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With a gasp, Goldust shot upright. The cut quartz slab beneath him was painfully cold, the only light provided by the moonbeams streaming in through the ornate, stained glass windows. On all sides were crypts, each adorned with an assortment of roses and baby’s breath. Most were companion crypts, their arrangements painstakingly composed and placed to compliment each other. On a small, standing altar near the door sat an unlit incense and a wig stand, Goldust’s wig washed, brushed, and styled. His gloves laid beside his right hip and, as he snatched them up, he realised his hands had been lotioned and manicured. The honeyed gold nail lacquer glimmered in the pale moonlight, nails neatly filed and rounded. What he initially thought were visual floaters were the glints of delicate glitter brushed onto his eyelashes with clear mascara. He growled and yanked his gloves on, flexing his fingers into the fresh satin as he stormed across the vestibule mausoleum’s interior, only allowing himself a moment to admire the sprig of pale goldenrod woven into the single braid of crown behind the bangs. Before he could tear it off the wig stand, his legs buckled under him.
The door beside him opened with a groan, the view of the blue moon eclipsed by a long coated silhouette in a wide-brimmed hat. The man placed one hand atop the hat and ducked, taking one slow, laborious step through the door, murmuring words Goldust couldn’t distinguish to someone he couldn’t see. Complaining again, the door swung shut and clicked quietly. Removing his hat and staring down at Goldust through a curtain of dark hair, the Undertaker reached a hand out. Goldust could’ve counted the stitches in the dark grey leather as it passed over his head to lift his wig off the stand. The Undertaker knelt, swung the wig behind Goldusts’s head, and slipped the cap under the curve of his skull, leather gliding across his skin. Goldust’s vision swam and he lurched forward, grabbing the Undertaker’s arm to steady himself as the mortician slid his fingers forward under the wig band, pulling it into position across Goldust’s hairline. He finger brushed the hair to settle it in place, ignoring Goldust’s grip tightening until his joints audibly popped, undoubtedly applying bruising force. His mouth was so dry, something like sand grinding between his teeth. He coughed, upper lip twitching as he raised his eyes to meet the dead man’s.
“What did you do,” he whispered, tone accusatory, voice a gravel pit. The Undertaker lowered his hands from Goldust’s head, one arm swinging out to point at the low structure the other man awoke on. Vision blurred, he could see the engravings on the side but not read them, and he crawled towards it. Fingers sliding over the gold-flecked quartz, the inscription swam into focus. Marlena’s name was all he needed to parse to understand; the artist turned, back falling against the sarcophagus, face twisted in a snarl. There was a crystal chandelier above him and, as the moon began to fall, light struck it and scattered. Goldust, haloed in blue light, repeated himself: “What. Did you do.”
“Cindy had a golden vision,” the Undertaker intoned, “she had danced but just a season... Now she dances with the angels… For they killed her without reason.”
Goldust lunged, seizing the Undertaker by the lapels, chest heaving. His antagonist smelled of wet dirt, smoke, and nauseating chemicals - Embalming fluid, surely. When he leaned close enough to catch the dark purple ringing the Undertaker’s pupils, he could smell wood and fresh cut flowers. The mixture was sickening; Goldust inhaled deeply, ignoring the voice in his head pointing out this scent had been pervasive, but subtle, in the mausoleum even prior to the Undertaker’s arrival.
“Bandidos, 1967. I didn’t take you for a cinephile,” Goldust ground out, scattered lights disrupting his vision like flash photography. “But you fancy yourself a lone ranger, don’t you, boy?”
“I like Westerns.” The reply was blunt, quiet, his deep voice nearly drowned out by Goldust’s breathing. “Now their fate has been decided… Hand in hand they'll ride forever.”
“Shut up,” Goldust shook him. “Why do you try my patience? It has its limits,” he inhaled, “An-”
“Anna Karenina, 1997.”
“Look at you,” he bared his teeth beneath dark-painted lips, “a real, modern connoisseur. Distracting me won’t work.”
The Undertaker stood, sliding out of Goldust’s white-knuckled grasp like mist. It was as if he’d never grabbed ahold of him in the first place. He flexed his fingers before curling them into fists, gaze burning into Goldust’s very soul. “They like the picture shows.”
Dumbfounded, Goldust remained on his knees. He didn’t know who he was talking about and, frankly, didn’t care. The mortician rested his hat atop the wig stand on the altar, mumbling so quietly Goldust only saw his lips move. He didn’t catch how he lit the incense silently, seemingly without ever coming near it, but the smoke coiled towards the ceiling languidly.
“You… Will have to learn to like them,” he stated. The Undertaker’s voice was strained.
“And I…” He inhaled sharply through his nose, exhaled through his teeth. “You.”
“What are you on about?”
“Your obsession with death… Has proven… Problematic. You, Goldust…” Another deep inhale. He could’ve sworn the Undertaker’s eyes would have reflected light like an animal’s, had it not been for a milky film over them - A dead man’s eyes, if only for a moment, before the darkness grew deeper, shrouding him. His voice softened. “Have made a grave… Mistake.”
Goldust lunged upwards off his knees, striking the Undertaker on the jaw and using the momentum to stumble to his feet. The cold of the marble floor sent pins and needles up his legs, pale yellow, silken socks sliding on the damp stone. Sparing a glance in search of his boots, he found them shined, re-stitched, standing beside the altar. His assault merely snapped the Undertaker’s head backwards, curtain of hair arching above him while the rest of his body remained stock still as he stared towards the ceiling. Quietly, a long, errant lock of hair slid off the nape of his neck, drawing Goldust’s eyes to his exposed throat, the red stubble shadowing his jaw. There were bruises there - Fingerprints. Mankind’s, surely. Exhaling, the Undertaker slowly dropped his head, face exposed. His right cheekbone bore a visible thumbprint, yellow and green blooming around blue and purple.
Goldust wheezed out a laugh. The Undertaker glowered. He almost looked like he was pouting.
“Why so stiff?” Coughing, Goldust reached for his boots, leaning back against a wall of crypts as he struggled into them. The platform heels had been reduced by a visually imperceivable amount, but Goldust could feel it. “You wily bastard.”
“Goldust.” A warning. “You tried to harness forces mortals cannot wield. There are… Consequences. You have a debt to settle with me. And… You have been… Changed.”
“The vampire, Mr. Harker, is a thing that lives after its death by drinking the blood of the living - It must have blood, or it dies. Its power lasts only from sunset to sunr-”
“I did not make you a vampire.”
Goldust huffed at the interruption, absentmindedly adjusting the bouquet he’d disturbed by leaning on the crypts. “... Dracula, 1931.”
“You are not a vampire.”
“My life and my death are here. My place is here in these vaults,” Goldust rubbed his sore throat, skipping lines. “Death would have quietly taken me back; you wanted to entice me back to the world of the living.”
Goldust looked at the Undertaker expectantly, eyebrows raising as he slid one finger over a crypt’s seal. He was visibly shaken, still angry, but he was determined to make the man in black crack first.
The Undertaker sighed. “Please, be quiet.”
“Look- I'm surrounded by corpses,” Goldust responded, left leg crumpling beneath him when he tried to take an unaided step away from the wall. Teeth squeaking as they ground together, he pushed himself to his feet again. “I made this into a charnel house. I emptied these bodies of blood so that it may flow in mine - To turn me into a living dead girl.”
“You’re not a vampire.”
Glaring, Goldust took a more confident step forward, hand wrapping around the Undertaker’s tie. His eyes were burning and watering, but the makeup the Undertaker applied didn’t run. “To turn me. Into. A living. Dead. Girl.”
Another sigh, followed by a pained, disingenuous line delivery. “That's enough. Enough. You were never dead.”
Pausing, the Undertaker frowned, his tone once more serious. “The dead don't come back to life. La Morte Vivante, 1982. You think you’re undead.”
“Like you,” Goldust hissed, his free hand sliding up the outside of the Undertaker’s thigh and settling on his hip. The hand wrapped around his tie yanked on it. “Where’s my urn? My leash? I’ll make you choke on it.”
“You have a sarcophagus.”
“In your mausoleum. Lonely?” His hand journeyed further up the Undertaker’s side, beneath his long, heavy coat. He was colder than the marble surrounding them, and as unmoving as it. “Did Mankind make you feel so ashamed, so dominated, you had to take me as your thrall?”
“You,” the Undertaker grumbled, head bowing just enough to encourage hair to fall back over his face, “endangered your own life.”
“It's not fair, it's too late. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. It shouldn't have happened.” Amused by his own act of ignoring him, Goldust leaned in, nose wrinkling. This man smelled intolerably repulsive. “Vertigo, 1958. I loathe your cologne. If I’m to be your indentured servant ad nauseum, you have to wear something more palatable.”
“I’m not wearing any.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he whispered, leaning ever closer, face further contorting from the smell. His hand slid behind the Undertaker’s back, following his floating ribs. “What are you wearing?”
“Rose water,” he murmured, head bowing further, muscles so tense Goldust was impressed he wasn’t shaking. “Rose oil, formaldehyde… No different than you.”
“Pardon?”
The Undertaker remained silent, stock still, cold and bloodless beneath Goldust’s touch. His glittering face contorted into a mask of rage and disgust, nails digging in and splitting the fibers of the mortician’s linen shirt even through his glove, seeking purchase in his skin. Another yank on his tie earned him nothing more than a gutteral snarl, the dark purple of Undertaker’s eyes all but glowing between the rivulets of his hair.
“Listen here, deadman,” Goldust bellowed, deep voice echoing in the small mausoleum. “You’ve got approximately thirty seconds to explain yourself before I rip your fuc-”
The heavy wrought iron gate swung on its hinges, the crypt’s stone slid aside along the well-worn divets in the foundation slab, the moon filling up the entire sky visible above the swirling mists of the cemetery. The spotlight illuminated Goldust in shards of silver.
“What are you doing to my starlet?” The intruder asked, the tip of her cigar burning red hot as she puffed it. Fallen ash mingled with the remnants of incense, dirt, and crushed rose petals littering the floor. She was a specter of gold, even her blue eyeshadow flecked with it, cast half in utter darkness by the light.
“... What is necessary,” the Undertaker murmured, drained of all his irritation, gloved fingers painfully gentle as they coaxed Goldust’s off his person. His eyes were no longer visible, the shadows seemingly cloaking him from the newfound moonlight. Goldust, appalled, could only look between the two.
“I thought you could only pursue business,” Marlena drawled, her heels clicking as she took slow, languid steps to Goldust’s side. She didn’t spare the Undertaker a glance as she began finger brushing her star’s bangs back into place. “No pleasure.”
“All work and no play… Makes Jack a dull boy.” The Undertaker’s response was so quiet, Goldust missed words, too distracted wondering what the hell was going on. Smoke curled around Marlena’s lips when she smiled, free hand falling to his elbow and wrapping around it.
“I’ll remember you’re a Kubrick fan,” she responded, guiding Goldust around the shining sarcophagus he’d awoken atop and into the open air. Graves loomed above and below them, sprawling out into foggy infinity. Marlena was complaining before they even crossed the threshold. "I only requested makeup, not the theatrics."
The Undertaker did not follow and, when Goldust spun to face the towering structure again, feeling as if woken from a dream, his silhouette was nowhere to be found. Only an envelope sat on the book-shaped podium at its threshold, the inscribed family names obscured by the paper, sealed with lilac coloured wax. He lunged away from his producer, tore it open, a folded letter tumbling out with glittering ashes and dirt.
“What the fuck?”
Snatching the ruined letter and unfolding it, he heard Marlena take another drag of her cigar, holding the smoke in her mouth as she stepped up beside him. On the paper, in the same sharp script on every tombstone in this wretched place:
You look for Death in the clear night,
you tell her you still love her,
that you are her slave,
that she's still your queen.
...
I'd only do it for the fear -
And I'd come back just to experience the same fear again.
To be afraid,
always to be afraid.
-Dellamorte Dellamore, 1994