Danse Macabre [Wattpad Team Up Challenge]

Danse Macabre

"I'm fairly sure they consider this cheating, lover boy."

"No doubt they do."

"You won't let that stop you?"

"Has it ever stopped me before?"

The woman in the corner of the room paused for a moment, her mind percolating and distilling the question to extract its significance as an answer and beyond. What she found pleased her—she swirled the knowledge in her mouth like fine coffee, and grinned with a chill which had no bite to it.

"I had thought that perhaps circumstances had changed. When the time comes, so many try to change their habits, their attitudes—they want to pretend a life of virtue is the only one they've ever known. That's never been my lover, though. Proud and set in his ways from birth till death."

The man in the circle met her steady gaze with one equally as implacable. "And my woman, so stubborn and mercurial that not even death can hold her for long."

That made her pause for a moment and blink with bemusement before bursting into peals of ringing laughter that filled the little room with merriment and the scent of dry, dusty paper. "True enough. Maybe not all the way to True, but true enough."

She took a step out of the corner of the room, stepping across the various odds and ends needed for the ritual—here an order of eggs sunny side up from her favorite diner on 18th Street, there a sigil arcane. To the left, a set of bells graced by the fluttering touch of her shift: Bright Lil'iitsal to call the dead to walk, gentle Litahdia to soothe their sorrows, stern Itawbikh to send the malevolent scurrying, and sonorous 'Iibead to send them back to rest. The circle itself was a thing of beauty; though painted directly onto the floorboards, every arc and character was shaped with exacting care. Invocations in a dozen languages implored every Power which might take an interest to permit this shade their brief exodus into the light. The peeling green paint on the walls seemed to shine with an uncanny, ethereal radiance as she passed.

The woman in white settled just outside the edge of the circle, perched on her toes like an overeager child. She peered at the man within: her eyes lingered with distaste on the shabbiness of his coat, the yellowness of his teeth, the sparseness of his hair. The chair in which he sat seemed too spindly to support his sagging limbs and heavy frame.

"You've gotten old, my lover boy. It doesn't suit you as much as youth."

It was the man's turn to give her a heavy, world-weary grin. "Not all of us are fortunate enough to die at thirty, woman. You know how the saying goes: the best thing about dying is not getting any older."

"They didn't lie. But the hardest thing about it is watching those you love age."

The man's smile turned bitter, and he glanced to the side. "Lucky for you that won't be an issue much longer."

Silence fell for a moment. The five pale candles marking the points of the pentacle shivered.

"Now you've gone and made things all morbid," the woman chided. "What's a girl supposed to do with that?"

"Nothing at all." He looked up at her, dark eyes serpentine with consideration. "It seems disingenuous for a woman long dead to accuse her ghoulcaller of morbidity. Especially since he's got one foot in the grave already."

"You've had a foot in the grave since you were twenty and your aunty taught you the old ways. Now the only trouble is that you wonder what it would be like to wander outside the cemetery gates. This is your bed, lover. You made it, now lie in it."

"Stubborn woman."

"Foolish man." The woman's demeanor settled. "Why did you call me here, then? You have to know I can't cure you—those disgusting cigarettes decided your fate when you started smoking them years ago."

The man shook his head. "I had no hopes about a cure. I know the limits of the dead better than anyone alive."

Her eyes narrowed. "Then you can also be sure that I can't tell you about your Fate, or mine, or which faith guessed it right as to where you'll go and why. Those are the Rules."

"Powers, woman! You think a bloody necromancer is going to waste his energy worrying about the state of his soul? We're reprobates, each and every one of us. If there are cigarettes in hell, I'll count my blessings and look no further."

"Then why?"

Her gaze demanded. His offered no answers.

"Nostalgia's sake. Always looking, never touching. You're always on the outside, I'm always within. Why not dance on the rules, one last time?"

The woman went very still. "You know what I'll do if you break the circle. I won't have a choice. It's just how things are."

"You'll take me off, and spite the tumors who've labored so hard to take me. Spite and love—it sounds like the sort of last action I should take. For consistency's sake, no?"

The woman did not move or speak. Her eyes were the dark that is the space between stars.

With a terrific grunt of effort, the man stood, brushing dust from his shabby suit and pushing his wispy gray hairs into place. Still within the circle and star, he gave her a low bow and extended his hand.

"Come, my love. Like that night in Prague all those years ago. One final dance."

Slowly, the woman curtsied, luminous white shift pooling briefly on the floor. The man stepped forward out of the circle and lightly grasped both hand and waist. Her right hand settled on his shoulder with a weight which couldn't be felt.

A turn, a step, a graceful sweep—

The room was empty, with only the still-smoking candle wicks to show it had ever been occupied at all.