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𝐓𝐄𝐍 : 𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐄𝐃𝐄

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We stopped to get dinner, one of the many restaurants with flashing signs and lights. I chose Mexican, while Crow argued for Italian but I won the disagreement and we sat down in a nice restaurant that smelled like spice and seasoned meat while people chatted and laughed along with the televisions blaring a soccer game.

We spent the majority of the night here, waiting for the time to tick away. If we had to dig up a grave, we couldn't do that with the sun still up. I knew that once we got to Rose Hill cemetery, I'd have to try and contact Cage before digging. Going to the cemetery also gave me the chance to contact other spirits and finally use the gift inside my fingers to send them off into the true afterlife. And, who knows, maybe I'd find some more answers there.

There were ghosts here at the restaurant. My vision would go to gray like someone was flipping the light switch on and off. I'd be reaching for my drink and the world would shift and I'd see people drifting through the room and I'd blink again and the sound would roar back into my ears, and then it would repeat, over and over.

I wasn't mad, but it did make conversation difficult.

They would speak with eager voices, as if trying to distract me.

"Her, her, her."

"Come to the cemetery."

"I want to leave, I want to leave!"

When we left, it was like breathing through clean lungs once we were in the car. Everything was quiet and I could finally see straight. Crow must've noticed how airy I had been at dinner because he didn't question the way I heaved in the night air and even rolled down his window to accept the cold embrace of the wind and the sound of that roar.

For an evildoer, Crow was surprisingly nice company.

He spoke to me about his day, as if we were some long lost friends catching up at the end of a work day and not like we had once been destined to kill the other. As if the fates had finally stepped back.

The road to Rose Hill was quick, we hadn't been that far away. The sky was dark and there wasn't a star in the sky that we could see past the thick, billowing clouds. The only downside to it being night was that the cemetery was gated shut, so we had to park down the street and walk over and then somehow jump the fence.

I was just thankful I hadn't eaten such a full meal in case we needed to take off running from the security guards or even the police. Once he had parked the car, we got out and silently made our way to the other side of the street and then the fence. I kept one hand on the strap of my bag as I looked for a good place to climb. We were out of sight from the street, shadowed behind trees and thick bushes.

I didn't wait for Crow to ask if I needed help. I gripped the metal posts and hooked one foot against the bar and hiked myself up with what little upper body strength I had. It was easy once I got my hands around the sharp tops of the posts where there was a good place to step onto to leap over the top.

The ground below me came fast and I landed with an oof! on my feet before toppling to my knees. I kept myself from a full face plant with my hands and stood, brushing the wetness seeping into the knees of my jeans. Crow leapt over with more ease and grace than I did and I muttered under my breath, "Show off."

He returned my comment with a smirk.

He flicked on his flashlight and took the lead through the cemetery. My eyes were no longer on his back but on the area itself. It looked more ominous at night than I had imagined. The darkness acted like another form that took hold, the shadows I had once been afraid of came to life under the moon. The arching headstones and mausoleums were hooded, still and waiting.

The spirits here came easily and were welcoming versus the restaurant. I brushed past Crow, hand against his arm. "I might slip off, we'll meet at Cage's headstone."

I didn't wait for his response as my world shifted to lifeless gray. If anything, everything looked more foggy with the black sky. There were small lights along the thin road that stretched and winded through the cemetery but even with those dimmed lights, it was clear this was no place for life at this hour.

The people I saw were dead. As they always were. In between life and whatever came after in the glowing lights. They floated and moved across the grass with grace, while other's wandered with forced movements like their limbs weren't their own.

The ghosts were coming for me, more and more, I realized as I walked past graves and the churned earth of a new plot, of someone freshly laid to rest forever in a box of rough silk. I didn't know whether or not I should be the one to approach the ghosts as they moaned and lingered, stumbling through an afterlife that wasn't their own making. I was tempted to just reach out to one, to see if my gift still worked after all these months laying dormant inside of me.

It came to me easily as the ghosts turned their heads and approached. They crowded around me, surprisingly silent. It seemed they could sense what we were all feeling.

The dread. The exhaustion. The questions going unanswered.

I touched them, one by one, and watched as they erupted into golden light. There were a select few who burst into such dangerously dark lights that I could only stand and watch as they were dragged into the blackened void, sucked back into the earth. It seemed the real decider of their fates were their own. Whatever their souls were made of hadn't been enough for the golden rays of heavenly light.

My gift raged through me like a current, like a giant wave rushing and crashing against my chest. It felt as if I were floating, like the lights were shooting from me instead. It felt like true power and I knew this must've been the high the Morticianers had craved so desperately.

I saw my true target once I had stepped past the mix of gold and black luster hanging low in the air. He stood near his own grave, trench coat brushing against the tall grass. He kept his back to me but I could still see the spread of blood coating the ends of his jacket.

"You're here for more answers," Cage said as I came to stand next to him, but at a good distance to avoid his ever moving geata.

"I need your list of known necromancers," I said, stuffing my hands deep within my jacket. Even though the gray had ceased any real worldly movement, it was still cold and I could still feel the phantom breeze. "I know you never finished your search."

"And this will help you how?"

I shrugged. "Peace of mind."

"You don't believe you're the last, do you?" he said, finally catching my eyes. He looked weary, tired.

"And if I'm somehow not?"

"You'll have to kill them."

"But why not kill me? If I'm not the one, couldn't they be?" I asked, feeling the power I had felt minutes before drain and be replaced with a growing sickness.

"You will know, one day, that all of this was meant to happen," Cage said in a soft voice that didn't resemble my father at all. Did he sound remorseful? Apologetic? Scared? "If giving you the list will put your mind at ease and help you understand our circumstances, then fine."

"A ghost told me it was buried with you, is that true?"

He nodded, grimacing down at his grave. Untouched by flowers for far too long to his taste. "It must still be strange to come to where I've been buried but we're still able to speak." He shook his head, meeting my eyes. "It was something that I struggled with, when I was your age and still figuring it all out."

"Does it ever get easier?"

His eyes left mine, returning to the headstone. "I've heard them say, here on the other side, that wandering this plane is something like wandering a grocery store past midnight, or an airport at three in the morning. Everything is so different but all just the same as it was when we were living." He shrugged, droplets of blood flinging from the ends of his sleeves. "The list is in my breast pocket. I'd better start digging, it's supposed to rain later tonight."

He left in a rush of cold wind that blew into my face and I coughed. It carried the stench of Cage's old cologne and the metallic smell of what runs freely from his soul.

His veins were eternally open.

The gray didn't fade immediately once Cage left. It stayed, just like the cool touch in the air. I noticed the headstone parallel to Cage's and I let out a shallow breath.

Louise Lake.

I wondered, too often, if she were in the gray somewhere off from me. Hiding. It stabbed at my heart knowing she had yet to come to me, that she was keeping her distance. The ache from missing her grew more and more with the passing time.

I wished I had brought flowers.

The gray slid away and the call of birds and cicadas returned to the air like a grateful white noise. It didn't take long for Crow to come to the grave, carrying the shovels and sighed once he read my expression.

"He wants us to dig for them, doesn't he?"

I nodded, holding a hand out and he passed me the shovel without another word.

~

My jacket lay on the ground with my bag as I knelt down by them, grabbing a water bottle I had brought with me. I had sweat and dirt coating every inch of my clothes and skin. I was filthy from head to toe and Crow was the same, dirt smeared across his cheek.

He had graciously offered to finish the digging, which wasn't much but I wasn't about to open that casket and see Cage's body. The idea of breaking it open and looking up his decomposed face, to see the rot that had taken over his body, to see the life truly drained from him was not something I was ready to face.

When Crow did finally reach the casket, he opened it without a word and pulled a plastic bag out with a triumphant rise of his fist. He crawled out from the grave and handed me the bag as I ignored the horrific smell wafting up from the open hole.

Inside the plastic was a small folded piece of paper. I recognized Cage's handwriting instantly as I held it out for us both to see. There was only a short list of people, five in total. The first three had lines marked through them and I knew the only ones that were important were the last two.

Two names remain, the ouija board had told us, thanks to Amy. It seemed that he was speaking truthfully when he contacted us.

4. Dahlia Salucci, twenty-seven, Charlon

5. Marshall Hollins, fifteen, Little Water

"They're the last ones," I breathed, finding it difficult to breathe. Marshall was only fifteen, he was still just a boy. I shook my head, my mind rocketing with terrifying thoughts of having to kill a child or him kill me, instead. "Them and me."

"They could already be dead," offered Crow, trying to make me feel better and I'll give him credit for trying but my stomach curled in on itself and I wanted to sob.

That's all I seemed to do lately. Cry and cry and cry, as if trying to drown myself.

"We should rebury him," I murmured, wiping at my face. I picked up my shovel I had thrown down and let his eyes follow me.

I struck the dirt, my shovel gliding through the loosened earth as I scooped it back up and tossed it down upon my father. He left me cursed. He left me diseased, and, perhaps, I've been the one rotting all along.

The drive home was silent, like Crow knew that I was in no mood to speak.

And it was true.

The devastating news I'd received just by reading a small, wilted scrap of paper had sent me down a spiral. I wouldn't be able to bring myself to kill either of those people, even if there was a loaded gun to my head, I wouldn't be able to do it. They had done nothing wrong, they had simply been born into the wrong generation, the wrong legacy.

If they were both alive, I was going to offer myself up. I would have to, wouldn't I?

I wanted to live. There were so many things I hadn't done yet and just beginning to realize, I had no time to go off and die. Not yet, at least. These thoughts gnawed at me all the way back to Crow's cabin, which I had forgotten I had said I would be staying in. He pulled off the road and onto a small gravel road between the trees and I began to worry as we drove in deeper.

He was going to kill me out here and no one was going to know.

He parked his car in his own gravel lot and I scrambled from the car. His cabin was small, not at all like I imagined it to be. Granted, I imagined it to be a death chamber, perhaps even a prison. But it was quaint, with wooden panels and a wide front porch. There was a garden bed of beautiful flowers, soft yellows and pinks that I could make out from the front porch light casting a dim, fiery glow against the area.

I grabbed my bag, slinging it over my shoulder and reaching into the backseat to grab the overnight bag I had packed filled with my limited supply of jeans and t-shirts. I stuffed my free hand into my pocket, feeling for the comforting handle of Spiorad and heaving a silent sigh of relief as my fingers closed around her.

Following him up the front steps, he unlocked the door and stepped inside and into the dark. I lingered in the doorway, watching his shadow flip on the lights and I blinked, moving my hand free of my pocket. The entrance hall was open with wood paneled floors that opened up to the kitchen to my left, the living room straight ahead and the hallway to my right. It smelled like him here, like evergreens, whiskey, and something older.

I stepped inside, pushing the door closed with my hip as I got a closer look at everything as he watched me take it all in. There was a small, wooden table by the windows in the kitchen with a built-in banquette bench (and yes, I do know that term because it was a dream of mine as a kid to have the breakfast table be like that). There was a kitchen island set up with high chairs and I smiled, noticing he had pans hanging up against the wall above the stove and I pictured him cooking for himself, a dish towel thrown over his shoulder.

I made my way towards the living room, noticing a singular step down and minding my feet as I took the step. There was a long couch facing a fireplace and a quaint little coffee table with a placement of old books spilled across the surface. I dropped my overnight bag by the couch as I crossed to the sliding back porch doors, peering out onto his deck with a grill and two nice sitting chairs. He had a beautiful backyard with a fire pit and a rose bed lining the porch.

When I turned around, he was leaning against the wall leading to the small hallway which I assumed would take me to the bedrooms. He had his arms crossed over his chest with an amused smile playing at his lips.

"What?" I raised an eyebrow, running my fingers over the back of the couch as I circled back for my bag.

"Honestly never expected you to agree to this," he replied as I bent down and slung the bag over my arm.

I smiled as I said, "You didn't give me much of a choice. It was either this or wait to be killed in my house, alone. I'd rather have an audience when I'm finally gutted, wouldn't you?"

"You watching me get killed by my own men?" He made a show of pretending to think it over. "You'd probably set up and watch it happen, bowl of popcorn in hand."

"They'd get a standing ovation," I purred as I walked up the single step, floor silent under my feet. Everything creaked back at home, and the silence was strangely welcoming. "In all seriousness, I should be safe here, right? None of your men know about this place?"

He nodded, motioning for me to follow him down the hall. We passed one closed door, which I guessed was his room, and when we got to the second door, he opened it with a shove of his shoulder, flipping the lights on. "Only Victor knows, but you can trust him."

"But Crow," I murmured as I walked into the room. It was around the same size as my room back home. The bed was in the middle of the room with twin night stands on their side. There was a large window that overlooked the backyard, lined with rich red curtains. There was a dress on the wall facing the bed with a small mirror above it that I saw my troubled reflection looking back at me as I passed by to place my things on the bed. "Can I trust you?"

He looked at me and I wondered what would've happened if he got closer, if he backed me up until my legs hit the bed. "I'm letting you stay here, aren't I? Besides, I did just dig up dear ol' dad tonight, that should speak for itself."

"So, just for my sake," I murmured, noticing the comforter was a fluffy green, "there won't be any attempts on my life by you here?"

He nodded with a soft sigh and for a moment, his hand flexed as if he were about to reach out for me but stopped himself. Was he burdened by temptation, too? Did he have that sickly feeling of wanting more and more? He forced his hand through his hair with a weary smile as he said, "I'll be in my room, just...yell if you need anything."

I nodded, watching him turn and leave and taking the warmth with him.

I instantly began to snoop once he'd closed the door behind him. There were two closed doors in the room, one, I realized, was an empty closet save for a few hangers and extra blankets on a high shelf. The other door led me into a small bathroom with my own shower and I silently thanked Crow for giving me such a nice room.

When I crawled into bed after a nice, long, warm shower, I laid in the dark staring up at the ceiling. It took me only ten minutes of thinking before getting up and going to the door. I reached out and clicked the lock into place.

Just in case, I told myself. Just in case.

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kinda short one hehe, basically just setting up some of the major plot points for later, esppp w the list found in the grave

hope you guys liked it and lemme know what you think!!! <333

vote/comment and cage will get bitch slapped