3: Dead Man's Toes
The streets are full and deadly after the midnight hour. They’re especially darker and more sinister around the cemetery. I hike up my purse as I shove the rusty gate open. Usually people, normal people enter through the immaculate front entrance with its finely trimmed shrubbery, blooming floral centerpieces and structurally intact buildings.
I, on the other hand, enter the back way, the demizen way. Where the gate is rusted shut and poisonous ivy creeps up the ironwork. A little enchantment whispered off the tip of my tongue makes the vines creep back.
The headstones are all cracked and chipped, the path is overgrown with moss and mushrooms, ferns and spiders along with other things that scurry in the night. I think I deserve more than one day off for this.
A faint glow shines in the distance. Georgio.
His mausoleum, his crypt, is falling apart and one of the oldest standing in the cemetery. And it gives me the creeps. The door is enchanted and only opens with blood. Creeps. I debate about turning back as I rummage through my purse for my pocket knife. There’s no slicing of palms or shedding pints of blood, no, I just prick my finger and give the smallest amount I can.
Luckily, its enough and the door swings open on its own. Creeps. Once entering it looks like a house for a dead body should. Small and empty except for the tomb that sits exactly in the middle. Except this one, the tomb’s lid isn’t flush with the box and a shine glows from inside.
Two large steps reside along the tomb. There’s only one way in and one way out. A fat rat scurries across the floor as my foot touches the first step. A rodent is warning me to run. If only I could. As I come up to the top step my waist is even with the lip of the tomb. I jam my shoulder against the lid and push. A little manpower and it slides back opening up to reveal stairs.
Down we go. Hiking a leg up and over I fall flop over. The deeper I go the brighter it gets, but it's still not as bright as I would like. It’s a hazy glow, but as I reach the bottom and enter his catacomb home, Georgio’s back comes into view. Instantly, I’m satisfied with the brightness.
“My favorite witch.” He chimes without even facing me. His back is hunched over something and I’m fearful of what it is. His once impeccable funeral clothes are now matted with crud and ragged from wear.
There are more rats down here than up above, they dash from one corner to the next before disappearing from view . There are also little bare rodent skeletons piled in the corners. Those rats just didn’t drop dead...they were eaten. Creeps.
A smile struggles to find my face as he whips around. “Georgio.” I greet him, urging my stomach to stop tossing. “I’m here for some dead man’s toes.” I dig out the velvet pouch. “I’ll take whatever this gets me.”
He wastes no time crossing the room. His right leg drags behind him clearly completely rotted away. His all seeing blind eyes meet mine before taking the pouch from my extended hand. A flap of skin hangs off his cheek while a cockroach crawls out of a hole along his jawline. A gag threatens its way up my throat. That puking cotton candy sounds real good right about now, because the bile that inches up my throat burns.
He scampers away to look in the bag keeping me from spying on what’s inside. His voice echoes throughout the catacomb. “Five. Five dead man’s toes or three littles and one big.”
I’ve never done a spell with a dead toe before. “Is a big toe better than a small toe?” I question.
“Yes, even alive the big toe is more beneficial than the little ones.” He shouts from deep within the maze.
“Okay, three littles and big.” I holler back stuck in place, just beyond the steps.
The sound of glass clacking against glass sounds from down one of the tunnels. Jars of...things. “Have you seen Lucinda?” He asks, creating small talk.
Lucinda was the nasty witch that dabbled in necromancy, brought him back and ditched him when he started to rot. There’s no way she’s gonna let him find out where she is. Revenge is a bitch and a corpse’s revenge is pretty much eating you alive and no one wants that.
“No.” I reply back not allowing such talk to happen. I wanted out and I wanted out now.
“Anything I get you, Hazel. I very much enjoyed your payment.” His words chill me to the bone.
The memory forever seared into my brain. Gretchen had sent me here without payment, so it was leave empty handed or...“No, thanks. A little piece of my soul is one too many. I grew a gray hair from tearing away that little chuck.”
A savory groan sounds deep in his throat. “So tasty. It mended my bones to perfection,” he looks down at his leg, “at least for a while it did.”
“I’m sure there’s other fools out there that will give you a chunk of their soul for whatever it is you have back there, but I have to get back to Mystic Moon.Toes. Please.” I hold out my hand for the product. I can only imagine how people would react if they knew that a dead creeper scavenged graves stealing body parts from their dead loved ones.
Taking his sweet time, he drops the same red velvet bag into my open palm. “That indeed. Would you like to stay for dinner? I’ve been harvesting some prized pieces.”
“I’m good. Thanks though Georgio.” I take two steps up at a time. “Thanks.” I mutter as I heave it up the steps as fast as I can.
I don’t sigh a breath of relief until the lid of the tomb is back in place. My mind is somewhere else entirely as I make my trek back to the rusty gate. So far away into thoughts of just getting the hell out of the cemetery that I don’t hear the crunch of dead leaves and gravel that’s not quite in unison with my own footfalls.
I swing around to see a vast openness. No one there. I turn back around, my feet picking up pace. Crunch. Crunch crunch. Crunch. I swing around again to barely catch a glimpse of a shadow dart off to the right.
Perfect. Just perfect. Nothing like getting attacked by a vampire added to my awful evening.
A condescending laugh seems to sound from all directions. I try not to play into their antics, but my heart doesn’t get the memo. It pounds against my rib cage forcing my blood to rush through my veins searing everything along the way.
“Such a pretty girl for a dark sinister place.” His words whisper right behind me.
Without moving too much, I dig into my purse searching for one of my anti-vampire vials. I nearly yelp with joy as I close in on one, twisting the cap off gingerly. “Well, lucky for me I’m not just a girl.” I whip around tossing the mixture into the air.
Taking the vampire by surprise, which is exhilarating in itself, the liquid splashes his face and chest. It’s a sick, disturbing movie effect as the once gorgeous vampire’s skin bubbles and melts off his face.
It takes a minute for me to look away and run, but once I do the adrenaline is too much and my shaky limbs don’t work properly. I run into low lying tree branches and trip over crumbled headstones before I’m tackled from behind.
He pushes his knee into my back taking my breath away. “Stupid witch.” He hisses before diving down and taking a long, gross sniff of my hair.
Half laughing, half choking, I mumble through tense lips. “Congrat-u-fucking-lations. You figured it out.”
The pressure is gone for a split second before I’m tossed onto my back, my head cracking against the ground. He leers over me, skin drooping, a section of skull poking through from underneath. “You look awful.” I tease receiving a swift backhand to the face.
Vampires are predictable. They like to play with their food. They like to think that they’re smarter. But no one is as smart or playful or even stealthy as a witch. That loser crammed me down onto a grave with a cross buried in front of the headstone.
He was too busy smelling me to see me grab it and too turned on by the thrill of the hunt to see me jam into his chest as he pounced down going in for the bite.
I never killed a vampire before. I guess there’s a first for everything. There’s no forgetting it though. The slowness of it. The widening of their eyes as they acknowledge that their eternal life is eternal no more. The realization that their impeccably strong muscles are mush and their bones are brittle. His boney fingers grope for my neck and even though one latches on the harder he squeezes the faster his fingers break off.
I scrabble along the ground careless of the dirt streak that marks my back entirely grossed out by extremities falling off. And he’s not going to spontaneously combust on me. I wasn’t not going to get dead vampire ash in my hair or my mouth.