Key

It was strange how much the world seemed to change at night. Even the most vibrant colors were repainted in a hundred shades of blue. Shadows deepened and darkened, light waned to a faint glow, and the face of a once solid sky revealed millions of bioluminescent freckles.

Wesley Roberts found solace in the quietness it brought to his mind. It was peaceful in a way he could never find during the day. The monochromatic world between dusk and dawn spoke to the dark feelings within him and soothed their agony to a manageable ache.

If he had to describe it, he would say that during the day he was only capable of inhaling. By nightfall, he was so tense from all of his inner torment and grief that he felt like he was suffocating. Drowning. That if he breathed in just an ounce more, he would explode. But with night came the exhale. The relief. He could just look up at the stars and forget everything else existed.

Wesley's current view of the stars was limited by a rectangular frame. It was not that of a window, nor of a door. No. This frame was carved of clay and sand and deep dark earth.

Uneven walls stretched above him from all sides and an immovable layer of bedrock pressed uncomfortably against his spine. In his hands he clutched the wooden handle of a spade, which laid across his body like a bouquet of wild flowers. Perspiration glistened against his skin, but as he laid still, his breath calming and his muscles singing, his skin began to cool.

Wesley closed his eyes, the soft sounds of the tide not far away nearly lulling him to sleep. He was so tired. Not just physically, but mentally as well. He'd been fighting for so long. Fighting to be strong. To be stable. To be all right when the world seemed intent on making him anything but. He just wanted to sleep. Just for a while. Because maybe then he'd wake up to a world that made sense. A world he understood. A world where he wasn't alone. Then maybe he could feel something again. Something else.

"Roberts!" Wesley opened his eyes to see the shadowed face of an unfortunately familiar woman peering down at him. "When I told you to dig a grave, I didn't mean your own," she said with a slightly teasing tone.

With a grunt, Wesley sat up and mumbled. "I was just taking a break."

"There's no time for breaks. It's almost high moon. Come help me with this," she jerked her head toward the beach, a few droplets of ocean water flying off of her short, black curls.

With another grunt, Wesley dug his spade into the ground and used it as leverage to hoist himself to his feet. He then tossed the tool out of the grave and followed after it with an effortful leap and an assisted climb. Andromeda patted his shoulder as he got to his feet once more, huffing as he dusted off his clothing.

"What in Seven Hells is that?" Wesley breathed as he squinted toward the shore. An ominous dark lump stood out against the foamy waves and left a sinking feeling in Wesley's gut.

"I had to improvise," Andromeda shrugged, hoisting her skirts and jogging to her catch in a very unladylike manor. Wesley followed behind her, but stopped short when a heinous stench smacked him like a wall.

"Gods!" He covered his nose. "Please tell me that's not what I think it is."

"You told me I couldn't kill anybody," Andromeda said, seemingly unfazed by the stench, "so we'll have to make due with this."

"How- how long has he been dead?"

"I don't know," she said, wrinkling her nose, "but I found him in a shipwreck just north of here."

Wesley was fighting the urge to vomit just looking at the half decomposed corpse. He was about ready to run away and empty his guts, which actually sounded quite appealing at the moment, being as it meant he could get away from the smell.

"I need you to put him in the grave," Andromeda said, her hands on her hips as she assessed the corpse.

"I don't think I can touch that thing."

"Oh stop being a child," she scolded him with a scowl. "I just swam him miles through the open ocean. You can carry him twenty feet."

"Oh gods," he said. Unfortunately, she was right, and with that realization, he stepped apprehensively closer.

"The best handhold is under his ribs," the woman said, gesturing to the middle of the corpse where the flesh had melted away from the base of his sternum.

"You're not helping," Wesley grumbled, giving himself a mental pep talk as he prepared to reach into the man's body and drag him across the beach.

"Time is of the essence, Mr. Roberts," Andromeda said. "I'm going to go fetch the rest of my things and when I come back out, you better have him in that grave."

With that, she spun on her heels and trudged toward the cottage a short distance away. Wesley watched her go for a moment before turning his reluctant gaze back to his task.

"All right, you can do this," he said softly to himself, bouncing on the soles of his feet a little. He started a mental countdown with his eyes closed, and when he reached the end of it, he lunged down, gripped the base of the dead man's rib cage, and sprinted toward the grave. The literal dead weight he dragged behind him slowed him down significantly, but he still made surprisingly quick work of the job. When Wesley dumped the corpse unceremoniously into the grave, he didn't stop running. He made it all the way to the tree line before losing his dinner. He tried not to think about how the flesh felt like it was disintegrating against his grip, or how uncomfortably soft it was as it squished between his fingers, but he couldn't help it. Wesley wretched again, and without another thought, sprinted back to the waves to scrub his hands off in the sand and the water.

"You missed a bit," Andromeda called as she exited the cottage with her arms full. Wesley looked back to see one of the legs had disjointed at the knee halfway across the beach and he nearly wretched again. He sent the woman a weary look and she laughed. "Don't worry, we don't need it."

Relieved, Wesley dried off his hands on his breeches and followed her back to the grave.

"You know, you still haven't really told me what we are doing," he said as he watched her drop a bunch of things on the ground.

"It's complicated to explain."

"Please try," he said, on the verge of passing out. He really needed a distraction, and fortunately, Andromeda saw that.

She sighed, setting out candles around the grave and lighting them.

"We are lucky that Valentine was killed by the Kraken."

"Lucky?" It wasn't the word Wesley would've used.

"Yes," she said. "The Kraken is a very ancient, very magical beast created by the gods at Second Light. Its stomach is a direct portal to the fourth level of Hell. Because he was eaten, not only is Valentine's soul in Hell, but his physical form as well."

Wesley furrowed his brow but said nothing.

"For the sake of a resurrection, this makes our jobs a lot easier. We don't need a host body for his soul to take over since he is still attached to his own. That's fortunate because getting a soul to willingly enter a foreign host is extremely complicated. In fact, it's nearly impossible and can go horribly wrong horribly quickly. It's why successful resurrections are so uncommon."

"So. . . Val will come back in his own body?" Wesley asked.

"Probably," Andromeda said. "If he comes back at all."

"It might not work?" Wesley chewed on his bottom lip. He knew it was a possibility but he didn't like hearing it out loud.

"He might not want to come back. We could do everything right and he might choose to stay regardless. That's why you're here. As incentive for him to cross planes."

"So what's the dead guy for?"

"You'll see in a moment," she said, opening up a giant tome and removing the ribbon that had marked her page. "You have the key?"

Wesley tugged the leather chord around his neck over his head, pulling the bone key out from where it hid beneath his shirt. He held it out to the woman but she backed away from it.

"No," she held up her hands to keep him away. "I can't touch it."

"Why not?" Wesley asked, suddenly concerned that it was poisoned or cursed. He had been touching it a lot lately. Gods, it'd been hanging from his neck for months. Was he going to die?

"It has been absorbing your trace since you returned and I don't want to taint that energy with my own," she said. "You have to be the one to use it, or Valentine won't be drawn to the portal we create."

Wesley wasn't sure what a trace was, but he thought he understood. He would act as a beacon for Valentine to follow out of whatever hellscape he was trapped in.

"What do I do?" he asked, looking at the object with morbid fascination.

Andromeda craned her neck upward, taking in the moon. It was like the wide eye of a lunar goddess watching over them, and judging by her position in the sky, it was time to begin.

"Get in the grave," she told Wesley.

"Huh?" he asked, not at all liking the idea of sharing the space with the corpse.

"There's no time, Wesley, we have to begin. Get in the grave."

Wesley covered his nose and did what he was told.

Andromeda's voice flowed down to him as she pored over the tome.

"The skeleton key unlocks the rib cage," she said. Wesley held the key with shaking fingers. "I need you to plunge the key into the man's sternum and twist it three times clockwise. Leave the key there and get out of the grave when you've done so. I'm going to start the incantations and you're going to start burying this man and the key, do you understand?"

"Yes," he said, his voice quivering. The gods sure had a sick sense of humor.

"You can do this Wesley," she said in a calm voice. "Just think of Valentine."

Wesley closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. He let thoughts of an infuriatingly handsome pirate captain with lavender eyes fill him as he used his boot to turn the mangled corpse so that it was facing skyward.

"I'm ready," he said with more confidence than he had.

"Good," Andromeda replied. "Begin."

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A/N

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Next update on Monday,

-Mora Montgomery