Grave Alchemy

by Amanda Armour

  Chapter 20

  Much to my annoyance, Basil picked up his phone and called Dante. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy with the plan to rescue Natasha from the mine. I could hear him shouting from across the room, Basil just grinned at me and held the phone away from his ear. Dante was still yelling when I snatched the phone from Basil and ended the call. There was no point in telling Basil I told you so, we’d just end up arguing again, but that’s exactly what I did. I sat down on the sectional and shoved Basil’s phone between the cushions.

  “You shouldn’t have called him. I bet he’s on his way over here now to yell at us in person.”

  Basil plopped down beside me and tried to dig for his phone. “You’re the one that hung up on him. It’s your fault.”

  “He doesn’t know that, he’ll assume you did.”

  Sure enough, twenty minutes later Dante was ringing the doorbell. His calm demeanor was a little unsettling, he almost seemed happy. I directed him up the stairs and followed behind, taking in the view as we made our way up to the attic.

  “Wow,” Dante exclaimed as he strode into Basil’s domain. “You’ve moved up in the world. How many years were you living in that hole?” Dante turned to me and explained. “When I first met him, he was living in a cave, up in the Rocky Mountains. He’d scavenged a few pieces of furniture from a burned-out cabin. I never did get the smell out of that jacket.”

  “I can understand Basil living in a cave. But what were you doing there?” I had no idea that these two had a history; this should be a good story.

  “He was hiding out. I was kind enough to let him stay,” Basil smirked as he offered Dante a beer.

  “Thanks,” Dante responded with a smile. “I ran into a bit of trouble and was on the run from some not very nice guys.”

  “A bit of trouble? You robbed their boss and made off with his girlfriend. He wanted you dead.”

  “Stop exaggerating. You know very well that she’d been kidnapped,” Dante paused and looked over at me. “She was only 15 and scared to death; we got her home, but they came after me.”

  “Was that when you were working with Henry?” I asked. I knew Greg told me not to mention it, but I couldn’t resist.

  “It was. You must have been talking to Greg. How is he doing?”

  “Good, he and John are engaged,” I replied.

  “Those two will never make it,” Basil commented. “They can’t even agree what to have for lunch.”

  Dante laughed at that. “I haven’t met John yet, but anyone who puts up with Greg’s antics is okay in my book. Now, what’s going on with you two? And why do you want to search a mine?”

  I told Dante everything that had happened in the last week, and Basil related what he had uncovered in Phineaus’ manuscript.

  “So, Natasha is missing. Why do you think she’s the latest victim? It could be something totally unrelated, like she’s just gone shopping.” Dante was playing devil’s advocate; I think he wanted to make sure we had all the facts.

  “If she’d gone shopping, she would have taken Annie with her,” I explained, “Harvey found a globe containing a stolen soul and a cursed bullet in her house. Sam admitted to planting the bullet, and Natasha denied knowing about the globe. That means someone went to a lot of trouble to set her up, and now she’s missing. That makes me think she knew something that might point to the killer. She’s somewhere in the Last Hope mine. No one would go there willingly, it’s too dangerous.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that Sam bought the cursed bullets from two rogues who kidnapped a witches daughter. Then he used the bullets to shoot at Noah and kill Sally. Phineaus Pratt was buying souls and experimenting with them, just so he could move into a new body. Pratt murdered Felix, either before or after he moved into another body.” Dante paused for breath before continuing, “Then two guys show up, try to kill you and steal your computers. Now Natasha, who you both dislike and thought was the killer, has disappeared. Is that it?”

  “You forgot Tom Flinders, the murdered PI,” Basil added. “Both Felix and Francesca Santoro hired him. And he had Nasty’s name and phone number.”

  I took a swipe at Basil as he slipped off the couch. “Stop making stuff up. Flinders wasn’t murdered, he fell down the stairs. We don’t know who the thugs that attacked me are—but they weren’t reapers. Anyway, one’s dead and the other escaped.”

  “Any thoughts on whose body Phineaus transferred his soul to?” Dante asked.

  “The only thing we found was a birthday cake for Frank,” Basil mumbled.

  “He ate the name,” I said, pointing at Basil, who ducked his head.

  Dante laughed, “He’s always been greedy, so I’m not surprised. Are you sure it was Frank?”

  “All the letters were clear except for the K. Basil obliterated it, so we can’t be sure. It was just a guess.” I suddenly realized what Dante was thinking. “It was Francesca, not Frank!”

  “Francesca?” Basil asked, looking surprised.

  “What would she be doing with Phineaus?” I asked.

  Dante smiled and nodded his head. “I did some checking. Until a year ago, Phineaus and Fran were living together. Out of the blue, she kicks Phineaus out and announces her engagement to Dom Delgrosso.”

  “So Phineaus and Francesca are behind it. Phineaus must have used Delgrosso’s body, because he didn’t want to lose Francesca.” The pieces were finally falling into place. “Felix must have seen what they were doing, and the men who tried to kill me were Francesca’s thugs. Basil, do you remember those earrings Francesca was wearing?”

  “The big dangly things, sure.”

  “Sam said the woman who paid him to enchant the scrolls was wearing big gaudy earrings. It had to Francesca.”

  Basil grabbed his phone and opened his email; it was an update notification. “Ha, about time,” he exclaimed and opened a family tree app; he turned the screen toward us. “That search took forever. Look at this, Nasty and Francesca are related, they’re distant cousins. I bet Nasty found out what Fran and Phineaus were up to, so they snatched her.”

  “We have to come up with a plan to find Natasha and stop them.” I wasn’t sure if we could pull it off, but I couldn’t let them kill Natasha; Annie would never forgive me. “Maybe we should call in the SIB after all?”

  “We could leave it up to them, but do you really think they’ll believe us? I brought a map,” Dante said, pulling it out of his duffle bag.

  “Those guys have more experience than us. They could grab Nasty and end all this.”

  “Where’s your proof? By the time they verify our theory, Natasha will be dead. Do you want that on your conscience?” Dante replied.

  “I already came to that conclusion, they won’t act on a rumor.” The only option was to rescue her ourselves. I handed my phone to Basil. “Here, print out Skye’s picture of the map.”

  Dante had come prepared with a folded map and he spread it out on the table and compared it to Skye’s scrap. The area in question was on the left side of the mining camp, where the oldest and deepest shaft was. Basil brought up a satellite view of the camp; it was laid out in a rough triangle with a large building in the middle. Smaller buildings, in various states of ruin, lay scattered about the camp. The first shaft produced enough silver to start a boom and establish the town of Silver Falls. The mine became known as Lost Hope when each successive shaft produced less and less silver.

  “They’re bound to have thugs standing guard,” I said, pointing at the map, and Dante sketched in the approximate location of the buildings.

  Dante looked at Basil, “You head over there now, scout out the area. When you come back, we’ll finalize our plans.”

  While Basil was out scouting, Dante and I went down to the kitchen for something to eat. My heart was thumping as we headed down the stairs. I felt a little giddy and had to hold on to the banister. What on earth was wrong with me? It must be the thought of confronting armed thugs.

  “Why did you dec
ide to help us?” I asked, handing him a mug of coffee.

  “Basil doesn’t call for help, ever. He thinks he’s indestructible. So I figured I’d better help, keep you safe. Besides, it’s not every day you get to chase a mad wizard who’s been experimenting with souls and swapped bodies.” Dante looked up from his cup. “Felix didn’t deserve to die. I want to find his killer as much as you do.”

  “He’s okay,” I said, reaching for Dante’s hand. I smiled as memories of Felix and our childhood vacations came flooding back. “When I asked him why he went rogue, he said if he told me he’d have to kill me.”

  “You must have made his day. He’d been waiting forever, to use that line.”

  When Dante laughed, his eyes twinkled. It warmed my heart to see him smile—I was truly smitten. He seemed genuinely interested when he asked about my life and ambitions. I’m usually restrained, when it comes to talking about my parents, but I found myself blurting out everything, including their disappearance. He echoed my feelings when by suggesting that the investigation had been bungled. I even enjoyed repeating the legend of the Graveley diamond, it was the second biggest mystery in my family. Looking back, I wasn’t so sure it had ever existed. My father had been a master at inventing games designed to keep Annie and me occupied, and I think that the diamond might have been one of them. Uncle Iggy never denied the story, but I think he thought searching for it would keep me occupied, and out of his way. Dante seemed interested and from the look on his face, I could tell he thought there was some truth to the story.

  “When this is all over, will you have dinner with me?” he asked.

  I laughed, “We’re having dinner now.”

  “I meant a real date,” Dante said as his finger stroked my wrist.

  “Oh.” What a dork. It had been so long since I'd been on a date that I didn’t realize I’d just been asked. “Yes, I’d like that.”

  Basil announced his return by barreling through the kitchen door, leap frogging over the back of a chair and landing on the seat. “Commander Basil reporting,” he said while saluting Dante.

  “Don’t you mean Private?” Dante asked. I don’t know how he managed to keep a straight face, I had to bite my finger to keep from laughing. “What did you find?”

  “Nothing, she’s not there. No one’s there, it’s a ghost town.”

  I was just about to suggest that she might have been hidden in one of the shafts, when Dante jumped in ahead of me. So I sat back and listened while he grilled Basil. Since there were no vehicles parked at the mine, he taken the time to search the buildings and most of the shafts. He hadn’t found any sign of her and was positive that she’d never been there. According to Basil, Natasha had a distinct odor, if she’d been there he would have found her. When I gave him a quizzical look, he explained that among many of his special talents was the ability to identify anyone by their scent, he had a sensitive nose. Having my own personal bloodhound around could prove useful, come to think of it, he did look a little like a large dog.

  “Why don’t you just fly around for a while and sniff her out?” I asked.

  Basil halted his report, rolled his eyes at me and sighed. “It doesn’t work like that. I’m not a dog, I have to be really close.”

  “Well excuse me. How was I supposed to know that? You made it sound like you could.”

  I was certain that the witches hadn’t made a mistake, Francesca and Phineaus must have moved her, but I was at a loss as to why and where. Dante retrieved his computer and was busy running a search for the properties owned by the Delgrosso and Santoro families, when I received a string of texts from the night shift reaper. Sherry was new to the job, and prone to gossiping with the souls she was assigned to pick up. The message should have been short and to the point, like a simple Help. Instead, it rambled on about a soul who had been chattering away for over an hour, and showed no sign of stopping.

  “I have to go, but you’re welcome to stay. I shouldn’t be more than an hour,” I said to Dante, as I grabbed my purse and headed out.

  Basil flicked his wrist a few times, dismissing me. “We’ll be here.”

  Sherry was sitting on a log with her hands over her ears when I arrived. With any luck, she would learn from this and stop engaging the souls. I moved behind the chatty soul and flicked my scepter straight through her. She was so startled that she actually stopped talking long enough for me to point out that she needed to get going and join the rest of her family. I then directed my attention to Sherry, who started babbling on about nothing in particular.

  “She just agreed, so suck her up,” I said, pointing at the now silent woman. “And try to stop talking to them.”

  I stomped back to my car, grumbling the whole way. Sherry’s response had been ‘pot and kettle’, instead of a thank you. I’ve been known to carry on conversations with them as well, but I’ve never wasted a whole hour listening to them. I was almost home when a silver Lexus swerved around me and roared off. The license plate was unmistakable, ‘snduon’, it was Natasha’s.

  I was incensed, how dare she make us think that someone had kidnapped her. If this was her idea of revenge, she had another think coming. It took less than fifteen seconds for me to decide to go after her and give her a piece of my mind. We headed east out of town, the road was relatively straight, so I was able to keep her in sight without tailgating. I sped up when she took the westbound Bay Freeway on-ramp, the traffic was heavy and I was afraid I would losing her. I positioned myself in the middle lane and kept at least three cars back as we traveled over the top of Silver Falls.

  Natasha was a pain in the butt, and I couldn’t figure out why she would have staged her own kidnapping. She was smarter than that, and it seemed like a lot of trouble to go through, just to get revenge. Besides, worrying Annie didn’t seem like her style. She would have been more likely to spread rumors about me, or try to get me fired. Come to think of it, tit for tat seemed more like her style, getting me arrested would put a smile on her face.

  It occurred to me that I should let Dante and Basil know what I was doing and dug in my bag for the phone. It was times like this I could really use one of those hands-free things, digging for a phone was really distracting. I was about to hit speed dial when I saw Natasha’s SUV exit onto Beach St. My phone fell to the floor as I grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and swerved toward the exit. The driver of the truck beside me laid on his horn, giving me the finger as he raced passed. I was beginning to think that chasing Natasha was a bad idea when she turned onto the dirt road leading to the overlook. It was a remote area overlooking the beach, mostly used as a make-out spot by the local high school kids. She parked her SUV under a tree, off to the side of the clearing, I could see her sitting in the drivers seat. I pulled in behind the SUV, got out and stomped up to the driver’s door. I was about to bang on the window, when the window rolled down, revealing a smirking Francesca. When I stepped back to let her open the door, someone grabbed me from behind. I wrenched my self free and swung around coming face to face with Domenic. Pain shot through my head and I reached out to steady myself grabbing at Dominec’s shirt. He tried to hold me up, but I slid toward the ground, raking my hands down his chest. The last thing I saw as my vision faded to black, was the Dominec’s dazed look.

  Chapter 21

  Sometime later—it could have been hours or minutes for all I knew—I woke up in a large cage, with a splitting headache. The concrete floor was covered in oily patches and some of it had saturated my clothes. From my vantage point on the floor, all I could see were bars, tires and bumpers. My first thought was that a vintage sports car buff had kidnapped me, then I remembered Francesca’s face when she rolled down the window. When I shifted onto my side racks full of crates came into view, I realized that I was in a warehouse.

  Angry voices echoed from somewhere above me, causing me to put my hands over my ears. I looked around to discover that I wasn’t alone, Natasha was fast asleep in the far corner. I watched fascinated, as her mouth op
ened and closed in rhythm with her snores and snorts. In any other situation I might have found it funny and recorded her. My left arm had fallen asleep and when I rubbed it to get the blood flowing, I felt something hard. Pulling up my sleeve revealed a metal band etched with strange symbols. Someone had clamped it above my elbow and it was cutting off the circulation. I pulled and tugged at it, but gave up when it wouldn’t budge. Natasha might know what it was, if she ever woke up. Looking at my watch, I was stunned to find I'd been here for hours. I was sure by now, Basil and Dante had realized that something was wrong, and were coming to my rescue.

  Something was digging into my hip, I poked at it and smiled when I felt a lump of metal. I dug in my pocket attempting to shift the lump, when I felt another object, it was a stray piece of lead. Still smiling at my luck, I pulled both pieces out and quickly wrapped the lead around the medallion. While Dom had been trying to hold me up, and before I passed out, I wrapped my fingers around the medallion, snapped the chain and slipped it into my pocket. I wasn’t sure exactly who he was now, Dominec, Phineaus or a combination of both, so I decided to call him Phin, to avoid getting confused. Even though Francesca could no longer control him, it didn’t guarantee he'd let us go, but it might give us a fighting chance.