Consideration for Scoundrels

TEN

"Are vampires real?"

"Are...what?" Celeste, kneeling on cold cobbles, was midway through picking the lock on the iron gate whilst Selena kept watch. But the absurdity of the question had made her stop her work and look up.

"Vampires." Selena repeated, giving a casual shrug. "Seemed like something you may know."

"Not that I've ever encountered."

"Pity. Could have been a fascinating study."

Celeste detected genuine disappointment in the other girls tone.

"Alright, maybe you are a little strange." Celeste resumed her work on the lock. "I'm almost done here, but make sure we are clear before I alert every garda in ear shot once this son of a bitch swings open."

"Are you close?"

Selena's palms were cold and damp even wrapped in her gloves; she continuously shifted her weight bouncing from one foot to the other while listening to the nearly inaudible scrape of the picks working at the lock.

"Trust me love, when I'm close, you'll know." Celeste chuckled to herself. "Hasn't anyone ever told you patience is a virtue?"

"It's frigid out." Selena lied. "I'm just keeping my feet from freezing to the pavement."

"Uh huh."

The next minute passed by in an eternity, until finally the telltale sound of the lock snicking open broke the silence. Celeste, who knew the gate as intimately as her own body, eased it open with a practiced skill, with only minimal groaning from the rusted iron hinges.

"Go." She whispered. "Go, go, go."

They slipped inside, Celeste swiftly repositioning the gate behind them. Selena followed Celeste's lead, scrambling as cautiously as she was able through the maze of headstones.

"Keep up O'Connell." Celeste said as she wove between two dead trees.

The branches grazed Selena's face as she followed, ducking and dodging, trying to keep her feet beneath her as she followed Celeste's quick, confident stride deeper and deeper into the graveyard.

When they'd moved far enough that there was minimal risk of being spotted or heard Celeste's steps finally slowed.

Selena's gaze swung from side to side. "Which way?"

"Garrett likes to hover around the crematorium." Celeste indicated the direction with a tip of her head. "Best start there. Did you bring a torch?"

Selena nodded and tapped her jacket pocket.

"Good. Save it for now, but we might need it if the clouds move in."

When the reached the crematorium only a few minutes later, the clouds were indeed moving in. The darkness fell like a heavy quilt, but when Selena reached for her torch, Celeste shook her head.

"Not now." She cautioned. "Might give them a fright."

Selena didn't need to ask who "they" were, so instead she whispered; "So, how do we do this?"

"We?" Celeste chuckled. "You sit back love. I'll take it from here."

She let her edges of her senses soften.

The ghosts came into being as gradual as a car wreck. Sound. It was always sound that hit her first. The murmuring echoing through her mind, like a radio playing from another room; a familiar melody but the words obscured by distance. Sound was the worst of it, sound she could never fully escape. Then came the creeping sensation of being watched, by someone or something unseen, multiplied a hundredfold, though luckily this was the briefest part. For only a heartbeat after opening her carefully guarded defenses did the world flicker like an old cinema screen, and the dead shimmered into view.