Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3) by Catie Rhodes

spoke without taking his eyes off the pad.
    “Pretty much.”
    “Well, ain’t blackbirds you seen. It’s ravens.” Eddie turned his notepad so I could see where he’d sketched a raven while I talked. “I know because I researched ‘em once after seeing ‘em out on Priscilla Herrera’s old place. Only place I’ve ever seen ravens ‘round here.”
    I thought of my tattoo, how it matched the picture on the bottom of the box. No need to mention it to Eddie. This whole thing was too big for me as it was.
    “I’ll go back in my notes on Priscilla Herrera. See if I can learn anything about her connection to ravens. I ain’t got much information, though.” He made a note on his pad.
    “What really matters is what she said when she cursed the treasure.” I worried Eddie would get lost in details and miss the part where removing the curse could unleash hell on earth.
    “Right. I was fooling with the dog and almost missed it.” He leaned forward, his gaze fixed on my face. “Tell me again.”
    I took a deep breath. “Way I understood, if anybody tries to remove the curse and doesn’t put those demons, or whatever they were, back into the stones or send them back to the dark outposts, Gaslight City’s going to get mashed flat. She said, ‘Level this town and destroy all who live within.’”
    Eddie’s mouth went slack, but his eyes didn’t. In their muddy depths, I saw his mind spinning ninety to nothing. “Oh, hell. You seen them things guarding the treasure, ain’t you?”
    “Two times, yes.” My body tightened, remembering the experience. “Neither meeting was any fun.”
    “You think these…guardians? Ain’t that what she called ‘em? You think they got enough power to do what she says? Level the city? Destroy all who live within?” He chewed on his upper lip.
    “Let me put it this way. It’ll be like when you step on one of these roaches I keep seeing run across the floor.” I paused to let Eddie think about it for a few seconds, then continued. “So if you’re right about the thief planning to undo the curse, the shit is about to hit the fan and splatter. But there’s no way I can fight someone so powerful.” I stared at Eddie, waiting for him to tell me how it could all be fixed.
    “What you mean? You faster’n two-dollar pistol when you set your mind to something.”
    “This person’s way ahead of anything I can learn in time to help.” I barely resisted the urge to scream the words. There was no way I could do this. It wasn’t like some miracle was going to come along and transform me into someone who knew about this kind of crap. “Whoever this is can control ghosts. If we’re right, they know enough magic to think they can undo Priscilla Herrera’s curse. It’s beyond me.”
    “Tell me the vision again from the beginning,” he said.
    “How many times do I have to repeat it?”
    “When’d you get to be such a smart ass?” He furrowed his bushy gray brows. “You used to have better manners.”
    “Gee, I wonder where I learned bad ones.” I went through the vision again, this time stopping to answer Eddie’s questions and repeating bits and pieces until he had them straight.
    “Now, I don’t know much about magic, so I might be wrong.” He caressed the stubble on his cheeks as he thought. “But you said Priscilla Herrera put the demons into the little box with the raven on the bottom.”
    I nodded.
    “My thinking is if someone wanted to undo the curse, they’d need the little box.” A smile grew across his grizzled face. “So what you got to do is find the box, Peri Jean Mace, before they get to it. You don’t need to be no ace magic practitioner to do it, either.”
    I snorted. “The box is gone. Got lost a hundred years ago when those assholes hanged Priscilla Herrera.”
    “You saw her put it in the pocket of her dress, did you not?”
    Frustrated, I nodded.
    “Either it’s with her dead body or whoever buried her took it.” He patted the loveseat