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CHAPTER 1: OH, SHIT.

Jack Mercer had been in better places.
He had also been in worse ones, although none immediately came to mind.
The cloth over his head smelled of engine oil and somebody else’s sweat. His wrists were tied behind the chair. Ankles too. Concrete beneath his shoes. Cold air somewhere around his neck.
A hangar.
He was almost certain of that.
Almost.
The echo was too large for a warehouse. Metal shifted somewhere high above him whenever the wind pushed against the building. Every few minutes came the faint rattle of sheet steel.
Then there was the smell.
Aviation fuel.
Jack moved his fingers against the rope.
Tight.
Professional knot.
Not impossible.
Just difficult.
A man paced in front of him.
Jack had counted eleven steps from left to right.
Then eleven back.
There were two others in the room.
One near the door.
One behind him.
Nobody had spoken for thirty-seven seconds.
Jack had started counting because there wasn’t much else to do.
Finally, the man in front of him stopped.
“Who hired you?”
Jack tilted his head beneath the hood.
“You’ve already asked me that.”
A fist struck him across the mouth.
The chair rocked.
Jack tasted his blood.
“That’s also happened before.”
Another punch.
This one landed beneath the ribs.
Jack coughed.
“Getting repetitive.”
The man behind him laughed.
The interrogator did not.
Good.
Jack had learned something.
The one behind him was nervous.
Nervous men laughed when they shouldn’t.
The interrogator stepped closer.
Jack could smell cigarettes.
Expensive ones.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“I wasn’t aware I was.”
The hood was ripped off his head.
Light hit him hard.
Jack blinked.
The hangar came into focus.
Huge.
Mostly empty.
Two industrial lamps burned above them. Beyond their circle of light, the building disappeared into shadow.
He had been right about the fuel.
At the far end sat the nose of a small private aircraft.
Three men.
The one in front wore a dark wool coat over a suit. Fifty, perhaps. Grey at the temples. No hurry in him.
The second stood by the hangar doors. Broad shoulders. Shaved head. Pistol carried openly.
The third was younger.
Mid-thirties.
Nervous.
The laugher.
Jack looked around.
The interrogator watched him do it.
“Finished?”
“For now.”
“Who hired you?”
Jack looked at him.
“Sorry, client confidentiality.”
The younger man laughed again.
The interrogator turned his head.
The laughter stopped.
Jack filed that away too.
“Mr. Mercer.”
At least they knew his name.
“Yes?”
“You are tied to a chair in an abandoned aircraft hangar forty miles from the nearest city.”
“That sounds about right.”
“You’ve been missing for nine hours.”
“I hadn’t checked.”
“We can bury you somewhere in these mountains and nobody will ever find you.”
Jack considered this.
“People say that more often than you’d think.”
The interrogator leaned down until their faces were level.
“Who hired you?”
Jack’s smile disappeared.
There it was again.
Not what did you find?
Not who have you spoken to?
Who hired you?
They were afraid of the client.
Interesting.
Jack said, “You know, there’s something I’ve been wondering.”
The man’s eyes hardened.
“Where exactly are we?”
The younger man snorted.
The interrogator straightened.
“You followed a car you shouldn’t have followed.”
“That’s my job.”
“You photographed people you shouldn’t have photographed.”
“Also my job.”
“You entered private property.”
“That one’s more of a grey area.”
The shaved-headed man moved away from the door.
The interrogator raised a hand.
He stopped.
Jack watched them.
Hierarchy.
Grey temples gave the orders.
Shaved head enforced them.
Nervous laughed.
“You’ve been asking questions about people who don’t concern you,” the interrogator said.
“One of them concerns my client.”
“No.”
Jack looked at him.
“No?”
“Your client doesn’t know what concerns her.”
That landed differently.
Jack kept his face still.
The interrogator saw something anyway.
“You should have taken her money and done nothing.”
“I considered it.”
“You should have.”
“Rent was due.”
The younger man chuckled.
The interrogator walked away.
Jack watched him.
Something was wrong.
Not with the room.
With the conversation.
These men had kidnapped him.
Dragged him into the mountains.
Beaten him.
Threatened to murder him.
Yet nobody had asked what evidence he possessed.
Maybe they already knew.
Or maybe—
A phone vibrated.
The interrogator took it from his coat.
Looked at the screen.
For the first time since Jack had seen his face, something changed.
Not fear.
Concern.
He answered.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Jack watched.
The man’s eyes moved toward him.
“He’s here.”
Another silence.
“No.”
Whatever came through the phone made the interrogator turn away.
Jack looked at the nervous man.
The nervous man was staring at him.
Jack smiled faintly.
The man looked away.
Interesting.
The call ended.
The interrogator remained still for several seconds.
Then he turned.
“Where is it?”
Jack frowned.
“Where’s what?”
The man crossed the distance between them and grabbed Jack by the hair.
“The photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“Don’t.”
“I have several. You’d have to narrow it down.”
The man’s grip tightened.
“The girl.”
Jack said nothing.
There.
Finally.
The girl.
The interrogator released him.
“Who else has seen it?”
Jack looked at him.
“What happened to her?”
Wrong question.
He knew it as soon as he asked.
The interrogator’s face became completely empty.
Jack had seen that expression before.
Men wore it just before making decisions they could not take back.
“Who else has seen it?”
“Where is she?”
The man reached inside his coat.
The younger man stiffened.
“Sir.”
The interrogator drew a pistol.
Jack looked at it.
Then at him.
“That seems unnecessary.”
“Who else?”
Jack’s heart was pounding now.
He pulled once against the ropes.
Nothing.
Shaved head shifted near the door.
Young nervous took one step back.
Jack looked at the gun.
Then the interrogator’s face.
“You kill me,” Jack said, “you still won’t know.”
The interrogator stared at him.
Jack could almost see the calculation.
Then—
A metallic crash sounded somewhere outside.
Everyone turned.
The hangar doors shuddered.
The younger man said, “What the hell was that?”
Shaved head reached for his weapon.
The interrogator stepped sideways.
Jack moved.
Not much.
The chair leg caught the man’s shin.
It was enough.
The pistol fired.
The sound inside the hangar was enormous.
For a second Jack felt nothing.
Then heat.
He looked down.
A dark stain was spreading across his shirt.
The interrogator stared at him.
Nobody moved.
Jack inhaled.
Pain arrived all at once.
Deep.
Crushing.
His body leaned against the ropes.
He tried to breathe again.
Couldn’t get enough air.
The younger man said, “Oh, shit.”
The interrogator lowered the gun.
Jack looked at the blood.
A remarkable amount of it.
He had the absurd thought that the shirt had been clean that morning.
Then the hangar began moving away from him.
The lights blurred.
Faces became shapes.
Somewhere, someone was speaking quickly.
Jack could no longer understand the words.
His head fell forward.
One last breath entered.
Very little came back out.
Then Jack Mercer died.

---

CHAPTER 2: THE DEPARTMENT OF FINAL AFFAIRS

The nameplate outside the office read:
THE DEPARTMENT OF FINAL AFFAIRS
It had been there for one thousand and twelve years.
The Archangel of Death, Azrael still disliked it.
Not enough to replace it.
That would require a form.
He disliked forms.
He sat behind a broad desk beneath a high window, reviewing a stack of mortality reports.
The office was quiet.
It was usually quiet.
Death encouraged brevity.
He turned a page.
A fisherman in Cebu.
Approved.
An old woman outside Kraków.
Approved.
A magistrate in Lagos.
Delayed.
Azrael frowned.
He read the attached note.
Then read it again.
He reached for his fountain pen.
The door opened.
Azrael did not look up.
“No.”
Gabriel entered anyway.
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“You opened the door yourself.”
“You never lock it.”
“Do you ever respect a man’s privacy?”
“No.”
Gabriel crossed the office carrying a file.
Azrael looked at it.
Then at him.
Gabriel sat.
Azrael’s eyes returned to the file.
It was thick.
“No.”
Gabriel placed it on the desk.
“I still haven’t asked.”
“Thick files are always requests.”
“Sometimes they’re complaints.”
“Those are worse.”
Gabriel smiled.
They had known one another too long for ceremony.
Azrael closed the mortality report.
“Who?”
“Not who.”
Azrael looked at him.
Gabriel’s smile had gone.
That changed things.
“Well?”
Gabriel pushed the file across the desk.
Azrael opened it.
The first page contained a name.
A photograph.
Female.
Young.
Twenty-six.
He read the date.
Then the cause of death.
Then the designation beneath it.
His eyes stopped.
He turned the page.
Another name.
Male.
Seventy-two.
Another photograph.
Another medical report.
Azrael looked up.
“This is incorrect.”
“Yes.”
He looked down again.
The woman had died at 11:47 p.m.
The man had suffered cardiac arrest at 11:47 p.m.
The woman had not been designated for transition.
The man had.
Yet the man remained alive.
Azrael read the documents twice.
Then a third time.
“Who authorized reassignment?”
“No one.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“I know.”
Azrael sat back.
Outside the window stretched a light for which human language had never produced an adequate name.
He ignored it.
“Where is she?”
“Processed normally.”
“No irregularity?”
“None until review.”
“And him?”
“Alive.”
Azrael’s gaze returned to the man’s photograph.
Distinguished face.
Silver hair.
The practiced expression of someone accustomed to being photographed beside important people.
“How alive?”
Gabriel considered.
“Very.”
“That is generally how it works.”
“He was clinically dead for two minutes and thirteen seconds.”
“That’s quite dead.” Azrael said, thoughtfully.
“Yes.”
Azrael turned another page.
Medical notes.
Private hospital.
Cardiac arrest.
Resuscitation.
Recovery described repeatedly as miraculous.
He looked at Gabriel.
“Humans use that word too freely.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“The woman’s death carried his designation?”
Gabriel nodded.
Azrael looked back down.
Mortality left traces.
Not physical ones.
Not anything physicians could detect.
But each death belonged to the life it concluded.
It had sequence.
Weight.
Order.
This one belonged to someone else.
A clerical error was impossible.
An administrative error was nearly impossible.
Gabriel leaned back in the chair.
“You look concerned.”
“I am thinking.”
“You look concerned when you think.”
“I have a face.”
“You didn’t always.”
Azrael looked at him.
“Maybe not.”
Gabriel smiled again.
Very slightly.
Azrael closed the file.
“Why me?”
Gabriel raised his eyebrows.
Azrael waited.
Gabriel said, “Someone interfered with a death.”
“Yes.”
“You are Death.”
“I am aware.”
“I thought the connection was clear.”
Azrael rested one hand on the file.
“This is not an ordinary transition.”
“No.”
“Which means someone has acted outside the natural order.”
“Yes.”
“Which means either a law has been broken…”
Gabriel said nothing.
“…or someone has found a law we didn’t know could be broken.”
Still nothing.
Azrael watched him.
“You know something.”
“I know many things.”
“One day that answer will stop being irritating.”
“I doubt it.”
Azrael opened the file again.
The dead woman’s photograph.
Dark hair.
Ordinary face.
A human life reduced to two pages, three signatures, a date, and an anomaly code.
“Where?”
“Earth.”
Azrael looked up slowly.
Gabriel remained expressionless.
“No.”
“There it is.”
“I have responsibilities here.”
“So do I.”
“You aren’t offering to take them.”
“No.”
Azrael leaned back.
“Send someone else.”
“Who?”
“Someone who enjoys Earth.”
Gabriel considered.
“I don’t know anyone who enjoys Earth.”
“Precisely.”
Gabriel laughed once.
Azrael did not.
Not quite.
He turned another page.
The anomaly originated in the United States.
Mountain region.
Several locations redacted pending jurisdictional review.
Azrael tapped the page.
“Why are these concealed?”
“They aren’t concealed.”
“They are black rectangles.”
“Pending.”
“That is concealment with paperwork.”
Gabriel ignored this.
“You will require embodiment.”
Azrael looked at him.
“No.”
“You cannot conduct a terrestrial investigation in your present state.”
“I am familiar with procedure.”
“I assumed so.”
“I wrote part of it.”
“You complained about most of it.”
“It was badly written.”
Gabriel folded his hands.
Azrael stared at him.
“How long?”
“Unknown.”
“Days?”
“Possibly.”
“Weeks?”
“Possibly.”
Azrael’s expression hardened.
Gabriel said, “You haven’t been down in some time.”
“There is a reason.”
“You might enjoy it.”
“No.”
“Well, you never know.”
“Well, I guess I could take a vacation.”
“Technically, it’s a work assignment.”
Azrael made a bad face.
Then looked back at the file.
Gabriel let the silence sit.
Finally, Azrael said, “The vessel?”
“Already arranged.”
“Right.”
“Recently deceased. Male. Physically suitable. Geographically close to the anomaly.”
“Cause?”
“Gunshot.”
Azrael gave him a stare.
“Messy.”
“Repairable.”
Azrael turned his eyes toward him.
“Who was he?”
Gabriel opened a thinner folder he had been carrying beneath the first.
He slid it across.
Azrael glanced at the cover.
JACK MERCER
“Occupation?” Azrael asked.
Gabriel looked down at the sheet.
“It doesn’t say.”
“Family?”
“Not relevant.”
“History?”
“Not relevant.”
Azrael closed the folder without opening it.
“You have brought me remarkably little information.”
“I brought you a body.”
“That is little information.”
“It is more than you had five minutes ago.”
Azrael looked at the anomaly file again.
A woman dead before her time.
A man living beyond his.
Someone, somewhere, had moved the boundary between them.
That interested him.
Not much did anymore.
Gabriel recognized the change.
“So?”
Azrael stood.
The room seemed subtly smaller when he did.
Not because he was tall.
Because some presences had never learned how to be contained by architecture.
He picked up the file.
“How recently deceased?”
Gabriel checked.
“Just over a minute.”
Azrael paused.
“That is recent.”
“I thought you’d appreciate efficiency.”
“I appreciate accuracy.”
“You appreciate complaining.”
“That’s your department.”
Azrael walked toward the door.
Gabriel followed.
At the threshold, Azrael stopped beneath the nameplate.
THE DEPARTMENT OF FINAL AFFAIRS
He looked back at his office.
Desk.
Reports.
Pending transitions.
Routine.
Then at the file in his hand.
“One unauthorized death.”
Gabriel nodded.
“And one man who refuses to remain dead.”
“Apparently.”
Azrael considered this.
“Humans.”
Gabriel smiled.
Azrael disappeared.

---

CHAPTER 3: NO. THOUGH WE HAVE MET.

The first thing Azrael noticed was the heartbeat.
He disliked it immediately.
It struck inside his chest with needless insistence.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
A second sensation followed.
Movement.
His body was moving, although he was not.
Azrael opened his eyes.
Darkness.
Something heavy covered his face.
Fabric.
His arms were folded awkwardly beneath him. His knees were bent. Metal vibrated beneath his shoulder.
An engine.
A vehicle.
He remembered Gabriel.
Earth.
Embodiment.
Azrael drew a breath.
Air entered lungs that had not been using it several minutes earlier.
The experience was inefficient.
He lifted one hand and pulled the covering away from his face.
A black plastic tarp.
He was lying in the rear cargo compartment of a large sport utility vehicle.
Three men occupied the vehicle.
Two in front.
One beside him.
The man beside him was holding a pistol.
He was looking out the rear window.
Azrael sat up.
The man turned.
For approximately one second, neither moved.
The man’s face emptied.
Then filled with terror.
“Jesus Christ!”
Azrael looked at him.
“No. Though we have met.”
The man screamed.
The driver looked into the rearview mirror.
“What?”
“HE’S ALIVE!”
The SUV lurched.
Azrael put one hand against the floor to steady himself.
The man beside him scrambled backward, struck the door, and raised the pistol.
Azrael looked at it.
“You shot me. Very ungentlemanly.”
The man’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The passenger in the front twisted around.
His face was familiar.
Grey at the temples.
The man from the hangar.
For the first time, Azrael saw genuine fear.
“Mercer?”
Azrael considered the name.
He did not know it.
The driver looked backward again.
The road curved.
The SUV did not.
“Sir, maybe you should watch the road,” Azrael said politely.
Too late.
The right wheels left the asphalt.
The driver jerked the steering wheel.
The vehicle snapped sideways.
The man with the pistol shouted something Azrael did not understand in any language.
The SUV struck the embankment.
Then the world rotated.
Metal screamed.
Glass burst inward.
Azrael felt himself leave the floor, strike the ceiling, then the side window.
The vehicle rolled once.
Twice.
Possibly three times.
Counting became difficult.
The SUV dropped hard onto its side.
Silence followed.
A small piece of glass fell somewhere near Azrael’s face.
Then another.
The heartbeat continued.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Azrael opened his eyes.
He was upside down.
No.
The vehicle was on its side.
That explained it.
He pushed himself upright.
His left shoulder hurt.
Sharp pain.
Very sharp.
He hadn’t felt pain in centuries.
He examined it.
The sensation was unpleasant.
“Perfect logistics, Gabriel.” He muttered under his breath.
He looked toward the others.
The driver was folded against the steering wheel.
Dead.
The front passenger had been thrown partly through the windshield.
Also dead.
The man who had been beside Azrael lay against the opposite door at an angle incompatible with continued life.
Three bodies.
Azrael looked at them for several seconds.
Their deaths were legitimate.
He could feel that much.
No distortion.
No displaced designation.
No anomaly.
He looked through the shattered windshield at the darkness beyond.
Pines.
Rock.
A steep mountain road.
Cold air entered through the broken glass.
Azrael crawled toward the rear door.
It would not open.
He tried again.
Nothing.
He stared at the handle.
Then at his hand.
Human limitations had arrived quickly.
He climbed toward the windshield instead.
The front passenger was in the way.
Azrael moved him carefully.
The body slipped downward.
Azrael paused.
“Apologies, deceased sir.”
He climbed through the broken windshield and stepped onto the road.
His right shoe was missing.
“Where is the right shoe?”
He looked back inside the wreck.
There it was beneath one of the seats.
Azrael considered retrieving it.
Then did.
Earth was cold.
Once properly shod, he stood beside the overturned SUV.
The road curved around the mountain in both directions.
No lights.
No houses.
No traffic.
Only trees and darkness.
Somewhere far below, water moved through rock.
Azrael reached into his coat.
Nothing.
Wrong coat.
He looked down at himself.
Dark shirt.
Jacket.
Blood.
A great deal of blood.
He touched the center of his chest.
No wound.
Gabriel had been correct.
Repairable.
Azrael removed the jacket and examined the shirt.
There was a hole in it.
He put the jacket back on.
That problem could wait.
He checked his pockets.
Keys.
Loose change.
A folded receipt.
A small knife.
A mobile telephone with a cracked screen.
Then a leather wallet.
Azrael opened it.
A card bearing a photograph.
His photograph.
Or rather, the body’s.
JACK MERCER.
Date of birth.
Residential address.
New York driver’s license.
Azrael studied the photograph.
The man appeared tired.
He looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the overturned SUV.
Same face.
Less tired.
Apparently.
Still in pain.
“This hurts.”
“Jack Mercer,” Azrael said.
The name produced nothing.
No memory.
No recognition.
Gabriel had told him almost nothing about the man.
Azrael turned through the rest of the wallet.
Thirty-eight dollars.
Two credit cards.
One expired.
A coffee-shop loyalty card.
A receipt for gasoline.
Then another card.
He read it.
JACK MERCER
PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS
Discreet. Confidential. Licensed.
A telephone number.
An office address in New York City.
Azrael read it again.
Private investigations.
He looked at the wreck.
Then at the three dead men.
Then back at the card.
“Right. Bad timing, gentlemen.”
The cracked telephone vibrated in his hand.
Azrael almost dropped it.
He stared at the device.
It vibrated again.
Letters appeared across the screen.
MARA CALLING.
“Who is Mara?”
Azrael looked at the name.
The device continued vibrating.
He pressed the green symbol.
Nothing happened.
He pressed it again.
The screen changed.
A woman’s voice came through the telephone.
“Jack?”
Azrael held it slightly away from his ear.
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Azrael looked upward.
He said nothing.
The woman continued.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve called you six times.”
Azrael looked at the wreck.
“Occupied.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Jack, did you find her?”
Azrael’s attention sharpened.
“Find whom?”
Silence.
Then:
“What do you mean, find whom?”
Azrael said nothing.
The woman breathed into the telephone.
When she spoke again, fear had replaced irritation.
“My daughter.”
Azrael looked at the business card in his hand.
Private investigations.
Right. Investigations. A missing daughter.
He looked at the three bodies in the wreck.
Then at the blood on his shirt.
His brain started working.
Jack Mercer had been working.
And whoever these men were, they had not liked his work.
“Jack?”
Azrael said, “I need you to tell me everything.”
Another silence.
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“About Emily?”
Emily.
A name.
“Yes.”
“Jack, are you all right?”
Azrael looked at the overturned SUV.
“Perfect.”
A pair of headlights appeared around the bend in the road.
Azrael watched them approach.
“Mara.”
“Yes?”
“My dear, I will call you back.”
“Jack—”
He ended the call.
The vehicle slowed as it approached the wreck.
Azrael slipped the phone and wallet into his coat.
A pickup truck stopped twenty yards away.
The driver’s door opened.
An older man stepped out.
He stared at the SUV.
Then at Azrael.
“Jesus Christ.”
Azrael looked at him. Then around him. Then turned around 360 degrees.
“Where?”
The man stared.
“What?”
“Jesus Christ?”
The man said nothing.
Azrael decided repetition would be unnecessary.
“Sir, there has been an accident.”
The man stared at the blood covering Azrael’s shirt.
“No kidding.”
Azrael considered that.
He did not understand what children had to do with it.
The man reached for his phone.
Azrael looked back toward the wreck.
Jack Mercer.
Private investigator.
A missing woman named Emily.
Three dead men who had apparently tried to dispose of him.
And somewhere in these mountains, someone had stolen a death that did not belong to them.
Gabriel had given him a body.
The body had come with a case.
Azrael looked down the dark road toward Greyhaven.
This might take longer than expected.

---

These are the first three chapters of my first book of Detective Death: The Borrowed Death. The book is in progress and will be published by the end of month. I hope you enjoyed reading!