The corpse looked at Caleb first. Then at me. I fired before it could sing. The round entered the dead man’s throat and came out through the creature’s back in a spray of dark blood and grave water. The corpse’s head snapped sideways. Mud jumped from its hair. Neither of them fell. The dead man’s mouth opened wider. He smiled. The creature came for us across the graves. “Move,” I said. Caleb did not need telling twice. We went in opposite directions because there was no other choice. The creature’s first hand came down where we had been standing. Its fingers struck the earth between two graves and sank to the knuckles. The old headstone beside me split clean through its centre. I stumbled backward. The child-face at the creature’s centre looked at me. The corpse-face looked at Caleb. The rest of it dragged behind them: cattle hide stretched over its shoulders, a dead hoof knocking against its ribs, pale arms slipping in and out beneath the wet mass. It moved too fast for something that large. Caleb fired the Vowkeeper. The bolt hit the creature’s upper arm and tore through without catching. The line whipped loose. The creature barely noticed. It only turned its corpse-face toward Caleb. “Mine,” it said. Not in the dead man’s voice. In Caleb’s. Caleb froze. Only for half a breath. That was enough. The creature lunged. I caught Caleb by the back of his coat and dragged him sideways. The thing’s hand closed on empty air. Its fingers clipped his shoulder as it passed, ripping cloth, pulling him off balance. He went down hard. “Up,” I said. “I’m up.” “You are sitting in the mud.” “I’m getting up.” The creature turned. I fired again. The shot hit somewhere in the cattle mass. A cow’s ruined head jerked, mouth opening in a silent scream. The creature barely changed course. The cemetery had become too small. Every grave was an obstacle for us and a weapon for it. We had to watch our footing, watch the low stone borders, watch the broken earth where it had opened one grave already. It only had to reach. We moved backward between the markers. The rain blurred the names beneath my boots. Martha Vale. 1841. Thomas Rook. 1836. A child whose stone had cracked down the middle before I could read it. The creature tore through the next row. A grave marker flew past my head and broke against the cemetery wall. “Father!” Caleb shouted. I turned. The corpse-body had reached for him. Its dead arm had come loose from the creature’s side. It stretched too far, elbow bending backward, fingers clawing for Caleb’s throat. He ducked. The hand struck the stone behind him. Caleb raised the Vowkeeper like a club and brought the brass housing down on the wrist. Once. Twice. The dead fingers kept moving. I fired into the corpse’s elbow. The arm separated. It hit the mud and crawled. Caleb stared at it. “Don’t watch it,” I said. “It’s moving.” “Yes.” “It is not supposed to—” “No. It is not.” The creature shrieked. Not a single voice. The dead man screamed. The child screamed. The cow-head screamed. Something deeper joined them, a whole room of throats pressing through one broken body. The sound hit the cemetery wall and came back at us. Caleb clapped one hand over his ear. He limped backward, face drawn white. “Can you move?” I asked. “Yes.” “Then do it.” We ran. The creature followed. I could hear it behind us: the heavy drag of cattle flesh, the lighter scrape of human bone over stone, the wet slap of a corpse that had not finished becoming part of it. I did not look back until Caleb stumbled. His bad leg folded under him. He caught himself on a grave marker. The stone rocked beneath his weight. “Caleb.” “I’m fine.” “You are not.” “I know.” The creature was close. I fired the last round in Genesis. The muzzle flash lit the fog. For a moment, the bullet struck the child-face cleanly. The head snapped back. The creature staggered. Black-gold fluid ran from the wound down the pale throat. Then the face turned forward again. The hole closed slowly. Not healed. Filled. Something moved beneath the skin. The flesh drew itself shut around it. Genesis clicked empty. “Father?” “Run.” We reached the far end of the cemetery. There was a low wall there, old stone slick with rain. Beyond it, the ground dropped toward the lane. The gate was on the other side of the graveyard. Behind us, the creature was closing the space. No way through. No time to climb. Caleb turned his head from the wall to the monster. “Now what?” I looked down at the Gauntlet. The pressure needle lay dead against the stop. The last cartridge had fired on the moor. I had no charge left in the piston chamber. The iron fist was just iron now: heavy, useless, and strapped to my arm. “Something clever,” I said. “That is your plan?” “It is developing.” The creature slowed. It knew. It had heard the empty click of Genesis. It had seen Caleb’s Vowkeeper bolt pass through it. It stood between us and the rest of the cemetery, rain running down its many faces. The corpse had been pulled farther into its body. Only the dead man’s head and one shoulder remained outside now. His open eyes rolled toward Caleb. “Mine,” he whispered. Caleb backed into the wall. The creature took one step. Then another. The cow-head on its shoulder began to hum. The child-face opened its mouth. I reached for the field bag. It was gone. I looked down. Somewhere between the graves. Dropped when I dragged Caleb clear of the first lunge. The spare Confirmation cartridges were inside it. The speed-loader too. The creature took another step. Caleb saw where I was looking. “Don’t,” he said. “I need the bag.” “You will not get to it.” “I have noticed.” “Father.” The creature’s hand lifted. I had nowhere to put Caleb. No cover left. No loaded weapon. No charged Gauntlet. For one honest moment, I thought of the Hound. Not the one in St. Jude’s. The other one. Rain in a different field. A young man with a bad knee refusing to stay back. A creature learning which of us would try to save the other first. The old fear came back exactly as it had been. Cold. Immediate. Familiar. Then someone began to sing. The creature stopped. The raised hand stayed in the air. The corpse’s mouth remained open. But the hum from the cattle throat broke apart and went quiet. A small voice moved through the rain. Three notes. Rising. Falling. Again. Caleb stared past me. “Ellora,” he breathed. She stood between two rows of graves near the gate. I had not seen her come in. The borrowed coat hung from Ellora’s shoulders, soaked through and dragging near her knees. Her bare feet were dark with mud. She looked smaller than she had on the cliff, but she did not look away from the creature. She sang again. It was not a hymn. It was not anything I knew. A simple piece of melody, no more than a few notes. The sort of sound a child would make to fill the silence when she was afraid of being alone. The creature turned toward her. Slowly. The child-face moved first. Then the corpse-face. Then the cow-head, its one glassy eye rolling toward the sound. Ellora’s voice shook on the next note. But she held it. The creature lowered its hand. For a few seconds, no one moved. Rain gathered on the creature’s shoulders. It ran over the corpse’s eyelids. The dead man did not blink. Then the creature answered. The first note came from the child-face. It was wrong. Too low. Wet at the end. The second came from the corpse. The third came from the cow-head. They tried to follow Ellora’s little song. The melody emerged broken and layered, pulled through dead throats and animal mouths. It was almost familiar. Almost gentle. Caleb’s fingers closed around my sleeve. “It knows it,” he whispered. “No,” I said. The creature took one slow step toward Ellora. “It wants it.” The corpse’s eyes stayed on her. Its mouth opened. “Mine.” Ellora stopped singing. The creature leaned forward. Its arms began to open. “Go,” I told Caleb. He looked at me. “What?” “The bag.” “Father—” “Now.” He saw the shape of it then. The creature was looking at Ellora. Not fully still. Not safe. But looking. Caleb pushed away from the wall and limped into the open cemetery. I stepped after him. The creature’s heads remained turned toward Ellora. Caleb reached the field bag first. He grabbed it by the strap and dragged it behind a fallen stone. I joined him there, crouching low. The bag was wet through. My hands shook when I opened it, but this time I did not drop the cartridge. “Confirmation,” I said. Caleb passed it over. I opened the Gauntlet housing. The spent brass cartridge slid out into my palm, blackened around the vent. I threw it aside. The fresh one went in. Locked. A small sound. A small click. Across the cemetery, the creature’s child-face twitched. “Faster,” Caleb said. “I am aware of the principle.” He took Genesis from my hand, opened the cylinder, and found the speed-loader. His fingers moved with the controlled anger of someone trying not to look toward the thing that could kill him. The rounds went in. He snapped the cylinder shut. “Fishing spear,” he said. I looked at him. He had already found it. The modified spear was short, crude, and sharp. No cable attached. The Matrimony line stayed in the bag, coiled and untouched beneath the tools. “Why that one?” I asked. Caleb looked toward the cemetery wall. A crack ran low through the stone, where years of weather had opened the mortar. The ground there was soft. The wall was old, but it was still heavier than the creature was. “Because it will go in there,” he said. “And then?” “And then you make it hit it.” The creature began to move. Ellora took a step backward. It followed. “Too close,” I said. “I know.” “You plant it. I bring it over.” “No,” Caleb said. “You bring it over after I plant it.” I looked at him. Rain ran from his hair into his eyes. He did not blink. “You said it had to hit hard,” he said. Then he ran. The creature heard him. Its child-face snapped away from Ellora. Caleb crossed the graveyard with a limp he could no longer hide. He reached the wall, dropped to one knee, and drove the spear into the crack with both hands. The creature went after him. “Caleb!” I shouted. He kept pushing. The spearhead disappeared into stone and mud. The creature was almost on him. I fired. The first shot struck its shoulder. The second hit the corpse-face and shattered half the jaw. The creature reeled, but not enough. Caleb wrenched himself upright and tried to turn. His wounded leg gave. He fell. The creature came down over him. I ran. The Gauntlet pressure needle rose as I moved. One notch. Two. The chamber began to hiss. The creature’s hand reached for Caleb. I hit it from the side. The piston fired. Iron slammed into cattle flesh and buried bone. Steam burst between us. The impact threw the creature sideways, not far, but far enough. Its body struck the cemetery wall. The planted spear entered beneath the dead man’s ribs. The point came out through its back. For an instant, the creature hung there. The corpse’s head fell forward. Then its eyes lifted. They found Caleb. They found me. The creature screamed. The wall shook. The spear bent. And somewhere beneath the rain, beneath the broken singing, I heard stone begin to crack.

Chapter 33: A Song for the Dead