Bone Cold: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 2) (13 page)

Without even thinking, I turned my truck toward the cemetery, the engine rumbling as it led me straight to the base of the hill. Overhead, the sky was streaked with red and orange, the sun already low in the sky. I climbed out of the truck and peered up the hill through the darkening evening. Anthony’s headstone still sat there, same as before. It hadn’t been a strange specter dropped into my imagination.

Leaning back inside my truck, I grabbed the rifle John had gifted me from behind my seat and hefted it outside. If anyone saw me with this, they’d freak, but my gut told me that this place held more secrets than it seemed. When I turned toward the cemetery, my eyes met a wide chest cloaked in a shirt the color of the night.

“What are you doing?” John Smith asked, his deep voice rumbling.

My skin jumped ten feet off my bones. “What am
I
doing? What the hell are you doing? I thought you left Seaport like two days ago.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know.” I sighed and stared up at Anthony’s massive grave where it squatted in the distance. “I guess I’m trying to figure out what happened here that night.”

“With a shaman rifle?” he asked, pointing to the weapon clutched between my hands.

“Yes, with a shaman rifle.” I narrowed my eyes and tried to take a step around him, but he danced to the side to block my way. “You told me this was for ‘just in case’ situations. Well, ‘just in case’ something weird happens when I’m poking around the cemetery, I’ll be ready.”

“It’s for emergencies,” he said. “Not to carry around in everyday situations. Someone could see you with that. Like the human police.”

“Why are you even here?” I asked as he snatched the gun from my hands and tossed it back into my truck. “Are you back to hunt more spirits or something?”

“Not exactly. I never left.”

“But I saw you guys pack up the warehouse.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Or did my dad lie about that just to get me off his back?”

“Your dad left. I didn’t.”

“And why, pray tell, didn’t you leave?” I lifted my chin and looked him straight in the eyes. I had a feeling I knew the reason he’d stayed behind, and I didn’t like it one little bit.

“You know why,” he said with a sigh. “Bennett asked me to stay behind to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid like carry your rifle around in public or chase after spirits you can’t banish.”

“I wasn’t carrying it around in public.” Taking a step back, I reached for the gun. “I was going to take it into the cemetery with me. Where
no one
is.”

“For now.” Reaching around me, he slammed the truck before taking heavy footsteps toward the hill. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“What are you doing?” I trotted to catch up to him.

“You wanted to check out the headstone again. So, let’s go check it out.”

“I didn’t invite you along.”

“Too bad,” he said, glancing up toward Anthony’s grave as we made our way along the winding path. “Are you going to tell me the reason you felt the need to come back here?”

“Something weird happened here that night.” I shrugged. “I just want to know why and how those spirits appeared in Seaport when they did. I want to know what caused it.”

“Because you think you caused it,” he said with a nod. “I understand now.”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.” He took the last few steps to the top of the slope and stopped before me. “I know what happened with Anthony Lombardi last year, and I know you touched the grave the night the spirits broke free.”

“Well, you just think you know everything, don’t you?” I asked with a snap.

“No, I don’t know why you’re so certain you’re the cause.” He pointed to the headstone, now white and bent and cracked from whatever magic had funnelled through it. “That man right there? He caused this. His actions led to his death, and his actions led to these new spirits behaving the way they do.”

My face warmed against his words. Even though everything he said was technically true, it didn’t stop the pit of guilt from twisting through my gut. No matter what Anthony had done, I was just as much a part of this as he was. I turned away from John and stared at the words carved into the stone. Something about all of this wasn’t right. I reached out toward the stone, and when I did, John’s hand shot out, gripping my wrist with steely fingers.

“Um, ouch?” I yanked my arm away.

“What the hell are you thinking?” he asked. “Spirits came through last time you touched his grave, so you’re going to do it again?”

I shook my head and frowned. “Something just doesn’t seem right. Don’t you feel it? Why would me touching a headstone cause a swarm of spirits to attack Seaport? The puzzle pieces just don’t fit together in a way that makes sense.”

John rubbed his forehead, frowning at the grave, and after several long moments, he nodded. “I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s not a smart theory to test.”

“That’s because you made me leave my damn rifle in the truck.”

“You know what? You’re probably right,” he said, whipping a phone from his pocket. “We’ll do things your way. We need to know if that’s the cause. If so, I’ll get on the phone to your dad and we can make a plan of attack. If touching the stone releases spirits, we need to make sure no one ever touches it again.”

“Right.” I took a deep breath and steeled myself. Even though my gut told me that this couldn’t be the cause of the attacks, it didn’t stop my heart from ramping up to super speed. I could be wrong, and John could be wrong, and the entire town could come under attack again because of it. And this time, it was just me and him. My dad’s big military-grade team wasn’t around to stop the chaos.

My hand reached out, trembling, and my fingers brushed the stone. Timidly at first until my palm smacked flat on the grave. It was cool and brittle under my skin. Nothing happened. My breath whooshed out of my throat, and my shoulders relaxed.

“That wasn’t it,” I said with a small smile. “It wasn’t me after all. I didn’t feel anything when I touched it.”

“Good.” John nodded, sliding his phone out of view. “But we still can’t rule anything out. It could have been a one-time spell intended to release the spirits when a shaman touched the stone, but at least we know it won’t happen again.”

“Great,” I said, falling silent. My scalp prickled as I glanced up at John. His frown was as deeply cut into his face as the engravings on the stone. “So, why does it still feel like something is wrong?”

“I don’t know, but I better report in to your father.” He turned away and motioned for me to follow him back down the hill. “We’ve learned all we can here.”

I waited while he called my dad, mostly because I wanted to see if he had anything useful to add about the headstone. If it had been a one-time spell, who’d cast it? It didn’t make sense as something Anthony would do before his death. He’d been such a believer in keeping spirits bound to his blood that it was hard to believe he’d cast any sort of spell that would release them, dozens at a time. And if he hadn’t been the one to do it, then who had? It all came back to that again. There was someone behind my mom’s quest to hunt a very dead Anthony Lombardi and someone behind the spirit attacks, and they were hiding behind Anthony’s name in order to set these events in motion.

When John hung up the phone, his frown was set even deeper into his face. “Your father said that it’s good news about the headstone. It means there shouldn’t be any more instances of shaman-resistant spirit attacks in Seaport.”

“Then why do you look like someone just ran over your dog?” I asked.

“He’s ordered me to stay here indefinitely.”

“You can’t be serious.” I crossed my arms and leaned against my truck. “I don’t need a babysitter, especially if the threat is over.”

“He’s ordered me to continue training you. You’ve been self-taught how to banish spirits, and he believes you need more in-depth instruction. As long as your mom is out of town, I’m to teach you how to really use your shaman magic.”

A thrill went through my body even though I really hated how my dad had gone about this. He should have been the one to stay behind and show me the ropes. But, that didn’t really matter right now, because this meant I’d get one-on-one lessons about my powers, something I’d craved since I truly realized what being a shaman meant.

“When do we start?” I asked with a grin.

“Tonight,” John said. “I’m going to give you a live demonstration on how to kill a spirit.”

CHAPTER 12

N
o one ever went into the red barn down by the boardwalk. It was an icon of Seaport, proudly displayed on at least sixty percent of the postcards for sale in the local shops. A metal sketch of it was plastered on the sign welcoming visitors to our town. But nothing lived inside it but dust.

Everyone loved that barn, but it was there just for show. When we were kids, we joked that the town kept secrets hidden inside it. It was where they locked up werewolves during full moon nights, we’d whisper when telling stories to each other by flickering bonfires on the beach. When we got older, we’d sneak in, hoping to catch the secrets on full display. All we ever found were cobwebs and piles of old plywood someone had never bothered to throw away.

This made it the perfect place to trap a spirit.

Overhead, a full moon shone on the rippling water. The hulking barn on the cliffside cast dancing shadows on the boardwalk. John walked steadily beside me, the wooden boards groaning under his feet. He kept his rifle slung over his shoulder while he held onto mine with white-knuckled hands. I’d tried to invite Laura to come along on this mission, but he’d objected loudly before I’d given up.

Just you, Holly
, he’d said. Somewhere safe, somewhere quiet.

I pushed open the barn door. It creaked on its rusted hinges as dust swirled in the air. Inside, an old tractor squatted in the corner with one tire missing and a mountain of graffiti covering every inch of its surface. John gazed around nodding before shutting the door behind him. We were plunged into darkness.

He flicked on his flashlight, held it between his teeth, and crouched on the dust-covered wooden planks. Slipping a knife out of his belt, he began carving deep grooves into the wood. Long, sharp slices that reminded me of the claw marks on Wanda’s door.

“What’s that rune?” I asked. “I thought you were going to summon one.”

“We don’t want to summon them,” he said. “We want to tempt them.”

“Why?” I asked, crouching beside him.

“When we summon a spirit, they become attached to our essence. If they then feed when they’re summoned, we get a taste of that life. And if we hurt them when they’re summoned, we also get hurt.”

“Balance,” I murmured, but John didn’t seem to hear my spoken thought.

“No one has ever tested what happens if we kill our own summoned spirit, but your father believes it would kill us as well.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

“Now you see why we need to tempt one into this barn. If we force it to come here, then you could get some practice banishing it back to Lower World, but that’s not what I’m training you to do.”

“A friend—or this person I know—said killing spirits is potentially really dangerous,” I said. “She said it’s all about balance and that destroying them upsets that or something. Is that true?”

“What kind of imbalance?” John paused in the carving, eyebrows crinkling together.

“She said killing them could rip apart the Borderland.”

John sat back on his heels and shook his head. “I’ve never heard that one before. I think if that were the case, we would have realized it by now.”

“But Dad hasn’t been doing this that long, right?”

“Holly, if we’re going to do this, you have to trust me. What we’re about to do is dangerous. I understand if you have some reservations about it, and that’s fine. We don’t have to go any further. If you want to learn, I’m obligated to teach you, but if not, we can go our separate ways.”

“No, I want you to teach me,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure George’s worries were unfounded.”

“I promise you this, we would never do anything to compromise the foundation of the Borderland.”

“Good,” I said with a nod, shoulders relaxing. “Then, I’m all in.”

“We’ll start with this.” He pointed at the rune. “When a black candle is placed on this rune, it creates a perfume of fear. In order to lure a spirit into a certain place, we light a black candle, place it on the rune, and wait.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “Won’t that take ages?”

“It looks like I’ll be teaching you the art of patience as well.” John extracted a candle from his bag and lit the flame. It sparked to life, the thick scent of fire filling the barn. A moment later, John flicked off his flashlight and watched the candle burn. The effect was eerie. The flame danced along the dark walls and cut through the heavy dust just enough to cast stretching shadows on the floor.

John settled in along the back wall of the barn, squatting behind one of the tractor’s remaining tires. He raised his eyebrows at where I still stood in the middle of the floor by the rune. “You should find somewhere to get mildly comfortable.”