Grave Robbers

By Jenneth Leed

There are dozens of problems you may encounter when stealing your own coffin, but for Vlad, it was his lack of physical hands. Having been a ghost for only four hundred years, he’d gotten very good at blowing out candles in the castle but hadn’t yet mastered complex haunting techniques.

Like levitating coffins right out of the Historical Castle Preservation’s gallery without getting betrayed.

Vlad sighed, causing nearby candles to shudder. “And you’re sure he’s the traitor?”

“You recruited me for my sixth sense,” came an irritated purr from under the coffin’s display table. “I’m sure.”

Vlad drifted under the coffin to face the serene black cat hiding from attendees. “I recruited you because you’re my friend, Deborah.”

Deborah flicked her tail. “That too,” she purred. “Regardless, you need a Plan B.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Vlad said, trying to hide the nerves brought on from his first heist.

Ghosts retain little memory of their past life, but Vlad knew he hadn’t cared for riches—though his parents must have, as Vlad’s gold-plated seventeenth-century coffin was worth half a million pounds and featured as tonight’s centerpiece. Being so young in ghost years, Vlad was still bound to his coffin, but money—and historic treasures—attracted the worst of mankind, and Vlad had found that haunting absurdly rich snobs in sprawling castles gave him the motivation to roll out of bed every midnight.

Though the castle’s owners were decidedly rich snobs in need of a fretful haunting, they frequently rented their estate to preservation societies and spent their time on cruise ships. Unfortunately, like all ghosts, Vlad evaporated over water. He only ventured near it to visit his friend in the Loch and didn’t dare board a cruise ship. Even more disappointing, the castle’s caretaker had a personal distaste for wealth, and was therefore a dreadful bore to haunt.

So Vlad had chosen crime. His gold-plated coffin at a black-market auction would provide a delightful new buyer to haunt.

Tonight, the crew was assembled. Cooper the boggart was already working the crowd, gleefully shape-shifting into absurd-looking guests and whispering in ears about the castle’s haunted nature.

Deborah would distract the caretaker by mewing around his legs until he carried her to the kitchen for a bowl of milk.

Dmitri, their resident vampire, would make good on Cooper’s prep work. His role involved corralling terrified guests into the library and locking them inside.

Robert—the shapeless red ooze that lived in the U-bend—would absorb the coffin and roll out the old servant’s entrance with the merchandise.

Vlad, of course, was the mastermind.

“Dmitri says you’re making a mistake leaving ‘such laavish plaace.’” Deborah rolled her eyes as she mimicked the vampire.

“He always did appreciate the finer—”

Several guests shrieked. Deborah’s tail spiked into the air. “The traitor’s here.”

A panicked guest jostled the coffin while fleeing, and soon all Vlad could hear was the chittering of a frantic bat. He drifted up through the bottom of the coffin into the now empty room just as the bat took the form of Dmitri.

As usual, the vampire was dressed in an expensive waistcoat from the 1600s—the kind Vlad’s wealthy parents might have liked. But Dmitri’s was rumpled, his hair askew, and was that blood smeared on his chin?

“Ah, Vlad!” Dmitri cried. “Crusades ghosts are assaulting castle grounds. They vant to separate you from coffin and take for themselves.”

A chill passed straight through Vlad. Crusaders. Ancient spirits bound to no grave with far more experience in lifting coffin-sized objects. They put Vlad’s elementary candle tricks to shame.

Dmitri looked paler than usual. “They… They flushed Robert down drain.”

Deborah slid out from under the table, hissing in dismay.

Dmitri pointed up to an open window high above the exhibit hall. “I can fly coffin over Loch so ghosts cannot follow, da?”

“And neither could I,” Vlad argued.

“I think that’s the point,” Deborah hissed. Her tail curled as her hackles rose. “I told you he’s the traitor, Vlad. I don’t sense any ghosts other than you.”

A scowl crossed Dmitri’s gaunt face, and that’s when Vlad realized the stain on his chin wasn’t blood at all. It had been Robert. Robert must have tried to stop him and failed.

“I own coffin, cat,” Dmitri sneered. “I paid good money centuries ago, and will not allow for auctioning off!”

Vlad froze. The candles flickered. What?

Before Vlad could speak, a cloud of bats descended on the coffin, and Dmitri’s human form vanished to match his legion.

No, no! Of course the immortally wealthy Dmitri had once been human too. Just as Vlad had once been human. Just as Vlad’s parents…

“Wait—stop!” Vlad wailed.

Deborah clawed at the bats, but it was already too late. The coffin slowly lifted toward the window in a flurry of tiny black wings.

Dmitri’s derisive voice echoed through the hall. “I lay ungrateful son to rest in gold, and he sells to common criminals!”

“No!” Vlad surged through the window after the flying coffin—after his father—but stopped helplessly at the edge of the Loch outside, his essence already fading into the cold fog as the coffin grew smaller. The only person who could stop Dmitri now was—

A massive black thing the size of a cedar tree rose from the water and smacked the coffin out of the air. The golden casket careened back to shore just as the monster tail slapped Dmitri and his bats into a chaotic spiral.

Nessie. The Plan B.

As the enraged bats disappeared into the mist, the monster quietly slid to shore. She nudged the dented coffin in remorse. “Swung a little too hard, Vlad…” she moaned. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Vlad regained his form, sighing thankfully. He drifted through the casket, inspecting it. “Damage adds value to these things, Nessie. Bidders will pay just for the legend, and you know how Cooper loves starting those. Now let’s get this thing to auction.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenneth Leed spent her childhood hunting ghosts and searching for secret passages (both inside and outside of a good book). As an adult, she found an actual secret door in an actually haunted tavern and now considers her life complete. In addition to writing, Jenneth loves designing book covers for independent authors and watching heist shows. She currently resides near Washington D.C. and holds an MA in graphic design.

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