She blinked hard and squinted into the dark as her eyes adjusted. There was no moon. Only a rare patch of stars appeared overhead as the clouds whipped by. Wind tugged at her hair and blew it into her face while she struggled to make sense of how far she had fallen.
The funeral home should have been behind her at the top of the small hill she had fallen down. But behind her, there was nothing but darkness. The marble gravestones around her stood at odd angles in the wet grass. Some were cracked and crumbling. Chunks of stone lay in the grass around their bases as though someone had come through and smashed them with a sledgehammer.
“What the hell,” she whispered.
A glimmer of light caught her eye, and she squinted at it, trying to make out the shape. A flickering orange glow—a candle? A fire?
She pushed herself to her knees and walked toward it.
“What the hell is going on?”
As she got closer, Jackie realized that the small flame was actually a small fire, which then became a blazing one as tall as her waist. She held up a hand to shield herself from the heat of the flames and winced as she felt it against her skin.
All at once, the flames surged, making her step back in alarm, and then shrank down and became a small flickering light trapped inside the glass globe of a lantern.
She knelt down beside it and reached out to touch the handle. She had expected it to be hot, but it was cool to the touch. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why is this here?”
“It’s here for you,” a voice said from behind her.
Jackie spun around and bit back a cry of surprise as she saw a young man with dark hair leaning against one of the broken monuments. He looked up at the angel’s cracked face and then smiled at her.
“Who are you and, what the fuck are you doing here?” she blurted out.“The gates are locked!” She instantly regretted saying anything as the dark-haired stranger chuckled.
“Locked gates don’t keep me out.”
“You’re not supposed to be here. I’ll call the cops. They’re not really cool about trespassers.”
“How are you going to call the cops?”
Jackie struggled to her feet, still holding the lantern. “Uh…”
Oh, right. Her phone. Who the hell knew where that had landed when she’d fallen.
The dark-haired stranger smiled briefly and pointed at the lantern. “What are you going to do with that?”
Jackie looked down at the lantern and frowned at it. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it was doing out here…”
“I told you, it’s yours.”
“It’s not mine. I just found it—”
The guy shrugged. “You’d better figure it out. You’re running out of time.”
“Time? What are you talking about? It’s still dark, I have lots of time—”
She turned toward the hill and looked up at where the funeral home should have been, but, just like before, there was nothing but darkness beyond the glow of the lamp.
“You’d better wake up, Jacqueline Keller, things are about to get really weird.”
Jackie turned back to ask him what the hell he was talking about, but when she did, he was gone.
“Hey! What—”
The flame in the lantern flared and began to smoke. It poured out of the top of the lantern and filled her nostrils. She choked and coughed and tried to drop the lantern, but her fingers wouldn’t open. She doubled over, her chest tight and painful as she gasped for air. Smoke poured from the lantern, obscuring her vision and covering everything in a thick, acrid fog.
Her head throbbed and her hand burned as smoke filled the air. Finally, her fingers unclenched and the lantern fell to the grass. She tried to back away and escape the smoke, but there was nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, and tendrils of the thick black smoke began to twine up her legs. It wrapped around her throat and caressed her cheeks as she fought against it, but the smoke tightened around her like tentacles.
She gasped in pain as the tendrils squeezed harder around her torso, forcing her mouth open. Smoke poured down her throat, choking her. Her eyes rolled back and she fell to her knees, overpowered by the smoke. Everything flexed and darkened, and Jackie’s ears were filled with the rushing of wind and a strange laughter, and then—
Air rushed into her lungs and Jackie coughed. She was lying face down in a patch of wet grass and her head ached, the pain pulsed behind her eyes as she pushed herself up onto her elbows.
It was still dark. So dark. And she could barely see a few feet in front of her.
“Why the fuck did I follow that cat,” she muttered.
She pushed herself up to her knees and rubbed her hands over her face. Dried blood was crusted in her hair and she winced as her fingers touched a lump that was forming in her hairline. “Fuck.”
She blinked hard and looked down at her hands. Hadn’t this already happened? She squinted into the dark as her eyes adjusted. There was no moon. Only a rare patch of stars appeared overhead as the clouds whipped by. Wind tugged at her hair and blew it into her face while she struggled to make sense of what had happened. Her fingers were wet with blood. She’d obviously hit her head as she’d fallen… But what had she tripped over?
Jackie looked back over her shoulder, worried for a moment that she had fallen back into her dream—or whatever the hell that had been.
The funeral home loomed over the hill above her. The marble gravestones around her stood straight and whole and she rubbed her hand over the closest one. It was real and solid. She wasn’t dreaming. Her knees were soaked through from the grass and her cheeks were cold.
She swore again and felt around in the grass for her phone. She had definitely lost it as she fell. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly, and she pawed through the grass, desperately. Her fingers touched something hard and cold. Metal.
She recoiled in horror. It wasn’t possible.
The lantern from her dream lay against the edge of a gravestone. She reached for it tentatively, but hesitated as she remembered the way the smoke had tasted, and the way it had tightened around her body.
“No way. No fucking way.”
She scrambled to her feet and almost fell again as her boots slipped on the grass.
A sharp meow startled her enough to make her stumble against a marble cross. The black cat sat upon a gravestone. His tail curled against the stone and he blinked at her with golden green eyes.
Jackie leveled a finger at the cat. “Don’t you dare say anything.” The cat’s ear flicked and he blinked slowly. “This is your fault anyway,” she continued, “I shouldn’t even be here. I should be up there!”
She made a disgusted noise and pushed her hair out of her face. “What am I supposed to do now? I can’t just… leave that there. What if I kicked it off of someone’s grave? I’m dead meat, you… Ugh! You cat!”
She picked up the lantern and shook it at the cat.
“Seriously! What am I supposed to do with this?”
The cat turned away and began to wash his back leg.
“Thanks. Thanks so much for your help,” she said sarcastically.
Jackie spun around and marched away from the cat, up the hill toward the funeral home. The lantern clanked against her thigh as she stomped angrily through the grass. She sat down on the stone wall in front of the funeral home and set the lantern on the path and stared at the locked door.
“What the shit am I supposed to do now?”
The black cat jumped up on the wall beside her, just out of reach.
“Go away,” she growled at it.
The cat blinked at her and then jumped down and rubbed against the lantern. The cat’s purr was loud and grating and he sat down on the concrete beside it and stared up at her.
“I said go away,” she muttered. She flapped her hands in an attempt to scare the creature away, but it didn’t move. “This is just perfect. Katie already thinks I’m a screw up, this will just confirm it. Even if I can get in, I won’t have enough time to get anyth
ing done. I’m doomed and you’re just going to sit there. This is all your fault, you know.”
The cat yawned and stretched and rubbed its shoulder against the lantern again. As the cat brushed against the lantern, some of the dirt flaked off and revealed the metal beneath the grime. She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward to get a better look at it. “Is that writing? Maybe it has a name on it and I can get it back to the proper grave.”
She didn’t usually talk to herself like a lunatic, but having the cat there meant she had an audience, and even if she was angry at the cat, not talking was rude.
Jackie reached for the lantern and pulled it into her lap. The cat’s purring filled her ears as she rubbed the dirt off the housing with her fingers.
She frowned at the lantern as the writing became clearer. But it wasn’t a name. It was a language she barely recognized.
stipendium peccati
ab aeterno
abyssus abyssum invocat
Jackie groaned and looked at the cat accusingly. “Latin? Of course it’s Latin. As if I was paying attention in that class.”
“Wait,” the cat said.
Jackie almost dropped the lantern. “Stop that! Stop doing that! You can’t talk!”
The cat meowed and licked its paw lazily.
“This is insane. Batshit insane.”
She stood up, set the lantern on the stone wall and pointed at the cat accusingly. “You. Stop talking. I feel like I’m going insane. I am not insane. I am very sure that I am not insane.”
The cat blinked up at her but didn’t move.
“And I’m totally proving that by yelling incoherently at a cat.”
Jackie looked up at the sky and felt a wave of panic drift through her. The sky had lightened just a little. How long had she been out? Her head ached and her stomach felt queasy. This was literally the worst night ever and if she didn’t get into that funeral home soon, Katie would make sure that she never forgot about it. She’d been on thin ice with most of her friends for years—but this was different. This time she’d actually intended on doing what she said she would.
Her heart leapt into her throat as the shine of headlights played over the wrought iron gate and Jackie ran toward it. Her head pounded with every step and she fought to keep desperate laughter from bursting out. Someone was here. Someone that could let her in. The caretaker? The guy who cut the lawns? She didn’t care who it was as long as they could open the door and let her into the funeral home.
She waved her arms over her head as the door of an ancient 4x4 creaked open. A dark figure jumped out and she heard the clatter of keys against the wrought iron lock.
“Hey! Hey! Oh my god, you’re the best thing I’ve seen all night,” she cried.
An older man with show white hair poking out from under a wool hat peered into the dark at her. Jackie stepped into the beam of the headlights and smiled broadly. “You’re early!”
“Am I?” the old man grumbled. “Who’re you?”
“Oh, shit, I’m Jackie. I’m covering for Katie Marx. She called me in last minute to cover her shift and—”
The old man waved his hand to shut her up and Jackie clamped her mouth shut. She had a tendency to babble when she was nervous, and she’d been on edge since she’d arrived. The cat hadn’t helped, neither had her headache.
“Whaddrya doin’ out here?” the man asked. He shoved the key into the lock and Jackie heard the scrape of the iron tumblers as the gate released its hold.
“I’m locked out,” Jackie admitted. “I was trying to find a way in—”
“Only one door,” the man said. He pushed the wrought iron gate and it swung wide to allow the truck to enter the grounds. He climbed back into the truck and slammed the door shut. Jackie jumped to the side as the caretaker cranked the trunk into gear and it rolled forward.
Jackie ran to push the gate closed and flinched as the lock clanked into place.
“D’ya wanna get in?” the man shouted from the driver’s side window.
Jackie ran up to the truck’s cab and nodded vehemently. “Yeah, that would be great, I have a bunch of stuff to do before—”
The old man didn’t wait for her to finish before he pulled away and Jackie bit down on her lip as the truck revved and rolled toward the funeral home.
“Gee, mister, thanks for the ride, you’re a real gentleman,” she muttered bitterly.
She followed the truck at a quick pace and caught up to the man as he jumped down out of the truck and strode down the path toward the funeral home.
“You’re a life saver,” Jackie said breathlessly as she fell into step beside the caretaker. He walked quickly for an older man, and she instantly regretted cancelling her gym membership.
“Yer lucky I’ve got a key,” the man muttered.
“Super lucky, I’m really grateful,” Jackie said quickly.
“Katie never forgets her key, don’t even see the girl when I get here.”
Jackie bristled at the criticism. “Yeah, well, I’m not Katie. It was just a mistake, I’m not usually so—”
“Shitty at your job?”
Jackie gritted her teeth. “Something like that.” She pointed at the glass door of the funeral home as they came up to the wall. “See. My bag is right there. If that stupid cat hadn’t distracted me—”
“Cat?”
“Yeah, a black cat. A real bastard. His meows sound like he’s talking, but it might be because I hit my head. Does the cat belong to someone? I didn’t see a collar—”
The old man snorted. “There’s no cat here.”
“Are you sure? He seemed pretty comfortable. He was just sitting there…” Jackie pointed at the concrete path, but it was empty. “Where did you go, you little asshole?”
The old man’s dug in his pocket for his keys and Jackie swallowed hard. “Are you Mr. Talbot, I’m sorry I didn’t ask before…”
“Yep.” He shoved his key into the lock without looking at her and pulled the door open.
Talkative old guy.
“I just… I really can’t thank you enough. I’m not usually this scatterbrained—”
“Uh-huh.”
“I just, there was the cat, and then I fell down the hill and hit my head. I must have passed out for a bit.” She touched her head tentatively and winced as pain flared behind her eyes.
“You look like shit,” the man said.
Observant. Awesome.
“Yeah, probably. I fell down the hill… The grass is wet—nevermind.”
The man shoved his keys back into his pocket and kicked the doorstop down so that the door wouldn’t close and lock her out again.
Jackie didn’t know why she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop herself. The night had already been too weird. Then something occurred to her.
“Hey. You're here all the time. Maybe you can help me. When I fell I must have knocked into one of the graves, and kicked over a lantern. Can you tell me where it belongs? Someone must have left it here for a relative or something. It looks expensive and kind of old… I’d feel bad if someone came looking for it.”
The old man’s white eyebrows rose slightly. “A lantern?”
“Yeah.” Jackie ran to the wall and plucked the lantern off the stones. She held it gingerly and raised it up so that he could see. “It has some writing on it, but it’s not a name… I can’t read Latin or whatever this is, but I thought maybe you’d know where it goes?”
Mr. Talbot’s eyes widened as he looked at the lantern and he took a step back. “Where did y’find that?”
“I told you, I tripped over it, or I kicked it, I don’t know. I was falling,” Jackie said. Irritation started to boil in her stomach. It was dark, it was cold, her head hurt, and she had a lot of work to do still and this old bastard was just… staring at her.
“D’ya know what that is?” The question was incredulous and Jackie snorted.
“Yeah. It’s a lantern. One of the ones that needs oil or whatever to light it.”
T
he old man swiped his hat off his head and pushed a hand through his wiry hair. “It’s not just a lantern, you stupid girl.”
“Hey. That’s—”
“It’s the Devil’s Lantern.”
Now it was Jackie’s turn to stare incredulously. “You’ve got to be joking. What kind of bullshit is that?”
“It’s not bullshit,” Mr. Talbot snarled. He pointed a shaking finger at the lantern. “That Latin—that’s how you know.”
“I can’t read it, so I wouldn’t know,” Jackie snapped.
“From outside of time, deep calleth to deep, to claim the rewards of sin…”
The words he spoke were almost reverent, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up as goosebumps rippled over her skin. But then Jackie laughed sharply. “Now I know you’re messing with me.”
Mr. Talbot shoved his hat back onto his head and Jackie noticed that his hands were still shaking as he gestured at her. “It’s not a joke. Why do you kids all think everythin’ is a joke?”
The question was rhetorical, but Jackie felt a snarky answer rear up. But before she could say anything, the black cat jumped up on the wall again.
“Hey, there you are! Are you sure this cat doesn’t belong to the funeral home or something?”
Without ceremony, the cat jumped down from the wall and trotted sedately through the open glass door and disappeared around a corner. “Hey!” Jackie cried. “Don’t you get grave dirt on anything!”
The old man looked around in confusion. “What are you shouting at?”
Jackie pointed at the open door. “The cat? The black cat that just walked by you?”
Mr. Talbot shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets. He muttered something that Jackie couldn’t hear and tried to step around her, but she dodged into his path. “Hey, what am I supposed to do with this thing? Can I put it back on one of the graves or something? I can leave it in the office for the director to deal with when he comes in…”
Mr. Talbot held up his hands and turned his head so he wouldn’t have to look at the lantern. “No… No I can’t take it. It’s yours now.”
“Mine? I don’t want it!”
“It’s the Devil’s Lantern, girl. Don’t ya know the stories?”
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 126