((John the Revelator by Depeche Mode is a good song to listen to while reading the first portion of this chapter.))

Fog swirled as the black-cloaked figures moved through the cemetery. It was night but the mist caught the moonlight, making it seem brighter. Tombstones jutted in dark silhouettes, unreadable. The group of five stopped when they came to the vault where Jeremiah had been entombed.

Michael set his lantern down near the narrow marble entrance. Misty, to his left, kept her lantern in hand and stayed close to the young man. Not out of fear; she didn't want to miss anything. Constance was with him as well, as was Buck.

Michael stared at the tomb, then put a hand on it. It was a stoic piece of architecture, simple but elegant; cold.

"It's time," he said quietly. Then he glanced over his shoulder. "Bring the sacrifice."

Constance moved forward then, steering a shorter black-robed figure before her. "He's here," she said, giving the individual a shove.

The subsequent stumble the shove caused also dislodged the hood of their robe, revealing the face of one of the urchins she'd caught hovering around Father Jeremiah's cross like blowflies. The 12-year-old was drugged, barely able to keep his feet in the too-long robe.

Michael steadied the boy with a hand on his shoulder. Then he reeled the child into an embrace that put them both facing the small congregation. "What you are doing is important," he told the boy sincerely. Then: "Know peace."

He pulled Mandy's hunting knife from its sheath and, bracing the boy with a hand on his forehead, Michael pulled the sharp blade across his throat. The child made a gurgling, strangling sound and slowly sank to his knees. His hands scrabbled at his sliced flesh like he was trying to put it back together. The sharp blade had cut through his trachea, leaving a gaping wound that gushed red. The strength left him quickly and he fell to his side, where he slowly went limp.

Michael stooped and wiped his palm through the hot wound. He suffered a strong urge to lick the blood from his hand, but he restrained himself. This wasn't for him.

He rose and went to the crypt, his long robes stirring the fog as he moved. He put his hand on the door of the tomb once more. "It's time to wake up."

Michael shut his eyes because he could feel them trying to roll back under the amount of gathering psychic strain he was feeling. It was impossible to maintain decorum with his brain under so much pressure.

"Wake UP!"

He slammed his bloody fist into the door and the marble slab cracked. The crack stretched quickly from the center to the top and bottom at once. The heavy door split in two and fell to the ground. Marble dust settled and the swirling fog crept into the tomb.

Michael swayed unsteadily and Misty Day, who was nearest to him, put a hand out to make sure he didn't topple over. Black stars swam before the young man's eyes, trying to block his vision. It was sheer force of will that kept him from blacking out. Whatever he had channeled was potent and drained him more than he could have prepared for, even with the sacrifice.

As his vision slowly cleared, he saw movement in the dark recesses of the grave. Seconds later, Jeremiah stumbled out. His black funerary clothes were ashen with dust. He stumbled in the doorway, tripping over the broken marble. He dropped to a knee and had to put both hands on the ground to stop the world reeling.

Michael moved to his side, not exactly steady himself. He dropped down beside the resurrected man, falling as much as sitting, and he grabbed Jeremiah's shoulders. The erstwhile priest was shaking uncontrollably as his nervous system reawakened and his immune system went into overdrive reversing the effects of three days worth of decay.

"You'll be okay," Michael insisted, though he was reassuring himself as much as he was trying to comfort Jeremiah. "You're back with us. I brought you back."

"I was dead," Jeremiah croaked. His mouth was dry as sandpaper.

Michael got to his feet and tried to help the other man up. He was still weak from the experience though and it went so awkwardly, Misty felt obliged to lend a hand. She looked to Constance, but the other woman was just standing there, hugging her coat close around her body like a shield as she stared at the men.

"You were," Michael agreed as he found his sealegs. "You're back now."

"I was dead." Jeremiah was in shock.

Misty helped him to his feet next but he didn't rely on her for long. His system was repairing itself at an accelerated rate, healing and then overcompensating against future threats. His brain felt like it was on fire as his neural net mutated with the sheer amount of growth it had to do, in order to cope with everything he had experienced in the afterlife. He clutched at his head.

"Let's go home," Michael said to no one individual.

He took a couple of steps in the direction of the cemetery gates but when he saw Jeremiah wasn't following, he came back to him and put an arm around the man's shoulders so he could guide him out. The women followed, Constance silently bringing up the rear.

—

"I can't believe he did that," Tate boggled, watching the group as they disappeared into the thickening fog.

Patrick's attention shifted from them to the dead child they had left behind. "Sweet Mother Mary," he muttered.

The ghosts had arrived too late to interrupt the ritual. Michael had already cut the kid's throat when the pair showed up. It didn't bother Tate but Pat actually had a shred of conscience left. In life he had been an EMT and it translated to a strong impulse in death to assist the injured, even if they were beyond help.

"Give me a hand," he said, going over to the limp body on the ground.

Tate blinked at the other guy in confusion. "With what?"

Pat bent and scooped the bloody corpse up off the ground. "We're not just going to leave the poor kid here like this. Scavengers."

The teen gave him a funny look. "You want to keep him?" Tate had no problem with collecting dead bodies but he'd never known Pat to share the penchant.

"No!" Pat looked pained. "We're going to bury him. There's a convenient grave right here. When I get him in there, I want you to help me put the door back up."

"Oh."

Patrick shook his head and ducked inside the tomb. Inside, he gently placed the dead boy in the narrow sarcophagus that Father Jeremiah had recently occupied. He tried not to think too much about whose grave it was before that, and what Michael might have done with the original occupant.

He arranged the boy's limbs in a comfortable position, though there was no need. It satisfied that basic impulse to help. He stepped back out of the tomb then and moved to grab one of the broken pieces of marble. "When I get this one up, grab the other one. If we wedge them together, they should hold."

Both sections were too heavy for an average, living individual to manage but the ghosts were able to get the two pieces crammed into the entryway in a manner that kept them together. It was hardly a lovely sight: Mud and blood smeared the outside of the visibly damaged door. But it would keep the scavengers out.

"I can't believe he brought that priest back from the dead," Tate boggled anew. He wasn't upset. He was just amazed. "Do you think maybe he wasn't actually dead?"

Patrick frowned thoughtfully and started off through the foggy cemetery in the direction the witches had gone, toward the gates that led out. There was no need to walk anywhere when they could shift freely through the foggy zone now but he wanted time to think so he headed that way.

"Anything's possible," he reasoned. "But I don't think he was vaulted up in that tomb for three days and survived it. If he wasn't dead going in, he would have been by now. No. Michael brought him back."

"Constance said he did it to himself that one time but I figured he was just, you know," he shrugged and trudged along beside the taller guy. He pulled his hands up into the sleeves of his sweater. "People die and the doctors bring 'em back. You know? But this. Wow."

"Yeah," Pat agreed, distracted. His expression was grim. "This can't be good."

"No shit," laughed Tate. "Anything that starts with killing a kid to bring back a dead Satanist definitely falls firmly into the 'fucked up' category. I think I saw a horror movie that started sorta like that once."

Patrick didn't share his humor. "I'm starting to think the Harmons have the right idea."

The teen squinted up at him. "How so?"

"Things are getting pretty weird around here. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to get out of Dodge."

Tate made a face and folded his arms against the weird way he felt at the thought of leaving. It was a stupid feeling. His whole existence, he wanted to fly free. Now that he could, the idea of going further than the cemetery made his stomach churn. He wasn't sure if the feeling was the fault of the house or his own weird mind.

"Where would you go?" he asked, to stop thinking about his non-existent stomach.

Pat thought for a few silent moments. Off in the distance, something howled.

"Maybe see how far north the fog goes," he said finally. "It would be nice to see the redwood forest again. Who knows? Maybe it even crosses the state line. I've never been to Oregon or Washington. I always wanted to visit Seattle."

Tate frowned. He didn't like this conversation. "Why?"

That earned him a sideways glance. "Why? It's an interesting place. I would've thought you of all people would want to go there. Isn't that where Kurt Cobain's from?"

"Yeah," the teen confirmed. "But it's not like I'd meet him if I went there."

"Never know. His ghost might be hanging around. He had a pretty dramatic death."

Tate was torn between wanting to talk about his hero and wanting to stay unhappy. "I can't just go to Seattle. Violet's not there and neither is Beau. Or Mrs. Nora. Who'll look after her when she gets sad, if I go?" He blinked fast because the thought of her crying over her baby without him to help her made his eyes water. "Maybe you can just take off but I can't. If I could, I would've gone with Violet."

He smudged his lashes with the edges of his sleeves then folded his arms again. When he glanced Pat's way, the guy was looking at him funny.

"Neither is a good candidate for a road trip," admitted Patrick. "Violet would probably love Seattle, though. She'd go with you." They walked in silence a bit then he added: "Leaving for a while isn't the same as leaving forever."

"Yes, it is," Tate asserted heatedly. "Time runs funny sometimes. You know that. What happens if you go to Seattle and by the time you get back..." He stalled on an adequately horrific scene for him to return to.

"And what?" prompted Pat, grabbing the opportunity. "Something bad has happened? There's nothing going to happen here that I personally can do something about. All this?" He waved an arm. "Is beyond us. Whatever's going to happen here, it's going to happen whether we're at ground zero or not."

He was probably right but that didn't help Tate's mood. "If I went anywhere, I'd go where Violet is." His shoulders drooped. "I wish I could call her."

Pat sighed in frustration. "So go be with her. You could go and come back the same damned day, if you really don't want to be gone that long. You're a fucking ghost, for God's sake. "

"I don't know where they went," Tate countered defensively. "You have to know where you're going before you can go there. Otherwise you'll end up in a wall or a toilet or something."

"You're hopeless," the jock decided. "I'm heading home."

He shifted through space, leaving the foggy street behind. The familiar walls of the old mansion faded into view, solidifying around him. It was a mode of travel he had grown accustomed to over the years, to the point that it was hard to imagine doing without the shortcut. Just returning home from the cemetery would have taken three times as long, on foot. Moving from the hall to the downstairs great room, to the bathroom on the third floor...they were all just a thought away.

It was one of the few perks Pat could appreciate about being dead.

...

Author's Note:

A prize to those of you who accurately predicted that Jeremiah wouldn't stay dead. His resurrection was inspired in part by George Romero's Living Dead series of films.

There have been many times when I was writing this years-long fic where certain twists and turns surprised me. Strange as it may sound, I don't plan most of this out. I have a loose idea where the story's going but scenes like this I don't know the outcome of till I'm done writing. Constance's reaction surprised me. I guess I expected she would be happy Jeremiah was back.

Next time: It's the last chapter of Ep 3 and things are getting strange. Episode 4 will hit the week after that, in which Michael starts to assert his dominion as he searches for some holy and unholy relics. And we'll see some old, familiar faces too.