“Emil, will you grab a cardboard casket from storage?” Kellen nods toward another door at the opposite end of the room. “They’ll be the ones on the bottom shelf.”
Emil passes by me and walks through the swinging door, returning a moment later with a narrow coffin. He sets it on the table in the center of the room, which I notice has wheels and adjustable height.
When Kellen pulls the body from the cooler, I face the wall once more and shiver at the sounds that come from behind me as he moves it into the waiting coffin.
After a moment, he grunts. “Okay, put in the sword and heart.”
Scabbard in hand, Julian steps forward. “Are you sure the sword will melt?”
“Yeah. We’re lucky they used silver. If they used steel, we’d be out of luck.”
I wait for the clang of metal, but it never comes.
“Adie, the heart,” Kellen prompts.
I thrust it in his direction without looking, and someone takes it from me. Then comes the scrape of the lid, and I breathe a shaky sigh of relief.
When I turn, Kellen already has the cart halfway to a set of double doors that lead toward the front of the building.
We trail after him into a carpeted waiting room where rows of chairs offer a place for the grievers to rest. Here, the lights stay off, the only illumination coming from the doorway back into the mortuary.
Through the shadows, I can’t make out the color of the carpet or walls, but I imagine them to be brown, something neutral and comforting and that easily hides dirt.
Generic paintings of nature hang on the walls, along with a large portrait of an elderly couple who I assume run the business. While I can’t make out their faces from where I stand, they hold themselves straight and formal, ready to take care of the dead in a dignified manner.
Philip wanders over to study the paintings while the rest of us hover near the mortuary door, unsure what to do.
Kellen wheels the coffin over to the left side of the room, where a metal strip in the floor leads into stainless steel doors.
Using a panel on the wall, he pushes a button and the floor opens, a conveyor belt with metal rollers rising from the floor. As soon as it’s in position, he shifts the coffin to the conveyor belt and pushes another button.
The metal doors open, revealing a glowing interior, and the coffin glides into the waiting cremator. Before the doors even close, the bottom bursts into flames, bringing with it the scent of burning cardboard.
“It will take a while,” Kellen says as he turns back to us. “There are cookies in the kitchen if anyone’s hungry?”
My stomach tightens, and I’m not the only one who shakes their head in refusal.
Julian wanders over to one of the chairs and settles onto it. “Won’t the owners think it’s weird when they come in tomorrow and Mr. Henderson’s already cremated?”
Kellen presses the button to lower the conveyor belt back into the floor, then grabs the end of the cart and steers it back toward the holding room. “No, this place is used by the mafia and the local clean up crew regularly. They’re paid well to just process the paperwork without comment.”
Leaning against the wall, I hug my elbows. “Victor Hesse wanted to buy this place. Would you have sold it to him?”
Kellen shrugs as he passes. “Having a demon run it would make things easier for us, but might not go over so well with the mafia.”
“How do we even have a mafia?” I hug my elbows tighter. “It’s not like we’re Los Angeles or something.”
Tobias comes to stand next to me. “There’s plenty of places for crime to spread, even in cities like ours.”
I bite my lip as I consider that. Landon lives in a small city not too far away, but when I moved out, I knew I’d need a bigger customer base. I loved the historical downtown area this city had to offer, and the rise of boutique-style businesses that promoted a back-to-roots, small-town feel, while boasting a bigger population.
But the city’s large enough to hold direct access to the demon clerk’s office, and there’s a reason Tobias and Emil own a bank here. Even Julian’s busy business points to a broader spectrum of humanity than I considered. Not every town can support such a thriving business of strippers and designer catering staff.