Keystone (Crossbreed #1)(62)
“Good point. What are all those buildings?”
“Mausoleums. People buried whole families in them, sealed up in the walls. They’re different from place to place. Some are crypts that go partially underground, others are open to the public and look more like a post office.” He approached one of the stone coffins and slapped his hand against it. “They don’t bury people this way anymore—except for places that flood—because stone cracks. Not to mention all the vandalism. Plus I don’t think humans like visual reminders that they’re going to die. Most human cemeteries don’t even like raised headstones anymore. They look more like a golf course. It offends the dead.”
Everyone branched off, and I took a slow stroll with Wyatt between two rows of grandiose headstones.
“It doesn’t bother you to be here?” I asked. “I thought all the spooks liked to chase you down.”
“Just the freshies. Old specters do their own thing.” He shone a light on a marble headstone. “See the date? Eighteen hundreds. Most of these folks have moved on to greener pastures. It’s the newer cemeteries I don’t like. There were a few at that first place who were eyeballing me.”
I snorted. “Can they tell what you are?”
“Not unless I look at them.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I try not to look at them.”
“How close do you have to be to a Vampire to sense them?”
He shrugged. “It depends. The more obstacles between us, the harder it can be. When they’re dead like Christian, I definitely can’t sense them.”
I turned around when I heard a thud—the last thing you want to hear in a quiet cemetery. Niko had tripped over a broken headstone. Blue stepped over a rotting branch and locked her arm in his, guiding the way, her flashlight creating a solid beam through the thin veil of fog. Dead branches littered the grounds, along with leaves, rocks, and holes.
Which got me to thinking. “Did you notice something at the front entrance?”
Wyatt’s eyes rounded, and he turned in a circle.
“I’m not talking about ghosts. I didn’t think twice about it until you just mentioned that people don’t visit here. There were fresh tire marks on the road. It looked like they ran over one of the grave markers near the front gate.”
Wyatt swung his light onto the road, and we hurried toward it.
I knelt down and touched the grooves in the soft dirt, which was still damp from the last rain. “These tire marks are recent. The rain and wind would have erased them if they were older than today.”
“Holy Toledo. You’re like the Breed version of Nancy Drew.” He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled.
Everyone hustled back over, Viktor with his brows drawn together.
The excitement wore away from Wyatt’s face, and he aimed his flashlight at the road. “Fresh tracks. We think it might be something.”
We followed the tracks up a gradual incline that led to the back of the cemetery. A part of me dreaded finding Christian and seeing everyone’s reaction. Would they cry for him, or was this just a professional relationship? Gem might have warned me about him, but she couldn’t mask the obvious remorse she carried in her expression.
The tracks stopped, and it looked as if the car had moved several times to turn around. The right side of the road had nothing but old markers and rocks, and throughout the center of the cemetery were stone coffins and statues that littered the landscape. Straight ahead were rows of the stone houses that Wyatt called mausoleums.
Claude’s nostrils flared—he appeared to be searching for a scent. “I can’t tell. It’s been too long.”
Shepherd had his hands outstretched.
“What’s he doing?” I whispered to Wyatt.
“Searching for emotional imprints.”
I was staring at the ground, pacing in a circle, when I noticed impressions that might have been… bare feet? They led me to a modest structure made of stone with the word CLEAVY in bold letters above the door. Dead vines twisted around the building as if they had attempted in vain to strangle the life out of it. I tried pushing and pulling on the door.
“Find something?” Blue asked, coming up behind me.
I pointed at a shiny new lock. “You wouldn’t happen to have any bolt cutters, would you?”
Blue reached in her pockets and fished out a couple of pins.
Wyatt sidled up beside me. “She’s pretty nifty with picking locks.”
After a long minute, Blue tossed the lock to the ground and tried to push open the door, but it was too heavy. Claude leaned his body against it and shouldered it open.
The room smelled musty, and I wrinkled my nose as we aimed our lights inside.
“What’s all that?” I asked, noticing a pile of junk in the corner.
Wyatt entered and knelt down, wiping away some of the cobwebs. “Looks like someone wanted to take their silver to the afterlife.”
A stone coffin claimed the center of the room, and what I noticed immediately were the fresh clumps of dirt on the floor.
Everyone backed up against the walls when Viktor came in. He stepped up to the coffin and bowed his head respectfully. Butterflies circled in my stomach.
Viktor touched the coffin with his fingertips. “Christian did not deserve such a vulgar disposal. Death is inevitable for us all, even the immortals. But it should mean something. Let us give him a proper burial.”