Midnight Monster Club

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means we can strengthen our position in this city. All we have to do is decide we don’t like living with a boot on our necks.”

  “You think anyone likes it?”

  “I do. We’ve been broken to misery, and I’ve spoken with too many who won’t have it any other way. I see it in the eyes. Our people have traded living for surviving one day to the next, grateful they didn’t commit some infraction which gets them hauled to the gallows for Saturday’s entertainment.”

  “I know you,” Isabel said. “You were at the Black Rock Mission kitchen. You were thrown out. Your talk about rebellion is going to get people killed.”

  Hellard chuckled and drained the cup. “Oh, the Black Rock Mission. A bandage wrap for a severed limb. The place where a few purebloods soothe their consciences by throwing us their table scraps.”

  “We feed thousands. We help refugees fleeing the mainland.”

  “You’re part of the problem.”

  “And we don’t have time for this,” Digger said. “You’ve had your beer. No one here is interested in joining any kind of resistance movement. Now see yourself out.”

  “My simple gravedigger, I’m not speaking of any kind of uprising. And the lady here must have misheard me at the soup kitchen. I come with a proposal which will fill your pockets with something besides Loom Island scrip. I’m talking silver. I can smell the soapy water and I saw what you have in the cart. You’re not afraid of getting your hands dirty. There are other ways to fight our oppressors besides taking to the streets.”

  “Get to your point.”

  “You’ve made up your mind already. But your friends here look like they’re interested in hearing more.”

  As if making his point, Isabel asked, “What kind of money are we talking about?”

  Hellard grinned, revealing gnarled teeth. “I sense tension here. You have two out back who have an appointment with the ground. Why don’t I wait here so I don’t have to repeat myself. Besides, the guards are out in force and someone with my...stature doesn’t have the easiest time moving unseen through certain neighborhoods.”

  “You can’t stay here,” Digger said.

  Monty had been silent up until that moment. “I say he can. Sofia won’t be up for hours. And I’m also interested in hearing what he has to say.”

  Digger shot his brother a look but Monty wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  Hellard scratched at the mug with his fingernail. “Unless of course you’re turning me out. Be a shame if the city watch catches me and I have to tell them about this place and your idea of a fun game night. How well did you scrub that floor?”

  Digger felt himself tensing. “You’re blackmailing us?”

  Hellard waved the comment off. “I’m saying I could use another beer. What’s the harm in that?” He reached into a pouch and pulled out a silver coin. “See? Everything aboveboard with me. Go bury your bodies. I’ll be here until the end of third watch. If you’re back by then, we talk some more. If not, so be it and you won’t see me again.”

  Digger took his brother by the elbow to the back room. Isabel followed.

  “What are you saying, letting him stay?” Digger hissed. “We have a dead tourist out back and the sheriff’s been by once. If this guy’s been going around town talking about organizing fel, he’s drawing attention we don’t need.”

  Monty licked his lips. “More money might mean this place opens sooner.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Sofia’s broke. I’ve been able to sell a few things to make enough so she has food and beer. Her remodel’s stalled and she’s been resisting lowball offers on buying the Dragon and Rose. I scraped up enough to host the poker game. I was hoping to get our kind in here to turn the place around. But then...”

  “I showed up and ruined it all,” Isabel said.

  Monty blushed. “It’s not your fault.”

  “You’re going from a bad idea to a worse idea all in one night,” Digger said.

  “Hearing him out isn’t going to hurt anybody.”

  The church bell’s muffled clang declared the end of second watch.

  Digger shook his head, disgusted. “I have bodies to bury. I guess I can’t tell you what to do.”

  He opened the door to the alley.

  Isabel pulled her blue hood over her head. “Let me go with you.”

  “That’ll just complicate things.”

  “I’m not afraid of a little work. It’s both of us who are risking our necks. And you still have to explain how we’re going to get my watch back.”

  “Fine. Let’s go. If we run into any guards, keep your head low and your mouth shut. Tonight’s been a giant shambles, but don’t believe that it can’t get worse.”

  Chapter Seven

  WITH TWO BODIES WEIGHING the cart down, both wheels kept catching in the gaps between the cobblestones. But when Isabel tried to help, he almost spilled the load. He pushed to free the right wheel from a particularly deep groove in the street that threatened to break the wheel pin connecting the axle.

  “It wouldn’t get stuck like this if you went slower,” she said.

  “Keep your voice down. It carries.”

  “You think the guards didn’t hear you already?”

  “There are people looking for you, not me.”

  He gave the cart a heave and got it moving until the left wheel abruptly hit a rut and stopped. He pushed, but it didn’t budge.

  Isabel lifted from the front and they were once again rolling. “You don’t work well with others.”

  “I work alone.”

  “Yeah, I get the sense of that. You’re also not very nice to your brother.”

  “That, like everything else in my and Monty’s life, is none of your concern. Keep going.”

  “He might actually listen to you if you don’t shove your choices down his throat.”

  “Stop pretending you know either of us. Everything I do is for him, including this job.”

  He immediately regretted saying anything. It wasn’t a topic he had spoken of with other people. He had grown accustomed to his isolation. When he worked, people stood back and let him go about his business. When he wasn’t working and anyone found out what he did, they never asked for details.

  Long swathes of shadow ran between the streetlights. The orange flames led from castle to harbor along the island, but there were few on the roads they walked. Most homes along the avenue were totally dark and shuttered. Few sounds competed with the clack and rattle of the cart. The fog carried a damp chill.

  At any moment he expected to run into more guards, but no one stopped them as they exited the Temperance District on their way to East Hill where the cemetery waited.

  A glowing greenish-yellow lantern hung at the top of the wooden gate. A spiked metal fence ran around the base of the hill.

  Digger parked the cart and pushed the gate open. Xavier, the cemetery keeper, wouldn’t be up, but his daughters might be, and they’d demand his paperwork and payment.

  He went to an unlit cottage set behind a high hedge and knocked on the door.

  A thin, pale girl appeared around the side wrapped in a thick blanket. She had large round froglike eyes and a broad mouth, which cracked into a smile. “Digger. What brings you out tonight?”

  “Two for the communal grave.”

  A second girl appeared next to the first. She was identical except for a patch over one eye. “Two bodies. Two coins.”

  He paid her. Then he fumbled in a pocket and handed over the paperwork.

  As he turned to return to the cart, the sister with the eyepatch seized his arm. “And who is that with you, Digger?”

  “A helper.”

  The first sister stepped past him and strode towards Isabel. “A helper? A charmer, this one. Pretty things don’t come here except under a tarp.”

  “Is this true?” the second sister asked. “Digger has a pretty thing now and has spurned us for...how long has it b
een?”

  “Two years. Spurned us for two years despite our attempts to curry his favor. And now our Digger has a helper. Or is this one something more?”

  “A charmer, sister. He has a charmer who might have captured our dear’s brooding heart.”

  Digger tried to break away from the second sister. “I just want to make my hole and be done with the night.”

  She slid her hand along Digger’s cheek and pressed against his chest. She smelled of hay and soil and her skin was dry as paper. “That’s your problem, Digger. No time to taste what’s good in life. Always in such a hurry.”

  “He’s always in a rush, this one,” the first sister said. “And so glum.”

  She crouched to peer under Isabel’s hood. Isabel flinched when the girl took her hand and began to stroke it. “Such soft hands. Nice hands. Hands which don’t belong on the handle of a shovel.”

  “It’s my brother in the cart,” Isabel said.

  “So it’s a funeral, then? Digger, Digger. You said just a burial. Funerals are extra.”

  “Extra indeed,” agreed the second sister as she peered at Isabel with her one good eye.

  “I don’t have any more money,” Isabel said. “I paid it all to him to perform the burial. I told him I’d help, as I was short a few coppers.”

  The first sister laughed. “So you found a soft-hearted gravedigger for your brother. Condolences for your loss. But a funeral is a funeral. Even on East Hill.”

  “Rules, dear Digger,” the second sister purred. “We mustn’t upset our father.”

  Digger dislodged her hand. “She can wait out here, then. You’ve been paid.”

  “Did you tell her about the extras? Flowers on the grave? A marker?”

  The first sister chimed in. “Space in one of the crypts, even. We could even hire a trio of gelded boys to sing a dirge. They’re well practiced.”

  “You heard her,” Digger said. “She’s broke. No extras. She’ll wait here. Now let me grab my tools from the shed.”

  The second sister hissed in obvious disappointment. “Oh, Digger. It’s no fun when you get mad. There’s so little to smile about these days. Go on. Take her with you. No wailing, girl. And keep your prayers quiet. We’ll tell Father you came with two bodies. And alone.”

  “And paid for both,” the first sister said. “With papers signed and filed.”

  “No funeral was had. But we know Digger did have a helper. A soft-handed, sweet-smelling helper who went and dug her first grave.”

  THEY BROKE GROUND BEYOND a stunted forest of stone and planks marked with names. A pile of loose soil grew steadily beside them. The closest whitewashed board, planted upright, read Luana – Died in Winter – Beloved Daughter of Ellen and Pablo.

  “We should have bribed them to not mention me,” Isabel said.

  Digger only paused for a moment. “Then they would have known there was something up worth protecting.”

  “This doesn’t look like a communal grave.”

  “That would be quicker. But I don’t want another grave worker finding who we’re burying. Fortunately Xavier and his daughters don’t check what I do as long as I hand in the paperwork. We have to work quick in case anyone else is here who might notice.”

  “What of the family of the girl who’s already here?”

  “It’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

  Digger expected her to quit after the first ten minutes. But Isabel kept digging even after it became obvious her hands were uncomfortable gripping the shovel. Neither of them wore gloves, but Digger had thick hands that had only grown more calluses since he’d adopted his current occupation.

  “Take a break,” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “There’s only room for one of us in the hole. Keep the soil from sliding back in.”

  She stepped out of their thigh-deep trench and scraped the soil pile away from the edge. Digger began to heave large shovelfuls of black dirt, his movements well practiced. Little rolled back in. The lantern borrowed from the graveyard toolshed barely cast enough light for him to see what he was doing. But soon it was deep enough. He braced himself on the shovel and pulled himself up to the lip of the grave.

  Isabel was rubbing at a blister on her palm. “I could have helped more.”

  “I was faster doing it alone.”

  “Are you always like this?”

  “I’m what I need to be.”

  “That’s cryptic, pardon the pun. I didn’t come out here to learn your trade. You said you’ll help me find the sheriff.”

  He wiped his face down with a rag. “And that’s what we’ll do.”

  “Then let’s get these bodies down and fill the hole. Unless there’s words you say.”

  “I don’t say anything.”

  “I figured.”

  Filling the grave went quick. Digger spent more than the usual amount of time tamping down the soil, but there would be no avoiding the obvious new dirt that had been turned up. The graveyard was free of weeds. He hoped for a rain shower. But few fel had the scrip to purchase more than a pauper’s burial. The pureblood dead were no longer brought to East Hill.

  “Good view of the castle from here,” she said.

  It was true. This high up on East Hill, Diregloom was hidden beneath the fog while the castle on the northwest side of the island loomed white in the starlight. Several lights were glowing in the windows. The night was quiet. The sound of breaking surf carried from the ocean.

  From down the hill came voices. Lights.

  If Xavier or his weird daughters were coming, they’d soon find them and the new grave dug on top of an old one. He didn’t have enough funds to make that kind of trouble go away.

  Digger placed the shovels and pick into the cart and hooked the lantern to a round bolt. They followed the path down between the rows of gravestones. The lights he had seen were heading towards the crypts, where souls were placed to rest by families who could afford all the extras.

  It was another pair of gravediggers guiding a mule-drawn wagon.

  At the cemetery entrance he put the loaner pick and spare shovel and lantern away into the shed near the cottage. His own shovel stayed in the cart beneath the tarp. The collection of tools had their place beside a barrel of quicklime. Inside the door he made a show of adding a note to a clipboard hanging next to a series of lot tags. All in case anyone was watching. He then closed the door as quietly as possible.

  Mercifully, the sisters didn’t come out.

  Isabel kept checking over her shoulder as they exited through the cemetery gate.

  “Relax, we did it.”

  “What if they see where we buried them? Any chance they’ll find the body?”

  “If it’s just the sisters, they’ll just gouge me for more coin.”

  “And Xavier? The cemetery keeper?”

  Digger didn’t comment. “Like I said, we’re fine.”

  She let out a nervous laugh as they headed down the street. “You paid in silver coin. You must make good money.”

  “Looking for honest work?”

  “I told you I’m not a prostitute. I just thought something like the graveyard would use city scrip.”

  “They do. But coins keep everyone happier. If you need to know, people pay me with what they have. The guards use scrip when it comes to a pickup no one cares about.”

  “Well, you’re making extra from somewhere. Maybe Hellard was right. We should have kept the sword and boots to sell.”

  He gave her a look. “Why?”

  “In case we have to come back and bribe those sisters all over again.”

  Chapter Eight

  LORD ANGEL’S MORNING couldn’t be any worse than his night.

  He’d have to keep up the appearances of the attentive prince, smile, and bite his tongue lest his Aunt Claudia catch a whiff of what he had done. After all, the self-appointed queen of Diregloom would make him far wealthier than any of his brothers would ever be as they toiled away at his father’s winery
north of Bahia back on the mainland. All he had to do was stay on the witch’s good side.

  That would be impossible once she discovered what he had stolen. And then lost.

  He followed Claudia as she strode into the castle’s reception hall, careful not to step on the train of her sequined white gown.

  A slight man in a frilly beige suit stood waiting with his hands clasped behind him. He sported a trimmed beard and mustache and had a narrow nose and face. His thinning hair was groomed back over his head. Around his neck hung a gaudy medallion of gold, which declared his rank as a representative of Bahia’s Duke Tito.

  Claudia beamed as she spread her arms. “Viscount Ilario. How pleasant it is to receive you.”

  The viscount gave a formal bow. “Lady Claudia.”

  “We hug on my island.”

  Claudia squeezed him. Angel thought the man might break. He took a moment to enjoy the viscount’s obvious discomfort.

  “Have you been accommodated? Your room has the best view the castle has to offer. The crashing waves. The eastern island. The sunset.”

  “Yes, quite,” the viscount said, straightening his tunic. “Duke Tito has concerns which we should discuss.”

  “Straight to business with you? We receive so few guests worthy of the royal treatment. I have breakfast for us. Please, let us get acquainted first. And then we’ll go over my brother’s every concern, item by item. I promise. Come!”

  She grabbed his arm and led him through giant doors held open by gloved fel manservants.

  Angel trailed after.

  He had known the viscount was coming at dawn, and his aunt had insisted Angel be involved. The viscount was one of the highest-ranking nobles serving in his Uncle Tito’s court. Perhaps the man would temper his assessment of Claudia’s activities if he saw the duke’s dear nephew was being well cared for. The duke held long-standing misgivings over Diregloom and its influence on his subjects. More to the point, the city across the water from his dukedom of Bahia was becoming a bad influence. The fel had always had free rein on the island, up until his sweeping edict. But Diregloom was also luring royal youth into wickedness. The popularity of its entertainments and games had grown like a brushfire throughout not only his territory but all the neighboring dukedoms as well. And now his brother’s second-oldest boy had gone off to stay with Claudia. Nobles were whispering. Duke Tito, according to the gossip, wasn’t pleased.