Chương 3: Chapter 2 - At the Noctis Mansion

I stared at the woman in the mirror. I was used to the baldness. The eyebrows were pale and stringy, but at least they were there. It was the eyes that made my reflection feel like a stranger. My eyes had been the only thing I'd ever really liked about my appearance. Before I died, they'd been a radiant blue, but now all the blue had darkened to black. I knew my pupils must have been in there somewhere, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't tell where my irises ended. It was eerie.

I lowered the hand mirror and forced myself to take a breath. Well, that wasn't the only eerie thing going on, so at least I would fit in. Jacky was sitting across from me in one of the velvet armchairs that seemed purpose built to add more atmosphere to a room already choking with it. We were in the sitting room of Jacky's mansion. He had assured me it was the sitting room. He had to assure me twice because I kept calling it the library.

Then he told me not to worry about it; once I saw the real library, I was unlikely to make that mistake again. The room was one of those charming old places that belong in a British murder mystery, but nowhere else. There was dark wood, heavy jewel-colored curtains, shelves of hard-bound books, and a fire whispering from the fireplace. The skeleton leaned toward me. The bones of his fingers were laced together, and his elbows were on his legs. I wondered what, exactly, he was leaning them on.

"You see?" he said.

"Do you even have vocal cords?" I asked. Jacky leaned back. He had no facial expressions, but the body language seemed to show he was…well…taken back—or, more properly, taken aback.

"How are you talking to me?" I said.

"Are you somehow creating sound waves and the noise is arriving in my ears, or is this some kind of weird telepathy? I mean, your jaw isn't even moving!" Olivia snickered. Olivia was the redheaded witch. She looked like she was sixteen, but I wasn't going to make an assumption based on her appearance. I knew she was a witch because she flaunted the fact. She wore all black and had a pointed hat for when we were outside. Her full name, I had been informed, was Olivia Lauren Sofie Emma Tara Grace Oliversen.

She seemed almost as proud of her long name as she was of her long, copper-red hair." That's what's bothering you?" she asked. Iset said "Olivia" in a gentle, chiding manner. Olivia frowned and her lips pressed together. The first time I had heard the mummy speak, I had to wrap my mind around the idea that beneath all those bandages was a woman, but when I looked at her again, I realized, if I had bothered to look at her properly the first time, I would have seen it.

Iset was a mummy, so you couldn't call her voluptuous, but the body shape was as feminine as her voice. Jacky's skull turned from them back to me.

"Emerra, I understand that you're confused right now. If we need to break for the evening, we can resume this conversation later."

"If we stop talking, I don't see how that'll help me get answers."

"There'll be time enough for all your questions, but I rather think you're more interested in avoiding my questions than you are in asking your own." I looked away. Those empty sockets were perceptive.

"Yes, I see them." I passed Olivia her hand mirror.

"They've gone black. It's different, but I don't see how it makes them special."

"It's only the outward sign of a new-born power. Can you trust that I know what I'm talking about?"

"I'm in no place to argue with you," I grumbled.

"How did I wind up with them?"

"You inherited them. From your mother." Well! That was enough of that. I decided to change the subject.

"Am I dead?" Big Jacky must have realized he could only fight me so much. I had a lot of questions. And I was very good at avoiding things.

"You were dead," he said.

"You aren't anymore."

"How does that work?"

"Normally, when a person dies, their soul leaves this realm and enters the passages—""The passages to what?"

"I don't know. Beyond the passages are realms that I can't enter. Your soul went through the passages and returned to your body."

"Does that mean…I'm alive again?"

"You're subject to a different kind of life, and while you can't exactly die— not in the traditional sense of the word—I should warn you, you can be destroyed."

"There's a difference?"

"Oh, yes." His skull somehow seemed to grin more.

"Trust me on that." And you can't argue with death, I thought. He always wins. That thought tugged on another mental thread I'd been avoiding.

"The cancer?"

"It's gone," Noctis assured me. I nodded. My cheeks felt slightly warmer— Could I blush? Did I have blood? —as I asked.

"My hair?"

"Not likely," Olivia said. I had meant to glare at her, but my sadness must have leaked through. Her smirk faded to a pout.

"It's all right," she said. Maybe she was trying to sound reassuring, but it came off as flippant.

"We're all freaks here. No one minds if you have no hair." She raised a single finger to gesture to the tall figure standing behind her. It was the wolfman, Conrad Bauer.

"Or if you have too much hair." Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Conrad said nothing. He only stood there with his arms crossed.

"Is there something wrong with having no hair?" Jacky asked. I turned back and saw the light of the fire gleam off his skull. I couldn't help smiling.

"I'm worried I can't pull it off like you do." Kappa, the bog creature, crawled into my lap. His murmuring voice sounded like it was bubbling.

"Pretty lady. Lovely, lovely lady." Kappa had been named by Iset. He was too smart to be a pet, but he wasn't as mentally agile as the rest of us. Considering that, and his wide open heart, I wound up thinking of him as a child. He was barely above two feet tall when he was standing, but he seemed as comfortable crawling on all fours as he did walking on his hind legs. His hands and feet were webbed. He had a fin on the top of his head and fins on the sides of his head where I'd expect his ears to be.

I liked his green-brown-blue motif and huge, adoring eyes. He was so ugly-cute, I didn't even mind that he was getting my clothes wet. I smiled down at him and played with the fins on the sides of his face. He seemed to like that.

"Muscles can be built, and they can fade with a lack of use," Jacky explained, "but otherwise, your body will most likely stay as it is now."

"Most likely?"

"I already told you, Emerra, you're a rare creature. Our knowledge of revived physiology is limited, and how the body works greatly depends on how the person came to be revived. In time we'll learn more. For now, it might be wise to behave as you did before you died."

"And are you all—not you—" I said to Jacky. To the rest— "are you all revived?"

"I am," Iset said. Okay. That should have been obvious. I didn't look at Olivia. I thought she might be smirking again, and I knew she had good reason. I turned to the vampire, Darius Vasil. He went by "Count" or "the count." He admitted he had no claim to the title, but he thought it was funny in that fastidious way he found certain things funny that no one else did.

"Once human, but I never died," he said. He looked as if he was in his mid forties. His black and gray hair was thin, but what was left of it was cut short and smoothed back from his high forehead. He was classically handsome and the only one in the room who could match Jacky for fine clothing. It wouldn't have looked out of place if he'd worn a cravat with his suit, but he'd settled for a navy blue, silk tie. I turned to the wolfman. He stared at me.

Before he could speak—maybe to spare him from the need to speak—Iset said, "Kappa, Conrad, and Olivia are all alive."

"And Igor?" Igor wasn't in the room. He'd left after dropping off a tray full of coffee and tea. He acted like a servant, but when anyone talked about him, they made it sound like he was a normal resident. Normal being a relative term. Obviously. Iset's head turned toward Jacky.

"Igor is Igor," Jacky said.

"He's been with us a long time." That didn't answer any questions I had about him, but I decided not to press the issue. I didn't think they would be answered.

"And…I have to stay with you now because you revived me?"

"Perhaps I haven't been clear. I didn't revive you. That's not something I can do. You are simply one of the revived. As for staying with us, I think you'd be comfortable here—I try to make my home comfortable for beings that might not otherwise have a place in this world—but I'm not your warden. You may go whenever you choose." Jacky leaned forward.

"However, I hope you'll stay. At least for a while. The timing of your revival was a coincidence, but I'm glad you're here. We need you, Emerra. There it was. I shifted in my seat.

"You want to use my eyes."

"Yes." He said it with perfect simplicity. Such frankness seemed to fit Jacky.

"Am I the only one that has them?"

"The only one we know of."

"And you don't care that I've never…never had a vision, or-or—""You've never had the eyes before."

"This problem you're having—is it big?"

"Yes." He inclined his skull to add emphasis.

"Will it be dangerous?"

"I can't answer that question until we know more about what happened. That's why we need you to take a look around for us. To see all the things that we can't see."

"But you're death!" There was a second of silence. Did he ever miss the ability to blink? Did he ever have the ability to blink?

"I fail to see how that has any relevance to this problem. Or why you think it should."

"Don't you know everything?" The room around me laughed. Iset's laugh was a quiet chuckle. Olivia let out a hiss with her sneer. The count went "ah!" and smiled, and I heard my first sound from Conrad Bauer; he scoffed.

"I'm not a god, Miss Cole. I'm only death. I'm not omniscient. I'm not even omnipresent."

"Omnipresent?" Iset said, "To be everywhere at the same time." Jacky went on, "The trouble with being the embodiment of anything is that you have a body, and bodies are limited." I said, "But you've been around a long time, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes. But I'm also a busy man—""A single-minded man," the count said.

"Experienced in his work," Iset added. Olivia cut to the chase with a single word: "Oblivious."

"I only have my personal experience," Jacky explained.

"I don't know anything outside of that."

"But I can see whatever it is you want me to see?"

"We don't know, but we think you're our best hope. The eyes of the sphinx are legendary, after all." I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. Olivia had turned her head away. The bog-creature stood up on my lap and reached his webbed hands toward my eyes. His gaze was mesmerizing, and he reached out so slowly—"Kappa," Iset said, "no touching."

"No touching?" Kappa echoed.

"No. That would hurt."

"Oh." Instead of prodding my eyes, he placed the bulbous tips of his thumbs on my temples.

"Legendary," he whispered. It took effort not to laugh.

"Legendary," I whispered back. Kappa tried to one-up me by widening his eyes.

"Legendary!" My voice quivered with mysticalness.

"Legendary."

"Oh, yeah," Olivia said in a very grounding kind of way.

"It looks like she's going to be really… professional… about this." I sobered. The witch stood up from her place on the couch.

"I think I'll be heading out. I have to finish a few things before the night is over. Unless you need me, Mr. Noctis?"

"No, but thank you, Olivia," Jacky said. The witch nodded to him, then left the room. There was the sound of a mug being placed on wood as Fake-Count Vasil put his cup on the mantle. I didn't ask what was in the mug, and I was glad it was opaque.

"As much as I would like to stay, I'm afraid I also have things to do." He bowed to me.

"Miss Cole, it was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope I'll get the chance to know you better." He meant it. I could tell. How do you respond to such courtesy? I didn't know how to curtsy, even if I didn't have a bog-monster trying to eat the sleeve of my sweater. I managed a "thank you," which was, at least, honest. After he was gone, Jacky looked up at the wolfman.

"Conrad?"

"I'll stay." Oh. Wow. So he could talk. The words seemed to roll right out from his massive chest. They were quiet, but there was a rumble in them that made my ears perk up. If they had been as pointed as his, he would have seen it. I liked his voice. I started plotting ways I could hear more of it. Did he regularly lecture at a college? Probably not. Could I con him into getting a job in broadcasting? Would he read to me at night? Then he turned his icy yellow eyes on me, and all my humor vanished.

I'd never taken a good look at his face before. He walked upright, and he wore jeans, a tee shirt, and a solid-colored flannel shirt with the sleeves cuffed up to his elbows. Judging from how naturally the jeans sat on him, he didn't have a tail. Since the top of my head barely came up to his shoulders, he looked mostly human. He seemed like a really fluffy human—but mostly human. Not his face though. That was all wolf. His muzzle was slightly shorter than a normal wolf's, but it was definitely canine.

His thick fur was a fine mix of black, white, gray, brown, and blond, and his massive triangular ears sat on top of his head, as furry as all the rest of him. When his ears started flattening out to the side, I realized he probably didn't like the fact I was staring. I lowered my gaze. There was no sense in upsetting the man.

"So what's the plan, Mr. Noctis?" I said.

"Shall I take that to mean that you're willing to help?" Jacky asked. I nodded. I had nothing better to do—actually, I had nothing else to do. All my end of life planning failed to include an "after death" section, and despite what Jacky said, I felt like I owed him. Especially if he was going to let me stay.

"Excellent!" He slapped the arm of his chair with his bony hand.

"Tonight, I'll have Iset show you around. You may ask her any number of questions, and I'm sure you'll find her quite knowledgeable. Tomorrow, I'll take you to the murder scene."

"The what now?"