Embassy of the Dead: Hangman's Crossing Read online

  Grave Tidings

  Staying Alive

  Something in the Shed

  The Visitor

  The Embassy of the Dead

  A Meeting of the Dead and the Temporarily Dead

  The Ceremony

  Wormling

  I’ll Be Brief

  Work Phone

  Portentia

  Sounds Like Trouble

  Slipping Away

  Finding Errol Clay

  The Warehouse

  Errol Clay

  Stickmen

  If Your Name’s Not Here. . .

  Shadowfolk

  Invasion of the Bodyshifter

  The Captain to the Rescue

  The Phone Call

  The Outerlands

  The Boatman

  The Foreboder

  Into the Hollow of the Hangman’s Tree

  Stiffkey

  The City of the Dead

  The Bridge

  What Happens When You Die

  The Waiting Room in the Embassy of the Dead

  Connecting the Dots

  Eustace

  Portentia

  A Room in the Sky

  Sammy’s Apartment

  About the Author

  Ghosts don’t feel the cold.

  All the same, Amber Chase lifted the collar of her bomber jacket to protect herself from the freezing night air. She’d been dead for ninety years, but old habits die hard.

  Unusually for the city, the snow was beginning to settle. A light coating covered the dead-end street, a thin blanket of white concealing the grime beneath.

  Amber kept to the shadows. With darkness came safety. Even though she was invisible to the vast majority of the living, it was best to take precautions.

  Besides, it wasn’t the living she was afraid of.

  Something bad was crossing over. Something worse than she’d ever expected. She had a time, a date, and now . . . a name. For the sake of the here-and-now and the happily-ever-Afterworld, it had to be stopped.

  Grave tidings must be delivered.

  Her handler would know what to do. He should be here by now.

  Where was he?

  Her eyes scanned the high brick walls of the alley. She was looking for the triple-crossed logo of the Embassy. A sign that would show he was here, somewhere, waiting in the shadows.

  But she was at the dead end now and there was no symbol. She looked to the night sky, cursing her rashness—the trait that had gotten her killed in the first place.

  Ninety years later and she could still smell her mistake: the acrid burning scent of her plane’s over heated engine. She could still hear the altimeter ticking down.

  800 feet. 700 feet. 500 feet. 200 feet . . .

  A countdown to the impact of the rocky desert that was hurtling toward her. A different pilot would have settled for breaking the world distance record. But not her. She had to push the plane to its limits . . .

  The only part of the plane they’d found was a small piece of metal bearing the words she’d carefully painted on the fuselage: Against all odds.

  She blinked away the memory of her death. Something had caught her eye.

  Back down the alley, a shadow peeled away from the wall. A creeping puddle of darkness that merged and grew upward from the snow until it formed a jagged, faintly humanoid shape, faceless and gray, flickering into solidity as it paused to sniff the air.

  Another shape peeled from the wall. Then one more. Now there were three creatures in total.

  They must have known she was coming.

  She had been betrayed.

  But the safety of the living and the dead depended on her message getting through.

  Three against one.

  Her eyes narrowed as she reached into her bomber jacket and took out a heavy wooden cosh. She had to escape. There was no other option.

  Against all odds.

  Jake Green was still alive. At first, it had been easy being alive, a simple case of not doing deadly things. Not crossing the road without looking. Not putting your finger in the toaster. Not choosing the mystery-meat lasagna in the school cafeteria. Then, for a few short days a couple of months ago, it had suddenly been a lot more difficult. He had accidentally discovered he could see ghosts and had subsequently been sucked into the world of the Embassy of the Dead. From that point on, staying alive needed a more proactive approach, like stealing a camper van and going on the run with a spectral undertaker to try to prevent Fenris the fallen reaper from rising from the grave to bring forth an Age of Evil. That kind of thing.

  He didn’t like to think about Fenris. With the help of a few new friends, he’d pretty much condemned Fenris’s spirit to an eternity trapped in a severed finger. Jake hadn’t had any choice—his life had been at stake and any sort of Age of Evil had seemed best avoided, if possible. So the world had been saved and Jake Green was still alive. But weirdly, as a side effect, the Embassy of the Dead had made him an Undoer—someone who helps ghosts resolve their unfinished business on the Earthly Plane so they can continue with their journey to the Afterworld. It wasn’t a profession he’d ever considered before and so far, despite a mysterious postcard summoning him to the Embassy of the Dead, it wasn’t one he planned on following. It seemed safer to just stay at home, play video games, and push the postcard to the back of his mind.

  Given that Jake had recently saved the world, you would think, in the grand scheme of life and death, being late for Thursday morning homeroom wouldn’t be that important. Sadly, though, this wasn’t the case. Life on the Earthly Plane went on. And that’s why he was sitting at his mom’s breakfast table, shoveling cornflakes into his mouth as fast as physically possible.

  His best friend, Sab, sitting across from him, was tilting his phone to control a game he was playing. Sab was less concerned with lateness.

  Jake drank the last of the cereal milk straight from the bowl. A girl’s voice sounded from behind him.

  “I am appalled by your complete lack of table manners.”

  There was a pause. Jake placed the bowl back on the table.

  “Appalled but not at all surprised,” the voice added flatly.

  To those with the ability to see ghosts, Cora appeared to be an everyday schoolkid—albeit a slightly transparent one from an exceedingly fancy school, with a hockey stick in one hand and a straw hat on her head. Cora was a ghost—one of those new friends who had helped Jake take down Fenris and stay alive. Jake had freed her from the all-girls’ boarding school she’d been forced to haunt since the 1990s. Now she lived in the spare bedroom of his mom’s house. As a Possessor—a rare type of ghost—Cora was bound forever to a small silver trophy from which she could venture no more than thirty or so yards. It meant she was never far away, demanding that Jake take the trophy everywhere with him, hidden in his backpack. His only escape from her was to shut the lid. Then she was trapped inside. To be honest, he never did that, no matter how tempting it was. For one thing, he’d never hear the end of it when he opened it again. But he also liked having her around, even if she was annoying. It got a bit lonely sometimes at home. He’d come to terms with the fact that his mom and dad weren’t ever going to get back together. It wasn’t a perfect situation, but then again it hadn’t been perfect when they were together either.

  Cora had promised she’d stay in her room this morning while Sab was here, but clearly she was already bored.

  She leaned to one side and her hockey stick rematerialized under her to support her weight.

  “I don’t know why your parents don’t send you to boarding school. Then you would never be late. You might actually learn table manners, too . . .”

  Jake pushed away his bowl and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  “You’ve come to talk about the postcard again, haven’t you?” he asked.

  Sab looked up. “Huh?”

  “Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”

  Sab went back to his game. “Freak,” he muttered.

  It was a sign of affection.

  Unlike Jake, Sab was completely insensitive to the presence of ghosts. He couldn’t hear or see Cora. To be honest, when he was playing a game on his phone, he was pretty much insensitive to the presence of the living, too. Jake was quite surprised Sab had even heard him speak.

  Jake stood up and walked to the hall to get his coat.

  Cora was waiting for him.

  “Of course I want to talk about the postcard. It’s been almost a month since we were summoned back to the Embassy of the Dead . . . It might be something important . . . It might be something fun.”

  Jake made a face. Something dangerous, more like.

  He was glad to have left the Embassy of the Dead behind him. Literally everything that had happened since he’d met Stiffkey had been dangerous. And although he missed the grouchy old ghost, he was happy he’d been able to Undo the troubled undertaker and let him pass on to the Afterworld at last. Since then, he’d been enjoying getting back to his life of relative normality on the Earthly Plane. Well, as normal as it could ever be when you were being nagged by a ghost girl every day.

  “Oh, please can we go . . .”

  Jake looked up at her eager face in disbelief.

  It was like she’d forgotten about Fenris. It was like she’d forgotten about Mawkins, the other reaper who, despite not being fallen and in fact being on their side in the end, had nearly sent them to the Eternal Void. And she’d definitely forgotten about the Ambas
sador of the Embassy of the Dead, who had been very clear in stating that, although Jake was now officially an Undoer—a member of the living blessed with the ability to help trapped spirits pass on to the Afterworld—and there was nothing she could do to prevent that, she did not like Jake and hoped not to see him again until he was dead.

  Jake couldn’t even understand why the Embassy had asked them back.

  It couldn’t be a good thing. And, like most of his problems, Jake felt the best way to approach it was not to approach it. Instead he had decided to ignore it. Ignore the Embassy, ignore the postcard. Ignore it all for as long as possible.

  His mind was made up.

  No, he mouthed at Cora, looking down to fasten the zipper on his coat. It was time to go to school. As far as he was concerned, the matter was closed.

  If he’d looked up, he would’ve seen from the look in Cora’s eyes that it clearly wasn’t.

  Jake looked up from the exercise book on his desk where he’d been doodling the triple-crossed logo of the Embassy of the Dead in the margin. Even his subconscious seemed to be forcing it to the front of his mind. Mr. French, his teacher, was standing over him with his hands on his hips. Jake really liked Mr. French—who, ironically, taught history.

  Mr. French frowned.

  “Well, Jake. We’re all waiting . . .” he said.

  Jake looked around the room. His classmates’ heads were all turned expectantly to him, waiting for an answer. Presumably an answer to a question he hadn’t heard. He hadn’t even realized the lesson had started! He looked across at Sab in panic. Sab was smiling broadly, enjoying his friend’s discomfort.

  “Oh dear . . .” came the familiar sound of Cora’s voice.

  Jake closed his eyes in disbelief and then opened them again. She was perching on Mr. French’s desk. He looked around the class. No one else seemed to notice her, but it was a terrible risk. She was supposed to at least try to be discreet when he was at school.

  At least she hadn’t brought Zorro with her. Zorro was a semi-wild ghost fox they’d adopted—or rather a semi-wild ghost fox that had adopted them.

  He tried to ignore her and think of something to say.

  That’s when Zorro walked into the room.

  Jake inwardly groaned.

  Jake looked up at Mr. French, desperately searching his face for some clue as to what he’d just said.

  As if to break the awkward silence, Zorro lifted a hind leg and proceeded to pee beneath the whiteboard.

  “I . . . er . . . w-well . . .” stammered Jake, trying his best to ignore the spectral puddle that was spreading across the classroom floor.

  “Come on, Jake, spit it out,” said Mr. French.

  The inevitable pause was broken by Cora, exasperated.

  “I can’t bear it!” she said from the desk. “The answer is obviously King Henry the Eighth’s third wife, Jane Seymour.” She rolled her eyes. “Standards of education have slipped since my day.”

  Jake sighed with relief. Maybe there were advantages to having a ghost friend who no one else could see. Especially one who had almost made head girl and was a bit of a know-it-all.

  “King Henry the Eighth’s third wife, Jane Seymour . . .” he repeated aloud, mustering as much confidence as he could. As he reached the end of the sentence, he trailed off, noticing a wicked smile creep across Cora’s face.

  The class dissolved into laughter, and even Mr. French was struggling not to laugh.

  “Really, Jake? Well, I’m not sure she was at the game last night, but I’m sure if she ever did get selected to play soccer for England, she’d get player of the match.”

  He smiled kindly at Jake.

  “Anyway, that’s enough about last night’s soccer. Back to history lessons.”

  Jake glared at Cora, his cheeks flushing red in a combination of embarrassment and rage.

  “Can we go to the Embassy now?” she asked, still grinning.

  No, he mouthed. The matter was definitely closed.

  School had finished, and Jake was home and in the bath, trying to enjoy a normal activity that normal people did in normal, everyday life. There was a knock from outside the bathroom. “Are you still in there, love?” said his mom, opening the door.

  “Wait!” cried Jake from the bath. He’d forgotten the lock was broken.

  Still, though, what was the point of knocking and opening at the same time? That wasn’t how knocking on doors was supposed to work.

  “Sorry, love.” The door clicked closed.

  Jake climbed out of the bath and wrapped a towel around his middle. “Hang on, Mom, just drying.”

  “Did you put the bath mat down?”

  Jake looked around for the bath mat and then down at the pool of water collecting by his feet.

  “Yes,” he lied, putting the bath mat in the middle of the puddle and shifting it around with his feet to soak up the water.

  “Can you let me in, love? I’m dying to use the toilet.”

  “I’ll be just a minute!”

  Then he heard Cora’s voice.

  “I’m coming in, too. We need to talk.”

  Jake rolled his eyes and grabbed his robe, pulling it on inside out. “So much for a normal life,” he muttered as Cora walked through the wall.

  “It’s about the postcard we got from the Embassy,” she began.

  Jake sighed as she continued.

  “I know last time was stressful for you . . .” She looked at him sympathetically. “It’s hard for someone like you . . . Jake Greens aren’t supposed to be the ones saving the world. That’s the kind of job a Sanderford does. We’re born for it.” She looked at him modestly. “You know my father was Lord Sanderford, one of the first men to—”

  “It’s all right for you,” hissed Jake. “You’re already dead. I’m still alive and I kind of want to stay that way!”

  Jake looked around as the door opened and his mom came in.

  “Who are you talking to, love?” she said.

  Jake groaned. “Please, Mom!”

  Was a little privacy too much to ask for?

  “Oh, come on, love. You’re practically fully dressed. Besides, even if you weren’t, there’s nothing I wouldn’t have seen before when you were little.”

  Cora stifled a laugh as Jake stormed from the bathroom and into his room, slamming the door behind him.

  “Please, Jake,” said Cora, following him through the closed door. “I can’t go without you. You’re the actual Undoer. And besides, we’re a team! Righting wrongs, saving the world. Don’t you miss it?”

  Jake sighed.

  “Look, Cora. I would go. Honestly. If only to get some peace and quiet from you. But it’s been ages since they sent the postcard. Almost a month . . . They’ve probably forgotten about us by now.”

  Cora slumped down on the bed, waking Zorro, who had been sleeping on the pillow. He opened his eyes to see who it was and then went back to sleep. He’d spent last night chasing rabbits. A futile pursuit for a fox of no physical presence who would never be able to actually catch one. Still, he never seemed to tire of the chase.

  “Do you want to watch me play a computer game?” asked Jake, trying to cheer up Cora, though he had to admit it wasn’t the best offer.

  Cora just sat there stroking Zorro and saying nothing.

  Jake looked at her. “They’d send for us again if they still wanted us . . . Some kind of message. And they haven’t . . . So . . .”

  He felt a bit guilty for some reason. It wasn’t his fault Cora yearned for adventure. She was one of the only ghosts trapped on the Earthly Plane to not suffer from the “longings”—an intense desire to reach the Afterworld. Most ghosts were trapped here due to some kind of trauma in their lifetime or death. Initially Jake had believed that Cora was a ghost because dying prevented her from being made head girl. He soon realized she was a ghost because she had died believing she had not lived to her full potential. Only by achieving great things would she pass on to the Afterworld. And when you’re as full of belief in your own potential as Cora Sanderford, that’s a lot of potential to fulfill!

  Jake’s thoughts were interrupted by his phone buzzing, and he reached across to see who had texted him. Mom was in the house, so it meant it was either Sab or Dad. They were the only other people who ever messaged him.

  Hi Jake. It’s Dad.

  Jake rolled his eyes.

  Of course it’s you, Dad. You sent the message from your own phone.