Grave Phantoms

by Jenn Bennett

  “Immortality?” Astrid said.

  “More like . . . a Fountain of Youth to give them extra time,” Mathilda explained. “It was a ritual performed over water—over Lake Texcoco, which was the home of the Aztecs. They established their empire on an island in the middle of that lake. Mexico City was later built on top of it, and the lake was drained.”

  Ritual performed over water. Astrid thought of the Plumed Serpent.

  “And how is this legend connected to our idol?” Bo asked.

  Dr. Navarro leaned closer, as if someone might overhear them, and spoke in an exhilarated tone. “Because the soothsayer’s ritual involved the use of ceremonial turquoise idols purported to be very much like this.”

  “Very much,” Mathilda agreed.

  Bo frowned at the idol, and Astrid wondered if he was thinking about the ritual in her vision. She certainly was. “Would this ritual also have involved human sacrifice?” she asked.

  Dr. Navarro shrugged. “Perhaps. Sacrifice was common in pre-Columbian cultures. They believed life was cyclical—birth, death, rebirth. Death was not the end of life, but part of it.”

  “Your Viking ancestors were known to sacrifice a few souls themselves,” Mathilda said to Astrid. “And your Chinese ancestors, too, Mr. Yeung. We are all descended from barbarians.”

  “Barbarians and lovers of grandiose drama,” Dr. Navarro said “The Mayans sometimes anointed their sacrifices’ bodies with blue pigment and shot them through with arrows.”

  Blue pigment . . .

  Excitement made the hairs on Astrid’s arms rise. The yacht survivors were performing a ritual to extend their lives. The people she’d seen in the burlap sacks were human sacrifices. Sacrifices! Could this really be possible in this day and age, here in San Francisco?

  Dr. Navarro pointed to the idol. “All of that aside, the symbol on the front is not Aztec. It’s not Central American at all, which is very odd. If we entertain the notion that this actually might be one of the ceremonial idols used by the soothsayers of legend, then perhaps it is proof that the soothsayers were, indeed, foreigners.”

  When pressed, neither woman had a guess as to the cultural origin of symbol on the golden disk. Its style was both too generic and, at the same time, unique enough for them to rule out anything either of them had seen before.

  Which was utterly disappointing.

  “Is it possible the entire idol isn’t Aztec at all?” Bo asked.

  Dr. Navarro shook her head. “I say at least most of this is genuine, and the style matches other known turquoise work from that period.”

  Mathilda gave the idol another close inspection. “In the legend, the soothsayers died off when their ritual idols were stolen. I suppose they did not see the future very well that day,” she said with a mischievous smile.

  Dr. Navarro snorted. “They must have been terrible oracles altogether not to see the Spaniards coming nor the outbreak of smallpox that would ravage the Valley of Mexico.”

  “You said the idols were stolen,” Bo said. “Stolen by whom?”

  “Spanish explorers, most likely,” Dr. Navarro said. “When the Aztecs were conquered, their temples were looted.”

  Mathilda crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “And then, of course, there was a French privateer by the name of Jean Fleury. He famously captured two Spanish galleons carrying Aztec treasure back to Spain. Most of that treasure was given to the king of France, but who can tell where all of it eventually ended up?”

  Bo made a small noise and stared at Astrid with a look of amazement widening his face. He said only one word. “Pirates.”

  FOURTEEN

  Upon leaving Dr. Navarro and Mathilda, Bo and Astrid excitedly talked about the Pieces of Eight Society while they called for the elevator and waited for it to ascend. The more they talked about how it might fit in with the ladies’ legendary soothsayers, the more electrified Astrid got—and in no small part because she now knew ab-so-positively that her visions hadn’t been mere figments of her imagination.

  Not that she had much doubt before today, but it was good to be proven right.

  “Do you think the survivors are actual pirates who’ve been keeping themselves alive for hundreds of years?” she murmured to Bo. “One of the survivors was a woman. Imagine that—a female pirate. God, Bo. This is exciting. I feel like we’re gumshoes who’ve stumbled upon the case of the century. Oh! What about Mrs. Cushing? And none of this explains where the yacht disappeared to for an entire year, and—”

  “Christ, slow down, Typhoon Astrid,” Bo whispered, but he wasn’t really irritated. He struggled to control a smile and his face betrayed his excitement. “Let’s think for a moment. All this talk of human sacrifice is making me nervous. If it weren’t for your visions and your . . . unhealthy aura, I’d just return the idol to Mrs. Cushing and be done with it.”

  “And let her and her cronies sacrifice more helpless people in the future?”

  “These people may be more dangerous than we originally thought.”

  “Pfft. Max didn’t even have a weapon. What kind of pirate doesn’t carry a weapon?” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “This is serious, Astrid. There’s a chance the idol’s done permanent damage to you—not to mention that you could have died that night on the yacht.”

  “But I didn’t. Velma said it might not necessarily be bad. Maybe I should just stay away from cursed turquoise and I’ll be fine.”

  He shook his head with quick, deliberate movements. “Too dangerous to take that chance. I won’t risk your well-being on a ‘maybe,’” he said, ever the protector.

  She tied the belt of her coat around her waist while the clack of the approaching elevator grew louder. “I’m more concerned that these people got away with murder—for God knows how many centuries.”

  Bo groaned, but Astrid’s mind was turning too fast to put on brakes. Mrs. Cushing and the survivors could very well be killers, but Astrid and Bo couldn’t take their theory to the police. What would they tell the chief? I had a magically induced vision and I think six people may have drowned in the Bay, but I don’t know who they are, and it’s just my word against some high-society dame who’s probably ten times richer and a good deal less infamous than my family.

  As much less infamous as centuries-old murdering pirates could be, anyway. But even if it didn’t sound utterly insane, when did Magnussons go to the police for help? Never, if they could help it.

  And they’d already told everyone in the family about it, and none of them wanted any part of this. If they were going to do anything more about it, they’d be on their own. Maybe it wasn’t worth the trouble, but what if Bo was right? What if she truly were damaged from her initial contact with the idol? Velma said she couldn’t perform a counterspell without knowing the nature of the original magic. They knew at least part of it now, but they still didn’t know the origin of the idol’s strange symbol . . .

  No, there was no way around it. They had to see this through. Together. She just needed to convince Bo of that.

  The elevator clunked to a stop and the scissor gates opened. Astrid heaved a long exhalation and stepped inside with Bo following. It wasn’t until the gates were shut that she realized their previous friendly Jack Johnson–look-alike operator was no longer working the elevator. And it wasn’t until he pulled the lever too fast that she smelled a very familiar fruity cologne.

  She glanced toward Bo and saw his eyes widen. Saw him reach inside his jacket, but his hand froze halfway through the motion . . . at the exact moment she felt something cold and sharp pressed to her throat.

  “Nuh-uh-uh,” the man warned Bo. “Hands up, please. I’d rather not get blood on this suit, but I will slit her open like a fish if I have to. This knife has felled large beasts, soldiers, and thieving whores. It will easily slay a tiny woman.”

  Bo complied.

 
; Astrid didn’t move her head, just her eyes.

  She saw the ornately carved ivory handle of the knife that pressed to her neck. And to her side, she saw Max’s full lips and wide-bridged nose.

  “Hello, again,” he said with a dark smile that didn’t climb to the blue eyes shadowed by his fedora. He looked awful. Sickly, with a strange grayish pallor. Dark circles like day-old bruises hung beneath his eyes.

  He used his free hand to pull the lever and bring the elevator to a jarring stop between the second and third floors. The movement caused a sharp sting on her throat and a warm trickle below the knife’s blade.

  “You just made the biggest mistake of your life, friend,” Bo said in a low, dangerous voice.

  “Now, now. We seem to have gotten off to a bad start.” Max quickly swapped out the hand holding the knife and grabbed Astrid’s arm roughly to pull her in front of him. She didn’t like his body pressed behind hers. It made her feel trapped. “All I want to do is have a private conversation with Goldilocks here, and you’ll never see me again.”

  Astrid barely heard him. She was too busy scanning his hands out of the corners of her eyes. Though she didn’t relish the idea of having her throat cut, she also wanted to avoid his touching her with his turquoise signet ring again. It should be on his knife-wielding hand, but she couldn’t see it from her precarious and very limited angle.

  Bo spoke again, and this time he sounded approximately two seconds away from ripping Max’s throat out. “If you want to talk, take the knife off her and put it on me.”

  “No, I think I’ll leave it where it is,” Max said. His strong cologne made her brain shrivel up and ache. “Miss Magnusson, I believe, has something of mine. And I want it back.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Astrid said.

  “You were on the yacht after it docked, and you stole something that didn’t belong to you. A small blue statue. Sound familiar?” His voice was graveled and weary. Was he sick? She hoped it wasn’t contagious.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “I had a little chat with a police officer down at the pier who says differently.”

  Officer Barlow. Dirty little rat.

  “Does that jolt your memory, Miss Magnusson?” Max asked.

  Bo gave her a guarded look. He didn’t want her to answer. Fine, she wouldn’t. But she really didn’t care for the way he slowly leaned to one side of the elevator car. He’d better not be trying anything heroic. It was far too cramped in the elevator, and there weren’t many directions a bullet could go. Two of those directions she wanted to avoid completely—hers and his.

  Max could go hang himself.

  “I don’t know what you think you’ll do with it,” Max continued, speaking against the side of her head. “It’s not worth anything in the antiquities market. If you want it for any other reason, you’ll find it’s quite useless if you don’t know what you’re doing. And I promise that you do not.”

  A handful of thoughts popped into Astrid’s mind at once. The Wicked Wenches talking about human sacrifice. The burlap sacks from her vision. The old priestess in the red robe inside the ritual circle. Mrs. Cushing stopping to stare at Astrid when she was in the hospital bed. The Pieces of Eight Society.

  Pirates.

  God in heaven, just how old was Max? She knew he looked older at Gris-Gris! And for the first time, in her mind’s eye, she now saw him with blue paint smeared over his face.

  Panic slithered down her scalp.

  “You were on the yacht,” she whispered. “I saw you with the other survivors . . . and with the people in the burlap sacks.”

  She had his attention now. He put pressure on the blade and forced her head back on his shoulder to peer down at her. She now saw the turquoise gleaming on his finger. She also saw Bo moving in the corner. Her fingers began to tremble.

  “We don’t have access to it right now,” Bo said suddenly. “But we’re going to need something in exchange. Tell us what the symbol means and you can have the idol back.”

  Max shook his head. “This isn’t a negotiation.”

  “Not now, maybe,” Bo said darkly. “But wait until your back’s turned. I’ll see if I can’t change your mind.”

  A loud noise outside the elevator made Astrid flinch. Running footfalls echoed in the hallway and someone shouted, “Here! I found him!”

  Max mumbled under his breath as a dark figure squatted in front of the third-floor scissor gate and peered inside.

  “Jesus Christ!” the real elevator operator swore through the metal grating.

  Bo started to lunge but stopped short when Max swung the knife toward Bo’s stomach, quick as a snake. Metal gleamed. Bo dodged the strike, grunted, and feinted left to dodge another. But when Astrid tried to shove Max off balance, he grabbed her hair, pounded the heel of his knife-wielding hand on the lever, and pointed the tip of the knife against her ribs. The car jerked upward with a loud jolt, and her Jack Johnson operator disappeared from view as they rose.

  There wasn’t even time for Astrid to draw in a shaky breath before Max used his elbow to push the lever again, this time slamming to a stop between floors three and four—mostly on four. Reaching up, he kept the knife on her while using his free hand to slide open the fourth-floor gate.

  “I want what’s mine returned,” he said to Astrid. “This is not a game. If I don’t have it in my hands by the end of the week—”

  More noise from outside the elevator. Astrid wasn’t sure which floor it was coming from. Max had to step up to the fourth floor. He put a hand on the open elevator doorway and peered down at them over the bloodied blade of his knife—my blood, she thought. And so much of it!

  “By the end of the week, Cushing Manor, Presidio Heights,” Max said. “Or things are going to take a nasty turn.”

  Max pushed away from the elevator, and as he turned on a heel, Bo spat out a string of angry words in Cantonese that sounded positively filthy. He pushed Astrid toward the floor and drew his gun on Max’s retreating form. Astrid covered her head as a shot exploded inside the cramped elevator car and spent gunpowder filled the air, along with a single, soft sound of success from Bo: he’d gotten him.

  Astrid jumped to her feet and peered down the hallway. Max had been hit in the leg. But it wasn’t slowing him down much. He just pressed a hand over his thigh and launched into a hobbled run.

  Bo wasn’t giving up. The elevator groaned as he leapt onto the fourth floor and took off after Max.

  They’d kill each other!

  Astrid stepped up onto the fourth floor to follow him. Damn, but he was fast. She saw Max disappear around a sharp corner down the hall directly in front of her, Bo trailing several yards behind, but gaining speed. A posted sign told her that Max was headed toward the stairwell exit. She sailed down the corridor, inverted triangles of light from chrome wall sconces blurring in her peripheral vision.

  Bo was nearing the corner. He stopped suddenly, hugged the wall, and poked his head around it. Another shot exploded from his gun. Astrid reflexively swerved sideways and ducked as Bo’s angry bellow echoed down the hallway. She lifted her head, throat tight with fear, and saw him stumble away from the corner.

  He made a strangled noise as his back hit the wall.

  She heard the distant slam of the stairwell door as Max escaped, and behind her, apartment doors flying open as she pushed away from the wall and barreled toward Bo. When she came to a stop in front of him, his chest heaved as he clutched himself on his side, near his ribs.

  He pulled out his hand from beneath his jacket.

  It was covered in blood.

  FIFTEEN

  Astrid cried out in horror. “Bo!”

  “Fuck,” he swore, clamping his hand down over his jacket. Then louder, “Fuck!”

  Shock chilled the blood in her veins. If her hands were trembling before, they we
re positively convulsing now. Memories of overheard conversations sprung up in her head—of Winter saying the worst two places to get stabbed were the stomach and chest . . . but at least you’d live if it were the stomach.

  She reached for Bo and spoke in fragments. “Where? Are you . . . ? How? What do I . . . ?”

  “He must have gotten me in the elevator,” Bo muttered in disbelief.

  His blood on the knife—not hers. How did she not notice? How did he not notice?

  Behind her, the elevator operator was yelling at everyone to shut their doors and stay inside their apartments, but she blocked it out.

  Bo grimaced and pulled the right side of his jacket open. Blood blossomed like a poppy flower over his white shirt. A gaping slash in the fabric marked where the knife had gotten him. Astrid’s mind went into a strange, detached place and temporarily muffled her manic emotions. The wound was too high to be the stomach, she thought. That was good.

  “Bastard only got my side,” Bo confirmed. His eyes went to her neck. “Are you—?”

  She wiped away the blood with her fingers. “He nicked me. I’m fine. You’re bleeding all the way through your coat,” she said, a fresh wave of panic washing through her as she noticed the dark spot on the red-brown wool.

  He glanced down and clamped his hand around his side. “It’s not deep. I don’t think.”

  What if some vital organ was pierced and leaking into his body? What organs were on that side of one’s body? Spleen? Appendix? She didn’t even know what those were for, much less if they were vital. Not for the last time, she regretted that she’d been such a terrible student.

  Education or no, she had sense enough to know they couldn’t just stand around watching him bleed.

  “You need to keep pressure on it,” she said, and then turned around to the elevator operator, who was marching toward them, asking if Bo was all right. “Call an ambulance.”