Chapter Text
The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows across the unkempt grass as Steve stared through his hands at the overturned dirt he was standing on. His eyes followed the shadow pooling around his feet to the small, square headstone it belonged to, the one that simply read Steven Grant Rogers 1917-1938.
"I guess that answers that question."
He'd always wondered what would happen after he died. He hadn't expected the answer to be 'appear in the cemetery you were buried in'. He went back to staring at his hands, turning them over and back, lifted one to stare at the sky through it, and in the dim light his hand almost seemed to glow.
Steve let it fall and let out a heavy sigh. Or it would have been a sigh if he'd had any breath to make it, but even without, he felt like he got the point across. He wondered how much time had passed since he'd died. The dirt covering his grave was speckled with the green of new growth, so it hadn't happened yesterday.
He lifted his head, taking in his surroundings. This wasn't the new city graveyard that backed onto the equally new, and impressive, church. No, this was the old cemetery, the original one, the one that had been here since the town was founded. The one that backed onto the wild woods and didn't have a church or a chapel to call its own.
People weren't buried here anymore, not really. They could be, it was still a cemetery, but people who had a choice were buried in the city graveyard. Steve wasn't surprised he'd ended up here. It wasn't like he'd even had the money to be buried here.
Dying might be free but everything that came after wasn't.
"I guess Dr Erskine meant it when he said he'd see me taken care of."
Not that Dr Erskine had much money, either, not when he kept spending it on patients who didn't have enough of their own, not when he kept treating people like Steve, who's betraying body had kept him from making a decent living.
Steve raised his hand again, staring through it at the trees encroaching the stone and rusted iron fence surrounding the cemetery. I guess that's not a problem anymore.
He couldn't remember dying. He thought he was happy about that, since he doubted it'd been pleasant. He didn't know where he'd been between now and then, but he was kind of disappointed he'd missed his funeral. It would've been interesting to see who'd shown up.
Moving west, where it was dry and warm, away from the weather in New York that had literally been killing him, was supposed to help him live longer, but he guessed at the end of the day you couldn’t cheat death with geography.
He laughed, because there wasn't much else he could do, and a soft, muted huff drew his attention.
He turned around.
There was a black dog sitting among the headstones, watching him attentively. A lean-bodied black dog with a long muzzle, pointed ears, and brilliant golden eyes. It cocked its head and huffed again.
Steve stared at it. Stared at the eyes that pooled like molten gold, and it stared back, because it could obviously see him. Neither of those things were normal, not the eyes or the seeing ghosts—not that Steve had ever believed in ghosts when he'd been alive, but he'd always heard it was more of a cat thing.
The black dog woofed softly and stood, wagging its tail as it approached Steve, ears sharply pricked.
Steve held his ground. He was dead. He was, as best as he could figure it, some kind of ghost (hard to say he didn't believe in them now). He wasn't too worried about a dog, even one that wasn't quite right—and black dog in a cemetery was tickling something in his memory.
The dog crossed the last of the space between them in a bound, and sat at his feet, mouth hanging open, tongue lolling, looking every inch a happy dog.
"Hi?" Steve ventured, holding out a hand.
The black dog huffed and licked Steve's hand. It felt strange, cool and dry instead of warm and damp, but it gazed at Steve out of hopeful eyes.
"Good dog," Steve ventured and it barked once and threw itself down on the ground, wriggling with happiness. Not it, then, Steve noted; she. Steve crouched and tentatively scratched her behind an ear and her eyes closed, tail thumping the ground.
Steve couldn't help his grin. "Hey, you are a good dog, aren't you?" he said, settling cross-legged next to her. With her eyes closed, hiding the gold, and acting like that, she seemed like an ordinary dog, and he started scratching her chest.
There was definitely something, though. Something he'd read, or something he'd heard, maybe, something in the stories his Ma had brought from the old country…
He let it rest, didn't chase after it while he kept patting the dog, and when she rested her head on his knee, gazing up at him out of unnatural golden eyes, it unfolded in his memory like a book. Appropriate, since it was in a book he'd encountered it. It'd been a book of Irish myths, and in among the tales of fairies and bargains badly made had been tales of black dogs. Some had been good, and some had been bad and some had been a bit of both: black dogs that dragged travellers to hell, black dogs that ran with the Wild Hunt, and black dogs that roamed graveyards, watching over the dead.
"Is that you?" he asked. "Are you here to watch over me?"
She yawned and closed her golden eyes.
"I don't know what I'm doing here," Steve said, "or how long I'll be here," because this couldn't be all there was, "so how about we look after each other?"
The black dog snuggled closer. Steve ran his hands over her ears, glad not to be alone while he waited for what came next.
* * *
What came next seemed to be up to him.
He was alone in the cemetery apart from the black dog. If there'd ever been other ghosts here they were gone now.
Steve thought he knew where they'd gone.
In the back of his mind, at the edge of his hearing, there was a pull. It was a bright road glimpsed through the trees, ever-present in his awareness, and in the distance, from the end of the road, drifted a half-heard voice calling his name.
It wasn't irritating, was more like the warmth of sunlight on skin, but it was always there.
While he couldn't know for sure, there was a solid certainty in his heart that if he stepped onto that road, if he followed that voice, it would lead him to what came next.
It wasn't demanding, didn't grow stronger, so it was easy to ignore. It wasn't that he was afraid of what came next, but he was content here with the black dog. For the first time in a long time he was at peace.
It wasn't perfect. The first time she brought him a stick to throw, Steve discovered he couldn't touch anything. He tried to pick it up and his hand went right through it.
The only thing he could touch was the dog, which was obviously something to do with her, since she could touch anything she wanted. She could collect sticks and snap at squirrels and rest her head on Steve's knee, but anything Steve tried to touch he phased right through.
She'd made sad eyes at Steve, the gold muted, but Steve had wrestled her and run so she could give chase and her disappointment had been forgotten.
That was how he found out the black dog was stuck in the cemetery.
Steve could cross over the border of the cemetery, coming and going as he pleased—although he was reluctant to go too far. Not after he'd been running so she could chase, ran out of the cemetery, and she'd skidded to a stop at the border, claws digging into the dirt like she'd hit a wall. She'd huffed at him in disapproval, dancing in place. Steve had stopped, looking back at her, and she'd let loose one sharp, worried bark, then stared at him intently, golden eyes flaring bright.
She couldn't leave the cemetery. She wanted him to come back. It couldn't have been clearer if she'd grown a voice and shouted it.
Apart from those minor hiccups, it was like an endless summer with no pain, no moments when he couldn't breathe, no scraping for money. He didn't need to worry about anything, he had the company of an amazing dog, and all it had taken was dying to get it.
Steve had to laugh, but he was happy, and he was in no hurry to leave.
* * *
Time passed strangely in the cemetery. Steve sometimes felt as if he didn't exist at all, as if he and the black dog stopped being while the world moved around them, jarred back into reality when the cemetery's buried dead received visitors.
They didn't come often, and there were only a scattered handful who came at all, each one looking worn and tired. Steve was careful not to overhear when they talked to their dead. They'd never know, and he was itching for human voices, but it felt disrespectful, especially when he knew, even though they weren't here, those dead might be somewhere they could listen.
What didn't come to the cemetery was more dead. There were no burials. Steve kept waiting, assuming they'd happen eventually, but as time passed in its strange way he had to conclude that he'd been the last.
Eventually, even the visitors stopped coming.
The path to the cemetery slowly disappeared under the inevitable onslaught of the forest. The iron on top of the stones that formed the cemetery fence began to rust, and the vines began to creep in over the headstones.
Steve never named the black dog. It would have felt like naming the wind or the lightning, even though he was sure she'd once been an actual dog. He wondered if she'd been someone's beloved pet or working dog, or maybe a wandering stray.
Whatever she'd been, she was something different now, something more, and she watched over Steve, even if there was nothing to protect him from but the endless war for territory that raged between the squirrels and the crows who made their home in the huge tree that shadowed the cemetery.
* * *
Time passed and the forest did its best to reclaim the cemetery's land. In a few spots the iron still stood above untumbled stones; everywhere else the stones had fallen, the cheap mortar worn away by the weather and the vines, and the vines and brush marched in, fed well by the lush, rich dirt.
Deer and rabbits grazed between the headstones; foxes stalked the rabbits. The crows committed mischief wherever they saw the chance, and the squirrels chittered angrily at everything.
Steve watched it all, still strangely divorced from the passage of time, the black dog by his side. The half-glimpsed road, the half-heard call still hummed at the edge of his awareness, but he barely noticed them. They were just another part of this existence, like the black dog, the squirrels and the crows, and the occasional appearance of people.
They weren't here to visit the cemetery's dead. Most of them didn't even seem to realise there was a cemetery, and Steve only glimpsed them in the distance through the trees.
Some approached the cemetery, seeming excited when they realised what it was. Most were respectful, and some were cautious, as if they thought old headstones and long-buried dead would rise up and bite them.
Steve was always a little amused by those ones, wishing for the ability to make himself visible and yell, "Boo!"
A few would wander through and take photographs—and the first time Steve saw a camera spit the photo out, right there on the spot, the picture fading into life before his eyes, he had to go and sit down. Others would take rubbings of the headstones, and he was always a little bit fond of the ones who paid attention to his.
The black dog watched them all closely. Always stood between them and Steve. None of them raised her ire, not even the ones who came right into the heart of the cemetery, she was relaxed as she tracked their movements, but she never abandoned her protective stance, never let Steve get too close to them.
Every time, even when it was clear she knew the people were harmless, she gently herded Steve away. Every time it sent a wave of affection through Steve.
He'd never had a pet. No one he'd known growing up had had a pet. They weren't the kind of things people in his neighbourhood could afford. He'd seen them, of course, people walking their dogs, or carrying them, tiny things tucked under their arms, fancy collars glittering. And of course there were the strays, but no one could get close to them. They'd watch with wary eyes, cats and dogs both, waiting for a kick or a rock while they wolfed down whatever bit of food they'd found.
Steve had gotten into a fight or two over those kicks and rocks, because he'd never been any good at standing by while someone caused pain for the fun of it, but by the time he'd picked himself up off the ground, staunched the bleeding and dusted himself off, the stray'd be long gone.
He hadn't known why people had doted on their dogs. He'd seen all the stuff people could buy for them, how much it'd cost, and he'd shaken his head, but he got it now. He understood. Because he loved this dog.
One autumn afternoon, as the leaves turned golden and carpeted the forest floor, the black dog turned to face the almost-path that wove between the trees, worn into the forest floor by the passage of deer and people. Her hackles stood high and a low growl rolled through the cemetery.
There were two people approaching the cemetery. Steve studied them, trying to figure out what had set the black dog off.
One was a man, one was a woman. They were both white, both had dirty-blonde hair, hers long and in a pony tail, his short and curly. They were both carrying leather satchels, both wearing bright, almost garishly, coloured turtlenecks and high waisted pants that flared wide at the bottom.
The clothes weren't anything Steve would have chosen, but they weren't the strangest he and the dog had seen.
Maybe it was the man's moustache the dog had a problem with; if so, Steve empathised. It was thick and bushy, crawling halfway down the man's cheeks, almost like a small animal had come to rest under the man's nose and died.
They came closer to the cemetery, the dog's growl grew deeper, more intense, and her golden eyes grew brighter, until they were almost blazing.
Steve knew better than to try and get past her, even though he wanted to get a better look at these two. He didn't know what was upsetting her, but whatever it was, he wouldn't add to it.
The pair stopped right at the edge of the cemetery's border—like they could see it, like it was a solid barrier, not a vague place of tumbled stones and rusted iron and climbing vines.
"You know this is a bad idea," the woman said.
"How could I? I mean, you've only said that fourteen times now. And that was just on the way up here."
"Well, William, if you'd listened to me any of the fourteen times I'd said it, I wouldn't have had to say it a fifteenth time, would I?"
He turned away from studying the barrier and raised an eyebrow. "And yet you're still here, Patricia, so you can't think it's all that bad, can you?"
She made a face at him and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. "I'm not going to stand by and let you get eaten by a second-rate hellhound, even if you're being a chump."
He grinned. "Ah, Pat, you're still my girl. I knew I married you for a reason."
"Maybe, Bill, but I'm having trouble remembering why I did." She scowled at him. "If you're going to do this, do it."
"Chill for a minute. I don't want to get eaten by a second-rate hellhound, either."
She sighed. "Are you really sure about doing this? This is a big deal. This isn't like sacrificing a mouse or rat or cat. This is getting into seriously dark magic."
"It's only a grim. It's not a person. And someone already bound it here. This isn't really any different."
Pat snorted and stared down her nose at him in disbelief.
"Fine, yes, you're right. It's different. But Pat, we're not going to hurt anyone with the power we get from it. We're just going to encourage people a little bit. Make things a bit easier for ourselves."
"We?"
"Of course we." He slid his hands down her shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her soundly. "You're my lady. What's mine is yours, remember? This power's gonna belong to both of us."
"You've always been a smooth talker. Too smooth," she said on a long sigh as she pulled back, but her lips were curved in a smile. "Let's get it over with."
He grinned and kissed her again, then put his bag on the ground and started pulling things out of it: candles in heavy glass holders, which he set in a triangle, a lighter, a plastic container, a shovel folded into thirds, and a large plastic sack. "This won't take long."
The dog's hackles were high, teeth gleaming with reflected gold; Steve tried to pull her away, to the other side of the cemetery, because he didn't like this. He didn't like any of this: not the way they were talking, not what they were talking about.
It was like trying to move a mountain. The black dog didn't budge.
"Okay," Bill muttered. "Ready?"
Pat nodded, eyes half closed as she started to chant under her breath.
"One, two, three," Bill breathed and darted his hand across the border of the cemetery to grab a handful of dirt.
The black dog leapt away from Steve, blurring with speed, suddenly visible to the two—she must be, because they both flinched—but as she slashed at Bill's hand she bounced back, like she'd hit a barrier.
"Ha, it worked!"
"I told you," Pat muttered, narrowed eyes locked on the black dog.
Bill poured the dirt into the container, then pulled out a knife.
The black dog's growl wound around Steve and through the cemetery. Pat flinched, but Bill didn't react as he drew the knife across the back of his arm.
Dread rippled through Steve.
Blood oozing from the shallow cut, Bill lit a candle, then another, then another, placed the container in the middle, and as he muttered bitter, twisted, wrong words that seemed to warp the air around him he dribbled his blood over the dirt.
The black dog tipped her head back and howled.
Bill smiled, cold as the winter that had taken Steve's life. He stood. And stepped across the cemetery's border.
The black dog lunged, teeth bared, but she hit the barrier again as Pat chanted louder. Shaking her head like she'd bitten into razor blades and fire, she backed away, pressing against Steve's legs.
She was afraid; he'd never seen her afraid, and he wound his fingers into her fur.
Eyes narrowed, Bill strode towards the back corner of the cemetery like he was following a compass needle. The shovel was clutched in his hand.
Steve followed, keeping a wide space between them. The black dog was pressed tight against his leg, Steve's hand still buried reassuringly in her fur.
"I hate digging. I hope they didn't bury it too deep."
"Stop bitching," Pat said in a strained voice. "I can't hold this forever."
Bill started to dig, groaning and complaining the whole time.
The black dog whined. It was so unexpected, it took Steve a moment to understand what he'd heard. He crouched down and she pressed into him, snugged tight in his arms. He had no idea what to do.
Time passed, soft and blurry, and then Bill made a satisfied noise and slammed the shovel down into the hole. The sound of crunching bone tore through the cemetery, and he reached into the hole and dragged out a dog's skull, dangling it carelessly with one hand through an eye socket.
Grinning, he held it up. "Time to enslave a grim." He turned to face the snarling dog.
Steve threw himself between them, but he was invisible, he couldn't touch anything, he was helpless to stop this.
Bill pulled open the knife slash on his arm, dragged his hand through it, and smeared blood over the skull, then started to chant, wrong-sounding words thickening the air around them.
The dog's eyes were blazing gold. Steve could feel the words wrapping around them, digging in like cruel vines, like barbed wire, tearing at the dog, tearing at Steve who was standing between the words and the dog, and her pain echoed through Steve.
Steve dropped to his knees, reached out blindly, and dragged her closer. A black cloud streaked with red engulfed them, tendrils lashing around the dog, sliding through the dog. She yelped, thrashed, but there was no escape. They were too tight, too strong, bleeding darkness everywhere they touched, and Steve was helpless. He couldn't stop it, he couldn't save her. He had to do something, anything…
He closed his eyes and pushed back, fighting with every ounce of stubbornness he'd ever had. He'd been dragged into this and for one moment he bought them peace, the two of them in the eye of the storm. Just Steve and the dog, but she'd changed. Gone was the sleek black dog with golden eyes. He was holding a hound, short and stout, with floppy ears and soft brown eyes, her coat a patchy brown and white. The black dog was still there, a golden-eyed silhouette, framing the hound who was staring up at Steve, begging him to make things right.
The bright half-glimpsed road, the distant half-heard voice, that Steve had always ignored, grew brighter, louder, as Steve turned towards them. As he reached for them. But not for himself.
Steve shoved the hound at them. The floppy eared, soft-eyed hound. It was all he could do, all he could think to do, and if there was anything at all behind the call, anything that truly existed after this, it would take her.
Light swirled, flared into a golden road. The black cloud roiled and parted, the tendrils burnt away. Steve cupped the dog's head. "Go." He kissed her between the eyes. "You're a good girl and it's time to go."
A fiery wind flashed through him, a cool nose pressed against his hand, he heard howls on the wind, a song embedding itself in his non-existent bones as the world flared incandescent around him and a weight settled on his shoulders. A translucent hound with floppy ears and soft eyes, barely visible in the sunlight, stared at Steve, tail wagging, then she swirled into motes of starlight that spun around him and through him and vanished into the sky.
He stared after them until they disappeared. His eyes were wet, but there was no time because Bill was staring open mouthed.
At him. He could see Steve.
Steve bowed his head, an entire world he'd never known existed exploding into his awareness. It narrowed to a single flashpoint of beating red he knew was Bill: Bill was danger. He was bad. He had to be dealt with.
Steve rose gracefully to his feet, feeling the grass, the wind, the sun above, hearing every sound, scenting every smell, and lunged for him, leaping on him, fingers curling to dig into his throat, bearing him to the ground.
His eyes were wide with terror, Pat was shouting, and chanting, but her words washed over Steve and away. Steve could smell their fear, he could hear Bill's heart pounding, his blood racing, as he stammered, "How? What?"
Pat's words had protected Bill against the black dog, but Steve was something more. Something new. Something born of love and hope and desperation. "Get out. Get out and never come back. If you come back, I'll kill you." He bared his teeth.
Bill stared up at him with horrified eyes.
"Do you believe me?"
He nodded.
"Then get out." He stood, and when Bill scrambled to his feet and ran, gave chase, staying right at his heels until the border of the cemetery flared into his awareness like a warning. He skidded to a stop, fetching up against an immovable wall, and watched them snatch up what they'd brought and run.
When they were gone, when even their scent didn't drift back on the wind, Steve turned to the skull Bill had dropped. He carefully returned it to the dog's grave and used his hands to push the dirt back in. He didn't stop until the hole was full, and he patted it down.
Then he stood, head tilted, restless, feeling…needing… He closed his eyes and let it take him and when he opened them he was closer to the ground. He had paws. A tail.
He was the black dog.
Steve tipped back his head and howled, long and clear. I'm here. I'm here.
We hear you. Howls on the wind, the song that had recognised him. It was others like him… No, not quite like him. But they were black dogs. He could hear it. They were singing to each other, voices connecting them together. He could feel them, sliding into his awareness, and he howled louder, pouring his heart and soul into it.
He could sense them, feel them, stars in the night sky of his mind, some bright, some faint, and one the faintest of all, barely there, high up in the sky, too far away to hear their song.
Slowly, the song faded, and he lay down and rested his head on his paws.
The dog— No. The hound was gone, gone to wherever Steve was supposed to go. Steve had taken her place. That golden-eyed silhouette that had surrounded her… When he'd sent her on, he must have slipped into her spot. He hadn't expected that, didn't know what it meant, but he didn't regret his choice.
He couldn't have let those people take her. Couldn't have let them enslave her—a growl slipped loose and rumbled around the cemetery at the thought. He'd had to stop it, and if this was what it cost, so be it.