My neck prickles. I tug the cowl of my hoodie down over my forehead and go out into the narrow lane. Moonlight shines on the rows of thin mausoleums, exactly like a row of town houses but small and gray. The tiny death homes are worn, the poems and epitaphs faded from their marble faces. What few markings I recognize are messy and eclectic: hammers carved into the lintels, or circle snakes or crosses, lambs and flowers. Long grass squeezes out a living between them, and a few of their doors are crumbled or missing and replaced with plywood. This is no cared-for graveyard like the one at the Death Hall; it’s old and forgotten even in the heart of the city.
But not everything has forgotten it.
There’s a scratching like rats in the walls. I turn slowly, see nothing but leaf shadows.
Wind brushes the edge of my hood, caresses my cheek. On my right the proper entrance appears, its iron gate locked tightly, with the name of the place arched over: Garden Cemetery No. 1. In cursive script, almost impossible to read backward, it promises, All the dead are welcome here.
A modern orange sign is tied to the bars. I pull the bottom away to read it. CLOSED FOR REPAIRS.
Putting my back to the gates, I walk directly down the overgrown lane toward the center.
Stone scrapes stone, like one of the tomb doors is opening. My lips part and I suck in a quick breath. They’re here; I was right. There the sound comes again: the scratching, the claws scrabbling across marble roofs.
I scan the black shadows between tombs, the short iron fences that mark family vaults, the sudden splashes of color from the plastic bouquets set about the place.
There’s a growl at my back; I swing around but nothing stands behind me. I hear it again, a low growl and skittering claws, followed by high-pitched giggling.
All the shadows move. There! The golden glint of reflecting eyes.
Cat wights.
Skit. They’re less conversational and will hardly care for the paper clips and rings I brought to trade. Cat wights want to play, rather like their feline namesakes, and won’t think twice about biting off my fingers. “Good evening,” I say gently, firmly, as if I’ve nothing to fear.
For an answer, a chunk of marble the size of my fist flies out from between two mausoleums. I shift my leg and it hits the lane. Another follows. Then a hail of pebbles, and with them comes more laughter. Snickers and babbles surround me. I block my face, pummeled briefly by the hard rain.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I say, pulse quickening. I hold out my bare hands, spread them.
There’s a chorus of hoots in reply. Not only cat wights but also the iron eaters I was expecting. I recognize the calls from Chicagland. There must an entire troop here at least, and probably a whole pack of cat wights. This might be on the verge of going very, very badly.
“I only want to know if you’ve seen the troll mother. I’ve brought metal to trade.” I dig into my hoodie pocket and pull out a handful of rings and clips. They scatter on the gravel.
More hooting, and the cat wights hiss. A greater shadow moves suddenly away from a tomb and slinks, hyena-like with long legs and a hunched back, into the moonlight. A prairie troll. I suck in air, lift my chin against sudden fear. Saber teeth glow as it opens its mouth and hisses at me, rising onto shorter rear legs. They’re man-eaters, and where there’s one, there’s another. “Ssssnack,” it whispers.
I take a step back but glance over my shoulder so I don’t run into another. Rag me. I consider fumbling for the cell phone, but the Mad Eagles won’t get here for ten minutes. By then I’ll either be fine, or dead. More like madness than bravery.
Behind me iron eaters cling to a tomb with their huge eyes and gnarled baby faces. As one, they laugh, displaying blocky teeth. I turn in a careful circle, hands flat out from me, and back toward the iron wights: there’s more chance of surviving a flat-out run through them than past the prairie troll. How is it there are these huge prairie trolls and nobody saw them in the city? And why was this a center of iron wight activity but also full of cat wights? Though with the cemetery closed to the public, they could hulk here all day long without being discovered.
The prairie troll swings its head left; I follow the look but see only three more of its kind stalking nearer from the thin copse of trees huddled around the crossroads in the center of the graveyard. I step back toward the wights, and back again. I unsheathe my sword. There’s no use pretending this is going to end peacefully.
The prairie trolls slink nearer, their shoulders knocking and tongues lolled out more like hyenas now than ever. Cat wights hiss from the shadows, and my peripheral vision is full of laughing iron eaters clinging to the walls and roofs of the dead city.
My heel catches on a patch of gravel and I stumble back into the sharp corner of a mausoleum.
It grunts.
Horror burns through me, leaving only ice in its wake. Turning, I raise my eyes to a greater mountain troll as it shakes free of its mausoleum shape.
I bite back a whimper. That troll was shaped like a house and all right angles a moment ago! I remember with a shock Unferth saying in Montreal that the troll mothers use runework to hide their sons in plain sight.
Every tomb in this entire yard could be a massive, bone-crunching troll.
A hand grabs my shoulder and there’s the sharp prick of a knife at my throat. Somebody has me from behind.
Unferth whispers, Bad timing for you, friend.
Except this time it’s not in my head.
I knock my hood back as I spin around. A line of pain slices across my throat.
He stands there, shock painted over his sharp face, knife up and glinting with my blood. Like me, he’s all in black, tight against his body for slipping through shadows. Signy, he mouths voicelessly.
I open my mouth but have no words. My hands tremble; my heart is a wild monster in my chest.
Ned the Spiritless takes a hesitant step toward me. “You’re bleeding,” he breathes, and the knife in his hand lowers.
One of the prairie trolls growls, bunching its legs to leap. I raise Unferth’s sword to defend myself, but Ned grabs my wrist and jerks me behind him. He faces the prairie troll as it stands two meters high on its rear paws, long tail flicking like a serpent behind. “Down,” Ned orders. “Now. This one is for me, not you.”
“Cat-man,” it whines. Two of its pack snicker, and the iron eaters hoot like monkeys. The greater mountain troll I disrupted hunkers quietly, almost indistinguishable from the other tombs.
Odd-eye, the iron eater at the Vertmont locks said cat-man, too.
Cat wights dart out and weave through Ned’s legs, rubbing his knees, one or two of them reaching up to tug at his pockets, at the hem of his shirt.
I back up again, stunned at the sight of him, but more so at his familiarity with these creatures, the casual way he strokes the triangle ears of one, gently bats another away from his hip.
Ned lifts his colorless eyes to mine and wipes his knife against his forearm before sheathing it against his thigh.
He’s here. Pale and slim, listing to the side as always, hair braided into a topknot to keep it out of his way. I don’t know whether to scream for answers or touch him, prove he’s here and he’s mine. I shake my head, breath tight.