Page 45 of Any More Questions for the Corpse?

“Kosh was dying. He only told a few of us toward the end. Murray was ready and waiting to petrify his body once he’d passed. Kosh … must have changed his mind.”

“About dying?” Yu said, as if the thought were ludicrous.

“He knew if he decided to keep on living the Order would hunt him down. He was making sure that wouldn’t happen.”

“That’s why he attacked the headquarters,” Mal said. “He wanted the Order to enact a lockdown and call in the other branches. That way all the eggs were in one basket.”

“But why attack us?” Des said. “Why send the dead into the library?”

“He wanted Mal dead,” Walters said, far too plainly for Mal’s liking. “He was against Mal joining from the start. Your incident with Taran was his first attempt, then he tried to kill you at the library. He probably thought if you survived, we’d kill you just to be safe.”

“Lovely,” Des said, her tone rife with sarcasm.

“Kosh knew that we would never go into lockdown while we had another suspect,” Walters continued. “When he realized we were just holding you guys he tried again with the attack on the headquarters. Guaranteeing the lockdown.”

“Fuck,” Hala said. The team sighed collectively, as if sharing the sentiment. There was a moment of calm as the truth settled in among them. The reveal hadn’t been as satisfying as Mal had hoped it would be. It was probably because putting the pieces together after the fact meant that they’d already lost. But there was something more. He felt a deep pit in his stomach. Something about all of this was still pulling at his core. More than the murders, more than the massacre, something within him felt betrayed. At least they had put the pieces together; at least now they could try and get some justice for everyone. The Order may have been a secret organization with questionable methods, but it was still made up of people; people who deserved better.

“So how did you figure it out?” Yu said.

“Well, Des was sure the dead and the murders were related; that meant a necromancer had to be behind it. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Mazino, so that left Kosh. But Kosh was dead, so that left no one. Once Walters gave me this”—Mal pointed to the spell timer—“things clicked again. I just wished they’d clicked sooner.”

“Why did he take Mazino?” Yu said, with intrigue.

“To guarantee the lockdown?” Mal said, questioningly.

“Maybe as insurance,” Walters said. “If he releases Mazino, it’ll be chaos. No one’s going to be looking for him if that monster is on the loose, even without the Order’s diminished numbers.”

“Is Mazino that bad?” Des said.

“Worse,” Walters said, looking grim. “I just hope he’s got enough sense about him to keep Mazino in that jar.” Walters put his head in his hands with a dejected slap.

The others looked to each other, unsure of how to feel or what to say. They were, in that moment, a single being, with a single thought: “What the fuck do we do now?”

To Mal, the obvious answer seemed to be an impossible one. Stop Kosh. He had to be stopped; the pit in Mal’s stomach seemed to demand it. But how do you stop a man who can teleport at will, control the dead, and had the equivalent of a magical dirty bomb?

“We could call the police?” Des said, with trepidation.

“And tell them what?” Yu said. “That a man they’ve declared legally dead is a murderer and on the loose?”

“Good point …” Des said.

Walters, still head in hands, started to speak. “We can’t involve the police. None of this can get out. The secrecy of the Order is paramount.”

“Wait,” Hala said. “So what have you done about, you know, what just happened?”

“I called in some stragglers and a few retirees to help sort it out.”

“What does that mean?” Mal said, looking to Walters.

“When people join we create contingency scenarios for if they die in the field. Something believable for their families that explains the absence of a body. We were contacting next of kin and letting what’s left of the other branches know what happened.”

“But what about, y’know, the bodies?” Mal said, echoing the group’s concern.

“It’s probably best you don’t …” Walters was interrupted by a collective stare that said, We’ve been through all this, and you’re not going to tell us. Walters sighed. “The headquarters has a mind of its own. It had cleaned up by the time I got back there.”

“WHAT?!” the group said in unison.

“I told you, it’s best you don’t know.”