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8: A GRAVE MISTAKE


Normally, Law liked Allegheny Cemetery. Her grandparents used to bring her to the graveyard after church. The Monroes had moved into the general area back in 1829 when they purchased the farm that would later be Monroeville. Her branch of the family had moved into Pittsburgh proper before the turn of the twentieth century, exchanging farm work for railroading. She and her grandparents would stroll around the cemetery, visiting the graves of her great-grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles, and distant cousins. All her memories of the cemetery were of sunshine, green leaves, and a sense of belonging to the land. It was one of the many reasons she never considered moving to Earth.

As dusk neared and a storm thundered in the distance, though, the graveyard was a really creepy place. There were no streetlights on the cemetery grounds. Shadows gathered into growing pools of darkness that could hide any number of enemies. The trees tossed in the wind, shedding autumn leaves that skittered loudly across the narrow paved road that wound its way through the cemetery. The white noise would mask any warning sound of approaching oni.

Law stood in the bed of her Dodge Power Wagon and peered over the ten-foot-tall fieldstone wall that encircled much of the graveyard. The place was huge: three hundred acres of rolling wooded hills with something like fifteen miles of private paved roads winding their way through the cemetery. What would be the smart thing to do? Beside her, Bare Snow was sulking like a twelve-year-old girl who had been told to eat her peas. Her cheeks were puffed up in full-on pouting indignation.

“We should have just gone after Kajo,” Bare Snow whispered, twisting the hem of her camo T-shirt. “Kill him. Mount his head on the wall. That’s what Emperor Heaven’s Blessing did to Scourge.”

“Who?”

“Scourge!” Bare Snow whispered fiercely. “He was the greatest warlord who ever lived. He would swoop in on his ship, the Blood Frenzy, and capture cargo ships. He would kill any of the crew who were loyal to their Skin Clan masters and free all of the slaves willing to rebel. He used the loot to set up hidden island forts from which we could harass shipping on every ocean and sea. The Water Clan exists because of Scourge.”

Kajo had had too many oni warriors and wargs traveling with him. It would have been pure suicide to “swoop in” and kill Kajo. That attempt would have ended in a bloody failure.

Law shook her head. “Kajo wasn’t our target. We’re after the egg thingies.”

Their chase had taken the entire day, bouncing all over Pittsburgh, to end up at the two-hundred-year-old cemetery. It was a brilliant hiding place. It was near the heart of the city, yet there was little chance that someone would try to squat in the “empty” buildings. Pittsburghers might be willing to take on steel spinners and strangle vines but were weirdly terrified of ghosts. After her grandparents had died, even Law never visited the graveyard.

“The nactka.” Bare Snow supplied the name of the egg-shaped devices. “Though that is not what my mother called them.” Her sulking grew deeper. “I do not remember the name exactly. It was a silly name like ‘put a cork in it’ or something equally childish. The wood sprites invented them while they were still slaves of Emperor Heaven’s Blessing. The devices are one of the twenty lesser-forbidden magics outlawed at the end of the Rebellion. My mother told me if I ever stumbled across one, that the holder was sure to be Skin Clan.”

“That might have been true this morning,” Law said. “Considering everything that we’ve seen, I don’t think that the people that have them now are Skin Clan.”

“Who are they?”

“I’m not sure. To make that puffball trap, they would have to know ancient forbidden magic. Considering how many sekasha are running around the city, most elves wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. It could have been Kajo getting rid of his Skin Clan masters in the confusion of war. Maybe. Maybe not. Kajo has stayed hidden all these years. That trap feels far too messy for him. It feels more like a double cross against Kajo. Whoever took the nactka knew where and, more importantly, when to hit. We weren’t that far behind the pack bearers—that was a very narrow window to hit.”

“Inside job.” Bare Snow whispered one of English phrases she had learned from watching television with the Bunny children.

A tall fieldstone wall surrounded the parklike grounds, screening the cemetery from the casual passerby and part-time spy. Law didn’t think it extended entirely around the graveyard but her knowledge of the backside of the property was hazy. There were other exits than the big castlelike main gate but she’d never seen them actually open. Their wrought iron gates were always chained shut. Her grandparents did say that they used to be open but everything had changed when Pittsburgh was shifted to Elfhome.

Widget had seen the truck go into the cemetery. She hadn’t called to say it had come out. It meant that the yellow box truck was still inside—somewhere. The three hundred acres contained lots of places to hide. Business offices. Maintenance buildings. The old groundskeeper residence. A chapel. Crypts. Mausoleums. It was like a little village of the dead.

If the mysterious thief just wanted to hide the nactka, stashing them in a crypt would be simple and clever. If the murderous thug was using the cemetery as a camp, then the groundskeeper residence or the business offices would be more logical hiding places.

“Let’s split up.” Law pointed at the maintenance compound tucked in the northwest corner. “I’ll search those buildings.” She indicated the winding road leading into the graveyard from the main entrance with the castlelike structures. “Check the—” What was Elvish for chapel? “That stone building there by the gate. Then there’s that big building on the hill.”

If she remembered correctly, it was filled with the concrete vaults that were buried into the ground into which coffins were then placed.

“Then there’s some little stone buildings beyond it.” Law suspected that Elvish didn’t have words for crypts or mausoleums. Elves didn’t bury their dead; they cremated them under the open sky, returning the souls to the god that oversaw rebirth. Bare Snow had been both horrified and pleased when she found out that Sparrow had been given a human burial.

“We can meet up there.” Law pointed at a distant crypt that would be the end of Bare Snow’s counterclockwise search and her own clockwise one.

Law’s reasoning was that the maintenance compound might have a human security system while the crypts were surrounded by dead leaves. Bare Snow could move silently and invisibly through the graveyard while Law dealt with cameras and sensors.

“Okey-dokey!” Bare Snow started to strip off her clothes.

Law slung her rifle across her back and then carefully lowered herself down the other side of the wall. A running retreat was going to be difficult but there wasn’t a better way.

* * *

The maintenance compound had half a dozen structures, separated from the rest of the cemetery via a tan brick wall. She remembered being fascinated by the buildings when she was a kid. The six buildings were different shapes and sizes but all had been built a hundred years ago in the same style out of the same tan brick. They were like nothing she’d ever seen before but all matched each other. The deep inset windows had sills of thick granite slabs. The lower windows and doors had decorative brick arches. The hipped roofs were slate. The buildings ranged from a narrow garage with eight arched bay doors, to a large possible-barn with second-floor hayloft doors and a mysterious narrow roof ridge inset with windows.

Since her grandparents had scheduled their visits on Sundays after church, there hadn’t been any employees moving around the compound, giving clues to what the buildings were actually used for. The garage was self-explanatory although it wasn’t clear why the graveyard needed eight vehicle bays. Law recognized the smallest building as a salt shed only after it had been filled with road salt one autumn. What were the other structures used for? Two had what seemed to be haylofts, perhaps left over from when the cemetery used horse-drawn vehicles—or maybe not.

She had always thought that the buildings would make the perfect secret lair. The compound was walled off and isolated, accessible only through a place that few people would want to visit. She had never seen other visitors or employees at the cemetery. Even now, there seemed to be no one around. Someone, though, had been taking care of grounds: the grass was short and there were no weeds in sight.

Someone had painted elfshine lures all over the maintenance compound. The L-shaped driveway and the interior of the garage bays and salt shed gleamed dimly from the drifting swarm of glowing insects. There didn’t seem to be anyone—elf, human, or oni—within earshot.

Law found the yellow box truck backed into the rightmost garage bay. Its engine was still ticking as it cooled down. It had been parked within the garage just minutes before she had first peered over the boundary wall. There were only five inches between the back bumper and the rear wall. Someone was confident in their parking skills. The truck was impossible to unload in its current position. Was everything still inside it?

She took out her flashlight and lifted the back gate up enough to peek into the cargo hold. The truck was empty.

She crouched down in the dark, thinking hard. The murder house was proof that something vital had been on the truck—important enough to kill all the pack bearers and take the truck. Widget had tracked the truck all through town. Law and Bare Snow had watched the pack bearers load it up with food and supplies. None of those supplies had been unloaded at the murder house. The truck had come here, was unloaded first and then had been backed into the garage. Everything on it probably had been moved into one of the nearby buildings.

She still didn’t know how the nactka were being transported. In several small packages or one large case? There was an entire three-hundred-acre cemetery to search.

Her gut was telling her that now was the time to call in reinforcements. Was her gut feeling strong enough reason to get more people involved? She had no control who Alton would call; he might recruit Yumiko and other yamabushi. At that point, there could be a cascade of disasters.

Bare Snow’s entire family had a death warrant out on them for the assassination of Howling, Windwolf’s grandfather. They had been tricked into it. Bare Snow hadn’t even been born at the time. It didn’t matter—if the Wind Clan sekasha discovered her true identity, they would hunt her down and execute her, just like they did to the rest of her family.

Law had been careful to keep Bare Snow hidden. There were very few people who knew about her. The Bunnies and Ellen McMicking knew a sanitized version of Bare Snow’s history. Pat Hershel might remember Bare Snow. Law had filled up at Hershel’s Exxon a few hours prior to the June Shutdown and bought some clothes for Bare Snow. Pat could have forgotten by now; it was in the middle of normal Shutdown chaos. Law had been careful not to introduce the young elf to anyone else. If Widget had told her the truth, then not even the Kryskills knew about Bare Snow.

The yamabushi had a direct pipeline to the Wind Clan sekasha via Tinker domi. If they found out about Bare Snow, the tengu might feel honor-bound to tell the elves. It was a risk that Law didn’t want to take.

Oktoberfest, though, would have been a blood bath if she hadn’t called Alton. Everything Yumiko told Law made the nactka sound a hundred times more dangerous than a train full of oni warriors. The smart thing to do might be to get more people involved and then ghost out—let the yamabushi deal with the mess alone. She and Bare Snow could go back and raid the food warehouses. That would be safe and profitable.

She pulled out her phone to call Alton.

She didn’t have a signal.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Law whispered as she waved her phone around, trying to connect to a tower. She had full bar reception at the murder house just a few blocks away. She had considered calling Widget but decided to limit the number of times Duff would know what Law was doing.

While the graveyard didn’t have streetlights, there were some on the other side of its boundary wall. She realized for the first time that they had never turned on as dusk deepened into night. She’d been so distracted looking for the enemy that she hadn’t noticed earlier that the power was out in the city. The oni must have taken down the cell phone towers and the power grid at the same time. The war had kicked into full swing.

She and Bare Snow were on their own and time was running out.

There was a rustling noise that grew louder and louder. She slipped out the garage bay to scan the surrounding area. The floodgates had opened somewhere. Oni were starting to pour into the cemetery through the main gate. They were coming quietly; she had heard them only because of the sheer numbers involved.

Law swore softly. The oni were going to cut her off from Bare Snow. She better search the maintenance compound as quickly as she could. If she needed to, she could slip over the boundary wall and circle back to her truck.

In the leftmost garage bay was a giant pile of cubed ice, slowly melting in the Indian summer heat, and a hoverbike, its engine still warm. Judging by the small puddle of icy water under the bike’s parking studs and the lack of water on its fenders, someone had emptied a large ice chest after the hoverbike had been parked. She was guessing the container was one of the huge YETI hard coolers from the third warehouse.

The next building over was the salt shed. At first she thought it was empty except for a shallow layer of salt covering the floor. On second glance, she noticed that one of the ice chests was sitting against the back wall. It was only visible because of the elfshines gleaming dimly in the tall roofed space. As she stared at it, she noticed that it was actually floating several inches off the floor.

“What the hell?” she whispered.

The oni had a spell running on the all-plastic container. It had rope tie-downs keeping it anchored in place.

She could see someone keeping a hundred pounds of fish in a big cooler. Certainly that’s what she did with hers. Making it float? That screamed that the chest contained something much more exotic than dead trout.

A distant muttering of oni from the oncoming troops reminded her that she was running out of time.

She crept into the salt shed. The coarse salt crunched loudly under foot.

She just had to undo the anchors on the ice chest. The magical spell on it, keeping it floating, meant she would be able to float it right over the boundary wall. In. Out. Gone before anyone noticed that the cooler was gone.

There was a flash of light and suddenly she was on the ground, unable to move. It felt like a giant elephant was pressing her to the floor of the salt shed. The gleam, she realized, was a spell activating.

She’d walked into a magical trap.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” a woman said behind her. “Set up a trap for a ghost and catch a housecat. Pfft. I suppose there’s still hope for the ghost—she’s here someplace. I’d be careful on how you struggle—the gravity of the situation will only crush you faster.”

The woman walked away.

Law lay helpless on the floor, panting. It was hard to breathe, the force pressing down on her was so strong. She might be able to call out but that would only lure Bare Snow into the trap faster.

Could she free herself?

She struggled to stay calm and survey the salt shed.

It was only then that she noticed the puffball sitting in the corner, armed and ready to go off.



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