Page 49 of Grave Humor

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.”