Magic Dark and Strange

Magic Dark and Strange

Kelly Powell

CHAPTER ONE

WAKING THE DEAD WASN’T nearly so unpleasant as having to dig them up in the first place.

Catherine Daly paused her work to wipe the sweat from her brow. In the cool night air, her breath misted and the wind gusted at her back, tossing dead leaves up against the low cemetery wall. A fine enough night for digging, all in all. It had rained earlier in the day, softening the soil, and even without the lantern burning at the grave’s edge, Catherine could see well by the quarter of moonlight.

She was used to the dark.

Up on the cemetery’s hillside, she had a decent view of the cityscape below. Invercarn glowed with soft light, buildings lit by streetlamps, their facades elegant and imposing. The knolls and tree-lined paths of Rose Hill Cemetery promised only the best for those moneyed enough to be interred here. Not that they could much enjoy it once the coffin was nailed.

Unless, like tonight, certain services were called upon.

Catherine looked around at the sudden silence to find her colleague had elected to break when she had. Bridget leaned against her spade, the point sunk into the dirt.

“Keep digging,” Catherine told her.

They had an audience after all. Catherine wanted him going back to Mr. Ainsworth with nothing but the coin he still owed and praise for their diligence. Thus far, he had watched them wordlessly, keeping back a few paces from the grave.

Geoffrey Watt.

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, chin lifted. It was an attempt to maintain poise, perhaps, but by now Catherine had come to know when a client was nervous. He wasn’t much older than she and Bridget—in his early twenties, at a guess—and had approached Ainsworth just last week.

His little sister had died of fever while he was away on business. He only wanted to say goodbye. Whatever time he was allowed, whatever the cost, he would pay it.

Catherine pitched another pile of dirt out of the grave. The well-to-do liked to bury their dead deep. There were resurrectionists in the city intent on digging up bodies to sell to medical students. Mortsafes were common implements in Rose Hill—the iron devices were cast over a number of graves on the hillside, set to guard the dead until the flesh became too rotted to be of use.

The robbers found their prizes more often in the public cemetery on the other side of the river. Rose Hill was private, guarded; Catherine was aware Watt must have paid off the watchmen to keep their distance.

The night wore on as she and Bridget continued to dig. They passed six feet, then eight before Catherine’s spade hit wood.

At the sound—a solid and unmistakable thunk—Bridget put aside her own spade and took up the crowbar. Catherine fetched her coat. Inside it was a piece of type. She rolled the metal between her fingers, looking down at the ground beneath her. Then—