Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(112)

And after eighteen years, whatever could possibly be in it would be degraded beyond recognition. Anything on paper would be a blackened crust of mold. And what else could it be in such a small space?

This whole effort was probably a stupid waste of time.

Even so. He wanted it, damnit. He wanted to shine up Mamma’s locket and put it on, so he could touch it. A tangible link to her. The thought of recovering it had taken hold in his mind. He couldn’t let go.

He sank down on the log and stared at the bones. Unfair of him to get in a snit with Lily and Edie for taking the time out to have a tender extrasensory moment with her own mom. He shouldn’t begrudge her that. At least he had some memories of Mamma in life.

Still. Jesus wept. A little practical help would have been so nice. If an entity was going to go to the trouble of crossing the great chasm between life and death, one would think it might try to multitask a little.

Whatever. Dead folks. Who the f*ck knew what their agenda was, out there beyond the veil. Speculating about it made his head ache.

He rubbed his eyes, got grit in them. They started watering, and suddenly, oh, shit. He was hunched over, silently sobbing.

Oh, please. Those guys had already pegged him as a coddled baby punk. Sniveling when he didn’t get the prize out of the cereal box. But he kept thinking about that hug from Mamma in the bus station at midnight. The locket, burning against his chest from her vital heat.

Mamma, where’s the f*cking locket, already?

Watch your language, you little punk.

He dashed tears away. First thing he saw was a beetle, trundling in the mud. He was brown, with a broad carapace and humongous waving pincers that meant business.

Tears turned to shaky laughter. Behold, the respectable country relative to the skanky urban cockroach. His appointed job to shred stuff and turn it into dirt. He wondered if this little dude’s ancestors had provided that very personal service for Rudy and his thugs.

Mamma had loathed the cockroaches that had infested their tenement apartment. She’d waged a constant war with them, poison, traps. It was useless, but she never gave up. She didn’t know how. That was Mamma for you. No off switch.

And it was time to move his ass, since the others were still moving theirs. Still, his eyes followed the bug as it bustled around the obstacles in its path. It climbed onto the rotten log that he had split, stopping at the top, at the sharp angle where the porous wood had been freshly broken. The wood was muddy on the outside, a reddish color inside.

What a fine-looking bug. Shiny and tough looking. He watched it, almost affectionately. He was punch-drunk. Admiring insects. Fourteen hours of digging for bones did that to a guy. At least the bug was alive.

He was tempted to pick the little guy up, go ask Kev what kind of beetle he was, but that would be dumb and irrelevant, and they would be justified in slamming him hard. He’d had enough of that today.

He went over, crouched down to take a final look—and saw it.

Like a muddy piece of string, hanging out of a crack in the side of the log. He’d have taken it for dead grass, but a blade of grass would poke off in any old direction. This hung straight down in a plumb line.

Like a fine metal chain.

Bruno gently nudged the beetle off its perch so he could work his fingers into the spongy crevice. It scuttled and turned, looking up at him and waving its pincers madly.

“Sorry,” Bruno muttered, wedging his cold, stiff fingers deeper, prying, prodding, flexing . . . and the rotten wood gave way, disintegrating in his hand. He held up the handful of wood pulp.

Mamma’s locket was nestled in it.

He stared down at it, afraid to breathe. As if it might vanish into a puff of dust, but it was cold and hard and solid. Dirt was ground into the delicate relief work on the pendant, but otherwise it looked intact.

He looked down at the beetle, who was still watching him, gesticulating with pincers and front legs. All indignant.

His eyes were awash again. “Thanks, little buddy,” he whispered.

He rose up, walked over to where Sean and Kev were working. He tried to call them, but his voice was thickened with emotion.

Kev glanced over. His eyes went wide as they zoomed in on Bruno’s outstretched, clutching hand. “You found it,” he said.

The other men crowded around him, peering at the object in his hand. Kev gripped his shoulder, his grimy face worried. “You OK?”

“I am now,” Bruno croaked. “It was stuck in a crack in that rotten log. A bug showed me.” That sounded so dumb. He didn’t give a shit.

“May I?” Sean’s hand hovered over his, awaiting permission.

Bruno nodded, let the other man pluck it from his palm.

Sean peered at it and tried opening it. “It’s been sealed, but there are hinges,” he said. “We could break it open with my blade.”

They crouched around the black plastic tarp that held the skeletons. Bruno accepted Sean’s blade, hesitating. He hated to break the precious thing, but his head would pop if he had to wait until tomorrow to open it. Mamma would understand. Hell, impatience had been one of her defining characteristics.

He slipped the tip of the blae in the seam between the tiny hinges, squinting in the dim light, until the point disappeared. He nudged it deeper, applied pressure, firmly . . . and crack, it snapped. Something thudded onto the plastic, a shapeless black wad. Bruno checked the inside. The two pieces were black with mold. Nothing else.