When Thurloe returned, around 3 in the morning, he was as white as a sheet. He had two pieces of paper: one for Clive, one for Jerry.

Jerry took one look at his, and crumpled the paper in his fist. “Of course!” he said.

Clive read his aloud. “Elman Squatcherd. 35S, 15E, Posey Hill.” Clive knew what the numbers meant. They were paces from the entrance to a graveyard. Coordinates of gait. And an undertaker always carried a compass.

“Well, that’s it then!” said Jerry. “Cheers, John! Clive – let’s move!”

Jerry led the way to the door and Clive followed. Suddenly, Thurloe was beside him. The old postmaster seized Clive’s arm in a surprisingly strong, vice-like grip.170

“Whatever you do!” hissed Thurloe, “DON’T open that grave!”

Clive tried to move his arm, but couldn’t...171

“Alright, alright!” said Jerry, coming back to rescue Clive from Thurloe’s grip, “That’s enough from you, John. Isn’t it passed your bedtime?”

John bowed. “Yes, majesty.”

Jerry’s eyes flashed, “No need to get sarky! Come Clive! Leave the man to his bed!” He lifted a lantern from a peg by the door. “You won’t mind if I borrow this? No? Ta!”

Jerry grabbed Clive and was through the door before either John could refuse or Clive could say farewell. The wind rushed in to meet them and bore them out into the night air, bracingly cold for June. A distant rumble echoed through the clouds.

“Posey Hill?” breathed Clive, once again trying to keep up. “Where’s that? The Undertaker made me memorise all of London’s graveyards by rote; pretty sure that wasn’t one of them!”

“That’s because it’s not a graveyard. Not anymore, anyway. It’s an almshouse on Charterhouse Square.”

“Almshouse?”

“Pensioners. I check in now and then. You never know...”

“Never know what?”

“Exactly. I even host the weekly quiz night on occasion. Quite popular with the chronologically challenged, I am. Never hurts to curry favour with future clientele. S’all good.”

“But why is Elman Squatcherd buried in an almshouse?”

“I don’t think he is – not exactly.”

“You think he’s buried beneath the almshouse?”

“Best hope not.”

“Well – where then?”

“The good news is that the ’takers of yore were a lazy bunch. Why dig near a building where there could be foundations and such when you have a nice big stretch of open land to desecrate?”

“You mean there’s a graveyard in the square and nobody knows about it?”

“Not all graveyards are marked, Clive.”

“But... that’s what a grave is! ‘A marked resting place for the dead!’ Or so Phil said... What’s a graveyard without any graves?”

“A burial pit.”

“Oh! Yes, that is very lazy!”

“Lazy be damned! I suspect that they were in a hurry. Bought your shovel?”

“Never leave home without it!”

“Spoken like a true Protestant!”

“I’m Catholic actually: I never understood what all the protesting was about...”

“I’d keep that to yourself, if I were you! Old Charlie’s a soft-hearted soul, but I’m not sure I can say the same for all of his subjects. Come on – Charterhouse ain’t far!”

Jerry was right. It wasn’t. Or perhaps Clive was too preoccupied with why people would need to be buried with such haste that they didn’t even have time to mark the graves.

The streets were deserted. Few other fools wanted to be out in this weather. Returning over the viaduct again, but more northerly this time, into Chick Lane, Jerry hung a left at Smith Field, where the livestock was hawked upon a Friday, and on up St. John’s Street.

The sky flashed twice on rooftops.

“There! On the right!” said Jerry.

“Well, at least there’s a church!” said Clive.

“Used to be a monastery. Then a mansion. The owner thought he could marry Mary Queen of Scots – guess he thought that would have made him a King of Scots? Didn’t work out so well for him. Now it’s an almshouse and a boys’ school. Hope those young whippersnappers don’t torment the old folks too much. After all – that’s my job!”

A low wall ran around the square and the gates were locked. Jerry cupped his hands for Clive. “Giddap!”

Clive ran and launched himself over the wall, somewhat overestimating the ballistics, and landed with a muddy splash in a small pond on the farside, scattering the mating frogs, to much amphibious annoyance.

Jerry followed, manlevering himself up. “Would you keep it down, Clive!” he hissed. “We’re not exactly supposed to be here after dark!”

Another gravelly rumble from the clouds above.

“It’s not going to matter much if this storm gets any closer! So where’s this burial pit then?”

“35S, 15E. You know the rules.”

“We’re supposed to measure from the cemetery gate. There’s neither cemetery... nor gate!”

“Posey Hill’s the name of the almshouse. I should imagine the measurements are from the front door.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Oh. Right. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Why oh why?”

Clive traversed the square towards the former monastery. It was very dark: street lighting here was nonexistent, and the unseen storm clouds had the moon and all the stars in hiding. All the windows in the building were dark: Clive should have been relieved – but he wasn’t.

An owl twooed, making Cive start!

Finding the door, he paced out the coordinates back into the grassy square – 35 paces south, 15 east – keeping the sacred rhythm taught to him by the Undertaker to ensure uniformity and precision of gait:

Step, step, step-back, step, step-back, step-back, step-back...

Arriving at the spot, Clive muttered the rites of exhumation, and planted his shovel with just the ritually required amount of force. The shovel stuck fast – a marker.

“Boo!” Jerry said, materialising behind Clive.

“Jerry! Will you cut it out? It’s starting to rain!”

“Better get digging then!”

“You’re not going to help?”

“Uh-uh. I’m a boxmaker and a heartbreaker, not a true undertaker like yourself. Each to his station and heartfelt vocation!”

Clive put foot to shovel and began to dig. The heavens finally opened, and the ensuing deluge softened the earth, washing it away before Clive’s shovel. As if the ground wished to be parted.

It did not take long. The shovel struck solid.

A shallow grave.

Not like the Undertaker at all.

Clive’s brow furrowed further, water now dripping from his nose and the brim of his hat. The wood of the coffin should have rotted by now – at least partially. This felt more like stone. He excavated further, and brushed the running furrows from the surface below.

“Jerry – where’s that lantern?”

“’Ang on!” Jerry hunched against the flying rain. Steel chipped at steel. A spark. Jerry’s face glowed into being. “Here!” Jerry craned over the hole. “That’s not wood, that’s–”

The sky flashed once more, right on cue!

“Metal,” said Clive. “It’s metal!”

Jerry’s eyes widened. “Who is this fella, Clive? Only royalty can afford bloody metal caskets!”

“Help me dig ’round it!”

“No shovel, remember?”

“Then lend a hand, will you?” Clive handed Jerry a muddy humerus from the grave.

Jerry took the bone. “That’s an arm.”

“Same difference!”

“Clive – why are there bones outside the coffin?”

“Eats me! You said it was a pit, right?”

“A pit with a metal casket?”

“You want to be here all night?”

“We’ll never lift it!”

“We don’t have to! Helps on the way!”

“Help?”

“Come on! Get digging!”

As the ground sank away before Clive and Jerry’s dual exertions, the casket revealed its lines.

“That’s not a casket!” breathed Jerry. “That’s a sarcophagus!”

It was true. There was nothing square about it. It appeared wrapped about the corpse within.

“It’s solid metal!” Jerry marvelled, giving it a bang with the bone. “Lead, I’d wager. And it’s sealed... like, completely sealed!”

And it was not featureless. The next magnificently timed flash of lightning revealed a hooded face carved upon the surface, skeletal, yet also curiously avian, its nose long and beak-like, with wide sockets for eyes. Wings, folded, crossed the chest. At its feet, carved in metal scrollwork, one word: Ezrā’ël.

“‘Ezrael’?” sniffed Clive, wiping a wet sleeve across his face. “Strange way to spell ‘Elman.’ Mean anything to you?”

Jerry nodded, not looking up. “‘And the Lord relented of the calamity he had wrought, and said to his angel who had destroyed the people, “Enough!”’”172

“An angel?”

“THE angel. Of death.”

Rumble of thunder.

“How on earth do you know that?”

“Fruits of a misspent youth. Clive—!”

“Really? I spent mine pretending to be a goat...”

“Clive!”

“What?”

Jerry hadn’t moved. He was still staring into the grave.

Then Clive saw them. The pouring rain had washed the soil deeper into the grave. It had not pooled. There was space for water down there. But that wasn’t what Jerry had been staring at. The shallow dirt in the grave around the sarcophagus was gone. What remained, almost washed to gleam in the downpour, were bones. Dozens; hundreds: ribs, vertebrae, skulls.

Flash.

“What the–?” began Clive.

“Something terrible happened here!” whispered Jerry. “We should fill this pit in, pat it down, and forget we ever saw it!”

Rumble.

Clive was trembling. He nodded quickly– “Jerry, I think you’re right!” Clive snatched up his shovel again, and began furiously shoving piles of earth back into the pit—

And then he froze. For they were not alone...

Flash.

A thousand beady little eyes caught the arcing light. Ten thousand. More. All about them, in a wide and eerily perfect circle. Tiny noses sniffled, upturning long incisors. Discipline was well maintained, but there came the occasional squeak above the wind.

Jerry’s eyes were bulging out of his head! He seemed to shrink, nestling somewhere back between Clive’s shoulder blades... His voice was a squeal being throttled by a whine, “Clive!”

Clive grimaced. They were early.

“It’s ok, Jerry,” he whispered over his shoulder, “They’re not here for us!”

“How can you be sure?” Jerry hissed.

“They just want what’s in the pit!”

“How do you know?”

“We’re leaving – now!”

“How?!? We’re trapped!”

“Just... just follow me, ok?”

Clive stepped toward the dark ring of small bodies. The rats did not move. They remained in place, watching them. A few cleaned their whiskers or gnawed the air. They were ranked too deep to step over...

“Here goes!”

Clive raised a foot, and gingerly stepped into the horde, nudging bodies aside in search of grass. The rats squeaked their protests – but they moved.

Jerry could barely even whisper. “Clive...”

“Come on, Jerry!”

Another step, another squeak. Jerry followed. Considerably more squeaks (Jerry was walking backwards against Clive, and his eyes were shut). Another large step. A few more and they would be clear. Clive grew bolder, stretching further. And stepped on something soft–

Crunch!

All at once, as one, the rats tore forwards – but not at them! – into the all too shallow mass grave of Ezrā’ël Elman Squatcherd, Angel of Death, martyred sympathiser to rodentkind!

Like trees in floodwater, Clive and Jerry braced, and then (very unlike trees, water or not) – they scarpered!174