Fratricide, Werewolf Wars, and the Many Lies of Andrea Paddington

  Chapter Six: Unearthing the Lies

  Dig into his family history…

  Was it just a jibe about his being a werewolf? It wouldn’t be uncommon from an Andraste, but it didn’t fit. Guenevere had been too forthcoming, too helpful, to end the conversation with a cheap attack. It must mean something, which was why Paddington was now in the cemetery staring at his parents’ graves.

  What was he supposed to see, though? What was he looking for? His mother had died during the zombie attack three years ago; that was certain. He’d held her as she died.

  His father? He didn’t know a whole lot about him, really. He’d been a good man, from what his mother had said. A builder, labourer, common construction worker like Will. He’d also been dead most of Paddington’s life; heart attack, two days after he’d been born…

  Which was a bit suspicious, now that he thought about it. No history, no warning; from healthy to dead right after Paddington’s birth? Somehow, Paddington doubted it. He didn’t know what it meant, but it was a thread to pull and see what unravelled.

  Paddington drove to Ian Athanasius’s house and knocked. Ian was the only mortician on Archi. He’d also murdered his girlfriend and accidentally zombified her, so he owed Paddington. It helped to have friends everywhere. “Hi, Ian, is this a good time?”

  Ian knew that it was always a good time to help Paddington. “Who this time?” Ian asked. Most people asked “Is anything the matter?” or “What have I done?” Ian asked “Who died?” Usually with a touch of eagerness.

  Still, why shouldn’t everyone love his job? Be excited and passionate about it?

  Because it was creepy, that was why.

  “My father,” Paddington said.

  Ian frowned, lengthening the expanse of pale skin beneath his greasy black hair. “I’m a touch late, chief. He’s already done.”

  “Do you have the records from his death?” Paddington asked.

  Ian led Paddington into the mortuary attached to the side of his house. His filing system was a single cabinet arranged by whim – which was still a better system than most of Archi employed – so it took a few minutes of digging to find the right file. “Gregory Paddington: died aged thirty of a heart attack. There’s no record of an autopsy.”

  Damn. Paddington had hoped for autopsy records and photos of the corpse. Unfortunately, his father had died while Archi still captured events on canvas.

  “Who pronounced him dead?” Paddington asked.

  “Doctor Reginald Quinn.”

  No interviewing the doctor in question, then: Reg had died in the zombie attacks. He’d been a well-regarded physician, not prone to drunkenness or malpractice, which supported the claim that Greg Paddington was really dead. On the other hand, that records still existed at all was unusual for Archi and hinted at conspiracy. And Reg’s son Conall had been the alpha of the werewolves back when the pack was Adonis’s lapdogs. A single word from Adonis might have bought the doctor’s eternal silence as it had his son’s.

  Also Reg specialised in births, not deaths. Oh, he’d be able to tell whether a person was dead – no question of that – but it was suspicious. Especially since Reg had been the doctor at Paddington’s birth. Best baby man on the island.

  Why would his parents go to him for a heart attack?

  Too many questions…

  Time for some answers.

  Another few minutes’ driving had Paddington parking in front of the council chambers. “Still trying to empty that, I see,” he said by way of greeting to the faceless marble statue of Idryo’s Champion that endlessly poured water from the jug in its hands to the crystal-clear pool in which it stood. “Well, keep at it. I’m sure you’ll get there one day.” Then he entered the council chambers and barged into the mayor’s office. “Quentin, did you know?”

  Quentin looked ignorant; no hard task for him. “Know?”

  “About the duke.”

  Quentin sighed. As much as he trusted Paddington, Quentin still believed in the duke above all else. At heart he would always be a loyal, blind Archian who loved to dress up in a proper suit like the Andrastes and come to work each night.

  “What’s he supposed to have done now?” Quentin asked.

  “Gone.”

  The fall in Quentin’s face was genuine. He hadn’t known. Paddington kept waiting as Quentin thought the matter through. After a few seconds, Quentin’s face fell a second time as he realised that in the absence of a male Andraste, he – as mayor – was now the highest authority on Archi. He was in charge. “Gone where?”

  “The Mainland.”

  “Shit.” Quentin put down his fountain pen. “Anything else I should know? Last time these horrors came in groups.”

  “There’s another prophecy and I need to exhume my father’s body.”

  A lot of blinking happened. When it finished, Quentin put on as professional an air as he could manage. “Uh… why?” he said. “I mean, why do you need to exhume your father’s body, detective chief constable?”

  “Because I don’t think he’s dead.”

  The professional air evaporated. “You think he’s still alive in his coffin?”

  “No,” Paddington said. “Even if they’d mistakenly buried him alive, he’d have suffocated or starved to death after a few days. I think the coffin is empty.”

  Quentin took another moment. He’d never been a particularly competent policeman, but becoming mayor had been a good move: everyone liked him and there was no actual responsibility. It was all speeches and waving. Quentin excelled at that. Now he was being asked to make big decisions, decisions that would upset his citizens, his friends, and Paddington could see him physically sinking in his chair. Being in charge wasn’t a job for the popular.

  “I remember when our biggest problems were barroom brawls,” Quentin said.

  Usually those brawlers were the werewolves, but he and Quentin hadn’t known that at the time either. Hadn’t known werewolves or vampires existed. Simpler days. Paddington wished he could say he missed them, but honestly they’d bored him. This, right here, made him feel alive. He took care not to mention that to other people, though. Especially Lisa. She tended to look at him strangely.

  “Quentin, I need this done tonight.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow. For the Mainland.”

  Quentin had been vocal in his derision of the Mainland, but he’d always liked Paddington. “Are you coming back?”

  “As soon as I can,” Paddington promised. “But before I go, I need to know what’s in his grave.”

  “It’s that serious?”

  “Did you hear the part where my father is alive and the fate of the world is probably tied to him, me, and Adonis somehow?”

  Quentin scratched his hair, which messed up his slicked-back look and left a few strands sticking straight up. “Fair point.” Quentin nodded and reached for the telephone. “Give me an hour.”

  Paddington used that hour to brief his second-in-command (usually third-in-command, but Clarkson had already left) about his new duties as Archi’s head police officer. There was a chance some of the citizens would make trouble if they realised Paddington and Clarkson were gone, but stopping Adonis took priority. Archi would have to manage without him.

  When Paddington returned to the mayor’s office, Quentin was just putting the phone down. “They’re on their way to start digging now.”

  Convenient timing. “Did you only just get off the phone to them?”

  “Nah. I sorted them a half-hour ago. That was about the fête this Sunday.”

  Oh. Paddington felt he should say something important, something that respected the many years of counsel and friendship Quentin had given him. As always, though, he couldn’t find the right words. Plots and schemes he could do; people not so much.

  “You’re off, then?” Quentin asked eventually.

  “Yeah. Thanks for, uh, putting up with me all this time.”

  Quentin shrugged. “You weren
’t too bad. By the end.”

  Paddington smiled. “Yeah.” He extended a hand across the wide desk and Quentin shook it.

  His grip tightened. “I could stop you, you know,” Quentin said. “You’re about to breach Embargo.”

  “I’m chief constable until the moment I step onto the Mainland, at which time I’m outside your jurisdiction.”

  Quentin huffed. “I knew you’d have a way out,” he said. “Don’t go getting into trouble.”

  “Would I do that?” Paddington asked. “Well, intentionally?”

  The cemetery was a blaze of activity when Paddington arrived ten minutes later. Quentin must have called in every man who owed him a favour. The men dug in shifts, four at a time. Paddington questioned some of the older lookers-on about his father, but Greg’s high forehead and ability to out-scowl his wife were unlikely to be relevant. Word was his heart attack had happened while he and Andrea were at home.

  At seven o’clock the diggers struck wood: the coffin. Paddington wanted to change into the wolf and sniff out the contents, but forced patience. He’d lived thirty-one years thinking his father was in that plot; he could wait for them to bring the box up to find out for sure.

  Then, finally, the coffin was hoisted from the hole. In there was either his father’s remains or evidence of a lifetime of lies. Lies orchestrated by Adonis, most likely; it was unlikely that his father could escape Archi without the duke noticing, especially just after Paddington’s birth.

  Had Adonis done something to his father? Taken him away? Secreted him somewhere? Had Andrea lived for thirty years mourning a man who was still alive?

  Not that she’d done a whole lot of weeping. Rumour was she hadn’t even cried at her husband’s funeral…

  Did that mean she’d known about it? Made a deal with Adonis? The heart attack had happened while she was there, after all. If Greg wasn’t dead, Andrea must have known.

  Gods. She was in on it. Whatever “it” was, his mother had kept it from him. Why?

  Assuming the coffin was empty.

  A crowbar had been placed atop the coffin and the crowd was waiting for Paddington to use it, so he began prying the wood apart. Thirty years underground had pressed the lid tightly shut, but working the crowbar along the edge eventually produced a crack that Paddington could wedge the crowbar into.

  Eyes closed, Paddington prepared himself for the answer. And, possibly, for the smell of rotting meat. Would there be meat after thirty years? Or just skeleton? Hopefully not maggots.

  Paddington shook away the thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted. The diggers leaned in around him, impatient at the delay. One final deep breath and Paddington threw off the lid.