Sapphire Nights

by Patricia Rice

  Not until Walker reached Sam’s studio and found it empty did his anxiety reach full-fledged fear.

  When he turned to find a bruised, bleeding, and jacketless Xavier pointing up the mountain, fear escalated to alarm.

  “He’ll kill them all, just as he did the others,” Xavier said, before collapsing.

  Chapter 31

  Evening, June 23

  * * *

  Before helping Valdis descend into the bowels of hell, Sam cast one last glance over her shoulder. She could swear she saw sunlight glinting off crystals—like gleams off polished swords—all over the cliff face. But if any ephemeral figures were up there holding staffs, they were concealed by shadows in the dying sunlight.

  “Don’t dally. They’d not be up there unless they’ve felt Evil walking,” Valdis said briskly.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. . . Sam thought, shivering. Staffs detected evil? She hadn’t felt it. Hooking the stick over her wrist, she offered her arm for her aunt to lean on as they descended what appeared to be stone stairs into the mountain. This wasn’t a properly built concrete bunker, but a cellar only her creatively insane family could concoct, she suspected.

  The concrete walls were embedded with crystals that caught what little light came through the open door. Below, Daisy lit a lantern.

  No snakes rattled. Sam took a deep breath and relaxed a little.

  “Shut the door,” Val commanded.

  “Against what, nuclear holocaust?” Sam knew better than to expect a rational answer. Reluctantly, she swung the steel door closed.

  Amazingly, it didn’t dim the light. Crystals, mirrors, and polished metal set in the walls reflected the lantern’s gleam. Val grasped a metal rod set in the concrete walls and balancing on her staff, managed the stairs on one foot.

  “Evil,” she repeated, as usual. “Evil was committed on this land for eons. It seeps into the rocks, flows through the vortex, pollutes the soul. You’ll see. Now that you’re here, you’ll see.”

  That aroused her curiosity. Sam followed Valdis into the bunker, where Daisy was igniting more lanterns with mechanical lighters.

  “Does anyone else know about this place?” Sam asked, glancing at the artwork hanging helter-skelter and stacked against the walls.

  “The oldest of us,” Val said. “My parents lived here after the bastards burned them out. Their art reflects the evil.” She pointed at a painting done in a similar style to the ones Sam had seen at the lodge.

  The man with the long, curly blond hair she assumed was her grandfather faced forward in this painting. He was about her age in this self-portrait. A half-naked pregnant woman reclined on a couch in a mirror on the artist’s wall—her grandmother?

  “Early days,” Val barked. “He was a handsome man, and I remember loving the tender look in his expression as he painted my mother. And still it corroded. Look at the eyes. It’s always the eyes. His were once a crystal blue, like yours.”

  Daisy held up a lantern so the sparkling color of what had to be decades-old oil was illuminated.

  The beautiful young artist’s eyes had turned an evil red.

  Sam went from painting to painting. Not all were by the same person. Many were too abstract to discern identity. She thought one rural idyll depicted a man with Kennedy features—her paternal grandfather, Geoffrey? His eyes had turned red too.

  “The originals didn’t have the red?” Sam asked skeptically. “They all corroded in the same way over the years?”

  “Only the eyes of the infected,” Daisy elaborated. “The children are still fine.” She pointed at a tableau of two blond children with brilliant blue eyes.

  “Me and your mother,” Val said curtly. “We escaped. Our mother didn’t, although she held out until the last, when she lost everything.” She pointed at a small portrait of a plump, blond, graying woman with a pleasant expression—and red-rimmed eyes. Not totally red like the others, but infected.

  “Now,” Daisy commanded urgently, pointing her staff at the door. “The mountain tumbles now.”

  “I’d hoped we could settle peacefully this time,” Cass said sorrowfully, striding toward the vortex.

  “Just tell me what the hell is happening and maybe we still can,” Walker urged. “Why is Sam up there? What was Xavier trying to tell me?” He’d radioed for back-up and left the unconscious old man with the nurse Cass had brought in.

  He’ll kill them all was a clarion warning if he’d ever heard one, but Walker had to know who and how and why. And Cass wasn’t talking.

  Cass gestured at the mountain. “Xavier knows Evil just as we do. He knows it must be buried. We pray we are strong enough to protect Sam. She is the Earth Mother, the good in all of us.”

  Disregarding Lucy inanity, Walker focused on the one word to exacerbate terror. “Protect her from what?” Locking down his raging fear, he concentrated on the area above the amphitheater that Cass pointed at. Had those glints of light always been there?

  “Can’t you feel it?” Cass asked in what seemed like despair. “It’s a dark cloud forming. The earth is vibrating with fear and rage.”

  The only vibrating he felt was his own fear and rage. “Where is she?” he shouted, giving up on rational discussion.

  “We hope she has taken shelter. We tried to warn her not to go.” Cass took the path toward the vortex, where half the town seemed to be gathering.

  Or just the Lucy half—the ones with Harvey’s staffs. Except Harvey wasn’t here. Or Sam. Those gathering were of Cass’s generation, the older ones who had been beating up Nulls with canes. What wind had blown them en masse in this direction?

  “You’ll be safe with us,” Cass said prosaically. “The vortex energy draws out the evil, but it also protects. We can only hope we have the strength to send enough of the good energy to deflect the bad.”

  This time, when Walker studied the mountain, he thought he saw a glimpse of green, not a natural green but the emerald of Xavier’s jacket—the same emerald green that had been on the brochures from eighteen years ago. It made no sense, but Walker gave up on Cass and took off at a run in pursuit of that flash of green.

  Cass yelled a warning. He ignored it.

  He’d climbed this path following Sam and her stick through the dark last time. This time, there was sufficient daylight to see the trail leading up to the Ingersson farm, Bald Rock, and that flash of green. The question became—did he go after the green that might simply be Xavier’s discarded jacket or find Sam?

  This job meant making terrible choices that could be the difference between life and death. He wasn’t an all-knowing god. He wanted to save Sam—for his own selfish reasons, because he didn’t want to lose her and all the good her trusting intelligence had shown him these last days.

  But he couldn’t always be there to protect her if there was a murderer on the loose, which was where his duty stepped in. If he believed Xavier and Lucy insanity, the entire community was in danger and would continue to be in danger until the killer was caught.

  He had to surmount his defensive urge to protect what was his. War raged within him, but he continued racing up the trail toward Bald Rock—and not down to the farm where he hoped to find Sam.

  As if to confirm his decision, Harvey stepped out of a shrub-shrouded crevasse. Garbed in his usual black, he was barely visible except for the glinting crystal in his staff.

  “Gump.” Harvey spat out the name as if it were a bad taste. “He’s planting something under Bald Rock. He could be carrying a detonator.”

  Walker bit back bile and studied the enormous boulder above. “Sam and Valdis?”

  “Farm. Daisy has a hiding place. I don’t know how safe it is if half a mountain falls on it.” Harvey looked pale and grim. “We’re tuned to the crystal vibrations. We can divert a partial slide. We can’t predict results though.”

  Diverting a landslide was a particularly high level of crazy to accept. “Is there any reason to believe he plante
d explosives and not his dear dead mother’s diary?”

  Harvey lifted a black brow in disbelief.

  Walker sighed. Right. Xavier had said a killer was up here. There was no good reason for a wealthy city real estate mogul to suddenly be hiking around on Bald Rock—in a green jacket. Walker’s gut said he needed a SWAT team. The Lucys apparently felt the same way, except their SWAT team was a little unorthodox.

  “I’m going up on Bald Rock,” Walker said. “The sheriff’s men are up at the lodge. I’ve radioed them. If the mountain blows, you’ll need all the help you can get. Try not to drive off the authorities.”

  He didn’t wait for Harvey’s response. Gut instinct said Gump had motive and opportunity for two murders. Xavier’s warning might be that of a drug-addled madman, but Walker had learned his lesson. He couldn’t ignore whatever voices spoke in the old man’s head. Lives might depend on listening.

  He wished he’d really listened to Tess, heard her desperation. Maybe he could have prevented tragedy. This time, failure would devastate an entire town.

  By the time Walker reached the summit, he could see the stout real estate mogul sliding down from Bald Rock. Gump’s feet had just hit the narrow ledge below, the one where they’d laid out Valdis the other night.

  Crossing his arms and firmly planting his boots on safe ground, Walker blocked the rock path over the snake’s nest.

  “Fine evening for a hike,” he said, studying the usually elegant businessman.

  Gump had discarded his designer suit coat and was wearing what had to be Xavier’s green jacket—it was three sizes too small for his portly stature.

  The green would be highly visible against the browns of the cliff. If he’d seen it, others had. If anything happened—most people would blame Xavier. Or would have, if Xavier hadn’t escaped whatever Gump had done to him.

  “Just checking the million-dollar view,” Gump said affably, slicking back his glossy blond hair. “Remove a few of those trees and tenants can watch a sunset over the ocean. What brings you up here?”

  Only a sociopath could believe he was so slick that Walker would accept this scenario without question. “Xavier,” Walker said tersely. “Did you think you could blame your next evil deed on the old man if you set him loose?” Damn, he sounded like the Lucys.

  Gump tried to edge past Walker. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have a meeting with the Kennedys, if you’d let me pass.”

  “The Kennedys know about the deed. They know you have no right to build on this land. Did you think the owners would never come back?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said irritably. “I invested everything I had in this land. I’ve worked hard and mortgaged my life for this development. In a few years, we’ll all be rich.”

  Mortgaged his life maybe, and possibly his soul, but not the land he didn’t own. “Want to give me Xavier’s jacket? There’s something in the pocket he wants back,” Walker lied.

  He was facing the man who may have cold-bloodedly killed his father. Lying wasn’t the only sin he’d commit to get the truth. But if there was any chance Gump really was carrying a detonator, the situation needed to be de-escalated pronto.

  Gump laughed a little nervously. “Xavier’s a nutcase. This is my team jacket from the old days, bit of nostalgia, I guess. Didn’t want to ruin the Armani.”

  Yeah, because it was so cold up here in the ninety-degree sun that he needed a coat.

  “The jacket, Gump,” Walker insisted, putting a threat into his stance as well as his voice. The sheriff could fire him later. He maintained his most intimidating, arms-crossed, beefcake stance. Pity Sam couldn’t see him.

  “What is this, some kind of highway robbery over a damned cheap jacket? If you’re that desperate—” The older man began shrugging out of the too-tight sleeves. Not even a crow cried as he tugged it off.

  A humming chant filled the eerily silent air. A mechanical device tumbled from the coat’s pocket—into the snakes’ rocky nest below.

  Chapter 32

  Evening, June 23

  * * *

  “Here,” Daisy shouted, stabbing her staff into a crystal-lined pit in the concrete floor as the ground began to rumble. “Connect them here.”

  Val did the same with her staff, then yanked Sam’s in the same direction when she didn’t respond fast enough.

  All three sticks touched, and Sam almost fell backward from the earth energy surging through the wood. Terrified, she grabbed the staff’s grip with both hands and hung on, praying to whatever gods might be watching that she wasn’t harnessing a dragon.

  A shattering boom shook the bunker. She bit back a shriek as pieces of rotten concrete tumbled from the walls, creating a fog of dust. Glancing fearfully at the ceiling, she didn’t see cracks, but the crystals blazed a brighter blue. That’s when she noticed their staff crystals glowed weirdly. The effect of concrete dust?

  Energy continued surging through the wood, and her stick bucked like a wild horse.

  The ground rumbled. What sounded like an avalanche roared in the distance. But it was the power rushing through her hands that frightened her most.

  Her aunt and Daisy hummed a high-pitched note that was almost as scary as the thunder outside. But the energy they evoked was positive—she could swear it was as if she were part of a giant magnet pushing back a negative charge.

  The rumble rolled closer, lifting the ground they stood on. Earthquake?

  Walker watched in horror as the detonator fell from Gump’s pocket and his world exploded. Slammed back against the bluff, he covered his head as the impact blasted Bald Rock into splintered boulders, shooting the massive outcropping into the air.

  In the echoing horror that followed, he and Harvey clung to the rumbling mountain as the debris rained down on the already dangerously loose hillside. Rocks and dirt began to slide.

  In an instant, an avalanche cascaded straight toward the farm and Sam.

  She was down there, he knew it, he could feel her terror resonating with his, and it was all he could do not to follow the landslide down.

  Take out the enemy first.

  Fighting the bile boiling up his gullet, Walker edged along the cliff wall while the ground beneath his feet shook. The wide path didn’t crumble. The same couldn’t be said of the precarious ledge where Gump perched.

  Even as Walker reached for him, the ledge cracked. The sociopath lost his balance—and tumbled into the snakes’ nest as it slid downward with half the mountain.

  Gump’s screams followed him down—a violent end to a violent man.

  But Walker had no compassion for evil. His heart and mind roiled in terror for Sam—beautiful golden, laughing Sam, frowning, snarky, intelligent Sam, naked loving understanding Sam—down there, amid the rubble and debris surging relentlessly toward the shrub-covered foundation he assumed had to be the original farmhouse. Where the hell could she be hiding? There was nothing to hide behind or stop the tide of destruction.

  His heart plunged with the rocks. Paralyzed with helplessness before nature’s revenge, he watched Gump’s green jacket disappear in a cloud of dust and stone. Once again, he had no control over the shit life threw at him. He hadn’t even prized a confession from the bastard, although the detonator and explosives confirmed the man wasn’t worth the rocks he’d stood on.

  But Sam didn’t deserve to die because Walker hadn’t been able to stop a lunatic—again. He had to find a way down, find Sam. . .

  The eerie hum continued in a crescendo, echoing off the bluff face, even as the slide lost momentum on the level ground of the farm. Skidding downward on the loose shale in his quest to find Sam, Walker watched in disbelief as the powerful tide of granite and debris tumbled to a gradual halt.

  It formed a barrier of rocks and dirt outside what appeared to be a line of Daisy’s peculiar guardians. A few smaller stones rolled through an unfinished area of the circle—just as if the tiny stone statues had halted a landslide.

 
Harvey climbed down to stand beside Walker in silent appreciation of the utter destruction. In the distance, sirens screamed.

  “Holy shit,” Walker muttered, searching for any sign of movement below. “The sheriff won’t believe this.”

  “If Gump’s head wasn’t crushed, he’ll die of snakebite,” Harvey said prosaically. “We could pretend we didn’t see him, if that helps.”

  That jarred Walker from his shock. “If he’s alive, I want a confession. But if Sam’s down there, I’m going after her first.”

  “She’s there all right. Her energy is almost as powerful as Mariah’s,” Harvey warned. “She’s not going anywhere. This earth is hers. You’d do better to look to yourself.”

  Walker didn’t bother sending him an incredulous glance. Choosing the safest trajectory over the loose stones, he clambered down to the farm. The avalanche had provided a safer angle than the steep bluff.

  By the time he reached the bottom, ATVs were roaring up the rutted drive from town. Lucys trekked up from the vortex or off the bluff from various directions where they’d been concealed. It was as if all the spirits on the mountain had materialized and were finding their way to the farm. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the Lucys had been hiding in caves with their ancestors.

  Praying that Harvey was right and that Sam was safe, Walker hurried downward, hailing the sheriff and Monty on the first ATV in his path. Another deputy and Kurt rode the second. Officialdom and Lucys gathering on the same plain. The sun might implode next.

  When he got close enough to be heard, Walker gestured up the rock slide to where the sleeve of an emerald coat could just be seen. “Alan Gump is up there. He had a detonator in his pocket. Watch for the vipers.”

  The sheriff and his man looked grim and spoke into their radios. No one seemed eager to climb to the rescue.

  Walker kept walking. Or limping. The climb had been hard on his bad leg. He didn’t stop to investigate Daisy’s crazy lamassu farm, but slid over it, trying not to fall on the hill of loose rubble. Inside the circle, Cass was shoving aside shrubbery and tugging on a nearly invisible steel door. A bunker. Of course the crazies would have a bunker, if only for drug storage. Either he was going insane or he was starting to understand their rationale.