Page 160 of Dead Vengeance

And even if we do get the mirror from Gerald, all we can do is hope for the best. Hope Tezcatlipoca isn’t using Liam with no plan to keep up his end of the deal. Or that he won’t use that mirror for something monumentally evil and destructive.

Finally, my shovel hits something solid, the dull thud of old and wet and cheap wood. It gives a little. That’s harrowing enough. I’m not prepared for this. I see dead people all the time—horrible wounds on some of them. I suppose it probably does make it easier for me than it would be for someone unaccustomed to such sights. But I don’t think anyone likes to see a corpse. Especially not of someone who was so young, snuffed out in what should have been the prime of his life.

While I dig the dirt away from the rest of the surface and around the edges, I try to prepare myself. How bad will the smell be? How moist? How much body matter and how rotten? And how is it going to feel forcing my hand into that?

Mind over matter.

I work a clear space around the latches of the coffin, then throw the shovel up onto the side of the grave, only to have Simon hover a little closer, along with about fifteen other faces, come to witness the grand reveal.

“Where’s their ghost, then?” someone asks.

“Was wonderin’ the same thing,” another answers. “Shoulda been ’ere by now, ’avin’ ’is grave dug up like that.”

Annoying as the commentary is, it spurs me on. Jem should be here. He should be somewhere, yelling at me with all the rest of these people. Not locked behind whatever impenetrable door Tezcatlipoca holds between us.

I whip my phone out of my pocket to light the clasps, praying they’re a simple design, because if they need a special tool to open them, I’m going to have to smash my way through the top.

Thankfully, the unidentified dead of London are given the most basic of paupers’ coffins. The screws are old and rusted, but by slipping my hand into my sleeve, I’m able to get enough of a grip to turn them.

“Maybe just pause a moment and think before you do that,” Simon suggests above the rest of the commentary.

But the time on my phone says it’s past two o’clock and I simply cannot. It’s a decent while until dawn, but how long until a caretaker comes by? Or someone who can’t sleep comes to grieve?

The final screw slips loose. I take a deep breath, shut my eyes tight, then reach down and fling the casket open.

The momentum forces my back against the wet dirt, and leaning there, I take a moment, eyes still shut, to prepare myself, while all the “oohs” and “ahhs” of the crowd above fill the air.

“Archer,” comes Simon’s voice, low but clear beneath the noise. “Take a look.”

His tone does not bode well, yet I have no choice, so I force myself to face it.

It is, in some ways, worse than I could have imagined. No, it’s not a pile of sodden gore. It’s bones. Bones clad in an old suit that he probably never once wore when he was alive. But there is no other remnant of him here beyond some dark and dry debris at the bottom of the casket and hair fallen around his skull. Hair the colour of Liam’s.

I have to block out the idea that this is Liam. That this is what he might look like dead and fallen in his grave. That he could have been the one to tread the path his brother trod before him. That had his brother not worked so hard to keep him away from that life, they two might be side by side in this field.

All the more reason to fix this.

I’m exhausted, I’m covered in sweat, my hands are shaking, and I have never tried this with a body so badly damaged. This long gone. But there’s a first time for everything.

“Edgar?” I call.

With a flap of wings, a squirrel lands on the ribcage. The poor creature. It struggles to find footing, then slinks down over the skeleton shoulder, taking shelter where it can.

A moment later, a rat drops onto the corpse.

Then more small animals, then more again.

My guilt redoubles with each drop, a new, innocent creature ready to be killed. And who am I to make this choice? It feels wrong. It feels every kind of wrong.

But they fall, mice, a vole, any small life Edgar’s been able to locate and keep an eye on over the last few hours, until finally Edgar comes to rest at the head of the grave, surveying his finds with the eyes of a killer.

It’s what he does. Just like this is what I do.

“Simon!” a new voice calls.

A voice I recognise.

“Simon, where are you?”