“Few have.”
She stepped away from him, turning, staring at the waves of mysticism whirling around them. “Have you?”
“This is how I see the world always.” His voice was soft and low.
“You see aether everywhere? At all times?”
“Yes. I believe I’m actually seeing into the world where aether exists before it’s summoned into our world by magical spells. Apparently the boundaries between the spheres are thin and permeable. And it tends to haunt areas of magical potential, such as this church. It’s so persistent that it’s similar to the way you feel the wind or hear a noise in the background. Eventually you accommodate yourself to it unless it changes tone or pitch, then you notice it again.” He looked around. “For example, I see it clearly now, more than normal. But that’s likely because I’m attuned to it, showing it to you.”
Kate looked at Simon as if for the first time. He stared at her, his gaze unwavering despite the wonder that was occurring around them. He lived in a different realm from others, from her. However, he looked normal. “I can’t see aether coming off of you. With your power, it should be pouring through you.”
“It doesn’t work that way. I can’t see it once it’s in our world and in use.”
Kate moved close and took Simon’s hands. She turned from the visible magic swirling around her and looked into his eyes. “If this heavenly sight is common to you, how do you even pretend to be a normal man?”
“I’m not normal, Kate. Neither are you.” Simon reached to cup her chin and leaned down to kiss her. Kate’s lips were soft and she pressed into his. He could feel the warmth of her breath in his mouth.
She opened her eyes and let out a long sigh when they parted.
Simon ran a strong finger along the line of her jaw. “Perhaps a more romantic spot might have been arranged for a first kiss.”
“No. This is lovely. I must no longer fear graveyards. I could feel that kiss down to my ankles.” Kate’s brow furrowed and she looked down at the hem of her gown that touched the earth. The material was rustling. She grasped the fabric and lifted it slightly.
A hand protruded from the dirt and its fingers flailed at her petticoat.
“Jesus God!” Kate stamped her heel onto the grey hand.
She stepped back, but Simon noticed the top of a head beginning to breach free of the ground near his foot. Together, he and Kate ran toward the church, trying to avoid the crop of hands and fingers sprouting. The ground grew soft beneath Simon’s shoes and he barely leapt aside as a sinkhole opened on a slowly widening morass full of struggling bone and hanging flesh and upturned, desperate eye sockets.
All around them gruesome marionettes rose awkwardly from the dirt before pausing to shake themselves and stare at their surroundings. One dead man stood and dusted off his tattered shroud, then immediately began to claw at the ground next to him, assisting a cadaverous woman to her own freedom. Some wandered in confusion, milling into corners of the walled cemetery. Others, rich with decay, moaned and flailed angrily.
A bony hand swiped at Simon’s head. He ducked with a whisper and proceeded to grasp the moldering thing by the collarbone. With a quick pull, he used his runic strength to tear the rib cage loose. The cadaver fell apart like a broken toy, but its pieces continued to struggle.
Kate pulled a pistol from under her coat and fired, shattering the skull of the nearest reaching corpse, but there was no time to reload the heavy weapon so she used the blunt end to slam against approaching shamblers.
Simon spun and used his walking stick to crush the skull of an undead man reaching for them. He then swung both cane and rib cage to batter at the wandering dead. His coattails flew as he cleaved bodies into bits of bone and flying gobbets of meat. But that activity attracted the attention of more shamblers in the churchyard. The growing mob circled closer. Simon tossed the shattered rib cage aside.
Kate grasped her small handbag and pulled a small blue vial and threw it into the grinding mob. It shattered harmlessly, causing two creatures to pause with a look of confusion.
“What is that potion?” Simon asked.
Kate stared as the two undead things began to shuffle forward again. She glanced into her purse. “Damn it! That was my perfume.”
“I hope you have something stronger.”
“I have this.” She was already filling her hand with another vial. She twisted the cap and immediately the vessel began to glow. She threw it across in front of her and a flowing sheet of bluish flame washed over a swathe of the undead. Though the corpses continued to come on, the weird fire quickly consumed their flesh and they fell into simmering piles of ash. Others that struck out across the field of fire were consumed, as the flame would not die. Still, there were other cadavers that moved around the blaze to take their place.