Sins of the Soul

Ah. The inside pocket of his coat. And there they were. A handful of nickels and dimes. She couldn’t recall exactly where they were supposed to go, but she knew he’d need two coins for each crossing, so she chose six dimes and tucked three under each palm.

Good…but not enough. She remembered something about putting a knife on the deceased’s chest to keep away evil spirits, so she took the knife Butcher had tried to kill her with and laid it on his sternum, then clasped his hands over his chest, rearranging the coins to again lie beneath his palms, and finally, turned his head to the north.

Closing her eyes for a second, she tried to think of more funerary customs she’d witnessed. She knew the body was always washed and the orifices plugged with cotton or gauze. Yeah…not gonna go there. What else?

A hazy memory came to her of her great-aunt’s burial, the casket, the dry ice, the traditional white kimono, leggings and sandals. There was nothing she could do about those. But a white headband was doable. Hunkering down, she used her own knife to slice away a length of Butcher’s white shirt and folded it neatly, pinching the cloth between her fingernails to set the seam. It needed a triangle, dead center, but she didn’t have a pen. She had no wooden tablet to inscribe his kaimyo—his posthumous name that would prevent his spirit from returning every time his name was called—and she had no way to cremate him, so burial would have to do.

Straightening, she glanced at the dirt she’d dug up already, piled in the corner of the grave. Best to finish the task and get going. She dug in and tossed shovelfuls over him, each one a layer between him and the world. She couldn’t help but picture him the way he would look in hours…days…weeks. He’d turn first green, then purple and finally black. His body would bloat, his eyes bulge. His skin would blister and slough off. The bacteria in his gut would digest him from the inside out—

Bile burned the back of her throat, and she had a fleeting, horrific thought that she’d be sick.

She hadn’t puked since her first kill, when she’d shot a man who in turn had shot many men—innocent men. She’d expected Butcher to rail and rant as she’d run from the body and fallen to her knees, retching and heaving.

Instead, he’d held her head and patted her back.

Tears stung her eyes at the memory.

This was not a good night. Not good at all.

Reaching into her pocket, she took out the bottle of hand sanitizer. Squirt. Rub. Rationally, she knew it wasn’t going to wash away a damned thing. But as the last of the alcohol evaporated, she tipped her head back, stared up at the sky, took a couple of deep breaths and felt marginally better.

She killed people for a living. Didn’t matter that she took only the jobs that didn’t break her own code. She killed people. So what the hell was she doing feeling ill over a corpse? Butcher would have killed her if she hadn’t killed him. She didn’t doubt that for a second.

Disgusted with herself, she went back to hefting dirt. Once Butcher was covered, she patted everything down nice and tidy until the grave looked exactly as it had before she’d dug up the bottom.

She hauled ass out of the hole and rose, staring down, wondering if she ought to say something. A prayer. Over the body of her teacher. Her mentor.

The man she’d just killed.

Words danced through her thoughts, a series of ink-blots with meaning only if she bestowed it. And then they coalesced into some semblance of order. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters…

That was it. That was all she remembered.

They weren’t the right words, anyway. Not for Butcher. He wasn’t a fan of green pastures and still waters.

So she whispered something from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, instead. Two of the forty-two declarations of purity, ones she thought were fitting.

“He did not rise in the morning and expect more than was due to him.” That was true enough. Butcher had been suspicious of everything. He hadn’t trusted luxury or wealth. Hadn’t trusted technology. He hadn’t expected more than was due him, because he’d thought life was out to screw him, and he’d thought getting screwed was his due. “He has not brought his name forward to be praised.”

“Tsk. Bastardizing the Book of the Dead?”

She had the Glock out and leveled in the direction of the clipped, masculine voice before she finished turning. Time enough later to wonder how he’d managed to sneak up on her unheard. Right now, she just needed to have him in her sights.

Only he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

He wasn’t anywhere that she could see. There were only shadows and grass and the swaying branches of the willow tree.

She scuttled back, behind its thick trunk, her gaze flashing from headstone to headstone, her gun tracking the same path.