by Paige Tyler
Muncie frowned. “Burn it? What the hell for?”
“To get rid of his ghost.”
“Ghost?” Simpson asked incredulously. “You’re kidding, right?”
Trace slanted him a hard look. “No, I’m not kidding. What do you think has been murdering all those women?”
The other man sneered. “There are no such things as ghosts.”
“Yeah, well tell that to the five women he murdered,” Trace said. “Let me ask you this, Simpson. If it wasn’t a ghost, then how the hell do you explain how the murderer got into Marissa Day’s bedroom without an apartment full of guests ever seeing him, huh? Or into a locked panic room? Or any of the other locked apartments he got into without being seen?”
Simpson didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought.” Trace looked from Simpson to Muncie. “Del Vecchio’s ghost is going to try to stop us from burning his body. Your job is to keep him away from Cassidy and me long enough for us to roast him. Don’t assume you’ll be safe because you have your backs to a wall. As you saw from the crime scenes, things like walls won’t stop him. Those shotgun shells, on the other hand, will. They won’t kill him, though. Burning his mortal remains is the only thing that will do that. Which is why you have to make sure he doesn’t stop us. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Muncie said. “We got it. What about the other guy, Martin? How does he fit into all this?”
“Martin is a practicing necromancer, which means he brings people like his friend Del Vecchio back from the dead,” Trace said. “If you see any stiff, shambling things moving toward you, feel free to shoot to your heart’s content. They’re already dead and sure as hell won’t feel it.”
Simpson shook his head. “McCord, you’re one certifiably sick fuck, you know that?”
Trace snorted and headed across the street. He didn’t bother checking to see if the other two men followed him and Cassidy this time. They were in or they weren’t. Right now, he didn’t much care. He glanced at Martin’s car as they passed, taking in the half-dozen tree-shaped air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror. Leave it to a necromancer to want to get the smell of death off his body by drowning it in artificial pine scent.
When he and Cassidy reached the back door of the funeral home, Trace threw a quick look over his shoulder to see that both Muncie and Simpson were with them. He hoped the cops had paid attention to what he’d said back there because once they got inside, things had the potential to get real ugly, real fast.
Trace reached out and grasped the doorknob, giving it an experimental turn. To his surprise, it turned freely. Luckily, Martin hadn’t locked it after he’d gone inside. That made things a little easier.
He glanced over his shoulder at Cassidy. She looked nervous, but not terrified. She was also keeping her shotgun pointed straight up and her fingers off the triggers.
Trace turned his attention to Muncie and Simpson. Muncie appeared tense and focused, as he would on any bust. Simpson, however, still seemed like he thought this was all a big-ass joke. Whatever. He’d figure it out soon enough or he’d be dead. Trace didn’t have time to worry about him. His one and only priority was protecting Cassidy.
Chapter Nineteen
Cassidy’s heart was beating a thousand miles an hour as she followed Trace into the funeral home, and she wondered if maybe she should have stayed in the SUV. Then she thought of how worried she would have been about Trace if she had, and knew she could never have let him go in by himself. That more than anything else she’d experienced with the handsome ghost hunter over the last few days convinced her that she had seriously fallen for Trace. Amazing what the prospect of facing a serial-killing ghost and a dangerous necromancer could do to clarify a romantic connection. She promised herself right then the moment they got out of this, she was going ask Trace if he thought their relationship had any long-term potential. Scratch that. Why ask him what he thought? She was going to tell him what she thought, that they had long-term potential and expect him to act accordingly from there. Providing they both made it out of this alive. The thought made her stomach churn and she resolutely tightened her grip on the shotgun.
As they slowly made their way down the hallway of the funeral home, Cassidy heard an odd, droning sound coming from somewhere in the building. Muncie and Simpson must have heard it as well because they frowned and looked at each other nervously. She was anxious, too. Whatever was making that noise didn’t sound human. Trace had said Martin was a necromancer and that they could be going up against other things besides Del Vecchio’s ghost. Had he been talking about zombies? She hoped not. They sounded even scarier than ghosts.
As they got closer to the room at the far end of the hallway, she realized the sound they’d heard was actually someone chanting. There was a dim, dancing light playing along the walls inside the room, too, as if a campfire was burning around the corner.
Trace caught her eye and jerked his head toward her shotgun, then motioned the act of putting his finger on the trigger guard. When she mimicked his actions, he nodded.
Inside the room, the chanting suddenly stopped. The silence was more unnerving than the chanting had been and Cassidy’s hands trembled. Giving them a nod, Trace stepped into the room. Cassidy followed, as did Muncie and Simpson. The room was bigger than she’d expected it to be and she tried to look everywhere at once, terrified Del Vecchio was going to appear at any moment.
The only light in the room came from a series of small fires arranged in a circle in the center. They filled the room with a thick, pungent smoke that made it hard to breathe and she had to fight not to cough. It smelled almost like the herbs Trace and Wes had used to try to scare the ghost away in the haunted house up in Delhi, but more pungent.
Cassidy squinted in the flickering light of the fires, trying to see if anything was moving beyond them. At first, she didn’t see anything, but then she caught sight of shadowy forms that looked human bodies lying beside each fire. Her heart beat a little faster. She would have asked Trace if that’s what they were, but wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
In silence, she and the two cops followed Trace as he cautiously made his way over to the dark shapes. As they drew nearer, Cassidy realized her earlier assumption had been right. They were bodies. Muncie and Simpson must have realized it at the same time she did because she heard them curse and move forward.
“Wait,” Trace warned softly.
Muncie hesitated, clearly confused. “Wait for what? They could be alive.”
“They’re not,” Trace said. “Trust me.”
“Fuck that shit!” Simpson muttered.
The cop hurried over to the nearest body before Trace could stop him. Cassidy thought Muncie would have been smart enough to heed Trace’s warning, but he ran over to one of the other bodies. She glanced at Trace and saw that instead of worrying about what the two cops were doing, he was focused on the far side of the darkened room. If he was more intent on what was over there, then whatever he was looking at must be pretty important. She took a step closer to him and strained her eyes to see. After a moment, she could make out the outline of long table with something lying on top of it.
Without a word, Trace headed toward the table. Cassidy started to follow, but was momentarily distracted by the sound of Muncie and Simpson gagging. Both men were backing quickly away from the bodies they had been examining.
“They’ve been hacked to pieces,” Simpson said. “Their whole chest cavity is empty. Why the hell would someone do that?”
“Trace, man, we’ve got call this in,” Muncie added. “We have to get a forensic team over here ASAP.”
But Trace wasn’t listening to them. Instead, he was moving slowly toward the long table Cassidy had seen. Even though the shape on the table was as unmoving as the mangled corpses on the floor, Trace obviously wasn’t taking any chances. He moved like a wild animal stalking its prey, his shotgun methodically moved back and forth.
Cassidy followed behind him, nervous as hell, but tryin
g hard to keep her eye on every corner of the room. She was terrified Del Vecchio’s ghost would pop up behind Trace at any second and cut him down. That thought almost paralyzed her and she had to force herself to move forward. Trace was depending on her to watch his back and she wasn’t going to let him down, dammit.
Behind her, she heard Simpson cursing about not being able to find his phone. She was about to turn around and tell him to shut the hell up when Trace’s voice made her jump.
“It’s Del Vecchio’s body.”
Thank God Trace had warned her to keep her finger off the trigger or she probably would have shot him in the back.
“Cover me,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m going to burn it.”
He put his shotgun down on the table and reached for the duffel bag slung across his shoulder when a disembodied voice came from somewhere in the room.
“You don’t think I’m going to let you do that, do you? I’ve worked too hard and come too far for you to spoil things now.”
Trace snatched his shotgun off the table and swung it in the direction of the voice. Simpson and Muncie were doing the same. Apparently, Simpson must have decided his phone call could wait.
“Don’t you people understand what I’m trying to do here?” the voice intoned from behind them.
Cassidy swung around, her heart hammering in her chest. How the hell had he gotten behind them? The voice sounded as if it had come from the opposite side of the room a second ago. There was no way a person could move that fast without any of them seeing him. Was there someone else besides Martin in here with them?
“I’m creating life out of death. Do you think I’m going to let you stop me? You’re far too late for that.”
This time the voice sounded as if it was coming from two sides of the room at once and Cassidy swung her shotgun back and forth wildly.
“What the hell is going on, Trace?” Muncie demanded even as his partner headed off toward one of the room’s dark corners.
“He’s over here,” Simpson shouted. “Police. Freeze right where you are, fucker!”
Trace yelled for the cop to come back, but the other man ignored him. Suddenly, the flames flared up almost to the ceiling and a loud noise reverberated throughout the room. Smoke billowed from the fires, making it seem as if everyone and everything were moving in slow motion.
Cassidy immediately spun in a circle to look for Trace. He was over near the table, fumbling for something in his duffel bag. She moved directly behind him, determined to cover him as he’d instructed. The moment she did, Del Vecchio’s ghost solidified behind Trace, the knife in his hand already coming down. Reflexes Cassidy didn’t know she had took over and before she realized what she was doing, she aimed the shotgun and fired both barrels at Del Vecchio.
The shotgun bucked in her hands like a living creature, but she barely noticed it. All she could focus on was Del Vecchio. The ghost let out a howl of rage as salt and hematite ripped through his ethereal form, then disappeared in a flash of light.
Trace jerked around, but before Cassidy could tell him about Del Vecchio, there was a terrified shout behind her, followed by the sound of shotguns going off. Somewhere over the noise, Cassidy heard Simpson yelling that the bodies were moving and Muncie screaming at his partner to watch out.
She watched in disbelief as the bodies Muncie and Simpson had confirmed as dead only moments before crawled to their feet and moved toward the two cops.
Cassidy had to force herself to keep from running insanely for the exit. Only the knowledge that Trace needed her there to watch his back kept her in place. There was no way she was going to leave him alone in here with Muncie and Simpson as backup. Those two didn’t look as if they could protect themselves, much less anyone else.
She ignored the crawling masses of dead bodies on the floor, the shotgun blasts and the confused shouts, and fought to stay calm enough to break open the shotgun the way Trace had shown her. It was a little easier to see now because of the flaring fires and she thumbed the release lever and opened the shotgun without too much difficulty. The empty shells came out much easier than she thought they would and she took out two new ones from her pocket and slid them into the barrels with trembling fingers. She promised herself if she lived through this nightmare, she was going to sleep with this damn shotgun until she could reload it in the dark.
Cassidy snapped the gun closed and turned to see Trace staring at the empty table. She raced over to him. “Did you burn it already?”
He shook his head. “No. I looked away for a minute and when I turned back, the body was gone.”
“How the hell could Martin drag the body away without us seeing him?”
“I don’t think he did,” Trace said.
She was about to ask what he had meant when she felt something flutter through her hair. She spun around just in time to see Del Vecchio’s ghost disappear with another anguished howl and a flash of light as the sound of a shotgun went off. When she turned back to Trace, he was already reloading the weapon.
He glanced up at her. “We have to find Del Vecchio’s body. Fast.”
She opened her mouth to ask where they should start looking, but all that came out was a strangled scream as a tall, lumbering corpse veered away from the pack surrounding Muncie and Simpson and came directly at her, hands clutching and jaws working ferociously. In the smoky darkness, she could see the creature’s whole chest had been ripped open and that all kinds of things were hanging out. It looked as if part of the creature’s face had been peeled away, too. Oddly enough, there wasn’t any blood, though. Even without it, it was all she could do not to be sick at the sight.
With steadier hands than she thought, she lifted her shotgun and fired a single barrel. The thing fell backward under the impact of the shell’s contents, but immediately got to its feet and came at her again.
“Let’s go!” Trace shouted.
He didn’t even bother to shoot the creature. Instead, he simply kicked out with his booted foot and sent it backward as effectively as her shotgun blast had done.
Cassidy hurried to keep up with Trace as he ran across the room. “What about Muncie and Simpson?”
“They can take care of themselves,” he yelled over his shoulder. “Those zombies are dangerous, but not as dangerous as Del Vecchio’s ghost. We have to find his body and burn it.”
Cassidy wasn’t so sure how well the two cops could handle themselves, but she didn’t have time to point that out. Trace was almost disappearing into the darkness ahead of her and she had to sprint to keep up with him. She wondered if she should reload as she ran or wait until she fired the second barrel. She decided to wait. She wasn’t sure which barrel she had already fired, which would make reloading on the run more difficult. Besides, there was no way she could reload and keep up with Trace at the same time.
Trace came to a halt so suddenly in front of her that Cassidy almost ran into him. She hadn’t realized they were already on the far side of the immense room, but he had pushed open a big set of double doors and was scanning the hallway beyond. It was illuminated only by the fires behind them and a narrow sliver of light coming through the doors at the far end. He gave Cassidy a nod, then purposely started down the hall, swinging his shotgun from side to side. As she followed behind him, she tried to mimic his movements with her own weapon, but she wasn’t nearly as proficient as Trace. She only hoped Del Vecchio’s ghost wouldn’t appear out of nowhere before she could react.
When they reached the other set of doors, Trace paused to look through the narrow windows set in each of them.
“It looks clear, but be careful,” he said over his shoulder. “This room’s as big as the other one, so Del Vecchio could come at us from anywhere.”
Holding the shotgun in one hand, Trace used the other to slowly push open the doors. He entered the room cautiously, looking from left to right, then spun in a wary circle to check the entire room before giving Cassidy a nod.
She stepped into the room, once again
mimicking his movements the best she could as she tried to take in every square inch of the room all at once. Thanks to the rows of fluorescent bulbs overhead, it wasn’t as dark as in the first room. The lights were flickering like crazy, though, which worried her. That meant Del Vecchio was close and probably about to make another appearance.
There was a faint glow of light coming from a set of glass doors on the far side of the room as well. At first she didn’t realize what they were, but as she took in the tables and coffins around them, it finally struck her. This was the room where they cremated the bodies. The glow was coming from the ovens.
Dragging her gaze away from the incinerators, she walked over to the coffins lining one wall. She was about to look in the first one when Trace shouted.
“Behind you!”
Cassidy spun and fired at the same time Trace did. She wasn’t sure which of them shot Del Vecchio, but the ghost disappeared. Not before she felt the sting of something ice cold sweep across her face, though. For one horrified moment, she feared Del Vecchio had cut her, but when she checked, she didn’t feel anything. There wasn’t any blood on her fingers, either. He must have grazed her with the knife as he disappeared.
She started to let out a sigh of relief, but then jumped when Trace’s gun went off again. She whirled around to see Del Vecchio’s ghost disappear in another cloud of smoke. How the hell had he reappeared again so quickly?
Knowing now was not the time for both barrels to be empty, she thumbed the release on her shotgun. She was about to flick out the empty shells when a blur caught her eye. Startled, she jerked her head up and was stunned to see that one of the dead bodies on the tables awaiting cremation had come back to life and was heading directly for Trace. Unlike the zombies in the other room, however, this one moved a lot faster.
The thing launched itself at Trace, knocking him back against a coffin. The cart beneath it rolled aside, and both Trace and the zombie sprawled to the floor. Trace tried to make a grab for his gun as it flew from his hand and skidded across the concrete, but the creature attacked him with a ferocious howl of rage. Trace lashed out with his fist, knocking the zombie’s head back, and for a split second Cassidy saw his face in the light.