Jack woke the next morning to find Marin sitting on the end of his bed. He propped himself up on his elbows. “Do you at least have coffee for me?”
She glanced at a to-go cup on his night stand. “I also have something even better. I have a plan.”
“Coffee and a plan? You had a much more productive night than I did.”
“No, I just got up earlier. I’ve already had a chat with Kaisermann, and his dreams last night confirmed some of my suspicions.”
Jack took a sip of coffee then checked the clock: nine thirty. He’d gotten about six, six and a half hours of sleep. Not enough for him to be as chipper as Marin. “Can I get dressed?”
“I’ll talk while you change. So, here’s the thing, you know how ghosts are created, right?”
“Throw me some clean underwear.” Jack caught the pair she threw at him and pulled them on. Then he stretched and rolled out of bed. He was achy from getting pounded on the day before, but not too bad. “When they were alive, they had some magical ability. When they pass, somehow a piece of them gets stranded on this plane.”
“Yes to the magical part, but not necessarily the stranded part. Have you ever heard that a ghost sticks around to take care of some mortal business before they pass?”
“Pretty sure that our mutual friend Lizzie’s ghostly great aunt didn’t decide that she wanted to hang out on Earth a while longer. I assumed the mortal business clause was a myth.” He pulled on a pair of jeans.
“There’s something that keeps a magical person’s consciousness tied to this plane, and I think there’s some aspect of choice—even if they’re not aware of it.”
Jack pulled on a clean T-shirt over his head. “Fine. Let’s say that’s true. What does that have to do with our current situation?”
“Well, neither you or I are going to kill someone to power the cage. But what if they’re already dead? What if we power the cage with the life force of a ghost?”
Dead, but not entirely because ghosts still retained the personality, the consciousness, of their human selves. And using a ghost to power the cage meant killing the ghost. So weren’t they still killing someone? He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Marin. That’s pretty sketchy.”
“It’s not if they’re already dead and they volunteer.”
Jack shook his head. “Why in the world would they do that? And there aren’t that many ghosts running around anyway. There’s a geographic connection. We’d be limited to locals.”
“There are more than you’d think.” Marin crossed her arms. “Sally said so.”
Jack closed his eyes. Sally said so. Which meant that it was actually Kaisermann interpreting Sally’s obscure messages sent via his dreams. “I need to pee. Meet me in the breakfast room in fifteen, preferably without Elliot.”
Ten minutes later, Jack sat across from Marin and Kaisermann at a small table in the dining area with a loaded plate of food. It was thin of guests and they were in a corner, so he wasn’t too concerned about being overheard. “Where’s Elliot?”
Marin swirled her spoon around in the half-full bowl of oatmeal. “I asked him to do some internet research. Dig up info on aswangs, shapeshifters, the site of the church, local history—hopefully enough to keep him busy for a while. He’s supposed to text if he comes up with anything that looks relevant.”
He watched her fiddle with her food and decided he didn’t like it when she acted out of character. Not eating as much as two large men was acting out of character. “How do we know ghosts are the answer?”
Kaisermann raised an eyebrow and looked at Marin.
“Part of the answer,” she said. “There’s an overlooked detail in our plan. We’ve been assuming we can use the existing cage. That all we have to do is find the right kind of power source to charge it up again. Harry says that if the ward still stands—and he’s pretty sure it’s a ward that kept our boogieman in—then we can add juice and it will still work. But if the ward has faded, if it’s not just weak enough for Nate to have broken through but is no longer there at all, then we’d need to cast a new ward.”
“We don’t have a spell-caster, unless…wait, when did you talk to Harry?” Jack casually sipped his coffee. They hadn’t talked about pulling Harry in.
“Don’t get your shorts in a knot. It was only just this morning. I wanted to pick his brain about ghosts and wards. And just to be clear, he can’t get here for at least another three days, and that’s still bailing out early on a crisis he’s helping to handle in Prague. His patient won’t be stable until then.”
Kaisermann raised his hand. “You didn’t explain before, what’s a spell-caster?”
“Spell-casters do what I like to call ‘object magic,’” Jack said. “Some can manipulate objects, but the more relevant talent in this situation is their ability to cast wards, and wards tie certain kinds of magic to physical objects.”
Kaisermann leaned back in his chair. “Sounds complicated.”
“Only when Jack explains it.” Marin smiled, a little too sweetly. At least she wasn’t flashing too many teeth.
“All right,” Jack said. “For our purposes, think of the ward around Nate’s cage as a magical forcefield.”
Kaisermann nodded. “That I can understand. So you have to determine if the battery needs to be charged or you need a new forcefield.” Which meant Marin wanted to go back for a second look at the cage.
“Don’t look so glum, Jack; I promise to be careful. And I’ve got a plan. Mr. Kaisermann, do you want to tell Jack about your dreams last night?”
“Yes, yes—of course.” Kaisermann’s face lit up. “Interesting stuff, and no back pain this time. Marin told me about the hole you found. No dirt, so that’s a mystery when you have a hole and no dirt.”
“Your dream?” Marin said.
“Yes! I’ve been experimenting with pre-programming questions for my dreams. You know, repeating it over and over in my head until I fall asleep. So, I asked Sally how to get rid of the aswang.” Tapping his finger on the table for emphasis, Kaisermann said, “You need Iris and you need ghosts. A lot of ghosts.”
Jack set his coffee down. “I get it—we use Iris to find the ghosts. But then how do we get them to agree? I’m pretty certain if they do this, they’re going to lose their ability to exist on this plane.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Kaisermann said. “These ghosts will want to help, because you’re going to ask his victims’ ghosts.”
Brilliant—grab ghosts with a grudge against Nate. They’d be highly motivated by rage and a desire for revenge. A nagging suspicion entered Jack’s head. “Sally was much more forthcoming than usual, wasn’t she? I didn’t know Sally could manage that type of clarity and specificity.”
“Fine, Jack,” Marin said. “That wasn’t the raw dream; we interpreted it. A flower—an iris—set atop a topo map, and the map is lit up with pinpoints of light.”
Jack scratched his chin. “I’m not sure about—”
“Wait,” Marin said. “There’s more. Tell him about the lights, Mr. Kaisermann.”
“Ah, yes.” He rubbed his hands together. “First, the lights were here in Corozal and the surrounding areas. I recognized the curve of the coastline. Now these lights, they started to bounce around and then they joined together to make a big light.”
“And why do you think those lights are ghosts?” Jack asked.
Kaisermann inclined his head. “That’s more difficult. That, I just felt.”
Jack’s phone dinged with a text. He opened the message from Elliot.
No gun. Sent autopsy by email.
Jack looked across the table at the co-conspirators. That’s what he got for actually sleeping while on a case—plans run amok without him.
Jack shook his head. “Hang on a second. Elliot’s blogger buddy isn’t coming by; she sent us the report electronically.”
He opened the email and the accompanying attachment then scanned the document. “Shit.” He passed his phone to Marin. He only hoped Elliot had enough sense not to open it.
With a frown, she took the phone. After flipping through the pages of the report, she set his phone on the table and pushed it slowly back to him. “They’re alive when he removes the heart.”
“And?” Jack asked Marin. “What does that signify?”
But it was Kaisermann who replied. “That seems needlessly cruel if all he’s after is food. Either he’s a sadist or taking the heart from a living victim serves some need for him.”
“It has to be tied to shapeshifting,” Marin said. “He doesn’t have more than one form; he assumes the form of another.”
“Eat the heart of his victim, and he can take that form?” Jack pocketed his phone. “If that’s true, it just means we don’t have a face for Nate. With the media’s silence and the fact that all of the victims may not even have been discovered, we can’t know who Nate could resemble.” Jack shut his eyes. When he opened them, he said, “We are complete idiots. The murders haven’t made it into the media. The sensational, heart-and-liver-removed murders.”
“You think Nate’s been tinkering with some important people’s heads.” Marin’s eyes burned a brighter green. “We’ve been a little busy since we arrived. It’s not like we’ve had time to follow up on all the leads we’ve encountered, and trustworthy resources are limited in a foreign town.”
Jack looked around the room and found it almost empty. Good thing, since they hadn’t been as cautious as they could have been with their language. “His ability to hide several murders from the broader public eye speaks to some understanding of the modern world. This guy isn’t planning on going into hiding anytime soon. He wants to keep hunting.”
“True,” Marin said. “All the more reason for me to evaluate the existence and condition of the ward. It was my mistake that I didn’t before. I’ve been distracted.”
“You think you can work through the aswang stench covering the place?” Jack asked.
Instead of answering, she waived at someone walking into the dining area.
Jack turned to look—and saw both Iris and Abi. “I thought we were meeting them at Abi’s.”
“You were asleep, and the clock’s ticking, Jack. Besides, we can’t go far without some protection, whatever you think about our final plan.” She stood up with a smile on her face. “Abi, Iris, let me introduce you to Mr. Kaisermann, the owner of Sanctuary.”
Jack would never feel comfortable catching a nap on a job with Marin again.
After the introductions had been completed, Iris bounced on her toes and said, “When are we leaving to scope out the crypt?”
Jack swallowed a groan.