Page 22 of Christmas Spirits

I listened and stepped closer to the dirt wall. Then she sighed. “My mother worked a lot with dark magic, so I picked up a thing or two.”

“Oh…” I hadn’t known that. But then, that was probably something you didn’t go around telling people. From the hard expression on her face, it was a good assumption she didn’t like talking about it, either. I tried to lighten the subject. “Well, it’s a good thing you did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have a chance.”

A smile flickered across her lips. Not saying anything more on the topic, she thrust the blade of the shovel into the side of the casket. Gripping the handle tightly, she was about to push it down to release the seal but paused. Her gaze shot to the sky above us.

“W-What?” Dread shot through me. I glanced up, seeing nothing but a starless sky. Was someone coming? I strained to listen for any damning sounds but heard nothing over the cars speeding down the nearby overpass.

That’s when a chill danced along my spine. The all-too-familiar kind that told me a spirit was close.

I tensed.

Seeing a spirit in a graveyard shouldn’t be unusual, but since Arianna had reacted, too, and that could only mean one thing.

She could see it, too.

Dropping the shovel, she threw her hands out. A huge fireball, like a miniature sun, appeared in the center of her palms and flew out of our hole in the ground, disappearing into the night. She twisted, eyes locking on something else above us, and she flung another massive ball of fire that way. The heat of it was so intense, I stumbled back until I hit the dirt wall.

Oh no. It had found me again.

“Get the body!” Arianna shouted as she continued to shoot fire into the air. “I’ll hold it off.”

What? She wanted me to—

I looked at the casket. “I can’t.”

“You have to!”

As another fireball ignited the darkness, I spotted the tendrils of the spirit hovering in the darkness. And close. Its silky blackness blended in perfectly with the shadows. How Arianna was able to see it at all was a miracle.

I peered back at the disintegrating box where a decomposing human body lay, and my insides roiled. I really didn’t want to do this.

Another wave of heat pushed past my face and red light flared as Arianna hurled another fireball spell at the spirit. A little too close for comfort again.

With the shovel in hand, I hopped over the casket and plunged the blade into the seal, like Arianna had done. A small twist and it popped open. Dropping to my knees, I placed both hands on it.

Oh, God… I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

“Hurry!” Arianna gasped as light and heat continued to flash above us.

I held my breath and shoved with all my strength. The lid slid off.

I had expected the worst. Something you see in the movies with gore and pieces of flesh. Bugs. Zombies. But to my surprise—and relief—I was staring down at what looked like bits of clothing and a pile of dirt. Upon closer inspection, I could see pieces of bone, too, including what was left of a skull and teeth. Everything looked incredibly fragile like it might collapse if disturbed in any way.

For a second I wondered if this entire trip had been for nothing. Could a necromancer even use this? There was almost nothing left to him.

“We need to make a run for it,” Arianna’s hurried whisper had my pulse galloping. “When I say go—”

Panicked, I grabbed the corners of the blanket holding Marc Anders’s remains, and pulled them up to the middle into a makes-shift sack. I held it tight, sure that whatever bones that had been left were now probably just dust like the rest of him.

She grabbed my coat and half-shoved me out of the hole. “Go!”

Heart pounding, I scrambled out the rest of the way and dashed for the Beetle. Seeing it in the distance, I hoped my old track training from high school would somehow kick in and help me out.

With that thought, my feet gained speed, flying across the ground at such a speed, it was as if they weren’t even touching it at all. An invisible force pushed me toward the car, closing the distance rapidly, and I cried out as the winter air bit into my cheeks and nose. Before I knew it, I was opening the door and flinging myself and the bag of remains into the passenger seat.

It wasn’t until the door slammed shut that the speeding sensation stopped, leaving my head whirling and struggling to catch up. That’s when I saw Arianna sprinting toward the driver’s side, her legs a blur as she ran. In the blink of an eye, she was next to me, throwing the car into drive. The tires squealed as they tried to grip the frozen ground but soon caught hold, pushing us into our seats.

Arianna peeled out of the cemetery, heading right for the highway, merging without even bothering to look. That got us a very angry beep from the guy she’d cut off, but neither of us cared. We wanted to put as much distance between us and that spirit as possible.

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