Dead Men's s Boots

There were dozens, if not hundreds, packed so closely together that they overlapped, thrusting their heads through each other’s limbs and torsos to get a better look at us, and maybe at the new kid on the block. The ghosts of the most recent vintage still carried the marks of their deaths on them in wasted flesh, oddly angled limbs and in one case a gaping chest-hole that was almost certainly a bullet wound. The tenants of longer standing had either learned or forgotten enough to look more like themselves as they’d been in life; or else had started to fade to the point where some of the more gruesome details had been lost or smudged over.

The priest seemed oblivious to his larger audience, which was probably a good thing: he looked old enough and frail enough that he might not weather the shock. But people in my profession have the sight whether they like it or not, and it’s not something you can turn on and off. At one point during the funeral oration Bourbon Bryant reached into his pocket and half-drew from it the book of matches he always carried there – the particular tool he usof ar tooles to get the whip hand on the invisible kingdoms, just as a tin whistle (Clarke’s Sweetone, key of D) is mine.

‘Not the time,’ I said tersely, speaking out of the corner of my mouth.

‘I’ll just torch one or two, Fix,’ he muttered back. ‘The rest will scatter like pigeons.’

‘I’ll break your jaw if you do,’ I said equably.

Why hadn’t I got drunk before coming here? Judging by the faces around me, I sure as hell wouldn’t have been the only one. Exorcists often resort to booze to stifle their death-perception, just as a lot of them use speed when they want to put a particular edge on it. But I’m careful about how I deploy my crutches: today it would have felt like I was hiding from something specific that I was ashamed to face, rather than just dulling unpleasant distractions.

I defocused as far as I could, staring through the massed ranks of the dead towards the cemetery’s high wrought-iron fence, which was topped with very un-Christian razor wire. No respite there, though: the Breath of Life protesters were pressed up against the bars like tourists at the zoo, shouting abuse at us that we were too far away to decipher.