“Lorraine,I am notClaude.My name is Keir. I wasn’t alive when you fell in love with Claude. I hadn’t been born yet by several centuries.”
Keir was trying to be reasonable, but I sensed the woman didn’t give a shit about when my husband was born. She had tunnel vision on the topic.
Lorraine snarled out a response, which Carl translated. “She said, ‘Claude’s spirit is inside you. You’ve been born many times, but I always find you, and then you run away. This time, you’recoming with me.’” She chanted something in the language she’d been using, and suddenly, Dr. Carl appeared by Keir’s side.
The tall, slender holy man stared at Lorraine as she continued to yap. When Dr. Carl growled at her, she jumped in surprise. Finally, he spoke. “No. You’re not taking him. Speak English so he can understand what you’re saying. If he is the spirit of Claude from another lifetime, you must understand that in this lifetime, Keir serves a greater purpose than being your true love. He is the Gatekeeper. He stands between Heaven and Hell. You cannot do him harm.”
Lorraine’s steely gaze ran the length of Keir’s body twice before she met his eyes. “You are mine, Claude.”
She sent a withering scowl my way, fire dancing in her eyes. She wasn’t done with us yet, but she disappeared before I had the chance to respond to her unspoken threat.
I stepped closer to Keir. “She’s got GPS on you, baby. We need to get this done and get back to Reardon.” I took his hand and led him back to the tree, where we returned to digging.
After an hour of scraping away the soil from around the roots, I had a very bad feeling. Was there any way the box had been found by someone else and removed?
I turned to Dr. Carl. “Can you pick up the scent of tobacco or roses?”
Keir chuckled, stepping closer. “Love, it’s been a long time since we buried that thing. Dad had the cigar in a plastic bag, and that cheap toilette water Grandma Smith used probably didn’t last ten minutes, much less thirty-five years.”
“Found it!” Adon broke off a piece of a tree root. Attached to it was a white, red, black, and gold cigar box. A tree root had grown through it as if to hold it for the owner, which was significant because even the tree knew it was important. I hoped the contents weren’t damaged.
Adonis carried the box to Keir and handed it to him. “Let’s hope it’s in here.”
In my mind, I heard a drumroll through my connection with my husband and started to laugh. Keir glanced at me and grinned as he lifted the lid.
After removing the broken parts of the tree root, Keir showed us the contents, which were just as we’d hoped. The items Keir had listed before were situated inside the box, along with the bottom half of the scroll.
Keir handed the cigar box to me and carefully unrolled the bottom five inches of very brittle paper attached to a metal dowel with the same ornamentation as the top of the scroll Keir had found in a box of things his mother shipped to him.
“Dr. Carl?” Keir stepped closer and handed him the parchment.
The holy man accepted the paper and held it gingerly. “It’s faded and hard to read in this light. Let’s hike back and go to the hotel.”
We returned the dirt we’d disturbed around the tree roots, and Dr. Carl put his hands on the trunk, quietly reciting something in yet another language I couldn’t understand.
Adonis stepped closer to me. “It’s ancient Mayan. I’m not sure which dialect. My language skills are pretty rough, but I believe he’s thanking the tree for protecting the box until its rightful owner came to reclaim it.”
Adon chuckled at what he heard next. “He’s also apologizing for the damage I did to the root.”
Adonis walked over to the tree and put his hands on it next to Dr. Carl, mumbling the same words as the holy man. The two stopped and grinned at each other before returning to the trail to follow us.
I knew the one person I needed to talk with at that moment: my father. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible, so I called Mom instead. There wasn’t an answer.
I took a deep breath. Things were getting real.
“I hope this gives us the answers we need.” Keir held the cigar box as if it contained the secret of life. In a way, I supposed it did—it was the secret to our daughter’s life, anyway.
I pulled into the parking lot of The Lakehead Inn with Adonis and Dr. Carl behind us in Carl’s old truck. I glanced in the rearview to see they were quiet as well.
“I do too, baby. If not, then we’ll figure it out. We’ll see who we’ve got on our side and see what they know. I’m not giving up if that scroll doesn’t tell us how to fight.” I shifted into Park and turned off the engine, staring into the distance but seeing nothing in front of me, which would be our future if we lost to Nyx. I couldn’t let that happen.
The four of us went to Keir’s and my room, and we opened the heavy drapes and turned on the lights. Adon moved the small table nearer to the wall and grabbed a lamp from the nightstand.
We gathered around the table, and Dr. Carl gently unrolled the scroll. I held the dowel at the bottom as Keir went to our duffel to retrieve the top part. He and Adon unrolled it and placed it on the table, and we slid the two pieces together. Save for a few pieces that had flaked off over time, the two parts were a perfect match.
“We know the top half of the scroll is the dark magic spell, so let’s not address that again. The bottom part, however, seems to have been added after the spell was written.” He ran his fingers over the words on the page. “I’m sure of it.”
I stared at Dr. Carl. “Why? Why would there be a second spell that came after the black magic spell?”
