"Tell me a story, Caleb."  Though my eyes searched through the dark, as if to catch sight of a drifting memory or hint of fairy tale, I could still very much feel the weight of her body against mine.

"What kind of story would you like to hear?"  Kate pressed against me in the dark and lifted her face from my bare chest.  She rested her head on a delicate hand and her auburn locks flowed over her pale fingers.

Her light skin was a beacon in the otherwise dark room and her eyes, brilliant blue gems, seemed forever wild with life and sexual energy.  When she looked at me I could see only those eyes and had I the kink, I'm afraid I would certainly pluck them from her sockets like prized ancient relics.  They would form the centerpiece of a beautiful necklace and I would wear them for all to see but for me alone to worship.  I fucked Kate for her flesh but I loved the dear girl for her eyes.

"Oh, I don't know..."

"Goldilocks and the Three Bears, maybe?"

She laughed and it forced me to do the same.  "Coming from you, Mr. Wayward, that sounds more like the title of a porno than a bedtime story!"

"Fair enough.  How about--"

"How about something from your life?  Your past."  She smiled at me but the way the smile looked, was different somehow.  Teasing but not seductive.  Like she knew it would cause me discomfort even though it was something she wanted very much.

"Ah, well I suppose I could tell you about a time when I was in pursuit of a demonic entity made of gingerbread, who taunted me while repeating:  'Run, run as fast as you can--'"

"Caleb!" Kate punished my sarcasm with a pinch of my nipple.  While playful, she succeeded in forcing me to take her request a bit more seriously. 

I knew Kate.  She'd start with the nipple and end with the heavenly dragon pillar, so I had to concede once more.

"Okay, okay.  You have to realize, Kate, that none of my experiences make very interesting bed time stories."

"Who said I wanted a bed time story?" She winked at me and bit at her bottom lip, pulling at the supple flesh only briefly.  "I'm just passing time until you catch your breath, old man."

I opened my mouth to return a quip; something that would be witty and accomplish the feat of getting out of having to recite a piece of my past to a Hollywood actress I managed to lay three or four times a year.  Unfortunately, she didn't want to hear any more witty Caleb-isms.

"Tell me... tell me why Caleb Wayward doesn't love."

"Oh but I do love, Kate.  I love you, in fact."

"You love me, Caleb, but you're not in love with me." 

She was right, of course.  My affection for her wouldn't last another two years; when her natural life would reach a cusp, a time when she'd realize that there was no future with a man who had no need for marriage or children or picket white fences. Chances were, I'd more than likely outlive the paint on those fences anyway.

"Alright," I acquiesced, "A story it is..."

Grimoire de Artifice Presents...
Wayward Son:
"Memento Mori"
By Matthew J. Pierce

It is important that you remember my lot in life.  It calls for travel, it calls for the freedom of being able to leave any given place often without notice, remaining for undefined periods of time.  It may surprise you that certain locales require my attention more often than others, and for extended periods of time.  Very precise points throughout Europe, for instance, are often visited and I have almost never been to locales throughout Africa.

It was late, or early depending where you are on the Optimism in a Glass spectrum, and the phone's ring was an annoying reminder that I had been fast asleep.  I remember that I had slammed my hand into the wall along the left side of the bed, fully expecting the phone on the night stand to be there; after all, that's where I would have found it in my loft in London.  I remember this because for a few days afterward I would be inundated with jokes about my being 'weak-wristed' as well as less than sincere suggestions on how best to rectify the problem.

"Mrrello?"  I felt numbed over, as if nothing were working right, including my mouth and jaw.  I was probably griping to myself about the morning taste in my mouth and the whereabouts of the cat that had apparently shit in it, when the caller replied.

"Uh...excuse me...Mr. Wayward?"  The voice had a thick German accent, most likely the caller's first language, English being a second.

 "This is he."

"Ah!  Herr Wayward!"  Delighted, the caller immediately fell back into a more comfortable tongue.  "This is Gerhard Kepler."

Of course I heard the name but it fell against my sense of the familiar like a singular speckle of dust, settling upon a list of names, some of them of certain consequence.  This name was not easily dismissed but it would take me a moment to realize it.

"Of Emden."

I blinked over and over, my vision still blurred with sleep, and my eyes, I'm sure, widened each time. Before me was a dimly lit room, modestly furnished with the essentials and only a few token pieces specific to the region of the world I was in.

But in my mind's eye I saw a tucked away cemetery, small and far removed from the notice of historical societies and curious passers-by.  The grounds had been in the family for centuries and though no new burials were advertised, there were some empty plots set aside for the more...discreet of patrons.

Emden was the home of das Mausoleum tiefes Geheimnis, and I know each of its occupants, personally.  I had put them there.  That meant that when Herr Kepler rang, it wasn't a matter of 'what for' but 'who about.'  Even knowing that, I still chose to question his reasons for calling.

"My apologies, have I forgotten a payment, Herr Kepler?  I've been so busy of late, I suppose it's possible that I haven't kept the account in order."

"No, no sir.  I'm afraid this isn't something so simple."  In the long pause following Kepler's response, I heard a haggard breath.  "In truth, Herr Wayward, I wish this were a matter of payment.  I'd be relieved in calling you, had that been the case."

That cinched it then.  In the three hundred some years that I had been dealing with the Kepler and Schmidt families and their ownership of the mausoleum, I had never been called.  Upon the death of one caretaker, I would personally visit Emden and meet the son, or daughter in one case, that would inherit it.  In that brief encounter I would leave precise instructions, an international number that would forward their calls to me, and a substantial stipend for the care and maintenance of das Mausoleum tiefes Geheimnis.  Always, I would leave enough excess in the stipend to make sure they knew how important a station they had inherited.

"I see."  I swung my legs around to the cool wooden floor.  The apartment below was empty; no one running the heat below and that meant no freeloaded warmed floors for me.  Bare feet padded along the floor as I made my way to the bathroom, luckily recalling that much about the place.  "Presuming this is the type of emergency I spoke about in my instructions to you, Gerhard, what has happened...in detail?"

"Oh, Herr Wayward I am sorry.  To think I failed where so many in my family have not before..."

"The mausoleum, Herr Kepler.  Tell me about the mausoleum."

"The door, sir.  It's open.  Smashed, broken right off its hinges."

"And its contents?"

"I dared not enter; your instructions were clear enough.  But it is obvious, sir, the outer door remains ajar and its contents certainly violated."

"I'll be on the very next plan to Frankfurt, Herr Kepler.  In the meantime let no one, and I mean no one go near the mausoleum."

* * * *

United Airlines flight 940 flew nonstop, which meant I got to avoid London and its Cockney legion of the damned whom always seemed to know when I was near.  Eight hours and twenty three minutes later, I was in Frankfurt.  Frankfurt came easy enough but getting to Emden would prove to be a bit more difficult.  A two day layover gave me plenty enough time to make more phone calls and coordination; looking out for the toes I'd certainly be stepping on and calling on those whom I knew to have long whiskers, the kind that felt the twitch of trouble on the wind.

To that point, surprisingly enough, news of the break in hadn't gone anywhere.  That was a mixed blessing. Rogue scholars, amateuristic dabblers and relic hunters alike would have loved the revelation that many of the world's "lost" arcane treasurers as well as the bodies of self-proclaimed masters and mistresses of the mystic arts, were all huddled together in a non assuming German monastery.  I had time to make sure the news never got out but I also had no leads as to who was responsible, which meant I was going in blind.  I hated surprises, hated when someone else knew the punch line and I had to wait forever to get through the rest of the joke.

One thing was for certain.  When I finally got to Emden, I was going to be a cranky son of a bitch.

To make matters worse, I picked up something else in Frankfurt, beyond the connecting flight to Emden. Polizeikommissar Edda Schlosser.  That would be Polizeidirektor Fleischer's doing; partnering me up with one of his junior detectives, just to annoy me.  And why not?  I had stuck Armin with enough dead corpses over the years so I suppose I deserved a good turnabout.   Armin was somewhat in the know, part of the network of 'friends' I had gathered around the world, people who knew when to call me and when to forget they ever saw me.  Making one phone call to Armin to let him know I was in the neighborhood had earned me a new annoyance.

 We arrived at das Mausoleum tiefes Geheimnis to a noticeably worried Gerhard Kepler, who met us on the path in front of his home.

"I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that you are finally here, Herr Wayward."  Kepler grabbed both of my hands in his and it seemed for a moment that he might drag me along the path.

"I would have come sooner had I the chance, Herr Kepler."  I stopped Kepler's long enough to announce the presence of another, despite my wanting to hurry on and find out what had happened.  "This is Fraulein Schlosser; the Polizei's example of a good idea."

"Detective Schlosser," she corrected, nodding to Kepler.  She was obviously put off at my dismissal but as she would soon find out, I obviously didn't care.  "And I'm here to investigate a possible crime."  I waved my hand and nodded, hopefully placating the good Detective as Kepler pointed out the direction of the mausoleum.

The cemetery itself was vast, tightly occupied with cracked stones weathered bare from centuries of exposure.  Every now and then we'd pass the cracked visage of an angel or of the Virgin Mother, or the occasional Saint.  Sculptures of Christ, oddly enough, were as lacking as the names on the more recent head stones; markers placed in the ground just over the last hundred years.

"Soldiers," Kepler explained as we walked past.

"Nazis," I added.  I was a right bastard for doing so; these people weren't interested in recalling those times any more than I was the days I spent burying society's dirty little secrets.

Near the back end of the park was a narrow path, brush overgrown on either side and blades of grass sprouting through cracks in the red brick like patches of hair on a cadaver's head; uneven and slick, sharply grown life on otherwise dead flesh.  I knew what lie in those crypts, I'd seen them before and I had little desire to see them again.

 "My night watchman makes a point to walk this side of the grounds at night."

"Pleasant work."

"The dead don't bother him, Herr Wayward, it's the living that keeps him up at night.  The things people meet here to do, it's not right."  Kepler's eyes seemed sad and his head slumped over as if his very soul had just taken for a stroll.  Surrounded by the dead, I felt that maybe I should jar the man's shoulder to check for life.  "They keep away from the mausoleum so there's been no need for him to check here nightly."

"So you don't know exactly when the mausoleum was broken into," concluded our detective friend.

"No, I'm afraid not.  He tells me it's been about four days since his last check of the gate.  It could have been broken into anytime since then."

"Semantics," I grumbled.  "I'm more interested in what happened inside, not when or how."  I split off from the other two, pushing the arched gate open with a rusty creak.  Vines coiled around the gate's thin metal rungs and the latch hung loosely, brittle with age, easy to defeat.  I stepped through the decayed maw and instantly felt as if it were devouring me;  the  rotted jaw and its black, broken teeth adorned with remnants of coffee brown ribbon flesh.

The mausoleum was box shaped, cold gray and featureless, a hut of concrete set amidst lush green, a tranquil surface layer strewn over the scavenged husks beneath our feet, orderly rows and columns of the deceased.  Every step against the ground thudded and echoed in the honeycomb caverns dug below us.  It was a wonder the surface didn't cave in and take us with it, the top given over to the below, the live to the dead.

"Herr Wayward?"  Our lady friend brought my attention back to the task and I pushed open the solid doors before she had the opportunity to ask me what was wrong.  The creak of the damaged door sent echoes of rustling somewhere behind us as we took our first step inside.  Sunlight, yes it was almost all too easy to forget that it was day, preceded us into the room, moving in an ever widening arc, laying a warm hand over the cool stone crypts chambered inside.

"Hello, boys.  I'm home."

* * * *

"Herr Wayward, I won't ask you again.  Please step aside and let me do what I'm here for."  Fraulein Detective Schlosser's cheeks flushed red, her tightly pulled pony-tail creating harsh lines on her face.  Her complaining was like a banshee's howl.  A transparent, ghost-white specter with dirty mop-head locks and cavernous hollows for eyes passed through my heart and gave my body a tremble.

"Ah, fuck, I don't need this right now..."  Even though I turned away, clawing at the sides of the stone sarcophagus centered on the mausoleum's floor, the banshee's cry went on.  It wouldn't be denied, it wouldn't stop its nerve corrupting shrieking until it was heard and heeded.  It wouldn't stop tormenting me until I feared it.  But Caleb Wayward wouldn't give it the time of day, no sir.

"...is a crime scene and if you need the reminder, I am the investigative authority here, not--"

I stood and stabbed at the wispy ghost like thing with my finger, perforating its ethereal sheath, laughing inside as it bled puffs of white smoke into the stale air of decay.  "You're being here, detective, is a joke. Literally.  Your boss is having a laugh at the both of us, right this very minute!" I laughed more for the effect than anything.  There was nothing funny about the mist-rot of a bleeding banshee.  "At you for being partnered with an ages old, stubborn son of a bitch who hates graveyards but is on a mission that's more sci-fi than anything and me for getting stuck with the a blonde haired, blue eyed cop who's dying for a chance to make her mark in a life so abbreviated and trifle that her ambition is like a sad, old English punch line!"

The banshee withered and died and my ears were free of her cursed cries.  Silence was like a healing kiss, pressing its lips gently on my face.  I felt waterfalls and cool meadow breezes.  It wouldn't last.

I wasn't particularly thrilled with my response, but it served its purpose and I was back to the seam of the casket's lid.  Powder white cement dust fell from my fingers like ashen bones and I was suddenly reminded of the pain in my wrist.  I called for Kepler, whom to this point was marveling over the collection of sarcophagus' set within the mausoleum walls.

In between our groans and forced rushes of air through clenched teeth, Schlosser made her late retort. "Hazel."

"What?" I grunted, half interested.  I was old and feeling older every minute, almost Cro-Magnon now with my managed vocabulary.

"My eyes are hazel, not blue." Her hands joined ours, pushing against the slow moving lid.  She turned her head to the side, not because she feared the sight of 17th century death, but to avoid airborne flecks of carrion .  When the lid cleared the body of the sarcophagus, it fell to the ground and Schlosser felt she had to justify herself some more.  "Gag between friends or not, Herr Wayward, I at least have to ensure there's no danger to Herr Kepler or his family."

"Right," I agreed, surprising her from the look on her face.  "And you're here to verify that whatever crime happened here, it's nothing requiring an immediate response from the Polizei.  You'll check for valuables, if they're not stolen, and make your report to Polizeidirektor Fleischer that nothing here is worth ruffling his gold plated feathers.  I'm sure they he and the locals have larger crimes to worry about."

Her mouth opened but closed right away.  I wouldn't have any more difficulty with Polizeikommissar Edda Schlosser but I wouldn't be receiving any Christmas cards from either.  Those were the breaks, as the Americans liked to say.

"Why did you start with this one?"

"Because, detective, this is the crypt that worries me the most.  Because of this gentleman right here." I placed my hands on the edges of the crypt and stared down at the corpse tight leather, stretched around bone features that failed to look like anyone I ever knew.  In my mind's eye, though, I added the features; the light, oyster pink tone of skin, the cropped hair colored like early autumn and the wild eyes filled with excitement and wonder, sparkling when he sounded that giddy schoolboy laugh.

"That and there are no signs of the dust being disturbed on the other caskets?" She asked, flashing her light against the walls.  She looked over her shoulder to find me smiling.  The question didn't need answering. "So who is he?"  That one, as it happened, did.

"He was Nikolaus Dietz, a 17th century theologian...and mystic.  A powerful mystic, drunk on alchemy, corrupted by arcane science.  He was quite possibly the most powerful mystic of his time.  And the most selfish.  Everything he had, he stole...with the help of the occult."  I must have appeared motionless; staring deep into the dark hollowed sockets, following the skull caverns through the bonework and down its spine, through its ribs, half expecting the shine and pulse of a living soul to jump out at me.  But there was nothing aside from the lattice of skeletal remains, shrink wrapped in cowhide like skin, gift wrapped in decomposed cotton.

"How can you be sure?"  The cylindrical probe of light from the detective's hand fluttered across the sarcophagus, illuminating random bits and pieces of the dead man before me.  She was looking for a placard, a brass plate engraved with Nik's name and date of death.

I didn't need a placard.  "Because I'm the one who put him here."

 "17th century, you say?"  I almost forgot Kepler was here and when he reminded me it was with a question that was all the more intelligent than the ones our paid detective was asking.  "I've never seen one look so...young.  It's not mummified and yet the body's decomposition is all wrong...there should be complete skeletonization."

"Well versed in stages of decomposition, Herr Kepler?"

I ignored Schlosser and looked from Kepler back to the corpse.  "There's an incantation on the body," I said plainly.

"Wait... spells?"

"One spell to be exact, Detective, yes."

"But I thought," Schlosser paused, maybe to collect her thoughts and I saw her pouty bottom lip more prominently, "...thought the Director was just having a joke."

"Spells decay, just like flesh, albeit a lot more slowly.  Usually a spell has to be canceled or undone by a subsequent one.  This one stayed with Dietz even after his soul died."

"Why?" Kepler asked.  It dawned on me that this curator now knew more than any of his ancestors, save for the one I first made a bargain with.  I wasn't thinking about the consequences, about damning him; the pain of seeing Nik again was all I could feel.

"Because it was a spell made against the flesh.  To make himself more appealing, attractive to those around him.  When he died, the spell remained, locked within his flesh regardless of how little of it remained.  It's slowed his decomposition."

Kepler's curiosity wasn't satisfied.  "Sometimes, rains will wash out the more shallow graves; the older ones, the ones gone unmarked.  We see for ourselves how bodies fare in the ground... throughout time, damaged by weather, fed upon by worms and the like.  But I've never seen makes like these before."

Kepler softly touched rough grooves in the body's face and skull.  "Did something burrow through here?"

"Like...drill holes," I muttered, admitting that I too was confused by the set of holes in Nik's forehead.

"What are you doing?"

Schlosser had taken to feeling around the corpse, inspecting items that had been buried with Nik; ornaments and belongings that I felt belonged to him even in death.  "This is gold!"

"Yes it is.  A crucifix that was once hung over his desk.  Pure gold if I remember correctly, and solid."  She tested the weight, marveling at its worth and the fact that it wasn't stolen.  "They weren't here for gold."

At that particular moment I had no idea what they'd come for and I believe that for an instant, I began to feel relieved; like maybe this was an adolescent prank or someone lost their courage after going face to face with a cadaver from the 17th century.

The detective proved me wrong.  "What the... hell... are these?!"  Schlosser's hand rose from the sarcophagus, a ten inch item like an overweight piece of black yarn, dangling from between her forefinger and thumb.

My skin went cold and I thrust my hand after hers, feeling around the dark void inside the casket until something damp and slick met my fingers.  Like cold, wet pasta.  "I know why they were here...," I announced, horrified by the realization.  My eyes hurt they were stretched so wide.  "I know what they've stolen..."

"Herr Wayward?  What have you found?"  I heard Kepler's voice but couldn't tear my eyes away from the black bodied worm coiling around my fingers.

"What are these things, Caleb?"  Schlosser was worried, more from my reaction than what was between her fingers.

"Cipherids," I muttered.  "Bookworms.  Whomever broke into the mausoleum wasn't interested in gold, fraulein.  They've stolen the most valuable thing in here...Niklaus Dietz's brain."