Hank inhaled, smelled the sweet aroma of freshly cut grass. It was rich here, the cemetery a bouquet of purple and yellow flowers, their petals dipped in new paint. It didn’t seem real. As if the grounds were beautified all at once. New Los Angeles cemetery wasn’t the only one of its kind in the city but it was the most expansive. Located underneath the Bay Bridge, it’s ground covered miles and was meticulously maintained.
The girl had agreed to meet but insisted on it being here, amongst the spirits. Hank shuddered involuntarily and stepped further in. He was almost apprehensive, a fetid claustrophobia settled into him. He felt like he was being swallowed. 
Then, as the church bells began to toll, she stepped into the open. Hecate. A Descendant. She looked the same as when she barged into his office weeks earlier. Her dyed red hair was pulled back into a pony tail; Her tiny arms and small waist drowned in the black t-shirt she wore. Hecate’s face was borderline beautiful. She had put on burgundy lipstick that matched her hair and a shade of eye shadow that was the color of pinot noir. To Hank, her eyes were the most expressive. They were large, almost too large for her face and spaced a hair farther apart than was usual, giving her an exotic look.
She stepped up to him, took a sniff.
“Hello Detective.” She said.
“Hello Descendant.” He replied.
She blinked at him, her thick eye lashes gazed up curiously.
“You’re not afraid?” She asked him.
Hank lowered his head, stretched his neck. “I’ve met other Descendants.”
“Oh, yes. I heard that. May I ask which ones?”
“You may not.” He answered. I’ve seen much worse than you though honey. His mind flashed to Sadie Fuller in the blackness of a barn.
Hecate frowned, like a daughter that had just been told no for the first time.
“Are you gonna find Stephanie?”
“I’m going to try.”
Hecate motioned for him to follow and they moved past a row of oak trees that had probably stood for a hundred years. Hank heard a dog howling somewhere close and wild bird flapping above.
“I need to know what happened that night Hecate.”
“Have you talked to Deanna?” Hecate asked quickly.
“I have.”
“Did she tell you what I told her happened?”
“She said I should ask you.”
“Figures.”
Oh, there are issues there. Hank thought. “Is Deanna a problem?”
Hecate laughed. “Not to me. She’s a total fucking cunt to Steph though. But whatever. It’s not my business.“
She stopped. As if unsure to continue or perhaps second guessing what she wanted to say.
“Uh-huh.” Hank prompted. He cleared his throat. “Is it about Ray?”
Hecate looked quickly at him. “How do you know about Ray?”
“I’ve been interviewing people around the neighborhood.”
Hecate smiled devilishly. “Ray’s a con and piece of shit. He tried to fuck me so what does that tell you?”
Holy shit.
“That Deanna has shitty taste in men.”
“That’s for sure.”
They stopped at a gravestone. Hank saw that it was old, the chiseling faint, rubbed out. It would disappear entirely one day. It read: A. Winters.
“Did you know this person?” He asked.
But Hecate’s attention was elsewhere. Her dark eyes focused on something in the distance. As if a memory had surfaced that would have been better off staying submerged.
“Was it Ray?” She asked.
“What?”
“Do you think it was Ray?”
“I was going to ask you that question.”
Hecate turned away, her forehead scrunched up. “I don’t know.”
“Hecate, What exactly happened?”
The trees rustled overhead as Hecate shivered and put her hands in her pockets. Avoiding his eyes, she stared at the ground. Hank led her to the shade and there they sat. He heard a low hum and sat up straight. In the corner of his eye, he saw shadows moving about. Her residuals. He thought.
Hecate stared at him smiling.
She’s doing this. 
He looked her in the eye, both knowing that it was she causing the disturbances in his mind.
“Stop it, Descendant.” He ordered.
“I thought you knew more of us. Surely, you’ve been subject to our grace before?”
“It’s not grace.” He said in a dry voice. “Not anymore.”
“Maybe not. But you don’t look so well Detective.”
“Stop it!”
Hank jumped up and grabbed her arm, yanking her to her feet. “Tell me what happened or I drop this goddamn case right now.”
Hecate shook his hand off of her. “Fine! Don’t touch me again.”
Hank felt that some threshold had passed between them, that he had passed some test he didn’t know she was administering. It was like that with the fallen deities sometimes. You never really knew what they were thinking. It was like being around a tiger, the potentiality for ferocity was always there. He knew whatever he had said or done had been right.
Hecate moved to the cemetery fence and turned to face him. Her back to it, she leaned back. He heard it creak under her weight. The sound unsettled him.
I saw your deck.” She almost whispered. “At your office. The tarot deck. Do you know that I’m the priestess.” She looked up at him, her lips parted just slightly. “I’m she. I could tell you everything. The magic behind the veil.”
“Well, you could start by telling me where your fucking friend is.” He said. Hecate stopped short, looking away dejected.
“It was here.” She said. “We were here when she came.”
“At the cemetery?”
“Yes.”
Hank turned toward her, noticed for the first time the piercing in her bottom lip. How did I miss that?
“Do you like it?” She asked sweetly.
Hank stepped forward. “Stop fucking with me!”
“I think you do.” She said leaning forward.
Hank raised a finger to her face. “What happened?” He demanded.
“She showed up out of nowhere!”
“Who did!” Hank shouted.
Hecate shook her head violently, her tiny fists balled up, eyes blazed up at him. “I have no idea! Some woman. An old lady, grayish.”
“That describes everybody over forty. Got anything else?”
“She was blind.”
Silence.
Hank stared at Hecate, his eyes swept over her near perfect features. “She was old and blind?”
“Yes.” Hecate whispered. “Her eyes were whites, covered in cataracts.”
“And this old, gray, blind woman-somehow managed to overpower two young women and carry Stephanie off in her fucking-old-person-wheel-chair-chariot?”
“Fuck you. I don’t care if you believe me.”
This Descendant is drug addled. Hank thought. “Perhaps you’re confused.” He turned his attention toward the cemetery exit. “I thought you wanted to find your friend. Or perhaps you don’t, I don’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
Hank studied her, debating how far he could push her. He turned to walk away.
“Are you saying I had something to do with this?” She asked.
For the first time, Hank felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Her ferocity was evident, threatening to spill out violently. He took two steps back, his eyes not leaving her even for a second.
Hecate spoke slowly, the pitch of her voice low, raspy. “Don’t do that. I told you. It was an old woman. She was graying, wrinkled, stooped.”
“What was she wearing?”
“A nightgown I think. It was sheer, like, I could almost see through it in the moonlight.”
“How late was it?”
“Not too late. Ten maybe? Stephanie was picking flowers. And she was just suddenly there.”
Hank stared at the Descendant goddess and his doubt began to melt away. Hecate looked haggard. Her eyes were troubled as if the truth was hard for even her to believe. She recoiled when she caught him staring.
“Hecate, would you be willing to undergo hypnosis?”
“Huh?”
“Sometimes in a trauma of this kind, memory isn’t always accurate. Sometimes the mind changes certain details to make it easier to cope. I think this might be what is happening to you.”
“You want to hypnotize me?”
“Not me. I gotta gal that will do it.”
“To see if my mind is playing trick on me.”
“There’s a chance that how you remember it isn’t actually how it happened. Is that OK?”
“I guess.”
“I think it will help.”
Hecate smiled at him. An alluring smile that again made him feel unsettled. She whirled away in one swift move, like a dancer in a routine. She looked back as she exited the cemetery and crossed the street, hailing a cab with a short whistle.
Hank still hadn’t moved.


Hecate felt a sense of quickening as she entered the office of Dolan’s hypnotist. She had tiny limbs, pearl white teeth, saucers for glasses. She sat poised. Does she know I’m Descended?
Sevier smiled but it wasn’t contrived or silly. A natural smile. She cleared her throat, wrapped her scarf a little tighter. Hecate could tell it was handmade, probably by the Doctor herself.
“I’m Dr. Clarke Sevier.” She said simply. “Please sit.”
Hecate couldn’t remember feeling so tired. She absently wondered if the hypnosis had already begun. She sat heavily, her arms to her side. She looked out the window at a blue house. The cloud filled sky would soon succumb to the dark blot of nighttime.
She waited.
“Now then.” Sevier began. “Hank tells me you want to retrieve some memories.”
Hecate stared into space for a short time. “Yes.”
Sevier nodded. “I can help you with that. Have you ever been hypnotized?”
Hecate shook her head. Her brittle expression stared back at Sevier. “I’m not like most people. This probably won’t work.”
Sevier smiled, a sweeping motion with her whole being that made Hecate’s chest pound. The Doctor knows.  
“I’ve met others like you.” Sevier said.
“Is that OK? Is any of this safe…for you?” Hecate asked.
“It’s certainly fine. It seems to me that your kind, like mine, just don’t want to feel alone. That, my dear, is our commonality. We don’t want to feel alone. And that’s why I’m not afraid. Loneliness is the most universal, the most human characteristic you’ve inherited while Descending. I am sorry for that.”
Hecate had never heard anything like it. The mortal woman had imparted a great secret.
“I’ve interacted with Descended before. Believe me.” Sevier said softly.
Hecate studied the woman then turned her head to Hank. “We can begin.”
Sevier nodded, sat up straight in her chair and focused on Hecate. She gazed as if absorbed in Hecate’s features. Hecate wondered what the maiden form of this mortal had looked like. She would bet the Doctor had been ravishing in youth. Sevier lifted her hands in a gesture.
“I want you to take deep breaths.” Sevier said. She took a deep breath and motioned for Hecate to try. The goddess inhaled deeply through her nose then exhaled through parted lips.
“Good.” Sevier cooed. “Just keep breathing in regularly, deeply, and focus on my voice.”
Hecate felt her muscles dissolve into the couch. She felt like soft ice cream and wondered if she’d simply fall asleep.
“I want you to stare at the back wall behind me. Do you see a picture?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
Hecate heard the ticks of a clock on the wall. She turned towards it, Sevier followed her gaze.
“The picture on the wall is of a tiger but I’d rather focus on that.”
“The clock?”
“The ticking.”
“Do it.”
Hecate felt wisps of her hair settle onto her forehead. Soon, the tiny ticks were thunderous in her ears. They boomed like large fireworks. Dolan remained silent. His eyes revealing nothing, he simply sat immobile.
“I want you to relax your head and shoulders.” Sevier said. “Relax them wholly, completely.”
Hecate obeyed. Her eyes half shut, she loosened her muscles, rolled her shoulders until they were pliable as dough.
“Now your chest.” Sevier said. “Good. And now your arms and hands.”
Hecate felt as if her body had been submerged into the warm blue. She was in Greece again. She was in Thessaly. She was in the womb. She stretched out until her face was exposed then closed her eyes and let the water come over her head. She drifted down. Down into the warm blue. She heard Sevier’s voice but it was far away. She was in the warm blue again. She was home again.
“You’re on a staircase Hecate” Sevier said. “I want you to imagine yourself at the top of a staircase.”
Hecate nodded.
“There are ten steps. We’re going to take each step one by one.”
“Into the warm blue.”
“Yes, Hecate. Into the blue. With each step you’ll become more and more relaxed.”
“Yes.”
“Take the first step, Hecate. I’m with you. You’re getting more relaxed. Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
Hecate felt herself beginning to lose herself. It wasn’t sleep. It was as if she were drugged or in a trance. Her limbs were driftwood on a river.
“I’m being carried away.” She said.
“Good. Now a second…and the third.”
Hecate was swallowed by a whale. She heard Sevier from far away.
“The fourth.”
There was a blackness at the bottom of the staircase. It was the night having become the texture of polished onyx. It was shining. Hecate gasped. “The night is shining.”
“Take the fifth. Now the sixth.” Sevier said.
The dark was close, entrails of shadow seeped outward like fingers. They probed from the blackness.
“The seventh.”
Hecate was close.
“The eighth.”
She was almost at the radiating darkness. She could feel it vibrating, a low hum.
“The ninth.”
She was there. Hecate stepped just outside the mass.
“The tenth.”
Hecate stepped inside. This wasn’t the warm blue it was something else, something darker. Hecate drooped, felt as if she were plunging into the mass. Was she falling? She heard Sevier’s voice. “I’m going to ask you a few questions about the day Stephie went missing.”
Hecate tried to swallow, to orient herself. She squirmed in the blackness, heard a hissing come from somewhere in front of her.
“Hecate, what happened in the cemetery?”
“The alley.” Hecate corrected. Hank looked from Sevier to Hecate then back to the Doctor. He leaned close, took out his notebook and began to jot rapidly.
Hecate looked up the staircase, the light was fading. “There was somebody there. A man. We heard tapping on the street.”
“From his shoes.”
“Yes.”
Hecate heard hissing again. A whisper came from the dark in front of her. “Mara.”
“What did he look like Hecate?”
She shook her head. “He was our height. He had a rag. It smelled. He put it over Stephanie’s face.”
“Mmmmmaaaarrrraaaaaa.” The whisper in the dark got louder. Hecate winced and stuck out her arms protectively.
“We need to stop.” Hecate said.
“We’re almost there honey. Just a little longer.” It was Hank.
“Tell me what his face looks like.” Sevier coaxed.
Hecate squinted but couldn’t see him. “It’s in shadows. I can’t see it.”
“Is he taking Stephanie?”
“He has a rag over her mouth. She’s struggling at first then goes limp. He’s taking her! Oh no! He’s dragging her away!”
“I am she who is black.” The voice whispered in Hecate’s ear. I am the sheath.”
Hecate screamed.
“Where is he taking her Hecate?”
“He’s taking her away!”
Hecate spasmed in the dark. The blackness gleamed and reflected back onto itself. It was a fog, something dense. Patches of shadow wrapped around her legs and torso. Se heard it again.
“I am the sheath.”
Then Hecate saw a face materializing out of the dark. It had been no more than inches away the entire time. It was a woman. She had a bluish hue, large  black sockets. The face was beautiful in its terribleness. She opened her mouth to show fangs and then unfurled a long, dripping tongue. Hecate froze, momentarily paralyzed. But the night terror revealed more. Hecate saw a necklace of small skulls, felt a blade tip on her midsection.
She tried to call the bodiless, reached out with her mind but the dead weren’t listening or no longer cared. The soot oozed up her chest and shoulders, melted into her skin until she was as black as the darkness around her. The staircase! She turned to run but the thing in front of her grabbed her by the left forearm and yanked her back.
Hecate yelped as cold water was thrown into her face. She blinked a number of times.
“Hecate, wake up!” Hank screamed.
She was on the floor. Sevier was standing in the corner of the room in a defensive posture. Her eyes stared in fright.
“What happened?” Hecate asked.
“You began screaming and writhing on the couch.” Hank said. “You had a goddamn fit.”
Hecate began to remember things as is through an aperture. Things were getting smaller, less defined. The gap was closing.
“Did you get what you needed?” She asked.
Hank shrugged. “We got some insights into the truth.”
“You were wonderful, dear.” Sevier chimed in quietly. “I should have woken you earlier. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s OK. I don’t remember much.”
“It’s probably best.” Hank said.
But it was true. Hecate remembered walking down the staircase or at least the first few steps. Then a face. A face in the dark. She wondered if the bodiless had caused her to fit. Somewhere she thought she heard a shrill scream. Was that my own? She tilted her head back. Why was I screaming?