Owen only managed to make it one step out of the locker room before he was accosted by a cultist.

A dark cloaked figure stepped out of the shadowy corner of the hallway as soon as the locker room’s metal door had started closing behind Owen. “We weren’t-”

“Oh, holy crap!” He jumped away from their hand that was snaking toward him sinisterly, smashing his hip painfully against the door handle in the process.

Something squeaked. Owen probably. The door’s hinges were admirably oiled and the cultist didn’t strike him as the squeaking type, so unless there was a rat problem in the building, that really only left Owen himself.

Owen took a moment to walk in a small circle. He was pretty sure it was supposed to help with the pain in some way, but obviously it didn’t do much.

As soon as he was able, he looked at the hooded figure staring at him silently from a few feet away.

“You scared me.” He explained half-heartedly.

“I noticed.” Judging by the voice, this cultist was the guy. The not-Themis one.

They stood in silence for a bit. Like, what was Owen supposed to say to that? Of course he’d noticed. It had been pretty noticeable.

“Right. As I was saying,” the cultist continued, “We weren’t sure about your shoe size, but we figured you’d prefer a pair of sneakers.”

The cultist handed him a shoebox that had been completely hidden inside the massive sleeve.

Owen stared at the box uncomprehendingly for the long second it took for him to realize he was meant to put them on.

“Right.” He opened the box lid and removed the shoes. “Thank you.”

If they were buying things for him, then they probably weren’t going to kill him.

The shoes were predictably black, as were the socks he was handed a moment later. Those had also appeared from the deep secret recesses of the men’s sleeve.

Owen bit back a chuckle. Surely that had to be some sort of joke.

Regardless, Owen sat down on the floor to complete his thematic outfit. Trying on the shoes and then adjusting the lacing to be more even and a bit tighter. Despite the man’s warning, the shoes fit perfectly.

“We can leave in a few minutes when Themis finishes up in the morgue.” The man gestured to something to the side.

Owen turned to look at the door the man had flicked his sleeve at. It appeared identical to the one he had just entered through. The only noticeable difference being a small plaque that handily labeled the room as the morgue.

“What’s your name?” He asked the cultist. He felt like it would be rude to keep referring to the man as ‘the cultist’ now that he had been given gifts.

“Charon.”

“Karen?” Owen tried. He hadn’t imagined the rough-voiced cultist would be named something like that.

“Yes. The ferryman of the underworld.”

“Oh!” Owen exclaimed in realization, “Charon!”

“Yes. Wh-what did you think I said?” For the first time since he’d met Charon, the man sounded unsure of himself.

“Nothing.” Owen answered quickly.

The morgue’s door swung open and the scent of bleach slapped Owen flat across the face.

Themis flicked off the lightswitch and traipsed out of the room she had presumably flooded with cleaning product. Impressively, the hem of her black cloak was still spotless and devoid of bleach staining.

She stopped in front of Owen. “Feeling better now?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Not sure what you did, but I’m all good now. Also, why does it smell like pickles?” That was still bugging him.

Standing up, he finally noticed that both of them were a little taller than he was. How tall exactly that was… well. Owen wasn’t sure, but he felt like he should be about average in that department.

Themis bumped her fist against the thumbs-up Owen offered her and then tossed him a face mask. “That's formaldehyde.Put the hood on and then hood up. I wanna get out of here before eleven o’ clock.”

Formaldehyde made sense if it was a morgue. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be helping that much with the rotting smell.

“Why?” He asked curiously.

“Well, ‘cause this place reeks of corpses and formaldehyde, and our boss will get irritated if we take too long finishing up here.”

He pursed his lips, “Okay, and what exactly is it that you guys do?”

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Owen was all for getting out of the smelly morgue, but he didn’t want to go with them if he was still referring to the pair as ‘the cultists’ in his head.

“Oh right. You don’t know anything.” She pulled a wallet (black) out of her sleeve and flashed an unrecognizable badge at him. “Charon and I are crime-scene investigators.”

She nudged Charon and he produced an identical badge from his own sleeve.

Owen blinked. Exactly how much junk did they have stuffed up those massive sleeves?

“Wait. Didn’t you say you were working now? What does that have to do with me?” A thought was nagging at him, but slipped away as soon as he tried to focus on it. A quiet suspicion that something was going on that he should know but just didn’t.

Like grasping for a memory that wasn’t there anymore.

He was missing something obvious though. They were in a morgue. He hadn’t noticed that earlier. More specifically, he had been on the table and covered in blood.

“Oh.” He whispered, “I died.”

Themis visibly flinched, which was answer enough. “Is that okay?”

“Not really, but the crime you’re investigating is my murder, right?” And they’d apparently just brought the victim back to life. Crime scene investigators? That was one hell of a way to describe it. “I’d be stupid to not try helping you solve that.” Owen pointed out.

“Huh. I don’t know about that. Helping out here could lead to you dying again.”

Owen made a face. Themis could have just not pointed that out. As it was, she was doing an awful job of selling this to him.

Whatever. It was endearing. Made her more personable, which was all he needed to go along with them.

Of course, there was the possibility they were lying, but he felt like they were being honest. The rest of his doubt was drowned out by curiosity.

Owen pulled on the mask and flipped the hood over his head before giving them another thumbs-up to indicate that he understood the possibility of death and was ready to go anyway.

“If you’re sure.” She shrugged, and Charon did the same.

She turned on her heel, and began walking away. Owen hurried to follow, and Charon trailed along behind him.

They didn’t go far. The door out of the building was practically right there. That made sense though. If he had a body on a stretcher, he wouldn’t want to have to roll it that far into the building. Especially if it smelled like the ones in the morgue.

A small sound like a doorbell echoed from further down the hall when Themis pushed open the door.

The trio stepped out into the chilly parking lot.

“It’s eleven in the morning?” For some reason, Owen had expected it to be night.

Like, what kind of psychopath resurrects murder victims before noon?

“Did you seriously think I would be working if it was eleven at night? And no, it isn’t. It just hit ten thirty-eight.” Themis said it like it was something obvious, but he didn’t actually know her that well. They’d just met an hour ago.

“How did you know that?”

“I’m wearing a watch.” She waved her arm at him, which she definitely hadn’t looked at before answering him.

“But you didn’t look at it.”

“I have an eye on my hand.” Right. She did have one of those.

A black minivan parked by the door chirped as someone unlocked it. Neither of the cloaked individuals gave any indication that they had been the one to do so.

Themis walked around the front to hop into the passenger seat, but Charon opened the door for Owen and gestured for him to get in. He thanked the man as he slid into the backseat, not at all surprised to find that the interior was black too.

What did surprise him was when Themis began to remove her cloak.

“Seatbelts.” Charon ordered her. Owen rushed to put his own on before the man could get onto him about it too.

“Just a second.” Themis responded, shimmying the light fabric over her back and into a heap on her lap.

When she turned around to toss the pile of cloth into the backseat, Owen took his first proper look at her.

Themis had a thick gray blindfold tied around her head that went under her dark curly hair

She still seemed to look into his eyes despite this.

“Charon says that the cloaks help him make it easier for him to use his abilities.” she explained.

Owen noted she was wearing shining silver armor when she pulled her arm out of the thick folds of the cloak.

Like, actual armor. Not the sexualized kind of female armor that you’d see in the media, but a practical set of plate that covered her completely aside from her right hand. He wondered how she moved so quietly. Then he stopped to think about how he knew what kinds of armor women wore in the media.

As soon as she had buckled in, Charon backed the car out of the spot and then floored the accelerator, peeling out of the parking lot like a ferryman out of hell, tires squealing against the asphalt as they rolled off the curb into oncoming traffic.

By the time they reached their destination, three minutes later—though Owen was sure it would have been longer had Charon deigned to pay attention to the speed limit— they had run two red lights, swerved around one pedestrian, and nearly flipped four more times.

And somehow, Charon had managed to do all of this without leaving so much as a scuff on the paint.

Maybe Owen needed to reevaluate his understanding of the man’s age. He’d pictured Charon as a gray-haired old man under his cloak, but now he was thinking he might be far younger than that.

“You can bring people back to life, right?” Owen tumbled out of the car as soon as it screeched into a parking spot at what was hopefully their destination. Even if it wasn’t, he would not be getting back in that car. Charon drove like someone with low regard for human life.

“I can revive the dead with a few conditions.” That sounded suspiciously like a ‘no’.

“I’m half-sure he also has a power that lets him drive like that without dying.” Themis chimed in. Her tone made it clear she was joking, but Owen didn’t think it was funny.

He was actually about to comment on that, but he caught sight of something when he turned toward her.

It was the entrance to a paved trail that wound beyond the treeline and deeper into the park they had stopped in front of.

There was nothing noticeably dangerous about it, but the sight made him feel uneasy.

He distractedly lifted a hand to shield his stomach warily. To cover his stitches.

Without a word, he began to walk toward the trees. Themis gave Charon an unreadable look, but let him pass.

The sudden fear that washed over almost made Charon’s car look enticing. Morbid curiosity urged him onward.

A moment later, he heard Themis’ footsteps behind him. He already knew she could move silently, so that meant she was purposely making noise to let him know she was there.

He appreciated the gesture.

It helped to ease the unsettled feeling in his gut as he began to lead the pair to the site of his murder.