Darkness Girl: Trickster God

Chapter Seventy-Five: Devil

The sun was bright for Latimer's funeral. It flooded the clearing in the small cemetery where his ashes were going to be kept. Regan stood in the shade of an oak tree and shifted uncomfortably. She'd barely known Latimer before he died. The investigator might as well have been a stranger. 

She didn't leave, though. 

It didn't look like anyone else here knew Latimer. In life, he'd seemed to have as many friends as a paralysis tick. Apparently, death had done wonders for his popularity. The investigators had put together an honour guard. A cloud of black-clad mourners swarmed around the casket. All the pointless ceremony of a fallen hero. 

Sarafina looked like she wanted to cry, but she stood with her chin tilted up and her eyes steady. Bennet just looked tired. Ashcroft stood to Regan's left, alternating her gaze between Regan and the funeral. 

Regan watched the investigators file past the casket in their dress uniforms and wondered how many of them were corrupt.  

It occurred to her that most of the people walking past couldn't care less about the funeral. She watched as small groups peeled away to have private conversations. They would talk for a while and then the group would disperse. Perhaps two or three would remain behind to have a longer talk away from the group. It was a slow and elaborate dance. 

Next to her, Ashcroft glared at them with her single eye as if she could drag out their guilt with a look. 'None of them are here for Latimer. They're here for themselves.' 

'You've brought me here to watch vermin crawling over one another to escape a trap.' 

Ashcroft's face darkened. 'They wouldn't be scurrying now if we hadn't dragged their sins into the light. They should have cleaned their own house, but they didn't, and now there will be a price.' 

'I doubt it. A rotten corpse doesn't get less rotten.' 

'Not this time. They can't ignore it any longer. Not when a senior investigator is killed by one of their own. There's a corruption inquiry now. That means a special investigator; someone appointed from the outside with special powers to tear out corruption from the roots.' 

'Special investigator,' Regan swirled the words around in her mouth like they were old vinegar. 'You'd better hope they don't appoint another scum-dweller like them.' 

'I did.' 

Regan turned the words over in her mind before Ashcroft's meaning sunk in. She looked sideways at her and sighed. 'You're a damn fool. You're going to end up face down in a pool of your own blood.' 

'Lucky I have you then.' 

'Perhaps, perhaps not. What if I'm the one holding the sword?' 

Ashcroft glanced at her. It was only a moment, but her gaze was searching. 

They stood in silence. 

When Ashcroft spoke, her voice was so quiet that Regan could barely tell if she was speaking at all. 'Then I guess I'll be lying in my own blood with a look of surprise on my face.'

That was it then. 

Latimer, or what was left of him, had been sealed up in a neat little box. Everyone had filtered out of the cemetery, leaving it to the dead. Regan stood in the late afternoon shadows and watched the rows of headstones with a grim expression. The sun was sinking, and the wind had taken on a chill. 

Latimer was a small brass plaque on a wall. Regan guessed his ashes were behind it, but it didn't really matter. She flicked the metal with a fingernail. It was surrounded by other plaques for other people, stacked in neat rows like a tiny apartment complex.