“Other than an exorcism, spirits are usually only affected by salt and iron. Some spirits are stronger than others, but those two things will pretty much slow all of them. If we can find the focus, the source of their attachment to the physical plane, we can destroy it or perform an exorcism on it. That will force them on to whatever is next or back to wherever they came from.”
The waitress arrived with our burgers and fries and the conversation slowed. I topped off the loaded half pounder with ketchup and mustard, but Gail, as I remembered correctly, only used mustard on her burgers. Fries, however, were another matter. She waved a ketchup-laden fry in my direction and continued. “If we can find it, we’ll dispel it or destroy its focus. If we can’t, we’ll have to hope we guess the right one and try to banish it at the professor’s place.”
“But that only works if we guess which one is next,” I said.
She shrugged. “What can I say? We can’t save everyone.”
I chewed and swallowed. “Not a bad burger.”
“Best in Alabama,” Gail said. “According to the gas station clerk and that sign over the door.”
“Good enough for me, now, how do we get into the museum?”
“I can pick a lock,” Gail said.
“That’s nice to know, but what about security?”
“That’s Leonard’s department.”
I washed another bite down with coffee and asked. “Just how is he going to do that from wherever he is?”
“Beats me, when I send him a location, he usually provides the security bypass codes within a day,” Gail said and stuffed a couple more fries in her mouth.
“Is there anything he can’t do from his basement laboratory?”
“Yeah, pick a lock.”
“Luckily, we have a lock picker among us.” I topped off our cups from the carafe.
“Isn’t it?” Gail said. Her face brightened cockily.
We finished up, split the bill, and returned to the van. Full dark had arrived and the moon had yet to rise, so Gail suggested we wait to find a room and go ahead with our little B&E.
We entered Moundville and followed the signs, which were easier than using the GPS map, to the Moundville Archaeological Park. The park was closed when we arrived, as was the adjacent campgrounds or at least the gate to the campground was closed. Gail found a residential area a block away from the museum and parked the van behind a line of older vehicles on the unlit, tree-lined street.
We climbed into the back and pulled the curtains closed before turning on the interior lights. Gail slid a toolbox from behind the sofa and popped the latches. She lifted box after box out of the chest, setting some on the van’s carpeted floor and handing some to me.
I examined the first box she handed me and thought it looked like standard twelve gauge ammo, but then I noticed the weight. The box weighed less than it should.
“What’s in here?” he asked.
“Shotgun rounds, they’re loaded with rock salt and steel shot. It’ll slow down most spirits, but not much else. You don’t need a lot of mass, almost any amount of salt and iron will dispel spirits for a brief time. So we’ll take unchoked, shorter barrel shotguns, it’ll give us a little more spread on the pattern, just make sure I’m not near the target.”
“Okay, no shooting the lady with the big knife. You have any more pointers?” I asked.
“Yeah, don’t turn into a smart ass. Slide back a foot.”
I gave her a little more room and Gail flicked a secondary fob on her key ring. The floor made a click, and a four-foot by two-foot section of the floor popped up. She slid the hatch out of the way to reveal her weapons’ stash. There were two shotguns, several more handguns, and some unusual edged weapons that I wanted to examine. I reached for them and she slapped my hand.
“That’s for another time,” Gail said. She grabbed one of the shotguns, passed it to me, and then took the other one for herself.
I examined the weapon. It was a Mossberg Maverick HS12 over/under twelve gauge. I’d seen a write-up on the weapon in a recent Guns & Ammo. It wasn’t choked, but the correct term was cylinder choked. She had stretched an elastic shotshell holder over the stock and five extra rounds were stored there. The Mossberg came with two Picatinny rails, one below the twin eighteen and a half inch barrels and a shorter one on top. Gail had mounted a tactical light on the lower rail. I broke open the breach; it was loaded and the extractors pushed the rounds out an inch or so for easy removal. I slipped one shell out and examined it. It was light.
“What’s loaded in here?” I asked.
“The same thing that’s in those boxes; salt and iron,” Gail said as she grabbed a small backpack and loaded items into it.
I checked both rounds, confirmed they were the same weight, and reloaded the shotgun. I snapped the breach shut.
“What’s the matter, Hoss, can’t take my word for it?” Gail asked.
“If there’s one thing the Army taught me, it was to load your own weapon.”
“Probably good advice,” Gail said and tossed me the loaded backpack. She grabbed another pack and put the rest of the items she’d selected into it, and then slipped her shotgun into a sleeve on the side of the backpack. She opened the case with her electronic earplugs and inserted them. “You ready for this?”
I finished inserting my own plugs and grinned.
Gail killed the lights and opened the side doors. Climbing out into the humid night air, she waited until I had closed and locked the van, and joined her. She pointed north and started out, I followed on her left as we passed from the residential area and entered the park.
The park was an extensive clearing with a perimeter road separating the forest from the raised mounds of the park. The gibbous moon was just rising over the
