Southern Rites (Max Porter Mysteries Book 7)

by Jaffe,Stuart

  Drummond-Stanton faced Max and paused. His stretched skin wrinkled like a child trying to understand a new concept.

  “Archibald Henderson and Johnathan Shoemaker. They want their bones back.”

  Wallace’s men tackled Drummond-Stanton to the ground, but one arm of the giant ghost punched through. He reached up toward the sky as if attempting to grasp a hand. Wallace stumbled to his feet, holding his head while spitting blood.

  He straightened, staring off into the dark. With a shaking finger, he pointed. “What’s that?”

  Max put an arm around Sandra and held his mother’s hand. His mother pulled J against her. “Be ready to run,” Max said.

  Floating in from the trees, two pale figures appeared. Both were decayed creatures. One had a tricorn hat askew on his head. The other carried a musket.

  Puffing his chest, Wallace said, “I’ve no fear of you.” He closed his eyes, recited his fast spell, and shot another electrical burst at the ghosts. But unlike Drummond-Stanton, these ghosts were not solid. The blast shot through them without harm. The ghosts raced forward and Wallace screamed.

  Sandra covered her mouth. “Holy crap. There’s so many of them.”

  “I only see the two — which is weird enough for me,” Max said.

  “There must be twenty. Maybe more. They keep coming out of the woods.”

  As the two ghosts Max could see descended upon Wallace, the hooded men launched into the air, shouting as they went. Invisible hands ripped them away into the sky. And they never fell back. Max squinted as one man soared upward, silhouetted by the moon, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

  Archibald Henderson and Johnathan Shoemaker lifted Wallace off the ground and floated over to Drummond-Stanton. Standing his full seven feet, Drummond-Stanton gripped Wallace by the neck and held him in the air.

  “Please,” Wallace whispered, unable to make a louder sound. “I promise —”

  Drummond-Stanton snapped Wallace’s neck. Even as Wallace’s limp corpse fell, Max couldn’t be sure what had happened. A full second passed before he heard the dull crack of neck bones.

  Archibald Henderson and Johnathan Shoemaker faded away.

  “Woo!” J slapped his thigh, but Max and Sandra did not celebrate yet. Drummond-Stanton wheeled about at the sound with no sense of camaraderie in his hollow eyes. He stomped towards them.

  Sandra scooped up the ceramic bowl from the tray and held it before the group. “What was once put together must now be apart.” She added a few words from another language and shattered the bowl on the ground.

  Drummond-Stanton covered his face as if shielding from a bright light. Even as they watched, Max and J kicked dirt over the few remaining flames.

  “Now what happens?” Max asked.

  Sandra said, “They should have split apart.”

  “Did you forget any part of the spell?”

  “No. And don’t start with me, I’m trying to think.”

  “All I meant was —”

  Mrs. Porter touched his elbow. “Let her do her job.”

  Sandra tiptoed closer to Drummond-Stanton. “You in there? Drummond? Can you hear me?”

  The pale creature dangled his arms at his sides and sniffed the air. Sandra put out her arm, showing the back of her hand as if approaching a cautious dog. But this dog turned rabid.

  Drummond-Stanton opened his mouth and roared. Max heard a strange combination of vicious hissing and guttural growls and pained cries. As the creature leaped at Sandra, Max lunged forward and grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the creature she had made.

  Chapter 28

  Breaking from the trail and onto the battlefield, all four staggered to a halt. Breathing heavy, Max bent over, hands on knees, and coughed. “He’s not following us,” he managed between gasps of air.

  Sandra nodded. “It’s the stone. The spell I wrote on it acts like a tether. Not as strong as one’s bones, but the Stanton part of him will stick close to it.”

  “Because he lost his tether?”

  “He’s been wandering, unconnected to his body, for centuries. This is the closest he has to a real connection with anything. Would you leave that just to chase us?”

  Mrs. Porter said, “Okay, so he’s not following us. Who cares? Let’s go home.”

  “No,” Max said. “Drummond is our partner and our friend. We won’t leave him like that.”

  “Like what? If what you’ve told me is true, then he’s a ghost. He’s dead already. You can’t save him. But I’m real. J is real. And we should get out of here before that Wallace fellow comes back with his crazy cult.”

  Sandra motioned forward, but Max blocked her path. He said, “Mom, we are not leaving until this is done. All of it.”

  “There’s more?” In those two words, she became a little girl full of fear — fear of the dark, fear of the bogeyman, fear that the world might be not what it appeared. Max heard the need in her timbre — she had to find a way to rationalize all that she had seen.

  J paced by the entrance to the trail. He focused on the woods, his stride strong yet cautious. “What else we got to do?”

  “You saw that creature, right?” Max said to his mother.

  She peered back with a haunted gaze. “Creature? You mean that tall fellow? The one that helped us?”

  “Yeah, him. We can’t leave him alone in there. Um ... he’ll die of exposure.”

  Sandra said, “That’s right. We have to help him.”

  “How?” Mrs. Porter asked.

  Max turned to Sandra. “That’s a good question. Any ideas?”

  “One,” she said. “Chester Stanton needs to find his resting place. Even though he broke his tether, he still needs his bones.”

  “Why? Drummond’s bones are long gone, and he’s fine.”

  “He didn’t shred himself into pieces to be free. We broke his curse. There’s a difference. If Stanton can be brought to his remains, I might be able to cast an easy spell that will help him re-connect to the tether.”

  “But he won’t go back to being cursed, would he?”

  “The Call to Power has already been cast and used up. His curse is lifted because it’s gone. Look how he hasn’t come after us because of that stone. If it were his actual bones, he’d detach from Drummond through sheer will. He should be able to move on after that. At least, that’s how I understand it.”

  Max closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep — for a good year or two. “Then we have to find where he’s buried.”

  “And we have to do it tonight. We can’t let people walk that trail in the morning and find him.”

  “Okay. Let me think.” He pursed his lips as he paced back and forth. “We know that Stanton was buried somewhere on or near this battlefield. That’s why he haunts this area. He’s not on this open section here because he would have found his body easily out in the open.”

  “What if he’s under one of these monuments?”

  “It’s possible, but wouldn’t this one with the statue or even the other one — wouldn’t they be like big lights signaling to him that his body is right here? Besides, this section of the battlefield was in British control. The Regulators were camped on the other side of the street, hiding amongst those trees. It’s easy to get confused around trees — they all start looking the same. Maybe he can’t find the tree near where he was buried.”

  Max tossed away those thoughts with a flick of his hand. It didn’t matter which part of the field had been under control of which side. Stanton died after the battle had ended. Wherever he had been buried and cursed, it had to be less open to people finding him.

  “What about the visitor’s center or the parking lot?” Sandra said. “Maybe after he broke free, his body was paved over or built upon.”

  “Possibly. But that building looks the most modern. Maybe built in the 1980s or later. And it’s large enough that they would have had to dig a deep foundation. I didn’t come across any articles about finding bodies in the ground.”

  Mrs. Porter ta
pped her watch. “Are we going to stand out here all night? If you don’t have a plan, we could at least go home where it’s comfortable and think there.”

  Max’s synapses fired off — home. He jogged a few steps toward the street, peering into the dark. “I know where he is.”

  “Then can we go?”

  Whirling back to his family, he said, “Where did you leave the car? Is it far?”

  “A few blocks from the park.”

  “Go there. You and J, get the car and park it on the other side of the street a few hundred feet down from the entrance. If any cops come by, I don’t want them getting curious, so cut the engine and keep low. But be ready if we come running.”

  J grinned. “You want us to be the getaway car.”

  “That’s right.” True, too. But even truer — Max wanted both of them out of harm’s way. They had endured enough on this case, and they couldn’t really help much for the rest. As long as the rest went the way Max now saw it going.

  Once they had left for the car, Sandra said, “You going to let me in on where Stanton’s buried?”

  Pointing off with his chin, Max said, “The John Allen House.” The one-room home they had looked at earlier that day.

  “But that’s not even from the actual battle.”

  “I know. It didn’t come here until the 1960s.”

  “Then how is that the place?”

  “Because they brought it over from Snow Creek intact and set it down. There’s a root cellar, not a foundation. Deep but not too deep.”

  Sandra gazed at the shadowy area where the house sat. “You think he’s under the root cellar.”

  “Where else could he be on this battlefield that he wouldn’t be able to find himself? And what kind of goofed-up life are we living that I can ask that question seriously?”

  With a grin and peck on the cheek, Sandra said, “My kind of goofed-up life. Okay. I know when to trust your intuition. Let’s go.”

  She started toward the trail, but Max pointed back to the road. “The house is that way.”

  “We have to get Drummond.”

  “I thought we’d go to the root cellar, and you’d cast your spell to call him over and split him.”

  “You thought wrong. Nothing is going to draw him away from that stone until he finds his bones.”

  Max’s stomach tied up. “We have to get the stone, don’t we?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Fine.” He trudged to the head of the trail. “You go to the Allen House and get everything set to cast your spell. I’ll get the stone. But be ready. I have a feeling ol’ Drummond-Stanton won’t be too happy about me swiping his precious.”

  Sandra followed him onto the trail. “No.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We are not splitting up again. Not tonight.”

  “Honey, that spell —”

  “It won’t take long to cast. And you saw that thing we’ve created — how strong it is. There is no way I’m letting you go in there alone to get yourself killed.”

  “So we’ll go in together to get killed?”

  Sandra slipped her arm around him. “At least then, I won’t have to hear your mother blame me for your death.”

  “She probably would hold that over you.”

  “Forever. Even from her grave.”

  Leaning into each other, Max and Sandra hurried down the trail.

  Chapter 29

  Ducking behind two birch trees, Max and Sandra peeked over at the circle. Drummond-Stanton clumped in one direction, stared at the ground, whacked his head with his fists, and then moved off in a different direction. He never went more than ten feet from the circle.

  Not the circle, Max thought. The stone.

  “Got any thoughts on how we’re going to get in there?” he whispered.

  Blanching at the idea brewing in her head, Sandra said, “Yeah, I kinda do.”

  “Let me guess — I’m not going to like it.”

  On the plus side, the plan was simple. Max had learned long ago that simple plans worked far better than complex ones. On the minus side, Sandra had to be the one to get the stone. Max hated the idea of putting her in jeopardy, but even if they switched jobs, she would be on the minus side of the plan. There was no plus-side job in this.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “No. But dawn will come eventually, so we might as well get this over with.”

  “It’ll be fine,” she said with no conviction. “Just remember that Drummond is in there.”

  Max stepped out from behind the tree. “You hope,” he said as he strolled up the path toward the circle.

  At the sound of his steps, Drummond-Stanton whirled around, huffing like an angry bull. Max waved. “Hi, there. Drummond? Can you hear me?”

  Drummond-Stanton leaned forward and bellowed that horrid noise that melded too many sounds together. Trying to appear confident, Max wiggled his pinkie in his ear.

  “That was loud,” he said. “You know you might want to consider some mouthwash. Your breath’s a bit off.” Drummond-Stanton reared back. “Oh, come on, Drummond. Just a little playful banter. You know, like we always do. Remember?”

  Max meandered around the circle, always staying at least fifteen feet out — out of reach but close enough that Drummond-Stanton followed him, stepping away from the circle and the stone. Once Max had the pale creature with its back to Sandra, he stopped.

  “Listen to me. I know you’re in there, and I know you can hear me. Well, I hope all of that’s true. Anyway, we’re trying to help you, but it’d be swell if you helped us out, too. So, let’s start simple: Drummond, my friend, if you can hear me and if you have any control, raise one of your hands up high.”

  Drummond-Stanton kept his hands down.

  “Okay. Maybe that was too hard. Can you do anything to show me you understand that I’m your old pal, Max?”

  Drummond-Stanton shouted at him in a long, ear-splitting cry. Max saw Sandra hunched over as she entered the circle. She moved slow, avoiding sticks and leaves that might give her away, but Max had a sense that Drummond-Stanton wouldn’t play this game much longer. If he could get through, even for a few seconds, Drummond might help stall things, but that seemed less and less likely.

  “Are you really going to keep yelling at me? Is that all you can do? Man, I thought you were tougher than that. I mean, come on, you’re Marshall Drummond. Are you telling me that you can’t fight against a messed-up ghost that’s almost three hundred years old?”

  Drummond-Stanton bent forward and flexed his muscles like a television wrestler. Then he did something that terrified Max. He stepped forward.

  Max quickly understood his mistake. Drummond-Stanton was not actually tethered to the stone at ten feet. He merely wanted to stay that close to the thing. But the more annoying Max had been, the more motivation Drummond-Stanton had to go further out. If he thought at all, that creature must have thought it could swat Max dead and then return to its stone.

  But like a toddler learning to break free from its mother, Drummond-Stanton took one look back to make sure his stone was still there. Only it wasn’t. Max and Drummond-Stanton both saw Sandra hustling up the path, and they both knew she carried the stone.

  Drummond-Stanton shrieked — a far worse sound than he had yet to make — and chased after her. Max tailed behind. Every step the giant made required Max to take three just to keep pace. He pressed harder, gaining ground and ignoring the constant pains in his lungs. As he drew near, he jumped forward, clasping the tattered remains of Drummond-Stanton’s coat.

  The dead beast reached down, latched onto Max’s leg, and hurled him into the path ahead. Straining for breath, Max saw Drummond-Stanton charging forward. Without giving himself time to reconsider, he rolled into Drummond-Stanton’s legs, toppling the giant like a sawed redwood.

  Stumbling to his feet, Max edged around Drummond-Stanton before jogging up the path. He knew Drummond-Stanton would be on his tail soon enough, but until that momen
t, he focused on the next step, and the next, and the next.

  When he limped out of the woods, he saw Sandra crossing the street. He never stopped moving. Pushing through — that was the way. That was always the way.

  Though it seemed to take an hour, Max reached the Allen House in less than five minutes. Sandra stood at the side of the house and yanked on the root cellar door. It would not budge. When she saw Max, she rushed over.

  “I was worried you wouldn’t —”

  “I’m fine. Beaten as all hell, but I’m fine.”

  She kissed him. “I can’t get the door open.”

  He rattled the old door’s handle. Maybe on another day, he could have succeeded. But with the abuse his body had suffered, he lacked the strength to force open the lock.

  “Together, then,” Sandra said, bending next to him to grab the handle.

  When she lowered her body, Max saw Drummond-Stanton tearing up the ground as he stampeded toward them. Operating on instinct, Max reached under Sandra’s arms and lifted her backwards. They collapsed on the grass as Drummond-Stanton punched where they had just been. The momentum of his body and the force of his strike smashed through the root cellar door. He toppled down the ladder leading below.

  “Hurry,” Sandra said, back on her feet.

  Max got in front of her, flicked on his cellphone light, and dropped into the cellar. Despite the erratic flickering from his damaged cellphone, he saw enough. To the left of the ladder, he spotted a potato barrel. Beams overhead from the floor of the house poked through the dirt. The walls and floor were unfinished — wooden framework and plenty of red clay. It smelled damp, and the temperature dropped at least ten degrees from the surface.

  Ahead, Drummond-Stanton stood bent in the cramped space. He swiped at Max but more for the point of making a threat than actually attacking — not enough room for a giant to maneuver.

  As Sandra stepped down the ladder, Max said, “Go over by the barrel. How long will your spell take?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never done it before.”