“All right,” he said. “But if things go sour, I want you to meet me by Angler’s Cave, I—”
“Yes, yes, I understand, Thorny,” I told him, but I was already in the hole and scratching the last lawyer of dirt off the coffin. It was indeed mahogany with solid brass locks, which Rawthorne had to pop off with the sharp end of the shovel. It took him four tries. His hands shook worse than ever.
Once the bindings were removed, the coffin opened easily, and after a brief gust of stench that to me meant windfall, I leapt inside.
I immediately knew Rawthorne was right. This was a good one. As I sifted through the dusty bones, tossing the tiny ones aside and gathering the large ones in my lap, bits of gold and jewelry pattered away like raindrops in the moonlight. I seized an intact forearm and waved it cheerfully at him.
“Look Rawthorne, a watch!” That would be worth ten nights with Shelley.
“Good find,” he nodded, extracting the precious instrument and leaving the arm and hand bones to me. In minutes, Rawthorne assembled a small fortune into a cloth sack around his neck and I a sizable pile of bits to work with. He popped his head out of the hole.
“They’re almost upon us. I’d better go,” he said.
“Wait! I’ll need one of your flasks!”
“Alright. But don’t you actually drink any!”
I bit my tongue about his drinking habits. I was getting what I wanted. Don’t push it, Posy. “Thanks!” I said.
“Now, I want no trouble. And remember, Angler’s Cave!” He leaned down, squeezed my shoulder, and vanished into the night.
I had only seconds to prepare.
Making a bowl with my skirt, I gathered the remains of the baroness and scampered up and behind the gravestone. My back pressed against the marble monolith, I assembled my party trick and listened as the others arrived.
“Look, constable!” I heard a man wheeze in a bumpkin lilt. The grounds keeper, assuredly. A dog whined by his heel. “I told you! Ghosts and ghouls! Undead walking in the night!”
“Hush, Igor,” a sterner, arrogant voice growled. “Grave-robbers, I expect. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.”
Stifling a snigger, I swung myself atop the stone and perched there like a fat and knobby toad.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, dear fleshwalkers,” I snickered and snorted. I was dressed from head to toe in remains, tied haphazardly to my cloak. I found the looser they were bound, the more they clicked and clattered. I continued, smacking my lips: “Those whose dry bones touch the air envy — smack — wet meat.”
The grounds keeper turned the shade of used candle wax. “Undead!” He squealed. “The spirits protect me!” The dog attempted a growl, sputtering into a whine at my gleeful smile. The constable took a visible step back, but his wide eyes never left me.
“Who are you?” he demanded, his voice impressively steady.
“Gentlemen, please!” I purred, planting my backside on the stone and bouncing my crisscrossed legs in the manner of a fancy lady smoking a lazy cigarette. Speaking of ladies, my Lady Baroness began to slide off my face, so I pushed her skull back up the way one might straighten spectacles. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen such… full-bodied men.” With a hungry look I eyed the potato sack spilling over the ground keeper’s belt and the wrinkled turkey’s neck pinched by the constable’s collar.
At least the dog looked all right.
“Generally,” I continued, “one has a drink with a lady before asking such impertinent questions.” I fished a grime-specked glass, also a coffin find, from my cloak and twirled its thin stem between my fingers. Lucky it was so dark and my hands so dirty. The forearm stayed mounted on mine, but I hadn’t had time to make it dexterous.
With the opposite, undecorated hand, I upended Rawthorne’s flask over the glass. Thick, gelatinous red wine splattered up to the brim. It was the cheapest stuff, the bottom of the barrel, and I loved Rawthorne dearly for drinking something so redolent of blood.
“I command you: answer me! Who are you?” The constable shouted. Your aggression reveals your fear, my dear, I sniggered quietly to myself.
“Why, the Lady Baroness of course, up for a nightcap in this midnight hour.”
I sprung from the gravestone and landed before them with a clicking and a clacking of bones. The grounds keeper dropped his leash and the poor mutt sprinted into the darkness, tail between his legs. Unabashed, I bent down to the ground and sifted through the pile of soil Rawthorne left behind.
“Ah yes!” I said, my hand closing on something unseen. “Just what I needed!” With a flourish, I yanked an enormous earthworm from the ground. It was perfect: pink as a baby’s forearm and nearly as fat. With a satisfying kerplop I dropped the creature into my brew. Half its body hung out the glass and wriggled in distaste at the biting alcohol. Poor thing. I’d have to apologize to it later.
I bowed to the constable, bowed to the grounds keeper, and took a sip. The grounds keeper gurgled an inconsolable shriek, vomited into the grass, and fled. I glared coldly after him. He obviously never knew hunger. Earthworms aren’t so bad.
“Now that we’re alone,” I said, approaching the constable. At this point I was close enough for him to see through the eye sockets of the skull to my actual face. My mottled flesh and milky eyes disturbed him even more. Blindness scares people, I’ve learned, because it’s an ally of the dark. When they are blind, I can see. What earthly tremors can I sense that, to them, are invisible?
“What do you want?” he whispered.
“No, kind constable. It’s what you want. I can see straight through into your loins and your heart. I know you want… me!” I flew at him, lips puckered beneath a rotting jawbone, the stench of death heavy and thick. I was only about as tall as his chest, so when we connected in my loving embrace all he could look down on was the Baroness’ moon-white skull, complete with several tufts of hair and a few clinging bits of flesh.
He tried to twist away, and my wine sloshed out the glass and down his chest. His mouth opened in a silent scream and he took off into the night, dropping his lantern, his light vanishing in a hiss. A hundred yards away I heard him gasp in pain as he collided with a headstone and limped onward.
I hit the ground laughing. What can I do? Have fun or go mad.
With all the time in the world, I picked for remnants through the grave before reassembling the Baroness. With a silent thanks, I kissed my fingertips, placed them on the lady’s forehead, and strolled towards the gates.
I hadn’t known there was a cleric in town.
Rawthorne and I knew better than to stray too close to the cities. The country’s biggest baddies were men like the constable, inflated by nothing but hot air. If I had known that any city-kitty was nearby, let alone Lord Bram, I’d never have dared my tricks.
That chicken-shit constable had gone and fetched him.
I noticed them before they saw me, but even then it was too late. The night does not hide one from Lord Bram. He cupped his hands together, bent his head in prayer, and with a roar, a searing light exploded outward from his palms. His power, a second sun, ascended above the graveyard, murdering all darkness but those pitiful remnants which clung like frightened children to the backsides of the stones.
I squirmed like a rat nailed to a board. The cleric muttered another spelclass="underline" invisible chains sprung into being and coiled themselves around my body. I toppled to the earth, and, blinded, could only hear the Lord’s approach. The rich swishing of a cloak. The measured breathing of an old but disciplined man. The sound as small things crumbled beneath his iron step. Yes, that was Lord Bram, I was sure of it.