“Stop talking.”
“You need to step—”
“Hawke, if he talks again, toss him out of the room, got it?” There was a tone to Rocke’s words that made it clear they were no threat, and Carlton’s voice cut off as sharply as if someone had pressed a mute button. The officer glanced at me, and then at his partner, who shrugged. Carlton shook his head and took a step forward—
Only to come to a stop as the top of my staff poked him in the chest. I shook my head, giving him a little backwards prod, and Carlton looked up at me as if just realizing exactly how much I really was.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said as he brought his hand up to bat my staff away. He paused, his eyes darting between myself and Rocke.
“But—”
“This is an NSAU matter,” I said, giving him a slight push back with my staff. “Which means—as much as I hate saying it—our jurisdiction comes first.”
“But you can’t—”
“Hawke,” Rocke said, his voice as firm and unshakable as a solid rod of iron. “He’s very faint. Please take them outside.”
“Wait, he’s—”
“No,” I said, pushing Carlton even further back and fixing my eyes on Sanchez as he started forward. “Back of the room—now—and I’ll tell you what he’s doing. Once he’s done, the scene’s all yours.” I gave Carlton another poke, and he got the message, turning away with a muttered curse.
“I am an officer of the law, and I am—”
“Going to step into the next room so I can concentrate,” Rocke said, his voice finally rising in pitch. I nodded and gave Carlton another push with my staff, taking a step forward as I did. Something crunched strangely under my boots, and I paused. It hadn’t been the low, gritty crunch of gravel on gravel. The pitch had been higher, wooden.
I glanced down, and my eyes widened as I saw the chunks of wood spread all over on the ground. I hadn’t seen them when I’d come from the other side of the room, but now …
I took a few steps forward, following the retreating officers and glancing at the entrance to the town’s first mineshaft. The boards covering the entrance had been torn away, once again thrown outward. Wait, outward? I almost stumbled as my mind leapt back to the break-in a few days earlier.
“It wasn’t a break-in,” I muttered as I stared at the spread of broken boards. “It was a break-out!” I took one last look before moving to join the officers on the far side of the room. Behind me Rocke started speaking, his voice low but still carrying across the room, and I picked up bits and pieces of his conversation as I approached Carlton and Sanchez.
“—I am sorry, but yes, you are.” A pause. “No, not really. What can you tell me?”
“What’s he doing?” Carlton hissed at me, his expression a mix of confusion and anger that would have been a bit more amusing without the corpse or the previously “secure” mineshaft opening behind me.
“He’s talking to Charlie’s ghost, I think,” I said, crossing my arms as I stood between them and the door. “Or his spirit. Whatever you want to call it.” Sanchez’s eyes went wide, and he made a quick cross over his chest, but Carlton just scowled.
“Come on,” he said, shaking his head and glancing at Sanchez. “Don’t tell me you really believe in that stuff. Ghosts? Spirits? Heaven?”
“Hey,” I said, shaking my head slightly. “Here’s a tip. You don’t have to believe in any of that stuff. You don’t have to believe in airplanes either. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“But ghosts—”
“Are Rocke’s specialty,” I said, nodding. “I’m a shaman. I help the living. But Rocke? He deals with the recently deceased and the un-living. Trust me, he knows what he’s doing.” Behind me, I could still hear Rocke speaking in soft tones, his voice calm, almost warm. “Charlie must have stuck around, so Rocke’s asking him for a little information and giving him some advice in return.” I pointed toward the open mineshaft, its dark depths made all the more menacing by the lack of light. “Now, while I’ve got you here, what direction does it look like those boards were broken from?”
“From the inside,” Sanchez said, Carlton giving him a surprised look as he spoke up.
“Crud,” I said, nodding. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Why?” Carlton asked, his tone somewhere between a question and a demand. I gave him a long glower before answering. Normally, I considered myself a fairly patient person, but he was finally starting to rub me the wrong way.
“Because it means something forced the boards and came out of the mine,” I said, leaning my shoulder against the doorway. “Rocke and I have been putting the pieces together for days now, but this clinches it. I’m pretty positive that it’s how everyone in town is going missing.”
For once Carlton’s face held an expression other than shock, dislike or anger. “You mean, the old mineshaft entrances? The chupacabras are using—”
“Not chupacabras,” I said, shaking my head. “The Wraith.” Sanchez crossed himself again as his partner let out an incoherent sputter. “It was a theory, but this pretty much clinches it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s hunting people.”
“And it’s living in the old mineshafts?” Carlton asked. “Right under the town?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s using them. These old shafts still run all the way to the south end of the valley.”
Carlton let out a brief curse. “It’s coming up right underneath us. Here we’ve been running more patrols, and it’s just been going by underground this whole time.” He looked up at me, displaying anger that, for once, didn’t feel like it was directed at me. “How sure are you?”
“Pretty sure,” I said. “But once Rocke’s done—”
“He’s gone,” Rocke said from behind me, almost making me jump. “It’s done.” I turned and gave him a questioning look, and he nodded.
“He’s at peace,” he said as he stepped up alongside me. The two officers looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “He couldn’t quite remember what happened, but he gave me a pretty good idea of where to look.”
“Did he … want anything?” Sanchez asked, his face paling.
Rocke shook his head. “Not much. Just for someone to let his sister know that he’s gone and for the mayor to make sure that whoever gets his job is—and I quote—‘half as competent’ as he was.” Sanchez stepped back, crossing himself again. “He couldn’t tell me anything about his killer, either,” Rocke continued, ignoring the officer’s reaction entirely. “Apparently, he was pretty drunk when it happened.”
“What was he doing?” Carlton asked, apparently willing to get over his skepticism if it meant getting more information. “Why was he here?”
“Watching the new security cameras,” Rocke said, twisting as he pointed towards the ceiling. I followed the path of his finger and spotted a faint glimmer up in the rafters—a single, blinking, red light reflecting off hard plastic.
“He said he was waiting for ‘those teens’ to come break in again,” Rocke said, making air quotes with his fingers. He stepped forward, shouldering his way past Carlton and Sanchez and heading for the front of the museum. I followed, and I could hear the sudden, rapid steps of the officers as they hurried to follow.
“Where are you going?” one of them asked.
“To his office,” Rocke called back, not letting up his rapid stride. “He was too drunk when he died to tell me much about his killers past the smell, but he did remember around what time they broke in.”
I caught up with Rocke, my staff swinging at my side as I gave him a questioning look. “Smell?”
He nodded. “Yeah, he was drunk as a skunk when he died, but he could recall a really tangy, acid-like smell when he was killed, like a car battery burning.” He paused, catching my nod. “There was definitely magic when he died.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Only that they grabbed him from behind,” Rocke said, the corner of his mouth turning downwa
rds.
“Wait.” I slowed for a moment as the full implications of his words sank in. “’They?’”
“Yeah,” Rocke said, not slowing. “There had to be at least two of them, because he said he was yelling at one when someone grabbed him from behind.”
“That can’t mean much,” Carlton said, his footsteps slowing as he caught up with us. “I mean, we’ve grabbed the guy before for yelling at mailboxes, telling them to get out of his way. When he gets drunk, his world’s pretty crazy.”
“I hope you’re right,” Rocke said as we moved into the museum’s earliest areas. “Because I really want him to be wrong.” The light from his phone threw odd shadows over the exhibits as we walked, shadows that jumped and danced as the beam flicked from one spot to the next.
Charlie’s office was a small, shabby affair just off of the lobby. It looked more like a large closet than any sort of personal retreat. Bottles clinked as Rocke pushed the door open, and a faint, fermented scent rose into the air as he stepped into the room. Thankfully, whatever bottles Charlie had left around the room had been left out long enough ago that the smell had mostly faded by the time I managed to crowd myself around Charlie’s small, beat-up computer with Rocke and our two tag-alongs.
Mostly.
“All right,” Rocke said as he tapped at the keyboard, eliciting sharp clacks from the hard plastic. The rectangular screen cleared, geometric colors and screensaver shapes vanishing as a bland, blue desktop jumped into view.
Carlton let out a groan. “I think I used that version of Windows when I was in grade school,” he said with a faint air of disgust. “How is this thing even running?” As if on cue, the tower beneath the desk emitted a faint grinding noise. I gave it a suspicious look as Rocke grabbed the mouse.
“Is this thing safe?” I asked, not wanting to comment on Carlton’s observation. My computer wasn’t as old as Charlie’s, but I had a feeling that if I mentioned how long it had been since I’d bought a new one, I’d be the butt of some comment I didn’t want to hear.
“Si,” Sanchez said as the grinding dropped in pitch and then faded away. “It’s just a bad fan. Probably full of dust.”
The screen flashed white as Rocke opened up a folder, and one by one small blue-and-black icons filled the screen, the computer humming as it populated row after row.
“Wow,” Carlton said, shaking his head. “I’m impressed this thing actually works. Did he use a webcam?”
“Looks like it,” Rocke said as he began to scroll through the folder. “At least he had the sense to have it timestamp everything.” He paused the downward scroll, nudging the mouse over to a row of icons. “Here we go. Camera two.” The first icon in the row flashed as he double-clicked it, and everyone held their breath as the player slowly loaded.
As the first image appeared, I had to admit to myself that for an older gentleman with some issues, Charlie had done a pretty good job setting up what was an off-the-shelf security system. The camera was aimed right down at the entrance to the mine, its perch the perfect location to catch anyone who wandered by. There was enough light that we could make out the boards across the entrance to the shaft, but the details became hazy past that point. Charlie had apparently been more interested in catching proof of wrongdoing than in getting the fine details.
It took me a moment to realize that the video wasn’t paused; there was just nothing happening. Rocke moved the mouse down to the playback bar and nudged the video ahead a few minutes. Nothing, save for the slight hesitation of the mouse and the faint, clunky whir of the computer as it jumped ahead. The image on the screen stayed the same. Rocke clicked forward five minutes more minutes, but still nothing changed.
He jumped a few more times before skipping to the end and closing the video. He opened another one, but he was a little less patient this time, the mouse letting out angry, rapid clicks as he jumped forward through time with increasingly vast leaps.
“How long is this going to take?” Carlton asked as Rocke opened a third video. “We need to call this in—”
“Not yet,” I said, giving the officer a small shake of my head. “A few more minutes isn’t going to matter much. It’s not like Charlie’s body is going anywhere.” Rocke jumped right to the end this time before closing the video, checking the last few seconds before moving on to the next timestamp.
“But—”
“Just give him a minute,” I said. “Or do you want to call your boss back in two minutes because we found something completely new that he needs to know?”
“New like what?” Carlton asked. “What’s he going to find that—”
“Got it!” Rocke said as the last seconds of his current selection came up on the screen. The scene was a perfect mirror of the one we’d left: Boards across the mine entrance shattered and broken, Charlie’s body stretched out on the gravel path, with a look of shock and surprise on his face. Or not. It was a little hard to tell with the low resolution of the picture, and I suppressed the instinct to squint. But it was definitely the body of the late curator, stretched out alongside the mine where Carlton had found him.
“All right,” Rocke said, jumping the video back once, then twice as the scene refused to change.
“Wait!” Sanchez said as Charlie’s body disappeared. Both of the officers leaned closer, pushing against my arm and the back of Rocke’s chair as they tried to get a good look.
There wasn’t any sound on the recording, so the first sign we had that something was going on was Charlie stumbling into the frame, his pixelated form pitching left and right as he bent over and slid his hands along the ground as if searching for something. Eventually he stood, a chunk of splintered wood clutched in one hand as his mouth opened wide. His free finger jabbed in the direction of the camera a few times, his mouth opening and closing. I felt like I was watching an old, silent film, except that this one was in color and heavily pixelated.
The chunk of wood Charlie was brandishing slipped from his hands, bouncing against the gravel with a soundless clatter, and he bent down, swaying back and forth as he grasped for it. After a few seconds he seemed to catch sight of his goal and leaned even further forward, catching himself with one hand at the last second.
“He is plastered,” Carlton said. I saw Sanchez slip him a glare, and he responded with a shrug. “He is.”
“Quiet,” Rocke said, his voice filling the small room. “Just because there isn’t sound doesn’t mean I don’t want to think.” Carlton’s jaw snapped shut with a click.
On screen, Charlie waved his impromptu prop once again, although now it looked like he’d found a focus for his emotion. He spun around, pointing at something off-camera and shouting, his unsteady arm drifting the tip of the board he was clutching left and right, but always coming back to focus on something. He took a step forward, his mouth opening again in a soundless parody of a yell.
Then he stepped back, frowning, his blocky face shifting as it scrunched up. Slowly, with an unexpected clarity and precision, he stepped backwards, one foot behind the other. His mouth opened and closed as he shouted short, silent phrases, the tip of his “sword” coming down with each word. Then he dropped it and stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet and spinning as he tumbled to the ground. The broken board skipped across the gravel as he kicked it away, scrambling on his hands and knees before pulling himself upright. I still couldn’t see what was driving him back, but I could feel my chest tightening as Charlie moved closer and closer to the spot where we’d found his body. It would happen any second now.
A shadow rose out of the darkness behind him, stepping forward with shocking swiftness. My breath caught in my throat as I took in the empty, hollow eye sockets. Limp, dirty clothing of some kind—robes, possibly—festooned in what had at one point probably been long, colorful feathers, hung from its narrow frame, rips and tears in the ancient fabric showing the truth of what lay beneath it. No flesh. No organs. Just bone. Weathered, greyish-white bone. One hand came up, the room’s sole lig
ht glinting off of something dark and sharp clutched in it.
“No,” Carlton whispered as the thing’s free hand snapped up and wrapped around Charlie’s chest, pulling him back and pinning his arms at his sides. Part of me wanted to look away, screamed at me to look anywhere but the small monitor as the other hand came down and slashed across Charlie’s throat in one quick, violent motion. His body spasmed, jerking against the skeletal arm holding it, his mouth open in a silent scream as blood poured out of the wound, thick and gushing in pixelated red.
Beside me Sanchez repeated some whispered phrase as the blood began to defy gravity, rising into the air in a sickening, seething mist that swirled in the center of the room. Charlie’s eyes seemed to widen as he saw his own blood hanging and spinning in the air, a dark cloud that simply screamed wrong through the monitor, an abomination that made my stomach churn.
That was when the runes began to glow. Blood-red sigils of some kind—unrecognizable shapes in the low resolution—that sprang into life all along the skeleton, pulsing with a sickly red glow that made my mouth grow dry. In the bottom of the frame, another figure stepped forward, its own bleached bone shining with the same wrong pulse. Charlie’s body gave one final twitch before going limp in his assailant’s arms, the last of his blood pulled from his body. His captor’s face was lit with a hellish red glow as it released the curator’s corpse.
Then it stepped towards the cloud of blood, raising its arms as it opened its mouth wide. The sigils on its body flared brightly, a color that almost made me look away as the cloud of blood began to stream into it, coating every joint and pale bone. Carlton turned away and retched, the stink of vomit filling the small office as Charlie’s killer absorbed every drop of his blood, the bone and blood-red sigils drinking it up like sand soaking up water. Then, the blood gone, the glow faded, and the two skeletons stood alone in front of the entrance.
Rocke closed the video and it was like a trance had been broken. Sanchez stumbled back from the screen, pale-faced and muttering the same Spanish phrase through trembling lips over and over again. He stopped moving once his back hit the wall, but his hands kept trembling, eyes locked on the now blank screen. Beside him, Carlton threw up again, a fresh wave of acidic scent rolling through the room.
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