Dark Thread

by Crymsyn Hart

  Darria looked at the four unopened blossoms. Undertakers performed magic from time to time, but she didn’t know what else they did regarding the mystical. Even the memories she had of the other undertakers didn’t answer her questions about necromancy. The further back she looked, the fuzzier the recollections. She could only go back to a certain point before she hit a wall.

  “You should listen to Marie,” Oliver chimed in.

  Darria nodded. “I know, but where do I begin?”

  Chapter 5

  “I think the table is clean enough, don’t you?” Omar poked her in the stomach.

  “I guess. I’m going up to the office.” Darria threw the cloth down onto the steel table where the hobyah had been two days before. She slid the skeleton key into the small hole in the brick chimney, and the chimney sprang open. Behind the brick wall was a flight of stairs leading up to her office. She slipped through the door and went up the stairs. The door closed on its own behind her. Omar remained below. Once upstairs, she sat behind the large desk and made a face at the stack of death certificates she had to file. It was part of the undertaker job, so it was something she filled out automatically once she finished with a body. The certificates listed the date the stiff was brought to her, the species of the cadaver, and the method of how it was killed, with a notation if any artifacts were discovered on the body. The ones she had to write out for Gerry and the hobyah were on the desk. Shit. I didn’t look on his body to see if he had any artifacts on him or in his car. His body was below, lying on the table by the coal chute. Oliver had moved him when she was asleep.

  She raced back down the stairs and into the basement. Gabbie poked her nose at Gerry’s remains. The gargoyle grumbled, and Omar chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” Darria asked.

  “I thought you wanted some alone time?”

  “I do. What’s Gabbie going on about?”

  The gargoyle pranced over to her and dragged her tongue along Darria’s cheek. She patted her head and scratched behind her ear until Gabbie’s back leg thumped. It forced a smile, and she hugged the beast. “Does it bother you what I did to Gerry?” she asked Gabbie.

  The creature cocked her head and bared all her teeth.

  “She says if you decide to go all black-eyed and scary, she’ll eat anyone who tries to get in your way, but she doesn’t think you’ll go that way.”

  Darria knelt before the gargoyle. “How do you know that?”

  Gabbie bumped her forehead. Her golden eyes peered into Darria’s. “Gargoyles were created to watch over humankind. We see the light in people. I see the light in you. Darkness lingers within you, too, which is why you can’t hear me. You are not evil,” Omar translated.

  Hearing the admission lifted her heart, but it did little to ease her guilt. The thing that got to her the most, though—and she hated to admit it to herself— was how much she had enjoyed it. Punching a hole into purgatory and yanking a spirit from the other realm had given her a great high, just the way it had when she forced her will into Oliver. She had gotten so angry because of his argument with Stockton that she wanted the harvester out of her house.

  Darria wrapped her arms around the big bear of a gargoyle and squeezed. “Thank you. So why don’t you want Gerry for dinner?” She pulled away from Gabbie.

  “He’s sour. He doesn’t smell good.”

  “Of course not; he’s ripe because he’s dead.”

  “No, it’s not that. Gerry’s tainted. The influence of what possessed him was there even before he died. He was poisoned with something he touched. I can still smell it in his clothes. Don’t touch him with your bare hands,” Omar interpreted.

  Darria found a box of gloves on the old desk shoved in the corner of the cellar. She slid them on and went over to the body.

  “Hey, what about me?” Omar waved.

  “What do you need a glove for?”

  “If he’s poisoned and I touch him, it could affect you.”

  Darria fished out another glove and held it out to the mummified left hand. “Okay, you have a point. Hold still.”

  He wiggled his fingers. “Come on. You know you want to touch them.”

  Gabbie groaned. Darria eased the glove over his leathery flesh. “You are such a creep sometimes.” The latex fingers hung limply over his skin. He was too shrunken for it to cover him properly. He waved at her, and she laughed.

  “What?”

  “You finally got yourself some protection. If I needed any attention, I know where I can get you a condom now.”

  Gabbie chuckled.

  “That’s not funny,” Omar declared.

  He tried to move. The glove was too long, and he tripped over the end and fell flat on his palm. When he went up on his fingers to walk around, the glove started to slip down. He had to flip over and hop on his wrist nub in short bursts over to her.

  Darria patted Gerry’s red-and-white, plaid shirt. The pocket was empty. She worked her way down to his jeans pockets and found that they were also empty. She rolled him over easily, and Omar jumped on Gerry’s pudgy ass and squeezed his right butt cheek.

  “I thought you only went for chicks.”

  He poked Gerry again. “I don’t have a thing for guys. There’s something in his pocket. Would you mind getting it? I’m really not into feeling up another man’s rear end.”

  Darria bit her lip from laughing. She slipped her gloved hand into Gerry’s right pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. It was a corner torn from a notebook. On the slip of paper was a string of numbers. Darria studied them and handed them to Omar. “Any idea what these are?”

  Her hand looked them over. “No idea.”

  “Great, so we’re back to square one.” Darria tugged at a finger on her glove, but Gabbie grumbled something, so she looked to Omar for interpretation.

  “She said, look at his back. She smells something on his skin.”

  Darria tugged at his shirt, pulling it from the jeans until she could see his extremely hairy back. A perfect circle in the center of the nest of hair showed skin. The hair around the edges had turned gray until the circle was the size of a half-dollar. In the center of the bare patch was a tattoo. She touched the line of the design, but the black ink squirmed around her fingertip. It broke apart and ran along the center of his skin like small, black worms.

  It was a familiar phenomenon she had witnessed when the banshees had come into her life. She trapped one of the lines under her finger. The line struggled to escape. An arch of purple flashed from her finger to the tattoo. A tiny shriek echoed from the black line along with the scent of burning flesh. She curled her nose at the aroma and studied the design.

  It was an equilateral cross with four circles in the middle that also had crosses cutting the circles into quarters. The top and bottom arms of the cross appeared to be decorated with pineapples. The left and right arms had small flowers on them. Darria didn’t recognize the symbol. When she touched it again, the power within it went further than what she associated with the banshee. She closed her eyes and searched her memories of the other undertakers, but none of the recollections came back with seeing the mark. Some had gaps in them, and she often wondered if the memories of the other undertakers were enchanted to either keep her out on purpose or she needed to find the specific magical key to open them.

  Omar scrambled next to the body and tried to prod at the tattoo when he tripped once more over the glove. Her familiar’s frustration throbbed in her mind. “You recognize that?”

  “Nope. Can you go upstairs and get Marie, please?”

  Omar hopped down onto Gabbie’s back. The gargoyle rushed upstairs. Something stirred within her mind. She needed more time to dredge up the memories. Plaster rained down on Gerry and her black apron. She brushed it off and thought about what had happened over the past few days. Can I learn how to control my abilities?

  “Do you think that you can’t?” a woman’s voice said behind her.

  The room grew frigid. Darria’s breath came
out as mist. When she turned around, the cellar faded from existence. Fog curled around her feet, and her bones were frozen from the sudden temperature drop. A darkened road appeared at the other end of the basement. The woman stood off in the distance. Above the woman hung a crescent moon with its horns turned up.

  A dog howled in the distance. Darria tried to get closer, but she couldn’t move. “I don’t know. Who are you?”

  “My token is embedded in your flesh. I appear so that you understand the importance of the mission you’ve been entreated with.”

  Darria glanced at the objects in her right arm. The key glowed purple and faded. She touched the lines of the tattoo and glanced back at the woman. She searched her memories but found nothing. If she was associated with the undertaker line, then some instance of her had to exist.

  “Your memories won’t tell you who I am. The knowledge has been lost to all the undertakers, and that was a mistake. It will be rectified only if you can reunite the effigies with the people they are fated to go to, as you were destined to receive the key.”

  “How—?”

  “Darria, who are you talking to?” Marie squeezed her shoulder. When Darria turned around, she was back in the workroom. “How did you get in here? I have it under a spell so that nothing can enter unless invited in.”

  “Omar let me in. He’s a part of you. Who were you talking to?” Marie asked once more.

  It made sense that Omar could invite her in even if Darria didn’t want that. She wasn’t going crazy. There had been a woman there. She shook her head in disbelief. “A woman came to me—pulled me to her—and said she picked me because I had her artifact, the key, that the history of undertakers had been lost, and that was a mistake. She reinforced what Augustus told me. Any idea who she might be?”

  “Did you get a look at her?” Marie’s mouth was set in a terse line, and her brows creased.

  “No. It was too dark. I guess she’s not done with me yet.”

  “The way things have been going, I’d have to agree with you. You’re going to need all the extra hands you can get.” Omar jumped up on the table by Gerry’s body.

  Darria chuckled at the cheap shot. “Marie, I had Omar get you because I wanted to show you a tattoo on the body. I don’t know what it is. Any idea?” Darria pointed it out and told the other woman about how the ink had reacted.

  Marie’s hand flew to her chest, and she said something underneath her breath that Darria couldn’t understand. She traced the sigil on Gerry’s back, but it remained stationary. “This is Legba’s mark.”

  “Who?”

  “Papa Legba. In voodoo, he’s the intermediary between this world and the spirit world. Any bokor has to invoke Papa Legba before and after a circle. Sometimes he grants permission for the priest to speak with the spirits of those who have passed over, and sometimes, he doesn’t. It all depends on his mood. He’s a finicky and powerful demigod.”

  “How is he related to undertaking or to the hunters?”

  Marie bit her lip. “He’s similar to a harvester in a way but with his own agenda. I haven’t talked to him since I left the post. The hunters I worked with in the past said he’d give out bounties from time to time. Maybe Gerry was working for him.”

  “If Gerry was working for him. Have you ever known Papa Legba to want to kill undertakers?”

  “No. He’s not evil. Legba wouldn’t resort to poison. The tattoo ink might be banshee blood, but it doesn’t mean that’s what poisoned him. Did you find anything else on him?” Marie asked.

  Darria showed her the slip of paper with the numbers written on it. “I’m not sure what they are. Any idea?”

  “No. Nothing. They could be a phone number or a combination to a safe. I’m not sure. Sorry.” Marie handed the paper back to Darria.

  She slipped it into her pocket and leaned against the table next to the coal chute. “What do we do next?”

  “I have an idea,” Omar piped in.

  “What’s that?” Darria inquired.

  “I think you need to invite Rory over. Oliver said you’d give him a tour. He’s been hoping to find the time to come over here.”

  “Bringing in strangers isn’t a good idea. Undertaking isn’t meant for people outside of the calling for it,” Marie quipped.

  “I’d normally agree with Marie, but Rory has seen Omar and Gabbie. He knows Oliver is a harvester. Omar, what do you want him for? I know you have something else up your sleeve, or you wouldn’t be bringing him up.” Darria pulled the gloves from her hands and threw them in the wastebasket. Omar waggled his fingers; he wanted to have his glove off, too. She picked him up and slowly pulled the glove from his fingers. Omar moaned and shivered.

  “You’re a sick hand, Omar.”

  Gabbie snorted.

  “Can you give me some sugar a little later? Just you and me, Mistress of the Evil Dark?” Omar crawled up her shoulder and squeezed it.

  “Your hand really is something else.” Marie held in her laugh, and the chimes within her locks jiggled.

  “You have no idea.”

  Chapter 6

  Darria slipped out of the house and grabbed a cloak she kept in her apartment. Omar and Gabbie wanted to come with her, but she needed some time to think. The appearance of the woman unnerved her, along with learning about Papa Legba. Marie had a lot of information that she was not sharing. Darria wanted to know what road she was being led down. The weather had grown colder. Gray clouds hung over her head that looked like they were about to drop snow on her. She pulled the wool cape closer to herself. Her feet carried her down the street a few blocks past ordinary-looking houses until she came to the graveyard that Oliver owned. From the outside, it appeared to be an ordinary boneyard with a black, wrought iron fence around it. The front gates were padlocked. Headstones and mausoleums could be seen across the bleak landscape of paved paths within. Darria saw houses on the other side of the cemetery. When she looked at the arched sign sporting the name of the necropolis, it blurred so that her eyes couldn’t focus on it. She walked around the side of the fence to one of the side entrances. Darria slipped through the bars, feeling them even as she passed through them.

  Oliver had once told her that she was neither alive nor dead. She existed precariously between the worlds and could peer into a veil that not many could. She had shredded it and yanked out the souls she desired. Darria thought back to what she had done to Gerry. On the one hand, it repulsed her, and she never wanted to do it again. On the other hand, the whisper of her necromantic power called to raise the bodies and souls of those who were buried in the ground. Darria wrestled with it until the compulsion passed. Darria followed a path to the center of the graveyard. The intersection of the crossroads played over her skin. It didn’t matter how far she went or in what direction, there were miles of graves. This meeting place of dimensions led into other harvesters’ graveyards. Beyond that was a wall of fog that was the true gateway to purgatory.

  Darria trailed her finger around the outline of the coin on her arm. It didn’t spark, but she hadn’t really put much thought into it. If she did, then Oliver would appear. Her heart hiccupped as she thought about what she really wanted to tell him. It weighed on her the more she thought about how he looked at her. His eyes held no emotion. They had been dead even after he had been himself and not in the guise of death. She couldn’t stand Oliver looking at her as if he had no soul. Some of the other harvesters she had encountered were angels. However, some had a soul, and they could feel the same way humans did. She had also met a woman who had chosen to become a grim reaper and led a regular life—which was hard to think of—but then again, it wasn’t easy for someone on the outside of what Darria did to even fathom her profession.

  She rubbed the coin in her flesh, and it plopped into her palm. Darria closed her eyes and thought about Oliver, not the harvester, but the man underneath the deathly visage. The air stirred. When she opened her eyes, Oliver appeared dressed in black jeans and a dark gray shirt, holding his scythe i
n one hand, ready to defend himself in case she went all crazy necromancer on him once more. His expression remained impassive. That unbreakable silver-blue stare bored into her. She looked away.

  “What are you doing here?” The stern edge to his voice cut through her.

  Darria cringed. “I needed to talk to you.”

  “Really? You haven’t talked to me for two days, ever since you pulled one of my souls from purgatory.”

  “I know I’ve been avoiding you. I’m sorry about that. I couldn’t live with myself, still can’t. You think I’m some kind of monster.”

  “Aren’t you? You promised you’d get it under control.” Oliver stepped closer until she should’ve been able to feel his body heat, but it was noticeably absent.

  “I’m trying. You don’t know how hard it is. The longer I push it away, the tougher it is to thrust back into its pen. Marie said she’d show me how to control it, and there was another—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Oliver snapped.

  Her heart dropped. “Oh. All right.” She hadn’t expected a cold greeting. Her spirit sunk even lower. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” Darria wrapped her cloak around her, feeling more of the cold from him than from the weather.

  “Darria, wait.” Oliver grabbed her arm and turned her around to face him. His scythe remained standing on its own. Darria looked between him and the weapon. The curved blade was polished silver. The pole it was attached to was as tall as Oliver, six feet. Its power pulled to her, but she knew better than to even touch it. It would kill her in an instant if she did. When she looked back at Oliver, something flickered in his eyes. I should’ve just gotten Rory and seen what he might know about Gerry’s slip of paper.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her heart tugged at her more. “I’m so sorry.” Sadness washed over her. It shoved the power down and caged it completely. I can’t keep living like this. It’s going to kill me.