Entombed Read online

  So Grandma Abi had been playing guardian angel. It hadn’t been a coincidence that she’d been around when they were attacked. No wonder her appearances were so brief. She was a well-traveled ghost; cruising all over Corozal had to drain her.

  “If we aren’t here, make sure you tell your grandmother how much we appreciate her help. Nate came out of nowhere. I didn’t even see him until he’d already ripped up my wings.”

  “I’m sorry—Nate?” Abi rubbed her temple. “Did you guys name the aswang?”

  Jack shared a guilty look with Marin. Why did everyone think that was so weird?

  “Never mind.” Abi waved a hand then went about applying another poultice to Marin’s left arm. “Whatever makes you feel better. Did you guys notice each of these wounds is a set of three deep furrows? Almost like a hawk or a vulture.”

  “We thought he could change shapes,” Marin said. “Maybe he doesn’t just wear human skins.”

  Abi blinked. “Again, not asking.”

  “Best not to. We found Nate’s—the aswang’s—old cage. If you get the chance, can you confirm with Grandma Abi whether that area used to be a graveyard?” When Abi agreed, Marin gave her directions to the little church. There hadn’t been a sign out front, so it was the best she could do.

  “Oh, yeah, I don’t need to ask Grandmother about that. Definitely yes. You can even read about it on a little plaque next to the church.” Abi bit back a smile.

  “Aha.” Jack took a sip of his coffee to keep himself from saying that it was dark, or they’d been short on time…or anything else that reeked of justification. They’d hit the ground running on this case. From the moment they’d landed in Corozal, they’d been reacting or chasing after some new lead. They hadn’t had a chance to get ahead of the case, and it was time to do exactly that. “We need to head out and get some sleep. With any luck, we’re getting an autopsy report on one of the victims tomorrow, and we should have some more information from our sources Sally and Kaisermann, as well.”

  “And the plan? Other than gathering more information?” Abi asked.

  Given the fact that less than twenty-four hours had passed since they’d even left Austin, taking a little time to do some research and gather data was hardly irresponsible. But he supposed they did have a plan, of sorts. One without any details—but it was a plan.

  Marin removed the poultice on her right arm and checked the wound. “The plan is to lure Nate back to the cage, trap him in it, and seal it. We might have a lead on how to close it up again. We just need to chat with Grandma Abi and our other sources to see if it’s feasible.”

  Jack eyed Marin. “We’re not doing that thing—”

  “No, not that thing. Just something similar.”

  Jack hadn’t a clue what “something similar” could possibly be—because killing someone to power a spell kinda sat in its own little twisted and jacked-up category.

  Marin frowned and said, “It’s still brewing in my head, Jack. Let me sleep on it. Abi, thank you so much for your help.” She stood up and extended her hand. “Might we come by early tomorrow to attempt contact with your grandmother again?”

  “Absolutely. Text me when you’re en route.” Abi turned to Jack and extended her hand. Jack took it and was surprised when she clasped his warmly with both hands. “Thank you. I do understand that what you’re doing is dangerous. It’s just frustrating to be on the sidelines. And I’m worried for Iris.”

  Jack nodded. He could understand that. The sidelines sucked.

  Once they were out the front door, Marin handed the keys to Jack. And he didn’t get a chance to poke at her and find out what exactly she was thinking as far as sealing Nate’s cage, because she was asleep almost as soon as the car started moving.

  Yet another very un-Marin thing to do.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jack woke the next morning to find Marin sitting on the end of his bed. He propped himself up on his elbows. “Do you at least have coffee for me?”

  She glanced at a to-go cup on his night stand. “I also have something even better. I have a plan.”

  “Coffee and a plan? You had a much more productive night than I did.”

  “No, I just got up earlier. I’ve already had a chat with Kaisermann, and his dreams last night confirmed some of my suspicions.”

  Jack took a sip of coffee then checked the clock: nine thirty. He’d gotten about six, six and a half hours of sleep. Not enough for him to be as chipper as Marin. “Can I get dressed?”

  “I’ll talk while you change. So, here’s the thing, you know how ghosts are created, right?”

  “Throw me some clean underwear.” Jack caught the pair she threw at him and pulled them on. Then he stretched and rolled out of bed. He was achy from getting pounded on the day before, but not too bad. “When they were alive, they had some magical ability. When they pass, somehow a piece of them gets stranded on this plane.”

  “Yes to the magical part, but not necessarily the stranded part. Have you ever heard that a ghost sticks around to take care of some mortal business before they pass?”

  “Pretty sure that our mutual friend Lizzie’s ghostly great aunt didn’t decide that she wanted to hang out on Earth a while longer. I assumed the mortal business clause was a myth.” He pulled on a pair of jeans.

  “There’s something that keeps a magical person’s consciousness tied to this plane, and I think there’s some aspect of choice—even if they’re not aware of it.”

  Jack pulled on a clean T-shirt over his head. “Fine. Let’s say that’s true. What does that have to do with our current situation?”

  “Well, neither you or I are going to kill someone to power the cage. But what if they’re already dead? What if we power the cage with the life force of a ghost?”

  Dead, but not entirely because ghosts still retained the personality, the consciousness, of their human selves. And using a ghost to power the cage meant killing the ghost. So weren’t they still killing someone? He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Marin. That’s pretty sketchy.”

  “It’s not if they’re already dead and they volunteer.”

  Jack shook his head. “Why in the world would they do that? And there aren’t that many ghosts running around anyway. There’s a geographic connection. We’d be limited to locals.”

  “There are more than you’d think.” Marin crossed her arms. “Sally said so.”

  Jack closed his eyes. Sally said so. Which meant that it was actually Kaisermann interpreting Sally’s obscure messages sent via his dreams. “I need to pee. Meet me in the breakfast room in fifteen, preferably without Elliot.”

  Ten minutes later, Jack sat across from Marin and Kaisermann at a small table in the dining area with a loaded plate of food. It was thin of guests and they were in a corner, so he wasn’t too concerned about being overheard. “Where’s Elliot?”

  Marin swirled her spoon around in the half-full bowl of oatmeal. “I asked him to do some internet research. Dig up info on aswangs, shapeshifters, the site of the church, local history—hopefully enough to keep him busy for a while. He’s supposed to text if he comes up with anything that looks relevant.”

  He watched her fiddle with her food and decided he didn’t like it when she acted out of character. Not eating as much as two large men was acting out of character. “How do we know ghosts are the answer?”

  Kaisermann raised an eyebrow and looked at Marin.

  “Part of the answer,” she said. “There’s an overlooked detail in our plan. We’ve been assuming we can use the existing cage. That all we have to do is find the right kind of power source to charge it up again. Harry says that if the ward still stands—and he’s pretty sure it’s a ward that kept our boogieman in—then we can add juice and it will still work. But if the ward has faded, if it’s not just weak enough for Nate to have broken through but is no longer there at all, then we’d need to cast a new ward.”

  “We don’t have a spell-caster, unless…wait, when did you talk
to Harry?” Jack casually sipped his coffee. They hadn’t talked about pulling Harry in.

  “Don’t get your shorts in a knot. It was only just this morning. I wanted to pick his brain about ghosts and wards. And just to be clear, he can’t get here for at least another three days, and that’s still bailing out early on a crisis he’s helping to handle in Prague. His patient won’t be stable until then.”

  Kaisermann raised his hand. “You didn’t explain before, what’s a spell-caster?”

  “Spell-casters do what I like to call ‘object magic,’” Jack said. “Some can manipulate objects, but the more relevant talent in this situation is their ability to cast wards, and wards tie certain kinds of magic to physical objects.”

  Kaisermann leaned back in his chair. “Sounds complicated.”

  “Only when Jack explains it.” Marin smiled, a little too sweetly. At least she wasn’t flashing too many teeth.

  “All right,” Jack said. “For our purposes, think of the ward around Nate’s cage as a magical forcefield.”

  Kaisermann nodded. “That I can understand. So you have to determine if the battery needs to be charged or you need a new forcefield.” Which meant Marin wanted to go back for a second look at the cage.

  “Don’t look so glum, Jack; I promise to be careful. And I’ve got a plan. Mr. Kaisermann, do you want to tell Jack about your dreams last night?”

  “Yes, yes—of course.” Kaisermann’s face lit up. “Interesting stuff, and no back pain this time. Marin told me about the hole you found. No dirt, so that’s a mystery when you have a hole and no dirt.”

  “Your dream?” Marin said.

  “Yes! I’ve been experimenting with pre-programming questions for my dreams. You know, repeating it over and over in my head until I fall asleep. So, I asked Sally how to get rid of the aswang.” Tapping his finger on the table for emphasis, Kaisermann said, “You need Iris and you need ghosts. A lot of ghosts.”

  Jack set his coffee down. “I get it—we use Iris to find the ghosts. But then how do we get them to agree? I’m pretty certain if they do this, they’re going to lose their ability to exist on this plane.”

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Kaisermann said. “These ghosts will want to help, because you’re going to ask his victims’ ghosts.”

  Brilliant—grab ghosts with a grudge against Nate. They’d be highly motivated by rage and a desire for revenge. A nagging suspicion entered Jack’s head. “Sally was much more forthcoming than usual, wasn’t she? I didn’t know Sally could manage that type of clarity and specificity.”

  “Fine, Jack,” Marin said. “That wasn’t the raw dream; we interpreted it. A flower—an iris—set atop a topo map, and the map is lit up with pinpoints of light.”

  Jack scratched his chin. “I’m not sure about—”

  “Wait,” Marin said. “There’s more. Tell him about the lights, Mr. Kaisermann.”

  “Ah, yes.” He rubbed his hands together. “First, the lights were here in Corozal and the surrounding areas. I recognized the curve of the coastline. Now these lights, they started to bounce around and then they joined together to make a big light.”

  “And why do you think those lights are ghosts?” Jack asked.

  Kaisermann inclined his head. “That’s more difficult. That, I just felt.”

  Jack’s phone dinged with a text. He opened the message from Elliot.

  No gun. Sent autopsy by email.

  Jack looked across the table at the co-conspirators. That’s what he got for actually sleeping while on a case—plans run amok without him.

  Jack shook his head. “Hang on a second. Elliot’s blogger buddy isn’t coming by; she sent us the report electronically.”

  He opened the email and the accompanying attachment then scanned the document. “Shit.” He passed his phone to Marin. He only hoped Elliot had enough sense not to open it.

  With a frown, she took the phone. After flipping through the pages of the report, she set his phone on the table and pushed it slowly back to him. “They’re alive when he removes the heart.”

  “And?” Jack asked Marin. “What does that signify?”

  But it was Kaisermann who replied. “That seems needlessly cruel if all he’s after is food. Either he’s a sadist or taking the heart from a living victim serves some need for him.”

  “It has to be tied to shapeshifting,” Marin said. “He doesn’t have more than one form; he assumes the form of another.”

  “Eat the heart of his victim, and he can take that form?” Jack pocketed his phone. “If that’s true, it just means we don’t have a face for Nate. With the media’s silence and the fact that all of the victims may not even have been discovered, we can’t know who Nate could resemble.” Jack shut his eyes. When he opened them, he said, “We are complete idiots. The murders haven’t made it into the media. The sensational, heart-and-liver-removed murders.”

  “You think Nate’s been tinkering with some important people’s heads.” Marin’s eyes burned a brighter green. “We’ve been a little busy since we arrived. It’s not like we’ve had time to follow up on all the leads we’ve encountered, and trustworthy resources are limited in a foreign town.”

  Jack looked around the room and found it almost empty. Good thing, since they hadn’t been as cautious as they could have been with their language. “His ability to hide several murders from the broader public eye speaks to some understanding of the modern world. This guy isn’t planning on going into hiding anytime soon. He wants to keep hunting.”

  “True,” Marin said. “All the more reason for me to evaluate the existence and condition of the ward. It was my mistake that I didn’t before. I’ve been distracted.”

  “You think you can work through the aswang stench covering the place?” Jack asked.

  Instead of answering, she waived at someone walking into the dining area.

  Jack turned to look—and saw both Iris and Abi. “I thought we were meeting them at Abi’s.”

  “You were asleep, and the clock’s ticking, Jack. Besides, we can’t go far without some protection, whatever you think about our final plan.” She stood up with a smile on her face. “Abi, Iris, let me introduce you to Mr. Kaisermann, the owner of Sanctuary.”

  Jack would never feel comfortable catching a nap on a job with Marin again.

  After the introductions had been completed, Iris bounced on her toes and said, “When are we leaving to scope out the crypt?”

  Jack swallowed a groan.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There wasn’t much Jack could say. Abi, Iris, Marin, and even Kaisermann were all on board. Head out to the site and hope that ward was still standing, that seemed to be the plan.

  “Are we seriously all going?” Jack was sorry he asked, because three women turned to give him the stink eye.

  At least Kaisermann wasn’t giving him hell for asking. The old guy just grinned and said, “I’m in. I don’t go out much these days, what with my Sanctuary responsibilities.”

  Jack hadn’t actually meant Kaisermann when he’d said “all,” because the guy was a homebody. A professional, tend-to-a-supernatural-house kind of homebody. “Oh, I don’t know Mr. Kaisermann. Do you think it’s a good idea to leave Sally here alone?”

  “Not a problem. A little of Sally goes with me wherever I go.” Kaisermann pulled out his key ring.

  “Wow.” Iris reached out then jerked her hand back. “Sorry. It’s just hard to imagine how a house can fit into a key.”

  Kaisermann frowned, turning the key around in his fingers. “No, she’s not in the key. She’s in the house…and under it and around it. I suppose it’s like a link.”

  “Has anyone considered just locking up the aswang inside Sanctuary?” Abi asked.

  Everyone turned to look at her, and Jack could see Marin working through the possibilities.

  “Wouldn’t work,” Kaisermann said. “She can keep things out, but not in. She’s a creature who lives to aid others, not trap them.” Kaisermann’s bushy e
yebrows pulled together as he addressed Jack in a quieter tone. “Don’t ask me to tell you how I know—I just do.”

  The telepathic link between Kaisermann and Sally was a bizarre phenomenon and not well-understood in the magic-using community, so Jack could either trust the guy and take him at his word—about both this and the idea of ghosts powering a ward around Nate’s cage—or he could start questioning all of the magical wonders he encountered on a now daily basis.

  Sometimes a guy had to have a little faith.

  “Who’s driving? Jack asked.

  Marin gave him a smirky smug smile, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Oh, can we drive, Abi?” Iris asked. “Their rental is small for five people.”

  Jack couldn’t help think as they filed out of Sanctuary that this outing felt more like a school fieldtrip than work on a case. He waited until they were already loading up to text Elliot with an update. He couldn’t handle one more tagalong.

  As soon as everyone was settled in Abi’s SUV, Jack asked from the back seat, “Is there anything else you guys worked out while I was catching a few hours of sleep?” Much more quietly, he said to Marin, “Get your elbow out of my gut.”

  Marin snorted, but she did tuck her arms closer.

  “I was just wondering why Nate—that is what you’re calling him?” When Jack confirmed, Iris continued, “Why would Nate go back to his cage?”

  “That’s something we need to sort out,” Jack said. “I’m not sure we’ve had any good thoughts yet.” Marin elbowed him. “Sorry, except to rely on his massive ego. According to Marin and her vast knowledge of egomaniacs, he won’t be concerned about returning because he probably considers himself invulnerable to us.”

  Iris met Jack’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “That’s not what I meant. You do realize that you were both attacked not far from the crypt? That’s what Grandma Abi said. I was just wondering what brought him back into that area.”