One More Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  As our guide clapped his hands enthusiastically, cheers erupted from the GhostWalkers. I studied the crowd, young and old, well dressed and grungy, all bright-eyed as a bunch of World War II volunteers. Idiots. Bart went on, assuring them the sites were all within a reasonable walking distance of each other, pumping them up till they were practically drooling, but I stopped listening. Albert had decided to join me.

  “What the hell is wrong with these people?” he asked, his voice carrying at least as far as Glasgow.

  How refreshing that, for once, nobody knew we were related. “Gosh, Albert, I don’t know. Maybe they’d rather spend time with the dead than insensitive mooks like you.” I know, I know. Nobody can turn me into a hypocrite faster than my dad.

  I crouched down to pet Jack. Something told me I was going to need this moment of peace before setting off on a hike with my half-crippled father and a coworker who acted like he wanted me one second and then flirted like a maniac the next. Jealous any, Jaz? I glanced at Cole. Nope. Just worried he’s about to do something really dumb.

  The GhostWalk started off fine. The path to Clava Cairns had been mulched and lit at decent intervals with solar lamps mounted to poles. The group spread out, following Bart in a line that stretched the length of a city block. With Albert moving at cracked-knee pace, we quickly dropped to the back. But the pack began to close again as we neared our first destination, which was lit to an eerie ambience with lanterns hanging from the lowest branches of the spidery-armed beech trees that grew throughout the area.

  The picture Albert had shown me of Clava Cairns’s burial mounds didn’t convey the feel of the place. Sure, everywhere on Earth is ancient. But the places where people bury their dead seem to hold on to that history better than anywhere else.

  As we moved toward the mound Bart wanted to show off, a well-dressed woman who’d decided that spiked pumps were the ideal touring shoe tripped over a smaller circle of stones and would’ve given herself a nasty gash if her companion hadn’t caught her on the way down.

  Yeah, this place wants us outta here, I thought as I looked around grimly.

  The talkers in the group lowered it to a spooked murmur as the atmosphere sunk into their awareness. We all kept checking out the borders, as if we expected a line of mourners to burst through the trees, chanting and wailing, carrying with them a shrouded body on a litter.

  Bart led everyone to the northeast cairn, which stood taller than the average man, a testament to the old race’s commitment. Had they loved and missed their dead as we do? Or had they simply feared that if they didn’t bury them right, they’d return. Angry and famished. Looking for a little soul to sup on?

  “My friends, this huge burial mound is the source of the most activity,” Bart began, darting his eyes around the group, oozing suppressed excitement. “We estimate that over two thousand people were cremated and/or interred in this space before it was closed over their bodies.” He waved dramatically toward a narrow passageway leading toward the center of the cairn. “Of course, the cairn lost its seal hundreds of years ago and has been open to the elements for all that time.”

  “I dare you to go in,” one young guy with shaved short hair and side mirror ears said to his friend, a tall, skinny dude who walked around with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. I was betting he hadn’t had a date in, well, ever.

  “I will if you will,” said Cigarette Lips.

  “Fine, I’ll go!”

  “Do you hear that, ladies and gentlemen?” asked Bart. “We have two volunteers to lead us into the cairn! Since we’re such a big crowd, however, we’ll have to split up. Ten and ten should do it, I think.” He separated us, grouping our crew with Shaved Head and sending us first.

  Jack wasn’t thrilled with the idea of entering the cairn and resisted at first, jerking his head against Albert’s hand a couple of times. But when Cole took Albert’s arm to keep up the pretense that he needed to be led and I grabbed Jack’s leash, he settled down. Iona signed to Viv, with Cole translating, “Are you scared?”

  Viv thought a second. Shrugged. “No, not really.” She put her hand on Cole’s free arm and smiled up at him. Together we walked into the cairn.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  First I noticed the stifling feeling caused by a combination of my mild claustrophobia and someone’s overactive sweat glands raising a mild stench where we stood in the center of the stones. The mud floor had been swept clean of debris. The stones, held back at their base only by a small ring of rocks, pressed in on me as I looked around. My vision, limited by the presence of so many others, began to blur and fade.

  I blinked and looked up at the sky. Breathe, Jaz. Inhale and listen to Bart the Spandex Wonder gush about the Clava Cairns ghosts.

  “Maybe if we’re very, very quiet,” he said. And he closed his eyes.

  The last thing I wanted was another ghost encounter. I looked around, trying to decide who would be the least pissed off if I decided to shove my way through the meditators. I’d just about picked my route when Jack distracted me. He was digging.

  What are you doing! Good God, defacing public property? That’s probably a felony in this country! Stop, you crazy mutt! Sometimes Jack picks up on my unspoken suggestions. Sometimes not. This time he looked up at me and stuck out his tongue.

  Don’t give me that; I know you’re not hot! Now cut it out!

  But Jack had found something interesting. Probably a bone belonging to some poor schmuck who hadn’t been so great with the flint.

  I took a step back. Pulled Albert and Cole together in front of me like a pair of curtains.

  “What is it?” Cole murmured.

  “Cover me,” I whispered as I knelt behind them. “Stop it!” I hissed, shoving dirt back into the small hole Jack had made. “If this is revenge for the neutering, I’d just like to remind you, that lamp you mistakenly took for a golden retriever cost me a hundred bucks to replace. And I’m still having issues peeing in my own toilet after catching you . . . ugh! It makes me shiver to remember! So if you think this makes us even, think again!”

  He dug like a Caterpillar, making it nearly impossible to keep up with him. I finally leaned my shoulder in to him and shoved him far enough aside that I could refill the crater he’d begun. But as I began to push dirt back into the spot he’d chosen, I felt something rubbery move under my fingers.

  For a second I reverted to age twelve, when Mom decided Dave and I were old enough to stay home alone and look after Evie while she worked. At night. We’d felt like big shits in a little bowl until we heard the scraping at the back door. Then, just like now, a moment of bone-deep paralysis accompanied by a dam’s burst of thoughts. Did we lock the door? Maybe it’s the dog scratching. Nope, he died last winter. Could it be the freak we saw passing by the house this morning? The one who looked like his nose was about to rot off? And why am I sitting here trying to figure stuff out when he could already be in the dining room? With a knife! Mommy, I’m scared!

  That time we had locked the door. And a good thing, too. Because it had been our neighbor, Mr. Moore. So drunk he’d confused our house for his. When he couldn’t get in, he’d tried the right place, gone inside, and shot his family to death with a .22-caliber rifle.

  Now it took me a second to realize I didn’t have hold of a body part. After I’d had a moment to shove my heart back into my chest, reinflate my lungs, and feel around the hole, I realized Jack had dug up something leathery and strappy. I pulled him back to the spot and let him finish the job while Bart waxed poetical about all the souls who hadn’t been able to move on from this place. In particular a nightly walker they liked to call the Chief.

  “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.

  “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 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 looking 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 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?”

  “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.”