Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,32

heard the first guy say, “Stop looking around like that. You’re giving me the creeps.”

How were they not seeing us? From the sound of their voices, they were right alongside our hiding place.

“You’ll have worse than the creeps if they’ve been here and gone. We need all the pieces, or nothing will be any good. Not the Jackal, not the girl … She’ll be useless.”

“Shhh,” said his buddy, on the steps to the mausoleum. “The door’s unlocked.”

I heard it swing open, and their footfalls going inside. But in my head was the menace of that simple statement: She’ll be useless. Expendable.

Carson exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time. The odd tingling feeling evaporated and the toes of Mrs. Hardwicke’s shoes wavered in front of me.

“Goodness,” she said, sounding shaken. “I thought for sure you would be caught.”

Had Carson done another Jedi mind trick? Sleight of hand, he’d called it when we were leaving the mansion.

He didn’t give me time to ask. “Let’s go,” he whispered, rolling to his feet and pulling me with him. Part of me said, Yes, let’s run, and another part said, No, wait! There was something I was forgetting. Only two guys had passed us. I hadn’t told Carson there were three.

The third guy came into sight just as we jumped up from behind the crypt. The moon was like a spotlight, and there was nothing to do but freeze.

The guy was young, like the others had sounded. He wore a knit cap with a University of Minnesota logo, and brotherhood or not, he did look like a fraternity guy. He also looked as shocked to see us leap out of the shadows as we were to be seen.

The other two came out of the mausoleum behind us. “They’re not here,” the burly guy in the lead started, then broke off when I swung around, putting my back to Carson’s.

Carson squeezed my hand then let go. “Cover your eyes,” he said.

“What? Why—?”

An instant later I heard the flashlight smash to the ground. I clapped my hand over my eyes and squeezed them shut as light flared, reddening the edges of my fingers.

Then there was darkness, and a lot of cursing and yelling. When I dropped my hand, I saw the guy in the hat blinking blindly in the moonlight.

“Get them!” he shouted, but all Thugs One and Two could do was snatch at the spots filling their ruined night vision.

“Run!” said Carson, like I wasn’t already moving.

I took off through the headstones, saving my questions for later. That flare had been way more than a flashlight beam. Just then I was grateful for the head start and the advantage of being able to see by moonlight.

Carson followed on my heels as I weaved through the rows of stone markers. I remembered the way back to the car, and I could navigate the watercolor psychic landscape without relying on the path.

Thugs One and Two and the Cat in the Hat had gotten themselves together, and I heard them galumphing after us. We reached the fence and I started over it with zero finesse, jumping to catch the top rail. And then I just hung there like I was trying to do a chin-up in the worst gym class ever.

Carson put a hand on my butt and shoved. Honestly, I’d seen more action since meeting him than I had in all of high school. I got my leg up and leveraged the rest of me to the top, just as the three hooligans came sliding down the icy grass of the graveyard hill.

Carson scrambled over and dropped to the other side. I tried to do the same, but the collar of my coat caught on one of the spikes. I tumbled from my perch and braced to hit the frozen ground from a nine-foot drop but instead jerked to a stop, half choked by the coat and hung out like a rag doll on a clothesline.

“Ditch the coat!” Carson said, his eyes on the hoodlums closing fast. I unzipped and wriggled out of the parka, then stumbled and hit the ground.

Something slithered from around my neck and dropped into the grass. The Hardwicke pearls. “Leave it,” said Carson, and only the sight of the three guys clambering up the fence convinced me to listen to him.

We raced to where we’d left the Taurus on the darkened lane. Momentum slammed me against the passenger door, and as I fumbled for the handle, Mrs. Hardwicke appeared