The Tomb (Scarrett & Kramer Book 3)

by Neil Carstairs

  The High Priest stood. He stalked around the table, and Itzel had to force herself to stand still as he came close to her. His body smelt of spices, his breath of the sea. Those centuries old eyes were bright green as he stared at her. Itzel dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. She could feel him exploring her mind, the faintest traces of his persona touching her memories. He saw something that made him smile. Itzel saw it too. The god touching her naked body. The High Priest took pleasure in that, and the god’s hand became his as it squeezed her breast. He wanted her. And then he turned away, as Itzel almost fell to the ground in relief.

  The acolytes moved as well, coming forward to form a loose circle around Yancha.

  “Calling upon the goddess has exposed us to danger. There are people amongst our enemy who fight gods and demons. Now they know what they are dealing with they will re-double their efforts to find you.”

  “The goddess will protect us–” Yancha started to speak until the High Priest cut him off with a sharp gesture.

  “The goddess has a more important mission. We cannot have her distracted by your earthly troubles. That is why I have brought these acolytes with me. They will join you. I’m sure you will need their skills.”

  Itzel could see Yancha hand’s shaking. He seemed to be fighting the urge to question the High Priest. In his place, she said, “Now that you have the goddess what do you want us to do?”

  “I want you to kill the child,” the High Priest said as he returned to his chair. “That she lives has angered the gods. She must die.”

  “Where is she?” Itzel asked. Now he was sitting again she could relax. Even the hard-faced acolytes seemed more at ease.

  “A farm. It is near the army base she was in before, but easier to attack.”

  “She will be guarded,” Itzel offered the words as a comment and not a question of the High Priest’s strategy.

  “I have heavier weaponry and the acolytes will be there. No amount of guards can protect her this time.”

  “We will be proud to serve the gods,” Itzel said, even though her heart sank a little at the thought of a pitched battle to kill a little girl.

  The High Priest’s smile caught her off-guard. He had a plan. A finger pointed at Itzel. “You will not be going with them. The goddess has a special place in her heart for you and has asked that you accompany us to the Place of Retribution.”

  Itzel forced a smile onto her face as Yancha said, “What about me? I am the leader of this mission now, and I should be the one chosen.”

  “You have the honour of leading the mission to kill the child. Is that not enough?” the High Priest’s voice held an edge of anger that Yancha missed.

  “I believe I deserve to go to this Place,” Yancha said.

  Itzel sensed a growing pressure in the room, and she saw the statuette of the goddess begin to glow. The acolytes stepped away from Yancha. Even Ramon, who until then had kept himself as unobtrusively still as possible, edged closer to Itzel. A breath of hot air wrapped its way around the room. Yancha noticed it, and for the first time realised he had made a mistake. He dropped to his knees with a thud and put his forehead on the carpeted floor.

  “I apologise,” he said, his voice muffled. “I beg forgiveness from our goddess for my stupidity.”

  A figure coalesced above the prostrate Yancha. Her heart raced as the goddess stepped into existence. Ramon whispered a prayer as Itzel lowered herself to her knees, just as Yancha had done. The goddess looked around. She smiled at Itzel. When she looked at Yancha she frowned.

  The High Priest rose and came across to her. “He regrets his actions. I believe his apology to be true to his heart.”

  Her lips moved, but only the High Priest heard her words.

  “It is better to let him live and redeem himself by killing the girl than to punish him now.” Itzel saw Yancha’s body tighten at the words. Death came closer.

  The goddess stared down. The silence in the room became a physical thing, crushing onto Itzel until she couldn’t breathe. No-one moved.

  Until the goddess reached down and plunged a hand into Yancha’s back. He screamed, arching his spine as fire burst from every pore. Itzel closed her eyes by reflex as a white light consumed Yancha. Smoke and the stench of crisping meat filled her nose and mouth. And then the goddess stepped back, dissolving into the air once more. She left Yancha on the floor, unharmed.

  “She gave you a message,” the High Priest said to Yancha. “She showed you your death but has returned you to life so that you can prove yourself to her. Do not question any orders again. You will take Ramon and the acolytes to the place where the child is, and you will kill her. Yes?”

  “Yes.” Yancha stood, his legs barely strong enough to get him upright. Itzel saw tears and snot on his face as he looked at her. She also saw hatred. If he survived the killing of the girl, then he would come for her and Itzel knew this time it would be settled for good.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ben and Kramer reached Lavonia after a hair-raising one-hundred-mile-per-hour dash down the interstate from Fort Bragg. They tagged on to the back of a mini-convoy of State Trooper cars and followed them all the way to the police station on Grogan Street. The place was already crawling with law enforcement, fire trucks and ambulances along with a bunch of quick reacting media types camped outside with satellite trucks beaming news of the disaster to the world. Kramer added their Chevy Suburban to the mix. Kramer and Ben made it through the security cordon by showing their ID and tracked down the now acting-Chief of Police who looked like a part of him had died.

  Kent Fallion stared at them for an age before he said, “Homeland Security?”

  “We’re following up the incident report,” Kramer said. “There was something, shall we say, unusual reported by eye-witnesses.”

  “You mean the monster?” Fallion had a broad Southern accent to go with the snow-white handlebar moustache he sported.

  “We’d prefer it if you didn’t say that word too loudly,” Ben said.

  “Why not? It’s true.” Fallion sat back, challenging them to disagree.

  “You’ve got media trucks piling up outside,” Ben told him. “If they hear monster they’ll broadcast it to the world and then the world is going to show up here and your town won’t be able to cope.”

  “So we lie?” he fixed them with a stare that said ‘old cops don’t lie’.

  “No.” Kramer gave him her charming smile. “The killers are monsters, which goes without saying. They have brutally slain police officers and civilians. But a monster isn’t the killer.”

  Fallion shook his head. “Words,” he said. “It all comes down to words.”

  “Exactly, and in the meantime, we can continue our investigation without the world’s press and monster hunters getting in the way.”

  Fallion looked down at the desk he sat behind. “This is Hug’s desk,” he said. “Not just my boss but a friend. I haven’t had a chance to go see Donna, and I’m glad because I don’t want to have to tell her some sicko ripped his head off.”

  Ben and Kramer exchanged a glance. Ben said, as gently as he could, “Do you have any video of the incident?”

  “Go outside, ask for Bobby LaDonte, she’s gathered CCTV from the motel and the dashcam footage from Hug’s cruiser.”

  “Thanks.” Ben gave Kramer a touch on the arm for reassurance as he left the room. He had the easy job. Kramer now had to sit with a guy in shock and get him to run not only his department but also the other agencies getting involved.

  Bobby LaDonte turned out to be a Roberta, five-three in height with dyed red hair and a liking for matching lipstick. She sat Ben in front of a laptop and ran him through the shooting at the motel and then the attack on Hug Halverson. She froze the dashcam video as the first monster appeared on the hood of the cruiser.

  “Nice looking fella,” Bobby said.

  “Yeah, wouldn’t want to meet his ugly cousin.” Ben clicked the play icon on the video to see more. The frosted w
indshield cut off any view of the creature until it peeled the laminated glass open. Up close the face reminded him of some of the creatures he saw in Darlford.

  Bobby mistook his silence for fear as she said, “Hug killed that one. We don’t get much of a look at the next one, but it’s worse if you want to skip it.”

  “Show me,” Ben said. “I might have seen its kind before.”

  “Really?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Yeah,” Ben said.

  The dashcam got a half-decent image of the golem as it came after Hug. Big, hairy and ferocious summed it up. Luckily, the dashcam missed Hug’s death.

  “All done?” Bobby asked.

  “Can I have copies of all this?”

  “Sure, you have a cloud folder to store it, or you want it on DVD?”

  “DVD,” Ben said. “And while we’re waiting can you re-run the motel footage again.”

  As Bobby disappeared to find a writeable DVD Ben watched the motel scenes. There were two cameras. One on the walkway and the other a general view of the parking lot. In the midst of an office full of angry cops, Ben tried to put the noise of their voices out of his head. He needed to concentrate. The first time he’d watched the video, there’d been a little tug on his memory and now, seeing it again, he felt the same tug.

  Why?

  “Here you go,” Bobby leaned in front of him and cut off his train of thought.

  Ben made room for her by shoving his chair back. She seemed to take great delight in rubbing her bosom up against him, and Ben checked to make sure the door to the Chief’s office was still shut. He didn’t want Kramer getting the wrong idea.

  “Your partner’s a looker,” Bobby said, as the laptop drive whined.

  “Kramer?” Ben shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Like you haven’t noticed,” Bobby nudged him with her hip. “But I guess you keep your relationship professional, huh?”

  “We try,” Ben said, hoping that Bobby would pick up on the ‘we’.

  She didn’t. “So how long are you going to be in town? I could show you some places of entertainment, if you know what I mean.”

  “It’s a very nice offer,” Ben said, “but Kramer and I, well, we hang out together, if you know what I mean.”

  Bobby looked at the door and back to Ben. “That’s a shame; we don’t get many guys as cute as you in Lavonia.”

  “Wait until tomorrow when the rest of the media circus turn up,” Ben said. “There’s bound to be a guy amongst them who needs showing around your town.”

  “I can only hope,” Bobby said as she popped the DVD out and gave it to Ben. “Here you go.”

  Now she knew he was off the market Bobby went off to introduce herself to some newly arrived State Troopers. Ben turned the DVD over in his hand. He set the laptop running again to watch the motel shooting. It didn’t get better with repetition. If anything, it got worse. Why did the guy in the room open fire like that? According to reports, the cops were there for a domestic dispute. And who was the woman they talked to first? Ben stopped the image again, this time focussing on her. Good looking despite her shorn hair.

  Ben sat back, staring off into the distance.

  Really?

  He stood and found Bobby. “If Kramer asks I’ll be out in our car.”

  “Sure,” she said, half-distracted by the trooper in front of her.

  Ben kept his head down as he left the station. He knew that news crews filmed everyone coming and going for stock footage and didn’t want to be identified that easily. In the Suburban, Ben set up his laptop and made sure the screen couldn’t be viewed from the road. It took ten minutes to download the file he wanted from the DSI server and another ten to grab the best frames he could from that file and the motel’s security camera video. He put both frames into a split-screen and looked at them. Maybe. He wouldn’t bet his life savings on it, but some decent imaging software could improve the grainy quality of the motel video and if it did then his stake would rise.

  He closed the screen and carried the laptop back into the station-house. Kramer and Fallion were still behind a closed door. Ben knocked as gently as he could. Kramer cracked the door open an inch and said, “What?”

  “Got something you need to see. Can I come in?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “No. I’ll come out.”

  Ben found a filing cabinet to balance his laptop on and opened the screen. When he logged back in, he said to Kramer, “Same woman or not?”

  Kramer shrugged and tapped the right half of the screen, “This one isn’t good enough quality, but I’d put a maybe on it. Where are the images from?”

  Ben pointed to the one Kramer had indicated. “This is from the motel security camera. And this one is from the Museum of Fine Arts on the day of the robbery.”

  That got Kramer’s full attention. She leaned a little closer. “I’d still rate it as a maybe, but you know how much I hate coincidences. Have you sent this to General Dawson?”

  “Not yet, I thought I’d run it passed you first.”

  She nodded. “Send it. I’m sure Dawson can get the techies to improve the video. Then we’ll have a better idea.”

  “But you know what this means?” Ben kept his voice down.

  “It means we wait. This is good, Scarrett.”

  “Only good?” Ben said.

  Kramer sighed and put on a fake, bright smile as she said in an excited voice, “Holy shit, Batman, you’ve solved the crime.”

  “Okay, that’s way over the top.” Ben shut the laptop. “But if the woman at the MFA is the one at the motel we have a lead on them.”

  “True.” Kramer rested against the cabinet. “In some ways, it makes sense. They steal a goddess, and we have a paranormal event here. But why?”

  “And who?” Ben said.

  “And if they are here, or were here, just down the interstate from Fort Bragg do they have contacts in the military who can attempt to murder a little girl?” Kramer stared at Ben, and he saw a growing horror in her eyes.

  “And kill her mother.” Ben put his hand on Kramer’s waist.

  “Don’t remind me.” Kramer closed her eyes. “Jesus Christ, what are we dealing with? Assassination teams, a Mayan goddess, demons that can be summoned from thin air. What next?”

  “We beat them,” Ben said.

  He got one of her ray-gun smiles in return. “I like your positivity,” she said.

  “You know me.”

  They were interrupted by Bobby LaDonte. “Ben, some news. A State Trooper has found the suspect’s car in a drainage ditch about ten miles out of town. He’s also found the body of a young white male. There’s a crime scene team on its way plus some of our local guys to see if we can identify the body.”

  “But we think they’ve switched vehicles.”

  “Yeah. If we can get a name for the victim, we should have a make and model of the vehicle he was driving. I’ll let you know as soon as any information is available.”

  “Thanks, Bobby,” Ben said.

  “She got a problem?” Kramer asked as Bobby walked away.

  “No, why?” Ben knew but kept his face innocent.

  “The way she looked at me.”

  “Oh, that. I think Bobby’s in the market for a man. Since I’m from out of town, I think she saw me as a potential target.”

  “Really?” One of Kramer’s eyebrows rose. “You have a thing for redheads?”

  “Sure,” Ben smiled. “But I prefer blondes.”

  “Blondes,” Kramer said, deadpan. “Plural?”

  “Okay, you got me,” Ben held a hand up in defeat. “A blonde.”

  “Which one?” Kramer asked.

  “The one standing right in front of me,” Ben said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Correct answer.” She reached out and brushed at his shoulder. “Just getting rid of a stray red hair,” she said.

  “She was showing me the motel video.” Ben looked down to see if he could see any more.


  Kramer laughed. “You know what I love about you? You are so easy to tease.”

  Ben picked up his laptop with a sigh. “I’ll send the images to Dawson. You go think up some more ways to amuse yourself.”

  ***

  Forty minutes later they knew the name of the dead kid and details of his vehicle. Thirty minutes after that Bobby told Ben that they’d located the pick-up in the parking lot at Toccoa Airport. Although it was close to ten, and the airport closed, the manager and a couple of staff were on their way back to assist with the investigation. Ben and Kramer made the half-hour journey in under twenty minutes and rolled to a stop in front of the small terminal building.

  The manager’s name was Ehrlich, and he met them in his office where an investigator from the Georgia State Troops had already made himself at home with a coffee and chocolate cookies. He nodded a ‘hello’, pointed at Ehrlich and said, “We got good video of them. Three Mexicans. Met up with a bunch of others from South of the Border and then split.”

  “Can I see the footage?” Ben asked.

  Ehrlich had them gather around his PC. This time the imagery was crystal clear.

  “That’s her,” Kramer said.

  “Of course it is,” Pattinson, the investigator, said from his chair, mistaking Kramer’s comment for one about the motel shooting and not the MFA robbery.

  “Do we know who they met?” Ben asked.

  “We had a flight land late morning,” Ehrlich said. “I’ve got all the aircraft details, tail number, flight plan, aircrew. They had four passengers. One looked like a businessman who asked if he could use a room here for a meeting. He said it was to do with investment in the area. We let him have our boardroom. They had the meeting and he left. One of my people thinks the aircraft went back empty. The passengers and the people who met them hired a couple of SUVs before they left. I’ll be honest, I only caught a glimpse of them, but I thought they looked more like drug-dealers than businessmen.”

  “Do we have plate details on the hire cars?” Kramer asked.