Spirit and Dust

11


“THEY MUST HAVE followed us,” Carson said when I told him we were about to have visitors. “Let’s go.” He shoved the plastic mummy into his pocket and doused the light, leaving us in the gravestone-cold darkness of the mausoleum.

I didn’t immediately fall into step. “Just close the door and lock it,” I hissed. “We have the only key.”

“Are you sure about that?” He grabbed my hand. “Besides, I’m not a lock-myself-in-a-room-with-one-exit kind of guy.”

He had a point, so I went with him.

The doorway was full of moonlight. Carson stopped at the edge, pressing against the wall, and I did the same. “How far away are they?” he asked.

Mrs. Hardwicke’s shade had drifted with us. “Just down the hill,” she answered, and I relayed that in a whisper.

“Stay low and keep to the shadows,” he murmured, and slipped outside. I followed, grabbing the heavy door on my way and closing it carefully, silently, behind us.

Not quite silently enough.

“Did you hear something?” asked a voice from just down the hill. Way closer than I expected.

“Let’s pick up the pace,” said his companion, and the crunch of shoes on frozen grass sped up.

Carson shoved me out of sight behind an aboveground crypt. I hit the dirt with a grunt, then gave another one as he landed on top of me.

“This is getting to be a bad habit,” I wheezed.

“You’re not much of an escape artist,” he whispered, his breath tickling the back of my neck. “Now shut up.”

The ground was really cold and hard and Carson was hot and heavy, which might be nice in some circumstances, but not just then. I moved so that whatever was digging into my hip dug into a less sensitive place. I thought it was the flashlight, but I wasn’t quite sure. It only just then occurred to me to wonder if Carson was armed.

“Hold still and think camouflage,” he whispered as the footsteps came closer. I could feel them through the ground. We were hidden from the guys’ approach, but one glance to the side and they’d see us.

Mrs. Hardwicke appeared, but all I could see was a pair of gorgeous suede pumps a few inches from my nose. “This is really quite disgraceful, young lady.”

I ignored that, less worried about propriety and more concerned with dying stacked like a deck of playing cards. Do you recognize these guys? I asked her silently. Do you know their names?

“Not their names,” she said. “They’re in some sort of brotherhood.”

Brotherhood? Like … monks?

“More like a fraternal order.” It was strange to hear the granite confidence of Mrs. Hardwicke’s tone crumble with worry. “I don’t like them. They made Alexis nervous.” Then she said, “Here they come.”

My tension must have warned Carson, because he tightened his arm around me. My heart gave a girly sort of flutter at the protective gesture before I was distracted by the sensation of something settling lightly over us, a net of static that played across my nerves like the electric tingle of a ghostly remnant.

“There’s no sign of anyone,” said one of the guys. He sounded youngish—not high school young, but not hardened, either. Maybe twenties? “You really think she told them where to find it?”

“She” must be Alexis, and “them” must be her father, maybe Carson. Now if the guy would just say what “it” was, then lying on the freezing ground would be totally worth the frostbite. But his pal was all business. “Shut up. Team Maguire must be around somewhere.”

Carson tensed, and I heard the first guy say, “Stop looking around like that. You’re giving me the creeps.”

How were they not seeing us? From the sound of their voices, they were right alongside our hiding place.

“You’ll have worse than the creeps if they’ve been here and gone. We need all the pieces, or nothing will be any good. Not the Jackal, not the girl … She’ll be useless.”

“Shhh,” said his buddy, on the steps to the mausoleum. “The door’s unlocked.”

I heard it swing open, and their footfalls going inside. But in my head was the menace of that simple statement: She’ll be useless. Expendable.

Carson exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time. The odd tingling feeling evaporated and the toes of Mrs. Hardwicke’s shoes wavered in front of me.

“Goodness,” she said, sounding shaken. “I thought for sure you would be caught.”

Had Carson done another Jedi mind trick? Sleight of hand, he’d called it when we were leaving the mansion.

He didn’t give me time to ask. “Let’s go,” he whispered, rolling to his feet and pulling me with him. Part of me said, Yes, let’s run, and another part said, No, wait! There was something I was forgetting. Only two guys had passed us. I hadn’t told Carson there were three.

The third guy came into sight just as we jumped up from behind the crypt. The moon was like a spotlight, and there was nothing to do but freeze.

The guy was young, like the others had sounded. He wore a knit cap with a University of Minnesota logo, and brotherhood or not, he did look like a fraternity guy. He also looked as shocked to see us leap out of the shadows as we were to be seen.

The other two came out of the mausoleum behind us. “They’re not here,” the burly guy in the lead started, then broke off when I swung around, putting my back to Carson’s.

Carson squeezed my hand then let go. “Cover your eyes,” he said.

“What? Why—?”

An instant later I heard the flashlight smash to the ground. I clapped my hand over my eyes and squeezed them shut as light flared, reddening the edges of my fingers.

Then there was darkness, and a lot of cursing and yelling. When I dropped my hand, I saw the guy in the hat blinking blindly in the moonlight.

“Get them!” he shouted, but all Thugs One and Two could do was snatch at the spots filling their ruined night vision.

“Run!” said Carson, like I wasn’t already moving.

I took off through the headstones, saving my questions for later. That flare had been way more than a flashlight beam. Just then I was grateful for the head start and the advantage of being able to see by moonlight.

Carson followed on my heels as I weaved through the rows of stone markers. I remembered the way back to the car, and I could navigate the watercolor psychic landscape without relying on the path.

Thugs One and Two and the Cat in the Hat had gotten themselves together, and I heard them galumphing after us. We reached the fence and I started over it with zero finesse, jumping to catch the top rail. And then I just hung there like I was trying to do a chin-up in the worst gym class ever.

Carson put a hand on my butt and shoved. Honestly, I’d seen more action since meeting him than I had in all of high school. I got my leg up and leveraged the rest of me to the top, just as the three hooligans came sliding down the icy grass of the graveyard hill.

Carson scrambled over and dropped to the other side. I tried to do the same, but the collar of my coat caught on one of the spikes. I tumbled from my perch and braced to hit the frozen ground from a nine-foot drop but instead jerked to a stop, half choked by the coat and hung out like a rag doll on a clothesline.

“Ditch the coat!” Carson said, his eyes on the hoodlums closing fast. I unzipped and wriggled out of the parka, then stumbled and hit the ground.

Something slithered from around my neck and dropped into the grass. The Hardwicke pearls. “Leave it,” said Carson, and only the sight of the three guys clambering up the fence convinced me to listen to him.

We raced to where we’d left the Taurus on the darkened lane. Momentum slammed me against the passenger door, and as I fumbled for the handle, Mrs. Hardwicke appeared beside me.

A desperate cold came with her, so intense that I wheezed with it. “You have to get away,” she said, her hollow eyes all icy burning. “Get away and help Alexis.”

“I will,” I swore, as solemnly as I’d sworn the oath to Maguire.

Behind her—no, through her—I could see the last thug, the guy in the hat, pick something up from the grass. Mrs. Hardwicke’s pearl necklace.

Carson started the car. Then the door banged me in the hip as he leaned over and opened it from inside. “Get in!” he snapped. “There’s no time for a tea party with Grandma!”

Mrs. Hardwicke’s glow brightened with gratitude. “Thank—”

Then she vanished. Not from sight, from existence.

How was that possible? I cranked up the psychic infrared to search for her, forgetting everything else.

“Daisy Goodnight!” Carson’s voice shook me to bedrock level. “Get in this car right now!”

I dove into the car and slammed the door as Carson gunned the engine and peeled onto the pavement. “Buckle up!” he yelled as the Taurus fishtailed and clipped a tree trunk close to the narrow lane.

I twisted to look behind us. Thug One and Thug Two ran for another car parked nearby. But their buddy stood in the middle of the road, both hands raised, palms up, Mrs. Hardwicke’s pearls catching the light as they dangled from his fingers. I didn’t know what he was about to drop on us, but it wasn’t going to be puppies and Christmas.

“Duck!” I yelled, and did. Carson stomped on the gas and hunkered down behind the wheel as the rear window exploded inward. I wrapped my arms over my head as the car was filled with chunks of safety glass, frigid air, and the scent of Chanel No. 5.