Page 26 of The Witch & the Wolf

“At least,” she agreed. To a medium, a graveyard held many interesting whispers. Most didn’t have actual spirits, but their psychic energy still hung in the air.

Z’Hana came scuttling back. “Students, with me,” she said. “The man over there gave me a tip. He says a popular hangout for students is at the edge of this section with the mausoleums. There are some older ones where students go to drink despite their best efforts to chase them away. He’s been tending these graves for nearly forty years, so he should know.”

Still holding Arlo’s hand, Holly grimly followed Z’Hana, hoping that the churning feeling in her gut was just normal anxiety and nothing more.

Chapter Eight – Arlo

This will never be my idea of a date.

Glumly, Arlo followed Z’Hana, and they stopped at a much more overgrown area. He watched as she brushed away some leaves from an overhanging tree to reveal a plaque written in Latin. Peregrinantis Sepulchrum. The Pilgrim’s Sepulcher – another word for grave.

“This is where some of the students used to hang out,” Z’Hana said. “Since it’s been some time, the entrance is obscured.” She brushed away dirt and grass, heaving up a metal door that led down into the gloom. “How morbid of them…”

Arlo silently agreed. Who the hell would think it a fun idea to hang out in a crypt? Already, a tingling sensation affected his body, letting him know that there was something here, brushing against his magic.

“Great,” Holly said. “Really great.”

“This probably looked less… cobwebby than it is now.” Z’Hana sighed before clasping her hands together and letting loose her shadowy messenger. They waited patiently for it to return, and when it did, merging back with her skin, the older woman straightened up.

“There isn’t exactly a curse, but there is something of interest down there. We need to proceed with caution. Both of you take careful steps and use your senses. Don’t go rushing into the situation. I’ll be right behind. I would lead, but as I don’t have the sense – I won’t be able to avoid danger if it is there.”

“Even better,” Holly said. “I’ve always wanted to be bait.” No one missed the sarcasm there.

“I’ll go first,” Arlo said, sounding braver than he actually felt. Someone had to… and at least he could physically defend himself if something leaped out.

He climbed down into the stale, cobweb-draped sepulcher and through a short tunnel that had candles scattered about. People had come here regularly once upon a time. He walked into an oddly spacious room, also lined with candles and grates on the sides that vented air. He imagined students piling into this chamber, which had a symbolic open tomb and no body.

His senses sharpened, leading him to the open tomb. A cloth had been spread on the bottom of it – perhaps it was where students piled their snacks or maybe a place some wayward, drunken soul attempted to sleep in.

“The psychic echoes are getting stronger,” Holly confirmed. “Something happened down here.”

Arlo inspected the tomb. Scratches on the floor indicated that a large, heavy object had been moved. After some trial and error, he forced his weight against the open tomb, and it spun following the exact scratch marks, revealing a trapdoor.

The three of them stared.

“If some asshole put the tomb back on top, I doubt anyone who was below it could get out.”

“Okay. If Charles died here, why would they need to move the body to the well?”

“We don’t know if he died here.”

“Move.” Z’Hana released her shadow messenger into the trapdoor. “No curse. There is something, however. And a dead end. It’s a long, narrow, dark place.

Arlo reached out, and his powers rested on something bulky in the tunnel. He tied the threads of that bulk together, recognizing that he’d brushed against someone’s corpse. “I’m trying something.”

He closed his eyes, pushing that corpse and attempting to find a spirit to anchor to it. One stirred and entered the corpse with malign resistance, and he commanded it to return through the trapdoor.

“I’m bringing… someone’s body up. Once it arrives, I’ll maintain control… and… Holly, spirits don’t usually respond to anyone other than the one currently in control of the body, but you’re a medium, so maybe we can try to combine our powers. I can last longer if I don’t have to force answers out of it, and it can’t try to possess you if it’s stuck in the body.”

“Huh. That’s… not a bad idea, actually,” Holly acknowledged. “Why hadn’t I thought of something like that?”

“I guess we’re not used to using our talents together, are we?”

She chuckled at that. “No. And hopefully, no one’s going to be squeezing themselves into… that hole.”

“Good thinking.” Z’Hana waited, ready to intervene if something went wrong.

Slowly, the corpse shuffled through the darkness before a skeleton clambered up, heaving itself out of the trapdoor. The skeleton glared at the three living, but its main attention was on the one who had summoned it.

---