van and busted the locks. Gem slowly steered through the open gates, the high beams providing the only light.
Wyatt hopped out, dressed for the occasion in a long-sleeved shirt. Two cartoonish eyes looked to the side with I SEE DEAD PEOPLE written below them. He might as well have been a walking billboard for Gravewalkers.
Wyatt finished his cake and then tucked his thumbs in his jeans pockets. “So what makes you think the love of your life is here? From my experience, when someone buries an immortal, they don’t do it in a high-traffic cemetery where someone might see them digging around. This is like the dead’s version of a mall. People doing sketchy burials go to old graveyards that are full up—ones with stones that are so broken that you can’t even tell if it’s a rock or a headstone.”
Gem’s long grey duster appeared translucent in front of the van’s headlights. She bent her leg and propped her white Doc Marten against the fender. “Maybe she’s not here. Where else does that road lead?”
Wyatt joined their circle. “Nowhere. It eventually dead-ends. There’s this or the local dump.”
“My vote is for the cemetery,” Claude cut in. “You take the dump.”
Wyatt chortled, and Gem put her hands on her ears as if sensing a distasteful joke on the horizon.
Christian snapped his fingers, his patience thinning. “Do your magic, Spooky. Walk the perimeter.”
“The perimeter? Do you know how many acres this place has? I can’t see in front of my nose, and if I don’t kill myself tripping over a headstone, I’ll be so distracted by the ghosties that I won’t be able to focus.”
Christian’s fangs punched out, and he gripped Wyatt by the collar. “Then find a way to focus.”
“I need to look for a flashlight.”
Claude pointed at a large shed. “What’s in there?”
Christian didn’t hear anything inside, but he broke the locks and opened the door.
Claude poked his head in and drew in a deep breath. “The female isn’t here.”
Incensed, Christian stalked by Wyatt, who was beating on the end of an inoperable flashlight. “Do your job. I’ll start on the far side if that makes it easier.”
Once Christian distanced himself from the van headlights, he shadow walked through the cemetery. They all looked the same. A tree here, a tree there, statues, benches, sometimes a mausoleum. He didn’t like spending his time in cemeteries, not since his own long-term residency.
After fifteen minutes, he finished checking every grave in the back for fresh sod or upturned soil. In the distance, Gem called for Raven, and hearing her name shouted into the void with no reply splintered his heart.
“I can’t pick up anything,” Claude huffed before collapsing in a heap by a headstone. “Someone urinated on a statue though.”
Gem dawdled toward them, her eyes wide and arms outstretched. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can’t see a thing! Where’s Wyatt? I thought he was getting a flashlight.”
“He probably passed out in the van,” Claude grumbled. “My head is spinning. Everything’s spinning.”
Before either Claude or Gem heard anything, Christian picked up the sound of an electric vehicle. But the noise was quickly drowned out by keyboard synthesizers that erased the silence.
Claude stood and squinted at the fast-approaching vehicle. “Is he playing ‘The Final Countdown’ in a cemetery?”
A golf cart weaved around headstones and trampled the plaques on the ground. Wyatt not only had headlights mounted to the vehicle but flashlights taped to the bars that held up the roof.
As soon as the lyrics to the eighties song kicked in, he moved in a snakelike motion toward them. After another reckless minute, he clipped a bench and lost control. Wyatt flew out of the vehicle and rolled across the grass.
“Now that’s a bloody shame,” Christian said with derision.
The golf cart rolled toward them and slowed to a stop.
Wyatt sprang to his feet and wiped the grass from his pants. “I didn’t pick up any vibes in the front. I searched every plot, but they haven’t buried anyone recently.”
Gem put her hands on her hips. “Wyatt Blessing, are you trying to get us arrested?”
Wyatt swaggered up to the cart. “Music and flashing lights distract the dead. If specters are hanging around a cemetery, it means they like the peace and quiet.”
When the chorus kicked in again, Christian approached the vehicle and smashed the radio. “If she’s yelling for help, I won’t be able to hear a fecking thing, you numpty.”
Gem cupped her arms and shivered. “Did you feel that?”