Hellfire Club
Chapter Four

)O(

Raven sat at the small cafe table in her kitchen and stared out the window as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, letting her mind wander for a moment. Early morning sun filtered through the leaves of the old elm tree next to her window, casting delicate, lace-like patterns across her table and her white mug. Three floors below her, she watched as an elderly couple and their two bichon-frises walk by. They glanced up and waved at her, smiling. Raven smiled back, wishing that the stillness of this Saturday morning would last forever.

Last night had been interesting, to say the least. Raven didn't really know what she had expected out of the interaction between her and Jason, but it was certainly not that. She sighed and leaned back in her small, sturdy chair, and stared blankly out the window again. It wasn't as if he'd been rude or mean to her, he was simply... detached, as if he just didn't care about anything. And while she didn't necessarily expect him to be friendly with her (or wanted it for that matter), she at least expected some amount of social propriety.

The whole interaction was just odd.

Stoker, her cat, jumped up on the table and pushed his head under her empty hand, forcing her mind out of the blankness of her reverie. She scowled down at him, but he was unperturbed, and continued running his head along her arm, purring loudly.

"You're unusually needy this morning." Raven's fingers absently found his favorite spot behind his left ear and scratched, once again letting her mind wander off as she paged through the book in front of her, rereading some of her favorite passages.

A few years ago she had been reading in a quieter section of the cemetery (some of the older parts tended to be tightly packed with headstones, which of course meant more visitors for Raven), when the ghost of small child had crawled into her lap and demanded that she read to him. She was completely taken aback and stared down at him, trying to figure out if he was serious or not. He just pouted up at her, hands grabbing for the small pamphlet in her hands, crying out. And then, without any real understanding as to why, she started to read to him.

It was dry, boring reading, something specifically about the history of the old local sanatorium that one of her professors had written years ago, and she had half expected the child to have a temper tantrum and storm away, but he hadn't. Timmy sat there, sucking his thumb and asking what certain words were and if there were any pictures. When Raven was done he looked up at her and asked for a story about pirates next time.

She couldn't really deny him such a simple request, and the next Saturday she returned with Treasure Island. From then on, Raven spent every Saturday morning in the children's section of the cemetery, reading a book. Often times parents would come and sit with their children, or adults from other sections of the cemetery would come by and listen to her read, and once in awhile she had live children sit next to her and listen. But, rain or shine, she sat outside by the statue of the angel and read.

Stoker yowled and plopped across her book, yanking Raven from her memories. She blinked the images from her eyes and stared down at her cat as his paws reached out to play with the tag of the tea bag dangling from her mug. She picked up her mug and walked back towards the kitchen, dropping it into the sink.

"I'm going to be out all morning, so you'll have to be good for me today. Which means no tormenting the dog that lives across the alley."

Stoker picked up his head and made a look that said "I make no promises" and rolled over on his other side, closer to the stream of sunlight coming in through the window. Raven rolled her eyes and moved into her bedroom, dressing quickly. She pulled a jacket on over her shoulders and picked up her worn copy of Peter and Wendy, shoving it into her pocket.

"I'll be back after noon, Stoker. Watch the house while I'm gone."

Her cat raised his head again and meowed before laying back down.

"Whatever. Lazybones." Raven rolled her eyes and headed out the door and down the stairs to the winding, brick alley that lined the side of her turn-of-the-century apartment building. Dark, threatening rain clouds were starting to roll in from the west, but Raven wouldn't be deterred. She would make sure that she got at least the first two chapters in for the kids.

"Morning, Raven."

"Morning, Victor." She glanced over her shoulder and waved at her neighbor, who was taking out his trash. Raven had to admit that the first time she met Victor, she was frightened of him. He towered over her, all broad shoulders and muscles, with a voice loud enough to topple buildings. But it turned out he was nothing more than a gentle giant. He was always looking out for her on her morning run, and he was usually the first person she greeted each morning. "What are you up to this morning? Aren't you usually at the cemetery by now?"

He shrugged, looking a little sheepish as he kicked at a stray stone in his path. "Well... um... you see..." He rubbed the back of his head and forced a small chuckle. "I kinda forgot to request the day off and it's Karen's birthday today, and I didn't want to let her down or make her think I forgot... so... well, I called in sick..." Color darkened his face. "The new guy had to come in today, so I don't think he's going to be in a great mood or anything. In fact, I think he's probably going to be pretty pissed. Please don't tell him that I'm playing hookie. He'll kill me."

Raven felt color rise to her face and she stepped back in surprise. "Jason is going to be there today?"

"Yeah... did you meet him already? Wait a second. Hang on..." A grin split his lips and he laughed heartily, the sound echoing through the small alley like soft thunder. "That was you, wasn't it? Yesterday? You're the girl who kicked him right in his smug face. You know he's got a black eye because of it..."

He clutched his stomach and continued to laugh. "Oh, that's rich. Freakin' hilarious. That guy's been a pain in my ass since he started. Don't get me wrong or anything, he's a good worker and keeps the cemetery looking nice, but he's just... I don't know, quiet. He keeps to himself a lot, and he's kind of a smartass too. It's just nice to know that someone finally managed to put his feet back on solid ground."

Raven forced an awkward chuckle, trying to hide her blush. "Sounds like he's right up your alley."

"Awe, come on, I'm only a smartass to you. And it's 'cause you deserve it, Miss Smarty Pants." He patted her shoulder and chuckled some more. "You gonna be in the children's cemetery again to read to the kids again?"

"Yes. I do every Saturday."

"It looks like rain."

Raven shrugged, undeterred. "I'm still going."

He sighed and gave her the look that reminded her of a big brother. "You do realize that they're dead, right? They're not going to miss you if you don't show up for one weekend. It'll be okay if you sleep in past nine sometimes, I promise."

Raven just raised an eyebrow and shook her head.

Victor rolled his eyes, but knew when to pick his battles with her. "Well... in any case, I'm sure you'll see Jason there. You can give him another black eye if you feel so inclined, it might actually do him some good and knock some sense into him." He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on his heels, staring at her with another smile. "You really should have seen his face yesterday when he had to say something to the office. He was so damned embarrassed that you got the jump on him, he almost tried to say that he got into a bar fight. He's never going to live this down."

Raven blushed again, shifting on her feet. "I didn't mean to kick him. It's just that Herbert never starts by the south path, and I wasn't expecting someone to be there... it just... happened. I feel awful about it."

"Don't." Victor shook his head and smiled. "He deserved to be taken down a few pegs anyway. You did the rest of us a favor, trust me."

"Well, he didn't deserve to be kicked in the face." Raven fidgeted with the worn paperback in her hand. "Is there something I can do to apologize? I mean, I kicked him in the face and then he patched me up."

Victor's eyebrows knitted together as he stared at her. "Patched you up? Did you get hurt or something?"

"Well... when I tripped on his face I skinned my knee." Raven shrugged, avoiding Victor's concerned stare. "It's not a big deal. We argued for a second, and then he cleaned and bandaged my knee up. He didn't have to do it, and I should at least thank him and apologize for kicking him in the face."

"Huh..." He looked down at her for a minute, expression a mixture of confusion and surprise. "That doesn't sound like him, but then again, I guess I don't know him all that well anyway..." He trailed off, still staring at her. "Well, he isn't worth the trouble in my opinion, but it's your money, Rae." He seemed to think for a moment before responding to her. "You know, he always complains about that damn coffee he picks up from the Over Easy diner."

Raven winced. She'd had the misfortune of tasting that sludge once, and never again. "That coffee is terrible. Don't get me wrong, the muffins are good, but the coffee is the worst I've ever tasted. How can he drink that crap?"

"I don't know. All coffee tastes bad to me." He shrugged. "Anyway, if you're looking for something nice, that might be where to start."

"Well, thanks for the tip... I'll keep that in mind." She glanced at her phone and frowned. "It's getting late. I'm sure Karen wouldn't appreciate the fact that you're late."

"Don't remind me. I've still got to find her a birthday gift."

Raven shook her head and started for the street. "Well, you better get on that."

"I know." He waved at her. "See ya later, Rae."

"Bye!" Raven returned his wave and stepped onto the street, turning down the tree-lined sidewalk towards the coffee shop. It was an unusually quiet morning, especially for the last dregs of spring before summer, but with the clouds hanging low in the sky, it wasn't a surprise. The sky was going to open up soon, and while Raven knew she would have been caught in the storm, she also knew that her friends still expected to see her. It was the only kind of human interaction many of them had.

And maybe Jason would…

She stopped her thoughts, nearly tripping over her own feet on the sidewalk. Why in the world was she thinking about him? She certainly didn't have any kind of feelings for him, other than the obvious annoyance, and he had made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing to do with her other than cordial interaction. So, why was she thinking about him like she was some silly school girl?

"Miss Roth."

Raven's hands stilled on the smooth brass handle of the brightly colored coffee shop, cursing herself for being so caught up in her own thoughts to be completely oblivious to people and things around her. She turned around slowly, locking her gaze onto salt and pepper hair before looking down into a single, gray eye staring at her.

"Good morning."

A shiver traveled down her spine and Raven stood straight, trying to make herself look more imposing than she was. "Mr. Wilson, good morning."

"Ah, you remember me?"

"It was only yesterday." Raven pulled open the door and rushed inside, praying he wouldn't follow her inside. Of course he did. Because it was too much to ask for a quiet Saturday morning.

"Why don't I get your coffee for you, Miss Roth? It's the least I can do."

She turned and raised an eyebrow, feeling her anger bubble up into her chest before she had a chance to stop it. "For what, Mr. Wilson? Forgive me for being rude, but you owe me no favors and I do not wish to be indebted to you. Besides, I'm perfectly capable of purchasing my own coffee."

His lips twitched as if he were fighting a bout of profanity, and he forced a smile instead. "Forgive my own rudeness, Miss Roth. I'll remember that from here on out." He quickly ordered a plain, black coffee and rushed out the door, barely giving her a second glance as he dropped the paper cup into the trash bin outside.

Raven bit back a curse and ordered the coffee for Jason, fighting back an alien feeling of revulsion. She wasn't sure exactly what it was about Mr. Wilson that made her feel slimy and sick, after all he was just another human being, but Raven knew that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. At all.

The bright-eyed blonde behind the register tried to make small talk as she poured Raven's coffee, but she had no desire to try and pretend to care. Moments passed with mumbled responses, until the paper cup was place in front of her and Raven could leave. She forced a small smile at the blonde and headed for the door, taking extra precautions to make sure that the coast was clear before she stepped outside.

The cemetery was eerily quiet this morning as she walked in, past the stone and iron gates, and the only sound that stirred the air was a weed-whacker buzzing somewhere on the other side of the hill. Ignoring the strange feeling of worry and fear stirring in her stomach, she popped into the small gardener's shed and wrote a quick note, tucking it under the cup she left on the old work bench. With that she raced out of the shed and towards the children's cemetery.

)O(

Jason cursed up a storm as he trodded up the hill toward his shed. Sailors would have blushed at the words coming out of his mouth, but no one could really blame him for his attitude. After all, it was Saturday morning, and he should have been sleeping in, grabbing a greasy breakfast, and then spending the afternoon working on his motorcycle and drinking beer. That was his plan for the weekend, and instead he had to get called into work because Victor was "sick". Jason knew that was the biggest pile of crap he heard all morning.

Throwing open the door he walked into the small stone shed and started putting his tools away as quickly as he could. He'd managed to get all of his work done before noon, so all he had to do was fill out the checklists for the day, write his time on his time card, and then get the hell out of here. Jeez, when he took this job, he didn't think that he would have gotten the worst shifts and the worst treatment.

Oh, right. Seniority.

He sighed and stared down into his rusted shears, wiping dirt from the blade. It was just the same, anyway, it was his karmic penance for what he'd done, and he needed to accept that. He ran a ran through his hair and let his mind wander back to his life a few months ago, the sights and smells flooding his memories until reality faded away into the echoes of the past; the noise of room, the feeling of being a caged animal.

His chest restricted, as if his lungs had suddenly forgotten how to breathe, and he struck the images from his mind. There were more interesting (and significantly less frightening) things to think about right now. He tossed a pair of shears down into the holding bin underneath the small workbench that lined the far wall. Standing up, he saw the cup sitting on the worn, uneven surface like a little white pillar. Jason jerked back a bit in surprise and looked around, as if expecting to see someone else coming in through the shed. Under the bottom there was a small note

I heard you were drinking the Over Easy sludge. Consider this a thank you and an apology. - R

Something weird and uncomfortable bubbled up in his chest as he reached for the cup. He wasn't used to having things done for him, at least not for the past few years, and color rose into his face at the small act of kindness. He took a sip of the coffee and smiled. It was good. Really good. It had the faint note of chocolate and cherries hiding under the dark roast of the coffee. And it was still warm, which meant that she couldn't be far.

He quickly finished what was left to do in the sed, placing his tools back where they belonged and writing his time out on his sheet. He grabbed his coffee and his cell phone, and stepped out of the shed looking around for any sign of "R". She couldn't have gone far, not if the coffee was this warm. He looked around the neatly lined headstones and felt strangely bereft when he didn't see her. Stupid feeling, he knew that, but he didn't feel right accepting a gift without at least thanking her. Of course, she had kicked him in the face, so this was also kind of a repayment.

Sipping his new favorite coffee, he moved around the cemetery, examining his work, when he caught the soft sound of a voice traveling on the wind.

"'Of all the delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact; not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed.'"

That was her voice. As if he would forget the sound hissing at him as they both tumbled ass over tea kettle on the pavement. His feet stopped at the edge of the cemetery, looking out at his red bike parked on the other side of the street. All he had to do was cross that two lane road and he would be done for the day. He could go home, relax, and have a beer. Exactly what he should have been doing this afternoon.

But, he really should thank her for the coffee. After all, it was the polite thing to do.

He followed the sound of her deep, raspy voice back through the headstones until he came upon the children's cemetery, the small headstones peppering a much prettier part of the cemetery. Large, ancient oak trees reached up the the sky and spread out over the green grass and brightly colored annuals. It was such a beautiful place, but it held such terrible energy, knowing that these lives had been cut so short.

Raven sat at the foot of a pale-white angel statue with open arms, reading aloud from a worn paperback book in her hands. She glanced up at him, her voice skipping for a moment, before she returned to the book.

"'Yes, he is rather cocky,' Wendy admitted with regret."

Jason's lips twitched to the side as he fought a smirk trying to spread across his lips as he watched her. There was something rhythmic about her voice. She wasn't cartoonish and did "voices" when she read out loud, but her cadence was soft and even. Patterned and patient. Jason plopped down at the base of a tree, coffee in hand and listened to her speak as if he had nothing better to do this day.

It felt like hours passed until Raven looked up from the book. "That's all for today. I'll be back next week and we will see what happens between Peter and Captain Hook." She closed the book and sat there for a moment, looking at the headstones as if she expected one of them to move closer to her, similar to how a teacher sat after reading a book to her class. Finally, she stood up, moving through the headstones to where Jason sat.

He didn't move from his spot, but stared up at her from under the tree. "You read to dead people? During a potential storm?"

Raven's lips pursed slightly, obviously irritated with his comment. "They're just children. They didn't ask for their fate to befall them." She took a deep breath as if she were trying to calm herself down, and tapped her fingers on the book cover as she looked down at his hands. "I see you got the coffee I left."

"Yeah... it's really good. Where's it from?"

"New Grounds. Just a little ways away from the cemetery. It's so close, I'm surprised that you haven't been there before."

He shrugged and stood up, invading her space a little. "I'm a creature of habit."

"Oh." Her soft smile faded at his proximity, and she put the book in her back pocket as if she needed something to do with her hands to avoid confronting his closeness. "Vic said you were drinking Over Easy's terrible, stale coffee. I would go to Over Easy for the muffin and then to New Grounds for the coffee."

"I'll keep that in mind." His face fell a little at the mention of his co-worker. "Wait, you talked to Vic this morning?" He tried to find the energy to be mad, but something inside him said it was pointless. He got a free cup of good coffee and it wasn't as if there was anything important that needed to do today. So, it was as close to a win as he was going to get.

"I wasn't supposed to tell you..." She blushed, covering her mouth with her hand. "I am so sorry, it's just-"

"Don't worry about it," he cut her off and shrugged. "I'm trying hard to feel upset, but it's not that big of a deal. I wasn't really going to do much of anything this weekend anyway, so no worries. Besides, now he owes me a favor." He glanced down at his phone and looked back at her. "So, my shift is over... do you want to grab lunch or something?"

Raven looked back at him, looking like a deer in headlights. "Lunch?"

"Yeah." He laughed, leaning back on his heels. "The two of us go out and we eat food together, and maybe we talk about some things. It's a fairly common concept, I thought maybe you might be aware of it..."

His humor seemed lost on her and her eyes narrowed. "Vic was right, you are smug."

He laughed again. "He just doesn't get my particular brand of humor. Not my problem."

"Mm..." She glanced around the headstones as if she was looking for something, before looking back at him. "I guess I can go out to eat. I didn't really have breakfast this morning."

"Good. Let's go then." He followed her down the gentle slope of the hill and watched her move cautiously through the cemetery, eyes darting from headstone to headstone with a blush on her face. It didn't matter how cute or nice she was, she was so weird.

)O(

Sorry this took considerable longer to update than I anticipated. I had trouble with one of the scenes and then I got distracted, as I so easily do. If it's any consolation, I'm already working on the next chapter.

Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think!