“I’m getting to that. The manhole is a storm sewer – just rainwater and no waste, and it’s been pretty dry lately. I listened at the metal rain gutter in the curb and heard him walking down there, and I followed the sound of his footsteps all the way to here. That’s when the clatter from down below trailed off, and a few minutes later he came out the front door of Elvira’s Psycho Readings place, and now he had a cloth laundry sack. It looked like there might be a rifle or something in it…”
Granny sent me a thought from Arthur’s little head as he sat patiently by my feet. I repeated it to the others. “Or maybe a bow and some arrows.”
“True. He went into Lou’s Recycled Discs across the street, so I went into Madam Orangutan’s clip joint to see if I could find the basement, which is where he must have gotten in here from the storm sewer.”
Irene was nodding her head slightly and looked quite interested. I looked across to Lou’s to see if I could see him. Teenagers could sometimes spend hours in there looking at used video games, CDs, and movies.
“He left,” Cammy said. “While I was being held prisoner here, he came out and headed down to the convenience store past the Dairy Queen, and then I saw him walking that way, toward the water tower.”
Anika turned her head quickly to the town’s peanut-shaped water tower, which is set back a ways from the end of the boulevard where it meets the bridge. It’s on the bank of the river on the other side of the horseshoe as it flows around Whispering Pines and then back up behind the Inn. She looked at the base of the tower and then to the top several times. Then she pulled Arthur to his feet with the leash and walked off in that direction without a word.
Cammy and I looked at each other and shrugged. “I guess we’ll just let her look for the mystery boy.” I gestured towards the front door of Irene’s. “Shall we take a look in the basement and see if there’s a way into the sewer system?”
“Actually,” Irene said, leading the way, “there’s a metal trap door at the top of the wall right below us. I’ll show you. Come on.”
After the stories I’d heard about Irene’s house, I wasn’t to eager to proceed. “It’s not right next to the gateway to Hell, is it?”
“No, that’s in the back…I mean…Don’t be silly. There’s no gateway to Hell around here.”
Swell. “So, what did you do with the mayonnaise jar with Lucius in it that I gave you?”
“I sent him on his way. No worries.”
The basement stairs were narrow and creaky, and there was only one dim bulb at the bottom of the steps. It was damp and musty, and we had to brush away cobwebs as we stepped.
“Nice!” Cammy said in her cheeriest and most sarcastic Valley Girl voice. “Is this where you take your dates when you want to impress them?”
“No, Cindy Lou Who. Though, I’m sure back in Whoville your pointy-headed beaus would find that very entertaining.” Then she stopped and gave Cammy Jo a comically sinister glare. “This is where I take nosey girls and boys to cut off their arms and legs and eat their brains.” She licked her lips. “Yum. But…alas, I’m afraid you would only be good for a light snack.”
I tried to keep their minds on the business at hand. “Let’s just find the trap door, ladies. We still have to go after Anika and Nathaniel, if that’s who the boy is.”
It was dark as we got close to the front wall. “There it is.” A glow from the bloodstone talisman around my neck provided just enough light for us to see the two-foot by two-foot square rusty door in the corner. It was just above our heads and reached to the low ceiling. There was an old wooden chair with three antique wooded Cola crates on top of it.
“It looks like it’s been used recently. Catch me if I fall.”
In a second Cammy Jo had one foot up on the chair and easily unlatched the door and pulled it downward. We could all hear the slow flow of water quite well now.
“It’s pretty dark in there, but there’s enough light coming from the drainage openings along the curb to see that there’s a channel a few yards away with some water in it.”
She jumped down and brushed her hands together to get rid of the dust and rust. “So this has to be the pathway the killer used to escape…”
“…and our boy in black is almost certainly the killer,” I added. “Anjolie really is innocent and is just confessing to protect her son.”
“Why would she do that?” That idea didn’t seem to make sense to Irene.
Cammy rolled her eyes. “Um…let’s see. Maybe she loves him? Just a guess. I’ll tell you all about love sometime when I’ve got a couple of free days.”
“Why tell me when you can show me, Princess Peach?”
“Well, Lily Munster, It’ll be a cold day in Hell…”
“All right, all right. Let’s just get out of here.” Their little insult fest was entertaining, but it would be getting dark soon, and we had work to do. “The Sheriff’s team can check inside the sewer later. Let’s see if Anika found our killer.”
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Chapter Sixteen
The sky was dusky now, and a small crescent moon was rising over the water tower. I always loved the blue-black sky of early twilight. We left Irene behind, and Cammy and I walked down the street.
“I thought I might find you guys around here.”
It was Ginny. She walked out of the Dairy Queen and popped the last bite of a small cone into her mouth. She had Arthur with her on a leash.
“So I hitched a ride with Kyle. He’s upstairs in City Hall now. Oh, and that big biker guy gave me your pup. He said you’d be coming by before long.”
It was a small office with a couple of desks and one jail cell for holding suspects. Kyle used it for his office. His security company had the contract to protect the city since we didn’t have a real police force. I think we have a part-time mayor who goes there once in a while too, but I don’t even know who the mayor is these days.
Ginny pointed to the water tower. “That motorcycle guy went over there, and it looks like there’s somebody up on the catwalk around the top of the tower.”
“Let’s go!” Cammy and I said at the same time.
We could see the figure dressed in black at the top of the tower, so we walked along the sidewalk and then cut toward the tower through a stand of tall loblolly pine trees so we wouldn’t attract his attention. The trees seemed to be whispering their encouragement to us and even warning us of imminent danger.
“There’s someone up there with him.” Cammy pointed to a short round figure on the other side of the catwalk.
I looked through the branches of the pine trees above us. “Oh, wow. That looks like Anika. But I don’t think the boy knows she’s there. It looks like he’s just sitting there, doing something with his hands.”
“He’s putting the two pieces of that bow together, and then he still has to string it.” Ginny had eagle eyes and good common sense. I think she was right.
We could see that the tower’s attached metal ladder had been pulled all the way down to the ground as we moved closer.
“That’s quite a climb for a…you know…big woman like that.” Ginny scratched her head as she considered it.
I had a different theory on how she got up there. The tall pines hugged the metal structure on one side, and the branches actually brushed against it in some places. A determined cat could probably get up there quite easily.
I felt a warmth on my chest coming from the arrowhead talisman now and I grabbed it with my hand.
“Ahh!” I gasped loud enough for the other girls to hear, and they turned their heads quickly towards me.
My mind was transported to a vision of the imminent future, just minutes away. I saw a clear image of the boy in black on the metal catwalk of the water tower. He had just finished assembling and stringing a black metal bow, and a dozen or more pointed arrows were laid out next to him. Then he stood up, put an arrow in the bow, drew it back, sited in
a target, and released the deadly projectile. From that height, an arrow could probably reach the Inn.
“We’ve got to stop him, girls. He’s going to start shooting people on the street.” They had been with me on other missions and didn’t question my ominous statement.
“What’s the plan?” Ginny was ready for anything.
“I don’t know.”
I could tell that Anika was trying to communicate with me, but it was hard for me to receive her message well at this distance. I think she had tapped into my vision and knew what was about to happen. She took a single step toward the boy, but a rattle from a metal floor plate gave her away. The boy walked quickly around the side of the tower to investigate as Anika retreated. She reached the place where the pine branches scraped the tower when he caught up with her.
“Oh, my God!’ Cammy was frantic. “He’s going to kill her!”
I tried to be positive. “Don’t worry. Anika can take care of herself.”
I hoped I was right – but one second later he pushed her over the rail, and she started falling through the braches. We ran towards that tree and suddenly heard a loud motorcycle snapping the branches as it fell. Then, when the braches ended high above us, we saw Anika falling again. She rolled from her back and gave us a wink as she turned her tummy towards the earth and slowly morphed into a small, furry black thing. One heartbeat later, Moondance landed on his feet and gave us a friendly “meow.”
He strutted slowly behind the tree trunk, and then Anika came over to join us. The boy didn’t even look down and was back in his original position.
“Hidee-hoo, ladies. Sorry if I freaked you out, but I didn’t want to be splattered all over the place.”
Cammy and Ginny just looked at each other. They were getting used to strange occurrences when they were with me…and another unexpected episode was about to begin.
My bloodstone talisman was starting to glow brighter and hum quite loudly now. The arrowhead raised itself from my chest and pointed directly at the boy on the tower. He was standing now and taking an arrow, just as he did in my vision. I trembled as I thought about him shooting his arrows into the town’s busy street. Then I felt myself being surrounded by a magnificent time bubble, no doubt generated by my bloodstone arrowhead, as the world around me ground to a halt.
I saw the figure of a glowing woman floating before me – a huntress clad in a brief leather top, a short flowing skirt, and leather sandals with ties that crisscrossed her calves and continued above her knees. The golden highlights of her light brown hair glistened in a bright light, even though the sun was hidden behind the Inn and the pines now, just above the horizon. She had a quiver of arrows on her back…and I knew it with certainty that it was Artemis – the goddess of the hunt, the personification of purity…and my aunt.
A handsome young man joined her, and I was shown a flashback of myself as an infant. In the vision, the young man – my father, Derrion, from Mikos – picked me up from my cradle. The four fingers of his right hand held me behind my tiny neck, and I knew at once that his touch had created the four stars, in an arc like shooting stars, on the back of my neck. Then I saw his sister join him there with the infant. She kissed the tip of her finger and, with a light touch, gave me the fifth star that was partially hidden beneath my hairline. Then she kissed the back of my head and my father laid his large hand over the top of my head, encompassing it from ear to ear.
As the flashback vanished, I understood without any words that they wanted me to use my arrowhead to shoot the boy and prevent the carnage that he was about to levy on out little town. I wanted to be horrified at the thought of shooting a person, but I somehow knew that everything would be all right. Still, I had no bow and no shaft for the arrow.
Artemis smiled gently and turned her gaze to the crescent moon above the water tower. Then she nodded at me. I reached for the crescent and took it in my hand. The she pulled a single hair from my head and strung it from one point of the arc to the other. She took an arrow from her quiver, but it had no tip. In a blink, my arrowhead talisman was on the end of the arrow, and I drew it back, aiming directly at the boy.
As I let the arrow fly, the time bubble was burst and my father and Artemis were gone. Just as Nathaniel drew his murderous bow my arrow neared its mark and burst into a large bright light. I shaded my eyes and watched as the glow turned into an orb of light and power that surrounded the young assassin.
The three ladies were a little disoriented as the world kicked back into gear, and they turned toward the bright light near the top of the water tower. I noticed that the moon and my arrowhead pendant were somehow back in place. Still, I was sure that I wasn’t imaging what had just happened. It was real, and I still felt a comfortable warmth from meeting my father and aunt.
“Nice work, Jessie!” Anika smiled brightly and looked like she was waiting for me to do something. “Well…go ahead. Bring him down now.”
I gave her a puzzled look, and then she sighed. “Okay…I’ll show you.”
She pointed at the orb and then slowly brought it down and set it to rest on the ground a few feet away from us.
“I’ll let you burst the bubble…”
I snapped my fingers, and the orb of light disappeared.
“…but make sure you’re ready to grab him before he runs.”
Now she tells me! The boy dropped his bow and made a dash in the direction of the Dairy Queen. Ginny was right behind him, running a lot faster than I’d ever seen anyone run.
“One of you, take the bow and his arrows,” Anika said as she morphed into Moondance and took off after the boy with Arthur on close behind.
Cammy Jo wrapped the boy’s cloth laundry bag around the bow and arrows to keep from contaminating the evidence, and we jogged slowly behind the action.
Nathaniel was just as fast as Ginny. He veered to the left and headed for the back of the Grab-and-Go like a streak of black lightning. Without breaking stride, he leapt onto the hood of a car with one step, up to the top of a white panel truck with the next, and then onto the flat roof of the convenience store, as easily as if he were climbing stairs. Remarkably, Ginny negotiated the climb just as well.
From there he jumped off the side of the store to the top of a large dumpster and onto the loading dock at the back of the post office, which also held our library. He headed alongside the building toward the front sidewalk in front, and Ginny picked up a little ground by running to the front end of the Grab-and-Go’s roof. She jumped right for the post office’s huge American flag waving towards her, swung back to the pole, and then slid down to the ground, just a few steps behind Nathaniel now.
The buildings blocked our view, but pretty soon we saw the two running up one side of the pitched roof of the Universal Baptist Church and down the other. The next building was the Dairy Queen, and Kyle was running down the back steps now from the entrance to his office in city hall.
Nathaniel changed direction on the roof and headed for the bell tower in front. By now we were next to the Dairy Queen and running to the front sidewalk with Kyle. There was a huge banner that said “Joy” hanging from the side of the church’s bell tower, and Nathaniel wrapped his arms around it and slid to the ground. We were just steps away as he zoomed past us, right past the Dairy Queen, and across Apalachee Avenue onto antique row. Ginny was still on his tail, and we followed as quickly as we could.
Arthur was just sitting on the corner panting, and Moondance was lying next to him.
“We got tired,” Moondance communicated to me silently.
“That was a lot of running for an old lady like me,” Granny told me, “and it was too hard to keep Arthur’s mind off all the squirrels running around here. Besides, it looks like Virginia has it under control.”
Halfway down the block the boy started angling across the street toward Irene’s place. Maybe he thought he could disappear into the storm sewer. That’s when I saw something disturbing.
A red cherubic figure came flying out of Mad
am Irene’s place and was heading for Nathaniel, laughing demonically and drawing back a bright red arrow in his bow. He shot at Nathaniel, but the boy lost his footing. He fell to the ground and rolled as the arrow passed over him and right into Ginny! She was frozen in her tracks as the boy quickly found his feet again and ran into Irene’s.
“We’ve got him now!” Kyle said, slightly out of breath as he jogged next to us.
“Don’t be so sure…” Cammy broke stride and started walking, and Kyle and I followed suit, breathing heavily.
“See what I mean?” Granny chided.
“…If he gets into the basement he can escape into the storm sewer.”
Ginny started moving again as we caught up to her, but she stopped a few steps later since her target was out of sight now.
Kyle gave her an odd look.
“I…uh… stopped to catch my breath,” she lied.
“Nice work, girl!” I told her, quite amazed at her athletic abilities. “Were you an Olympic athlete or something?”
“Nah, nothing like that, Jess. I took a year of Ninja School with some bluegrass folks in the hills of Kentucky a while back, but I couldn’t find any ninja jobs when I got done. That’s when I decided to go to Cooking School in Savannah.”
Of course – I should have thought of that.
Kyle was on the phone with one of his officers telling him to watch the back door of Irene’s place as we walked up to her parlor. She leaned out the front door and whistled at Lucius, who the others couldn’t see, of course. She opened the mayonnaise jar for him, and he flew right in.
I gave her a confused look. She had told me she had no control over gods and demons.
“I made a deal with him before I let him out,” she explained.
Swell – she makes deals with the Devil. I didn’t ask for details.
We entered her main sitting room, which always made me feel nervous because this is where Irene’s mother, Esmeralda, was murdered quite a few years ago. As we sat down we heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs from the basement. The basement door opened, and the tall figure of Sheriff Muldoon ducked through the doorway. He was carrying Nathaniel by the belt like a duffle bag.
Jesse Delacroix: Curse of the Bloodstone Arrow (The Whispering Pines Mystery Series Book 3) Page 11
