Entombed Read online

  Whatever his connection to Joshua, Jack was hardly in a position to judge whether placing one’s trust in ancient magical creatures was a good idea.

  “Ah, about Sally—did you come up with the name or did she?”

  “I’m not sure. Does it matter?”

  “I got a message from the great beyond that might have mentioned Sally.”

  “The great beyond?” A spark of curiosity lit within Kaisermann’s eyes, and Jack remembered that the man had shown equal interest when communicating with the dead had come up before.

  “Ghosts. If you haven’t run into any, they’re around. One reached out to us recently via a medium. We’ve received a few pieces of information from her, but her last communication was cut off mid-message: S-A-L. No context, other than the recent killings.”

  “I hope there wasn’t any implication that Sally was responsible.”

  “No, nothing like that. If she did mean Sally, then I’d guess she was trying to point us in the direction of another source.” Jack massaged his neck. “It would be a nice change to get a straight answer. Interpreting dreams and ghostly messages lacks a certain clarity that might be nice, given we’re hunting a supernatural serial killer.”

  “Predator.”

  “Sorry?”

  “It’s a predator. If it were human, it might be a serial killer. It’s not human, so it’s likely a predator hunting for what it needs to survive.” Kaisermann shrugged. “Fifty years as a hunter says I’m right.”

  Jack considered Kaisermann’s words. “I’ll pass on that bet. Anything else you can think of that Sally might be trying to tell us?”

  “No. What did you get out of that muddle I gave you?”

  “Between your dreams and our ghost’s messages, we know we’re dealing with an aswang, native to the Philippines. That it can compel its victims to some as yet unknown degree, that it was likely buried, probably released by some poor soul or souls who were compelled to dig him up. That he removes the heart and liver, for purposes as yet unknown—but like you said, probably to do with his survival.”

  “Why here?”

  “Excellent question. Belize has been the nexus of too many magical or magic-adjacent events recently for there not to be a connection. Something about Belize…?” Jack expelled an irritated huff of breath, but his frustration didn’t ease. “It traveled an awfully long way to find its hunting ground.”

  “Ah, are you sure?”

  “Hell no. What are you thinking?”

  “That we don’t know it chose Corozal as its hunting ground, but we do know it was trapped here.”

  Jack didn’t see the old guy’s point. “What’s the difference? He was here—for some reason—and then was trapped. Now he’s awake and back to his nasty aswang tricks.”

  “Hm. Maybe. But he’s from the Philippines and got stuck underground here, in Belize. There’s something there.” Kaisermann tapped his temple. “I’ll have a think on it before I go to bed tonight. Maybe Sally will come through for us.”

  “Absolutely. Anything you come up with, we’ll be grateful.” Jack stood to leave, but then turned back around. “We really do appreciate you putting us up. We’ve brought this killer—predator—to your doorstep, and—”

  “No. Don’t mention it again. I spent my life denying my connection to Sally, refusing to acknowledge that the old sanctuary in Austin was anything other than a house. When I moved to Belize, I promised myself… ” Kaisermann leaned forward with narrowed eyes. “I promised Sally that I was all in. And this is what being all in looks like.”

  Jack couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. He hoped he had a cause he believed in half as much when he was Kaisermann’s age. “Yes, sir.”

  Jack jogged up the flight of stairs without any flashes of vertigo. Better yet, the ache in his jaw and side from his encounter with Elliot was fading.

  He was ready to kick some aswang butt.

  He knocked on the door of room three and then let himself in. The doors were old school and didn’t lock automatically.

  Marin turned her back to the door and continued to speak quietly on her phone. Since he caught the occasional “yes, sir,” he figured it was her dad’s boss, head of the McClellan clan.

  Not all dragons organized as clans, nor were all dragons Scottish. That was just the McClellan Clan—the only dragons Jack happened to know. Oddly, most of them didn’t sound particularly Scottish. Probably something to do with living in the now. It was a big deal in the dragon world, because if a dragon stopped living in the now—started clinging to the past—they went nuts. A one-ton mass of scales and muscle that could shoot fire with laser precision or cut a fiery swath the length of a football field was not a creature anyone wanted running around with a screw loose.

  Marin ended the call.

  As she tucked her phone away, Jack said, “Everything’s good on the house front. Sally’s just being extra cautious. How’s Lachlan?”

  It took her a moment to turn around, and when she did, she’d wiped all emotion from her face.

  A nasty feeling hit him in the gut. “What’s happened?”

  Calmly, clearly, she said, “Lachlan’s just told me that my father’s missing.”

  Holy hell.

  “He took leave from IPPC to handle a clan matter, and Lachlan’s lost contact with him.”

  Jack hated to ask… “How long?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Elliot said. “You need to leave. I’ll get you a ticket on the next flight out. I’m sure—”

  “No!” The air crackled as Marin snapped the response. The sharp static feeling in the air was gone as fast as it had appeared, and Marin lowered her voice to a more reasonable volume. “No. I’ve been advised not to return. That the situation with my father is under control for now”—her nostrils flared, demonstrating exactly how credible she found Lachlan’s statement—“and the clan needs me here more.”

  Now Jack knew what all of the “yes, sirs” were about. And that bad feeling he’d had before ramped up threefold. “The aswang.”

  Marin nodded. “He said he’d come himself, but given the circumstances, he couldn’t spare the time or any other clan resources.” A brief flicker of intense emotion crossed her face. “He needs to focus all of his attention on finding my father. I need him focusing all of his attention there.”

  Jack held up a hand and shook his head when Elliot would have protested. “Did he give you any information on aswangs? How to kill one, preferably?”

  Again with the pinched nostrils. “He told me dragon fire won’t do it. Lachlan thought they were gone, wiped out years ago, because there haven’t been reports of them in ages. He also had his suspicions as to why this thing had been trapped—that it was in a feeding frenzy and couldn’t be stopped any other way. Although whoever did it probably didn’t count on it surviving in hibernation indefinitely.”

  “Shit.”

  Elliot looked back and forth between Marin and Jack. “What? I mean, we have to figure out how to kill it, but you guys can do that. That’s what you do. Right?”

  “If it can be killed.” Jack gritted his teeth. “What she’s saying is that her boss, a well of supernatural minutiae, doesn’t know how, so he’s not sure it can be killed.” Turning to Marin, he said, “Any thoughts on trapping it?”

  “Find the original cage, stuff him back inside it, and hope like hell it holds him longer this time. At least long enough to work out a more permanent solution.” Marin inclined her head once, then again more decisively. “And that needs to happen before the world figures out he’s not human and magic is involved. The danger with a creature like an aswang is more than the swath of dead bodies it leaves behind. It’s also the magnifying glass that follows so many deaths and the increased risk of exposure. From what Lachlan says, it won’t stop. They have a rabid hunger for human hearts.”

  Mass casualties would be IPPC and the clan’s main concern, not the individual victims. Lots of dead bodi
es created awkward questions. Jack’s buddy Kenna worked with IPPC, specifically with Harrington, more than he did. And he had to agree with Kenna’s oft-voiced complaint that the man’s priorities weren’t always in the right place.

  Jack knew that individuals could cope when confronted with the reality of magic. He had a few years of anecdotal evidence on the subject. Humans, on a small scale, were able to not only comprehend that magic existed, but also to keep the concept under wraps.

  Unfortunately, the world wasn’t full of individuals; it was full of groups of people. Adding in magic made one plus one equal riots and mass executions. The world wasn’t ready for witches, spell casters, and dragons. He knew it in his gut. But Corozal shouldn’t have to burn for that.

  Finally, Jack asked, “And what is Lachlan going to do if the potential for a reveal scandal increases?”

  “Lachlan, IPPC—someone—will take care of it if it goes that far.”

  “It?” Elliot asked. “The leak? The town? The people of Corozal?”

  Marin narrowed her eyes, but didn’t respond.

  Elliot ran his hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up at odd angles. “These are good people, and they sure as hell aren’t responsible for anything this monster has done. They’re the victims.”

  Jack had his doubts that IPPC and the clan could create a media blackout. The internet was a relatively new factor when it came to the question of protecting the world from knowledge of magic. But IPPC resources were also growing in quantity and variety every day—so…maybe.

  “We make sure it doesn’t come to that,” Jack said. “We stick this bastard back in the ground.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  It turned out that shoving the aswang back into whatever hole it crawled out of was a lot more difficult in application than in theory—a fact that was startlingly clear to Jack after he, Marin, and Elliot spent over an hour discussing logistics.

  Finding the cage that had contained the creature was just the beginning. Then they had to figure out how he had escaped and repair the breach—assuming they could even figure out how the cage worked. Then they had to lure him to the cage—a spot he had to be smart enough to avoid if his prison could still hold him. And, finally, they had to figure out how to avoid death, of the complete and permanent variety, while locking him back in the cage…somehow.

  “This plan sucks.” Elliot took another piece of pizza from the box and then dropped down on the small chaise next to Jack.

  “What plan? There’s no plan if we can’t get past step one. Where’s the cage?” Marin frowned at Elliot. “Besides, what are you worried about? You can’t leave Sanctuary, since we know Nate’s whammy works on you.”

  “Why are we calling him Nate, again?” Elliot asked before taking a bite of pizza.

  “Marin and I decided while you were in the bathroom. It was the most innocuous name we could come up with.”

  “I don’t get it.” Elliot’s words came out muffled by cheese and crust.

  At least he was eating, a big improvement from distraught and numb with fear. Jack wasn’t sure what he’d do if the guy tried to cry on his shoulder.

  Jack shrugged. “It’s a thing I do. Give fear a name—better yet, a ridiculous name—and you take its power away.”

  “And that works?”

  Marin laughed. “No. We just got lucky last time that the scary thing wasn’t actually out to get us.”

  Shaking his head, Elliot said, “Fine, although Nate seems more normal than ridiculous. Oh, I see what you did there: so normal, extra normal, so normal that it’s kinda funny. Nice. Hey, how do we know that you guys can’t be mind-hammered just like I was?”

  Jack lobbed his greasy napkin into the trash bin. “Because I haven’t tried to kill Marin, and Marin hasn’t turned me to ash. If Nate had the ability, I’m betting he would have turned us on each other.”

  Elliot cocked his head. “Or he’s waiting for the right time.”

  “No way Jack is getting the jump on me.” Marin eyed the last piece of pizza and snagged it when Jack and Elliot both declined.

  Kind of her not to comment on Jack’s chances against her in a brawl. No doubt in his mind: he’d end up a smudge on the floor.

  “Besides,” Marin said, “we think he’s tried with Jack. When was the first time you got lightheaded, Jack?”

  “Walking up the stairs to the hotel room the first time. I almost fell over my own feet, and Nate—decked out in his human skin—was right there.”

  Elliot’s nostrils flared. “That’s probably enough with the ‘human skin’ stuff. And that is pretty ballsy for him to attack you when he’s standing just feet away.”

  “Not if he thought his disguise was infallible,” Marin said.

  “Uh-huh.” Elliot really had a hard time with their aswang parading around in human skin. Once he regained his composure, he asked, “How is it that Jack wasn’t hijacked and I was? Why me and not you?”

  Jack knew one big difference between himself and Elliot. Something he shared with Marin, who’d been equally unaffected. He shared a glance with Marin, and they both said, “Joshua.”

  “Who’s Joshua?” Elliot asked. “And how is he protecting you from being mind-hijacked?”

  “Joshua was a dragon, who…” Jack shrugged. Who what?

  Marin swallowed the last bit of her pizza. “Long story short, Jack’s part dragon in a very unobtrusive, not-relevant-to-everyday-life kind of way.”

  Jack turned to look at her.

  “What? That’s close. Like you could do better.”

  Elliot shook his head. “So dragons—sorry, dragons and part-dragons”—he gave Jack a little side-eye—“are immune to mind control.”

  “Aswang mind control,” Marin said, then her face twitched in a brief expression of distaste. “And part dragon might be a bit of a stretch.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jack said to Marin. “I’m not planning to start claiming you guys as my people.” But he was glad to discover a perk to this whole dragon-soul-absorption thing, or whatever Marin wanted to call it. ’Bout damn time.

  “Yeah, so about your people…” Elliot gave Marin one of his puppy-eyed lost looks. “If dragons are immune, can’t you get some other dragons to come and help? I understand that there’s a certain amount of resources extended to find your father, but maybe some other dragons?”

  “We don’t all play nicely together, unfortunately. But we could call in reinforcements of another kind. Jack? What do you think?”

  “Harrington? I say that’s a terrible idea. We’ve got this.” And since he wasn’t at all sure that they had this, he didn’t know where those words were coming from.

  “Are you smoking something?” Marin threw Elliot an apologetic look then turned back to Jack. “Seriously, though—are you delusional? You know I’m not his biggest fan, but this aswang doesn’t even ash under dragon fire. That’s messed up.”

  “Okay, true—but what can he really do?” Jack asked.

  Elliot tensed. “Murder a bunch of people.”

  “I’m sorry, Elliot,” Jack said. “I don’t mean to make light of what’s happened. I simply mean that for a magical creature, we haven’t seen much magic. He’s preyed on humans who have no knowledge of what he is and therefore have no way to prepare or defend themselves. We know he’s likely strong. But Marin’s strong. He’s got some ability to influence human minds—but not Marin and I. What else can he do?”

  “We don’t know, Jack. That’s a big part of the problem. Where you assume a limitation to his abilities, I assume ignorance of them.”

  “Right.” Jack clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “You’ve just determined our first course of action: recon and research. We have local sources, we have Sally, we have some other contacts. Hell, I can call my coven contact.”

  At least, he thought he could. He hadn’t tried their excommunicated fire witch’s phone number in a while. There was a small chance the coven had found and disposed of her. Very small; she
was a clever lady.

  “And there’s Harry,” Marin said.

  “Yes.” Jack snapped his fingers. “Exactly. We have resources. Like I said, recon and research. What do you say, Marin? You up for a little dragon flight around Corozal?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elliot’s eyes widened. “You mean…” His gaze locked in on Marin. “You can…ah…you know?” He pointed to the ceiling with one finger.

  “If you’re trying to ask if I can fly, yes, I can.” Marin shot Jack a frustrated look. “I can even avoid radar and blend into the sky a bit. But I think what Jack is suggesting has more to do with my tracking abilities. Flying is just a means to cover more ground quickly.”

  “She’s an amazing tracker, but in denial of the fact.” Jack shrugged. “I think it stems from a dislike of being compared to a Lycan.”

  “No, Jack, I’m not so petty. I keep telling you, tracking isn’t one of my best skills. The reason for my fabulous camo: I have to get ridiculously close to a magical signature to pick it up. What if our buddy Nate has some kind of longer-range weapon?”

  “Well, that will suck, because I’m planning to hitch a ride.”

  Marin laughed. “No.”

  “Come on. I trust you won’t drop me.” Jack eyed her. “You won’t drop me, right?”

  She stared back. “Not on purpose. But no way. You’ll seriously inhibit my mobility. And—not that the world needs to know this,” she said as she glanced at Elliot, “but the undersides of my wings aren’t armored as well as the rest of me.”

  “What, do you usually nosedive your prey?”

  Marin closed her eyes and softly sighed. “Not prey. I don’t hunt as a dragon. As if you don’t already know that. The local deer population wouldn’t be so out of control if I did.”

  She had a point there. But she didn’t deny the dive-bombing thing. Made sense if her primary weapon was fire and not claws. “Oh, so if your fire’s no good against an aswang, how do you attack him?”