Entombed Page 7

  “Don’t start with the dog comparisons.”

  “Of course not. But you could find that signature again?”

  “Should be able to.”

  Except now she was just being modest—so unlike her. Because Jack knew she could track magic better than a bloodhound on the heels of a fleeing fugitive. He kept that comment to himself, though, since he’d already been punched twice today. “Since his human skin is clearly a disguise, any idea what he really looks like?”

  She shook her head. “No, just that his appearance, his attempt at humanity, is a lie.”

  Jack bit back a sharp remark. They were almost back to the hostel, and he still had no better idea of who that guy was. Well, there was a connection to the aswang, but that was all they had. “But not an illusion.”

  “Not an illusion. The body is real. It’s just a lie.”

  “When you sort out what that means, feel free to share.”

  Marin sighed. “When I know, you’ll know.”

  Jack looked further down the street as wisps of smoke caught his attention. He squinted at the hazy stream of smoke drifting into the sky. “Is that smoke?”

  Marin didn’t answer—she took off at a run.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jack sprinted, but in no reality was he going to be able to keep up with a dragon, even when she was two-legged and traveling by ground. By the time he arrived at the hostel, Marin was nowhere to be seen. A small cluster of people was gathered in front of the building, but they looked like locals—not tourists. He followed their stares to the neighboring building, and that was when he saw the smoke emanating from its rooftop.

  “Fire?” Jack asked the closest local. He couldn’t help think: fire witch. The Coven of Light, his least favorite group of witches and a serious threat in any situation, would not make hunting for a serial killer any easier.

  The man waved a dismissive hand. “No. No fire.”

  And he wasn’t alone in his lack of concern. The few people gathered seemed curious, but not particularly concerned. And to be fair, the smoke was already fading. But Jack had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

  “Jack!”

  He followed Marin’s voice to the front door, where she was beckoning him inside. “Please tell me this has nothing to do with fire witches and the Coven of Light,” he said.

  When he joined her, she pulled him inside and shut the door. “What? No. Sally deflected an attack. There were some resulting sparks and a few embers went astray. Hence the smoking roof next door.”

  “No one seems very concerned about it. And since when does magic spark?”

  “Ah, something to do with trying to breach Sally’s magic-permeated walls. But conditions aren’t good for a big blaze, and—”

  “I called the neighbors and warned them,” Kaisermann said as he descended the stairs. “They had a look and said it’s safe. No fire.”

  “Tell me more about this attack and the sparks.” Jack’s phone pinged with a text, but he ignored it as he waited for Kaisermann’s response.

  The old man’s bushy gray eyebrows bunched together. “Like Marin said, it was a magical attack. There was some unexpected friction, which created sparks, which led to a small smoke fire next door. It’s damp this time of year, so not a huge danger.” He lifted a wagging finger. “I did try to point out to Sally that there had been an unexpected result.”

  “Yeah, let me know how that goes.” Jack wasn’t hopeful, given the rudimentary state of communication between Sally and Kaisermann. Jack glanced at his phone. Pocketing it, he said, “Iris and Abi had another session with Grandma Abi. We’re to call for details.”

  “Elliot’s upstairs in room three. I put your bags in the connecting room, room five.” Kaisermann handed Marin the key.

  Jack turned to the stairs then stopped and said, “We might have something for you after we get the update from our otherworldly source.” Jack saw a spark of interest in Kaisermann’s eyes. He’d have to remember to give him the lowdown on ghosts when they spoke later.

  Marin said, “And we’re very sorry for bringing violence to your home, Mr. Kaisermann.”

  Kaisermann nodded. “That’s what Sally does—she’s a sanctuary for those under magical attack—but I’ll try to pass along the sentiment. And don’t forget to come back down after you’ve checked in with your client. I’d like to share my latest dreams. They might be related.” Kaisermann tapped his temple. “Dreams are still the best communication Sally and I have.”

  “Will do.” Jack started up the stairs with Marin right on his heels, probably to catch him if he fell again. He stopped and almost bumped into her when he turned around. “You know, the vertigo issue was probably that creature’s attempt to pry into my brain. I should be good inside Sanctuary.”

  He was feeling a little mothered, and it was an unpleasant sensation, especially coming from Marin. Maternal was the last thing he’d call her.

  Marin must have agreed, because she stopped breathing down his neck and followed at a reasonable distance. She stopped him when they reached the second floor. “You think Elliot needs all the gory details? He’s not had the best week.”

  “His girlfriend was murdered, and he’s actively hunting for the killer. He can handle it—unless you think that fight earlier was an indication of an impending mental breakdown.”

  Marin rolled her eyes. “I don’t. I think someone put the whammy on him.”

  Elliot stuck his head out of his door. “Really thin walls, guys. And I am not on the cusp of a break with reality.” He glanced up and down the hallway and then at the ceiling. “Even though any normal person sitting inside the belly of a possessed house should be.”

  Marin gave Jack her I-told-you-so look.

  The house was possessed…basically.

  Once Marin and Jack had joined Elliot in his room, Jack explained about the information he was supposed to retrieve from Abi, and then called her.

  “About time.” She sounded out of breath, and Jack had an image of the tidy little expat community they’d visited earlier going up in flames. If Sally had been attacked… He shook his head. It was an idiotic image. Their place wouldn’t burn, because it wasn’t protected at all. Hell.

  “Everything okay on your end?” Jack asked after he’d put the phone on speaker.

  “Yeah, I finally convinced Iris to go to bed, even though it’s ridiculously early. Not an easy task after our conversation with Grandmother.”

  “What did she have to say? Oh, this is Marin speaking, and we’ve got our client Elliot here, as well.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, sir,” Abi said quietly. After Elliot acknowledged her condolences, her voice returned to a more normal pitch. “We didn’t have much time. I think she came back before she was fully charged.”

  Seeing Elliot’s confusion, Jack said, “Abi’s deceased grandmother is our source. Ghosts use up a certain amount of energy when they interact on the physical plane. That’s how a friend of mine with a ghostly relative explained it.”

  Elliot sat down on the edge of his bed, silent but with wide eyes.

  “They can’t manifest just anywhere,” Jack reassured his stricken client. “Ghosts seem to need some connection to the location, and a receptive person is probably helpful.”

  “A medium.” Elliot nodded like that made some kind of sense amidst the weirdness.

  Jack left him to his assumptions. Sure, a medium helped. But what exactly was a medium but a person who was a little more open? Or maybe tied a little closer to the deceased in some inexplicable way? But better to leave it be. Staying inside a possessed house and the possibility of ghosts around every corner—that would put a strain on anyone.

  “She wanted to let us know what we were facing,” Abi said. “Good job with the internet search, because it is an aswang. A very old one, trapped underground years ago and recently released. She didn’t know how long—but we got an emphatic ‘more’ response when we asked if it had been decades.”

  Marin
moved to sit at the small desk next to the bed. “I don’t suppose she had any ideas on how a heart-eating Filipino predator ended up in Corozal.”

  As Marin spoke, Jack planted himself between her and Elliot so Abi could hear them better. Though Elliot wasn’t likely to be contributing much, if his vacant expression was anything to go by.

  “Hey, I can hear Iris getting up. I need to run. But no, nothing about how he ended up here. Could be she just didn’t have time. We did rig up a better system for her to speak with us, so I can ask next time she makes an appearance. Oh, Jack? She was trying to say something when she faded out. S-A-L, if that means anything to you guys.”

  Sal? Sally?

  “We might have an idea.” Again the thought of the two women, out in the ’burbs unprotected, hit him. “Abi? There was an attack on the hostel. Are you sure you’re safe at home? Sanctuary might be more of a target, but it’s also more protection, and there’s room for both of you.”

  “If we weren’t safe, I can guarantee that would have been the first thing my grandmother would have told us.”

  Jack hoped her confidence wasn’t misplaced. They knew so little about this thing: what it wanted, what kind of damage it could inflict…how to kill it. “At least consider coming into town and staying at Sanctuary.”

  “We’re good right where we are.” There was a brief pause and then Abi said, “Thanks.” The line went dead.

  Jack pocketed his phone. If something happened to them… His jaw firmed. Not his responsibility. He’d tried.

  “What are your thoughts on Grandma Abi’s message: Sal?” Jack asked. “What are the chances that our otherworldly visitor knows about Sanctuary?”

  “Depends on if Sally is her name, or just what Leo, Mr. Kaisermann, calls her.” Elliot had emerged from his funk sharp-eyed and engaged. Maybe he was tougher than he looked. “And if a ghost can be in touch with the activities of a deranged supernatural serial killer, why not a possessed house? Both are likely the biggest, strongest, most magical things in the area.” Elliot pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hope they are, anyway.”

  “Earlier, when I spoke to Kaisermann on the phone, he mentioned he’d been having dreams and he wanted to discuss them with me.” Jack stood up.

  “How about you fill me in on this aswang first.” There was a sharp edge to Elliot’s voice.

  Jack lowered himself back down to the edge of the mattress. “They’re originally from the Philippines.”

  “Says the internet.” Marin pulled her chair closer. “We have our own resources, but when they’re not handy—”

  “When her dad’s fallen out of contact with the world,” Jack said.

  “Right. Now that we have a bead on this thing, I can follow up with some other contacts. But in a pinch, the internet works. There’s frequently a parallel in human archives to real beings in the magic-using community.”

  “I get it,” Elliot said. “So what does the wiki of the weird say about aswangs?”

  Jack wasn’t sure Elliot was in the right state of mind to hear the gruesome details, but they didn’t have much choice, given the circumstances. “They consume both heart and liver of victims, can shape-shift to assume the form of various animals, and, generally, they’re nasty, vicious creatures.”

  “Elliot,” Marin said, “when the police spoke with you, did you get a sense of a timeline? When Lila might have been attacked?”

  “When she was killed?” His face grew a few shades paler. “I’d rather you say what you mean. They think…” He swallowed. “They think her body was dumped yesterday or the day before. I don’t know when she died. And both her heart and liver had been removed.” His face pinched and his eyes shone brightly with tears he wouldn’t let fall.

  Jack knew what he’d do if the woman he loved had been killed, her body defiled. He’d lose his shit. Completely and utterly. Even thinking of her now, in this context, it made his gut twist. It was only a little comforting to know she’d probably have set the bastard on fire, that she had some ability to protect herself against evils of the world. Fire witches were anything but defenseless.

  Yeah, given Jack had an idea how he’d feel in a similar situation, Elliot was holding it together pretty damn well.

  Jack hated to tell him, but Elliot was the client. He needed the facts. “We found a liver at Iris’s house. Not Lila’s. There was another victim after her.”

  A fine sheen of sweat broke out on Elliot’s forehead. He closed his eyes and sat, completely still, for several seconds. When he opened his eyes, he looked confused. “If you found a liver, then this thing, this aswang, isn’t eating them. What’s he doing with the rest of them?”

  Jack hadn’t a clue, but he knew it couldn’t be anything good. As he debated whether to leave Elliot alone or bring him with to the interview with Kaisermann, the world tilted. Literally.

  Jack gritted his teeth. The vertigo had to stop or he was going to start doubting his ability to make it to the other side of this case.

  Except it wasn’t vertigo. Of course it wasn’t; he was inside the sanctuary and supposedly safe from psychic attack.

  And then the house shuddered again.

  Chapter Twelve

  “That wasn’t just me, was it?” Jack asked.

  Marin placed her hand on the wall. “Not just you. There’s magic pulsing in the walls.”

  Jack waited to see if another tremor was coming. When the ground stayed firmly under his feet for several seconds, he said, “We need to check on Kaisermann.”

  “You go. I’ll stay here.” She motioned to Elliot.

  When they started talking livers, he’d looked a little rough. Now…now he looked numb.

  “Yeah. Be back shortly.” Jack glanced again at Elliot. “If you have a contact you can tap for more information on aswang…”

  “Yeah.”

  Several guests were descending from the upper floor as Jack exited his room. The third floor must be where the shared rooms were located. From the chatter, the consensus was that there’d been an earthquake.

  No surprise. He encountered it over and over again. Humans were stubbornly unwilling to see the unusual and out of place for what it frequently was: magic.

  Kaisermann was addressing guests as they descended the stairs. “Nothing to worry about. Just a little local tremor. Everything’s fine.” He herded guests to the breakfast room, which also served as the games room, the drinking room, and generally a place for people to congregate and socialize. “Help yourself to the wine. I’ve got a few bottles open.”

  After the last guest had drifted to the breakfast room, Jack said, “Wine? How do you manage that on twenty dollars a night per head?”

  Kaisermann winked. “It’s not good wine. Oh, and you’re paying more than that. Semi-private rooms are at a premium.”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t use that tone. I know you’ll expense it.” Kaisermann inclined his head to the check-in counter. “Join me?”

  “Oh, yes, I think so. That was no tremor, and I’m hoping you can tell me what it was.” Jack walked behind the counter and planted himself in one of the two chairs.

  Kaisermann sat down. “Apologies. I should have warned you. That was just Sally being proactive, pulling her shields up, so to speak.”

  “Her shields? Please tell me we’re not trapped in here.”

  Kaisermann’s eyebrows shot up. “What? No, no. Of course not. There’s just more of her in the house than under it now.”

  “Under it? So is that the deal? She lives in the ground?”

  “In the ground, the house, the surrounding vegetation. It’s all rather Mother Earth-like.”

  Jack wasn’t sure that this was helpful for their current dilemma, so time to hit the meaty stuff. “If you’re sure there’s no problem…” Kaisermann nodded, so Jack asked, “About those dreams you’ve been having—you wanna tell me what you’ve been seeing?”

  “Yes. Very unpleasant in the last few days. They started out much tamer. Initial
ly, I was walking in the forest, being pulled through, compelled to walk down this path. But just a path.”

  Warning bells went off in Jack’s head. Compulsion would be one way to describe mind control. “And then?”

  “Then I’m digging.” Kaisermann rubbed his lower back as he spoke. “Had that one for several days. I thought I was sleeping poorly and my back pain had inserted itself into my dreams, but I got a new mattress and the dreams persisted. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Jack shook his head, but digging combined with a nasty creature that was supposed to be buried…probably not good.

  “Well, then I was trapped in some dark place, and that’s when it got bad. Never had heart problems, but I kept dreaming I was locked in a basement, having a heart attack. Terrible stuff.”

  Jack sighed quietly. “Have you heard the latest news? About the woman found outside of town on the small farm?”

  “Yes, and that there were others.” Kaisermann clasped his age-spotted hands together.

  “You know she was missing her heart.” Jack saw Kaisermann’s eyes widen. Apparently still not in the news—which was weird. “Can you describe what the heart attack felt like?”

  Kaisermann closed his eyes and shook his head. “Wasn’t a heart attack, was it? I just assumed. A man gets to a certain age, and he thinks chest pain is a heart attack. Can you blame me?” He leveled Jack with a grim look. “But yes, it could have been someone carving out my heart.”

  “Hell, that probably would have given me a heart attack. I’ll pass on trading dreams with you.”

  “Good thing my ticker’s still going strong, or it might have. Then again, I like to think Sally wouldn’t send me something that’s gonna kill me.”

  Kaisermann had a good deal of faith in an ancient creature he didn’t know much about and could barely communicate with. Jack didn’t think he’d be capable of it. Then the irony hit him. Sure he was. He was home to the essence of a potentially equally ancient dragon. But his ancient creature—a.k.a. Joshua—wasn’t lurking inside of him. Jack had just gotten Joshua’s psychic energy or his dragony essence. Or something like that. Jack still wasn’t sure on the details.