The first ghost cat Zack saw materialize was black and rippled with muscles—just like the Black Shuck dog.
It was also headless.
“Grizzmaldo!” gasped Aunt Ginny. “That’s our cousin Harriet’s kitty!”
Fiendishly angry at the Icklebys for what they had done to him on that long-ago Halloween night, Grizzmaldo swiped at the nine terrified ghosts with claws as long and as sharp as steak knives. He shrieked at the trembling demons through the gaping hole that used to be his throat.
Now the cemetery was swarming with hissing ghost cats. A dozen. Then two dozen. Then a hundred. Maybe two hundred. And all of them looked like they had been abused in life. Some had charred tail fur. Others limped. Several were missing eyes or ears or limbs.
The swarm of cats let loose a chorus of bawling caterwauling so deafening, Zack thought he was at a day care center where they had forgotten to feed all the babies.
And he remembered the cat cries he had heard when he and Zip chased the Black Shuck dog up Haddam Hill.
Zack figured that the headless cat, Grizzmaldo, had been biding his time—watching the Ickleby crypt, waiting for his chance to wreak revenge by mustering up his own phantom army of mistreated mousers.
As the undulating ocean of ruffled fur, mangled tails, and flared fangs prowled closer, the nine Ickleby fiends stood cowering at the door to their crypt.
“Sisters?” whispered Aunt Ginny. “Sage candles! Quickly, now!”
All three sisters lit smudge sticks and hurled them up over the writhing wall of ghost cats.
Three volleys of three flares.
Nine all together.
One for each immortal soul.
When the Ickleby ghosts froze, the sisters started to chant.
“There is nothing here for you now.…”
Father Abercrombie watched as Jack the Lantern hoisted the corroded strongbox out of the ground and pried the chest open.
“There you are, my pretties,” he said, removing the first of several cloth-wrapped bundles. Unfurling the sheathing, he revealed a gleaming pistol with a shiny brass barrel, ornate scrolling on the trigger, and a stock made of burnished wood.
“A fine-quality English flintlock pistol, handcrafted for me in 1740,” the monster sighed. He quickly unwrapped another pistol, a powder cask, and a leather bag full of bullets that clacked against each other like lead marbles.
He tucked the two pistols into his wide leather belt.
He reached into the open metal trunk one more time and pulled out the last weapon: a sinister-looking sword with rust stains splotching the blade.
As if he could read the priest’s mind, the demon in the tricornered hat looked up, the devil’s own grin slashed across his mask.
“That isn’t rust, Padre. It’s blood.”
The nine ghosts were gone before the aunts finished chanting “there is nothing here for you” the second time.
Aunt Sophie pulled out a tiny spiral notebook and a stubby miniature-golf pencil. “Let’s see. These nine, plus Crazy Izzy, Little Paulie, and Eddie Boy. Nine plus one, carry the one, plus one, plus …”
“That is all twelve, Sophia,” said Aunt Hannah.
“Leaving us Barnabas,” said Aunt Ginny. “Who, they now inform us, was the worst Ickleby of all.”
Aunt Hannah nodded. “We must imprison the great deceiver’s soul.”
“We will,” said Aunt Ginny. “Just as soon as we forge a new sealing stone.” She unclasped her carpetbag and rummaged around inside. “Ah! Just what the doctor ordered.” She pulled out a pair of long-handled pliers. “Or, in this case, the dentist.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Zack.
“March into that crypt and yank out another tooth from that old phony’s skull!”
Jack the Lantern marched Father Abercrombie out of the empty Ickleby crypt, past the church.
“You will now drive me south to Spratling Manor,” he said, poking the priest in the ribs with both pistols.
“Spratling Manor? In North Chester?”
“Yes! The town where you shipped our boxed-up bones all those years ago. I must go there to slay the youngest member of the Jennings clan.”
“The sheriff’s grandson? Why?”
“To avenge my family’s honor. Once the lad is dead, I will rebuild my fortune.”
“How?”
“Stealing children. Holding them for ransom or selling them into slavery. I have always found child snatching to be a swift path to riches.”
They reached the car. Its owner, Mr. Lawson, was still conked out behind the wheel.
“Oh, my,” gasped the priest.
Jack yanked the unconscious driver out of the car.
“Just leave him in the ditch!” the voice of Norman suggested in Jack’s head.
“I should slay him,” Jack thought back.
“Don’t waste your ammunition on a pawn! Save your bullets for snatching children and killing Snertz.”
“But …”
“If you kill him, more police will be on your tail. They will hunt you down and slap you in irons before you reap your riches.”
“The move you suggest seems wise.”
“Of course it is! I was captain of the chess team! Leave him here and flee the scene!”
Jack cocked back the hammers on both pistols. Aimed them at Father Abercrombie.
“Drive me south to North Chester. Make haste.”
“Of course.” The nervous priest climbed into the horseless carriage.
“Tell the coward to drive slowly!” the voice of Norman instructed his dybbuk. “We don’t want the police pulling you over for speeding.”
“Drive slowly,” Jack said to the priest. “We are in no rush. I’m certain the good boys and girls of North Chester are all abed at this hour. I shan’t be able to snatch them until tomorrow morning.”
“You mean when they’re on their way to school?”
Jack smiled beneath his grinning mask.
“Why, Padre, what an excellent suggestion!”
Zack, Judy, Zipper, and Aunt Ginny crept into the Ickleby family crypt on Haddam Hill with their flashlights.
Aunts Sophie and Hannah would “wait outside, thank you very much.”
Zack had never been inside a tomb before.
The flaking plaster walls were caked with black stains, covered with mold and mildew. They were so crackled you could see the exterior blocks and the lumpy mortar slathered between.
Zack swung his flashlight over to a stack of three coffins. One was dark brown wood; one seemed to be gilded with gold. The third was a rotting pine box with its knotholes popped out. Zack heard a tiny squeak and almost dropped his light when he saw a mouse scurry out of the coffin.
“Where’s Barnabas?” asked Judy.
“I’m not sure,” said Aunt Ginny. “The coffins have shifted positions since the workmen placed them here all those years ago.”
Great, thought Zack. The ghosts have spent thirty-some years in here playing musical coffins.
“As I recall, the oldest coffin looks like a mummy’s casket made out of iron,” said Aunt Ginny. “The Ickleby family crest and the letter ‘B’ are emblazoned on its top.”
Zack and Zipper drifted off to explore one corner of the crypt while Judy and Aunt Ginny moved to the opposite end of the dank tomb.
Zipper barked. Zack raised the beam of his light and saw a long box made out of gray washtub metal. There were handles on the side, a hump in the middle for the chest, and a bigger bump at the bottom for feet. The lid over where the head would be was already open.