Embassy of the Dead Read online

  It was like no animal that he’d seen before. It seemed to be formed from the assembled remains of whatever dead creatures had had the misfortune to have been pulled from their resting places and twisted together by some unknown force, to forge a new creature—a beast born of the dead.

  Its body was made of the small bones of vermin meshed together with what smelled like rotting flesh, randomly covered with scraps of matted fur, skin, feathers. Through occasional gaps in this macabre patchwork of death, parts of the skeleton of an unknown, larger animal could be seen. An oozing, snorting, snouted nightmare the size of a large pig—but leaner.

  Set deep within its head were two unblinking yellow eyes that stared straight at Jake. This was the bonewulf.

  The beast pounced, and the fear that had coursed through Jake’s system drained from his body. He was going to die. He felt strange—almost calm—like time was slowing down. Then came the useless memory of his mom’s voice: Have a nice time on your trip. Be careful.

  As the bonewulf flew through the air toward him, Jake stumbled backward against the door, shielding his face with his arms.

  There was a loud clang, and Jake felt something slam into him, pushing him to the floor. He looked up—amazed that he was still alive—to see Stiffkey standing over him, wielding a large shovel.

  “I thought y-you’d left me!” stuttered Jake.

  “I had,” said Stiffkey. “But I came back.”

  Pushing himself up from the ground, Jake saw the bonewulf’s headless body lying on the depressing carpet and its severed head resting on the sofa, a look of surprise on its face.

  Stiffkey stooped over to the coffee table and picked up a bunch of keys.

  “You looking for these, boy?” He frowned as the skull toppled from the sofa and began rolling itself back toward its body. Stiffkey stopped its progress with his shovel.

  Jake shuddered. “What’s happening? Why’s it doing that? Isn’t it dead?”

  “It ain’t dead. You can’t kill something that weren’t ever alive in the first place. A bonewulf ain’t of the Earthly Plane—it don’t have no physical form of its own, just takes what parts it can find. Be grateful you live on a farm and not near a graveyard.”

  Jake shook his head. Believing in ghosts was one thing, but a bonewulf was another thing altogether. How had life suddenly gotten so strange?

  He looked down at the mass of decaying animal parts.

  And so . . . disgusting?

  Stiffkey scratched his chin.

  “More bonewulf will come. Where there’s one, there’ll be its pack not far behind. And this one will re-form soon. We need to leave.”

  “Leave?” said Jake, panic starting to build again.

  “Yes, immediately. Before their master, Mawkins, arrives.”

  There was that name again: Mawkins.

  “Who is Mawkins?” asked Jake.

  “Not now, boy. We don’t have time!”

  “But what about my dad?”

  “You ain’t told him about the box, have you?” said Stiffkey sharply.

  Jake shook his head.

  “Then your dad is safe, as long as we ain’t nearby. It’s you Mawkins wants—and now it’ll be me, too, since I’ve helped you and intervened in Embassy affairs. We’re both condemned to the Eternal Void now. No doubt about that!”

  “The eternal what?” asked Jake.

  Stiffkey ignored his question and started pacing, wringing his hands with every step. He looked at Jake. “We need help, boy,” he said, raising a long finger decisively. “We need some help, make no mistake—” He stopped suddenly and clapped his hands. “And there be one who might just be able to give it to us, but we’d need transportation . . . and we need to take the box.”

  Jake looked out the back-door windows, his eyes settling on his dad’s pride and joy—his camper van. Then he looked back at the bunch of keys in the ghost’s hand.

  “I just might have an idea,” he said, “but Mom will kill me if we get caught.”

  It was cold outside, and dark, and the fog was so thick that Jake could barely even make out the license plate—P368 ICL.

  If you just looked at the letters, it spelled PICL.

  Or Pickle, as Dad and Jake affectionately called her.

  Jake felt a pang of guilt, but pushed it aside as he opened the door. He threw his backpack onto the seat and climbed in, leaning over to unlock the passenger door for Stiffkey, who ignored the gesture and passed through the closed door.

  Stiffkey hesitated. “I ain’t ever driven myself, and I’m no expert in automobiles, but I’m pretty sure a child shouldn’t be driving one.”

  “We’ve got no choice! I promise not to crash. Maybe.” Jake smiled nervously.

  A snorting sound rang out from the darkness.

  Stiffkey looked around. “They be gathering, child,” he warned. “We ain’t got time for dawdling! They’ll try to keep you trapped here till Mawkins arrives! Look!”

  He pointed a long, thin finger across the yard, where through the fog Jake could just make out several large shapes sprinting toward them. They were larger and bulkier than the bonewulf that had been in the house and were covering the ground at great speed.

  A loud wet bang resounded as one of the bonewulf’s heads made contact with the metal door next to Stiffkey. It backed off, growling. More bonewulf stepped forward. Four in total. They were starting to circle the van.

  Jake turned the key, his hands shaking. Nothing. Once more. Still nothing. One of the bonewulf raised its snout in the air and screeched.

  “It calls its master!” cried Stiffkey.

  “Come on, come on . . .” pleaded Jake. He turned the key a final time, and at last the engine coughed into life. He put one foot on the accelerator and eased off on the clutch, just as his dad had showed him.

  Please don’t stall.

  Please don’t stall.

  Please . . .

  The camper van jolted to life and lurched forward, careening through the scattered debris of the farmyard, out the gate, and onto the long lane that led toward the road.

  “Look out!” Stiffkey shouted, eyes wide and staring straight ahead.

  Jake flicked on the headlights. Other bonewulf had formed a pack at the end of the lane, blocking the exit onto the road.

  Jake pulled hard on the steering wheel and turned sharply to the right, driving into the empty paddock. The van jolted and bounced through the long grass until Jake saw a gap in the hedge, revealing the old wooden fence. Jake breathed in deeply and slammed his foot on the accelerator.

  “Sorry, Dad!”

  Jake winced as Pickle smashed through the fence. There was the noise of splitting wood, a sickening metal crunch, and then, with a deft correction on the steering wheel, the van lurched onto the road.

  Jake’s heart was hammering in his ears.

  “Well done, boy,” said Stiffkey. “But you’d better keep that speed up, because that there”—he pointed out his side window toward a small hill—“that there is Mawkins.”

  Jake looked at where Stiffkey was pointing. For a second, he saw the reaper through a gap in the hedge. Silhouetted in the moonlight, a tall hooded figure was wrapped in a thick mist, which seemed to form from beneath his tattered robes, snaking around his body and flowing down toward the farmhouse like a river of fog. It might have been a trick of the moonlight, for surely he was too far away for Jake to see clearly, but the huge man—if a man it was—seemed to turn his head toward them, as if watching their departure. And then—as Jake accelerated the van around a corner—Mawkins vanished.

  They’d been driving in silence a short while when Jake glanced across at the somber gray-faced ghost in his passenger seat. “Are we safe from Mawkins now?”

  Stiffkey frowned.

  “All of us are born standing on the edge of a grave. Just a matter of time ’fore we slip. Mawkins ain’t ever far away.”

  Jake swallowed.

  “Do you think your friend can really help us?”

  “She ain’t no friend of mine—not anymore.” Stiffkey sighed. He turned to face Jake. “And our troubles are far from over, boy. They’re only just beginning.”

  Jake could feel his heart racing.

  The headlights of Pickle the camper van punctured the night, illuminating the thick hedgerows as they rushed into view before disappearing into the darkness behind. Jake had no idea how long he’d been driving, but the events of the last few hours were all starting to feel rather unreal. He glanced across at the angry-looking ghost glowering at him from the passenger seat. If it weren’t for the indisputable fact that Jake felt more awake than he’d ever been, he might’ve believed he was dreaming—the bonewulf were most definitely the stuff of nightmares. And that figure on the hillside . . .

  Still, at least he was alive. And this time, he wasn’t taking it for granted. Jake took a deep breath, composed himself . . . then remembered he was currently in a stolen camper van fleeing a pack of murderous animal corpses controlled by an all-powerful hooded death-bringer.

  “I don’t want to die!” he suddenly shrieked. “It’s not fair, I’m only twelve! How has this happened?”

  Perhaps staying calm was too much to ask just now.

  Stiffkey sighed and gave Jake a reluctantly apologetic look. “I suppose you deserve some sort of explanation.”

  “Well, yes, that would be nice, if it’s not too much trouble,” said Jake sarcastically.

  “All right, boy, but I’d be reminding you to respect your elders, and they don’t come much more elder than I,” said Stiffkey. He took a deep breath. “The box you stole—”

  “I did not steal it! You gave it to me—”

  “Well, if you hadn’t said your name was Goodmourning, neither of us would be—”

  “All right! It doesn’t matter now. Just please tell me what on earth’s going on.”

  Stiffkey sighed and started again. “The box you have in your backpack was a spectral container—its contents can be carried by ghosts or the living, on and off the Earthly Plane—and when you opened it, you invited a whole heap of trouble upon yourself. Because that particular box was never meant to be opened. Especially not by an unlicensed member of the living who shouldn’t know anything about it. So now the Embassy has sent Mawkins to find you, reclaim the box, and banish you to the Eternal Void.” Stiffkey paused and drummed his long gray fingers on the dashboard. “And now I’ve broken the Embassy rules by helping you, which means Mawkins will be coming for me, too. Yup, we’re in it together now, make no mistake.”

  Jake glanced across at the grumpy old ghost. He had to admit, it had been nice of him to come back and help him. If he hadn’t, Jake would have been toast already.

  “So who is Mawkins?”

  “Mawkins is one of the Twelve Reapers, and the Embassy don’t summon him often. They say he can track a man from one side of the earth to the next in the time it takes for the sun to rise and set, once he’s got the scent, and now that you’ve opened the box, he’s got it all right. And each time you open it, he’ll get the scent stronger and will be on you even faster, so you remember that next time you’re feeling curious.”

  Jake couldn’t help but feel a bit sheepish at that. If only he’d never looked in the box, none of this would have happened . . . but it was too late for regrets.

  Stiffkey stared straight ahead. “He ain’t like you or I. He don’t talk. He don’t smile. And he ain’t ever been alive . . . So it means nothing to him to send a child to the Void . . .”

  Jake shuddered—Mawkins did not sound like the sort of person you wanted chasing you across the countryside on a dark night. He shook his head in disbelief.

  “This is really happening, isn’t it?”

  Stiffkey nodded slowly and glanced across at him. “That’s the long and the short of it.”

  Jake sighed. “OK, so what is the Embassy of the Dead? What does it do?”

  “The Embassy was created to police the divide between the worlds of the living and the dead. It stands at one of the points where the Earthly Plane and the Afterworld are closest, and its rules and regulations are meant to protect the living from any unauthorized uses of power against them by the dead, as well as protect the dead from any unwholesome spirits passing over into the Afterworld,” he explained. “I worked for the Embassy for a long while, but then . . .”

  Stiffkey turned toward the window a moment, as if lost in a memory, then turned back and brushed some dirt off his shoulder.

  “Anyway, I decided to retire, but as one of the most trusted members of the Embassy”—he straightened in his seat—“they had one last request to ask of me: to hide and protect the box you now carry until such a time as it were summoned back.” Stiffkey paused. “Then, a few days ago, I was contacted and asked to take the box to a specific earthly time and place and hand it over to an agent known as Goodmourning, after which I could return to my retirement. It was all top secret, and it would have worked perfectly, if only you hadn’t answered to ‘Goodmourning’ and been able to see me, and then accepted the box like you were expecting it, and then gone and opened the thing and had a little look! Goodness knows what Goodmourning must have thought when he turned up and I didn’t—not to mention what the Embassy must now think of me. A near-perfect record, I had!” Stiffkey glared at Jake. “I might be retired, but my instincts are still sharp, boy, and I knew something weren’t quite right with you.” He pointed at Jake and narrowed his eyes. “So I followed you home and waited outside, then followed you to the farm. I didn’t know who you were, but I knew you weren’t Goodmourning, and I knew you had no idea what was in that box. And when I noticed my pocket watch was fast, I realized it were all a big mistake. And now we’re being hunted by Mawkins and both of us will get thrown into the Eternal Void sure as geese lay eggs.” Stiffkey rubbed his temple and breathed in deeply. “It’s a right old mess you’ve gotten us into, that’s for sure.”

  Jake grimaced. He was pretty sure it wasn’t totally his fault, but it didn’t feel like the right time to mention it. If living through the “Mom and Dad situation” had taught him anything, it was the power of a sudden subject change to diffuse an awkward confrontation.

  “Those bonewulf, huh? They were horrible! I can’t believe we’re not dead!”

  “Speak for yourself, boy,” said Stiffkey, smiling to himself. “I died a long while back.” He nodded at a signpost—a flash of white in the gray-green night—with a place name written on it: WORSTINGS. “And that be our turn.”

  Jake relaxed slightly as he signaled right. At least Stiffkey didn’t seem quite as angry anymore.

  “And what will we find when we get to Worstings?” asked Jake, with a hopeful side glance at his ghostly companion.

  Stiffkey’s face darkened, the brief smile vanishing. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Jake looked across at him nervously. “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say it were a misunderstanding . . . Another one. And the person involved ain’t the sort to forgive and forget.” He looked out the window. It was clear the conversation was over.

  Jake shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d already driven farther than he’d ever driven before, and he was getting tired. There might be highways to contend with, and what if someone noticed a child driving a stolen van? Though, technically, he hadn’t really stolen it. He’d just borrowed it. Knowing Dad, he probably wouldn’t even notice it was gone.

  Jake looked at Stiffkey. The ghost had picked up the phone and was turning it around in his long, thin fingers, examining it suspiciously.

  “How come you can touch things?” said Jake. “Shouldn’t your hands just slip through stuff?”

  Once again, Stiffkey’s mood seemed to brighten. Like Jake had touched upon a favorite subject.

  “You be having a common misconception about us ghosts, so let me educate you some. Firstly, the word ghost is actually what they call a blanket term . . .” He stopped as Jake giggled. “What’s funny?”

  “Well, you know . . . blankets. Like when you put a blanket on your head to pretend to be a ghost?” he explained.

  Stiffkey frowned down at Jake, his whiskery gray eyebrows furrowing in disapproval. “I find that quite offensive.”

  “Sorry, Stiffkey,” said Jake. It was obvious that Stiffkey took offense quite easily. He’d have to tread carefully.

  Thank goodness Sab’s not here, he thought.

  Stiffkey cleared his throat. “As I was saying . . . ghost is a blanket term used to describe all spirits trapped on the Earthly Plane.” He scratched the transparent tip of his nose with the transparent tip of his finger. “I be a Specter—and a special sort of Specter at that—but there’s plenty more different types besides. The Wraiths, the Wights, the Poltergeists, to name but a few. Anyway, the only thing we ghosts all have in common is that we were once in living bodies, but now the body is dead and gone, and somehow, for one reason or another, what you might call your spirit be staying here, on the Earthly Plane.”

  Jake nodded. “OK, that makes sense,” he said. Actually, he wasn’t sure it did make sense, but then lots of the things he understood to be true he didn’t really understand. Especially science stuff. Like how electricity worked?

  It had begun to rain, so Jake reached across and switched on the blinkers, then squirted the windshield with more washer fluid, then finally found the windshield wipers.

  Stiffkey raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, for which Jake was grateful. Sab would definitely have called him a freak. Hanging out with more mature people had its advantages.

  Stiffkey continued. “Aye, there are many different types of ghost. They can range from anything between invisible and visible or both. For example . . .” He faded slightly.

  Jake blinked. “Very impressive!”

  “They can also have a physical presence.” Stiffkey rapped his knuckles against the dashboard. “Or none.” He rapped his knuckles again, and this time, they passed through the wood. “It’s rare a ghost can do both and switch between them at will! It’s just us Specters that can.” He smiled proudly. “And apparently there ain’t many Specters that can do it as well as me. It’s why I was recruited by the Embassy. I can carry things and I can drift through things, both of which make me an excellent ghost to carry out Embassy business.” He frowned and looked out the window. “Little good it’s done me now, though . . .”