’ve got it bad? You have met my partner Mike Tome, right?

Maria opened her mouth to reply, but instead looked at her partner eating a pickle that had most likely been stuck to his tie for several hours, then thought about what she knew of Tome.

Okay, you win, she admitted to Lil. So why are you here?

Can we talk in private?

Maria nodded towards the observation room.

What, I’m not good enough to talk to any more? complained Louis.

I just don’t want to be distracted by your musk of two all-beef-patties is all, Lil replied.

Breaking my heart, babe.

Maria led her into the dimly lit room overlooking the interview rooms. She closed the door firmly behind her.

So, how’re things? Lil asked.

Oh, can’t complain. I get plenty of exercise and lot’s of perps to eat, Maria replied.

Yeah, the change in scenery suits you.

I know. A diet solely of crack addicts is murder on the hips. So did you come for small talk, or do you want me to disembowel someone for you?

She smiled playfully as she said this, but Lil had no doubt she meant every word. She and Tome had known Maria was a demoness for years. It helped to have someone in the police force that they could easily blackmail. Not that Maria was never anything but useful.

Maria Richards was actually Maira Riktor, a descendant of a warrior demon clan that had been exiled from the Lower Realms after the rebellion of Lucifer Morningstar in Heaven and his subsequent fall. According to Tome, her clan had fought the fallen angel and his minions to the death, and with the fall of the original demon lords and the rise of the Devil as ruler of Hell, had been forced from their home rather than submit to his will.

The arrival of demons on earth resulted in what Tome liked to call, Happy Hour. Chaos, destruction, murder, only now there were demons present as well. Not that anyone noticed. Big scary men who killed and pillaged without provocation weren’t just welcomed in some parts of the world, they were made kings. Why anyone would think Vlad the Impaler was human was anyone’s guess.

Many years of interbreeding with humans left the few remaining members of the clan such as Maira Riktor looking almost normal. The demon side only came out on rare occasions. Usually heralded by the hunting, killing and eating of flesh of some poor bastard.

Maria tried to overcome her demonic heritage by only killing criminals. And in a place like Chapter city, there were plenty. Working in the 84th gave her access to a better class of criminal, usually someone actually worth killing and eating.

Lil always tried to overlook this side of her. She’d seen the demonic half in all its horrible glory, but tried to focus on the human side. Maria Richards was a kind, caring woman, and a good cop when she wasn’t dining on her suspects.

Besides, Lil liked the idea of a half demon and a half angel being friends. Opposite sides coming together in harmony for the common cause of making fun of Michael Tome.

I don’t suppose you know of a missing persons case that came in a couple days ago? Lil asked. Sixteen year old girl, thought to have run away from home.

I seem to recall hearing something like that, Maria said. Considering how fast a missing persons case can become a homicide, I try to keep in touch.

The girl’s great-grandfather’s dead.

So are most peoples.

This one is still walking around.

Maria nodded in understanding. Now I remember. The guys in Missing Persons were drawing straws to see who had to interview him. Zombies aren’t bad, provided you stay up wind.

Zombie Grandfather just hired me to help track her down, Lil explained. I was hoping I could get a look at the file.

You’re kidding right? Maria asked. You want me to sneak you a copy of a police file?

It would save me a lot of time. Besides, the police aren’t exactly going to look hard into this. They think the girl’s a runaway.

And you don’t?

Call it a hunch. I’m like a magnet for weird, why would this come to me if it wasn’t funky?

I suppose, Maria conceded. And you’re wrong, actually. As of this morning, Missing Persons are giving the case their full attention.

Why the change? Lil asked.

A couple of FBI agents from Sub-Human Control were asking about it. You know that guy Ryan? The one who hates you? He and that woman Santiago seemed to think there was something not quite right about the runaway theory.

Like what?

Maria shrugged. Not my department. Hey, is Santiago the one who has a thing for Mike?

Yep. You wouldn’t think it would you?

No, she looks so normal. Anyway, because the FBI are interested, the police are damn sure not going to let a couple of Feds take over the case. If it turns out something bad has happened to the girl, better if it looks like someone at least tried to find her than just pawning it off on the FBI.

Wow, I never knew inter-agency politics was so interesting.

It’s like a daytime soap, only more bitchy.

But seriously, what would make Hugh Ryan take an interest? I mean, the guy isn’t exactly with an excess of imagination.

Maria shrugged again. Who knows? Like you said, weird gravitates towards you.

Look, Maria, Lil said. I know this is asking a lot...

But you want me to spy on Missing Persons and keep you up to speed.

More or less.

Fine, Maria sighed. Because I like you. And you were considerate enough not to bring Mike along.

He doesn’t like going into places where everyone has a gun and hates him.

Which brings up another question. Have you spoken to the family yet?

Lil shook her head. That was my next stop.

Don’t bring Mike there either. Situations like this need someone with tact.

Don’t worry, Lil told her. I gave him the perfect job.

She could have at least lent us the car, Tome complained. It’s not like the police station was that far. Only a few miles...

Brains, agreed Zombie Zach.

On the plus side, Tome reflected, travelling on the bus with a rather ripe smelling zombie at least guaranteed you some space. The other passengers had all eventually drifted to the back, and sat with their faces