She shrieked as she felt herself be lifted into the air. “Hey!”
Gideon had her by the ankle and was holding her up off the ground like she was a goddamn ragdoll.
“Put me down!” She flailed.
He shook his head.
“Put me”—she took a swing at him, but her hand passed harmlessly through him like he was only made of incense smoke—“down this minute, you stupid, overgrown fog machine!”
He shook his head again.
With a long, annoyed sigh, she glared at him, upside-down as it were. “Ally really was right. You’re a jerk.”
He placed a hand to his chest, clutching it in mock pain. And then he waited.
“Fine! Fine. Whatever. I’m sorry. I won’t make any more stupid jokes at you tonight.”
He pointed a long, jagged finger at her face.
Grumbling for a moment, she gave up. “I promise.” She crossed a finger over her heart.
With a surprising amount of gentleness, he turned her right-side up and then set her back on her feet. He even smoothed a hand over her hair as she yanked her clothes back into the proper positions.
“I guess I deserved that.” She smirked. “And it was worth it.”
He shook his head again and turned to the tomb, his ghostly form gliding over the ground as he approached the door. Gripping the chain and the lock in one of his distended hands, he clenched them tight in his fist. She could hear snapping metal. With a flick of his wrist, the chain was torn apart and discarded to the ground in bits of dust and chunks of ancient, corroded iron. When he dropped the lock, she could see finger imprints in the metal where it had bent under his strength.
She whistled. “Don’t fuck around with Wraith-y-Raithe. Gotcha. Noted.”
His shoulders shook, and for a moment she wondered if he were silently laughing. She didn’t feel nauseated from whatever “sounds” he made, so she assumed he was staying silent for her benefit. She appreciated it.
He pulled the rusted gate open, the sound of the hinges screeching loudly enough that she had to cover her ears. The steel doors beyond it met a similar fate, shoving inward and cutting deep grooves into the marble floor as he forced them open.
Like nothing more than a shadow, he slipped inside. She didn’t know what else to do except follow him. Inside the tomb was pitch black in the overcast darkness of the late twilight. She couldn’t see a damn thing. Fishing out her phone, she flipped on the flashlight and, tipping it up, jerked in surprise as the cone of light bounced off the not-marble wall that was Gideon Raithe, looming right next to her. “Jesus Chr—” She let out a rush of air. “Don’t do that.”
His shoulders were shaking again, and he placed a large hand on her head, rocking it side to side slightly.
“Fuckin’ Grim Reaper bullshit…” She sighed and walked away from him into the tomb. It looked just as she remembered it, only even older and more decrepit than before. She walked along the wall and the etched squares of stone, bearing the names and dates of those who lay interred within.
But one square was blank. One had never been filled by a family member who had either not been born, or who had moved away. She tapped on the stone. “This one. There are two boxes inside—I hope, anyway. One was a decoy, and the other has a quarter of the talisman in it. If we’re lucky. And the guy I paid off didn’t just steal it.”
The edges of her flashlight’s reflection grew dark and shadowy as Gideon loomed around her. She took a step back and wondered how he planned on prying it open. The stone was flush with the wall around it. There was barely even a crack around the edges, let alone enough room to get even his sharp nails in with enough leverage.
She blinked in surprise as he gently pushed her back against the far wall and to the side. With another point of a finger, she got the message loud and clear. “Stay. Gotcha.”
He nodded once and turned. He was all smooth motion, ephemeral, and liquid. When he stopped moving, she could see bits of him curl and swirl around him like air movement around a lit candle.
She watched in awe as he began to slip into the tomb on the wall. She’d seen a video on the internet once of a fire in a house, and how the smoke could get in under a door. It looked like that, only in reverse. Threads and sheets of dark smoke being forced inside through the tiny gap around the block, finding every hole in the ancient cement holding it in place, until he was gone.
Thunk.
Thunk.
The sound of a great force hitting stone, and she jerked in shock. No wonder he had her move!
Thunk.
Christ, it really was like something out of a horror movie. And it only got worse as the stone suddenly budged and popped forward. Claws, long and terrible, curled around the edges of the blank slab, and it hovered there for a moment before he emerged, pouring out of the tiny square in the wall that was meant to be just the right size for a coffin.