THE SIGNET

“You cheated me.” The familiar voice whispered. The shadows folded in on themselves, and a dark figure coalesced before the unopened crypt. Its features morphed like smoke rising from a house fire, but the glare of its eyes and the cut of its jaw, and the massive shoulders, the left tilting lower than the right, left no doubt as to who it was.

Harlan. Halan’s specter, to be exact.

“You’re early,” I said, feigning nonchalance, though my heart fair beat its way out of my ribs, and my hands grew slick with sweat. “It’s not yet midnight and only two days since the hanging.”

Harlan’s phantom flinched at my words before he growled out, “I come as I may.”

That was news. I’d hoped to be here and gone before his rising. Bile rose in my throat. What other surprises might I meet?

He drifted closer. “And you’re frightened.”

Could he smell my fear? Did ghosts have a sense of smell? Or did they sense in other ways?

I shrugged and twisted the witching yarn tight against my wrist. “Perhaps, but not of you.”

He laughed, the sound a rusty saw blade grating against dry, brittle wood. “You think that bit of twine will protect you, Oathbreaker?”

I let go the string. Moonlight filtered in through the mausoleum gate, casting long dark bars across him. Suitable, I couldn’t help but think but pulled my wits back in place when I heard the scraping of stone against stone.

“I’ve only come for my due,” I said, my own voice rasping with the sudden dryness of my mouth. The scraping grew louder; a grinding like a crushing mill stone.

“Your due!” he roared, his shape morphing and growing to hang above me. “Your due was to be hanged in my stead. We had a deal.” His eyes glowed crimson, as if the fires of hell burned behind them.

“A deal made under threat,” I choked out, slipping back toward the open gate. “It holds no account.”

“By whose reckoning?” he demanded.

“Mine,” I whispered, then raised my voice, “And that of the Scarlet Guild.”

He shrank back, his form thinning and fluttering. “I should have known you weren’t acting alone,” he grumbled. “You were never that capable.”

I stepped forward, ignoring the jibe. “You took an oath, as well.”

“You’ve come for the signet.” He pressed back against the crypt, then twisted aside as the lid ground its way off and crashed to the floor, cracking in two.

“Aye. I’ve come for the signet, which your benefactors should have had from your own hands. But you, in your pettiness, decided to try to use it to cheat death.”

“And you think you are capable of retrieving it from where it lies? You don’t have the temerity.” His laugh wheezed out like the chuffing of a bellows, then died on his ghostly lips as I yanked the witching string tight against my wrist, cutting into my flesh and breaking the threads at once.

Blood dripped down my hand and onto the floor. A ripping echoed from inside the crypt, and his shadow screamed as the signet tore loose from inside his broken body, a flash of gold that flew to my open hand. I braced my knees to keep from shaking and clenched my fist tight around the ring, despite the dark gore that clung to it, refusing to show my disgust. I would not cringe. For my actions were not only sanctioned but justified. This was the debt I owed the guild. This was the price due in recompense for his atrocities.

Thick shadows separated from the corners, surrounding his figure.

The shade screamed again, an inhuman wail, as the shadows cohered in a final dark embrace.

“You will not be missed,” I called out as I strode out into the night.

……………

Random Word Generator Flash Fiction Words:

• Cheat
• Hear
• Voice

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