Page 59 of Capitol Matters

My footsteps echoed as I walked down the empty corridor. It stretched on, countering my progress and making the door at the far end an impossible destination. It did, however, give me time to consider what Vinton could do to help, assuming he was willing.

In the twelve years I’d been part of the Bloody Hex, I’d never worked one on one with the bald bastard. Ichalked it up to mutual loathing since he spent the bulk of my younger years trying to prove to Grimm exactly how unfit a frightened teenager was to fill in the gang’s ranks. They didn’t need someone whose magical prowess had been informed by rearranging heavy furniture around the house or cheating at paper plane races at school. And Vinton rarely missed a chance to make clear that if they didn’t need me, I was easily disposed of.

Proving myself hadn’t quelled Vinton’s skepticism, though, or made us friends. I expected to be turned away as soon as I arrived, but facing the brutish man was less intimidating than the imagined monsters that had me checking over both shoulders as I stopped before the heavy steel door marked MORGUE. It would be impossible for anyone to sneak up on me in this barren space, but a constantly guilty conscience and the knowledge of more than a few horror flicks fueled my paranoia.

The sound of my own fist knocking against the closed door startled me, and I jumped as it swung inward to a bright white room.

I shouldered my way through the narrow opening, relieved to be in familiar company until I saw the tall, willowy figure on the other side of the entry.

“Oh, shit.” I stumbled back, eyes darting over the gray-haired woman in a lab coat who regarded me with chagrin.

“What do you want, Fitch?” she grumbled.

Glancing around the room, I assured myself it was, in fact, the right place. A steel table with a sink on one end took center stage, backed by a mortuary cooler thatstretched three units high by three wide. The tile underfoot sloped toward a floor drain, and a lightboard on the far wall had clips for holding X-rays.

Definitely the morgue, but not the necromancer I was looking for. I squinted at the woman, wondering how she knew me until realization dawned.

Illusion magic, of course, courtesy of Grimm. Vinton had a notorious face and would not be welcomed on Capitol property unless he was in handcuffs or a holding cell.

“He made you a girl?” I chuckled. “If I’d known that, I would’ve come down here a lot sooner.”

The Jacoby Thatcher disguise was confusing, but this was downright comedic. The wizened old woman gave herself a wide berth as she rounded the embalming table and approached the stainless cooler doors.

“Boss says you need a body,” she said.

With a yank on the polished lever handle, she opened one of the cavities and grabbed the lip of the tray inside. It slid out, serving up a chilled cadaver that I shrunk back from.

Standing aside, she gestured to the offering. “What do you want me to do to it?”

Surprised as I was at Vinton’s willingness to assist, I had to reject him.

“A generic dead guy isn’t gonna work,” I replied. “Maximus will be looking for something he recognizes. Like a tattoo or birthmark…” Or a disembodied head dropped on his desk. I smirked at the thought.

“I can make changes,” Vinton said.

“You can?” So, I was wrong about that.

She nodded. “You got a picture?”

I hadn’t gotten that far. Grimm might have known this was coming, but I’d been given scant minutes to process. Clearly, Maximus didn’t trust me—a theme so consistent I was beginning to wonder if I could even trust myself.

Would he have preferred I put the dead bodies on display? Historically, that was my modus operandi and likely the reason for his doubts. Grimm used kills to send messages; not wanting to bother the police with missing persons reports. It ensured the Bloody Hex got credit for our crimes, growing our notoriety on every occasion.

Either Maximus didn’t believe I was capable of cleaning up after myself, or his suspicions ran closer to the truth than I was comfortable with.

“But if you did that,” I began to Vinton, “what happens when somebody sees the real, live person walking around? Maximus will know for sure I didn’t kill them, and we’ll be worse off than when we started.”

My knowledge of necromancy was admittedly limited. I’d seen Vinton in action plenty of times—enough to fuel my nightmares—but how those skills applied to this situation remained nebulous. Wandering forward, I hopped up to sit on the metal table. What looked like a hanging produce scale interrupted the line of sight between Vinton’s grandmotherly disguise and me.

“What about making somebodylookdead?” I wondered aloud. “Only mostly dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.” My Miracle Max impression was wasted on Vinton, who stared blankly.

“Princess Bride?” I tried again. The woman’s wrinkled features gave nothing in return, and I shrugged. “Probably not your kinda thing.”

“Probably not.” She gave the tray a shove that sent it rolling back into the dark cavity. The door followed suit, slamming with a resounding clank. “I can make someone look dead, though.”

“Seriously?”

Vinton crossed his arms atop the woman’s saggy breasts. “Bring them to me. I’ll make them look like they’re dead. For an hour or two. Long enough to show old Max.”

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