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“Yes.”
“Where to?” he asked.
I was surprised he didn’t press about why we’d stopped here, but I was grateful for the privacy.
“Old Town,” I said.
He nodded then started the car.
Elias looped around the bustling central downtown to the edge of the city. It was older and the buildings had been here since the founding of Harbor Crossing. Eventually, modern skyscrapers and infrastructure shifted east, moving the heart of the city away from its history.
This original part of Harbor Crossing was affectionally known as Old Town. Sprawling mansions stood behind formidable stone walls. Most of them backed to a wide grassy area called City Park. It was one of the few open spaces that wasn’t paved within city limits. On most days, you could find humans playing volleyball or having barbecues there. At night, humans stayed far away. Too many grisly and disturbing things happened there after dark.
Aside from the park, a mall that had been a major hotspot in the nineties, was the crown jewel of the retail area. But to find the really great shops, follow the side streets for the converted Victorian homes. There were soap shops, and doctor’s offices, lawyers, and tarot card readers crammed into little offices in beautiful painted ladies. Some were still private residences, but most were now businesses.
That’s where we were headed. “You’re going to Mulligan and Smith’s,” I said. “Do you know where that is?”
Elias lifted his brows. “The mortuary?”
I nodded.
“Of all the places you could put it, a mortuary?”
“Hey, you know that the human dead are the closest thing to the veil we have.” There was a pseudo supernatural aura around places of death. When someone died, their soul was temporarily between the realms and that ethereal quality often lingered for hours, sometimes days, depending on how easily the human soul transitioned. It gave off a signature similar to how magic felt. For those of us who could sense magic, we could feel the vibrations coming from them. I was hoping it would be enough to mask the magic of the stone.
“That’s actually really smart,” he said. “I take it back.”
“Thank you.” The stone emitted its own magical signature and if I were hunting for it, that’s what I would track. I knew there were ways of tracing specific magic and I wasn’t sure how they’d found it at our apartment in the first place. I needed it hidden and away from any other supernaturals.
Heidi was as human as they came, but she had a sixth sense about the other parts of the world. While she’d never flat out confessed her belief in the things that go bump in the night, she brushed off supernatural encounters and seemed to roll with things better than most humans.
Then there was the time we were having dinner and a ghost passed through. The spectral form had stopped right in front of us, staring longingly at our pizza and wings. Heidi had tensed and looked at exactly the spot the spirit was lingering. Then, she smiled and nodded once at the ghost.
I’d never had the courage to ask her about it. Opening that can of worms wasn’t easy with humans. They were often not as prepared for the whole truth as they thought, even if they were more open than some humans.
Heidi’s family has owned Mulligan and Smith’s Mortuary since the 1800’s. The building was a gorgeous Victorian front with a few wacky additions in the large back yard. They’d built up an outdoor ceremony location sometime at the turn of the century and had a basement full of bodies. It was by far my favorite old human building.
I knew it sounded morbid, but there was history in the walls and on every surface. During Halloween season, they opened their doors to walking tours for ghost stories and to show off the antiques they’d accumulated.
Okay, now the ghost thing was starting to make more sense. They’d essentially welcomed them in the mortuary since as long as I’ve known Heidi.
Elias pulled his car into the gravel parking lot. “If you’re not back here in ten minutes, I’m coming in.”
I glared at him.
“Aside from the fact that I’m responsible for you, there’s people after us. Ten minutes is me being nice.”
If I didn’t agree with him, I’d have argued. To be honest, I wanted to be in and out in five, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. The less time I spent here, the less chances anyone would find where we’d gone.
Without a word, I left the car and walked to the front door. During the day, Heidi usually ran the show here. In addition to her managing the facility, she employed a few others but I’d never seen them in my visits.
It wasn’t like I was here often, but Heidi was one of the few people I occasionally spent time with aside from Lola. Since Heidi’s boyfriend didn’t live in town and I was pretty much permanently single, we’d done quite a few girls’ nights with just the two of us.
I wasn’t looking forward to dropping the bad news, though. Most of the time I spent with her was in group events with Lola as the facilitator. Lola loved to host trivia nights or drag us to Karaoke when I wasn’t working. While I missed out on a lot of her crazy plans, I was there enough.
My chest tightened. There weren’t going to be any more of those events. I never thought I’d miss them, but I suppose they were more fun than I realized at the time.
I stepped through the door, a little bell chiming as I entered. As luck would have it, Heidi was sitting on one of the antique couches in the sitting room. She jumped up from her seat when she saw me, her blonde curls bouncing as she ran to greet me.
