"Smells like he's been dead a few days rather than a few minutes," Elise said, hand to her nose. She turned to Salazar's partner. "Are you sure the victim was alive when you found him?"

"He opened his eyes," Officer Reilley insisted.

"Could that have been a postmortem muscular response?" Gould wondered aloud.

"The guy was alive," Reilley insisted.

"What about the site where the teenager was grabbed?" Elise asked.

They doubled back, then veered off to follow another path lined with markers.

"This is the place." The glow of Salazar's flashlight revealed a shallow grave. "Kid said a hand came out of the ground."

An indentation revealed where the body had been.

Nearby stood an unopened bottle of whiskey. Beside it, a silver dollar.

"Gifts for the dead," Elise commented. "Or in this case, the undead."

"A killer who leaves presents?" Gould asked.

"So the victim doesn't come back and haunt him."

"Nice." Gould trained his flashlight away from the disturbed earth. "Drag marks."

"It starts at the water's edge," Officer Salazar told them. "Musta come by boat."

"Any evidence?" Gould asked.

"So far, a couple of footprints." Salazar shrugged. "Maybe a man's nine or ten."

"There's some weird shit going on in this city," Reilley said. "Some really weird shit."

Gould nodded. "Weird shit happens."

Abe Chilton and some of his team appeared out of the darkness. "I want you to see this." Chilton raised his flashlight, pointing the beam at a nearby tree. Nailed to the trunk five feet from the ground was a small twisted figure.

"Mandrake root," Elise said. The human-shaped root was said to scream when pulled from the ground.

"Nightshade?" Gould asked.

"One and the same."

While Chilton kept his flashlight beam directed on the tree trunk, Elise continued to visually examine the small figure. It was wrapped in brown paper, probably torn from a grocery sack.

Root work. "This might reveal our victim's identity," Elise said.

Somebody handed her a pair of latex gloves. She snapped them on, then stepped closer. Others stepped back.

Elise removed the root from the rusty nail, then unrolled the paper to reveal a name written over and over in black ink.

Seven times seven. The root worker knew his or her stuff.

"Jordan Kemp," Elise said. "Somebody call that in."

Two minutes later, they had a report. "Jordan Harold Kemp," Officer Salazar reported. "White male. Age twenty-one."

"Any record?" Elise asked.

"Arrested twice for prostitution."

"Should have a print on file, then."

Officer Salazar shot a worried look from Elise to the root she cradled in her palm. "I don't like the looks of that," she said nervously.

"It won't hurt you," Elise assured her. "It has nothing to do with you."

People often got curses, spells, and root work confused. "See this?" Elise pointed to a leaf that had been glued to the body of the root. "It's acacia. Ancient Egyptians made funeral wreaths out of acacia leaves."

"So it's a tribute," Gould said.

It was amazing how quickly Elise's years of study came rushing back. As if the knowledge had always been there. As if she hadn't spent over a decade trying to forget everything she'd ever learned.

"A single herb can be used for a lot of different things, in a lot of different ways," Elise said. "It all depends on how it's handled and what it's with."

"And acacia with nightshade… or mandrake root…?" Gould prodded.

With a rotting corpse just yards away and an ancient spell in the palm of her hand, Elise suddenly felt bathed in certainty. "That particular combination," she explained, "is used to resurrect the dead."