"Th- thank you Ishmael..." Rhett panted through hurried and frantic breaths. The boy clutched his shovel close as he backed from the corpse. When it became clear that the man was dead, Ishmael loosened his jaw, letting the body slide off his fangs and onto the ground. The unknown transgressor had snuck up on Rhett clutching a sacrificial dagger awry with all sorts of profane magic. Dried specks of blood lingered in the blade's edges and folds. This knife had tasted blood before. Had Ishmael not been watching, it would have done so again.
Ishmael stood vigilant over the corpse, ready to strike "He's not emerging, Rhett", the bone serpent growled. "Give it time, Ishmael." Rhett mumbled as he shuffled in his seat, "We need to make sure he doesn't linger. These types always make trouble if they do" The bone serpent huffed, patience running thin. Rhett kept his distance from the corpse. Rhett normally had no qualms with handling the dead. Burial rites have been a part of his life as long as he could remember. But there was something different about this case. Something evil. Something wrong.
Normally on death, Rhett can see the spirit depart from the body. The ghost would leak from their corpse and either fade or linger. The emergence was normally instantaneous, with the spirit appearing the second the heart stopped. In rare cases, it would take a few minutes as the soul tried futilely and desperately to cling onto life. At least once, he saw an incredibly driven connloathian warrior take a full eight and a half minutes to let go of his life. But it's coming up on ten minutes and the body still lies dormant, spirit nowhere to be seen.