Necessary Evil Page 2

  I was looking at my own reanimated corpse.

  Now, that’s definitely not the way a detective story is meant to start.

  Chapter Two: The Two Jakes

  Did I mention that I was a ghost? A phantom spirit, marooned on the physical plane. I didn’t? What am I like, eh? I tell you what I look like, describe the clobber I’m wearing, but forget to declare that I’ve been six feet deep since the noughties.

  At least I thought so. Apparently, my old body had gone walkabout and decided to pay what was left of me a visit. And from the way it was moving, it didn’t look like it was bringing me in for a hug.

  I stared back in horror at my evil twin, its face sallow, cheeks sunken, jaw snapping at me hungrily. Instinctively, my legs took over, transporting me at speed from the approaching menace. The zombie wasn’t to be deterred, though, and pursued me around the office, hot on my heels. I dodged to the other side of my desk, putting the hunk of wood between me and my attacker, but the zombie turned it over like it was flipping a pancake.

  Just what in the name of sweet Bruce Dickinson was going on here? My body was long gone, delivered through the black, spiked gates of Camden Cemetery and patted down with a shovel. I should know, I saw it happen when I attended the funeral. So you can imagine how surprised I was to see my animated carcass in the (rotting) flesh.

  ‘Calm down,’ I said, palms out, desperately trying to deescalate the ridiculous situation I found myself in. ‘Let’s talk about this.’

  At this point, you might be asking yourself what exactly I was so scared of.

  You’re a ghost, Jake; an immaterial apparition. What are you doing worrying about some vengeful sack of blood and bones? What good is a physical being against a disembodied spirit?

  Well, here it is. See, despite being incorporeal, certain things can still affect ghosts. Two such things are magic and certain creatures possessed of or powered by, magic. A zombie would be a prime example of the latter. Yup. There are things out there that can even kill the dead. Who knew? Certainly not you, but that’s okay, you’re new to this. Don’t beat yourself up about it.

  Speaking of beating yourself up...

  My reanimated corpse made a lunge for me, snatching up a fistful of lapel and lunching on my collar. I lashed out defensively, getting a couple of sloppy punches in, but nothing that made a dent. By way of a thank you, the zombie balled up a fist, cocked its arm, and delivered a brick to my face that sent me reeling.

  How was this happening? Who’d raised my body from the ground and pitted it against me? What sick fuck does a thing like that? I racked my fevered brain, but I had no idea who’d be capable of that kind of voodoo. Here’s what I did know: I wasn’t going to beat the zombie in a brawl. Best I could do was put as much distance between me and it as possible.

  Thankfully, getting gone fast was very much a specialty of mine. As well as possessing the usual suite of ghost powers—invisibility to the living, being able to pass through solid objects, the ability to totally freak out Scooby-Doo—I had a couple of powers that not many phantoms did. One that got a regular airing, and proved invaluable in the event of an unwinnable fight, was translocation, otherwise known as the “Brave Sir Robin” manoeuvre. Translocation allows me to instantly vanish from my one position and reappear at any point I’m familiar with. In other words, goodbye Walking Dead reject, hello escape hatch to anywhere else.

  Up, up and away...

  I went to warp out of there, but when I tried to translocate, nothing happened. I looked down at my hands and tried again, but instead of vanishing, I saw my mitts come apart like a couple of misaligned transparencies before snapping back together again. Not good. Not good at all.

  As my flesh and blood doppelganger came lumbering at me again, I decided to give it the slip a different way. Like I said before, the zombie was perfectly capable of doing ghosts harm, but that didn’t mean it could do the things I could, for example, walking through walls. Just because something was stopping me from translocating, didn’t mean I couldn’t rely on the classics.

  ‘Not today, silly bollocks.’

  I offered my shambling likeness the middle finger, then dashed to the other side of the office and whistled through the wall like wind through a keyhole. I arrived in the adjoining room, the empty kitchen space of an unfinished apartment, bare but for some half-assembled units, a workbench, and a few discarded tools. Safe at last. Or so I thought.

  Over my shoulder I heard an almighty crash as the zombie came ambling through the wall and appeared in the apartment wearing a coating of brick dust.

  ‘Shit. I guess you can walk through walls after all.’

  It was just then that I noticed a broken copper pipe sticking out from the demolished wall and heard a suspect hissing sound. Apparently, gas was the one utility in the building that had yet to be cut off. Great. Now the block was being flooded by highly combustible fumes. This was turning out to be a real gold star day.

  Of course, there’s always room for things to get worse when you’re being pursued by a zombie, so it came as no surprise when my decomposing assailant accidentally knocked a chisel off a workbench that sparked on the concrete floor and lit the gas pumping into the room. I’m guessing, ordinarily, that it would take a while for a gas leak to reach sufficient density that it caused an explosion. For it to occur this quickly would take a very special set of circumstances, say a main gas pipe being torn in half and venting like mad into a pokey London-sized kitchen with its door closed, which—whoops—is exactly what happened.

  ‘Balls,’ I managed to say, right before a fireball tore through the room, setting alight a pile of Linseed oil-soaked rags that had been used to varnish the kitchen counter.

  The next thing I knew, the place was blazing, flames licking up the walls, all the way to the exposed wooden rafters. The whole building was about to get incinerated, my office included, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had no way of putting out a fire. What was I going to do, blow on it? I’m a ghost, I couldn’t put out a birthday candle.

  Then again, being a ghost meant I couldn’t be burned alive, either, which was proving to be quite advantageous given the severity of the situation. Or at least it would have been, if fire was the only threat I was facing. As if to balance out that point in my favour, I felt a sudden vice-like grip as the zombie closed its cold, dead fingers around my throat. My feet departed from the ground, tracing tiny circles above the floor as I dangled in the monster’s clutches.

  ‘Get off me!’

  I firmed up my fists and threw a couple of swings at the bastard, but I might as well have tried punching my way through the hull of a battleship. I was done for. Finito.

  It’s funny, really. I always suspected I’d be the death of me, but not like this. My money was on a fondness for cigarettes and booze being the culprit, not the cold, dead claws of my reanimated corpse. There you go, though. It’s a funny old world.

  I saw my zombified body unhinge its jaw, ready to nosh on my neck, and felt my eyes roll back in my skull. Time to die. Again. Shame, really. I was just starting to enjoy being semi-alive.

  Chapter Three: Phantom Pains

  Much to my surprise, my throat remained noticeably intact. I peeled open my eyes to find out what the hold-up was and saw a new visitor had arrived on the scene. The figure entered the room through the hole in the apartment wall, framed by a wreath of fire and looking like the Devil himself.

  Vic Lords.

  Unaffected by the flames, and wearing a smile of shark-like proportions.

  How to describe Vic to the uninitiated? Let’s try this… If Doctor Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human malevolence, Vic Lords would be the end result. Need more? Okay. If a kid saw Vic on the street he'd say, “What's wrong with that man’s face?” then he’d curl up and die. Vic Lords was a monstrosity. A creature grown somewhere dank and moist. A bloated dwarf with blue cheese skin and a rug of Brylcreemed hair that sat on his head like a stubborn oil slick.

  Ordinarily, Vic wore a cheap, ill-fitting suit devoid of any unnecessary decoration. This evening he’d elected to dress somewhat differently: clothed in a floor-length red velvet robe. The bloke was really giving it the big ‘un. I expect the duds were meant to impress me, but honestly, they only made him look like a low-rent Hugh Hefner.

  ‘Nice dressing gown,’ I managed to squeak through the zombie’s steely grip; the zombie that was obviously under Vic’s control. ‘You come straight from the shower?’

  Vic made slits of his eyes. ‘I reckon you know this is a wizard’s robe, Fletcher.’

  I did. Vic dabbling in the occult was no secret to me, but this was the first time I’d seen him really walk the walk. Not only had Vic managed to stroll into a burning building unscathed—which suggested the use of some decent protection magic—he’d also succeeded in getting my carcass up on its feet, which meant he could add necromancy to his CV, too. That all added up to some pretty serious voodoo. No wonder I couldn’t translocate; the near presence of another source of magic, if strong enough, had a habit of nullifying that power completely.

  ‘Nice party trick,’ I croaked. ‘So what now? Are you just going to stand there waggling your pentacles at me?’

  Vic nodded to the zombie, which closed its grip on my neck, digging its fingers into my throat and bringing my windpipe dangerously close to collapse.

  Now, if I can just stick a pin in the narrative here for a moment…

  You’re probably wondering how me and Vic Lords came to be acquainted in the first place, right? I did say up top that the two of us did some business together once, but I was being a bit coy there. Fact is, I worked for the feller for years, back before I became a detective. Back when I was alive.

  In those early days, when I was still pulling air, I used to ply my trade as an exorcist. Yeah, an exorcist turned ghost – don’t worry, the irony isn’t lost on me. A man who used to evict spirits for a living, cursed to remain on Earth as the very thing he used to eradicate. You couldn’t make it up.

  Back then, if I saw the likes of me loitering somewhere they weren’t wanted—a detached soul scaring away potential renters—I’d have sent me packing in no time. No notice given, no second chances, take your marching orders and sling your hook. I didn’t mess around in those days, I was good at my job. Give me a haunted house and a couple of sprigs of burning sage and I’d have that place looking clean as a whistle.

  Considering how good I was at being an exorcist, and how few other people could do that kind of work, you’d think I’d have made more money at it. And I might have if I wasn’t working for Vic Lords. Vic’s finder’s fee for pointing me in the direction of a haunted property ran to 70%, which meant a big wet bite out of my profits. No wonder I wasn’t living the high life. Still, Vic’s was the only game in town. It was work for him or join the bread line.

  Back then I didn’t know Vic Lords was going to become the man he did. He had his pudgy fingers in a few shady enterprises, I suspected that much, but he paid on time and he always had repeat work. I don’t know, maybe if I hadn’t turned a blind eye to Vic’s dodginess, I wouldn’t have wound up in the mess. Maybe I’d still be alive. Maybe I wouldn’t be stuck walking the Earth as a ghost. All I know for sure is, Vic’s shadow has loomed over me for a long time. My life on both sides of the grey veil is braided with Vic Lords.

  But let’s get back to the exorcist thing. How exactly does a working-class tyke from the East End of London wind up banishing apparitions for a living? Well, I was kind of born to it. As a kid, I realised I had a preternatural insight that I later learned was called The Sight. It gave me the ability to hone in on a frequency that very few could detect. To see the world beneath your world; the world that you tune out. Oh, you might think you’re hip, you might think you’re woke, but in reality… well, reality is exactly where you’re stuck. Don’t feel bad about it. Reality—what we call the waking world—is a fine place to be. In reality, you don’t wind up being strangled by your own rejuvenated corpse. Which reminds me…

  The zombie squeezed my neck so hard I thought it was going to turn into butter.

  Vic grinned. ‘Didn’t I say you were your own worst enemy, Fletcher?’

  He nodded to my rotten doppelganger, which released its grip and left me on the bones of my arse. I sat there, watching the flames close in around us, listening to the crackle of burning wood as the fire ate up the building from the inside out.

  ‘What do you want?’ I wheezed, rubbing my neck.

  Vic leaned over to look at me, head tipped to one side like a painter admiring his handiwork. ‘Like I said on the blower the other day, I need a favour, and you’re the man for the job. You might be done with the past, Fletcher, but the past ain’t done with you.’

  I sighed. ‘It’s possible there are more polite ways of asking for help than digging up a man’s carcass and giving it the old abra-cadaver.’

  ‘Could be, but since you mugged me off on the phone, I reckoned this would be a good way to get your attention.’

  He certainly had it. Burning down my office, raising the dead, strolling into my life dressed like a mad cultist on a Satanic Hootenanny... the man was centre stage for sure.

  ‘What’s the job?’ I asked, not because I planned on doing it, just because I was curious, and asking bought me some time.

  Vic motioned to the zombie, which produced a cigar from its pocket and handed the thing to its master. Vic lit the business end of the stogie on the encroaching flames, took a long, deep drag, and exhaled a thick lance of smoke. ‘I need your knack of getting into places you’re not supposed to be.’

  ‘You want me to steal something for you?’

  ‘In so many words, yes.’

  I folded my arms. ‘Forget it. Get your goon here to kick the door down. I’m not getting you shit.’

  He laughed. ‘You really are the most stubborn bastard I’ve ever met, Fletcher.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  Vic wasn’t getting his way. He could torch my office, he could have his meat puppet throttle me, but I wasn’t climbing back into bed with him. Our alliance was over, and it was never getting rekindled.

  Vic straightened the hem of his robe and offered an unknowable smile. ‘I’ll be back in touch when you’re in a better mood. One way or another, you’re going to take that job, son.’ He wheeled about and headed for the hole in the wall, back the way he came.

  ‘Leaving so soon, Vic? I was just about to put a brew on.’

  ‘Another time. I’ve got business to attend to.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I said, scrambling to my feet. ‘I hope you’re not leaving because your piss-weak protection spell is about to give out and leave you at the mercy of this bloody great fire you started. Because that would be awful.’

  As a ghost, the flames would have no effect on me, but protection magic—the kind humans were capable of, anyway—came with a time limit. The best conservation spell known to man had the shelf-life of a peeled banana.

  Vic spun on his heel, setting his robe swinging; a robe that was beginning to show the first signs of charring. This time he wore a face that was very much knowable. The face of a man who’s number had been well and truly got.

  ‘I’ll leave you to your ashes, Jakey boy. Don’t worry, we’ll talk again soon.’

  And off he went.

  I turned to my reanimated cadaver, which stayed rooted to the spot, abandoned.

  ‘Oi! What about the Living Dead over here?’

  ‘What about it?’ Vic asked over his shoulder.

  ‘You’re just going to leave your zombie behind?’

  Vic shrugged. ‘How is it the Yanks put it? "That sounds like a you problem”.’

  And off he toddled into the burning hole, vanishing through a sheet of flames.

  Chapter Four: Dearly Departed

  Vic Lords clearly meant business, but I wasn’t about to do his dirty work just because that boiling cauldron of arseholes told me to. Not that Vic was my biggest concern in that moment. Priority number one was figuring out what to do about the fact that my office was burning down around my ears.

  I surveyed the carnage. The fire was well beyond the point of being extinguished, that was for sure. Matter of fact, it looked as if the entire block was about to start coming down on my head. Not that a collapsing building presented any danger to a ghost, but still, it was probably time to make a move. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: there are always better places to be than the inside of a fire.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ I shouted at the zombie. ‘Are you just going to stand there like a lemon?’

  It did exactly that, remaining perfectly motionless as the flames edged ever closer.

  I found myself wanting to help the poor sod. I mean, it was my body, even if it was little more than Vic’s automaton now.

  ‘Come on, leg it, you handsome tit.’

  My corpse just stared at me. I knew I should have been cremated. Hey, it looked like I was going to get my wish after all.

  ‘Fine then, have it your way.’ I wavered for a second as I drifted back to my old body, but what exactly could I do? Damn Vic Lords for abusing my body in this way. For turning my remains into this ghoulish marionette.

  I closed my eyes, concentrated on an arrival point, and translocated outside, appearing on the pavement just out front of the building. I stayed there for a while, painted by the fire’s golden glow, standing by helplessly as my office burned to the ground.

  ‘There goes the resale value on that place,’ I said to no one in particular.

  I wondered what would be left of the old, physical me. Would any part of my body be found after the fire was put out? And if it was, would forensics be able to piece enough of it together to figure out who it belonged to? Because if they were able to get their hands on my DNA they were going to have some serious questions, starting with, I would imagine, “Why is this the second time this corpse has wound up on our slab?”