Grave Beginnings (The Grave Report, Book 1) Read online

  Back to business, I had wasted enough time on the wraith but atleast I had gotten a clue out of it, she. All that and all I was rewarded was with a gender, but still, it was more than I had before.

  She and soot…best clues ever.

  I went back upstairs to Norman’s devastated bathroom, “damn,” I sighed, the clothes I had lain out to wear were ruined. Holes from the glass had peppered both the shirt and jeans and if that wasn’t enough, the ice that had coated the glass had melted so the clothes were soaking wet.

  I shook my head and muttered a curse as I walked back out to Norman’s bedroom. I tore through his open and previously ransacked dresser, looking for a new set of threads. I settled on a plain black full sleeve shirt because black is oh so slimming and in style in New York, and then I picked out a pair of olive green khakis. This guy had a weird assortment of clothes.

  It was too late to go back to the museum to dig up more clues, only the security guards would be there and the last thing I wanted to do was get into another IQ deadening conversation with Rick. I decided it best to go over the information Gnosis had provided me and cross reference with my journal.

  Chapter Nine

  I found where I had left the binder Gnosis’ fiery featured and tempered friend had given me and then began searching for my journal. I searched everywhere, atop and below every fixture, in the clothes I had been wearing previously but I couldn’t find it.

  “God damnit!” I swore loudly and very angrily, that journal had everything I had ever recorded in it, it was everything to me, it was the only damn possession I really had.

  “Trouble?” Murmured a voice.

  Agent Ortiz was standing in the doorway of Norman’s bedroom, both hands at the sides of her head, massaging her temples, she looked a bit groggy.

  “Yeah,” I said softly, didn’t want to give her anymore headache. “I can’t find a journal of mine.”

  “You mean this thing,” she said holding up my missing journal.

  “How’d you get your hands on that!?”

  “I personally confiscated it while we were taking you up for questioning,” she replied. “You were slipping in and out of consciousness, I didn’t think you’d notice or mind.”

  “You…you?” I stammered in the face of this sacrilege, take my journal? Like hell! I thought.

  I stormed over their and snatched it out of her hands in a none too polite manner, the lady may have just fainted but no one takes my damn journal!

  “Your welcome,” she muttered bitterly.

  I snorted dismissively in response.

  “I had a chance to go through it after we let you go,” she began, “it was,” she said, inhaling heavily, “quite the read.” She finished.

  “So…what, you came all the way back here to return my property or something?” I asked bemused.

  “Something like that,” she whispered, shaking her head gently in an attempt to ward off her grogginess.

  “Awful late to be making deliveries,” I said.

  “Well, I decided to keep an eye on you after the tiger incident, especially so after flipping through that journal of yours.”

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” I asked, already knowing her answer. I mean who wouldn’t think I was insane after a flip through my journal.

  “I think…” she started, “I don’t know what to think, at first yes, I thought you were crazy.” “I was outside when I heard the screams, I forced my way in and then,” she stopped for a moment, biting her lip, “then I saw that thing,” she shuddered.

  “And now?” I asked quietly.

  “Now,” she exhaled, “now I just want to know what the hell’s going on, no bullshit, just the truth.”

  “Well, I’m hunting a murderer,” I began, “so far it’s been responsible for deaths of employees of the American Museum of Natural History.”

  “How many?” she asked.

  “At the moment, only one I’m sure of, can’t say about anyone else.”

  “And…that thing…the thing in the kitchen was a…?”

  “A wraith,” I said simply.

  She sighed, “and I’m supposed to know what it is because?”

  I rolled my eyes and beckoned for her to follow me, I made sure to grab the info Gnosis had given me as I led her down to the kitchen. I also made damn sure to keep a death grip on my journal lest Agent Ortiz here decided to take another looksy without my consent.

  I pointed at the large pile of noxious black goo that was smeared allover the floor, a few splatterings here and there, “that,” I said, “was a wraith.”

  “Thanks for the in depth description there Britannica,” she replied.

  I huffed out a heavy breath before starting, “a wraith is a supernatural horror—”

  She snorted, “yeah I worked that part out for myself funny enough.”

  I narrowed my eyes when I spoke, “quiet smartass,” I retorted.

  Her eyes widened for a split second in shock before quickly narrowing angrily as mine did, her hands balled up into fists and found their way to being planted on her hips. She stood there in that pose that all women adopt when they’re quivering in anger.

  It was a pose that meant you were in trouble if you were either their boyfriend or husband, seeing how I was neither of those I didn’t really care.

  I rolled on as nothing had happened. “So, what was I saying? Oh yeah, a wraith is sort of a supernatural contract killer only minus the contract part and they lack the relative IQ of a person. They’re kind of like magical monstrosity attack dogs, something binds one into its service and then pretty much lets ‘em loose on their target.” I explained.

  “Wait, so…there are more of those things out there and you can pretty much just trap one and make it do what you want?” she asked horrified.

  I shrugged, “well, yeah, pretty much.”

  She look scandalized, “isn’t there some, I don’t know, some sort of rules or regulations around that kind of stuff. You can’t just hire assassins, it’s…it’s illegal!”

  I snorted loudly, “yeah, because the creepy crawlies of the supernatural world really care about everyday vanilla human laws.”

  She gave me a withering look, apparently law and order meant a great deal to her, right, she was a Fed.

  “Sorry, really aren’t much rules governing that kind of stuff in the world I’m involved in and the rules there are, are just plain crazy. I don’t make ‘em I’m just stuck trying to play by ‘em.” I said.

  She blinked several times, shaking her head as well before signaling me to continue.

  “Kay, well that wraith you saw was sent to kill me, I’m guessing because I was drawing in close to whatever’s responsible for the murder I’m investigating.”

  “So what is it?” she asked.

  “What is what?” I asked, confused.

  She looked at me as if I were a simple child, “the thing responsible for the murder?”

  “Oh,” I began, sounding foolish, “I um, well, you see, I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

  “You what?” She exclaimed indignantly.

  “I haven’t gotten that far yet,” I repeated much more quietly.

  “So let me get this straight, you rampage through the streets of New York with an angry tiger, terrify dozens of people—”

  “I told you the tiger thing wasn’t my fault!’ I blurted out.

  “I’M NOT FINISHED!” She said, raising her voice considerably to override mine. “You make my workload shoot through the roof, my stress levels are following, you push my levels of reasoning into unexplainable bounds—”

  “But I—” I tried muttering sheepishly.

  She shot me a death look for trying to interrupt her again, so I stayed quiet.

  “You cause me to confront a horrifying monster and then knock me out—” She continued on her tirade.

  “Technically, you fainted.” I corrected.

  She gave me another dagger and nails look, this time I resolved to try harder
to stay quiet.

  “And you put me through all of this in one night and we arrive at the point where after all of this has transpired, you’ve got nothing?! Am I right?” She finished, her chest heaving heavily, her face flushed with anger.

  “Yup,” I answered.

  “Yup? All you have to say is yup?” She asked menacingly.

  “Yup,” I repeated.

  She put her right hand up to her forehead, her eyes wincing, “I think I’m going to have an aneurysm.”

  “You sure you’re not just going to faint again?”

  She looked at me with cold hard fury.

  I shut up.

  After a moment of silence, she walked closer to the puddle that was the remains of the wraith, kneeling and extending a finger to touch it.

  “NO!” I shouted.

  Her hand jerked back and she looked at me confused.

  “I really wouldn’t touch that if I were you, or if I were me so yeah, no touchy.”

  “Why? It’s dead isn’t it?”

  “Yeah but would you go around and touch any other puddle of inky toxic looking tar like black pudding stuff?”

  “My,” she said with a little huff of breath, “you really have a way with words don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’m a regular wordsmith,” I replied with a cheery smile.

  “A…wordsmith?”

  “Yeah you know, like blacksmiths make stuff, a wordsmith smiths words…” I said uncertainly.

  She didn’t respond to that.

  “Look,” I sighed, “you wouldn’t touch radioactive material right?”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “Well that’s what wraith remains are like, they’re toxic in a different way, their remains can poison people, can corrupt them.” I explained.

  “I don’t follow,” she replied.

  “If you touch that, think of it as ingesting a psychoactive drug, it would mess with your mind only in a truly spooky way. It would corrupt you; make you slowly turn more aggressive, cruel, angry, cold and just plain evil. You’re essentially ingesting the essence of that wraith, you’re letting it make you into what it was in a way, only you’d still be human, sort of.”

  I could see her visibly make an effort to repress the urge to shiver.

  “Ok,” she began slowly, “so, this wraith thing was sent to stop you from getting close to the murderer right?”

  “Right,” I responded.

  “And the tiger thing, same reason?”

  “Looks that way,” I answered.

  “So, and I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, have you ever run across anything like this before?”

  “Sorta kinda not really maybe.” I quipped.

  She let out an exasperating sigh.

  “I’m not sure, I’ve dealt with hundreds of monsters and had hundreds if not thousands of cases, my memories not to great with all of them.” I said defensively.

  “Hence the journal,” she said.

  “Hence the journal’s,” I corrected, emphasizing the plural. “I’ve got one for case notes on all the baddies out there and another for me noggin’,” I said, giving my head a playful knock.

  “So, what now?” she asked.

  “Now I make some coffee and do some heavy reading,” holding up my journal and the binder from Gnosis, “care to join me?”

  “For coffee?” she asked incredulously, “not the choice of drink I’d go with if I had just witnessed an unexplainable paranormal event and lost consciousness.”

  “You fainted,” I reminded.

  “Black,” she said firmly.

  “Uh, I’m sure there’s cream and sugar here somewhere.”

  “Black,” she said just as firmly as before, “the way my head feels, I’m going to need it to really kick.”

  She sat down on one of the stools near the kitchen island, her legs crossed and her hands clasped, fingers intertwined. She looked, haggard, vulnerable.

  But then again, who wouldn’t after witnessing what she had. One minute monsters are imaginary, the next, you run into one being interrogated by a guy holding a chain and dressed only in a bath towel. That right there is a recipe for years of psychotherapy.

  So while the coffee was being made, I plopped down next to her, laying both my journal and the binder splayed open across the top of the marble top island. I slid the binder over to her, I figured as someone with a background in investigation she might spot something amiss in the info Gnosis had given me. I stuck with the paranormal and monsters bit in my journal. Made sense.

  I flipped through my journal with no success for near about ten minutes when the coffee was ready, I got up and fetched some ceramic mugs from Norman’s cupboards. I gave Agent Ortiz her coffee straight up black like she asked, me though; I loaded it up with sugar, honey and milk.

  It’s not like I can get diabetes so I might as well enjoy it, Norman’s body was technically dead so it’s not like it’d do any harm.

  After another ten minutes or so of perusing, Ortiz decided to speak up, “where exactly did you say you got all of this information from?”

  “I didn’t,” I said briskly.

  She stared at me levelly for a good long while, I guess trying to make me tell her, yeah that wasn’t going to work.

  “So, how’s your coffee?” I asked trying to change the subject.

  “Black, burnt, bitter.” She replied in simple rapid succession.

  “A bit of sugar and milk could take care of that,” I supplied.

  “It’s impressive, this collection of information, it’s more than I could have gotten using bureau resources legally,” she said, raising an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Good thing I didn’t ask the bureau then.”

  “Fine, play it that way,” she resigned with a sigh.

  I will, thank you very much! I thought, pleased by the notion of getting a little, insignificant as it may have been, vindictive pleasure at stumping a fed.

  I had gotten halfway through my journal by now and still nothing, I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what could be responsible for Norman’s murder. I was getting close to throwing something in a fit of frustration when Ortiz had found something.

  “Huh, this is strange.” She murmured quietly to herself.

  “What is?” I asked, anxiously leaning over to get a better look.

  “Herman Burke, sixty seven years of age, died about three weeks ago from heart attack.” She answered.

  “So…? At his age that isn’t really uncommon.” I said, a bit confused at why she had brought this up.

  “Well it says here that he was a museum employee before quitting a week before his death.”

  “Still not seeing a connection between old geezer and golden magical tiger and the wraith back there,” I responded.

  “Well,” she began, “it says he quit his position as a custodian soon after he…won the lottery and—”

  “Good for him,” I supplied lazily, “still don’t see it.”

  “And,” She continued, placing heavy emphasis on and, “his heart attack occurred during…uh, a heavy romp session with his twenty seven year old girlfriend. A girlfriend who happens to be a professional model.”

  “Wow, way to go buddy, talk about going out with a bang.”

  “Not funny,” Ortiz said.

  “It kind of is, but wait what? This guy wins the lottery and ends up dating a model and then just poof, heart failure all in a week?” I said perplexed.

  “Strange isn’t it?”

  “More like act of God,” I snorted, “that guy had some serious luck.”

  “Yeah, I’ll say, winning the lottery and getting a model, every man’s dream I bet. Guess wishes do come true.” She said.

  It had been a while since I had felt a pang from Norman’s memory but the one that had just shot through my head had been a whopper. It had been my very painful light bulb moment.

  “What did you just say?” I asked her.

  “What? Wishes do come true?” She answered.


  “Son. Of. A. Bitch,” I cursed below my breath.

  “What?” she asked eagerly.

  “I know what’s behind all of this,” I said triumphantly.

  “What?”

  “Is there an address listed in there for where the janitor lives…lived?” I asked quickly.

  “Yeah,” she said, skimming down the page for the information I had asked for, “he’s got a place down on Fifth Avenue…a penthouse in The Premiere Hotel.” Ortiz answered.

  “I bet he does,” I mumbled more to myself.

  “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  “Wishes, that’s what it’s all been about, this house, the way Norman looks and everything!” I blurted.

  “Um…” she said slowly, “now you’ve completely lost me. I was with you up to monsters and murder and now you sound crazy.”

  And then it clicked, the clues were right before me but I just didn’t notice them.

  “Damnit!” I swore.

  “What now?” She asked in an exasperated manner.

  I bolted upstairs to Norman’s bedroom and once again tore through the place, looking for that document, the will left to Norman by his father. I grabbed it and read it over again, it was right before my eyes. And if that wasn’t enough, I rubbed the top right corner of the will where it was covered in heavy dust. Only, it wasn’t dust as I had first thought, I didn’t even give it a second look the first time I had held it, it was soot.

  I folded up the will, stuffing it into my pockets and ran back downstairs to where Agent Ortiz was still sitting.

  “Find something?” She asked.

  “Yeah now come on!” I said hurriedly.

  “Where?”

  “Herman’s penthouse, you’ve got your car outside?”

  She nodded.

  I ran past her and grabbed the fallen chain I had used to interrogate the wraith. It would probably come in handy, chances were that I wasn’t going to face another wraith but it was still a bit of salt and iron. That combo could put a hurting on a good number of supernatural monsters if need be. I lead her downstairs to Norman’s living room, the one full of outrageously expensive upholstery and silverware, like that stupid silver…

  “Grab that!” I shouted, pointing to the ornate silver fire poker that was fastened between two equally silver brackets along the mantle piece.