The abandoned house sat far back on the property, the last home on a dead-end street.

  “Hello?” Flora called through the open door of the run-down building. Inside the foyer, a broken light fixture dangled from the ceiling by its wires, throwing dancing shadows around the entry with its flickering light. The foyer split in two directions, the first leading to stairs to the second floor, the other straight, but too dark to see where it went.

  “Why so worried?” Albert, her field partner, asked from behind, still lingering on the porch stairs. “The neighbors probably just heard some kids looking through the place.”

  “What if it’s not?” Flora persisted, clicking her flashlight on and shining it through the door, but found it still too dark to make out anything beyond cobwebs and shadows. “What if it’s serious?”

  “Do you want it to be serious?” Albert asked in surprise. “I’m certainly praying everything stays calm as it has been. I’d go back to a desk job for security, but the pension’s better as a field agent, you know? Just gotta make it to retirement.”

  “Wouldn’t you miss field work?” Flora prompted curiously as she went back down the porch stairs. She felt the most alive while engaged with a mission, like it gave her a purpose, and it always surprised her when everyone else didn’t feel the same way, even from Albert, who was several decades her senior.

  “Maybe when I was your age, but not anymore. And never as much as you,” Albert replied with a quiet chuckle, following closely behind her as she circled the house, his flashlight now in hand. “No one is as serious about this job as you.”

  “That’s not true,” Flora protested. She came up on her tiptoes to peer into a side window. Inside was the kitchen, where a broken table and chairs lie splintered on the tiled floor. Nothing moved or stirred.

  “I think that’s why Father Donovan likes us working together,” Albert remarked quietly. “It lights a fire under my complacent ass and calm yours down a bit.”

  “That’s not why and you know it,” Flora said, laughing. “Father Donovan wants to keep an eye on both of us and figures we’ll keep the other in check.”

  “Are we that predictable?” Albert asked. “Do you think—"

  A loud crash from inside the house abruptly interrupted him. Flora and Albert exchanged a worried look. Flora nodded at Albert, and they started carefully back around the house, her first, him second.

  Entering through the front door, Flora shined her flashlight down the first hall, which led to a closed door. Another thud sounded behind it. Together, Flora and Albert approached the door.

  The smell came to Flora then, at first musty, with a lingering taste of fresh soil deep in her nostrils. Flora placed her ear to the door and listened. Muffled through the wood, she heard a groan followed by another thud.

  “Poltergeist?” Albert suggested, as Flora looked back at him.

  “Zombie,” Flora said, shaking her head, finally placing the scent. “It smells like a grave in here.”

  “Poltergeists can manifest smells, too,” Albert said, frowning; it made him look older in the poor lighting. “And with all of the Church’s wards, zombie-types can’t spontaneously resurrect; they’d need necromancy.”

  “Maybe there’s a necromancer, then,” Flora suggested, sounding almost hopeful.

  “No, Flora,” Albert said, more sternly this time. “We’ll burn a little sage and say a few prayers, maybe an exorcism if the poltergeist is feeling stubborn, and be out before dawn. It’s nothing exciting, despite how much you might want a chance to prove yourself.”

  “You’re right,” Flora admitted with a sigh, shoulders sinking a bit; she was unexpectedly hurt by his accuracy. “I just want to do more, you know?”

  A low moan came from behind the door, wet and gurgling, followed by heavy steps. Something crashed into the door, hard, shaking the door in its hinges. Flora and Albert jumped back, with Flora stumbling back into Albert. He caught her, and they both straightened into battle stances.

  “That doesn’t sound like a poltergeist,” Flora remarked, drawing her mace from its hook on her belt.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Albert agreed, grimly. His weapon was a rod, topped with a metal cross with pointed tips, looking cruel and sharp in the dim lighting as he pointed it at the door. “Glory be to the Father,” Albert murmured in prayer.

  The doorknob rattled as something grasped it.

  “And to the Son,” Albert continued, lifting his voice louder, “and to the Holy Spirit.”

  The knob twisted uncertainly back and forth. Albert looked anxiously aside at Flora, who raised her mace, ready to swing it down on whatever emerged from the other side.

  “A-as it was in the b-beginning…” Albert stammered in his prayer, now sounding uncertain. “.. is now and ever shall be.”

  The door popped open, yanked inward. On the other side stood two college-aged kids, one boy and a girl, wide-eyed and fearful, blinking in the direct light of Flora and Albert’s flashlights. On seeing the raised weapons, the boy put his hands up defensively. “Don’t hurt us!”

  Flora lowered her mace. “Isn’t it a school night?” Her frustration made her words short. “Don’t you have something better to do than trespass in abandoned houses doing God knows what?”

  “We… we weren’t doing anything,” the girls squeaked from behind the boy. “The house is supposed to be haunted; we were just trying to…” the girl hesitated. “We didn’t expect the Church to be here.”

  “And if there was a ghost?” Albert prompted, shaking his head. “What would you have done then?”

  The boy laughed, puffing up with false bravado. “I’m not worried.” In the yellow light of Albert and Flora’s flashlights, the boy’s skin had a strange green cast to it; the smell of fresh dirt intensified.

  “Go home before you find real trouble,” Flora said, exasperated, worried something else still lurked nearby.

  “Not a ghost or zombie,” Albert remarked to Flora as he lowered his weapon, hooking it back onto his belt. “Just some kids – see? It was nothing.”

  “Doesn’t explain the smell, though,” Flora muttered. “In fact, it’s much stronger now. Can’t you smell it?” she asked.

  “The smell always gives me away,” the boy said, then smirked. “The lady was right, not a poltergeist.” His smile widened, exposing his rotten teeth. Behind him, the girl blinked, but off-center, first one eyelid and then the other; Flora realized the girl’s eyeballs were uneven, sitting in their sockets crookedly.

  “Angel of God, my guardian dear,” Albert whispered, fumbling to free his weapon from his belt hook. “To whom God’s love commits me here,” he intoned, voice shaking. “Ever this day, be at my—”

  Albert did not get a chance to finish the Guardian Angel Prayer as the boy-turned-zombie launched himself at Albert. They fell together, landing hard on the ground, in a messy tangle of limbs, with the boy landing on top. He growled, making a low, inhuman sound and bared his teeth, then bit down on Albert’s neck and shoulder.

  There was no hesitation in Flora, despite their young faces and bodies. She swung her heavy mace at the boy’s head, his soft skull crumbling easily under the blow, splashing his soupy brains onto Albert’s front as the boy collapsed forward. Behind them, the girl shrieked, a strangling cry of anguish and anger. Flora stepped over the squirming Albert and now-actually-dead boy, still tangled together, as the girl launched herself forward at Flora with open jaws.

  Flora was caught unprepared and lifted the mace up defensively to protect herself. She felt a bite deep in the flesh of her exposed forearm. Flora pushed against the zombie, trying to get distance between them; the zombie stumbled back, her sharp teeth dragging and ripping flesh in their wake.

  With blood smearing her mouth, the zombie smiled at Flora’s wounded cry.

  Enraged by the pain, Flora swung her mace as the zombie charged again. The mace connected with the side of the zombie’s head, crushing the skull and splintering inward, the brain inside turning to mush under the heavy impact. The girl sagged to the floor, twitching as she oozed her brain matter out on the floor.

  Breathing heavily, her clothing and face painted with rotten blood and viscera, Flora pushed the twice-dead body off Albert with her uninjured arm; the wounded arm now soaked her shirt sleeve with blood. Albert gasped wetly once freed from the weight. A chunk of flesh was missing from his neck, ragged teeth marks left on his skin. The bite wound bled openly, soaking Albert’s shirt and coat.

  “You’re okay,” Flora murmured as she shrugged off her coat, mindful of her wounded arm, then pressed the clean sleeve down hard on Albert’s neck. “You’re okay,” she repeated, scrambling with her hand to get her cell phone out of her pocket, but her fingers were too slick with blood to make contact.

  Albert’s eyes met hers, wild and full of fear; he managed to press his own hand to his neck, holding the makeshift bandage in place. Her hands free, Flora wiped her fingers on each pantleg, then dialed again.

  “I need back up,” Flora managed to croak out, “Cleric down.”

  The city of New Rome was, as its name suggested, a relatively new city. Located in the state of Michigan in the United States, surrounded by the protective waters of the Great Lakes, it had sprung up around the headquarters for the World United Church. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the Church had been created to combat the surprising new threat discovered during the war: necromancy.

  Previously, the undead were confined to small pockets throughout the world: small covens of vampires living in secret; zombies spontaneously resurrecting, usually motivated by some unfinished task left in life; or ghosts, lingering around where they lived or died, lost on the path toward true rest.

  During World War II, a secret group conducted research on necromancy and learned enough to incite mass undead resurrection. After deadly battles in Europe, zombies, Allied and Axis alike, rose and attacked everyone, not distinguishing between enemy and ally. Surviving soldiers of these battles often had to be euthanized due to the threat of the zombie virus spreading.

  During the darkest days of the war, the world became a bleak, hopeless place; the threat of the undead loomed large over the war-torn European countries and the world collectively prayed it would not spread.

  Finally, with the Allies’ victory in Europe, the zombie resurrections suddenly ended. As Europe began to slowly recover, abandoned laboratories with evidence of occult magic were found near each resurrection site.

  It was never discovered who was behind the necromancy research or attacks, or their ultimate goal.

  After World War II, the Paris Peace treaties included the official establishment of the World United Church, known more widely as the Church, whose primary job was to combat the presence of dark magic in the world. Representatives of most of the world’s faiths came together to pool resources and knowledge on how to fight the various evils of the world.

  The Church became responsible for managing the world’s supernatural problems. Necromancy, especially, was hunted and eradicated with a religious fervor. While the practice of other magics, like witchcraft or parapsychology, were not outright illegal, only highly regulated, necromancy had been explicitly banned and hunted aggressively into extinction.

  Gradually, the threat of the undead became a distant worry, only a footnote in history. As a result, the Church’s current mission was to monitor and continue protecting the world’s living against all the supernatural forces that might harm them.

  With its international reach and authority, the city of New Rome quickly became a player in the game of world-wide politics, commerce, and technology. The city’s development and population exploded over the following decades, quickly making it equivalent to the likes of New York City, Tokyo, London – and even its namesake, Rome itself.

  The artificial light of the hospital within its windowless hallways and the endless beeping of countless machines and computers made Flora feel like time had slowed or nearly stopped, punctuated only nurses and doctors arriving to and then leaving from the hospital room.

  Flora was lucky, she knew. Her wound had been largely superficial – she’d had more of the zombies’ and Albert’s blood on her than her own – and the undead virus had little chance of entering her blood stream. Still, Flora anxiously watched the saline bag (blessed by a priest, of course) as it slowly deflated, emptying through the IV and into her vein, burning just a little as it went under her skin.

  Albert had not been so lucky – they’d taken him straight to the I.C.U. and wouldn’t tell Flora much else beyond that.

  The doctor stitched up the bite wound on Flora’s arm with strict instructions to keep it clean and to report any signs of infection. She scribbled her signature on the discharge paperwork with a promise to follow up with the Church’s H.R. for her workman’s comp paperwork.

  Outside of the E.R., Flora made her way toward the I.C.U., intent on finding Albert.

  “Not family,” the head nurse had the audacity to declare when Flora tried to enter. “I can’t let you in.” But there had been kindness in the nurse’s eyes when she added, “There’s a chapel around the corner, if you want to pray.”

  Eventually, if only to give herself something to do while she waited, Flora went to the chapel. It was a simple altar, with only a draped white cloth over it and no other symbols. The faiths of the city were so widely varied that most non-denominational groups offered basic spaces generic enough to offer quiet and peace to all who sought solace from their gods. Even with the Church’s Catholic leanings, its mission to protect the world from darkness went beyond any one specific religion or dogma; it was too important to be charged to only one belief.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Father Donovan found Flora there, sitting in the small pew, her head lowered in silent prayer. He was an older man, bent and weathered by his years, and moved with a distinct shuffling gait, so recognizable that Flora lifted her head expectantly as he approached.

  “What happened in the house—” Flora started to ask, desperately curious. “Did you find any signs of occult magic? Of necromancy?”

  “I’m dismayed by your priorities,” Father Donovan said, as he sat in the pew across the aisle. “Albert, first.”

  “Of course,” Flora said, chastened; she dearly loved Albert. “Did the doctors speak to you? How is he?”

  “Stable but critical,” Father Donovan told her. “They’ve stopped the bleeding and purged the undead virus from his blood stream before it could spread.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Flora murmured, then crossed herself.

  “Too early for that,” Father Donovan continued grimly. “Albert still hasn’t regained consciousness yet. It’s still early, but we won’t know the full damage until he wakes up, if he wakes up at all.”

  “I’m not trying to be impatient,” Flora said, feeling nothing but impatient. “But those zombies, they looked alive! They looked like breathing people. They fooled Albert; they fooled me!”

  “It was dark in the house,” Father Donovan remarked, voice neutral despite Flora’s rising volume. “They were perhaps more deteriorated than you realized.”

  “No, Father Donovan,” Flora protested. “They looked alive.”

  “They look like nothing now,” Father Donovan grumbled. “After you smashed their faces to bits.”

  “Father, I’m sorry,” Flora said quietly. She hesitated only a moment, before blurting out, “But I think this merits further investigation. How did they spawn within the city limits? How were they so whole and healthy looking? Is there a possibility of a new necromancer in operation? If I could just go and look around—"

  “No, Sister Flora,” Father Donovan said, stressing the formality of her rank as a Cleric. “This will be investigated, but not by you.”

  “But—” Flora started to say.

  “You, Sister Flora,” Father Donovan spoke over her, “will be on Help Desk duty for the time being.”

  Flora’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “You can’t do that. I’ve done my time on Help Desk! I need more field experience.”

  “You need a new partner,” Father Donovan corrected her sternly, “and recruitment’s down. No one wants to be in the Undead Department when Parapsychology and Demonology are where careers are made.”

  Flora said nothing, her jaw tight with all the words she wanted to say but did not.

  “So go take calls from high teenagers and talk them down from scary shadows,” Father Donovan said, as he stood up, mindful of his bad hip. “You’re good at being kind.”

  “Will Albert ever return to the field?” Flora asked, her voice small. “Will I?”

  “If you can’t find a partner in the Church, you can always hire a contractor if you need an expert on a case,” Father Donovan said, as he started down the aisle, “or a bodyguard. As long as you’re not on in the field on your own.”

  “Just until Albert gets better,” Flora said, determined.

  “Of course,” Father Donovan agreed. “Just remember to submit the 1099 paperwork.”

  “Thank you for calling the World United Church Help Desk. This is Sister Flora speaking, how can I help you?” Flora spoke cheerfully into the microphone of the headset she wore, trying to ignore her own weariness. She sat at a desk wedged into the corner of a tiny office, packed tightly with overflowing bookcases and cluttered shelves. The light from her open laptop screen was uncomfortably bright for her tired eyes.

  “Hi,” squeaked a voice on the other side. The caller cleared his throat with an awkward cough then continued in a more even voice, “I’m not sure if I’m calling the right place, but, uh…” he hesitated, then said more timidly, “but I think my house might be haunted.”

  “What makes you think that?” Flora asked.

  “My... my wife died, recently. Sometimes, I hear her voice from the other room. Or catch her perfume in the air. Or see her in the corner of my eye.”

  “Anything else?” Flora asked, cautiously. “Objects moving around? Sudden changes in temperature? Electrical devices malfunctioning? Or feeling like you’re being watched?” She clicked through the prompts on screen as she read through each.

  “No,” he answered, a world of disappointment packed into a single word. “I wouldn’t mind her haunting me, really.” His breath hitched, and the next words came out strangled, “Why can’t she come back?”

  “How long has she been gone?” Flora asked. She leaned back in her chair, ignoring the next prompt. “Can I ask how she passed?”

  “Two weeks,” the caller answered quietly. “Drunk driver hit her.”

  “Oh,” Flora breathed, feeling sudden tears at the corner of her eyes. “Sir, I’m so sorry. This is all still so new for you. It’s going to take time to adjust—”

  “I just miss her so much,” the caller interrupted, sounding desperate. “Isn’t there a way to talk to the dead? Just once? Just to say… to say I love her.”

  “Sir, she knows,” Flora insisted.

  “But—”

  “Being trapped on Earth, unable to move on,” Flora spoke over him, gentle but firm, “That’s a tragic fate for any soul. You don’t want that for her.”

  “I understand, I don’t want that for her, I just wish…”

  “You just wish for more time,” Flora suggested. “One more conversation, one more hug, one more chance to say I love you.”

  “Yeah,” the caller sighed in reluctant agreement.

  “I’m a bit of an expert on death,” Flora said, rubbing the heel of her hand against her eyes, wiping away the tears she refused to shed. “And I’ll tell you a secret: no matter how much time you had with your loved one, it would never be enough. You will never not miss her.”

  “I was afraid of that,” the called admitted. “Does it get any easier?”

  “Yes and no,” Flora said, cautious with her words. “It does become easier to bear, but it will never not hurt that they’re gone. The world will never be right again and that won’t ever be okay, but you will learn to endure.”

  “I see,” The caller said, the words watery and fraught. “T… Thank you for your time.”

  “Can I refer you to our Grief Services?” Flora asked, quickly scribbling down a few notes. “Can I get your name and number? Someone will reach out to you and…”

  “No… no,” the called interrupted, although his voice sounded distant. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Sir, it’s okay to ask for help with this, and—” Flora started to say, but the call disconnected. She sighed, hoping he would reach back out again and accept help, but doubting he would.

  Flora opened her desk drawer and poked around its contents, wondering if she had enough change for the breakroom vending machine – its card reader had stopped working but Maintenance decided it wasn’t broken enough to actually fix it yet. She only managed to find a quarter and three pennies before her headset chimed with a new call.

  Flora took a deep breath in and turned back to her laptop. “Thank you for calling the World United Church Help Desk. This is Sister Flora speaking, how can I help you?”

  “Hello,” the new caller said, “I’m calling to follow up on a ticket. Can I give you the reference number?” His voice was deep and unexpectedly rich.

  “Of course, please go ahead,” Flora prompted, suddenly sitting up straighter. She typed in the number as he recited it. “One moment please, while I review your case,” Flora said, leaning closer to peer at the small font of the report. “Burned down house on Lake St?”

  The caller made a soft affirmative noise with his throat, which strangely caught Flora off guard. She cleared her own throat awkwardly, then continued, “It’s, uh, been categorized as a residual haunting. There’s no active spiritual threat, so it’s on a lower priority tier.”

  The caller was silent for a stunned second, then asked, “Really? Did anyone actually come out and listen?”

  Flora scrolled down the report. “Looks like this was a remote evaluation; no field visit occurred.” She paused. “What is the nature of the anomaly?” She frowned at the screen. “I apologize; it’s not specified on your ticket.”

  “I’ve had to explain this each time I’ve called. But anyway—” The caller took a deliberately deep breath, exhaled, then continued more slowly, “It sounds like a kid crying. On and off during the day, but non-stop at night.”

  “Oh.” Flora’s hands dropped from her keyboard to her sides. “That’s terrible.”

  “Yeah,” the caller agreed glumly. “It is definitely terrible.”

  “Unfortunately,” Flora said, reluctantly, “given the type of paranormal activity, it’ll take the Church three to six months to follow up on the issue.”

  “Three to six months?” the caller repeated incredulously. “That’s ridiculous. Maybe it’s not physically hurting anyone, but it’s still harmful.”

  “What do you mean?” Flora asked, clicking into the address’s GPS location. The map loaded, showing an apartment building, sharing a tight alley with a large building on its east side.

  “New Haven Home for Boys,” Flora read aloud, then asked, “Is the haunted building next to an orphanage?”

  “Yes,” the caller answered somberly. “It’s scaring the kids; they can’t sleep.”

  “I see,” Flora murmured, more to herself than to him. “Unfortunately, there are no available agents, and—”

  “Someone has to come down and listen to this,” the caller insisted firmly. “If you heard this, you wouldn’t let it continue.”

  She remembered Albert, lying still under the harsh hospital lights and frowned to herself. The mouse hovered under the tab, Assign to Agent. She scrolled down, then selected Sedrickson, Flora. A new field populated next, titled Partner. She hesitated, chewing her lip in thought.

  “Is there anything you can do?” the caller asked; the sudden neediness in his voice made Flora’s stomach flip curiously. “Can’t you come and check it out?” He paused then added, “Please.”

  I’m not a field agent, Flora almost said, but hesitated. She might be temporarily benched, but she was still a field agent; she was determined to return as soon as possible.

  “Perhaps,” Flora said instead, selecting External Partner. “Do you know the street? Do you live in the neighborhood?” She was surprised at her new impulsiveness; she was usually careful and methodical.

  “I know it,” the caller said, answering only one of the two. “Why?”

  “Could you meet me there?” Flora asked as she grabbed her bag from under her desk. “Is the number you called from your cell phone?” She fished out her cell phone and keys.

  “Yes?” the caller answered, sounding intrigued. “You need my help?”

  “My partner’s out on medical,” Flora said, inputting the displayed phone number into her cell phone contacts. “The Church requires us to investigate in pairs. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait the three to six months.” She paused, then asked, “What’s your name?”

  “You’re straightforward, aren’t you?” the caller asked, chuckling to himself; a low and pleasant sound.

  “I like to get things done,” Flora corrected him, ignoring her burning cheeks – what was wrong with her? “You want to help those kids or not?”

  “I’ll help you, Sister Flora,” the caller said; it sounded like he was smiling. “My name’s Clovis.”

  “Clovis,” Flora repeated, trying out the unusual name as she typed it into her phone. “Just call me Flora.” She didn’t wait for a reply, instead continuing, “Can you meet me there?” It was an excuse to get off Help Desk, she told herself, and not. “Now?”

  “Right now?” Clovis asked, sounding surprised.

  “An hour from now,” Flora said corrected herself; she glanced at the clock – nearly four. With the winter days getting shorter, it would be dark soon. “Ghost communication is more open at dusk.”

  “Then in an hour,” Clovis agreed easily, this time amused. “I’ll meet you there, Flora.”

  Flora’s apartment, with its three bedrooms and two baths, was solidly middle-class. Sometimes, she considered herself lucky to live in her childhood home with a paid off mortgage, especially in the times of escalating interest rates and rental prices. But then she remembered how she inherited the apartment and felt only bitter loneliness.

  Flora still stayed in her old bedroom, updated with a queen bed but still having her childhood furniture. It had never felt right to take over her parents’ room and so, instead, had converted it into an office.

  In the office, a large desk sat against one wall, facing the open window with the cityscape on display. As the sun came down over New Rome, the sky was painted in a wild riot of reds, purples, and pinks, startlingly vivid against the gray skyline of the city.

  One another wall was a large corkboard with a detailed map of New Rome, with various red pins and notes stuck into it. Below the corkboard was a small fish tank on a cabinet, with a weapons rack with several sized maces beside it. Bookshelves were packed tightly along the remaining open walls, some stuffed with books, others with small tools and equipment, an AM/FM radio on one, a Ouija board on another.

  Albert called it her Lair of Death when he first saw it and they had both laughed. “You should put something up in there to remind you what you’re doing this for,” Albert had told her, more seriously. “So you don’t lose sight of your humanity.”

  And so, on her desk was a framed photo of a much younger Flora, sixteen years old and smiling wide over a birthday cake. Her mother and father stood on one side of her, while Cecilia, perpetually fourteen years old for Flora, stood on the other, her head leaning on Flora’s shoulder, not looking at the camera but smiling up at Flora.

  Cecilia’s room, however, remained untouched. Flora knew that the cleaning service regularly went in to vacuum and dust but left the room otherwise untouched. The walls were still plastered with posters of bands and celebrities, Cecilia’s trendy clothing still in the dresser drawers, her diary still hidden tucked up between the slats underneath her mattress. It was a time capsule of a teenage age girl’s daily life; it hurt too much to look at it, much less take it down, so Flora left it alone.

  It had been seven years since Flora had lost her whole family. It had been the Church who saved her then. Brother Albert Hawthrone introduced himself as a long-ago coworker of Flora’s mother and helped Flora pick up the pieces of her broken life. With Albert’s guidance, she’d found a new purpose. Even if she was often frustrated by the Church’s red tape, she believed deeply in their mission.

  After her call with Clovis, Flora rushed home. From her office, she grabbed her field bag. She looked briefly through the shelves and grabbed a few items – a jar of salt, a bundle of sage, a bottle of holy water, an electric lighter, a wooden cross, zippered pencil pouch of candles, charcoal sticks and chalk, an EMF reader, and then of course, her mace.

  Flora paused by the fish tank, leaning down to peak in. A small medieval castle was surrounded by brightly colored plastic leaves and flowers. At the water’s surface, a red betta fish floated, belly up.

  “Wake up, Laz.” Flora tapped lightly on the glass and the fish startled awake and began swimming in lazy circles near the surface. Flora tapped a few flakes of food from its jar in, and the fish began nibbling lightly at the floating bits. “There you go,” Flora smiled, putting the jar of food away.

  Lazarus the fish hadn’t always been named so and he hadn’t always been Flora’s. Originally named Finsy, he had been the office fish when Flora first started as a Cleric and was declared dead when found floating in a bowl one day. Flora had been given the task of disposing of him, and, as she was about to dump the small bowl into the toilet, Finsy suddenly spasmed and jumped up and nearly out of his bowl. Flora just managed to catch him before he fell into the toilet.

  Flora, now feeling a fondness for the fish’s tenacity, brought him home and he’d been reborn as Lazarus. He still had a fondness for deep naps, but always came awake eventually.

  As Flora left the workshop, she’d been determined to hurry. But as she passed her bedroom, she hesitated, then went in. She flipped on the light and stood in front of the mirror, peering curiously at herself.

  Flora was not an unattractive woman. She knew this, not as a matter of bragging or even pride, but as a fact. When she first started at the Church, she’d been approached by the Demonology Department, who tried to recruit her as an undercover agent.

  Demonology often poached winsome agents of both sexes, earning themselves a reputation for aggressive recruitment. Demons, more than any other supernatural creature, are ruled by their desires, and more easily manipulated and countered by attractive agents.

  Flora had been surprised when they contacted her. Despite their grand promises for her career, she’d turn them down, steadfast in her wish to protect the world from the undead.

  Now, looking into the mirror, Flora assessed herself. She was petite but not delicate, well-muscled from training with her heavy mace. Unstyled, her blonde hair fell straight to her shoulders, but with the right products and tools, she would coax some wave into it. She was light-skinned but not pale, having a healthy color to her cheeks, large blue eyes framed below a fair brow.

  Flora had never given much thought to her appearance, not because she was especially humble or modest, but because it hadn’t mattered much to her before. Her parents had both been academics – her father a professor of archeology, her mother first a Cleric in her early career, then leaving the Church to teach religious studies at a local college. They always praised her for her kindness and hard work, and her sister Cecilia for her creativity and ingenuity. At least, they had when they were alive.

  After her parents’ and sister’s deaths, Flora was determined to become a Cleric. She joined only weeks after her eighteenth birthday and had never been swayed or tempted from the path. After she’d turned down Demonology, she’d been approached by another group: the Vestals.

  The Vestals were a group of agents who had taken vows of chastity during their service to the Church. It was thought that remaining free of earthly pleasures made one closer to their god or goddess and increased their power. Not all Vestals were actual virgins – it was possible to take on the vow after having sexual experience, but it was generally theorized that because that vows offer complete chastity produced more power. It was hard to quantify the enhancement, however, leaving many dubious to the actual effect virginity might have, if any.

  Still, the Vestals were a powerful group, having members in all departments, and many in higher management. Joining would jump start her career dramatically and make her appearance even less important. What mattered was the content of her soul and her desire for goodness.

  Flora made a face at her mirror self, then frowned. Why, then, Flora wondered, did she suddenly care about how she looked?

  Flora crossed the room to her dresser, opening the sock drawer. In it, she pulled out a small jewelry box. In it, was a small gold pin, delicate wire twisted into two nested V’s, with a slight twist of wire above, meant to represent the flame in the hearth. She ran her fingers over it, deep in thought. She hadn’t told anyone about the Vestals’ offer yet, not even Albert.

  Flora’s phone buzzed with a text message. She opened her phone to a message from Clovis, simply reading, Here.

  Be there soon, Flora sent her reply, then smiled. She closed the jewelry box and put it back in the drawer. She had a mission to do, she told herself, and nothing more.