One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress #6)(60)
Tyler sat in the pantry, my iPad next to him and an open can of SpaghettiOs to the right of that. We’d stocked the refrigerator when we came here, but then Kramer ripped out the electrical lines leading to the house, and that meant no power to keep things fresh. He’d zapped himself in the process, all that electricity coursing through him rendering him solid for about ten minutes, but beating his ass while he was channeling high voltage would have only resulted in Bones or me getting electrocuted, too. Pity the trap wasn’t ready yet. That would have made getting the bejesus shocked out of us worth it.
Tyler had been eating canned goods ever since the food spoiled, and his baleful expression said loud and clear that he hadn’t developed a taste for them in the process. I didn’t remind him that Bones could fly him to Spade’s, where there would be plenty of better food to eat. Tyler was determined to help us catch the ghost, and any mention of his leaving was met with flat refusal.
“Want a bite?” Tyler said, holding up a speared forkful of noodles and meat medley.
I managed not to grimace out of sheer force of will. “Ah, no thanks.”
“Me neither,” he said, coughing a little before he went on. “Have I told you about all the steaks you’re going to buy me when this is over?”
“Kobe, filets, prime ribs, you name it,” I promised him. “Any luck on your research?”
While Bones and I were in the cellar cutting various rocks and minerals to piece together the trap, Tyler had been scouring the Internet for any authentic-sounding reference to a weapon against ghosts. It burned through a new backup battery a day, damn that lack of electricity, but as the time drew nearer, I was more anxious to find something that might help us prod Kramer into the trap. Yes, we had burning sage, but that made Kramer poof away—helpful when we wanted him gone, but not so much if we wanted to force him into a ghost jail. So far, Tyler hadn’t come up with anything that we could test on Fabian or Elisabeth, but he was determined that the information existed and just had to be found.
“What do you think of this?” Tyler asked, turning the iPad around so I could see the screen.
I stared at the page displayed, wondering why Tyler was showing it to me. He must be starting his Christmas list early because this item had nothing to do with the supernatural. Then I looked at it more closely, thought it through . . . and started to smile.
“I love it,” I said, careful in my reply because I knew Kramer was listening. “I want ten. No, make that two dozen. Bones has his credit card numbers memorized, get them from him later. We’ll ship them to where Spade’s staying.”
Tyler grinned. “Sure will. Say hi to ol’ Michael Myers for me.”
“Huh? Oh, because Kramer’s a Halloween serial killer, I get it. Sure, but you make sure to stay in here and don’t come out.”
He rolled his eyes. “Girlfriend, you might be dead, but I don’t want to be yet. Bet your ass I’m staying in here.”
Another crash sounded near the front of the house, louder than the other ones. My cue that Kramer was getting impatient. I’d love to leave him out there stewing in his own ectoplasm, but we had to keep the house standing for the next week, so we could finish the trap. Getting it out of here without the ghost seeing was going to be tricky enough. We didn’t need to add to that trouble by having to move the trap to a new location just to finish it.
I left the pantry, passing through the kitchen with its bare, open cabinets—those doors made for great window coverings—and the family room where mattresses were the only furniture. When I got to the main entrance of the house, I picked up one of the glass jars filled with burning sage and ducked out of habit as soon as I opened the door.
Sure enough, a hunk of tree branch went whistling over me, followed immediately by two side mirrors from the car. They clanged into the family room, one landing on the mattresses, the others resting by the rest of the items Kramer had chucked at Bones earlier. I made a mental note to carry them out later and reappeared in the doorway.
“Guten Tag,” I said, hefting the sage jar in salute. “Stay where I can see you, or I go back inside.”
I knew he’d comply because, for some twisted reason, Kramer liked to do his cursing and threats to our faces. Grumbles in German came from the side of the porch that had the worst damage to it. If Kramer kept ripping out porch boards and flinging them at the house, there wouldn’t be any more of it left in the next couple days. But the sage that had Tyler continually coughing kept Kramer from entering the house. All he could do was poltergeist things at it while cursing us in a mixture of German and English, with possibly some Latin thrown in for good measure.
Dark swirls appeared next to the porch, then the familiar white hair sticking out like a stack of bleached hay topped the ghost’s tall, thin frame. I waited, not saying anything, tapping the side of the glass in mute warning.
“Hexe,” Kramer hissed once he was fully manifested.
“Uh-huh,” I replied, recognizing the German word for witch and wondering how long he would ramble on this time. “I’m a woman, so that’s how you see me. Watching the feminist movement these past several decades must’ve really burned your toast.”
The Inquisitor didn’t respond with a slew of curses like normal. He just smiled wide enough to reveal teeth that were best kept unseen. Eww didn’t begin to cover my revulsion at those scraggly brown stumps.