Consideration for Scoundrels

THREE

Celeste McDara believed in God only because she had met the Devil. The creature, the darkness, it prowled somewhere in this city, this graveyard, somewhere just at the edge of her vision. She could sense it now, somewhere in the shadows, but the Devil wasn't her concern.

Not tonight.

Pressed flat against the ground, wriggling beneath the narrow gap between the rotting floorboard, Celeste was belly-deep in cold, wet muck. It was a shit price to pay for a few scraps of metal, but even just a few nuggets would soothe the burning worry in her chest for another few days.

A group of ghosts had gathered near her feet, curious about the living girl half buried in the mud and grubbing about beneath the long abandoned crematorium in the far reaches of the western quadrant of the city of bones. After a few moments, they dispersed, and Celeste was relieved to feel their attention lift from her consciousness.

The average temperature of the more modern crematorium chamber could climb as high and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Once a pine box was slipped inside and the chamber was sealed, it could take anywhere from sixty to ninety minutes until a body was reduced to bone fragments and ash.

'Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris'."

While most precious metals were supposed to be gathered and returned to grieving loved ones, those that weren't slipped in to clever pockets of course, over scores of years, fragments had fallen beneath the cracks in the floor, burrowed in decades of eroding earth.

Mud caked beneath Celeste's fingernails as she dug deeper, unconcerned by the fact the slurry beneath her fingers was turning the color of rust as she bled from cracked and broken nails.The boards pressed down against her back, which drove her chest harder against the muddy ground. Breathing was growing difficult, and she could feel her heartbeat slowing to compensate.

Something tickled at the back of her neck and she prayed it was sweat, or dirt. Anything but spiders.

But at least the throbbing in her veins had softened, quieting to a low hum. Almost an hour passed before she wriggled free; pressing almost the entirety of her weight on to her elbows, she dragged herself out from under the rotted floorboards of the crematorium, gasping as the cool, night air filled her lungs. She stood on shaky legs, and as she brushed away the mud and debris, Celeste unclenched her tightened fist. Cupped in her palm a precariously slim number metal slivers glittered in her palm.

"All done fer' the night missus?"

"Damn it Garrett!" Celeste whirled on the ghost. In death, same as in life, Garret was a short, stout figure. He barely reached Celeste's own unimpressive height, while sporting a head of thin, light hair. He chewed on the end of a cigar, the ash crumbling from the burning end and dissipating into the night before ever reaching the grass below.

More than a scavenger, Celeste was as much a ghost among these graves as the rest. Because as the years had passed the residents of the graveyard had looked at her with familiarity, her presence no longer an anomaly; she was as routine to the ghosts of Aventine as they were to her. And typically, those ghosts didn't speak with Celeste unprovoked. Mostly they just nodded or stared at her, curious to her presence, but not enough so to prompt asking.

Much of what Celeste took from the dead was found by deciphering vague gestures and the occasional, silent, guide to take the guesswork out of the ordeal.

Except for Garrett.

Gods damned Garrett.

When it came to him,'looking anywhere beside her own two feet was a dangerous gamble; even the briefest moment of contact was enough to send the spirit shuffling across the graveyard. He was the coworker who trapped you in endlessly dull, pointless meanderings any time you happened to occupy the same few feet of space of any length of time. Severely lacking any understanding of social clues that would have tipped him off that a conversation persisted on the sole ground that the other person was too polite to tell them to bugger off.