Company Ink (Tinsel and Tentacles 3.0 #13)

Chapter One

It was almost Solstice, and as the sun started to set there were bad men at the gates of every cemetery in Dudley.

Most people put their faith in good works and solid church-forged padlocks. They weren’t the ones who had to worry in the first place, though. It was only the people with enemies who needed to worry about the dead.

Enemies and secrets.

Hill Rosen paused on the street opposite St. Januarius Church and watched the thugs and mercs take up their stations along the boundary lines of consecrated ground.

Most of them wore guns in shoulder holsters under their parkas, pointedly visible to passersby.

Some just depended on their fists and the promise of red-faced, spittle-flecked rage to keep the bereaved back from the walls.

It had been over a century since the last confirmed invocation of the dead. That was according to the Church, of course, whose current doctrine told congregations to seek redress for their wrongs through temporal authorities.

What was the verse Father Thomas had used this morning? Hill narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember the content of the solemn drone of the sermon at his family church.

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, that was it.

Unofficially, based on Hill’s two-year-long deep dive into the subject, it had been fifteen years ago in Idaho.

A factory fire that corporate lawyers had successfully passed the buck on, leaving the bereaved families to shoulder the medical and personal costs…

including a local priest who’d either forgotten to lock the gates or handed over the keys to bitter parishioners. Either way, he wasn’t a priest anymore.

What the summoned dead had thought was a fit response to that wrong was up in the air, but by New Year’s, the company had reversed its decision and the families had been made whole…

financially at least. A few True Haunting enthusiasts speculated that—based on the high suicide rates in the upper echelons of the company around this time of year—the dead hadn’t been satisfied with money.

Hill could see why fifteen years wouldn’t be long enough for anyone with a guilty conscience and money for muscle.

On the other side of the road, one of the mercs noticed Hill. The man scowled and dropped his hand pointedly to the gun holstered on his hip. A sharp jerk of his chin to one of the other men sent a wiry fair-haired man who looked uncomfortable in his jeans and sweater loping over the road.

“You lost?” the man asked as he stepped onto the sidewalk in front of Hill. A quick once-over—from messily cropped brown curls to cheap sneakers—made him visibly untense as he dismissed Hill as a threat.

Hill shook his head.

“Late,” he said. He nodded toward the padlocked gates. “I wanted to stop by my dad’s grave while he’s close.”

The man narrowed his eyes. “He die bad?” he asked.

“It was a heart attack,” Hill said. That was what he’d told them at school, a lie so old it almost felt like the truth. The next bit just was. “I just miss him.”

Despite the professional detachment, the merc briefly softened.

“That’s a shit one,” he said. “And when my dad goes, I’ll wanna talk to him. But not tonight.”

Hill glanced over at the well-guarded church and swallowed hard. “Not tonight,” he agreed.

“Get home,” the merc told him, not unkindly. “You don’t want your dad to look down and worry.”

Hill nodded and left. The soles of his feet scuffed along the road as he walked away. He could feel the merc’s eyes on the back of his neck, but he didn’t look back.

Albie Rosen had been a nice guy. Funny. He gave great piggy-back rides and was good at explaining why people did what they did. His hands had never been sweaty.

He’d also been weak. He let people walk all over him rather than stand up for himself.

Even dead, Hill couldn’t imagine he’d be much good at being a vengeful spirit. He’d probably be more disappointed than angry. It would be nice to see him again, but it wouldn’t fix anything.

But that was OK. The only reason he was here was so his stepdad’s thugs, whoever they were, could report back that he’d given up.

Hill zipped his hoodie up as he reached the end of the block. He hunched down into it as he rounded the corner. His bus, the 229, was already at the stop, and he broke into a jog to get there before it pulled away.

Fraser had always kept a few degrees of separation between himself and any dirty work he needed done. These days he used money. That wouldn’t have worked on Hill’s dad, so maybe back then it had been threats. Either way, it kept Fraser’s hands clean.

There was just one problem with that.

If you didn’t know where the bodies had been buried, it was difficult to put a guard on them.

***

Two transfers later and the 447 bus pulled in to the curb. The driver looked dubious as she leaned over to peer through the open doors at the Player and King stop as if she’d not seen it before.

“Here?” she said. “You sure, kid? It’s not the best area. Especially not at this time of night.”

Hill ignored her concern, and the “kid.” People always thought he was younger than twenty-four. He didn’t know why, but apparently one day he’d be grateful for it. The “when” on it was unclear too. It definitely wasn’t today, when he’d rather avoid any unnecessary attention.

“I’m meeting a friend,” he said. “Thanks.”

The driver turned her mouth down in an unhappy grimace, but didn’t try and argue the point. Hill stepped down onto the pavement, and the cold pinched at his ears. He pulled his hood up, hunched his shoulders, and stuck his hands in his pockets as he walked away.

He closed his left hand around the key he had in there and squeezed until the edges of it bit into his skin. It hurt, but he was used to it. Hill had carried the same key around for the last five years. It had taken him that long to work out where the lock it went with was situated.

145 Player Street.

Hill stopped on the sidewalk and looked up at the house.

There had been tenants there until a few days ago. Somehow the house still looked run-down and unloved. Maybe it was the lack of Christmas lights on the eaves. It was the only house in the street that wasn’t lit up.

The last tenants hadn’t wanted to leave this close to Christmas, but it had been unavoidable. Hill needed access to the basement and didn’t have the wherewithal to fake a gas leak.

He climbed the worn stone steps to the front door and tried the key in the lock.

It wasn’t his first visit, so he knew it would fit. Something in his chest still tightened, ready for the tumblers to lock or the mechanism to jam. It just turned smoothly, and when he turned the handle, the door swung open.

He stepped in, over the handful of pizza flyers and spam mail on the rug, and closed the door behind him. It didn’t feel any warmer inside than out. If anything, it might have even been colder, with wisps of Hill’s breath visible as he cleared his throat.

One theory had it that unconsecrated burials created “soft spots” between the worlds. Not weak enough to allow passage except at the right times of year and with the right invitation, but enough to allow leakage. Like a chill that lingered in the height of summer.

Or a smell in the basement like the one the Pollon family had lodged multiple complaints with the property management company about…for years before Hill ever got in touch with them.

It wouldn’t actually matter to Hill’s plans, but it did give weight to the theory.

Hill went into the kitchen. He’d turned the fridge on the last time he was here.

The sound of the electricity humming through it was surprisingly loud in the otherwise silent house.

He glanced at his watch to check the time—fifteen minutes until midnight—and then opened the door to lift out the double-bagged carcass he’d stashed in there.

The plastic crinkled under his fingers as the bloodied beast in the bag shifted and sagged down as he moved it.

He let it hang from one hand while he picked up the pot he’d left on the stove.

He didn’t actually know why he’d put it there. It could have been set anywhere. It had just seemed out of place anywhere else.

Everything else he’d left downstairs already.

He propped the pot on one hip as he opened the basement door.

The smell that the Pollons had talked about wafted up to him.

It was dank and vaguely green, like standing water…

even though the property manager’s plumbers had never been able to find any issues with damp.

Hill flicked the lights on and hesitated, one foot on the top step.

All he had to do was stop.

Hill tightened his grip on the edge of the pot as he stared down the narrow stairwell into the disorientingly mundane basement.

There was a dryer and washing machine shoved into one corner, a cracked basketball backboard propped against a wall, and a stack of stained, crumpled groundsheets that the Pollons hadn’t wanted to take with them.

It wasn’t too late to go back. Not yet. It would be soon, though.

That was one thing that the Church, folklore, and all the forums on Reddit and the dark web agreed on. Knock at Death’s door, and you had to complete the rite. No one knew exactly what happened if you tried to ding, dong, dash it, but the consensus was it wouldn’t stop just because you died.

So this was Hill’s last chance to change his mind.

This wasn’t what his dad would have wanted.

Hill knew that; it was for the same reasons that Dad would have been a bad vengeful ghost. And up until three years ago he’d been happy enough.

He’d never liked Greg, and Greg had never understood him, but mutual disinterest could work a lot like tolerance under the right conditions.

If he’d not found out…

Except he had, and he couldn’t unknow it. He’d never been good at pretending or playing along. The truth was…it just was.