One More Bite (21 page)

“The Chief is a tall, commanding figure with long hair and a braided beard,” Bart said, his tone taking on the lyrical quality I generally equated with radio preachers. “He usually appears right here, in the center of this cairn, leaning on a tall staff as if he’s guarding something. Visitors have also seen him walking among the cairns, but much more rarely.”

While he was talking I fished the rest of the leather out of the hole and refilled the spot. The bigger challenge was to convince Jack it wasn’t a chew toy. Luckily Albert had brought a spare doggy treat, which he slipped to me like it was a roll of microfilm from his active-duty days. Jack wavered for a second, debating which would be more delish.

“Trade me right now, or I swear we are not going Rollerblading at all next time we’re home,” I whispered. He dropped the unburied treasure and went for the treat. I’m telling you, this dog of mine is smarter than he looks.

I tucked the leathery whatnot under my armpit, looping it around Grief’s holster for extra hold.

“I don’t think the Chief is going to show,” Cole murmured to Iona.

“Where would he even stand?” she wondered.

“Maybe he’d just hover over everybody and knock heads with his mighty staff,” Cole suggested.

“Why would he do that?” she asked.

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“How would you feel if a bunch of nosy jerks came in and started stomping all over your grave? I know I’d be pissed, and I’m not even going to be buried.”

“You’re not?”

“Nope. I’m debating between being shot into space and having my body stuffed and mounted on a pedestal at the Playboy Mansion.” While Iona giggled I slapped my hand to my forehead. Where did he come up with this stuff?

“Do you think we’ll see something spooktacular tonight?”

I snapped my head around. It was the key phrase. The one identifying my contact. Who turned out to be the broad with the inappropriate footwear. She’d sidled up beside me, dropping one handle of her enormous bag off her shoulder. As soon as Cole caught her drift he directed the girls’ attention to Bart, signing and saying, “Look, I think our guide’s about to show us a funeral dance.”

As Viv’s shoulders shook and Iona laughed aloud at Bart’s badly disguised soft-shoe, I rescued the bag-o’-nastiness from its spot in my pocket and slid it into the woman’s purse. She slipped her arm through the dropped loop, brushing her hand against my arm so I’d feel the scratch of paper folded in her hand and nab it from her as she turned away.

We filed out of the cairn, nobody seeming that disappointed that the Chief had been a no-show. Wait a second. The Chief sounds a little like . . . Could he be that Brude guy? Naw, probably some Stone Age tribal leader with a bone through his nose.

I decided these people took GhostWalks for the stories more than anything else. Although one woman insisted she’d felt a cold hand touch the back of her neck.

“Probably the icy tingle of a psychotic hallucination,” Albert growled as we joined him.

I rolled my eyes. “Come on, let’s see how many more people you can offend over by that parking lot, shall we?”

We ambled away from our group as the second one joined Bart and Mr. Skinny for a look inside the cairn. “Cole, keep the girls away from us, will ya?” I murmured as Albert, Jack, and I moved toward the gravel lot.

As we reached an actual light pole, four of which lit up the corners of the quarter-acre space, I unfolded the note. It said:

We think the apparition you described is one seen by several locals who claim he’s the original owner of Tearlach. A quiet solicitor named Oengus Meicklejohn who was supposedly poisoned by his wife back in 1867. But they were never able to prove it because the doctor’s office where the body was being held burned before an autopsy could be performed. The grave was robbed a week after what was left of Oengus was buried. Funny coincidence. Mrs. Meicklejohn’s first name was Floraidh.

I sucked air so fast the sides of my nose nearly touched. Because I didn’t believe in coincidences. Floraidh Meicklejohn must be Floraidh Halsey, an incredibly well preserved old crone who’d murdered her husband in the nineteenth century and was now signing people up to gawk at his image for ten pounds a pop. Which made the presence of his actual ghost, lingering at the edge of his property, kinda sad and pathetic.

I wasn’t sure why the Scidairans would raise his image in the kitchen, except that you use the

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ingredients you have on hand when working a last-minute plan, and maybe to make an ethereal figure appear you had to have something of his to start with. Like his ashes? Or wait. Hadn’t they mentioned his skull?

Who knew? By the time the labs came back on the bowl-o’-yuck, this mission folder would be gathering cobwebs in Pete’s ugly old file cabinet. And the skull must be well protected.

Albert hawked and spit. “You gonna act like a space cadet all night or are you going to tell me why we’re pretending to enjoy the great outdoors?”

I pulled Jack’s find from my jacket and untangled it. One piece of leather decorated with studs. I recognized it instantly. “It can’t be. No, there have to be thousands and thousands just like the one he had.”

“What is it?” asked Albert. The question echoed in my ear. Vayl, still within transmission distance, had caught the concern in my voice. He’d probably also noted my jolt of fear as I’d stretched out the item in my hands.

I said, “While we were in the cairn, Jack dug up a harness that looks just like the one he wore when he was Samos’s dog.”

Albert reached out to rub some dirt off the buckle as Vayl took time to let the information sink in.

“Do you have any way of telling what dog truly wore it?” my boss asked.

“I don’t think—well, maybe.” I turned the harness inside out, peered at the leather, moving my fingers along its length, trying to feel what I might not be able to see in the poor light. I found what I was l«nd nsiooking for under the shoulder strap. A carefully engraved name. Four letters that sent my heartbeat into overdrive. Ziel. The name Jack had answered to when he’d been the pet of Edward “the Raptor” Samos.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Okay, I have maybe five minutes before I need to get back to this ridiculous GhostWalk and pretend all is right with the world. So chime in anytime. Why is the harness we traded to a rental car clerk for information in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on our last mission, dangling from my hands in Scotland tonight?”

“What is significant about that particular item?” asked Vayl. “Let us concentrate on that for a moment, shall we?”

“Jack wore it when he belonged to Samos,” I said.

“And you have been seeing visions of Samos,” Vayl said.

“Yeah.”

“I thought he was dead,” said Cole.

“He is.” I went over the moment of his passing one more time in my mind. “Yeah. Definitely dead.”

“So maybe somebody’s trying to raise his ghost,” said Albert.

I stared at him. “Why would anyone—” I remembered the slashes on Vayl’s chest. Samos could still do damage if Albert was right. But it didn’t make sense. Ghosts are tied to places, especially those associated with their deaths. Which meant if Samos was walking, he should’ve been

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trotting around the base of a mountain in Patras, Greece. Plus, I’d never heard of a vampire shade. Because in order to leave something behind, you kinda have to have something to start with.

I sighed. “Any other ideas?”

“Maybe someone wants to hurt Jack. Or, more specifically, hurt you by hurting him,” said Vayl. “It is no secret that you took possession of him after Samos died.”

“Then why not a direct attack?” I asked. “Why bury his old harness in a place they didn’t even realize either of us would turn up?”

“Looks like we’re moving on,” said Cole.

“All right, we will continue this discussion later,” said Vayl. “Meanwhile, everyone keep an eye open for suspicious behavior relating to Jack. And, Jasmine, if you see Samos’s face again, tell me immediately.”

“Okay.” I knelt down and rubbed Jack on the head, just where he liked it best. What’s up with you, huh? Who would go to all the trouble of tracking down your old harness? Who would even have the power to—

Floraidh.

Fucking Scidairan who had given Samos the idea to burn me and mine to death when we battled in Patras, assuring him it would imbue him with awesome powers. Now that I thought about it, that sounded like more than a simple ally. In fact, it kinda sounded like someone who cared. Someone who would, maybe, want to see her honey again. And nothing could move Samos like his beloved pet, Ziel.

Back off this right now, Jaz. You’re supposed to be protecting Floraidh, remember? Anything short of that could get you canned.

I looked at the leather straps hanging from my hands. I could fling them off into the trees. Cut them into tiny pieces and scatter them across the Highlands. Or rebury them.

Goddammit. I shoved them back in my jacket, tucking enough of the leather down my sleeve that I was sure the harness wouldn’t slip out accidentally. I headed back toward the party, linking my arm loosely through Albert’s as Jack sauntered between us.

“We’re heading to the Hoppringhill cemetery next, right?” I asked.

Albert checked his itinerary. “Yep. This says we might see the ghosts of a couple of star-crossed lovers who both drank poison there after the girl’s parents forbade them to see each other.” He looked up from the paper in his hand. “Star-crossed? Don’t they mean mentally ill?”

“I don’t—”

“Well, come on. What’s romantic about pouring bleach down your throat when all you have to do is wait around for a couple of years till you’re old enough to tell your folks to shove it?”

I sighed. “Is that what happened with you and Mom?”

He glared at me, like he usually did when I brought up his mostly miserable marriage. “Don’t you even have any idea when we got together?”

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“No.”

“She was already your age.” He hesitated. “She’d been married and divorced by the time I met her.”

I stopped, nearly toppling him over when I jerked him to a halt beside me. “What?”

“She never told you.” He shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Secretive, that one. It was like pulling teeth to get her to tell me how she spent her goddamn day.”

He started us walking again, leading me while I stared at the shadowed path, trying to make this new layer settle onto the portrait of my mother that I thought I’d finished the day she died. “Did you ever meet him?” I asked.

“No. He’d left her long before I came on the scene.” Albert shook his head. “Your granny May tried to warn me. She thought he took something, I don’t know, he took all the softness from her when he went. But you can’t really talk to me once I’ve made my mind up.”

“No kidding?”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Yeah.”

“Then listen for once.” I swallowed my smart-ass reply and let my dad talk. “He wasn’t the kind of man Granny May and Gramps Lew wanted for your mom, but what could they do? She was as bullheaded as you. Unfortunately she wasn’t nearly as smart. And I don’t think, deep down, she understood what she was worth the way you do.”

“So . . . she ever get over it?”

He shook his head. “I believe she always loved him. Our biggest fight happened after I found out she’d kept in touch with him, especially when I was out of the country. That’s, uh, when she left me. I thought it was forever. She thought it was for the night. Until she found me with her best friend the next day.”

I held up my hand. “Okay, you know what? Enough. Parents aren’t supposed to have secret spouses. And discuss their messy breakups with their kids.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because I’m an idiot!”

We walked in fuming silence for about five minutes. Finally I said, “I have to go.”

“Where?”

“Away. I’ve put it off long enough. And I’m just pissed enough not to care what happens while I’m gone. You just hang on to my arm and don’t let me fall on my face during my trip, okay?”

“What are you blabbing about?” Albert frowned at me. “Are you on THE drugs?”

Here we go. How many times in my life had he accused me of being on THE drugs? Like there was a brand out there made just for me. “No, Dad, I’m as sober as you are.” I sighed. “There’s a guy I know who can help us both with our problems. But the only way I can visit him is to leave my body. I’ve never tried it while I was moving, so I’m just asking you to keep me from walking

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into a tree for the next few minutes. Will you do that for me or not?”

He stared at me for so long I had to steer him clear of a low-growing limb. “How can you do that?”

“Well, it all started the night I lost my virginity—”

“Never mind. I don’t wanna know.”

I could’ve told him the truth. But we were too far from a portable defibrillator for me to feel comfortable breaking the news that I’d died while he was puttering around his apartment, pissing off his former nurse because he wouldn’t test his sugar levels more than once a week.

“So will you lead me for a while or not?”

“Fine. Just let me hang on to you, will ya? That way it still looks like I’m the one who needs a guide dog.”

We rearranged our arm linkage while Cole stole looks over his shoulder at us. He motioned to me. You need help for this?

I shook my head. Just keep the girls busy.

He nodded. Gave me thumbs-up, like I was a pilot ready to take my F18 airborne.

It sounds almost that easy. I’m going to leave my body now. Like I can just zip down the runway and lift off. Not so much. Especially when the dude I’m headed to meet isn’t one I’m thrilled to be seeing.