Page 64 of Last Resort

“Fuck!” Ben raced to the door and threw it open, but Carr was gone—or magically hidden from his sight. Venturing after him without being able to spot his target was asking for trouble. Cursing under his breath, Ben slammed the door behind him and turned the security system back on.

He leaned against the wall, letting the adrenaline crash.What the fuck was up with that ghost?

Ben hadn’t sensed Tom Raines’s spirit before this, but perhaps the old man had just been biding his time or needed to gather enough mojo to make himself seen.

Whatever Carr held up and shouted drained the energy right out of Raines. What scares a ghost?

Realizing that the spirit might not remain incapacitated for long and unwilling to have a show-down with a furious ghost, Ben hurried to the kitchen and grabbed salt. He went to the storage room and made a circle around the stack of boxes, pouring salt over top of them for good measure.

When he ran out, Ben set the canister aside and realized his hands were shaking. He didn’t know what freaked him out more—Carr’s attempted break-in and strange vanishing trick or the vengeful spirit.

The ghost. Definitely the ghost.

But whatever freaky thing Carr used to tear up the ghost was terrifying too.

Ben hurried to his office and cradled the cup in his hands as he waited for his heartbeat to slow to normal.

His phone rang, and he startled, spilling coffee on himself.

“Shit.” He blotted the drips as he accepted the call.

“Hi, Teag. What do you have for me?” He hoped his voice sounded halfway normal.

“Plenty—I just hope it helps,” Teag replied. “Is this a good time?”

“Yeah. I just got attacked by Raines’s pissed-off ghost, but he’s gone now.” Ben realized how strange that sentence sounded after it was out of his mouth.

“Want to run that by me again?”

Ben told Teag about finding Carr’s hideout with its occult trappings, the ritual that morning, chasing Carr, and then Carr’s break-in attempt and the ghost’s angry response.

“You guys don’t do anything halfway up there, do you?” Teag replied. “I think I can shed light on how Carr got away from you so easily. He was using a magical relic, borrowing its power. With a genius loci so close and it being the equinox, he probably powered up before your witch friend contained the energy.”

“So he’s super-powered now?” Ben had thought the situation couldn’t get any worse.

“Not really,” Teag replied. “At least, not permanently. Carr got his magical battery all charged, but he won’t be able to recharge with the ritual warding in place, so every time he uses his relic, it drains the juice. From what you’ve described, he’s used it three times already. It won’t last forever, and the waning energy now that the equinox has passed will drain his relic even faster.”

“How did he make himself invisible?”

“He didn’t,” Teag said, chuckling. “It’s a damn good distraction spell. Like those special ops uniforms that make people blend into their surroundings. ‘Cryptic coloration’ is the official name. The spell works in a similar way, taking your eye away from where he is and letting him fade into the background.”

“I guess that’s better than actual invisibility.”

“It would take a powerful witch to pull that off, not just a hack with a relic,” Teag assured him.

“Fill me in.” Ben sipped his coffee.

“While we’re still talking about this morning’s excitement, that item you saw Carr hold up? The one that looked like a golden pencil? I’d bet good money it’s a bone of Santa Romola Fiorella, patron of the New Jersey mafia,” Teag said. “She’s the saint you found the shrine to in his room. One of the miracles associated with her was hiding criminals from the police, even when the crooks should have been in plain sight.”

“So the relic actually works?”

“For now,” Teag said. “I suspect that Carr owes a big debt to a powerful witch, and maybe to clear his account he needs to deliver some of the missing heist money. The witch might have given him the relic to help him, but those kinds of magical items always have a cost to the user. Since his witch patron won’t need him after he hands over the money, I suspect the relic will drain him when it can’t leech off other sources.”

“If he beats us to the treasure, at least he’ll die happy,” Ben muttered.

“So about that. Santa Romola was also known as a finder of lost things. Carr has stepped up his game by not just praying but using a—probably stolen—relic. That could work as a divining crystal to help him find a location on a map.”

Ben had heard of witches and psychics using a crystal pendant suspended over a map to pinpoint a target, trusting the magic to pull the crystal over the right place. He could imagine substituting the gold-covered bone for the pointer, although the idea of possessing part of someone’s skeleton gave him the heebie-jeebies.

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