by Lisa Daniels
“Yeah, just in case the axe murderer hacks his way through the door and needs to catch a breather before entering my room,” Rosen said sourly. She preferred being near the exit herself. She liked having an escape nearby, a plan of action ready in case anything happened.
“This is no laughing matter, Miss Grieves.”
“Yes, yes, you intend to do your job. It’s logical.” Rosen ran fingers through her dark tresses. “I just find this a little inconvenient, as you know.”
Plus, she wouldn’t be earning any bonus points with her boyfriend, who clearly felt intimidated by Albert’s presence and manner. Thinking of the boyfriend… she examined her phone for a text message or two.
James: hope u and the robot landed ok.
“Robot” being her bodyguard, of course. She felt a small twang of guilt she hadn’t messaged him already to confirm her safety, and did so to him and her sister. James didn’t reply, but Talia sent a thumbs-up emoji.
Sighing, Rosen tucked her phone away and lugged her meager possessions to the other room. They were only expected to stay a few days at most. She also did a quick probe of the air around them with her magic, and felt the ominous press of multiple spirits. Including the one that followed Albert around.
City of graves, indeed, she thought with a little shiver in her bones. Necromancers would find no rest here.
Chapter Four – Albert
Albert had only visited this place once before. It was to guard a necromancer who soon transferred out of the country altogether, preferring to work in western Europe. He found Stoneshire to be a proud and old city, with a unique style and prone to hosting medieval tournaments, even though the place hadn’t existed in medieval times. He also found that it seemed to put some kind of pressure on the necromancer he was supposed to be looking after.
Apparently, too many souls for their liking. Too much to focus on. They got the same feeling whenever they worked near places with prominent cemeteries or sacred burial grounds. Spirits liked to attach themselves to their remains, it seemed. Hence people always felt a little chill when walking through graveyards, and the atmosphere of the place drowned them in an eternal hush, leaving them to starkly contemplate life.
His father had never been buried. He insisted upon cremation, thinking that it would be easier for his soul to move on if there was nothing to attach to. But even ashes counted. Albert was reluctant to dispose of the ashes he kept in the locket.
“Do you have any idea how long you’re assigned to me for?” Rosen asked, having just made coffee from her side of the suite. “Do you have an official contract for it?”
“It’s a six-month contract, to be renewed by then,” he said. “Seems you’re an important one, Miss Grieves. The chief inspector seemed quite happy to invest this much funding in you.”
“As they should,” Rosen said darkly, taking a huge swig of her coffee. “I crank up their solve rates. Save them a lot of money, time, and resources as it is, since we do count spiritual confession as legitimate evidence—and the dead tend to point us to the physical evidence, anyway.”
“The thing you’re doing now… is this a case?”
Rosen smiled wryly at him. “Technically, no. The statute of limitations ran out on this one a long time ago. But it is of interest to other factions, such as archaeologists and anthropologists. And the information may be interesting to the cold case unit. But no. Mostly it’s for prestige. A chance to discover something that’s remained a mystery for a long time.”
“Are you excited to be on this project, Miss Grieves?”
“Absolutely.” She finished off her coffee. “My sister’s incredibly envious. She’s trying to persuade her tutor that coming here will be great for her thesis. She wants to get into archaeology herself.”
“That seems a shame for your sister.” Albert found himself intrigued by Rosen’s life, and her attitude toward her job. Enough to keep wanting to probe her, when she was obliging enough to answer. Not all of his clients tended to be this talkative. They preferred to keep the distance, and he respected it. Though he did wish at times that they might share more than the standard information and what he observed.
“She’ll get over it. It might make her think more seriously about making a career change to my profession, but I think she’d be too stubborn to actually do it. She was always like that as a child, too… doing something different just because everyone else did it the same. Stubborn little idiot.” She smiled as she said it, however, which suggested to Albert that she didn’t think her sister was an idiot at all. He found himself smiling back at this familial warmth.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Not me. An only child—though I always wondered what it might be like to have a sibling or two.”
“They say that children without siblings tend to be super spoiled,” Rosen said, wrinkling her nose slightly at him. “All because the parents lavish all their attention on them and they don’t have to compete with siblings for anything.”
“Makes sense, I suppose,” he conceded, now trying to imagine competing with siblings. How different his life might have been if he’d had family nights with his parents and maybe a brother or two, all playing Monopoly or watching something major on the television. Just bonding together.
In reality, neither of his parents had that much time for him, since they worked every moment they could. When his father died, there’d been a substantial life insurance payout for his mother. She had the same deal, so that the living duo wouldn’t struggle to survive without one of them there.
“You don’t know how lucky you are,” Rosen continued. “It’s a nightmare as a child to have siblings. As the older one, you’re expected to be responsible for them, and they don’t always listen or care for your orders. And if they get into trouble, then it’s your fault for not being able to stop them. I was grounded for two weeks when Talia decided to redecorate the living room with a box of white paint that she found. Came across her drenched in the stuff… and most of the room. Especially the sofas where she’d clambered up to try and reach the high parts, leaving sticky white trails everywhere.”
Albert started laughing at this image, picturing a beleaguered, younger Rosen screaming at her innocent but evil younger sister, right before her parents found the scene and placed the blame upon her. “Maybe I was lucky I didn’t have anyone like that.”
“Yeah,” Rosen said, staring out of the window with a wistful expression. “Good old days.”
As much as Albert appreciated this little opening up from Rosen, one glance at his watch told him they didn’t have much longer until she was supposed to examine the bones. “Seems they’ll be waiting for your arrival in ten minutes or so, Miss Grieves,” Albert said, and she nodded slowly, absently, still lost in long-gone memories, before returning to present thoughts and preparing herself with an extra brush of her hair and a brief examination in the mirror. He didn’t need much adjusting himself, aside from perhaps a jacket to place over his sports shirt, since the late afternoon turned out to be quite chilly.
Moving through the corridor, sticking to the directions given, they soon entered the science section, where great laboratories dedicated to forensics lay behind each innocuous door.
“She said 14-B… where is it?” Rosen muttered to herself, before finally stopping outside a door. “Here.”
They pushed their way in and were greeted by several anthropologists, who were crowded around an assembly of bones upon a metal table, including Amelia Hargraves from before, and two men. “Just on time,” Hargraves said. “Graham, William—this is Rosen Grieves, the necromancer we’ve invited to study Laogh McKenna’s bones. Rosen—Graham Withers...” She indicated the younger of the two men, a bright-eyed human who looked ill-fitting in his white coat, somehow. “He’s a student we’re allowing to study the bones for his project, and for work experience. And this is William Sten, a colleague of mine.” She indicated an older, grizzly face, belonging to a rather unimpressed man who h
ad the look of something supernatural about his eyes—a yellow glint that suggested he might be a shifter of sorts.
Withers gave a friendly, if nervous, smile, but Sten was another matter. Everything about him screamed hostility to Grieves’ presence. This would not do. Not at all.
“I’m happy to be here,” Rosen said, but her statement was greeted by a lofty snort.
“So you should be,” Sten retorted. “I for the life of me can’t comprehend why we need a necromancer at all. They defile the dead with their atrocious magic.”
Hargraves shot him a flinty look. “We’ve already studied to the limits of what bones can tell us. We have a facial reconstruction, an age of death, knowledge of any bones she broke in her lifespan, and the ones that broke after death. Everything we have now is strictly for students to discover, but perhaps Rosen here can tell us something we are yet to know. Since, as you know full well, there has been some strange, supernatural activity regarding Laogh McKenna’s bones.”
“I still don’t see why we couldn’t have used a medium instead. They’re far less destructive. The last thing we need is one of these things stirring up trouble.”
Apparently, Sten felt quite secure in his seniority to talk out against Rosen Grieves like this. And it also seemed to be an old argument, because Hargraves let out an impatient grunt, while Withers simply slunk into the background, having no part in this backbiting.
“The Board’s already decided, Sten. Either stay here and be quiet, or get out. Because we went through a lot of effort to secure Rosen Grieves here.”
Sten gave one last, filthy glare to Grieves, before he straightened himself, bowed stiffly to Hargraves, and left the room.
“Well, that’s that,” Hargraves said, once the door had closed on an icy silence. “He doesn’t think too much of necromancers. But you mustn’t mind him too much. He’s been cranky ever since Sammy Blake fell down the stairs and broke his neck in an accident. Blake was one of his closest friends.”
“Oh,” Rosen said softly. “How long ago was this?”
“Five days ago,” Hargraves said.
Rosen suddenly looked unsure. “Only five days ago?”
“Yes. It was an unfortunate accident. No one could have done anything about it. Not even a wet floor or anything. Just a misstep.”
“I… see,” Rosen said. “How long have the bones been secured in Stoneshire for, again?”
“Five weeks,” Hargraves said.
“You said there were strange little things happening around the bones in our correspondence. What kind of strange things?”
“Ah.” Hargraves hesitated a moment. “Mostly a chill feeling in the air. Sometimes the bones rearrange into different positions when we’re not looking. Objects we’ve placed in one spot turn up a little further away. Your run-of-the-mill paranormal triggers.”
That wasn’t what she wanted to know, Albert thought, studying Rosen’s face. He felt a slight unease trickle through his body as well.
“Have there been any other… incidents?” Rosen gave a wary glance toward the bones. “Any other ‘accidents’ like this Blake? Fatal or near fatal?”
Hargraves studied Rosen for a long moment. Her eyes had lit with a dim realization of what Rosen intended to ask. “No deaths. But… we have one person in the hospital. And a few near misses that people have shrugged off.”
“Explain. I want details.”
“Well, the one in the hospital stubbed his toe on a rusty nail from one of the garden boards, and ended up getting tetanus. Doctors were pretty puzzled; they didn’t think the climate here was right for tetanus. But Blake never got vaccinated, so we just assumed it was unfortunate.” Now Hargraves sounded doubtful of her own conclusion. “Vinnie almost choked to death on a wedge of meat, but we know the Heimlich, so that was fine. Harriet was almost impaled by a falling branch, and Isaiah accidentally uncovered a black widow’s nest. Didn’t get bitten, but a couple of the females were on his bare arm. Near thing. Probably wouldn’t have been fatal if they did bite… but sometimes people can have adverse reactions.”
All of these sounded like things that could happen, but when Rosen pressed Hargraves on when all these incidents had occurred, it was revealed that every single one happened in the timeframe after the bones had arrived at Stoneshire Institute.
It didn’t take Hargraves long for her to connect the dots that maybe the arrival of the bones might have caused these excessive yet explainable accidents to occur. It also added a worrying thought to Albert, which he also knew consumed Rosen. What if the spirit attached to the bones, assuming it was the spirit responsible for this, was corrupted?
A revenant?
“If I’m honest, I’m not sure about the state of this spirit. What was the history of Laogh McKenna again? I remember she was an unsolved murder case in the 18th century. Something that happened with the first settlers of Samhain. Accounts differ—one says she was killed by her husband, another by raiders from the natives. What’s your version?”
Hargraves rubbed her hands together, eager for a chance to recount Laogh’s story. “This is what we know of her so far. She was a fresh adult when she died. Not old enough for the wisdom teeth to be fully formed, but old enough to have children, and more or less fully developed. So we surmise her age to be between sixteen and eighteen years. We know she had at least one child, broke her baby finger when she was around eight, and with our references to historical moments, we know that she was the daughter of a prominent founder in Three-Rivers, a former native American area. Before the western European settlers decided they wanted to have that land.”
She checked to make sure that her audience was listening, before nodding and continuing. “Records of Laogh say she was a rather spoiled young maiden by all accounts, and her father intended to marry her off to a powerful supernatural at the time, an Artus McKenna. One of the early European bear shifters who moved over to Three-Rivers. We know they married, we have record they had a son who lived long enough to reproduce himself, but the McKenna name has been lost now due to the customs of changing female surnames to male ones. As for Laogh, with her former maiden name of Victus, we have an idea of what killed her. A blow to her head from something blunt and heavy, like a mallet. We know arrests were sent for the husband, but he was never caught—and no one is entirely sure that the husband was the one responsible. But he was the presumed target at the time.
“Parish records show the local vicar’s suspicions, anyway, and that a huge manhunt was launched to try and find Laogh’s killer. From then we see some washing over of history, where people only remember good things about her, and how tragic it was for her to be killed so young.” Hargraves finished, and seemed to glance almost tenderly at the bones arranged before her. Forensic anthropologists were a strange lot. They saw a life lived in bones, almost to the same degree a necromancer did. So much information was locked in something like this. The only thing it couldn’t show was the personality, though it near got everything else.
“I knew it was unsolved,” Rosen said. “But I was wondering about her life. If there might have been anything in her personality from any records we have that indicate she had the potential to turn into a revenant.”
Hargraves looked worried at this declaration. “There is the violent death...” she said hesitantly. “And the unsolved murder...”
“Two ingredients, but not the whole thing,” Rosen replied. “Okay. I’m going to have a quick examination of the Other Side now. But only in the layers closest to us. If I can’t sense her in those layers… then there runs a risk if I continue to delve in to attempt to find her and assign her to these bones.”
The anthropologist placed fingers in front of her own mouth, concern wrought over her features. “Do you think this might not be so feasible for you to commit to, then?”
“It’s feasible. And we don’t yet know anything. Give me a moment.” She walked over to Laogh McKenna’s bones and closed her eyes, beginning to dig into the Other Side that she felt. A
small twinge of envy went through Albert. He would have loved the ability to be able to feel it himself. To see…
To see if his father was still there. After all this time.
Although Rosen didn’t move, it seemed like a strange, ghostly chill enveloped her, noticeable to the other two in the room. Hargraves gave a little shiver, and Albert imagined he could see some sort of faint aura around Rosen. She gritted her teeth, trying to probe better into whatever mysterious thing she saw. He wondered if it was anything like the way he saw the world when he put on the skin of his cat. The panther embraced the world with all its sounds, sights, and smells, seeing things in the darkness that others struggled to look into. Being a part of the darkness that others feared to tread. He loved it. Loved it especially when he went into the Amazon jungle, where there were so many hidden areas, so many things for him to prowl among, and hunt and kill. The tribesmen in that vast jungle had different beliefs surrounding the panther and the jaguar. They might be worshipped as gods, or hunted as a true test of strength and bravery.
Maybe for Rosen Grieves, navigating the Other Side was like navigating the belly of a night-veiled Amazon jungle.
He and Hargraves watched her, waiting. After a moment, she snapped her eyes open and shook her head, an unfathomable expression written across her face. “I can’t sense Laogh’s spirit in the close layers. If I want to search for her… I have to go deeper.”
Deeper. The deeper you went into the Amazon jungle, the less chance you had of making it out unscathed. There weren’t human roads there, just faint animal tracks, a horde of poisonous creatures, and some places where little sunlight entered.
“Wish me luck,” she said.
Chapter Five – Rosen
Was this madness? Probably. Not being able to sense Laogh McKenna on the closest planes surely meant some form of hostility. The malicious pranks upon members of the faculty seemed proof enough to Rosen, as well. But there was a part of her that wanted to dare. To find out about this mystery once and for all.
