Page 36 of The Exorcism of Faeries

He was silent until she turned onto Nassau. “Turn off the headlamps.”

She parked as he directed her to. The streets were nearly deserted, the pub and tourist crowds calling it quits past 3 a.m. Gold Stitch opened his door first, and Atta considered shoving him out of the car and speeding off, but the massive, black iron gates loomed ahead of him, and Atta bent to peer up at the top of one through the windscreen. Then, she blew a breath past her lips.

“How are we going to get in there?” she whispered.

“You’ll see.”

God, she was tired. “I don’t exactly have a shovel in my car.”

“Yes, you do.” He pointed a gloved finger again and Atta followed the direction, looking into the backseat. “Put two back there myself.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “You think you’re quite clever, don’t you.”

“You aren’t scared of me,” he said, completely off-topic and sounding more befuddled than anything. “Why?”

Frankly, she was pleased she’d come off as unafraid because she was still rather terrified. Though, she supposed, it wasn’t the creepy masked man or the horrible crime they were about to commit. It was the possibility of getting caught. “We all have to die some way or other, Gold Stitch.”

He cleared his throat at her words but said nothing.

“There’s a little phrase wise women live by.If he wants to, he will. It’s usually more romantic than our particular scenario, but the point still stands. If you wanted to murder me, you would. Now, come on.”

They exited the car in unison, both having the forethought enough to shut their doors quietly. Atta used her hip to close hers the rest of the way while Gold Stitch opened the rear door and produced two shovels. Atta walked around and he handed her one, reaching inside to pull out a lantern.

“A kerosene lantern?” she mocked. “I probably have a torch in here somewhere.”

“I’m old-fashioned,” he answered her, leaning his shovel against the side of her car and lighting the lamp with a match.

“Mmhmm.” They both knew she was goading him, but she didn’t feel inclined to stop. Judging by his status, build, and muffled voice, she’d peg him somewhere in the latter half of his thirties, possibly early forties. She’d always been enthralled by slightly older men. They knew what the hell they were doing in life. A flash of Murdoch slipped into her mind unbidden—the day he told her about the novels he’d been reading. Atta shook the memory loose.

“Old-fashioned or old?” she goaded Gold Stitch further. “Hard to tell with that mask on, you know.”

They hid in the shadows and the lantern light shown in his goggles, her face reflected back at her in the flame. “I’m vintage, darling.”

Blood rushed to Atta’s ears and every other part of her body, but Gold Stitch merely turned and walked toward the dark cemetery, lantern in one hand and shovel over his shoulder.

Atta followed, her heart hammering against her ribs. This wasn’t like sneaking a body out of the morgue under broken streetlights after the Gallaghers had left. This was a cemeterywithinthe college.

“What exactly is the plan here?” She rubbed her cold hands together, looking over her shoulder as he picked a lock.

It clicked open and Gold Sitch reached for the handle. “We find a Stage 3.”

“But how will we get an entire body out of here?”

“We don’t need an entire body, we need a look at one andsamples.”

All the graves were fresh, the soil upturned and carefully laid in mounds atop each corpse. Atta was inexplicably saddened by the fact that none of the graves were marked with names. “Why aren’t there any headstones?” she asked as they walked.

“Those take a while to be made,” he answered. It was difficult to hear him out in the open. “But I would venture to say they never will be.”

Frustrated and horribly unnerved, Atta reached out and snatched the elbow of Gold Stitch’s black coat. He froze mid-step and turned to face her. “I can accept that you won’t take the mask off or tell me your name, but if I’m going to be involved in this shite, I want to know what’sreallygoing on.”

“I can’t tell you that, Atta.”

“Ignorance doesn’t equate to safety.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

“Do you even know what’s happening? What all of this is?”

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