Cryptic Blend Read online

  Heidi’s blue eyes were so wide that they appeared to be glowing, and she rested a palm over her heart before finally releasing her tight grip on my arm. She then held up her other hand as she leaned over to catch her breath.

  “Leo,” I called out in a harsh whisper, looking all around us. “Come back here this minute!”

  Over here.

  There was still enough moonlight that I could see Leo’s head pop out from behind a headstone around forty feet away from the crypt.

  Did she try to eat your soul? Wait. Are you even you or are you some soulless Raven who’s doomed to roam the earth alone for all eternity?

  “Stop that crazy talk. Right now,” I admonished, annoyed that my own familiar had almost given me a heart attack at the young age of thirty.

  You’re definitely you. I’d recognized that tone anywhere. Why did you scream like your soul was being consumed by a banshee?

  Leo sauntered over to us, rubbing against Heidi’s leg until she ran a hand down his back in comfort.

  “I was lifting the latch off the doors to the crypt in stone cold silence when you materialized out of thin air and screamed my name.” I was finally able to somewhat relax now that nothing had come floating out from the Whitley family crypt. It helped that Leo was now in attendance and couldn’t spontaneously appear from nowhere. “Let me just make sure that Mrs. Whitley’s personal resting—”

  I didn’t spontaneously appear out of nowhere, dear Raven. I ran into this talking raccoon, and he was trying to warn me about…well, I might have freaked out a bit when the garbage eater sounded like he’d been a pet of a New York mafia don. Honestly, I don’t know what he was trying to warn me about. What respectable raccoon talks like he’s a Jersey gangster? I did the only thing I could…I ran for my life.

  “How much catnip did you go through before we left the house?” I asked in disbelief, wondering if I shouldn’t make an emergency appointment for Leo to see Dr. Jameson. Leo might have had his battles with the local wildlife, but he’d never heard them talk as if they had human voices. The local vet had already dealt with my frantic calls about the possibility of overdosing on catnip. He’d repeatedly told me that no such thing could happen, but it was a fair bet that he’d never encountered a cat who special ordered the most powerful species of the minty herb from Honduras. “Please tell me there are still a few leftovers from today’s shipment.”

  You make it sound as if I have some sort of problem, which I adamantly deny. You don’t hear me telling you to stop drinking coffee after the fifth pot, now do you?

  Just so we’re clear, I do not drink five pots of coffee a day. Two, maybe. Fine, maybe three, but that’s with the help of Beetle at the store and some of the sample urns I make for the visitors at the shop. Leo was just trying to take the spotlight off him and the fact that he had hallucinated talking raccoons.

  “I can breathe again,” Heidi announced as though it was a revelation to us all. Her affirmation on her health didn’t stop her from cautiously glancing over her shoulder to make sure that a zombie hadn’t climbed out of a random grave. Her blue gaze finally focused on the partially opened doors to the crypt, and she made a circular motion with her hand. “Let’s get this over with. And just so you know, I’m sleeping on your couch tonight.”

  I can’t believe you think I hallucinated a talking raccoon. I mean, that’s really low on the list of things I’d want to hallucinate about if given the chance. And why would I give him a New York mafia accent? Raven, Raven, Raven. I don’t believe you think these theories through before they come spilling out of your mouth.

  “What are you two carrying on about now?” Heidi asked, giving me a soft nudge toward the crypt. “You two are worse than an old married couple.”

  I resent that comparison. I’m still a vibrant tomcat.

  “Leo had a conversation with a talking raccoon,” I murmured, carefully aiming the flashlight through the ancient doors of the crypt.

  You’re making me sound just a bit unbalanced, Raven. Not nice. Not nice, at all.

  “How much catnip did you eat, you handsome tomcat?”

  Where is that soul-eating ghoul when I need her?

  “Don’t stroke his ego, Heidi.”

  We all became quiet really quick when the white beam immediately landed on a bare cement wall. Nudging the doors open a little more, nothing seemed to change in our lines of vision. Finally, each door was practically resting against either wall.

  There was nothing here.

  Where were the smaller vaults in the walls?

  Where were the stone coffins that I’d seen in pictures of above ground crypts just like this one?

  Aim the flashlight a smidge bit lower, Raven. A little more. And…there. See? It is a crypt. I’m not so unbalanced after all, am I?

  “What. Is. That?” Heidi’s adrenaline rush for the unknown must have petered out, because I’m pretty sure she was ready to turn on the heels of those black running shoes and see how much traction she could get from the treads. “I’ve officially changed my mind. We should have sent Ted.”

  I’d landed the beam of the flashlight onto a rather large opening with cement stairs that descended into nothing but darkness below. Somewhere down there was the final resting place of Caroline Abigail Whitley. We were no more than twenty feet away from the answers we were seeking, but neither Heidi, Leo, or I could make ourselves take that first step into the inky blackness.

  Once more, my hesitancy to walk down inside a crypt where a soul-eating ghoul could be waiting for us proves I’m not unbalanced at all…I just wanted that to go on the record.

  There was no telling how long we would have stood in the entrance of the crypt deciding if we were brave enough to descend into the darkness had a deep voice not broken the silence behind us. Needless to say, Leo was the first to dive headlong down the steep staircase into an abyss that most likely contained a soul-eating ghoul.

  Chapter Four

  I’m honestly not sure how we didn’t break our necks scurrying down the cement staircase. One minute, we had been above ground. The next…well, we were submersed in the darkness deep within a crypt with the remains of the dead surrounding us.

  “It’s just me,” Rye Dolgiram said quietly in reassurance as he followed us down inside the burial chamber. His deep voice echoed off the chamber walls and sent shivers down my spine with the realization of where we were. Images of the heavy wooden doors closing above and shutting us inside flashed through my mind, but thankfully I could still see a sliver of moonlight illuminating Rye’s silhouette on the staircase. “Do I want to know what the three of you doing in the local cemetery at this time of night on a Friday evening?”

  Zap him, Raven. Summon up the earth’s energy and eviscerate him into a nice pile of ash. Who walks up behind someone in a graveyard without fair warning? What did he expect our reaction to be? Better yet, who walks up behind someone while they’re standing just inside the one crypt in a graveyard where a ravenous soul-eating ghoul might be lying in wait? No one but a sadistic nut job who wants to be zapped, that’s who. Zap him, Raven!

  “Rye, what on earth are you doing here?” I all but demanded, shining the white beam of the flashlight directly into his line of vision. The palm of my hand hadn’t warmed in warning of his presence, so that alone told me he wasn’t here with bad intent. With that said, I couldn’t imagine him randomly taking a stroll by himself in a graveyard on a Friday night at the exact moment as us without there being some extraordinary reason. Something smelled fishy, and it wasn’t Leo’s breath for once. “You should know better than to sneak up on us in a spooky graveyard. It could very well have ended up poorly for you. Not to mention that we could have fallen down the stairs and broken our necks.”

  “Yes,” Heidi said in reinforcement, her body practically hugging mine since we still didn’t know what was inside the burial chamber. She also had a grip on my forearm that might actually leave her handprint in marked bruises. “What she said. Not cool, Rye. Not c
ool at all. Huge party foul.”

  The story of Rye Dolgiram was rather long, but I’ll cut to the chase and make this quick. He was a warlock of considerable power, and as chance would have it…the adopted son of my Aunt Rowena.

  Technically, she was my great-aunt and the only sister to my Nan.

  Trust me when I say that Aunt Rowena was one of a kind, but we weren’t currently on what one might call good speaking terms. She was theoretically still with a faction of the coven up in Windsor, if you discounted the fact that she was leading that same faction of witches and warlocks against the leadership council of said coven. My immediate family hadn’t been in good standing with the coven ever since my Nan’s expulsion many years prior to the current difficulties.

  A witch war was brewing, and our small branch of the family wanted no part of it.

  Bottom line was that I’d come to find out recently that Rye had been adopted by Aunt Rowena in his teens, and that he’d moved to Paramour Bay many years ago when the council had decided an attempt to discover the identity of his birth parents was paramount. Needless to say, there was only one way to do so—and that was by contacting those involved in the afterlife.

  Séances weren’t something to be messed with seeing as they opened a two-way portal to the other side, but I highly doubted that was the sole reason for Aunt Rowena’s hesitation on that particular subject matter. There was something more to Rye Dolgiram, and we were purposefully being kept in the dark, along with the rest of the coven.

  In case you hadn’t noticed, Raven, we are sitting here defenseless in the dark. Would you mind postponing this discussion for when we’re not about to have our souls sucked out of us by the raging poltergeist of Caroline Abigail Whitley? I can just picture her licking her fingers in delight at how delicious I might be…do you think I would taste like mint?

  “You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered to Rye while complying with Leo’s wishes to move this discussion along. I wasn’t worried about Leo being a snack for a soul-eating ghoul when he could easily blip out of here with a twitch of his whiskers. Then again, I was really hoping that this place was blocking my ability to harness energy, because the palm of my right hand was still quite cool. Why did it feel as if someone or something was watching our every move? Was there something else here besides us and the dusty skeletal remains of the Whitley family? I began to slowly walk in a circle while aiming the somewhat trembling flashlight over the floor to ceiling square vaults cut into the walls. Heidi was doing her best to shuffle her feet in order to turn with me in sync, afraid we might actually come face to face with a ghoul with a huge gaping maw. “We’re…conducting a history lesson on the town founders. We’re fine, and you can head back home.”

  That’s the best you could come up with? A history lesson on the town founders? Raven, let Heidi take over on the cover story front. You’re liable to end up having us arrested for grave robbing. Considering the sapphire ring of one dead Caroline Abigail Whitley is currently in the front pocket of your jeans, the good ol’ sheriff has all the evidence he’d need to throw us all in jail.

  “A history lesson?” Rye asked skeptically, confirming Leo’s belief that I was really bad at lying. I was, but that was beside the point. “What is down here that is so important it couldn’t wait until broad daylight?”

  Don’t answer him, Raven. I can see it now—he’ll steal the priceless gem, lock us in here until the soul-eating ghoul gets her fill, and no one will ever be the wiser to the true story behind our demise. Where’s Skippy when I need him? Oh, wait. Do you think the talking raccoon has co-opted his allegiance?

  “What priceless gem is Leo talking about?” Rye asked, having heard every word that Leo had been saying since his arrival. After all, he was a warlock. “And did he actually mention a soul-eating ghoul? Oh, I get it. You let him dig into the catnip bag unsupervised again, didn’t you?”

  Why you…

  Heidi was to my right, but Leo had taken up residence on my left side. I could literally feel the wiggle of his backside, which told me he was getting ready to pounce onto Rye.

  “Both of you just stop it,” I ordered quietly, trying to swallow when the beam of my flashlight landed on two stone coffins sitting on two raised pedestals. Our backs were now to Rye, but I didn’t mind. If there was any real danger, it was definitely directly in front of us. “Um, Rye. There’s something we should tell you.”

  I vote for zapping him unconscious and leaving his lifeless body here for—

  “Come here, handsome,” Heidi murmured, leaning down behind me and somehow managing to scoop Leo up into her arms without even a grunt. She must have been keeping up with her yoga. It didn’t take her long to settle back into position by my side. “I don’t know what you’re saying, but let Raven handle this so that we can all get home in one piece. I’ve had my fill of fun this Friday night. A glass…well, a bottle of wine sounds excellent right about now.”

  “Seriously, Raven,” Rye said, coming to stand by us as he also shone his flashlight on the two main burial coffins of the patriarch and matriarch of the Whitley family. There was no manifestation of ghouls in the corners. That was a good sign, right? “What’s going on?”

  I might as well bring Rye up to date seeing as we weren’t currently ready to have our souls devoured by Caroline Abigail Whitley. He hadn’t bought a word of what I’d said, anyway, and I’m pretty sure all Heidi wanted to do was get back safely to the cottage after the scares we’d had tonight.

  Not to put a wrench in our plans, but we still need to deal with the talking raccoon.

  Rye tilted his head in disbelief as Leo mentioned his hallucination, but I didn’t want to waste any more time than we already had in this underground crypt. It was one thing when I thought it was above ground and we could run for our lives if needed, but it was an entirely different situation when we could be locked down here to have our souls consumed by the undead.

  “Long story short—I was at the garage sale today, visiting Karen Finley’s table. She had this little discount basket of jewelry,” I explained quickly, shifting the flashlight to my left hand as I fished out the sapphire ring from my right pocket. I held it up in the light so that Rye could get a better look at the item in question. “Leo is almost one hundred percent sure it’s the same ring that was buried with its original owner—Caroline Abigail Whitley.”

  You’re forgetting the part about you giving Heidi a hex bag as a gift for moving into her new office.

  “A hex bag?” Rye questioned, real concern lacing his tone as he focused his flashlight on the two stone burial chambers. I really, really tried to not take offense that everyone assumed I couldn’t successfully cast a simple spell. “Let me guess. You were attempting to create a warding spell against evil, and you think it might not have gone quite as you originally planned.”

  At least the resident warlock is quick on the uptake.

  Heidi hugged Leo a little closer as she juggled his weight in an attempt to grab the flashlight from my hand. I wasn’t sure what she saw that had garnered such a reflex, but it wasn’t long before she quickly inhaled in fright. Her echo bounced around the chamber and also had Leo scrambling for a better hold of her shirt.

  Sure enough, I saw the same exact horrifying detail she had—the stone lid on top of Caroline Abigail Whitley’s resting place was slightly askew.

  Had her spirit escaped into the burial chamber?

  Had we been duped?

  Were our souls about to be sucked out of our bodies?

  I hope that was a rhetorical question, because we need to go home right this second. Chop-chop! We’ll pack our bags, book a flight to Honduras, and then grab Beetle on the way out of town. He saved for retirement, so he’ll have the appropriate funds we need to keep me in the lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to over these last few decades.

  “Let’s not overreact,” Rye stated firmly, although we all noticed the way he made sure to illuminate every corner of the burial chamber before taking a stride forwa
rd for a better look inside the coffin. “What the…”

  Heidi and I quickly stepped back in unison when Rye began to try and shove the lid back a bit more, though why he would want to do such a thing was beyond my wildest imagination.

  “What are you doing? Stop that!” I whispered fiercely, unable to prevent my voice from resonating throughout the hollow space that most likely harbored a soul-eating ghoul. “Are you crazy? Just see if the ring is still on her finger and then we can make a run for it. I’ll destroy the hex bag the minute we get home and—”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple,” Rye muttered, after having managed to move the heavy stone lid another couple of inches. He even blinked a few times, as if he wasn’t sure what was inside. How could he not recognize a skeleton? “We might just have a major problem on our hands.”

  Has the resident warlock not been paying attention this entire time? We’ve had a problem, and it’s most likely in the form of a misty gnarly-looking apparition that will suck out our souls with one gulp. I can’t look, and Heidi smells great. Tell her that I love her bodywash, please. I want those to be the last words she hears before we’re consumed.

  I forced my legs to move, achieving the few steps forward that I needed to in order to carefully peer inside the stone coffin. I purposefully squinted, as though that would shield me from the horrific view of the skeletal remains that were resting inside. Little by little, I had no choice but to widen my eyes, because I couldn’t seem to focus on the expected bones.

  “See what I mean?” Rye said, having no choice but to relinquish his flashlight when I snatched it right out of his hands.

  “For crying out loud,” Heidi chastised with impatience, which usually got the best of her. She came closer, attempting to put Leo on the lid. He was having none of that mess, and I had no doubt that there would be holes in my long-sleeved black t-shirt. “You guys are skeeving me out. Is the ring in there or not? How hard can it be to—”