The Man Who Never Died

Barker had been spending too much time stressing over his plans. He had secured pieces and moved others into place. Yet, he had neglected the thing that had gotten him this far, which was his passion for working out things he couldn’t understand. Barker couldn’t recall when the last time he set out and solved a solid case. 

He had, of course, brought down the internet hacking group The Shock, but that had been months ago. 

Barker drummed his nails on the oak desk before him. He had sent out his secretary for coffee almost thirty-two minutes ago. It wasn’t as if he would drink the coffee once it arrived, he mostly did it to give the woman something to do. It was the principal of the thing. He had been sitting behind his desk for days on end with nothing to do. He had delegated the smaller cases to Detective V down in Urgway’s smaller district of Marybeth. He had moved around the bigger cases and given them to his team here in the office. 

Barker had busied himself with all the little things. He had set up bank accounts, moved funds with the help of some new friends, and made new investments to keep his pockets freshly lined in green. 

Now, he was sitting around waiting for the finer pieces to fall into place. Good things should not be rushed into; that was how pieces were forgotten and dynasties came crumbling down. Barker wouldn’t be like his father. He had a better nose for things. 

There was a gentle knock on his door and Barker lifted his eyes from the swirls in the wooden desk. 

“Who is it?” 

He was sure he would see the white hair of the woman who sat out in front of his office for eight hours a day. He hadn’t bothered to remember her name. 

The door opened slowly and instead of the white hair of his secretary it was brown hair and belonging to a male dog on his unit. 

“Sorry to bother you, sir,” he started and slipped in through the door. 

Barker leaned back in his chair and made sure not to blink. He liked putting his staff on edge whenever he had the opportunity to do so. 

The man stood there stark still and quiet in his cheap three-piece suit. Barker almost thought he may have been turned into some sort of statue with how little movement he was doing. The only tell that he was still alive at all was his heavy breathing. 

“You’re sorry,” Barker said, waving his hand to encourage the nervous man to continue his thought process. 

Reaching up, the man wiped his furry brow. “Well, it is just that something has come up. And we wouldn’t normally bother you with it, but…” the man stopped again. 

Barker was already annoyed with the stammering. This was worse than being in that box with Lucky all those years. At least that idiot had managed to spew the nonsense when he had it. 

“Finish,” Barker said, letting the agitation coat his tone. 

That may have been a mistake as the man looked ready to bolt for the door, then, take the elevator and go home. 

“Whatever it is, you can tell me,” he said. Taking a subtler approach, wondering if the message was something he should know. 

The man swallowed and tried again, “like I said, we wouldn’t normally come to you for this stuff, but none of us could get a handle on it.” The man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small wad of paper. “This came from the dock patrol down by the Fire River.” The man unfolded the paper, slowly.

Barker recalled to himself the river in question. It had once been called the Trolley River but had over the years adopted the name of Fire River from the fact that it was the most polluted river in all Maharris. Companies far and wide came to dump their waste into the bays of Urgway and thus the river was always a spark away from taking the city down the coast. 

“Here it is,” the man placed the wrinkled paper down before Barker. 

Barker reached over and picked the paper up off the table and brought it up to reading level. 

“It is quite perplexing,” the man said, trying to be conversational. 

Barker ignored him and read the sloppy handwritten message. 

 

All manners of thought have been brought to this case and have failed. It is a mystery to us all here at the docks. However, considering you are all Urgway’s finest we have decided to drop the case off at your doors. The details are below. 

One body, no identification left on the corpse, but DNA results suggest that the man is over seven-hundred-year-old Danny Willington. All other investigations have hit a brick wall. We implore your expertise. 

Yours truly, 

Dock Patrol Jamison.

 

Barker put the note back down on the desk before him. “A seven-hundred-year-old man,” he asked. 

The man before him shook his head, “I know it sounds impossible, but we have the DNA results here in the office. Everyone here thought you should see the case right away.” 

Barker had been just imploring the gods for something to occupy his mind. He glanced at the note again; a seven-hundred-year-old corpse in the middle of a ghost ship on the Fire River. Barker turned and reached for his hat and coat. Why not, he thought. He had nothing else to do with his time he may as well solve a murder. 

 

* * *

 

The docks were creaky and old. The Odin district of Urgway was too poor to really put much effort into the upkeep of the piers. Very few men or women bothered setting sail for fishing purposes. Without that added income or responsibility, no one really took it upon themselves to put two thoughts into this area. 

The only people Barker did know that found this place to be quite the hotspot, were the homeless. Many of them would huddle around the empty shipping crates and block the cold nights wind from taking them to their graves. 

When Barker arrived, he saw that the Dock Police had at least bothered to pretend to care. They blocked off the area with yellow caution tape; which had been ignored by over seventy homeless individuals. Barker ignored the tape as well and moved under it, out onto the rickety docks. He doubted that this dock had been repaired in over twenty years. How many people had fallen into the water due to unsafe conditions and were never heard from again? 

There were only three ships on the dock as Barker moved closer to the water. Two of the ships were clearly not the ship he was looking for. One was a crate shipper and probably hadn’t moved in ten years. It just bobbed up and down in the water as a decoration for the background. The other ship was more of a boat. Matter of fact, it was an old Dock Police patrol boat. No one bothered to roam out too far into the Fire River anymore. It used to be used for sport and recreation, but now it stood as a looming reminder that Urgway was uncared for. 

“That ship is haunted,” came a voice behind Barker. 

Barker turned and saw a long-tusked walrus poking at a chip on one of his ivory horns. 

“What ship?” Barker asked. 

The Walrus pointed to the last ship on the dock; the ship Barker would be going into. 

“What makes you certain of that?”

The man shrugged, “don’t take much to assume, I suppose. Ship came in three nights ago and didn’t have a crew. Police found a dead man on-board and that’s all they found. They said the man was over seven hundred years old when he died. Reckon anyone would tell you the ships haunted.” 

Barker nodded in agreement, “I suppose you’re probably right.” 

Barker didn’t believe that one iota. He wasn’t a believer in ghost or the after-life. However, if the rumor started now it would hold and that meant people would stay out of the ship and away from his evidence; so better to lie about believing the man than to squash his fears. 

The ship was named The Sacrifice, as detailed by the engraving on the side of the stern. Barker took the ramp up onto the deck and was even less impressed as he scanned the old, rickety body. Nothing about the boat screamed luxury or even updated. If he had to guess, he would put the ship at about fifty years old with only renovation to keep the thing floating. Whoever owned the ship wasn’t one for appearances. 

Barker moved slowly across the grey planks. They were water worn and some were springing up from the deck. On the open water, this boat would have been a death trap. He wasn’t surprised someone had died on the thing. He was more surprised it wasn’t sitting at the bottom of the river. 

The Dock Police hadn’t done much in the way of preserving the crime scene beyond the initial tape at the start of the dock. There were no guards to keep anyone from the ship’s deck. There was absolutely nothing proclaiming this ship as a crime scene. 

Barker pushed open the door, presumably going down into the barracks of the crew. Maybe that would be a lead later, but, for now, it wasn’t the room he was looking for. He didn’t bother shutting it behind him and kept walking along the creaking planks. 

The night air was cooler down by the bay of the river and the smell was atrocious. Barker wondered why even the homeless would stand a place like this. 

Barker pushed open a second door, this one with an emblem of a pelican adjourning it. Inside was a well-kept four posted bed. Its comforter and pillows were fresh and had recently been replaced. The floors here were a nice brown color of stained wood. Barker wondered if they were newer, or just better kept from the elements. Either way, they creaked far less as he entered the room. 

It didn’t take Barker long to notice the dark blood stains pooling in the corner of the room and he figured that this would have been the Captains Quarters and the place where the corpse had been found. The Dock Police had done their duty of removing the dead body from the ship but hadn’t even bothered mopping up the blood. There was no owner of the ship coming to complain though. Barker stepped over the blood and straightened his own collar. The feeling of untidiness was starting to make his hair stand on end. 

Further into the room, Barker found a writing desk, but there was nothing left but a quill. He found that an odd choice of a writing instrument. He hadn’t ever seen one in use but knew that a long time ago they were all the fashion of poets. Barker flicked the quill with the tip of his claws, and it spun in the inkwell it had been placed in. 

Along the outer edges of the desk were ink stains and small notches, showing age. Barker traced the patterns with his paws. His nail slipped into a small groove and clicked against something hard. He tapped it again with a little more force this time and a portion of the desk came away, revealing a large compartment that had been hidden. Barker removed the top layer of the wood and peered down into the dark. With the click of his flashlight, he saw that the hidden drawer was filled with books. He pulled one from the depths and read the cover. Ledgers of the Sacrifice, it read. Barker opened it up, seeing that it was journals written by the captain of the ship. He didn’t have the time to read them by flashlight, but he gathered them all up in a bag he had brought for evidence. They were heavy, much too heavy for him to take them all at once. 

With a quick thought, he ran back out to the railing of the boat and yelled out to the homeless man he had met earlier that night. 

“Would you like to make a dollar or two?” he asked. 

The man shrugged, “what is it I would have to do?” 

 

* * *

 

Barker started the laborious task of leafing through the mounds of ledgers, but his eyes started to burn after reading the dull sixteenth century wording. He finally flipped the first ledger shut and got up, with a second ledger in hand, and walked down to the nearest coffee shop. 

Barker hadn’t pulled an all-nighter on a case since he had become the lead detective of Urgway. He wasn’t sure why he was doing it now. Maybe it was the boredom of the everyday working man. Maybe it was just for something to keep his mind occupied while things came settling into place for the resurrection of the Canes. Whatever it was, he found himself sitting in the diner, half a mug of coffee on one side and the ledger opened before him. 

“Would you like a fill up, dear?” the waitress asked. 

Barker held up a paw and gave her the okay to pour away. She did so, leaving his cup to steam away the heat. 

Barker ran his finger over the text in the book. This ledger was old writing as well, but not quite as old as the one before it. This one changed the writing style to match that of a seventeenth century poet. It was no more interesting, but Barker learned a few things about the supposed dead man. 

One thing was that the man was named Danny Wellington and was born in the Whispey Desert to a mother and father who were on the run from the Maharris government for robbing several banks. Wellington grew up on the run and when he was old enough to strike out on his own, moved to the sea where he began his career as a treasure seeker and pirate. 

Wellington had supposedly been over a hundred years old by the second ledger. He had buried hundreds of treasures throughout the world. He had painted countless historical paintings and had been through two sacrifices; which Barker assumed were his pirate ships. 

Half-way through the book, the language changed from flowery Maharris to something Barker didn’t understand. Most of the rest of the book was in a language that Barker didn’t know, but he could tell it was still broken up into sections; which meant days. This portion through Barkers calculations entailed another fifty-two years of life. Although, it was life that Barker wasn’t sure what had occurred. 

The last few pages detailed another sacrifice, but the descriptions were weird when you put them into context of a ship. 

The sacrifice was done with blood and a changing of bodies. Barker assumed the blood to be some superstitious ritual and the changing of bodies must have meant the changing of ships. 

Either way, it was a wonder how Danny Wellington was still writing after being two hundred years old.

Barker went home and spent the rest of the night and most of the next morning and afternoon leafing through the ledgers. He found twelve more sections of languages he couldn’t understand. Making the total number of languages Wellington knew at least fourteen. He found musicals, plays, works of fiction, and non-fiction detailed thoroughly throughout the ledgers. This made Wellington quite the accomplished fellow. Not to mention his advanced age of over four hundred years old. 

At three in the afternoon, Barker closed the last of the ledgers. They had told him plenty about Wellington. They had described over fifty different sacrifices and had been written in many styles and languages. However, it didn’t tell Barker the one thing he wanted to know. Who had killed Danny Wellington and how had he survived over seven hundred years?

 

* * *

 

The Dock Police had taken a blood sample from the body.  Running it through a current database would have shown them nothing. However, a technique founded by researcher Arota Penderson, showed that the nutrients in the blood were indeed seven hundred years old. Off this information The Dock police determined that Danny Willington was indeed the owner of the corpse. They had put the information into their notes and claimed that the records matched. 

Barker, however, was still a little hard pressed to admit there may have been a seven-hundred-year-old man walking the streets, or in this case sailing the seas. The Dock Police had missed something and so had Barker on his first trip to the ship. 

So, now, he was back on the creaking hunk of wood. In the daylight, it was no less precarious. In fact, it seemed a little more daring to be on the wooden planks. In the light of the sun, you could see the gaps in the floor panels. You could see the uneven planks that would inevitably trip someone to their death at sea. You could also pick out nails sticking from post and fray ropes that were supposed to have been holding the sails in place. It was a wonder that everyone on the ship hadn’t died long ago. 

Someone had to have survived all this mess though. Someone had docked the ship and tied it to the shore. Someone who had most likely killed the man left in the captain’s chambers. It was also someone who could answer the many questions that were building up in the back of Barker’s mind. 

Barker moved, slowly, across the grey deck below him. He didn’t want to miss whatever it was he had missed a few nights before. Even the smallest of clues could lead him in the direction that he needed to go. 

Barker scoured the deck and found nothing of interest. The last time he had been on the deck of this heap, he had ignored the door leading to what he assumed was the barracks. He wondered at the necessity of visiting those quarters in the dark. Now, with a little light to shine on the sleeping quarters, he pressed the door open. 

It moved inward slowly, sticking at the mid-way point; Barker pressed firmly with his shoulder. When the door fully opened, it revealed a very un-alluring set of stairs. Barker tested the first one with only one foot; it held. He pressed with the tips of his toes on each step before committing his entire weight onto the wood. 

There had been thirteen steps to the sleeping deck. Barker wondered at the number for a moment; thirteen. Wasn’t that a symbol for bad luck? And weren’t sailors the poster children for superstition?

Barker scanned the lower deck and counted seventeen double beds. There was enough room down here for thirty-four men and it probably took every bit of them to keep this thing afloat. 

The beds, or more so hammocks, hung from post that held up the top deck of the ship. Barker ran his paws against one and felt the cold dampness of water. The boat probably leaked during the rains and created a very mildewed smell in the barracks. 

Barker walked up the isle of beds and figured he would find nothing. It looked like those who had slept down in the bunker had cleaned thoroughly after themselves. However, at the very last bed something caught his eye. 

It was just the edge of a piece of paper stuck into the floorboards. Barker bent down and even allowed his pant leg to touch the ground. He reached out his paws and used his claws to dig the paper from the crack. As it came free, he noticed that it wasn’t just any piece of paper, but it was a photograph. 

Barker flipped it over and stared into the eyes of a bird with one beady blue and one bright green eye and a yellow sharp beak. Beside the man was what looked to be his family? A wife and two children cradled around him and stared happily at the camera. 

Barker found the missing piece that the Dock Patrol and he had missed. Now, all he had to do was hope it was serviceable to use. 

 

* * *

 

Being the head detective came with a certain set of perks, one such being the use of the ultra-extensive criminal data-base. One quick facial recognition search and if the perp had ever been entered into the system for any reason, he would show up with a nice personal bio. 

Barker only had to wait two hours after finding the crinkled, hidden photo to find his man. Former Navy Officer, Howie Creen, was a bird of many colors. However, right before his final year in enlisted service, he was exposed to a toxic chemical that caused him to lose all of his feathers. Howie was now a bird of no feathers at all. The picture that Barker stared at, on his computer screen, was a far cry from the family photo he had found in the sleeping quarters. One thing was unmistakable though, the eyes were the same mismatched eyes. 

Another perk of being the top dog in Urgway – (no pun intended) – was that Barker also didn’t need to wait around to talk to a judge about a warrant. All he had to do was travel up his elevator and find the quarters of the Mayor. The beast of a man was all too happy to help the son of the former crime-lord of all Maharris. It was still a thing where the Mayor thought Barker would owe him something later, but that was an iron for another fire. 

Six hours after finding the picture, at four pm, Howie Creen sat sleepy eyed across the table from Barker. 

Barker reached up and adjusted his collar. 

“I brought you some juice,” Barker said, pushing the amber liquid across the table. 

The bird looked down at the cup but didn’t take the proffered drink. 

“I will do well without,” he said in reply. 

Barker shrugged, he wasn’t here to make a new friend. He had every suspicion that this man had all the knowledge he would need to solve this case. It would be another notch in his belt and another reason for the powers of Urgway to love him. 

“Of course, you will,” Barker said, pushing himself up for better posture. 

Barker reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the photo. He looked at it for a moment and thought that it was a shame the bird had lost his feathers; he was such an exotic creature once upon a time. 

“You should already be well versed in playing with things that could harm you,” Barker started, putting the picture onto the table, “I do reckon you know that there are far worse things in life than losing your feathers.” 

Barker gave the man a moment to look down at the photo, but to his surprise the man didn’t make a grab for it or show any emotion at all. This told Barker that not only had the man lost his feathers, but he had lost something much dearer to him as well. Could explain why he was on the ship in the first of the place. 

“It’s tough when no one loves you, isn’t it,” Barker let a glimpse of his canines show then quickly tucked them away. 

“What am I here for?” the man asked. 

Barker reached up and adjusted his collar again, before leaning forward and running a claw over the image of the man’s wife. 

“She was beautiful, wasn’t she,” Barker said. 

The man was trying his best to stay placid. 

“Plus, I still have all of my fur,” Barker laughed. 

The man wanted to reach out and grab the photo, Barker could see it in the twitch of his fingers, but he controlled himself. He was hiding something much bigger than the anger of his wife’s betrayal. 

“You know why you are here, Howie, the ship you disembarked from a few days ago had a little something left behind. That something was the corpse of a presumed seven-hundred-year-old man named Danny Willington.” 

The man shook his head, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I wasn’t on any ship, not since the navy.” 

Barker tapped the picture again, “I found this in an awfully weird place then,” Barker said. 

The man shook his head, “I don’t know how that got there, but it wasn’t by me.” 

Barker hunkered in for what he presumed would be a will of attrition between the two of them. Barker would press and the man would fade, but after two hours it was Barker who had lost his patience. 

“You are free to go, but do not leave Urgway.” 

Barker stood to his feet and grabbed the photo, spilling the juice into Howie’s lap. 

“Sorry about that,” Barker said, without a real hint of sorrow at all. He then turned and opened the door walking out with nothing gained. 

 

* * *

 

Barker had been witness to some weird things in his time as an Urgway Officer and even more as a detective, however, he still found it a bit too much to swallow that a seven hundred year old man had just died on the Fire River. 

“I am here to see the body of Danny Willington,” Barker said to the receptionist at the window. 

The woman’s wing scooped up a nearby pen and slammed it onto the window ledge. “Need you to sign in if you want to see the body,” she squawked back. 

Barker flipped the pen up into his paw and scribbled his name onto the sign in sheet. He could have just as easily shown his badge but demanding would have only made the woman shrivel and go for back-up. This was easily the quicker of the two paths. 

The woman took the clipboard from the desk and made a show of looking at the name. “New head detective down at the big building, huh,” she stated. 

Barker didn’t bother to answer. He hadn’t come for small talk. 

“I see you’re not one much for dinner conversation, let me find out where they put that body for you.” 

With that, the woman hopped up from her chair and moved to an archaic filing cabinet. The Dock Patrol seemed to have even more financial burdens than the district of Marybeth.

The woman came back over with a file and extended it to Barker. 

“Looks like he is on the first floor still, haven’t had a chance to move him, it seems. Docks can get hectic this time of year. Things get warm and people like to go swimming.” 

The woman laughed at her own joke, but Barker just passed through the doors. He followed the signs to the room where the papers had stated Danny Willington would still be. 

It wasn’t even a traditional morgue that Danny had been placed into. The room was just a room with the thermostat turned down low enough to keep the body from stinking the entire place up. Danny was in a dark green bag and the zipper was stiff from many uses prior to Danny. 

Barker pulled back the bag, after finally getting the zipper to give way, and revealed a severely decayed body. The stench wasn’t the worst he had ever smelled, but it wasn’t pleasant by any means. 

The body had been washed and there were no apparent puncture wounds. Barker flipped the body to its side and checked the back, there again seemed to be no major puncture wounds. 

The body didn’t match the description that there had been blood everywhere on the boat and the body. Barker picked up the file again and skimmed through it. The cause of death was undetermined, and the coroner did not describe any trauma. 

The blood, which had been tested after finding the body, had come from outside the corpse and on the skin. Barker touched the body again finding it had at least been embalmed.

There was nothing he could do beyond what had already been done with forensics. Barker was ready to leave when the door opened to the room and a small mouse like man walked in with a clipboard and a long white lab coat. 

“Are you Detective Barker?” the mouse asked. 

Barker answered with a nod. 

“I assume you will be the man addressing the case of our Danny Willington?” 

Barker again nodded, reaching up instinctively to fix his collar. 

“During the examination, I was surprised to find that there was a piece of paper inside the man’s mouth. It is a bunch of non-sense, it seems, but I do not want to be put in contempt by withholding anything from the proper channels.” 

The man unclipped a piece of paper from his clipboard and handed it to Barker. 

He had been right it was a bunch of scribbles, but Barker noticed the words the sacrifice on it. He had seen this wording several times in the notebook; however, this one was dated the day that the man would have presumably died. Barker tucked the paper into his pocket. It was time again to bring in his friend Howie Creen. 

 

* * *

 

Howie still wore the same jacket as the day before. His face also still wore the sunken expression of a man down on his luck. Barker on the other hand was wearing a thousand-dollar suit. He didn’t really have need of a thousand-dollar suit, but he didn’t really have a need for much these days. 

“So glad to see you back with us,” Barker said, sitting down, “I didn’t bother bringing you any juice this go around. Figured you would get all you need in prison.” Barker gave a wink as he leaned back in his chair. 

Over the night, Barker had given up the key element that had stopped him from solving the case; hope. You see it had been hope that had held him back from his own special ways of investigation. It was hope that he would be able to solve the case with just the clues, but rarely did the detective world really work out this way. Mostly, you just solved cases on strokes of luck, or stupid criminals. Or you did it the way Barker did, and you strong armed the only man who would know anything about the actual crime. 

Howie looked up at the word prison, but his facial expression stayed mute. 

“When your wife left you, did it hurt?” 

Howie’s face cracked for a moment, but he didn’t say anything. 

“I bet it did,” Barker leaned forward in his chair and turned off the tape recorder he had placed on the desk, “I bet it was even worse when your children decided they didn’t want to be seen with a deformed man such as yourself.” 

Howie’s expression dropped to one of frustration. 

“No matter, you won’t have to worry about that too much longer now,” Barker pulled his briefcase up onto the table and flipped the locks with his paws. “Soon, you will be too busy fending off advances from your cellmates,” Barker laughed, “I am just kidding pal, your skin is far too grotesque for that business, just ask your wife.” 

Howie pushed his chair back and stood to his feet. Barker pulled out a stack of papers from his briefcase. “There we go, show that anger, show some emotion. I want you to know that it won’t help you, but I want you to know that I gave it to you. Remember who I am and remember what I can do. It would be easy for me to snap my fingers and have you placed into the darkest cell in Urgway. I am your judge and jury and these papers say I have all the evidence in the world against you. So, you can do one of two things, Howie. One, you can confess and rot in prison for the rest of your days. Or two, you can tell me what you know, and I will be generous and let you walk free.” 

“What makes you think I care about myself that much?” Howie spat back, still standing before Barker in a rage. 

“Oh, I don’t assume you care about yourself at all. That’s not why you were on the ship. You were there to make money, money that you thought would bring her back, but it didn’t, and it won’t. Especially if she is a culprit in this case as well,” Barker let a smile show his canines. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“These papers are a confession from you that state your wife was the mastermind behind the entire plan; a family down on their luck, a poor patriot who just lost his way, and a wife who just wanted to support her children. Juries will eat that up like cake, it’s a sad story, but it is also very good for the media.” 

Howie lost some of his anger there. Barker had hit the nerve ending that he needed to hit. 

“I was only on the ship for a week before everything just kind of happened.” 

“Go on,” Barker encouraged. 

“The men did something called the sacrifice. They gathered around and chanted, they distributed the treasure that we had uncovered, and then they killed the captain, or maybe they didn’t kill him, but he killed himself. He drank something in the center of the circle and then they splashed him with a vial full of blood. Then they took another vial and another of the men drank from it and then they started calling him captain. I don’t really know; it was all so odd. I took my money and I left. Before I was able to get off the ship though another of the men thrust this against my chest,” Howie took a few leafs of paper from his pocket. 

The paper was crinkled and had been there probably since the night he had received it. Barker took it from his shaking hand. 

It only took a few moments for Barker to understand the ritual of the sacrifice. 

“Who hired you for the ship?” 

“A man named Vince Umanny, but when I left everyone was calling him Danny Willington.” 

Barker stood up and adjusted his collar. 

“You will want to stay out of my city from now on, Howie Creen, I suggest you move somewhere warm, Urgway can get cold without your feathers.” 

 

* * *

 

Vince Umanny did not have a criminal record of any sort. He was also not former military personnel. The mark against Vince was that he had once migrated to Maharris and that meant the local government had tabs on all his doings. 

It didn’t take Barker long to draw up Umanny’s address. It took even less time to get the actual flat in downtown Urgway. Not too many upstanding individuals would be caught dead sleeping in the offered apartments of West Urgway. However, when you were hard up for a place to rest your head, sometimes you did things that sane people wouldn’t do. Or maybe Vince Umanny was crazy; he had been part of a ritual to kill someone. 

Barker paused a moment to adjust his collar. The carpets of the outside hall made his shoes feel dirty and the musty smell made him shiver. Barker could almost feel bugs crawling over the fur of his legs. 

There were no sounds coming from the apartment. Barker hoped he had caught Vince at home. It would be a shame to have to chase him all over Urgway. The case was already taking up too much of his time and if he had to, he would just pin it all on Howie. It wasn’t like the bird had much left to live for anyhow. Maybe hatred, regret, and retribution would give him something to strive for. Not that he would ever be getting out of prison or have the chance to achieve those things. Then again, maybe Vince was just taking a nap and Howie would be able to get off scot free, aside from the testimony he would have to give of the ritual. 

Barker drew his hand back and rapped his knuckles into the thin wooden door. Barker wondered how hard he would have to knock to just stick his hand through it; he wouldn’t bet on it being very hard. 

Barker heard no sounds coming from the other side of the door. He knocked again, hoping to arouse Vince if he was sleeping on the other side. Still, he heard nothing coming from the inside of the room. Nothing could ever be as easy as it should be. Barker tried the handle, and, to his surprise, it wasn’t locked. 

The door flew open at a gentle push; the door was really light-weight and cheap. Inside, it didn’t take long to realize something very strange was going on. 

Barker didn’t see Vince Umanny inside. What he did see, however, was hundreds, probably thousands of vials filled with deep red blood. All of it was being held in clear refrigerator systems and had clearly been there quite a long time. 

Barker stepped forward and looked down at the caps of the vials. To his surprise, each read a different date, but all of them were hundreds of years ago. Barker saw decades of blood drawls stored here in these vials. This would have had to have been several draws a day for over seventy years at least. There was enough blood here to create a massacre scene; enough blood to dump all over a dead body with no puncture wound and create the illusion of another identity. 

Barker moved along the table and came to a stack of papers that had clearly been ripped from one of the logs left on the ship. Barker flipped them over and saw the words “the sacrifice” in large letters. 

 

First, I will create a system to transfer myself from one body to the next. This will be easy; the poets say that blood is the essence of life; without it, you would die. This must simply mean that blood holds all the power of who we are. Without the blood, we would be nothing, but if I gave my blood to another body then I would, in fact, survive forever. I would pump through new hearts and travel in new veins. Therefore, I will be starting the process of drawing enough of my own blood to keep me alive for hundreds of years into the future. 

With the process, I will call the sacrifice, I will move my life from one body to the next. This body will be killed by my own hand and then I will move into the next body as they drink a vial of my stored blood. They will become me, and I will be able to live on for a good long time to come. This shall be my greatest achievement. 

Danny Willington.

 

Barker flipped through the pages. Most of this was details of all the past rituals that had ever been executed. Each man started having instant delusions of becoming Danny Willington. Barker had seen all of this before with other cults. The brain was a fickle beast and could believe many things. 

Barker was so engrossed in the papers and the vials left on the table that he hadn’t noticed Vince getting up from the couch. He did not notice him coming at him with a hammer that he would have used to introduce Barker’s brains to the wall. What he did notice was that Vince was a very unlucky man. He slipped on one of the vials that had clearly fallen from the table as Barker had run his hands across them. 

With a thud, he came crashing down onto the floor. No harm done to Detective Barker at all. 

 

* * *

 

Barker adjusted the microphone on the podium stand. He hated these press conferences. Reporters hounded him with questions, and he smiled and answered as if he cared at all. It was all a show for the public. It was a grab to make the people love him, even if he cared nothing for them. 

“So, there was never a seven-hundred-year-old man?” 

Barker adjusted his collar. He had answered the same question about three hundred times since he had brought in the man impersonating Danny Willington. Vince Umanny was a much simpler character than the seven-hundred-year-old man. The original Danny Willington had been something of a novelty, a real genuine smart man; albeit a little crazy. The following Danny Willingtons were at least interesting in nature. That led to Vince Umanny, who just so happened to have no talents at all. 

“Danny Willington was a real man at some point in history. However, he was not the man found upon the ship by the docks of the Fire River, nor is he the man who was just sentenced to life without parole.” 

“How did you solve this case all alone?” 

The Mayor leaned over Barker’s shoulder. “Bringing back the love for the hounds I see, we can use this.” 

Barker felt a shudder move down his spine. The Mayor had said ‘We’, as if Barker’s plans had any room for another top figure head. Barker just nodded. 

“Detective work is my passion and that means I put a lot of time into my craft. I just want to keep the streets and the city of Urgway safe for everyone who walks them.” 

“Is there anything you can tell us about your new detective in Marybeth? The white fox? I heard he has the reputation for solving missing person cases?”

Barker didn’t have a clue what that white fox was known for. He had barely spoken to him. 

“I am sorry, that is a little beneath my pay grade,” Barker said with a laugh. The crowd joined him, “I am sorry, that will be all the questions for today.” 

Barker started to move off the stage when a hand grabbed him by the shoulder. It was the beefy hand of the Mayor. 

“You did great work,” he started. His eyes told Barker there was something much deeper that he wanted. “Such great work that I have full confidence you can bring me something I need.” 

There it was; the first favor.