Necromantic

You have no idea what you are doing, that much is obvious. You burst in, with your too-bright jewellery and your too-wide grin and stride up to the bar – loudly ordering a beer even though everyone else is drinking spiced rum.

Barely half a drink in and you begin boasting, to anyone who will listen, of how far you have travelled and how much danger you have faced to get here – how you proved to be too smart and too quick and too strong for those that tried to thwart you.

When she approaches you from the other end of the bar in a cloud of fragrance we all avert our eyes, but you look her steadily in the eye and flash a smile that is like a bolt of lightning in that dark room. You offer to buy her a drink and she accepts. You turn to the barkeep but he is already bringing the drink over – something dark and sanguine in a crystal glass. You arch an eyebrow. “Wine?” you ask. “Pomegranate juice.” she corrects, then takes a sip of the tartly sweet fluid, her eyes not leaving yours.

You lower your voice, then, speaking to her in something more like a purr. You bat long eyelashes over eyes that gleam like two shards of obsidian. We all watch you and grind our teeth but you seem not to notice, or else you don't care. You are probably used to be looked at. You with your smooth, dark complexion. Your long, elegant neck. Your hair – a universe of glossy spirals.

In contrast, her skin is pale and slightly transparent, like the belly of a fish. Upon her breasts is a delicate tracery of little, blue veins. Like lace-work. Like rivulets. With a boldness that makes us shake our heads in disgust you trace one of those lines along her collarbone. She sighs and parts her juice-stained lips.

As she speaks to you, her voice a soft, funereal whisper, her hands flutter about like a pair of tiny doves. On closer inspection you see that her nails, though neatly trimmed and freshly painted, are lined with dirt. The scent you had first taken to be perfume is actually embalming fluid and it doesn’t quite cover that other, darker scent that clings to her – the sickly mixture of dried blood and wet clay.

Why did you come? Was it the promise of riches that drew you here? It's true that she has wealth beyond imagining – a miser's hoard. Perhaps you dreamt of making use of her power to hurt your enemies, or of obtaining that power for yourself. Or maybe you just wanted to be able to say that you had been here, that you had touched the hem of her skirt, that she had spoken your name.

Little does it matter, in the end, whether you came for money, for revenge, for fame. It always ends the same way. Perhaps you think it will be different for you – because you are brave and pure-hearted or because you are a woman – but to her you are no different to the rest of us. In the end you are just so many pounds of meat and bone.

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We do not have to be there to know what happens next.

She leads you through the silver moonlight to the nearby cemetery. The grounds are remarkably, almost obsessively, well-kept, but perhaps you do not notice this. She laughs girlishly as she picks her way spryly through a labyrinth of tombstones and statuary – a whole host of marble angels. She approaches a large, white mausoleum, bordered with pomegranate trees. Those fruits, bursting with bright red seeds, form the beating heart of the cemetery.

The door to the crypt is open and she waits for you there. You finally catch up and she leads you down a small set of stairs into her home.

The main chamber is lit by a mass of candles. You are naïve enough to think them beeswax, but we know with what grim precision she crafted them from rarer tallow. Adipocere drips off them to form greasy pools on the cold, marble floor. Cut flowers are displayed in urns – gardenia...camellia...lillies, of course. You wonder, only fleetingly, how she keeps them so fresh. All of them are plump and radiant with life in a way that seems almost obscene in those sepulchral surrounds.

She moves to the far end of the chamber where, behind a low, flat table, a large open fire does little to dispel the subterranean damp. She beckons for you to join her.

Run. That's what you should do; what we all silently urge you to do. While the table lies between the two of you, you should turn your back and bolt for the stairs and the crisp, fresh air of the outside world. You could still say you had been here. You could even snatch a flower on the way out as a memento. You don't run, though. Of course you don't.

You approach the stone table, your step perhaps a little less confident than before. She offers to read your fortune and you agree, expecting cards, but instead she brings forth a sack of old sheep bones and, laughing, tosses them one after another into the fire. The bones snap and fracture in the heat, revealing your life's journey in a series of cracks and fissures.

Leaning in close to the fire your hand brushes against hers. Perhaps it is an accident. Perhaps not. Either way, you are taken aback by how warm it is. “I had expected you to be cold” you confess. She turns to you then and peers at you almost shyly from behind the curtain of her fringe, “I can't be, with you here to keep me warm.”

When you kiss her, her breath has the too-sweet taste of over-ripe fruit. But her lips, like her hands, are soft and warm and so you kiss her deeper still, gathering up her delicate frame in your arms and pulling her towards yourself. Her moans echo in the large chamber so that it sounds like she is all around you. Above you. Within you.

Eventually she pulls away and, reluctantly, you let her. She looks you in the eye and her pupils are like black holes, so wide they threaten to swallow her up. To swallow you both up. Taking your hands in hers she guides you down onto the stone table and lays you out. You are reminded, irresistibly, of a sacrifice on an altar and for the first time you begin to feel something like fear. You watch, warily, as she steps back and slowly peels back her dusky robes. The flesh beneath is pale and smooth and glows like starlight.

You sit up and quickly remove your own clothes, tossing them onto the floor beside the fire. She kicks them aside, “We won't be needing those” she says as she climbs upon the table to join you.

You have heard the phrase, 'the sweet embrace of death' but never before had you really thought about it. We know too well the similarities between a lover's embrace at the end of life – the shallow breath, the quickening pulse, the loss of self in one final, aching gasp. There, upon that stone table, you die a little.

Afterwards, as she lies curled like a fern beside you, you run your fingers through her fine, fair hair, lifting a strand up to your face and inhaling its perfume. It is the same bitter-sweet scent you noticed on her earlier – the same scent that pervades the whole chamber, but in a more concentrated form. You wonder if you will ever get the smell out of your own clothes and hair. You won't.

She sits up and slips her robes back on then, picking up a nearby candelabra, beckons to you, “I have something to show you.” then turns and walks away. You dress yourself, clumsy in your haste, and stumble after her.

She leads you to a narrow passage. Beyond the passage is another set of stairs leading further downwards. You follow her deeper underground into a crypt below the crypt. A charnel house where the cloying sweetness of the chamber above – the smell of incense and embalming fluid – gives was to a putrescence that stings you eyes and forces you to cover your nose and mouth with your arm. “What is this?” you ask, your voice muffled.

She says nothing, instead simply standing aside and motioning for you to pass her. For all your earlier bravado you step forward only reluctantly, and not without casting a wistful glance back behind you to the candlelit chamber above.

The charnel house is unlit, the only illumination coming from the flickering light she bears. You inch forwards, peering into the darkness to try and make out your surroundings. There is a tapping on your shoulder and you whirl around, but it is just her, of course, offering you the candelabra. You take it gratefully and return to your inspection.

As you turn back, now with the aid of the candlelight, you find yourself faced with a huge pile of corpses in various stages of decomposition. The corpses closest to the damp, stone walls are deliquescent – what remains of their bodies oozing onto the floor. At the bottom of the pile, and jutting out at various points throughout it, are a jumble of bones – some so old and dry they are turning to powder. The bodies that cap off that dreadful mound are so fresh and unmarred they may just have been sleeping, although the stench suggests otherwise.

Your heart pounds heavily and you desperately try to assess your situation. She is standing between you and the only exit, but she is not a large woman. You take a deep breath, trying to steady your nerves, then turn back to face her. You force a smile, “Who are they? Your old lovers?”

“Some of them.” she replies coolly, without a trace of irony. You reach then for your weapon, only to realise you have left it on the floor in the chamber above.

“Oh no, my love,” she coos like a dove and takes one graceful step towards you, “Do not fear. I could never part from you.” she leans forward and blows out the candles, “Not ever.”

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The next evening you return to us but – ah! How changed! Silently you take your place beside us (we have already made room). The barkeeper, without looking up, pours another glass of rum.