Page 44 of Grave Humor

“Not a wolf?” Jeff asked.

“I’d trust a wolf long before I trusted Director Hammel, and I recommend you adopt the same beliefs.” Gordon rose and retreated into the house. “Have you finished your errands for today, Anwen?”

“Not quite. I have one more outing to do, but then I’ll be done.”

Jeff checked his watch. “Then you best be going, Anwen. Stores close soon.”

Our stores did, but I’d have to drive thirty minutes out to get the bookcases I wanted. “Thanks.”

To make it clear I wouldn’t be scared off by an old man with an attitude, I unclipped the dog’s leash and began ferrying my new pet supplies into the house. I put a bowl of food and water on the top step for him along with the bed, which barely fit beneath the tiny porch’s overhang. I’d have to step over the bed to get into the house, but some prices were worth paying.

The stray wasted no time eating his lunch, and satisfied with my good deed of the day, I left on my last errand.

Ten

The world was a weird place.

Sometime after buying bookcases and loading my truck with my new prizes, I learned the hard way that solid objects and my head didn’t mix. Had I been given a choice in the matter, I would have just gone home. The company sucked, my stomach churned, and I put some serious thought into throwing up on Director Hammel’s shoes. He hated even the slightest scuff on his perfect, polished shoes.

Asshole.

The basement, or whatever other concrete, unfurnished hellhole he’d brought me to, was in dire need of some renovations, a dusting, and mold removal. Worse, it reeked, and I didn’t want to know what I was smelling.

I doubted a shower would remove the creepy-crawly sensation on my skin. A long soak in bleach might help.

“You could have called,” I complained.

“And lead the police directly to me? Nonsense. I was generous and had an associate tip off the police about your disappearance. Unfortunately, the kidnapper, some fool I hired, has already reached his expiration date, which will lead anyone checking into your disappearance to a chain of dead ends.” The asshole nudged me with his pristine shoe. “You have created a great deal of trouble for me. While I was tempted to kill you outright, you have information I can use—and you’ll be useful for the next stage of my operation.”

“I have information you can use?” While sitting up hurt and made my stomach churn more, I swallowed to keep the nausea controlled. When I threw up, it’d be on my terms, damn it—and on his perfect shoes. “You want to know about the vampire? I guess you already knew about the body, since you probably put him there.”

“That was an unfortunate mistake, as I’ve since determined. I assumed the sacrifice needed to be sacrificed to wake the sleeper in my care.”

“Yeah, that didn’t work too well for you.”

“I need to know everything about him. Should you cooperate, I will allow you to live and dump you somewhere remote once my work is done. By the time you find your way back to civilization, I’ll be long gone, and I won’t care what you tell them.”

“You had someone hit me in the back of the head and dragged me off so you could ask me a few questions about the arrogant asshole?”

“Do you refer to the sleeper or the vampire?”

“The sleeper, unless you had someone else in the basement other than that poor bastard you’d murdered in the formaldehyde drum. Did you really have to stuff him in there? He’s an arrogant asshole. All bark and no bite, but the CDC gave me to him as a gift so he could figure out modern times.” I’d give Director Hammel just enough information he thought I was telling him the truth in order to preserve my life, and I’d sprinkle as many lies in as possible to make certain he fucked up and ruined whatever plan he meant to implement.

I was tired of people stepping on me.

Director Hammel hadn’t tied me up, a foolish oversight on his part. I rubbed the back of my head, which hurt enough my eyes watered. If I played weak and sickly, perhaps he’d keep me untied, which would elevate my chances of escape. Magic would have been useful, and I cursed myself for my failure to learn basic practitioner tricks. I could have drawn the runes in blood if needed. “Why did you stuff that poor man in the drum, anyway?”

My bastard of an ex-boss regarded me through narrowed eyes, and after a few moments of thought, he shrugged. “My plans changed when the sleeper didn’t awaken as planned. I needed to erase the evidence, and you were the cheapest life I had available at the time. I would have implicated the sacrifice in a theft of the equipment in the basement, and you would have been an unfortunate tragedy when the drum spilled. As he’d initially died from formaldehyde poisoning and preservation had begun immediately, it would have been easier to mask his actual time of death. Storing him in the drum was a matter of convenience.”

Well, I gave Director Hammel some credit; assuming he hadn’t waited too long between killing the poor man and sending me into the basement, the plan might’ve fooled an inexperienced forensics investigator. I doubted it would have tricked an experienced one—or anyone suspecting foul play.

Considering the CDC understood exactly how we operated, I found it implausible that any experienced investigator would have bought the ploy as the reality of the situation.

Industrial sized drums of formaldehyde didn’t just tip over even in an accident. They weighed too much. The amount of force required to knock one over should give any experienced investigator pause.

The plan might fool the ignorant who’d never worked in a funeral home before, and it might’ve fooled me, as I had no idea what formaldehyde truly did to a person after death, if the chemical would slow or completely halt putrefaction and the immediate biological process that occurred following death, or if magic could be used to isolate the actual time of death despite the use of the preservative. Even then, I would’ve found the whole thing to be suspicious, especially considering the drum’s weight. “I see.”

“Did the sleeper give you his name?”