Page 39 of Cold Sacrifice

A couple of minutes later, Gracie Dawn led in the first client of the day. She ogled Remy as she placed the file on my desk, then nearly walked into the wall when Remy growled at her.

I opened the file and Richard appeared abruptly at my side, peering with interest at the open folder. “Mrs. Applegate,” I said. “How can I help you?”

“Annabelle,” she told me. “And you can help me by finding out why my dog brings me teeth every time he goes out back to potty.”

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or ask Remy to escort her out of my office. “Teeth,” I said. “Your dog brings you teeth.”

“Ask her if they’re human teeth,” Richard said.

“Human teeth?” I asked.

“Yes. See for yourself.” She dug through her bag and pulled out a plastic baggie, then stood and upended the teeth onto my desk. “Some of them are cracked and broken,” she pointed out. “And some of them still have roots attached. They’re old.”

She wasn’t wrong. I leaned forward and looked at the teeth. “Do you have a cemetery near your house?”

She frowned, then sat back down. She left the teeth. “Yes, but my backyard is fenced. I assure you that Hershey isn’t secretly escaping so he can run to the graveyard and steal some poor dead soul’s chompers.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“About a month. Most of the time I don’t see him doing it. He’ll be out there running around, having a good old time, and then when he comes in through the doggy door, he’ll drop one of those at my feet.” She pointed at the teeth. “He’s digging them up out of my backyard. The question is, why are they in my yard in the first place?”

“That is the question,” Richard murmured.

I didn’t feel any magic coming from the teeth, but that might have been because I wasn’t touching them. “Why did he just start collecting them a month ago?” I wondered.

“Because that’s when I adopted him,” she said.

“That explains that, then,” Richard said. He reached out and ran his index finger over one of the teeth and then, startling me as well as Annabelle, he picked one of them up.

I shouldn’t have been shocked. He’d held a pen to write his name. Max had felt his hug. Those things took some strength. Picking up a tooth would have been easy.

And I was beginning to think keeping him confined to my office was probably a good idea.

“Wait a minute,” Annabelle said, her hand to her chest. “You’re telekinetic?”

“No,” I said. “That’s our resident ghost, Richard. He’s showing off.”

She gaped at me and half rose from her seat, apparently torn between getting help with the teeth and running for her life.

“He can’t hurt you,” I assured her.

“Can’t?” Richard murmured. “Or won’t?”

“Better not,” I said.

“When can you come to my house and see to this?” Annabelle asked, sinking back down into her chair, her stare still on the floating tooth.

“If there’s time after I finish up here,” I said, “I’ll come today.” I glanced down at her address. “Or tomorrow afternoon if I can’t today. Is that okay?”

She shook her head. “I’m off work today. You can either come today or wait until Saturday. That’s just day after tomorrow. I’m sure we can wait that long. I just hope Hershey doesn’t swallow one of those things.” She shuddered, then got up and headed for the door. “You can keep the teeth.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly.

Richard dropped the tooth and straightened, his gaze going to Remy and Sam, who continued standing silently against the wall. “Why are they here?” he asked. “And not that I’m complaining, but why are you here instead of coming in at your regular nightly hours?”

“We have to hunt tonight,” I told him. He could potentially offer some advice on the whole awful situation. “There’s a necromancer compelling the vampires to kill themselves. There’s a mass grave of murdered necromancers—who are buried on my property. I have a witch coming tonight to help me free them.” I hesitated. “The necromancers may have been turned by the vampires, which explains how the living one survived her grave.”

He nodded. “She devoured the others. At least some of them were likely alive when they were buried. She basically ate them to survive.”