“I’m not guessing.”
“Guess.”
“I’m not guessing.”
“Guess!”
“Midnight!”
“Guess again.”
I cut her a look and folded my arms. “I’m so not in the mood for this.”
“Four A.M. Four in the morning. Her neighbor told this girl who told me. Can you believe that? And she had the nerve to chat away in Pearce’s class like nothing had happened. Does she not know the rule? Thou shalt not screw your friend’s ex. Oh my god, I want to punch her in the face. I swear, if she was on All Saints, I’d slew-foot her till the ice busted her ass.”
“Were,” I said in a faraway voice. The news was supposed to make me mad, but all I felt was sadness. Kelly was my next best friend, not my rock like Siobhan, but still a friend. If I couldn’t trust her not to betray me, who could I trust? Was anyone really, truly my friend?
“Were what?”
“If she were on All Saints, not was.”
“Seriously?” she said, all cranked up. “Your friend betrays you, and you correct my grammar?”
“What time did Will Patrick get home?”
“That’s just it,” she said. “He didn’t go home. In first period he shows up late, dressed in filthy clothes like he’d been sleeping on the ground. This girl I talked to says he looks stoned.”
“Will Patrick doesn’t do drugs.”
“And friends don’t date friend’s exes. He’s in chemistry this period. Let’s go find him.”
She took my arm, but I locked my heels. The thought of seeing his face made my guts clench. Don’t set eyes on him, I thought. The crows will see you. “Not now. We’ve got to get back to class.”
Siobhan started to argue, but she was stopped by a sudden rush of green skirt and button-down Oxford cloth that slammed her against the wall.
“Dude!” she said and pushed Kelly off. “What the hell?”
“Sorry! Sorry, but holy Jeez!” Kelly said. “Did you guys hear about Flanagan?”
“Him, too?” Siobhan said. “Damn, girl, you get around.”
Kelly drew back like she’d been slapped. “Huh?”
“What happened to Flanagan?” I asked, something telling me it wouldn’t be a good answer.
Kelly’s hands were shaking. “He’s dead.”
“No way!” Siobhan said. “You’re lying.”
“I’d never! It’s on Snapchat,” she said. “There’s pictures and everything. You know that the cemetery, the one on Tremont?”
“The one you snuck out to last night?” Siobhan said.
“Right. That one,” Kelly said, not caring that she had just confessed. “Me and Will Patrick met him there last night. They’d found this tomb, and they said there was treasure in it.”
Siobhan shoved her phone in my face. “It’s true! Look!”
The picture of the tomb made my head spin. I could smell the earthy malodor of damp ground and the decaying tang of mold. It clung in the air like foul perfume, and it reminded me of the cemetery where my dad was buried. I had smelled that odor before, in Pearce’s classroom when Kelly came in. That’s why Will Patrick smelled like damp earth. He had spent the night in an open grave.
“Yeah, I see the hole,” Siobhan said. “But no dead guy.”
“Nobody takes pictures of a dead kid,” Kelly said. “They found him in it. That’s not enough for you?”
Her breath smells like raw sewage, I thought, and it made me want to scratch her eyes out. My hands closed into fists, and I took a step toward her before recoiling, horrified at what I was about to do. “Guys?” I said, my stomach twisting. “I’m definitely going to hurl.”
Siobhan pressed a finger against the bottom of my nose, a trick that hockey players used to keep from barfing on the ice. “Breathe. It’ll pass.”
It didn’t pass. I leaned over and exhaled and opened my hands. They were marked with half moons from where my nails had dug into my palms. The urge to claw Kelly’s eyes out had passed, but the stink hadn’t, and it was growing by the second.
I had to leave.
Siobhan looked at Kelly. “You’re hiding something,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes. You look guilty as sin.”
“What are you, psychic?” Kelly said.
“You and Will Patrick were in that cemetery with Flanagan, and you didn’t get back till four. What took you so long to get home?”
“It’s not passing,” I said.
“Four?” Kelly shook her head. “It was before that. I don’t know shit about Flanagan. I—” She blinked twice, then ran for the exit, calling over her shoulder, “Left something in my car! I’ll be back!”
“Breathing’s not helping,” I said.
But Siobhan wasn’t listening. “I was just baiting her, but wow! She’s scared out of her mind. I’m definitely going back to tell Jaybird.” She dropped her backpack. “Watch this for me?”
“What about class?” I rasped.
“Kelly’s gone full psycho,” she said. “That comes before AP English.”
Dead girl walking, I thought, but didn’t know how close to the truth it was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
WILL Patrick walked across the parking lot, head down, hands in pockets. The wind blew his blond hair from his face, turning his cheeks so red that he looked even more like a cherub. What he was thinking, though, was nothing angelic. He had awakened at the bell in a pool of his own drool with his dirty hair matted to his moist ear.
Mrs. Rosalind was standing over him, and the rest of the classroom was empty. “Late night?” she said.
“Huh?”
“I said, late night? You’re looking rough, Will. Did you sleep in those clothes?” Mrs. Rosalind asked and waved away the odors wafting from his hair. “Did you even go home last night?”
“Yeah,” he said, but realized that he had no recollection of it. He remembered jumping into the tomb with Flanagan and Kelly, then the sound of a bell ringing and chairs scraping. The space between was blank. No, not blank. It wasn’t empty at all. It was filled with swirling, poisoned mists, bitter cold, and the violent whispers deep in pain. “No, wait. That’s not right. I spent the night with my boy Flanagan.”
“Flanagan? Isn’t that the boy who died?”
“Died?” he croaked. His throat was hot and inflamed, and the word turned to dust in his mouth. “No, no, I just saw him.”
“Maybe it’s another boy with the same name? It breaks my heart when a young person passes away.” Mrs. Rosalind turned away as her students started filing in. “Jacob! Taylor! Stop throwing paper!”
Will Patrick reached for his backpack and realized it wasn’t there. He patted his pockets. His car keys were in the left front, and clumps of dirt fell out of the back pocket when he pulled out his wallet to check for cash and his ID. Both were still there, though his wallet smelled of mold. He sniffed his pits and gagged.
What the hell happened to Flanagan? he wondered as he pushed through the knot of girls trying to enter the room, then stumbled into the hallway on half-numb legs. What if somebody had snitched about the treasure hunt? What’s going to happen when the cops showed up at the front door? His mother was a lawyer, for chrisssake. She would get him off, but he hadn’t done anything. Flanagan was the grave-robbing thug, not him.
He ached for a beer. There was a six-pack hidden in his car trunk in case of emergencies, so instead of going to his next class, he took the back stairs that led to the student parking lot. He threw a hand up to block the blinding sunlight and stumbled toward his spot.
Beer. He needed beer and a change of clothes and a shower. But mostly, beer. He was so lost in his yearning that he walked right past a man in a dark hoodie.
The man fell in line behind him.
Will shuffled through his key ring until he found the right fob. The trunk popped open, and he was reaching for the six-pack when the hooded figure slammed the lid down, pinning Will’s hand.
“Fuck!” he yelled. “Dude
!”
Harken put a finger to his lips, and Will Patrick fell silent. “Got a light?”
“I don’t smoke, sir.”
“The nicotine stains on your fingers say you do.” Harken inhaled deeply. “So does the scent of tobacco on your clothes.”
“Do I know you?” Will Patrick blinked slowly. His brain was trying to place Harken, who seemed awfully familiar. “You a cop? Because I’ve never smoked a day in my life.”
“You’re a rotten liar.” Harken grabbed Will Patrick’s shirt and removed a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “And if you aren’t careful, you’re going to be a dead man.”
“You can’t kill me for a couple cigs.”
“This isn’t about cigarettes.” Harken pushed the lid down, and Will Patrick grunted. “I’ve half a mind to let you suffer the same fate as your friend. The one I found hanging this morning in the burying ground.”
“Flanagan?” Will Patrick’s face blanched, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as if he’d swallowed a hot ember. Flanagan’s screams filled his ears. Flanagan, lying on the ground, his throat torn out, blood gurgling from it.
“You fools had no inkling what you unleashed, did you?” Harken pushed Will Patrick hard against the bumper. “That boy is dead, and you’ll be next. That’s how the Shadowless pays for treasure.”
Treasure. They’d been hunting treasure. Him, Flanagan, and Kelly. That’s right, she’d been there, too. “Please, you have to help me.”
“Do I?” Harken stared hard into Will Patrick’s eyes. Shadows moved in them, deep in the pupils. “You wouldn’t want the help I can give.”
“She’s coming for me,” he whispered. “Hide me, please.”
“That’s not a terrible idea.” Harken punched Will Patrick’s jaw, and the light in his eyes went out.
Harken rolled Will Patrick into the trunk. He tucked his elbows and knees inside and stuffed an emergency blanket under his head for a pillow. If the boy were lucky, the Shadowless would only kill him. So young, so arrogant, and so ripe for the picking. He had once been just like this boy, brash, handsome, thinking that the world was his oyster, but the oyster belonged to the Shadowless, and so had Harken.
Why this boy? Why now? He was too old to lure from his crib and too ordinary to ever make a good familiar. No time to wax philosophical, he reminded himself. This was just an unfortunate coincidence—it had nothing to do with him or the family he served.
Before he closed the lid, Harken confiscated Will Patrick’s student ID. The photo looked nothing like him. Will Patrick’s hair was different and longer, and his face was moon shaped, while Harken’s was angular and lean.
“Close enough in a pinch.”
The next step was to find the Conning girl, then keep her under his thumb while deciding the best way to proceed. The vial of Aqua Tofana was in his pocket, awaiting the perfect moment. He felt an unfamiliar pang of guilt. The thought of killing her made his stomach lurch. He had sworn to defend the Conning family, and the Fates had special punishments for oath breakers. Nothing they could do, though, terrified him as much as the thought of the Shadowless’s punishment for his betrayal.
“Damn,” he said and dropped the car keys in the trunk. He slammed the lid. It popped open, and he slammed it harder. “Damn! Damn! Damn it!”
Overhead, a roll of thunder shook the air. Harken looked at the sky, then checked his stolen watch. The storm was coming, and if he didn’t act, it would consume him, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ON the wall of the Beacon School cafeteria, a seventy-two-inch plasma television hung next to a large clock showing the time: 12:01 P.M. Lunch always began at noon sharp, and at the faculty’s request, the television was tuned to the local news. It was the teachers’ not so subliminal way of exposing us to current events. The lead story was about the cops “still investigating the death of a local boy whose body was found in Granary cemetery this morning.”
Flanagan.
He really was dead. We had heard about it all morning, but with social media, you never knew if it was a hoax or a rumor. When your face was on TV, it was as close to the truth as it could get.
Flanagan.
I dropped my book bag on a table and sat down. My shoulder muscles were tied up in knots, and my stomach was tighter than a noose. How had the day gone so wrong so fast? Flanagan was dead, Kelly was acting guilty as sin, and I was seeing and hearing things that made me doubt my sanity. I rubbed my thumb and stared at the clock. It was already past noon, and so far I had no plan for getting the egg out of hock.
“Hey baby sweetie honey darling.” Siobhan dropped her stuff next to mine and opened a container of juice. She chugged half in one gulp. “Ah, just the healthy dose of vitamin C, carbs, and fluids I need to kick some All Saints ass. Am I right?”
“Right.”
She held up a fist. “I said, AM I RIGHT?”
Without much enthusiasm, I tapped it. “Right as rain.”
“Damn right, you mean. Right as rain makes no sense. Rain doesn’t have hands.”
“It’s an English idiom, and right means straight or going in one direction. Rain is straight down.”
“Unless the wind is blowing. And only you would know that.”
“Right as rain,” I said because word games were the least of my worries today.
The camera switched back to the anchor, who gave a brief update on the day’s hottest news story, the death of James Flanagan of Dorchester. Now the whole of Beacon School knew his name. Some rumors said he was attacked by feral cats, and others said he’d been stabbed. There was also the rumor that Will Patrick had been involved. He’d been acting weird in chemistry, then he’d disappeared. His car was still in the student lot, which I could confirm by standing on my chair and looking out the windows. There it was, his dad’s old Beemer. It was nicely appointed for a cliché.
“Willow Jane.” Siobhan looked up from her grinder. “Why’re you standing on the chair?”
“It’s terrible,” I said, sitting down. “Poor Flanagan.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it? I read online that it was just a freak accident.” Siobhan, always the pragmatist, added, “Or something.”
“But we knew him. And he died.”
“Yes, we met him, but shit happens,” she said, trying to sound harsher than I knew she felt. “Let’s talk about All Saints, which is who we need to be concentrating on.”
I touched my head. My scalp felt sore, like I’d been brushing my hair against the grain. “Okay. All Saints.”
“Siobhan knows best.”
“Hey, losers.” Kelly plopped down next to me. “What does Siobhan know best?”
“Hey, Kelly,” I said, not wanting to be rude but unable to hide my hurt feelings.
“What do you want, shitburger?” Siobhan didn’t share my need for politeness. “Find that thing in your car?”
“Car? Oh, yeah. That. Sure, I got it.” Kelly flashed an innocent smile that wasn’t fooling anyone. “Did you call me a shitburger?”
“She didn’t mean that,” I said.
“Hell, yes, I meant it. Don’t go nicey-nice with her. She went out with your ex before the spit had dried on his lips, then lied about it to our faces.”
“Ew,” Kelly said. “Way to be graphic.”
“Too graphic,” I said.
“Way to stab your friend in the back.”
“You guys, it wasn’t like that.” Kelly took a long sip of Diet Coke. “Okay, maybe it could’ve been, but Will Patrick was acting all weird, and the cemetery was supercreepy, so nothing happened.”
“Except something did happen,” I said. Maybe it was the way Kelly angled her head or the way her eyes kept darting from me to Siobhan to the floor like a little bullfinch with no place to perch. “Tell us about it.”
“I can’t. My brain is fried.”
“Tell us,” I demanded. No, commanded.
Siobhan shot me a WTF look. I shrugged and nodded at Kelly, who was playing with the tab on h
er drink.
“Did you hear about Will Patrick coming to school hung over and dressed in dirty clothes?”
“Sort of,” I said.
“He was stumbling around like a stoned zombie,” Siobhan said.
“Except he wasn’t. Stoned, I mean.” Kelly took another sip. “He was possessed.”
Siobhan burst out laughing. “Possessed by beer maybe.”
“Shh,” Kelly said, stealing furtive glances around the cafeteria. “You guys will think I’m crazy.”
“We think you’re a shitburger with extra sauce.”
“Well, not with extra sauce,” I said and felt bad for Kelly. She was clearly upset and not in her usual look-at-me way. This wasn’t some drummed-up drama. She kept preening her hair, and her gaze darted from me to Siobhan, then back again. “Hey, it’s okay,” I said. “I’m not mad about Will Patrick. Tell us what’s going on. Sisters before misters, right? You can trust us.”
“The guys found a tomb, right?” Kelly said. “Down some steps, there was this casket with all sorts of pharaoh pictures and weird writing carved into it.”
Runes and hieroglyphs, I thought. To ward off evil. Or to keep it inside.
Siobhan huffed. “You saw this alleged casket?”
“Yeah, but it was dark.”
I put a hand on Siobhan’s arm to get her to cool it. I meant it when I said Kelly could trust us. “What did they do in the tomb?”
“That’s what’s so stupid. Will Patrick thought there would be treasure inside, so he and Flanagan opened the casket.” She crushed the Coke can in her worried hands. “Surprise, no treasure, just a mummy. Not even a good one. Just bones wrapped in a rotten old sack.”
“A shroud?” I asked. “They used to lay a shroud over the dead before they were buried.”
“So there were bones,” Siobhan said. “That’s why you chickened out?”
“I never saw the bones, okay?” Kelly shrugged. “Will Patrick Snapchatted me pics.”
“Let’s see these alleged pics,” Siobhan said.
“It’s Snapchat?” Kelly said. “The pics don’t save?”
“They do if you turn Save on.”
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