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I could hear the bells that were tied to thedraugr, but I wasn’t keen on standing still and waiting. I motioned to Eli, who followed with the sort of stealth that made me think of tigers or panthers.
We rounded a corner, and there, between a grave topped with a lamb and one with a weeping angel of death, was adraugr. The late Mr. Chaddock looked like his photograph, seventies and well-dressed, but he was still coated in soil and concrete dust from the vault he had shattered to escape. Logic wasn’t present yet, and the newly perverted were hungry for any life they could drink. In time, he’d be genuinely sentient. Right now, he was a newborn who knew only hunger.
He lunged, moving with the serpentine flow that typically only came with age and experience. He was one place and then the next, faster than a newly arisendraugrhad ever been. Something was wrong here. He was too fast for the newly risen.
I tugged on the magic inside my bones, as if it was a tangible thing that nestled in my marrow when unused.
To bind.
To hold.
Barely visible tendrils twisted around Chaddock’s feet, holding him to the soil even as he tugged to tear free.
I whispered a prayer as I lifted my sword, and then added, “I am sorry for your loss.”
Perhaps my prayers and words eased no one’s pain but my own, but I still needed to offer them.
My first swing missed because somehow Chaddock was able to break free andflow. He should not be able to do that. He ought to be lumbering.
I heard Eli’s muttered curse, as he shoved me out of Chaddock’s suddenly-too-close reach.
Fear for Eli and for myself made me foolish. Iflowed, too, and my magic flared into tendrils that would make Jack’s fabled beanstalk look puny.
Then, I swung my sword again. My blade glanced off Chaddock’s upper arm. I let more magic fill me, calm me, strengthen me. I hadn’t ever needed it for the recently dead before now. I should not have needed it with Alvin Chaddock, but I did.
Inhale. Anticipate. Swing.
Finally, my blade slid through flesh.
“Dust to dust,” I whispered in relief as I severed the head of the late businessman from his torso.
The head landed with a meaty sound, and the late Alvin Chaddock stared at my boot through once-more lifeless eyes.
Chaddock was mushier than most first-wakingdraugr, but he didn’t drift into nothings like the older ones did. Eli and I now had a rapidly decomposing corpse, and we needed to redeposit him in his grave before it got too much messier.
Eli took a quick photograph for the client, and then he scooped the majority of the corpse into his arms, leaving the head for me.
“Should be about six rows back. Grave already disturbed. They said the stone was an angel,” I said as I lifted the head by the short grey hair and followed. I was grateful not to need to take pictures. I understood the request for proof, but it seemed ghoulish to me.
Once we found the grave, I handed Eli the head. Then I unzipped a pocket and pulled out a few handfuls of salt. The salt could keep the dead out . . . or in. Here, I was hoping it would help tether Chaddock to the earth. At home, I lined every wall, window, and ledge with industrial quantities of salt.
“Hurry,” I urged and ran toward the office.
This was always the hardest part of jobs like this: the newly dead were dispatched easily enough if you had the strength to avoid their ravenous bites. Most people didn’t. For me, it was easier than falling into a refreshing lake. The danger for me was getting out before I woke the properly dead. They always felt my presence if I stood on grave dirt.
Tonight, that danger was worse. I’d actually used my magic in a field of dead. I could feel eyes opened in the soil. Ears listening for my call. They were aware of me. They were waking.
“Rest,” I whispered to them.
Eli would be digging enough of a hole to put the corpse in the ground by now.
I broke the doorknob and let myself into the office where the security cameras were. This cemetery’s security was handled by Abraxxas Monitoring. I exhaled in relief. They stored footage on site, not at a main hub, so I could access and delete the footage here.
I grabbed the talisman that hung around my neck and hoped I wasn’t going to fuck this up. More magic near graves. It wasn’t ideal when the dead were already waking. And for reasons I couldn’t understand, my magic had been increasingly off the past few weeks. Simple spells resulted in extreme energy bursts. A minor summoning last month had woken an entire potter’s field. As soon as I was able, I was going to have to see if my mother had any insights.
But it was either magic to erase the footage or stab the machine. One of those would result in fines for destruction of property if I got caught—and since I washiredto be here, someone knew I was on site.
Magic it was. I sent an electrical pulse into the machines and overloaded the circuits. I knew from experience that the most recent footage would be recorded over. I needed there to be no video of Mr. Chaddock’s decapitation. Simple. Easy. Magic I could do before I was old enough to get a period.
