Shadows Linger

“Your cousin Wally has stood in for you before.” Caught off balance, Shed could not marshall his excuses quickly. And Darling was driving him to distraction. She had to start wearing something that concealed the shape of her behind better. “Uh... He couldn’t deal with Darling. Doesn’t know the signs.” Raven’s face darkened slightly. “Give her the day off. Get that girl Lisa you used when Darling was sick.” Lisa, Shed thought. Another hot one. “I only use Lisa when I’m here to watch her.” A hot one not attached. “She’ll steal me blinder than my mother...” “Shed!” “Eh?”

“Get Wally and Lisa here; then go keep an eye on Asa. I’ll make sure they don’t carry off the family silver.” “But...” Raven slapped a palm on the tabletop. “I said go!”

The day was clear and bright and, for winter, warm. Shed picked up Asa’s trail outside Krage’s establishment.

Asa rented a wagon. Shed was amazed. In winter stable-keepers demanded huge deposits. Draft animals slaughtered and eaten had no provenance. He thought it a miracle anyone trusted Asa with a team. Asa went directly to the Enclosure. Shed stalked along behind, keeping his head down, confident Asa would not suspect him even if he looked back. The streets were crowded.

Asa left the wagon in a public grove across a lane ru

Shed squatted in shadow and bush and watched Asa dash to the Enclosure wall. Somebody ought to clear that brush away, Shed thought. It made the wall look tacky. For that matter, the wall needed repairing. Shed crossed and found a gap through which a man could duck-walk. He crept through. Asa was crossing an open meadow, hurrying uphill toward a stand of pines.

The i

Asa entered the pines. Shed puffed after him. Ahead, Asa sounded like a cow pushing through the underbrush.

The whole Enclosure was tacky. In Shed’s boyhood it had been park-like, a fit waiting place for those who had gone before. Now it had the threadbare look that characterized the rest of Juniper.

Shed crept toward hammering racket. What was Asa doing, making so much noise?

He was cutting wood from a fallen tree, stacking the pieces in neat bundles. Shed could not picture the little man orderly, either. What a difference terror made. An hour later Shed was ready to give up. He was cold and hungry and stiff. He had wasted half a day. Asa was doing nothing remarkable. But he persevered. He had a time investment to recoup. And an irritable Raven awaiting his report.

Asa worked hard. When not chopping, he hustled bundles down to his wagon. Shed was impressed.

He stayed, watched, and told himself he was a fool. This was going nowhere. Then Asa became furtive. He collected his tools and concealed them, looked around warily. This is it, Shed thought. Asa took off uphill. Shed puffed after him. His stiff muscles protested every step. Asa traveled more than a mile through lengthening shadows. Shed almost lost him. A clinking brought him back to the track.

The little man was using flint and steel. He crouched over a supply of torches wrapped in an oilskin, taken from hiding. He got a brand burning, hastened into some brush. A moment later he clambered over some rocks beyond, disappeared. Shed gave it a minute, then followed. He slid round the boulder where he had seen Asa last. Beyond lay a crack in the earth just big enough to admit a man.

“My god,” Shed whispered. “He’s found a way into the Catacombs. He’s looting the dead.”

“I came straight back,” Shed gasped. Raven was amused by his distress. “I knew Asa was foul, but I never dreamed he’d commit sacrilege.” Raven smiled.

“Aren’t you disgusted?”

“No. Why are you? He didn’t steal any bodies.”

Shed came within a hair’s breadth of assaulting him. He was worse than Asa.

“He making out at it?”

“Not as well as you. The Custodians take all the burial gifts except passage urns.” Every corpse in the Catacombs was accompanied by a small, sealed urn, usually fixed on a chain around the body’s neck. The Custodians did not touch the few coins in those. When the Day of Passage came, the Boatmen would demand payment for passage to Paradise.

“All those souls stranded,” Shed murmured. He explained.

Raven looked baffled. “How can anybody with an ounce of brains believe that crap? Dead is dead. Be quiet, Shed. Just answer questions. How many bodies in the Catacombs?”

“Who knows? They’ve been putting them away since... Hell, for a thousand years. Maybe there’s millions.”

“Must have them stacked like cordwood.”

Shed wondered about that. The Catacombs were vast, but a thousand years’ worth of cadavers from a city Juniper’s size would make a hell of a pile. He looked at Raven. Damn the man. “It’s Asa’s racket. Let’s not try.”

“Why not?”

“Too dangerous.”

“Your friend hasn’t suffered.”

“He’s smalltime. If he gets greedy, he’ll get killed. There are Guardians down there. Monsters.”

“Describe them.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t. All they tell you is that they’re there.”

“I see.” Raven rose. “This needs investigating. Don’t discuss it. Especially not with Asa.”

“Oh, no.” Panicked, Asa would do something stupid.

Word drifted in off the street. Krage had sent his two best men after Raven. They had disappeared. Three more had vanished since. Krage himself had been injured by an unknown assailant. He had survived only because of Count’s immense strength. Count wasn’t expected to live.

Shed was terrified. Krage was neither reasonable nor rational. He asked Raven to move out. Raven stared at him in contempt.

“Look, I don’t want him killing you here,” Shed said.

“Bad for business?”

“For my health, maybe. He’s got to kill you now. People will stop being scared of him if he doesn’t.”

“He won’t learn, eh? A damned city of fools.”

Asa boiled through the doorway. “Shed, I got to talk to you.” He was scared. “Krage thinks I turned him over to Raven. He’s after me. You got to hide me, Shed.”

“Like hell.” The trap was closing. Two of them here. Krage would kill him for sure, would dump his mother into the street.

“Shed, I kept you in wood all winter. I kept Krage off your back.”

“Oh, sure. So I should get killed, too?”

“You owe me, Shed. I never told nobody how you go out at night with Raven. Maybe Krage would want to know that, huh?”

Shed grabbed Asa’s hands and yanked him forward, against the counter. As if cued, Raven stepped up behind the little man. Shed glimpsed a knife. Raven pricked Asa’s back, whispered, “Let’s go to my room.”

Asa went pallid. Shed forced a smile. “Yeah.” He released Asa, took a stoneware bottle from beneath the counter. “I want to talk to you, Asa.” He collected three mugs. Shed went up last, intensely aware of his mother’s blind stare. How much had she heard? How much had she guessed? She had been cool lately. His shame had come between them. He no longer felt deserving of her respect. He clouted his conscience. I did it for her!

Raven’s room had the only door left on the upper floors. Raven held it for Asa and Shed. “Sit,” he told Asa, indicating his cot. Asa sat. He looked scared enough to wet himself. Raven’s room was as Spartan as his dress. It betrayed no hint of wealth. “I invest it, Shed,” Raven said, wearing a mocking smile. “In shipping. Pour the wine.” He began cleaning his nails with a knife. Asa downed his wine before Shed finished pouring the rest. “Fill him up,” Raven said. He sipped his own wine. “Shed, why have you been giving me that sour cat’s piss when you had this?”