Page 68 of Dropping Like Flies

“I’m sure.” No crack in his voice this time, just a quiet confidence that reassured me he was set on this. I pressed down, digging the scissors into my palm for the second time that night. There were a lot of people who’d have something to say about what we were about to do. Baros. Cade. The necromancy council. Dougie’s mother. I just hoped the end would justify the means.

“Keep your fingers crossed it’ll work,” I said as I unbuttoned Dougie’s shirt and drew the sigil on his chest. I’d never brought two corpses back in a single night, and I could already feel the toll that raising one without taking energy from the ley lines had wrought. Two would leave me struggling.

I gave consideration to calling someone instead. Who, though? Calisto? There was no way the young necromancer would be up for breaking any rules, no matter how polite and amenable he might be. John? Yeah, right? Like he’d ever do me a favor. He’d probably tell me where I could stick that idea, and he’d be right to when I’d never given him the time of day. Besides, the council really would take his license away if he got caught in an unsanctioned act of necromancy for the second time in a matter of months. My replacement at the PPB? I didn’t even know his name, never mind have his number.

“Griff?” There was a note of urgency in Ben’s voice, a reminder that if we were doing this, we needed to be quick. At least my subject having all his fingers and being dressed made for a refreshing change. I had a feeling that if and when I did finally make it back to my day job, that I’d be counting my blessings far more than I ever had before.

My part done, I slumped against the wall while Ben confronted Dougie. The young man was still on the bed, but had pulled himself up to sitting. Ben pulled no punches, his eyes full of a fury the likes of which I’d never seen from him before.

“We know you weren’t in this alone, that either you gave a false confession or you have an accomplice. Which is it? And don’t even think about feeding me any bullshit.”

Dougie blinked. His gaze found me, but I had nothing to offer in terms of reassurance. Nothing to offer in terms of anything. I felt like a wrung out dishcloth, the energy I’d expended in bringing back two corpses in quick succession, leaving me wanting to do nothing but go home and sleep.

Dougie shook his head. “I don’t know… I’m confused.” He moistened his lips, looking around the room as if searching for help from an unexpected source.

Ben tried another tack. “That night at Eclipse… When you entered the club, you didn’t have a knife. We know you didn’t because the CCTV shows there’s nowhere you could have hidden it. Where did it come from?”

I slid down the wall until my arse met the floor, relief flooding through me at no longer having to support my own body weight. “Just tell him what he needs to know, Dougie. We’ve gone way past you lying or covering for anyone.” That was an understatement, but we had to operate under the assumption that Dougie didn’t know he’d killed himself. Would Ben tell him? Possibly. But only as a last resort. Ben had just as many flaws as the next man, but being deliberately cruel wasn’t one of them.

“I got the knife from a guy at the club,” Dougie said, his voice carrying a distinct tremor. “He told me what he wanted me to do.”

The weariness lifted from Ben’s shoulders at the nugget of truth from Dougie’s lips, his back straightening. “What guy? What was his name? Had you met him before? What did he look like?”

Dougie shook his head. “I’d seen him in there before, but he was never interested in me. Not until that night, anyway. He cornered me in the toilet and told me it was time to make people sit up and take notice of me. I asked him how and he gave me the knife.” He shook his head, his expression bemused. “He told me he knew who I was and what I’d done, that it was time to give myself up. He said I was a sick bastard, that I must be to remove their fingers and to use their blood to draw the symbols on the wall.” His head dropped forward, his hair falling over his brow. “I told him I couldn’t have done it, that I’d loved Rupert even after he wanted nothing to do with me, but he insisted it was me.”

“And you believed him?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know.” Dougie’s expression was pained. “I don’t know anything anymore. I just want it all to go away. I don’t want my mum to have to deal with this. She deserves better.”

Hence him taking such drastic action. He’d obviously decided the only way to spare her was to take himself out of the equation. If only he’d told the truth earlier. Hard to do, though, when you struggled to grasp what was real and what wasn’t.

He’d been the perfect fall guy for Satanic Romeo, the murderer obviously taking one look at him and knowing that Dougie would do whatever he’d asked. Had he still been in the club, laughing, when it had all kicked off? Ben and I could have walked straight past him and never known it.

A shadow in the corridor made me jerk my gaze to the window in time to see a uniformed officer peer through it, his hands cupped around his face to cut out the extraneous light. “Ben!” I warned.

He turned his head as the man tried the door, the man’s lips moving, but the glass in the windows too thick for him to make himself heard. He gestured for Ben to open the door, but Ben shook his head, turning his attention back to Dougie and speaking faster. “What did he look like?”

It was the same question Ben kept asking that we never got a satisfactory answer to. Most of the victims had met him far too close to their death to remember. Rupert’s memories had been hazy and at that point, we hadn’t even been sure the guy he’d met in the club had been the same one he’d brought home. The two could have been unrelated. Aaron, though, had been the outlier, able to recall things far more clearly. But we’d still got nothing more than someone generically good looking, a description that could have fit at least half the men in Eclipse.

“Great smile,” Dougie said, something about his answer seeming to amuse him before he straightened his expression. “And he had a tattoo here.” He slid his hand to his chest and tapped just below his collarbone on the left-hand side.

Footsteps sounded outside in the corridor, one officer having turned to four. Despite feeling faint, I levered myself to my feet. If I was about to be arrested, it seemed prudent to at least be on my feet for it.

“What was the tattoo of?” Ben asked as a key was fitted into the door. “Quickly.”

Dougie’s brow furrowed. “A… humming bird. Just black ink. No color. I don’t think I was supposed to see it, but his shirt was hanging open.”

The door opened, uniformed officers erupting into the room like a plague of locusts. And in their wake was Baros, the DCS’s expression one of thunder. “What in the name of all that’s holy do you think you’re doing?”

Ben stood tall, refusing to be cowed by Baros’ fury. “What am I doing? Finding out the truth, that’s what. I’m trying to stop the murders before anyone else gets slaughtered and we have a large, horned problem on our hands.”

“There are rules,” Baros squeezed out between gritted teeth, “as you very well know.” He waved a hand in Dougie’s direction, his gaze not lifting any higher than Dougie’s chest, eye contact apparently too difficult for him. “And this. This isn’t playing by the rules. It’s not even close.”

Fury glittered in Ben’s eyes and I’d never loved him more. I hadn’t believed him before when he said that if he lost his job, he’d live with it. Now, I did. “Fuck the rules!” Ben said. “The powers that be don’t get to bring in a necromancer and then decide when that area of enquiry has run its course. Not when it can make the difference to finding this bastard. I had a rare talent at my fingertips and I decided to use it.” He tipped his chin up and met Baros’ stare without blinking. “Twice.”

Baros scanned the room, his gaze skimming over me before settling on the uniformed officers. Most of them were staring open-mouthed at Dougie, seemingly at a loss to what they were supposed to do with a dead suspect who’d come back to life.

Baros let out a sharp breath as he faced Ben once more. “I need you in my office. Not when you feel like it. Not in five minutes. Now.”

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