by P. G. Forte
The driver stirred again and shook his head groggily. Brown eyes snapped open, locked with Gregg’s.
Gregg smiled wider. “Hey, there you are. It’s Nick, isn’t it?”
The other man’s eyes registered one, solitary instant of awareness, just before Gregg smacked him square on the temple with his rock, and sent him spiraling back into unconsciousness.
“Pleasant dreams, asshole,” he murmured happily, as he dropped the rock to the ground. “Enjoy the afterlife.”
Carrying out the rest of his plan was pathetically easy.
Gregg knew the injection he’d prepared – of Noctec combined with Everclear – probably wouldn’t kill Nick. But, then again, it wasn’t intended to.
Where would the fun be in that?
What it would do was keep him immobile and stupefied, while the car burst into flames around him. And, assuming there was enough of him left to ID and test, it would also insure that his blood alcohol level was high enough to make any further investigation into the cause of the accident seem like a waste of time.
By all accounts, Nick Greco had been a skillful, if somewhat reckless driver. But, even the best drivers had a tendency to lose control of their vehicles when they were dead drunk.
Gregg stashed the syringe away and selected a pebble of glass from among the thousands that littered the front seat. Scraped rapidly across the back of Nick’s hand, it soon obscured the site of the injection. Gregg surveyed his work with a critical eye. Good enough. The scratches blended well with the scores of similar cuts that marked Nick’s face and arms. Given time, they might have made for some interesting looking scars. But time was one of several things that Lauren’s interfering ex-husband was about to run out of.
Gregg reached into the car and popped the trunk. Then, he reached farther in, and unfastened Nick’s seatbelt, taking care to leave the shoulder harness in place. He took hold of the cop’s shoulders and tugged, allowing the unconscious man to half tumble, face first, from the car. He chuckled as the dull thud of bone striking stone let him know that the rocks had done a good job of breaking Nick’s fall.
It took next to no time to splash gasoline around the engine, or to store the empty can in the cop’s trunk. And, then, even though the grass was wet, it took only one match to start a small blaze near the car’s front tire.
A larger fire, or one set closer to the gas tank, would have been more efficient; but Gregg wanted to give himself time to get a comfortable distance away before the car exploded.
It would have been fun to stay and watch the show, Gregg thought, as he climbed back up the embankment, but that wasn’t part of the plan. And, after all, the whole point of making a plan, was to follow it.
The frogs had resumed their chorus by the time Gregg jogged across the road to retrieve his doll. A quick stab to the chest dispatched her. Within minutes the doll, along with his gloves, the wig he’d procured, and the nightgown he’d borrowed, were all stashed in the daypack Gregg swung over his shoulder as he headed into the trees.
He was almost back at the house before the roar of a car engine on the road behind him made him pause. He half turned, frowning. Damn it. Now was a little sooner than he would have liked, for the accident to be discovered. But the sudden and reassuring burst of light in the distance put his worries to rest. Surely, it was too late now for anyone to save Nick? Anyone foolish enough to try, would likely end up killing him or herself, as well.
* * *
“McKnight? It’s Nick. Where the fuck are you?” The message on Liam’s voice mail had been delivered in an angry sounding growl. “I got some news today, and it isn’t good. You were right about there being a connection between your friend and TLV, but it’s not what you think. Call me. We need to talk.”
Liam tossed his cellphone onto the passenger seat of his car. “God damn it, Greco. Could you be more fucking cryptic?” He took deep breaths and tried to calm his mind. Visibility was crap tonight and if he didn’t slow down soon, he’d likely wrap his car around a tree. If only he’d had his phone with him earlier tonight. If only he’d had the chance to actually talk to Nick– But, no. That was too much to ask for. “Son of a bitch.”
Cell phones were forbidden to church members. Hiding his in his car had seemed like a reasonable compromise, but at the moment it was proving inconvenient as hell.
“Just a few details – is that too much to ask?” he muttered, and then shook his head. “Great. Now I’m talking to myself. Fuck.”
A connection. But, not what I think. What the hell does that mean?
“And, where the fuck are you?” Nick wasn’t home, he wasn’t at the station. As far as Liam could tell, he wasn’t anywhere at all. “You have some nerve, Nick, that’s all I can say,” he continued to mutter. “You leave a message like that, and then disappear? What the fuck are you up to?”
He was rounding another turn when the night exploded into flames. The sudden flare illuminated the trees at the edge of the forest; the back end of a silver sports car, all but buried beneath a pile of branches; and one set of tire tracks leading off the road.
“Crap,” Liam muttered as he pulled his car over. He hated accidents like these. There was usually nothing you could do to help the passengers, but all the same– “Oh, hell.” He still had to try, didn’t he?
* * *
There was just one person in the car; the driver. Male. Caucasian. Tangled in his seatbelt, half stuck inside the burning vehicle. Still alive, but just barely. And, not likely to stay that way long, unless Liam found a way to free him.
But, that was easier said than done. Flames licked at the car’s interior and inched their way closer to the gas tank with every second. Time was running out. Ignoring the fear that shuddered through him in successive, icy waves, that numbed his mind as well as his fingers, Liam struggled with the seatbelt and the man’s awkward weight.
“Move,” an angry sounding voice ordered suddenly, and Liam found himself shouldered roughly aside. A large knife flashed once, sharp, bright and deadly in the firelight, as it severed the seatbelt.
“H- holy, shit.” Liam stammered in surprise as he recognized the newcomer. Chenoa’s brother. “Chay. Where did you come from?”
“Never mind that now.” Chay sheathed his knife. “Is there anyone else in the car?”
Liam shook his head. That was the first thing he’d checked for. “No.”
Chay nodded. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
Between them, they dragged the unconscious man free of the car, and then half dragged, half carried him up the sharp slope toward the road.
Not a minute too soon, Liam thought as a second explosion rocked the night. The ground shook, almost knocking him off his feet, and he stumbled forward as a blast of heat seared the back of his neck, and his back was peppered with what felt like hail.
“Shit,” Chay mumbled breathlessly. “That was cutting things close.”
Liam nodded agreement. “Way too close.” He was pretty sure it was only the weight of the tree that had fallen on top of the car, the web of branches in which it was entangled, that had kept the vehicle from blowing apart and cutting them down, from killing them all.
He was still shaking with reaction and fright as they reached the relative safety of the road, and relinquished their burden to the ground. As he struggled to catch his breath, Liam surveyed the scene around him. “Hey, where’s your car?” he asked, turning to look at Chay, who was crouched beside the still figure of the man they’d just rescued. He gasped in surprise at the blood that poured in rivulets down Chay’s bare arms and soaked the back of his shirt. “Dude, you’re bleeding.”
Chay shook his head impatiently. He took hold of the wounded man’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back. “That’s not important now, is it?”
“Hey, careful how you move him,” Liam protested.
But Chay, his head pressed to the other man’s chest, held up one hand.
His message was clear, Liam thought: shut the fuck up for
a minute and let me work.
Curious, Liam turned his gaze to the victim’s face. And then, in a night full of surprises, he received another shock. He took a swift, involuntary step closer. Surely, he must be imagining things? But despite the cuts and bruises he’d suffered, there was no mistake. Holy shit. “Nick?”
“You sound surprised,” Chay said as he straightened. He tossed his head, brushing his long hair back behind his shoulders. “Who’d you think it was?”
“No one,” Liam murmured. “No one, at all.”
“Right, well, we need to get him to a hospital. You have a phone with you, by any chance?”
Liam nodded. Nick wasn’t the only one who needed medical care. “Yeah. In the car.” But, he was barely aware that he spoke at all. A cold, hard certainty had laid claim to his mind. The timing of this was too perfect. The location... too damn close.
This wasn’t an accident, at all, was it?
* * *
Gregg paused when he reached the hidden, secondary gate at the back of his property. He stopped and looked around. Watching. Listening. Waiting. But the night was quiet. There was no tang of smoke yet, in the air. No wail of sirens to disturb the peace. Perfect. He chuckled as he took the keys and the control from his pocket. As he turned off the fence and unlocked the gate.
Cunningly positioned where the fence was forced to zigzag around several large trees, the gate had been designed to look like just another section of fence. No one but he even knew it existed. No one. Not even Cara.
He stuck to the shadows as best he could, as he crossed the lawn, though it was doubtful anyone inside would be looking out. He’d given the kitchen crew a little help with the seasonings this afternoon; dinner may have tasted funny, but if people were hungry enough, they’d eat anything you gave them. Then they’d sleep like logs for hours afterward; a deep dreamless sleep that would hold them through the night.
Even so, he frowned, and paused again when he reached the unlocked door that led down to the basement. Tomorrow he would put the chain and padlock back on it. For now, unsatisfactory as that was, it would have to stand open. Fortunately, the inner door, at the bottom of the stairs could be locked. It wasn’t much of a lock, and far too easy to pick. But it would have to do.
The basement seemed warm and dry after the cool dampness of the night. Gregg swung the daypack off his shoulder and quickly emptied its contents into the furnace.
He was heading for the stairs when the sound of footsteps overhead stopped him. Cara. It had to be. They were too light to belong to anyone else. What was she doing up now? Why wasn’t she sleeping, like the rest?
The answer came on a wave of anger. She and her lover must have skipped dinner. For just an instant, Gregg was tempted to abandon his plan, surprise her in the hallway, take her right there, on the foyer’s hard, marble floor.
Once, he would have done it, too. But now, just the thought of it made his knees hurt.
He stood for a moment longer, anyway. Listening. Fighting the urge to go to her and demand she return to his bed immediately; never mind that he’d left Lauren there, chained up and unconscious.
At least Cara didn’t seem in any great hurry to return to Liam’s bed. Cheered by that, Gregg went back to work. He opened the door of the small closet where such things were kept, and returned the daypack to its hook. Then he unlatched the door at the rear of the closet, and slipped inside.
Unlike the tunnel, which had been built to accommodate bootleggers and gunrunners, the servants’ stairs were not originally intended to be hidden, merely unobtrusive. Gregg never learned which of his ancestors had been the genius with the foresight to hide the stairs behind a series of closets; but he was grateful to him, just the same.
Gregg breathed a sigh of relief when he returned to his bedroom. Everything was just as it should be. Lauren twisted restlessly, in the throes of some dream, but the mask that obscured her face also stopped her cries. Gregg stared at her for a moment. He had thought to take her one more time; to ride her hard and pretend she was Cara; to celebrate his latest success. But he wasn’t in the mood.
Instead, he picked up the syringe he’d prepared earlier and gave her one last injection. Starting tomorrow, she’d be quitting cold turkey, but for tonight, he needed her to be still. Shit, he’d never get any sleep at all, with her rolling around like she was doing.
While he waited for the drug to take effect, he cleaned up the rest of his supplies and locked them back up. Lauren was quiescent by then. He removed the mask and the cuffs, then shoved her over to the side of the bed and climbed in beside her.
He was aching and stiff. If Cara were here, he’d demand a massage. But she wasn’t here. Tomorrow, he’d make her pay for that. Tomorrow, he’d make her pay for a lot of things.
Tomorrow, he decided, as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, would be a good day. A very good day, indeed.
* * *
Liam wasn’t back yet. Heaving a sigh, Cara let the drapes fall back into place as she turned from the window to survey the empty living room. Although she was almost tired enough to curl up on the floor, there was still no place to sleep here.
“Fuck it,” she muttered as she turned, at last, toward the stairs. She would take his bed, then. See if she wouldn’t. And kick him out, too, if he changed his mind and decided he wanted to share it.
She just hoped he knew what he was doing. She hoped, whatever it was he was doing, it was worth it. And she really hoped he made it back without Gregg finding out he’d been gone.
She wouldn’t even think about what it would mean if he didn’t. Gregg could turn ugly and mean if his stupid rules were broken. And she knew just who’d get the worst of it, if he did.
“Me,” she muttered as she climbed the stairs to the second floor. “Just like always.”
Chapter Twenty Two
O Lord, deal with us not according to our sins,
O Lord remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may Your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
Tract of the Mass
For the Monday in Holy Week
Chenoa gazed at her brother critically across the breakfast table Monday morning. He looked a lot better than he had last night, when he’d shown up at her door, asking for some salve for his cuts and burns, a change of clothes, a place to crash.
“So, tell me again,” she said. “Why did you come here last night, instead of going home to Erin? You two didn’t have a fight, did you?”
“Of course not,” Chay frowned at her over the rim of his coffee cup. “What kind of question is that? I just didn’t want to upset her. It was late. And the way I looked– She’s not used to that kind of thing.”
Chenoa nodded. She could certainly understand how that could be true, he’d looked terrible last night, burned, scratched, tired. He’d smelled of blood and sweat, and marshlands; the sour, rank odor of rotting vegetation. He’d smelled of burnt rubber, of singed hair and flesh. She supposed most women would be alarmed to have men show up at their door at random hours of the night, in conditions such as that, although she could hardly remember a time when that was the case for her. Or for Chay.
No, raised by their grandfather, they’d both seen worse. Much worse. Paco had been a shaman, a medicine man. Wounded warriors were drawn to him, like iron filings were drawn to a lodestone. Now that she’d become a medicine woman, would the same thing happen to her? Had last night been the start of it?
“Also, we need to talk,” Chay said, putting down his coffee and confirming his sister’s suspicions.
“Go ahead,” she replied tersely, not entirely sure what to expect.
Chay leaned forward, eyes gleaming intently. “We need to do something about the vortex. It’s more unstable than ever. And the evil I’ve been sensing, in the woods outside of town, is growing stronger.”
“You can’t think the accident last night had something to do with that?”
Chay shoo
k his head. “It was no accident. It looked like one, at first; and that’s what doctors are calling it, and the police, as well. But I went back and had another look at the scene before I came here. Nick may have been driving too fast when he hit the brakes, but I don’t think he lost control. I think he deliberately swerved to avoid something. The ground around the car was too burned and trampled to be sure of anything, but someone had lain in wait last night, on the other side of the road. Someone knew he was coming; and picked that spot ahead of time. Someone knew that’s where he’d be going off the road.”
Chenoa schooled herself to show no surprise, but it wasn’t easy, she felt as though her heart was beating a mile a minute. “You’re talking about attempted murder,” she said, adding when her brother nodded agreement, “You should go to the police, Chay. I mean what do you expect us to do about something like that?”
“We can’t do anything about that – at least not directly. And, I will go to the police, when I know more. But, for right now... it’s tied to the vortex, Chen. I know it. And, we can to do something about that; a ceremony of some sort. In fact, I think we have to do something about it. It’s our responsibility. It’s what Paco was trying to do, when he died.”
Chenoa felt her eyebrows rise. “Exactly what kind of ceremony are you thinking of?”
Her brother’s features relaxed into a smile. “Well, I don’t know. I kind of figured you’d be the one to tell me that.”
Chenoa nodded. Well, he had her there, didn’t he? This was the role she’d chosen for herself. And she’d sworn she could handle it. Could she? Only one way to find out, she supposed. “I’ll take it to the pipe. And I’ll let you know.”
For just an instant, surprise showed in Chay’s eyes. Then he nodded. “Good. Just…make it soon.”
* * *
“Come on, Nick,” Scout urged quietly. “It’s time to wake up now.” The chair she was seated in groaned ominously when she shifted forward. Using feather light strokes, she touched his face, his hair, taking care not to disturb all the tubes and wires. “Please... ”
