Aelia sat shivering on the doorstep, knees up, arms tight around herself. It would be dawn soon and she’d have wasted an entire night trying to keep from freezing.

It hadn’t taken her long to find a door with a black cross painted on it. Hadn’t even needed to go outside of Old Hill. And she knew this was on Henry’s route, so sooner or later he’d find her there waiting. Or at least, that had been the plan. But six hours gone and two-dozen brisk strolls up and down the street to keep the numb out of her legs and he still wasn't anywhere to be seen. The bread she’d saved from dinner was now just crumb in her pocket.

Aelia forced her legs straight, deciding she’d walk off the cold a final time before calling it quits, when a distant padding rustled the air.

The orange glow of the lantern bobbed along the bottom of the street, the horse and rider invisible in the gloom. Disembodied light, at least from here.

It made Aelia think of the bodies the cart would be carrying. That she’d be carrying, soon.

No. She wouldn’t let herself shiver this time.

She’d seen death before. Had put down a horse with a broken leg herself, once — and she’d only been young then, buoyed on by her parent’s encouragement.

But she'd then spent the best part of a week in tears.

The light lurched, its bright beam inspecting a doorway but finding nothing. It continued.

Soon she saw Rufus, and behind the horse, pooled in an almost spectral light, was Henry.

The horse trotted up towards Aelia before halting.

“Well, look who I didn’t expect to see again,” said Henry, voice as loud a whisper as possible, as he turned the lantern’s beam onto Aelia. “It’s the young girl we mistook for a tourist, isn’t it Rufus?"

The horse gave a low whiney.

Aelia covered her eyes. After all this time in the darkness, the beam was blinding. “Where have you been? I’ve waited here all night. I’m absolutely freezing.” She added, “And will you get that damned light out of my eyes!”

Henry laughed as he clambered down from the front of the cart. He twisted something on the lantern that blocked the beam and created a gentle bubble of light around them. “This street’s on the way back to the Mortuary. Last one I take in Old Street. One of the last I do, period.”

Aelia glanced over his shoulder to look at the bumpy blanket that stretched across the back of the cart. From its height, she judged there must be at least two layers of bodies beneath it, at least at its center.

Henry pulled at his greasy hair and began to twirl it around his index finger. “Let me think now, Aelia. A girl who has been accepted to the Academy, and who is given a generous allowance by them each week, has waited a whole night just to see me.” He paused. “It must be love.”

She glared hard and hoped he could see her expression in the weakened light.

“Or,” he said, moving his hand to his chin. “There’s an outside chance that you need a job, I suppose. But that’s so strange, seeing as--”

“Maybe I don’t need the money at all, but I fancied a little excitement.”

“Not enough of it at the Academy?”

She let out a long sigh. Henry was one person here she didn’t need to lie to. “I haven’t been accepted.”

He faked a gasp and clasped his hands over his mouth.

“Yet! I will get in. I’m already handling advanced spells and I just need to get a referral now.”

“Right. Sure. But in the meantime, you need a job.”

“Yes.”

“Know how to use a set of reins?”

“I was raised on a farm. There’s no horse, cart, or wagon that I can’t steer.”

“Prepared to handle dead bodies? Bring them into the cart?”

She paused. “... Yes. Not a problem.”

Henry removed a pair of tattered cloth gloves from his hands and passed them to Aelia. “OK. Go for it.” He nodded at the door behind her with the black cross. “You’ll find the door unlocked and the body waiting for you.”

She glanced over her shoulder than back at Henry. “You don’t want me to steer?”

“Not to be harsh, Aelia, but last time you had contact with a blanket your threw up, let alone a real dead body. I need to see you can handle the grimmer aspects of the job if you're going to be my partner.”

That was unfair. She hadn’t been prepared for the smell. And her constitution had been drained by lack of sleep from the long journey to Rhodes. “Fine,” she snapped.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Put the gloves on.”

“What? Why?”

“Health and safety. The Great Mortuary doesn’t want its workers exposed to the plague.”

She took the gloves and held them up. Three of the fingers were missing, two more were more holes than fingers. “Seriously?”

“Rules are rules.” Henry was grinning. Aelia decided she wouldn’t give him any further satisfaction. She pulled on the gloves (that felt like spiderwebs) and turned.

The lantern’s beam was back, Henry airming it at the door.

She strode up, took a deep breath, and turned the handle.

The horse she’d put down (slit its neck and stood dumbstruck as hot blood had stained her shoes until her father pulled her away) had been called Clay. A strong working horse that in death had looked so frail. And its eyes… from life to death, they hadn’t changed. Hadn’t clouded or darkened. Just stayed locked on Aelia’s, as its blood gushed over her.

She’d never forgotten that moment.

The dead body that lay in the hallway looked nothing like Clay, thankfully. But Gods, it was odd. It was (had been?) a slight man, and his eyes had been shut respectfully. His legs were straight and he wore shoes, pants, a shirt and, even a tweed jacket. He looked like he was going to church. One arm was folded over neatly onto the opposite shoulder.

But the other arm was not in its socket — the left jacket arm hung empty. The missing appendage jutted straight out of his ribs, ripping through both shirt and jacket.

The strange body looked almost inhuman, and that helped Aelia’s stomach. Looked more like a malformed tailor’s doll than a real person.

But Gods, what kind of plague could do this? It seemed more like a giant had ripped his arm off and stabbed it into his sides.

She tried lifting it first. The man had been small in height and weight, so it seemed a reasonable thought. But it was like lifting a slab of iron and she barely raised him off the ground before he thumped back down.

Ok. Fine.

Aelia grabbed the man’s left ankle with her (barely) gloved hands and dragged. The hallway was wood and smooth and he slid along it easily. A little harder when she had to pull him over the bump of the doorway.

“Really, Aelia?” said a frowning Henry as he watched her clunk the body down the doorstep, his head banging on the stone.

“He’s already…” She took a deep breath. “He’s already dead. Right?”

“Fine. Just hurry up and get him in.”

She dragged him with great effort to the rear of the cart before running into her next problem. The edge of the cart was a good few inches off the ground.

Okay. Two options. Either step into the cart full of dead bodies and drag him up. Or try lifting him again.

Option one seemed more realistic.

She peeled back the blanket, made a little room by shoving back a body with her hand, and hopped up -- all the while holding her dead man’s ankle.

“Ahhh!” she groaned, as she hauled him up, bit by bit. "Come on, work with me here!"

She was sweating and panting by the time he was fully in.

But it was done. Henry could eat crow — she knew he hadn’t expected her to be able to do it.

Aelia took another few breaths, not wanting to look as exhausted as she felt for when Henry saw her. The smell in here was rough — some bodies were clearly further into decomposition than others — so she drew breath through her mouth. It helped somewhat.

Aelia was about to jump down when the body of the dead man she’d hauled in reached out and scraped her leg with its ill placed arm.

What the....

She should have screamed — wanted to, but nothing came out.

“Henry,” she gasped. “The light.”

“What about it?”

Her voice was sheer panic. “Shine it here, quick, for the sake of the Stone God! Please.”

Henry obliged and the bodies lit up, a few dead eyes gleaming. “What’s wrong?”

“Something... Something touched me.” But the arm she thought she’d seen raise was lying flat against the bottom of the cart.

“Like… a bug? We do have big bugs in Rhodes. I suppose a young girl might find them a little scary.”

“Not a damned bug! I’m not scared of bugs. I mean one of the bodies touched me.”

Henry didn’t reply.

Aelia realised it was likely because she sounded crazed, rather than Henry being stunned into quiet by the horror, as she had been.

And the body… it was perfectly still, now. All the bodies that she’d uncovered when she’d pulled back the tarp were still.

Of course they were.

They were dead.

“Aelia… Are you—”

She could lose her job before she got it. Shit. No. She was scared. Petrified, even. But she’d have to swallow it back. And maybe it had been her imagination after all. It had been too dark, really, to see. Maybe she’d just stepped back into the arm. Knocked it back down.

“Sorry,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice level. “I think I just touched one of the bodies behind me and… I’m just not used to working with the dead.” She forced a smile.

Henry nodded. “Well get down and come around here. We need to get to the Mortuary.”

Yes. Getting down. Why hadn’t she done that already? She took a last look at the man she’d moved. The dead not-moving man. Then she climbed down and walked back to Henry.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked

She nodded but she could taste the sweat on her lip creeping into her mouth.

“Okay. Good.” He passed her a wooden bucket that had a dredge of white paint at the bottom and an old brush standing against the side. “Go put a line through the cross and we’ll get going.”

It was probably a bad time for her to ask, she knew, but regardless she said, “Do I get the job?”

He shrugged. “That’s not up to me. You’ll need to speak to the Mortician when we get there. But I’ll put in a good word! I’d be glad to have you work with me.”

Her face dropped. “This… isn’t a trial?”

“Nope. I don’t have that kind of clout. Or any, really.”

“Then… Then why did I remove a body if you can’t even hire me!?”

He shrugged. And there was that annoying-as-all-hells grin again. “You seemed cold. But look all warmed up now.” He paused then added. "You're welcome."