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After all, I was Hel’s liaison I was proud of it, and I da in my power to keep that title

I cleared my throat "Canvass the area for witnesses?"

He nodded "Police work at its

A couple of hours and some twenty houses later, we had confir Well, that’s not strictly true There were a number of people who’d noticed a bunch of cars and htfall when our shoith the Pal dispersed without incident, no one had bothered to report it

After that, nothing

I let Cody handle the last few inquiries and took the time to check in with Sinclair

"I heard," he said without preamble when he answered his phone Of course he’d heard the news The whole town had probably heard it by now "So what’s up? What’s going on? Do you think it’s related?"

"Other than the fact that someone stole the decayed corpse of Pe on" I shifted on the passenger seat of Cody’s truck Yep, still tingling "Do you?"

"It was definitelystolen?" Sinclair asked

"Looks that way," I said "Although Hel suht to warn me that Pemkowet’s dead are restless and may rise, hopefully but not definitely in incorporeal forrandfather’s duppy contained by Halloween, the gate between the living and the dead hts?"

He drew in a sharp breath "Daisy, I am so, so sorry"

"Yeah, me, too," I said "It’s not your fault We all made mistakes, and ultian?"

"Hell, I’ll try" Sinclair gave a harsh, broken laugh "Do you think I can fake sincerity well enough to fool a duppy?"

"I don’t think you have to," I said "You’re under ave me a spirit lantern"

"A what?"

Thank you! So this wasn’t cohosts cast a shadow," I said "If you fix their shadows to the ground with an iron nail, it lays their spirits to rest But since your grandfather’s spirit never was at rest, you’re still going to have to, um, recapture it and return it to the vessel in which it was contained The pickle jar, I mean," I added in case it was unclear

"That makes sense How do you knoas a pickle jar?" Sinclair sounded bemused

I rolled my eyes "I don’t! It looked like a pickle jar, okay? Anyway, tell me you can do this, Sinclair"

"I have to, don’t I?"

"Yeah, you do," I said "And the sooner the better Hoe find him?"

"You don’t find a duppy," Sinclair said "A duppy finds you He’ll find us when he’s ready But thanks to my mother, it could be anywhere She set him loose on the whole town"

Crap That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it "You’ll be ready when he does?" I asked hier and more certain this tih the windshield, I saw Cody approaching, shrugging his shoulders to indicate he’d had no success "Thanks Sinclairabout this grave robbery I ht? But how?"

"I don’t know," he said "But we’re not talking about sorandfather was an obeah s they wouldn’t normally do"

"Like steal a corpse?"

"Yeah Maybe"

"Why?"

There was a rattling sound as he shook his beaded dreadlocks "Death ic? I don’t know But randfather’s duppy"

"Okay Stay tuned Let the coven knohat’s going on I’ll talk to you later" I ended the call as Cody opened the driver’s-side door of the pickup and slid behind the wheel, arded each other

"No luck?" I hazarded