Krewe of Hunters, Volume 1: Phantom Evil ; Heart of Evil ; Sacred Evil ; The Evil Inside

by Heather Graham

  Had they known they were about to die but been unable to respond, to react in any way? Maybe not. Maybe the dosage of the drugs they had received had been stronger. Maybe…

  Hope swelled, just the tiniest bit. She needed to do something, or she was going to die.

  No, Angela thought that she was with Cliff.

  And Angela was trapped in the dark. Angela wouldn’t know until…

  Suddenly, she saw Marshall Donegal at her side. He drew his phantom sword and swiped at her carrier’s neck. The sword slashed right through it. Ashley tried to smile. She felt her lips move. She did have some…some…no… She tried to lift her head, but she could not.

  But a real-life rock in front of the man nearly tripped him; he stumbled. She was a deadweight, she remembered, even if she wasn’t near the weight he must have struggled with when he attacked Charles Osgood.

  She heard the faint sound of a creaking once again, and she realized that she was being brought into her family tomb; the temple tomb.

  She felt it! She felt pain when her body was slammed down on the central altar in the tomb. Pain meant life. The still rising moon shed an eerie yellow illumination into the tomb through the grate in the far wall.

  She heard her attacker working quickly, lifting the heavy marble siding from one of the shelf tombs nearby.

  Marshall Donegal’s tomb.

  He turned to her, smiling.

  She knew him before she saw his face. HJH. His wife had been Ginnie. Ginnie Hilton. And Ramsay Clayton had written a letter to her for her husband, Henry James Hilton, because Hilton’s hand had been broken. It hadn’t been broken in the skirmish; it had been broken when he had attacked Emma Donegal and Harold Boudreaux had set upon him, dragging him off the woman he had so brutally attacked.

  “Ashley, you see me! I should have known that you would see me. You were always so special. So precious. And now…”

  He paused, listening. There was commotion going on; people shouting. She couldn’t understand them, but she knew that they were searching the grounds. Angela had known where she was going, and by now they had surely found Cliff, and they would be looking for her.

  She twitched her lips and managed to smile at him in return. She couldn’t speak. She willed him to understand her thoughts.

  They’ll know that it was you. Angela will be reading those old letters, and they’ll figure it out faster than I did. They’ll know. They already know that it’s a sick grudge you have against my family. So, your ancestor died in the war—because his hand was broken. No one blamed Harold Boudreaux for what he did to your ancestor, because his fellow rebels knew what had happened when they saw Henry’s broken hand; they were appalled that he’d attacked Emma. They didn’t string up Harold Boudreaux, but they didn’t speak about any of it, either. All for honor! Well, the honor here died with Marshall Donegal, didn’t it? And you can’t stand that. Well, I may die, but you will, too. They’ll catch you, and you’ll rot in prison until they stick a needle in your arm, and that will be fitting, won’t it?

  He stared at her, his face growing mottled, as if he could hear her thoughts. Of course, he couldn’t—he just saw that she had figured out the truth.

  He slapped her, and she felt the sting again. Had he attacked so many people now that he was running out of his drug cocktail?

  Perhaps she shouldn’t be so happy to feel. She didn’t know how he intended for her to die. And they were in the vault now with the gate locked. Even if they searched the cemetery, they wouldn’t think to look in the vault. The gates hadn’t been opened since her father had died; the tomb was sealed after every interment.

  Yes, they had. Sometime while he’d been on the property, Griffin Grant had unlocked the iron gates and unsealed the tomb entrance. He had planned for a very long time to see that she came here.

  The iron gates were closed, as if they’d never been open. The concrete sliding door behind the ornamental iron gates was barely ajar.

  “I’ll come back and see you, my dear Ashley,” he promised. “And you won’t try to enter my mind, then. You’ll be dead. Everyone pays, Ashley. It’s your turn to pay for the sins of your fathers. You have it all wrong. I know, because Henry talks to me. He told me that he needed to be avenged. He died at Manassas, but he died because he couldn’t shoot. He died—because of Emma, and she was a filthy whore who teased and tormented him. Ashley, I saw the letter years ago, and then I could hear him—I could hear him crying out to me. Someone had to avenge what had happened.”

  She tried to move her lips. Emma was not a whore. She was a grieving widow.

  “He came to see her, to take care of her. She led him on, Ashley. I’ve seen you do it, too. So many of your kind do it. You’re like her. Everyone just thinks that you’re honest and caring. But, you see, she didn’t pay. You will. I thought it might be hard, Ashley. Do you realize that? I thought it might be hard to kill. Ramsay would have done just as well as Charles. That didn’t matter. The newswoman, well, she was like a rabid dog. And that ridiculous Toby huffing on over…he wasn’t quite so easy. But you know what, Ashley?”

  His face came close to hers, and he smiled. She loathed him; she wanted to back away from him. She couldn’t move.

  “Killing is fun. I found out I like it. But this may be the finale. Ashley, beautiful blonde Ashley, the last of the true Donegals—dead with her ancestors. Oh, watching you, Ashley. My ancestor never told me it would feel so good!”

  He lifted her again. To her horror, she realized that one of the heavy slabs had been removed from the shelves on each side of the tomb.

  He rolled her into one of them.

  It was dark in the burial ledge within the tomb, and she couldn’t see. Somehow, she knew that she was nestled against the disintegrating fragments of Marshall Donegal’s skull.

  “And so it is done!”

  She heard the faint sound of scraping as the side slab was lifted and slid back into place. And the world, with or without the remnants of her ancestors, was pitch-black.

  * * *

  The generator lights had finally kicked on, but they didn’t offer that much illumination. Still, it was better than the murky gray they’d had before, eased only by the glow of the moon.

  He’d shouted for the others, but he hadn’t needed to do so. They’d heard the commotion and come running, and quickly understood that Cliff had been attacked, and Ashley was missing.

  Jake was beside himself; he knew that he needed to think. Running in a thousand different directions wouldn’t serve him well.

  Where could the killer have taken her so quickly?

  “Whitney, mount up with Will—take the woods toward the bayou, look around for freshly disturbed dirt or a stone in the ground, a grave site. Angela, I’m going into the cemetery—”

  “I just ran through the cemetery. There’s no one there,” Angela said, disheartened. “I ran through every row of tombs, Jake, I swear!”

  “We need an ambulance for Cliff—”

  “Called already,” Angela assured him.

  “Is she in the house? Could she have gone back into the house?” Jake demanded.

  “I don’t know—I’ll check.”

  “I’ll go—stick with Jackson!” he shouted.

  Jake tore through the back door. He sped through the ground floor, shouting her name. He hurried to the second floor, nearly wrenching doors from their handles.

  He burst in on Frazier, who was just rising. Apparently, he hadn’t heard the commotion, and, sleeping, hadn’t realized that they’d lost power.

  “Jake? What is it?” he demanded. Then with some innate instinct, he cried out, “Ashley—something has happened to Ashley!”

  “She’s missing, but I’ll find her—I swear, I’ll find her,” Jake said and tore out of the room. He looked at the attic stairs, and he raced up to the attic.

  She wasn’t there. He started to turn. But then he stopped, seeing someone else.

  Emma Donegal. She was pointing at an open cabinet. He stared
at her, not understanding. She pointed straight to a letter in the cabinet. “There’s no time,” he whispered desperately. But he picked up the paper, and heard her voice. “Read it!” So he did, squinting.

  And as he read, he saw the painting in the office-reception area of the Southern cavalry man—who had died at Manassas. Who had been injured before he’d gotten to Manassas.

  They’d been so close…

  And now it was so clear. Ramsay was just afraid.

  And Griffin was a practiced liar, a totally functioning sociopath.

  He dropped the letter, and went racing out of the house.

  “It’s Grant!” he roared as he hurried out. “Griffin Grant! He’s out there, and he’s got Ashley!”

  Jackson gripped his arm. “We’ll find her. How do you know—”

  “His ancestor was a Hilton. Hilton died at Manassas. He died because his hand never healed correctly—at least that’s what Grant must think… He’s got Ashley out there somewhere. We have to find her.”

  “How the hell did he get on the property unseen?” Jackson demanded.

  “The hay truck! He must have sent that extra delivery of hay. He got on the hay truck,” Whitney said.

  Jake saw that Cliff was on the ground, but Jenna, always the caregiver, was down at his side taking his pulse. She looked up at Jake. “His pulse is steady, and his breathing isn’t affected. He’s going to be okay.”

  Cliff lifted a hand. He was trying to indicate something. The stall! Jake realized. Tigger’s stall.

  He burst into the stall. The horse was nervous. He soothed it, quickly casting his gaze around the floor.

  He saw the body bundled beneath hay in the corner and ran to it. He dug away the hay like a maddened dog.

  He let out a cry. It wasn’t Ashley.

  It was Beth.

  He lifted her quickly. Her head lolled. “Jenna!”he shouted, bringing Beth’s limp body from the stall. “Jenna!”

  Jenna left Cliff’s side. She flashed a light in Beth’s eyes; he noted that the pupils dilated.

  “She’s alive. There’s an ambulance on the way. He might have overdosed her badly—thank God help is nearly here. The detective has been called as well.”

  Help was nearly there. But there was no sign of Ashley.

  Jake started. This time, he saw a man.

  A man in full Confederate dress; his sword in a hilt at his side, secured by a butternut-colored sash. The man beckoned to him with hands encased in cavalry gloves.

  Jake started walking.

  A frown knit his brow. Angela had just said that she’d searched the cemetery. Angela was thorough, and she didn’t lie.

  But the ghost wanted him to follow.

  The ghost of Marshall Donegal.

  And so he did.

  He was dimly aware of the sounds behind him as he walked forward. Jenna was dealing with both her patients; Whitney and Will were mounting up to search the woods before the bayou; Jackson and Angela were hurrying out to search the guest building, empty now for days.

  He walked to the gate, and it swung out slightly as if to invite him. He walked through the gate, and he drew the gun that he wore in his belt holster when he was on official business. He moved through the cemetery; like Angela, he saw nothing.

  He started to hurry, making his way to the chapel in the back, and he nearly tore the door from its hinges there; he shined his light into every corner, but there was no sign of Ashley.

  He turned around, and the ghost was there again, beckoning him—and showing him the way.

  He ran through the trails of the small city of the dead, through temple tombs, through step tombs, pyramid tombs and every manner of tomb that had been built through the centuries.

  He knew where he would end.

  The ghost stood before the Donegal vault. The slab was in place; the wrought-iron gate was closed. The ghost stared at him with aggravation and turned and tugged at the gate.

  Jake burst forward and tugged at the wrought iron himself; it swung open far too easily. He pushed at the concrete barrier that was usually resealed after every interment.

  And it, too, gave.

  The ghost was trying to speak to him; he had no time to listen. He shoved at the thin sealing slab again, and it fell backward, bursting into a million pieces in a cloud of concrete dust.

  “Ashley!” He screamed her name.

  Nothing.

  The moon cast a yellow glow through the grating, and he blinked, adjusting his eyes to the more muted light. He moved to the altar and saw that something had lain there. The dust was disturbed. He turned…

  Not quickly enough. Someone slammed into him hard; his gun went flying from his hand as he staggered for balance.

  Griffin!

  The man was using himself as a ram against Jake and trying to stab him at the same time. Jake saw his arm rise, and he saw the needle coming at him, and he, in turn, used his body and slammed back against his attacker with all his weight.

  Griffin fell back a foot.

  Jake caught his attacker’s wrist, squeezed with all of his strength, and the needle went flying across the tomb.

  But his attacker made a dive for Jake’s gun. In the murky light of the tomb, he struggled desperately to keep his attacker from twisting the barrel of the gun toward his head or chest. He roundhouse-kicked his opponent, keeping a desperate and rigid hold on the gun, and the man grunted and gave slightly, but when Jake tried to use the advantage to wrest the gun fully from him, the fellow came at him, biting like a dog.

  Jake shoved him off when he came straight for his throat. The gun went flying across the room.

  He set at his attacker with his bare hands, but Griffin Grant had now pulled a knife from a sheath at his ankle. They were fighting blindly, but he still felt the man, felt the movement in the air, and he ducked the man’s wild swing.

  “You can’t fight any better than your scumbag rapist of an ancestor, Grant!” Jake taunted him. He needed to get the knife; he’d never find the gun in the darkness.

  Provoking him worked. Grant let out a roar and came crashing across the tomb.

  That time, he nicked Jake’s arm. But Jake heard the knife slide against marble and concrete and made a dash across the tomb, pinning the man there.

  The knife went clattering to the floor, and the two of them fell along with it, engaged in a wrestling match that would surely leave one dead. Jake struggled for the top spot; Grant locked his legs around him in a vise, twisting him beneath. His hands came around Jake’s throat, but Jake caught him with a double-fisted slam against the head.

  Grant teetered.

  And then the side of the one of the tombs slammed against him, throwing him off. Ashley, covered in bone and ash, emerged. Jake leapt to his feet, reaching for her swiftly and drawing her to her feet.

  Grant came at his back, slamming his fists hard against him, sending Jake staggering forward, his arms enveloping Ashley lest she crash against something again. She was slipping and falling; she had no strength in her legs. He had to help her, had to protect her…

  He turned his back to her, ready to withstand Grant’s next massive lunge. Grant was ready to make another ram against Jake, but suddenly an ear splitting roar seemed to echo through the tomb, and Grant dropped to the ground; his body shuddered mightily once and then didn’t move again.

  Jake blinked.

  Frazier was standing at the entrance to the tomb, the lost gun still smoking in his hands.

  “Grampa!” Ashley said. “You go, Grampa!”

  Then she collapsed in Jake’s arms.

  Epilogue

  “I still don’t really fathom how a mind can become so unhinged. I mean, seriously, how do you carry hatred through this many generations?” Ashley asked Jake. “He told me that he heard his ancestor, Henry Hilton, telling him that he had to avenge his family against the Donegal family. His ancestor told him to do it! And I don’t know what to believe because…my own ancestor saved me.”

  They were in
the backyard, five days after the event in which Ashley had briefly joined her ancestors in death, convalescing in one of the giant swinging hammocks Cliff had just erected in the back. They could look out on the river as the cool breezes soothed them. It was a pleasant place to let the days go by while they were both “in recovery.”

  “The very sad truth about humanity is that we’ve always known how to carry hatred through time immortal, so it seems,” Jake said. He gnawed on a piece of grass, just as he had when they were teens. “In Griffin’s case, I don’t believe that he really had any kind of gift. He would have grown up knowing more about his family’s history than anyone else—we all know the little secrets of our own lives better than others. I think he was crazy, that he did just hear voices in his head. He may well have been schizophrenic. He probably showed all the signs when he was younger. It’s just that he was so functional, no one saw it. He learned all the tricks.” He rolled slightly to look at her. “His secretary said that she heard him in his office talking the day that Marty and Toby were killed. She did, too. When the police went into his office, they found out that he had a recording to play that went on for various lengths of time. That way, people would always swear that he’d been in his office because they’d heard him.”

  “He was a CEO of a major company.”

  “Highly functioning. Ashley, the past didn’t make him bad. The past made him self-righteous. He did believe that he was like a god, or an avenging angel, to take what he wanted because of the perceived ill that had been done to him.” Jake smoothed back a piece of her hair.

  “I walloped Cliff,” she said.

  “He’s forgiven you.”

  “But—I really love him. He’s family. How could I have been so easily fooled?”

  “Fear—for someone else you love. That’s a pretty strong motive, Ashley. Honestly, I’m getting to know Cliff really well again, and he has forgiven you.”

  She smiled. “So has Beth.”

  “Beth didn’t need to forgive you. She knew that what happened wasn’t your fault.”

  “It wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been here.”

  “But that’s life. The good with the bad,” he told her quietly. “And, hey! You know, of course, that the cops found Ramsay. He wasn’t doing anything evil—he was just trying to find courage in a bottle down on Bourbon Street.”