“A séance?” Iris looked more than a little skeptical. “As the supposed medium in the room, I’d like to clarify that I have no idea how to contact a ghost.”
The whiskey bottle tipped precariously. Only Marin’s faster-than-human reflexes saved the bottle from teetering off the table.
“What just happened?” Iris asked.
The whiskey bottle tipped again. This time, Marin caught it and didn’t let go.
Iris’s teacup rattled in its saucer.
“Grandmother?” Abi reached out to the cup, and it stilled.
“So maybe no séance required,” Marin said. “I take it from your reaction that nothing like this has happened before.”
“No.” Abi spoke with complete confidence.
But Iris just stared at the cup.
“Iris?” Jack touched her arm. When she looked up, he said, “Has anything like this happened to you before?”
“No…maybe?” Iris placed both of her hands on the cup. She wasn’t cradling it for warmth as she had before; rather, she appeared to be holding it in place. She blinked and then jerked her hands away. “How would I know? Everyone knocks over a glass without realizing it, or a chair… And then I’ve been losing time… Uh-oh. Maybe she’s been trying to reach out and I haven’t been noticing?”
“That would explain why she felt the need to possess you, but it doesn’t explain why she hasn’t tried to contact her granddaughter.” Marin looked at Abi, who shook her head.
“I would have noticed; I’m sure of it.”
Iris let go of the teacup and clasped her hands on the table. “Losing time never bothered me before, because I thought I was just deeply connected to my client—but to think I’d been so oblivious to otherworldly communication that Abi’s grandmother felt she had to possess me to make her point. And even then I still didn’t get it.”
Jack wouldn’t put it that way, but he could see her point.
“What exactly do you remember before you started to lose time?” he asked. If he remembered Lizzie’s stories about her ghostly great-aunt, the apparition’s attempts to communicate had increased in their violence as they'd been ignored and misinterpreted.
Her brow furrowed. “There were a few mishaps—but I thought that was me. That I was being clumsy or forgetful.”
“But the mishaps didn’t escalate?” Jack asked.
“Not that I noticed, and I think I would have.”
The teacup rattled again.
“Maybe not.” Marin reached across the table, picked up the cup and saucer, and placed it in front of her. “You’re rattling more than the cup, Grandma Abi. Tone it down.”
The cup rattled more viciously than before.
Jack had forgotten the specifics, but there seemed to be some limitations on Lizzie’s communications with her great-aunt. “Ah. You can only stay and communicate for a limited time; is that right?”
The whiskey bottle slid slowly across the table, stopping in front of Jack.
“I think I can translate.” Abi spoke with just a hint of humor. “I believe Grandmother is saying, ‘Give the man a drink.’”
Jack considered the facts he had and what he knew of ghosts, and came up with one possible explanation. “You know, maybe Grandma Abi’s connection wasn’t to the location, but to Iris because of her particular kind of openness, those qualities that make her a medium. So interacting with objects might have been more difficult in the shop.”
The whiskey bottle rolled again, but this time Jack was ready for it and caught it. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“We need a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ response defined,” Marin said. “Preferably before our guest runs out of spirit juice.”
“Give me that saucer.” Jack situated the saucer next to whiskey bottle, and then said, “Yes.”
They all watched as the liquid inside the whiskey bottle swirled.
“And no.” Jack winced as the saucer came down with a thud on the table. “Apologies, Grandma Abi.” Looking at the intense faces surrounding the table, he asked, “What do we think she’s so eager to tell us?”
“Do you know who the killer is, Grandmother?” Abi asked in a tight voice.
Jack felt for her. If his grandmother was in the room, he knew he’d have so many things to ask her, none of them related to the identity of a sick son of a bitch who got his rocks off slicing into people.
The whiskey swirled—but only a little.
“Can you help us catch him?” Before he’d even stopped speaking, the whiskey was sloshing against the sides of the bottle.
“Wait—if she knows who he is, shouldn’t we be asking her about specific people?” Iris asked.
The saucer rocked.
“I don’t understand.” Iris looked from the saucer to the bottle.
“Remember Elliot telling us that this case was our kind of weird?” Marin asked Jack. “Maybe it’s less about who and more about what.”
The whiskey sloshed violently in the bottle.
“Another ghost?” Abi asked.
The saucer jiggled.
“Is it human at all?” Marin asked. A gentle slosh was the response. “It has a human form.” More sloshing liquid. “Lycan? Dragon?”
The saucer jiggled for both.
“Golem?” Jack asked. The saucer jiggled. “We could go on guessing and still not come up with an answer before our time with her runs out. Let’s try to narrow the field and then we can do some research on our own.”
“You mean, I can do some research,” Marin muttered. “All right—why take the heart and liver?”
“Does it eat the heart?” Abi asked. The whiskey sloshed violently. “The liver?” The saucer tipped drunkenly.
“Eats the heart, takes the liver, can have a human form…” Tentatively, Abi said, “Skinwalker?”
The whiskey swished gently.
“Sort of a skinwalker?” Iris looked even more confused. “How can something be sort of a skinwalker?”
“Is this creature from around here?” Marin asked.
The saucer thudded down on the table with a vicious crack.
“Okay, Grandma Abi. We got it: a foreign nasty.” Jack turned to Marin. “Anything coming to mind?”
“My dad’s the walking encyclopedia, not me.”
A hopeful look crossing her face, Iris asked, “Can you call him?”
“No. He’s on sabbatical—somewhere.” Marin pulled out her phone. “But I can use the internet. Someone go through the continents before Grandma Abi runs out of juice.”
Jack started to list them. “North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia— Whoa!” Jack grabbed the bottle. The liquid had sloshed so violently that the bottle started to tilt. Holding the bottle, he said, “Asia.”
Again, the liquid swirled.
“How’s that internet search going?” Jack asked.
“Just a second…” As Marin scrolled on her phone, the saucer jiggled. “How about kitsune?” Marin glanced up and met Jack’s skeptical gaze. “What, Jack? How many kitsune have you met?”
“None, but do you see one eating the heart of a human?”
“Guys?” Iris waved her hand at them. “Ask again. She didn’t respond.”
“Kitsune?” Marin asked, but neither the saucer nor whiskey moved. “Grandma Abi? Are you still here?”
When there was no response, Iris said, “I guess she’s gone. How long does it usually take for a ghost to recharge?”
Jack watched as all four of them looked around the table, hoping someone had some idea. But no one seemed to know. “Was there anything else besides a kitsune?”
“Asia is too broad,” Marin said. “It would be better to search by country or use some cultural reference or specific detail to narrow it down.”
“Consuming a human heart isn’t specific enough?” Iris’s nostrils flared as she asked.
“I didn’t actually put that in. I figured the myths wouldn’t reflect reality that closely, but…” Marin tapped on her phone as she spoke. “Look at that. Consumes heart and liver—which would be a natural false assumption to make if both were taken. Although it would be interesting to know what exactly this thing is doing with livers besides eating them…or delivering them to innocent mediums.” Marin read silently for a few seconds, then said, “This might be it. Anyone know what an aswang is?”