Rite of Passage, page 7
“That’s what the intruder was after,” she said, thoroughly convinced. “The picture frame didn’t fall off the wall by chance. The person who broke into her house was looking for it, and they found it. They must have been trying to take it out of the frame when the cops arrived.”
“Why not just carry the whole thing away then?”
“I don’t know. It was too large to easily hide, so maybe they were afraid it would make them stand out. Or maybe they didn’t need to take the map, just to see what was on it.”
Benny nodded his head, but his brows were drawn tight with confusion. “Which is what, exactly?”
“That is a map of one of New Orleans’s best-known cemeteries.”
“Oh,” he said, drawing out the word as realization dawned. “As in, the place where the other two incidents from Dahlish’s list occurred.”
“Exactly.” Alison tightened her grip on the steering wheel, silently shouting at the cars in front of her that were driving so slowly. Rush hour had arrived, and it was clogging up the roads they needed to travel to reach their next destination.
Only two days after the home invasion, New Orleans police had responded to reports that a caretaker at one of the local graveyards had arrived to find a mausoleum broken into. It happened again the next night, sparking fears that a crew of grave robbers were at work. Patrols had been stepped up in the area for a week, but there were no further incidents. Since the remains of those interred in the mausoleums hadn’t been disturbed, the case was quickly forgotten and added to the stack of unsolved misdemeanors.
It likely would have stayed that way if Jack Dahlish hadn’t received a few tips which said some items buried with bodies in those crypts had been missing after the break-ins. The thefts hadn’t been reported to the police because the families either hadn’t known about the items or didn’t want rumors to start circulating that might drive more petty crooks to begin robbing graves in search of treasures. Dahlish hadn’t been certain the stolen items were Relics, but his sources had been convinced.
They finally turned into the parking lot for the large cemetery, and Alison pulled into an empty spot among several dozen other vehicles. “Popular place,” Benny said, looking around as he got out of the car.
“This is one of the tourist draws for New Orleans,” she told him. Alison was busy scanning the cars and people around them, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted a woman wearing a conservative navy pantsuit and standing near a black sedan. The clothing alone made her stand out amidst all the casually dressed tourists, but the briefcase in her hand was Alison’s main focus.
She walked over and shook the woman’s hand warmly. “I see they still have you working courier runs.”
The woman nodded with a faint smile. “It’s better than being cooped up in the outpost all day. In a city like New Orleans, I get out a lot more often than some of my counterparts in other places.” She lifted the briefcase to set it on the trunk, taking two steps back once she’d done so.
Alison stooped to enter the combination she’d received when she called to request the delivery. This case popped open almost immediately, and she looked at the courier in surprise. The woman tilted her head to the car, and Alison followed the movement to find two armed men sitting in the back seat staring at her through the tinted window. They were the protection for the delivery, in case someone tried to steal it. No traps required.
She lifted the lid, finding a single Relic nestled in dark gray foam that was shaped specifically for it. She snorted a laugh when she saw delicate opera glasses instead of the binoculars she’d been expecting. It was better than the unwieldy overhead projector she’d been forced to use in Houston, though.
“As per your request, this Relic has been assigned to you for twenty-four hours. If you require retrieval sooner than that, you know how to reach us.”
Alison picked up the opera glasses, which felt deceptively delicate. Relics were infused with more strength than anyone would realize from looking at most of them, and it would take more power than she could muster to so much as scratch one of the glass lenses of the opera glasses. “While you’re here, can I ask a question?”
The woman in the pantsuit eyed her before dropping her head a fraction. “You may ask, but I may not be allowed to answer.”
“I think this is something the Archives will want to assist on. Dahlish put us on the trail of some missing Relics. I’m almost positive there was a Class Two Relic involved in Houston, possibly even as high as Class One. However, I’m not sure if it was carried by the victim or their killer. Are the Shadow Archives monitoring a Relic that powerful which has gone missing recently?”
The courier glanced toward the car, specifically toward the men sitting inside it who had turned to face forward the moment the Relic was in Alison’s possession. “All I can say is that the Shadow Archives have become aware of several monitored Relics which disappeared from our ability to track them. The situation was under discussion about whether to present the issue to the Watchers when the man you speak of, Jack Dahlish, raised the issue on his own.”
Alison smiled sardonically. “I bet your bosses were really happy when a member of the Nine got onto the problem before they could.”
“It has… engendered discussion.” The courier flashed a quick smile. “Good luck with your investigation, Ms. Pearson.”
Alison stepped back as the woman retrieved the empty briefcase and climbed into the car, which drove away at a sedate pace. She’d been hoping for more useful information, but the fact that the courier had answered her question at all was enough to make her take Dahlish’s tips a little more seriously.
Once the delivery was complete, Benny walked over from where he’d been leaning against the side of a stone building. “Are those Relic tracers?” he asked, motioning to the opera glasses.
“They are. A much more portable version.” Alison slipped the glasses into her jacket and turned toward the entrance to the cemetery. She led the way along a roughly paved road just wide enough for a single car. Chains across the entrance off the parking lot kept anyone from driving along it, though.
They passed a mausoleum shaped like a pyramid, and Benny stopped to stare at it for a few moments. “All these elaborate tombs. I wonder how much something like this would cost?”
“A lot more now than it did when it was built,” she said. “A lot of these mausoleums were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was a time when families would spend exorbitantly to honor their dead ancestors. Some still do.”
“I’ve always heard how magical New Orleans cemeteries are, but I never thought it would be like this.” Benny did a three-sixty as he looked at all the buildings around them. Some were showing the wear and tear of their age, while others were clearly given constant care and attention. “Being in a place like this makes it easy to believe things like Voodoo really exist.”
She chuckled, reaching out to pull him along as they continued toward the spot they were looking for. “I hate to break it to you, Benny, but Voodoo is very real and very dangerous. Dahlish could probably tell you a few stories about that, if we ever see him again.”
He started to pester her for more information, but they arrived at the site of the first mausoleum break-in before she was tempted to give in. “This is the place someone cracked open the first night,” she said, reaching out to run a hand along the freshly painted iron bars of a gate that kept people from entering the tomb while still allowing them to look inside. There were a couple dozen slabs on either side of the narrow interior, crypt openings holding coffins or standing empty for future generations of the family.
Benny leaned against the iron gate next to her, peering into the dim interior. “Second row on the left, third crypt from the bottom. According to the police report, that’s the one that was broken into.” The cover of the indicated crypt was brighter than the others, less covered with the grime and dirt of the years.
Alison extracted the opera glasses and raised them to her eyes. She held them by the thin silver handle, blinking as her eyes adjusted to viewing the interior of the mausoleum through them. Almost immediately, she saw traces of multiple Relics in the air. Most were mere wisps from items that couldn’t have been above Class Two.
Overpowering those was a lighter and thicker swath of color that seemed to emanate from within the replaced crypt cover. “I think we can be certain that person was buried with a Relic. Class Three, if I’m reading the trace correctly.”
“Boss, can I take a look?”
She passed the opera glasses to Benny, watching his face for that shock of amazement when he saw Relic traces through the delicate lenses. She smiled, remembering her own astonished reaction the first time she’d been able to use a Relic tracer. She’d been younger than Benny was now, but with more time in the Watchers. Greg had been her team leader back then, before the accident that confined him to a wheelchair and got him promoted to handler.
“Wow, you can really see the colors,” Benny said in a near whisper. “These are kind of dark, though.”
“Yes, the Relics that left most of those traces weren’t very powerful. Probably not even worth the Shadow Archives monitoring them. Do you see how the trail coming out of the tomb is so thick just around the concrete cover?”
“I do!” he said in wonder.
“That’s because the Relic that left it was kept inside that crypt for a long time. I’d say at least a couple of decades from looking at the trace, but we know it was a lot longer than that.”
Benny backed away from the iron door and held out the opera glasses. “We do?”
“The map,” she reminded him. “Do you remember the strange markings in red ink on it?”
He thought about it for a moment before nodding. “I missed them at first, because they were so faint.”
“This mausoleum is one of those marked on that map. A map I’m certain is at least a hundred years old.”
Benny stared into the mausoleum with dawning comprehension. “You’re saying someone made that map as a way to know where Relics were buried in this cemetery.”
She nodded. “Mrs. Dewey’s grandfather, I suspect. He probably worked here as a gravedigger and knew enough about the supernatural world to be able to recognize a Relic when he saw one.” She couldn’t believe a map of such importance could have been hanging above the old woman’s bed for so many years without anyone knowing it was there. There had been at least half a dozen notations in faded red ink, and there were possibly more that were no longer visible to the naked eye. The map would need to be handed over to the Shadow Archives, so they could examine it and investigate the other sites. Especially if the second location of a grave robbery showed traces of a previously buried Relic.
“Boss,” Benny said, dropping his voice to a near whisper. “I thought I was being paranoid at first, but I think someone is watching us.”
Alison tensed but forced her body to remain still. “Where?”
“Your seven o’clock, almost hidden behind that statue of a kid and his dog.”
She shifted her head just enough to see the indicated tomb marker at the edge of her vision. There might be a dark smudge there, but she couldn’t tell if it was a person or just a shadow created by the evening light. She was about to ask Benny how certain he was that he’d seen someone when the dark smudge moved. A figure wearing a dark hoodie stepped out from behind the monument, raising a hand in their direction.
Gun fire shattered the stillness of the evening.
Chapter Nine
Chips of stone sprayed both of them as they ducked away from the gunshot. Alison winced as something sharp grazed her cheek and left a trail of blood that slowly trickled down her skin. Other chips and shards hit her jacket or got tangled in her hair.
She reacted quickly, though, crouching as she pulled the gun holstered in the small of her back. Within seconds of the shot, she was on one knee and sweeping her weapon across the cemetery around them.
“There!” Benny shouted, pointing off to the left. Alison shifted in that direction and saw the person in the dark hoodie disappear behind a large mausoleum. As if in silent agreement, both of them took off running. Benny angled to the right while she went left around the stone structure the shooter ran behind.
Alison paused for half a breath before rounding the corner. Her gun swept the air, but it was empty. She let the weapon drop a bit as she began looking for their attacker. Benny raced around the other side of the mausoleum at the same moment, breathing hard and shaking his head to let her know he hadn’t seen anyone.
She motioned to him, and they started forward. For their attacker to have disappeared so thoroughly, there was a narrow cone through which they could have traveled and been out of sight. Benny took the right side again while she took left, and both of them searched every shadow and crevice. She wanted to find this person and get answers about who they were working for. It would be far too coincidental if they weren’t somehow involved in the string of Relic thefts.
Benny shouted wordlessly, and she turned in time to see the person in the dark hoodie racing away from an alcove between two doors of adjoining mausoleums. The person was no more than ten feet away, and she sprinted to race after them. Her feet pounded on concrete and grass, her breath was heavy in her ears, but she still heard Benny running at her heels.
The figure ahead darted to the right behind another mausoleum, and Alison followed without thinking. Something heavy slammed into her forehead, and bright lights flashed in her eyes as she dropped to the ground. Benny skidded to a stop and crouched down next to her. “You okay, boss?”
“Fine,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut to try and banish the squiggles of light that floated in her vision. She raised a hand to her forehead, relieved when she found only tender but unbroken skin. “What the hell did they hit me with?”
Benny looked around, and she heard a choked laugh. “Uh, boss? Looks like you ran into that.” He pointed up at a stone arm sticking out from a statue carved into the side of the mausoleum. An angel was pointing off into the distance, and that arm was at just the right height for her to smack into it during her sprint.
Alison groaned in disgust. “Help me up. Where did they go?”
Benny gave her a hand back to her feet. “Toward those trees,” he said, pointing off to a low rise in the distance. “It’s weird, they keep getting farther away every time they duck behind a building. It’s like we’re chasing an Olympic sprinter who only pours on the speed when we can’t see them.”
She felt slightly woozy on her feet, but Alison didn’t let it slow her down too much. She waved for him to take the lead, and they jogged at a slower pace. They passed through several rows of mausoleums and grave markers before reaching an open area.
Alison paused there, reaching out to pull on Benny’s sleeve and keep him from running ahead without her. They were facing a large circle of unused land, ringed by the narrow road that traveled through the cemetery. Large oak trees stood along the edges, with smaller trees ringing the top of a low rise at the center of the circle.
“Looks like a good place for an ambush,” she muttered.
“Better when there aren’t tourists around,” Benny said, nodding toward a couple ambling along the sidewalk that passed by the mausoleums fronting the circle of greenery.
Alison dropped her gun until it was resting against her thigh. It was much less likely to draw attention there, and the last thing she needed was a couple of tourists running off to alert the police about an armed maniac in the cemetery. If anyone had reported the earlier shot, they’d automatically assume she’d fired it. Her badge wouldn’t help her explain shooting off a weapon inside the cemetery without a lot of hassle and lost time.
“Circle around to the other side,” she said in a low voice, nodding and smiling to the couple as they strolled past. “I’ll give you a couple of minutes and then go in from this side. Maybe we can catch this person by surprise.”
Benny took off at a slow stride, following several paces behind the tourist couple. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat and moved his head from side to side like he was just another person trying to see everything around him in the fading daylight. Unless their attacker was watching them from within the ring of trees, he had a chance to go unnoticed as he took up a position on the far side.
Alison leaned against the warm stone of a mausoleum that was so blindingly white it must have been power-washed recently. The rough-hewn stone blocks that made up the lower half were filled with lumps and bumps, but time had smoothed the worst of them so that she wasn’t terribly uncomfortable in that position.
She thought she saw a figure within the ring of trees once, but then the dark blob seemed to pass behind one tree and appear from behind another that was at least twenty feet away. She put it down to a trick of the fading light and her wooziness from hitting the statue’s arm. She winced with pain and embarrassment as she rubbed her forehead.
Once two minutes had passed, she glanced around to be sure the area was clear of tourists. It was growing late enough that most of them should have left, and those who wanted the thrill of visiting the historic cemetery at night wouldn’t arrive for at least an hour or two. Satisfied that she was as alone as possible, she began walking toward the ring of trees at a quick pace.
Alison didn’t keep her focus too narrow, though. Her gaze swept the mausoleums surrounding the circle of greenery, watching for any sign of movement that might indicate a trap being sprung by someone accompanying the person who’d shot at them. There was nothing, and she stopped a few paces away from the narrow trunks of the trees. She wiped her sweaty palms across her jeans, then tightened her grip on the gun as she stepped forward.
Her weapon swept the open area, but it was darker than she’d expected. The crowns of the young trees were large enough to cast heavy shadows, so that even the fading orange evening light couldn’t penetrate too deeply. When she saw movement, she whirled and tightened her focus. Benny raised a hand, then pointed off to the side. Alison turned in that direction, just in time to see a shadowed figure disappear between two trees.
