by RJ Blain
Several steel caskets, newer but low-end models, rested along one of the walls. “Those are the people who were laid to rest below?”
“Not precisely.”
How many people had died due to Director Hammel’s scheming? “More like that man you killed in the funeral home?”
“That’s closer. Their deaths were necessary. They will receive a proper burial in time. I’ll show you the important bodies. They’re this way.”
One of the shadowy niches proved to be a hallway leading deeper into the catacombs, and even older burials waited. My eyes widened. “How old are these burials?”
I peeked into one of the niches to discover the skeleton clutched a sword and shield, much like the ones Romans were depicted as using.
“I would say some date back as far as the Western Roman Empire. I don’t know how the bodies got here, but when this mausoleum was built, it was built around these catacombs, which are mostly original. I was given strict instructions on how the bodies and the catacombs were to be cared for.”
I gaped at the body, wondering how someone could have gotten from the Roman Empire to Sunset, Alabama. “Was the Western Roman Empire AD or BC?”
“It represents almost a hundred years around 400 AD.”
The shield showed no sign of its age, neither did the sword. A glint of red caught my eye, and I leaned closer. A ruby ring rested around the corpse’s skeletal finger. “Who was he?”
“Nobody important. This way.”
The answer shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.
The dead mattered. Working at the funeral home had reinforced my belief that they mattered. Some went to the next life with no one on the mortal coil to care about their loss.
The corpse’s sword tempted me. I didn’t really need to know how to use it to stab the bastard, did I? How hard was it to grab the hilt and run him through with it? I’d helped with the bodies often enough to understand it took a lot of force to pierce through flesh and bone.
I was willing to put in the effort to do the job right. My education on human anatomy had gotten extensive expansion since working at the funeral home.
It took me a few moments to gather the will to step from the skeleton and its sword.
Hundreds of bodies lined the walls of the catacomb, many of them Roman, and some seemed somehow older. One body caught my attention, its position reversed, and its head resting near the opening of its niche. Unlike the others, it clutched stone weapons. “What’s this body?”
“Ah. That’s an interesting one. He’s from the Stone Age, probably the start of it. Anatomically, he’s not quite human, and we think he’s likely the previous evolutionary stage of humanity. I don’t know what they’d call his species, but he’s not homo sapiens.”
“Is he a Neanderthal?”
“No.” Director Hammel came close and gestured to the skeleton’s skull. “See where the sphenoid should be?”
In modern humans, a small piece of bone alongside the head served as a connection point between the frontal, parietal, and temporal sections of the skull. I leaned close to examine the spot. Rather than the small bone I expected, the frontal bone jutted down and formed an odd plate that spanned over the parietal and temporal bones. When covered with skin, I suspected it would create an odd ridge near the ear. “There’s no sphenoid at all.”
“Right. The interior of the skull also shows a different structure. At some point in the evolutionary chain, part of the frontal section of the bone detached to form what we know as the sphenoid. There are other differences in the skeleton as well. They had an extra toe, their toes were longer and possessed an extra joint, as did their thumbs.”
I checked the skeleton’s thumb. Sure enough, it had an extra joint and was twice as long as I expected from a human one. “That’s amazing. And nobody knows this is here?”
“That’s correct. It’s part of the contract for the grounds. I see no need to keep this place secret once my work here is done. I’ll have what I need. These skeletons were sacred to the prior caretakers. There are only a few bodies in here worth such care. But as they interest you, I will show you something truly interesting before I show you the important bodies.”
Director Hammel had one of the missing pieces of humanity’s puzzle, and he didn’t think it was interesting?
His idiocy astounded me.
Still, cooperation would keep me alive longer, and I flirted with the idea of growing a mean streak to rival anyone else in town. “Okay.”
“This way.”
At a four-way junction in the catacombs, he led me down a narrow corridor devoid of burials. Instead, carvings depicting ancient mythology from all around the world decorated the walls. I stopped at an image portraying the devil and the heavens’ congregation of angels, and a chill swept through me.
There was something dangerous about the mural, as though a few etchings of a chisel might bring the whole thing to life and bring ruin to any who might stare upon it.
“It’s just a blank wall. I know it’s weird, but I guess they never got to finishing that section of the catacombs.”
Wait. What? I touched the devil’s image, the face recognizable as the being I knew to be Satan with a few alterations. His eyes and jawline were somehow softer. His body resembled some Olympian god’s rather than the more slender visage he’d presented at the mall.
The wings showed him in full angelic glory, and he lacked horns.
I examined the rest of the wall and pointed at a portrayal of Medusa. “What is this?”
“The truth of all things, through the eyes of the catacomb’s makers.”
I sucked in a breath.
Angels existed in the mortal coil because their true visages would erase mortal humans from existence. I’d heard rumors the devil himself could also erase mortals should any look upon his true self. The unsettled feeling intensified, and I returned back to the image of the devil. I lifted my hand and rested my fingers on his perfect face.
While Director Hammel saw nothing, I felt every groove of the carving beneath my fingertips.
The other angels, like their devilish brother, resembled Olympian gods in their perfection, but they bore human faces.
They could have been any old Joe on the street.
I tore myself away from the curiosity and followed after Director Hammel.
Why had I seen the carvings where he saw nothing?
The corridor opened to a small chamber, and the skeletal figure standing in the center stole my breath.
We stood in the presence of an angel’s earthly remains, and unlike the being I’d met on my front step, the one before me still possessed its head. I took a step closer.
Director Hammel chuckled. “It’s real. I admit I was curious, so I’ve touched it. I figure everyone has. It’s real bone, and there’s a sense of magic about it. I haven’t studied it much, as I’ve no use for a long-dead angel, but I thought you might enjoy seeing it. Angels can die. And they don’t always decay to ash. No. This one is still here, standing and waiting for what, I am not sure.”
My curiosity drove me into stepping to the winged skeleton. Feathers could last hundreds of years in the right conditions—even longer in some circumstances. The angel’s feathers were all but gone, but a single one clung to the bones, and its color bothered me, as though someone had rubbed soot into it. “There’s a feather.”
“Go ahead and touch it. I have. It’s stuck. And if it comes loose, it’s just a feather. A dead angel can harm no one.”
The unsettled feeling in my chest remained, as though we had strayed onto sacred ground and run the risk of defiling the entire catacombs—if they weren’t already defiled.
I wanted to wipe the filth from the feather. “Do you have a handkerchief?”
Director Hammel pulled one out of his pocket and offered it to me.
I strolled to him, accepted the white cloth, and circled the angel, gently clasping the base of the shaft where it connected to the old bone so I could wipe the
feather itself. To my amazement, the soot wiped off, and within a few minutes, I’d removed the filth, leaving it a bright white.
After a few moments, it glowed with a pale light.
The angel stood taller than me, but I stood on my toes and wiped the dust and grime of the ages off the skull, noting that like the ancient skeleton, the angel lacked a sphenoid, instead having the larger frontal bone serving both functions. Unlike the ancient skeleton, there was no overlapping ridge.
I doubted anyone would have noticed the difference in the skulls without an x-ray or examining the exposed bone.
“I can give you ten minutes, but that is all. Be quick. If you’re behaved enough, I’ll lock you in this section of the catacomb and leave a light with you. You can care for the dead to your heart’s content that way. But yes, I understand. There’s something about that angel, isn’t there?”
Director Hammel likely viewed indulging me as a kindness, assuming a happy captive would do less to try to escape. Caring for the dead should have been an honor in his eyes, not a tedious necessity.
I breathed in, and I cast my resentment of his attitude away. Ten minutes wouldn’t be enough to fully clean the angel’s bones, but I could do a light pass before he forced me to leave. While I classified as agnostic, meeting the devil had done a good job of reinforcing that while I didn’t hold faith in Christianity, there were those who did and always would.
I wondered if anyone had said a prayer for the angel, if it had a name, or if it waited for its rebirth.
“How long has the angel been here?”
“He’s the oldest thing here, I suspect, and he was dead long before the first human stood on two legs. That’s what the modern records imply. The original record is written in a language I can’t read.”
“There’s a written record?”
“There is. I’ll show it to you when you’re done there.”
I took care with the angel, and when I checked the handkerchief, I found no evidence of the grime I wiped from the bones.
More magic.
After giving every bone a brisk rub, I stepped back, nodding my satisfaction.
The bones gleamed in the lantern’s light, and even when we backed away, the feather continued to illuminate the chamber.
“Who would have thought something as simple as dusting off an old feather would bring a little light to the darkness?” Director Hammel laughed. “Every time I come down here, I discover something new. What else will you unveil for me? I can easily bar the way into the catacombs so you can stay here and do more of my work for me.”
What a dick. Rather than spew curses at the man, I followed him down the corridor, hesitating at the carving of the Christian pantheon.
Much like the angel’s cleaned feather, it gleamed.
Nope, that wasn’t spooky. Not at all.
I lost count of the number of intersections we crossed through before we entered another small chamber without burials. Rather than the skeleton of an angel, a dark stone pedestal held a book bound in dark leather. Raising a brow, I approached the book, which lacked any decoration or a title. “This is it?”
“It’s durable. You won’t damage it opening it. I’ve flipped through the entire thing.”
I waved the handkerchief and took the time to wipe down the cover before picking the book up and cleaning the back and spine. Tucking it under my arm, I dusted off its pedestal before returning the volume to its rightful place. With more care than I bet Director Hammel gave to anything, I eased the cover open.
Runic pictures rather than words decorated the first page, reminding me of a mix of Mesoamerican and Egyptian. The pristine sheets rustled when I turned them. “Vellum?”
“I’m not sure what it’s made of.”
Interesting. I returned to the first two pages. If I considered modern conventions, the first would be the book’s title, and the next few pages would be the chapter listings, which took up four complete pages. “How many chambers are there in here?”
“A hundred and fifty-four.”
I counted entries on the opening pages. Sure enough, there were a hundred and fifty-four entries after the potential title page. “It’s probably a registry of the residents of the catacombs.” I flipped through, and each page had a few runes and images and a few lines to accompany them. “Maybe their name and a description of who they were?”
“Interesting. But why would it be so deep within the catacombs? I would have thought they’d store such a thing near the entry.”
I bit my tongue, as I wanted to remind him we kept our registries of our deceased guests under lock and key away from public view. Instead, I shrugged. Leaving such a treasure in the catacombs annoyed me—especially when I knew someone who might at least know the language the text was written in. “Mind if I hold onto this?”
“If it makes you happy and keeps you from causing me trouble.”
I hoped the dead didn’t take offense to me lifting something of theirs from their resting place. If they did, I’d put it back without asking Eoghan about the contents of the book. If it was in a language he knew, it would be invaluable to him.
If it wasn’t, I’d ask the devil to satisfy my curiosity.
“What’s important to you in here?”
“This way,” Director Hammel ordered.
I expected another hike, but he guided me through a few short hallways to a set of three steps leading up to a larger room. Instead of the niches for burials, three sarcophagi waited inside, their covers broken and littering the floor. Inside waited linen-wrapped skeletons.
“Who are they?”
Director Hammel stepped around the broken pieces of stone and he gestured to the central figure. “These are the mortal remains of gods, and I mean to claim the power from their bones upon their resurrection.”
Okay. Everything made more sense. I dealt with a madman, and I regretted I hadn’t fallen prey to my impulse to loot an ancient skeleton for a sword and dispatch the idiot then and there. If the skeleton got up, seeking vengeance for its disturbed rest, I’d just blame the bastard and hope for forgiveness.
Then again, while I no longer had my phone, I had a secret.
I wondered if the devil liked me enough to pay me another visit. Deliberately provoking Lucy might count as idiotic, but if I couldn’t rescue myself, I’d go for the big guns and use him as a method of rescuing myself.
“How do you think Eoghan can help you with these gods?”
“I need the power that awakened him. He’s just evidence the power is here somewhere.”
“Would it help if I knew someone I could ask?” I could call Darlene, introduce myself, and talk to the devil that way. Maybe I didn’t have a high school diploma, but I could rub a few of my brain cells together and get a charge.
“How could you possibly know someone you could ask?”
“Through the CDC,” I lied.
Oh, I could ask the angel’s wife. That would work even better.
“No.”
Oh, well. I’d just have to invoke the devil’s name and see what sort of hell I could unleash on Earth. What was a little hell down in a catacomb with the body of an angel and three gods?
I needed to take my rather grave sense of humor and introduce it to the business end of a shovel. Life would be easier without death hanging over my head all the time.
“What gods were they?”
“I don’t know their names. I only know they are divines, and their bones still sing of their divinity, just like the angel still registers as an angel to the scanners.”
Oh boy. Right. He had a scanner capable of identifying something’s nature. “Why do you want their power?”
“I miss my wife.”
In a way, my heart broke for the man. I’d still been in school when his wife had passed away. She’d stayed dead, and she rested in the cemetery above. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too. With the power of three divines, I can bring her back. Maybe I can even use that angel.”
> Nothing could bring back the dead, not really. Once gone, a soul was gone, heading for its next life or some new adventure beyond the gates of death. That was the one thing everyone agreed on. Vampires were undead, but the soul in the body wasn’t the body’s original soul; that had moved on, perhaps to another vampire, perhaps somewhere else. I wasn’t sure about what happened with the other forms of undead, but death didn’t give up its prizes.
I believed in that.
So did Eoghan.
“Now that you understand, I will take you up to the cemetery for a breath of fresh air and a chance to use the facilities and eat, but then you will return here and keep the dead company until my work here is done. Don’t worry. No one will find you here.”
Like hell they wouldn’t, but I’d wait before I used the card up my sleeve.
If I wanted to summon the devil himself, I’d need to either be lucky or use the right insults—and get the hell out of the way while making Director Hammel take the fall for my sacrilege. And if he left me alone with skeletons and their weapons, well, was it really my fault if I did some tomb robbing to stop the bastard?
His wife deserved to rest in peace, as did the gods and angel interred within the catacomb’s hallowed halls.
Twelve
Why would you put Jesus in a bucket?
Ghostly fog rose from the cemetery and enshrouded the tombstones, casting a pale yellow and green light over the ground.
Nope, that wasn’t spooky, either. Not at all.
I contemplated screaming, and I’d do my best to wake the devil himself in Georgia when I did it. I drew in a deep breath to do just that when the smoky fog swirled, and a dark shape prowled towards us. The scream stuck in my throat.
Orange eyes burned in the darkness.