Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

"Not really. He waited until they arrived and had seen what he'd done, then shot himself." Which certainly fit what was happening now - the gloating sense of evil I kept sensing when we first walked in.

Jack snorted. "Undoubtedly thinking they could be together in the afterlife. Psychos never seem to learn things aren't that easy."

"Well, I wish it was, because then he wouldn't still be here on this plane of existence, destroying lives," I glanced at the file again, "According to the report, he's been at it for five years now."

Jack frowned. "If his spirit has been killing for five years, why haven't there been more murders?"

"Because he only hunts and kills for one week of every year." And few of the cases actually got reported to us, because by the time the various departments realized they had a serial killer, the killings stopped.

"Unusual for a tormented soul to be so restrained," Jack commented.

"Not if his sprees only happen during the anniversary week of his death."

"Which was?"

"October 31. Halloween itself."

Jack snorted. "Explains a lot."

I leaned back in my chair. "I know Halloween tends to bring out the weirdness in both humans and nonhumans, but I didn't realize it had a similar effect on the spiritual world."

"That's the problem with the world today - no one knows the real meanings of anything anymore."

"I know it used to be an old pagan festival that celebrated the end of summer and the beginning of winter."

He smiled. It was one of those "pleased with a student" smiles that really annoyed me. "That's right. But the Celts - and many other cultures - also believed that during Samhain, the boundary between the living and the dead blurred, and spirits could roam the earth."

"Which explains why he was able to rise on the day of his death, but not how he was able to continue his killing spree for the next five days."

"The days between Samhain and November 5 have been times of feasting, celebrations, and remembrances of the dead down through many centuries."

"Giving him - and spirits like him - the chance to do their evil bidding?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"How come the guardian division hasn't had more ghostly disturbances to take care of then?"

"Because our magi division usually takes care of these sorts of problems, not our guardians."

I guess that made sense. I mean, our regular hunter-killers wouldn't even be able to sense a spirit. "So have we discovered yet how to stop a soul intent on murder?"

"Marg and her team are still going through their texts to find out."

Marg was the spindly magi who'd helped us contain a spirit intending to let a dark god loose on the world. A spirit who had turned out to be Quinn's sister - and the reason he'd actually become a vampire.

"Tell her we haven't a whole lot of time to work with. It's been three days already. We only have two more before he's off in hibernation for the next year."

He nodded. "I've asked her to get back with ideas before sunset. In the meantime, I suggest you uncover where he was buried."

I frowned. "Why?"

"Because sometimes a soul sullied by suicide cannot be sent on. They can only be restrained."

And I guess I was going to find out how that was done soon enough. "You seem to know an awful lot about this sort of stuff, boss."

"I'm a vampire," he said. "And you'd know a lot stuff if you'd been around for eight hundred years, too."

"Not me. I've got a memory like a sieve."