“No problem,” said Scott.
13
Tom Walton shook his head for the umpteenth time as he turned off Lake Circle and onto Thomas Hill Road. He’d debated whether to take the time to check the lake house—it had stood empty for over twenty years, but first Joe and later Greg paid Preston Peters to perform quarterly maintenance. Greg might have come for a visit, he thought. But how would Stephen know that? Maybe Greg called to tell him?
Tom drew a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks as he blew it out. The drive back from Millvale took more than two hours, and he’d repeated these same thoughts over and over and over until he was sick with the mental argument.
His tires crunched gravel as he idled the car down the lane. Before the events in the Canton lake house occurred back in 1986, he’d always been a little jealous that Joe Canton had scraped together the beans required to buy a place on the shores of Lake Genosgwa. The gravel lane had always seemed so relaxing, but since that summer, Tom could hardly stand to spend five minutes on Thomas Hill Road.
And Greg? Wouldn’t he hate the place now?
He suppressed a sigh.
What will it hurt to check? I’m already there, for Chrissake…
14
Mason grinned as he turned the key in the garage door for the third time since he’d finished his coffee. The first time, she’d shrieked after he’d ripped open the back doors of the van and flashed his toy at her—the big knife blade glinting in the early morning light. He’d had so much fun; he’d left her to stew for another hour before taking her out for a shower.
He’d left her au naturel after hosing her down from the spigot he’d had installed inside the garage. Oh, she hadn’t liked the frigid water, but it excited him to see her body’s reaction to it. That was what it was all about anyway—his excitement.
He closed the door behind him but didn’t throw the bolt. He planned to take her over to the house this time. Mason drummed his hand against the side of the van as he walked down its length, smiling at her whimpers and panicked cries.
He’d only just laid his hand on the handle of the back door when he heard tires crunching gravel.
15
Tom idled his car down the gravel lane and pulled to a stop between Joe Canton’s garage and his lake house. He sat for a moment, peering at the home, looking for signs of habitation.
There were none.
Can’t let it go at that, can you?
With a sigh, Tom pulled the car to the side of the road between the Canton garage and the one now owned by that little prick Mason Harper. He shoved the gear selector to park and opened his door, groaning at the stiffness in his joints. After swinging his feet out, he sat for a moment, massaging his knees and trying to force the stiffness out. With a sigh of resignation, he stood, and as he did, a door opened behind him.
“Is that old Tom Walton I see?”
“‘Old’ is right,” said Tom. “How are you doing, Mason?” He kept his tone light, but ever since that night in 1986, something about Mason Harper set his nerves on edge. He’d seen him around town for twenty years, but he couldn’t shake the memory of the boy practically salivating over Mary Canton’s broken, ravaged body.
“You’ve got a slew of years left on your dance card, Tom.” Mason closed the door to his garage behind him and locked the deadbolt. “What brings you out?”
Tom shook his head and glanced at Joe’s house. “A fool’s errand given me by a mental patient.”
Mason tilted his head back and looked at him with an expression Tom thought perfect for a reptile. An alligator or a Komodo dragon, maybe. “And how is Mr. Canton-the-younger?”
Tom’s shoulders twitched in a quick shrug. “About the same, I guess.”
Mason took a few steps closer, peering at Tom’s face as if it were a book he was trying to read. “And what did the poor man want you to check out?”
Tom didn’t answer. Instead, he turned toward the lake house. “Have you seen anyone poking around the place?”
“Around the Canton place?” Mason shook his head. “No, no one’s been out for a few months, and the last one—the only one—was Preston Peters.”
“Ayup. Quarterly maintenance, then.”
“That would be my guess, yeah.”
Tom watched Harper out of the corner of his eye. The man just stood there, staring at Tom while he thought Tom’s attention was elsewhere. Why isn’t he going about his business? Tom cleared his throat. “Well, I don’t want to keep you.”
“No bother. It’s a nice morning for a chat.”
“Ayup.” Tom nodded once, as Joe Canton had been prone to do. “I guess I’ll walk around the house and fulfill my promise to Stephen as long as I’m here.”
“Sure, but I’m telling you: there’s nothing to see.”
“Oh, I know. But I am here…might as well make it worthwhile.” He rapped his knuckles on the side of his head. “Get this old bastard to shut up and leave me alone.” Mason didn’t reply, but the man’s gaze crawled on the back of his head. “Day off?” Tom asked, feigning nonchalance.
“Week off,” Harper said with a wink. “I just got back from Rochester last night.”
“Rochester, eh? What’s in Rochester?”
“Inspiration.”
Tom turned to face him, and as he did, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a cold, calculating expression on Mason’s face. “Inspiration?”
Mason smiled, and his expression became the picture of openness, of friendliness. “Sure. I fancy myself an artist in my spare time.” He waved his hand at the woods behind him. “I’ve got my fill of Mother Nature’s inspiration right here. I take vacations in city centers to get a sense of the urban.”
Tom scratched behind his ear. “A sense of the urban, huh?”
“That’s it.”
Tom cocked his head to the side and let his gaze settle on Mason’s face. “Well, I won’t keep you,” he said again.
Mason met his gaze, a hint of amusement flirting with his expression, and the moment drew out. “Say, Tom. How long since you retired?”
“Seven years. Why?” asked Tom, confused by the sudden shift.
“Oh, nothing. I was just wondering. You should take up art yourself. Find a hobby.”
“Ah,” Tom forced a chuckle. “Granddaughters keep me plenty busy.”
Mason lifted his chin. “Granddaughters. Yes. How many do you have again?”
The longer I talk to this bastard, the more he looks like a lizard, Tom thought. Be damned if I’ll speak to him about the grandkids. He shook his head and half-turned toward the Canton lake house.
“I understand,” murmured Mason. “Protect those grandbabies.”
Tom grunted but turned his face back toward Mason. “Can’t ever be too careful.”
“Oh, no doubt, no doubt. You never know who you’re chatting with. Not really. Know what I mean?” Mason laughed, but to Tom’s ear, there was something off about it. “I could be this Abaddon character, after all. Wouldn’t that be strange?” A smile decorated Mason’s face, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Somewhere deep inside Tom, alarm bells started ringing.
16
Scott pulled off onto the shoulder, accompanied by the steady clicking of the turn signal. He glanced at Greg, who was staring at the woods on the side of the road. The man had gone as pale as death. “Anything?”
Greg startled, then laughed. “No, I don’t sense any demons.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” asked Shannon.
“Yes,” said Greg with an air of detachment. “Sometimes I wonder…”
In the back seat, Benny coughed and chuckled. “But all this is real, Greg. There are demons here, and you can sense them.”
Greg took a deep breath. “I’m not sure whether I’d rather be as crazy as my father.”
“Nah. Crazy’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” said Benny.
“You are such a goof,” said Toby.
“What did I say now?” Benny sat bolt u
pright and turned toward the woods. “There’s something wrong!”
“What?”
Benny glared at Scott as he slapped the back of the front seat. “Go!”
“Demons?” asked Scott.
“Yes, but the human kind. Go!” Benny urged.
The back tires spit gravel and dirt as Scott mashed the accelerator to the floor.
17
Tom played it cool, but it took all of his thirty-three years of law enforcement experience to keep his poker face. “I’d laugh, son, but I don’t care for that type of humor.”
Mason dropped his gaze. “Sorry. I get these strange thoughts from time to time. Grandma always said I needed a governor for my mouth.”
Tom grunted, his expression placid, but inside, his mind raced. Think! Come up with something to put him at ease, then get your old ass out of here, Walton! Call the troopers when you hit Lake Circle. He lifted a hand to scrub through his cropped hair. “That’s just the grumpy coming out. Goes with getting old, I expect. Plus, driving all the hell over the state to visit Stephen always turns me into a grouch.”
“I understand,” breathed Mason.
“Well, I won’t keep you.”
“You keep saying that, Tom. What is it I should be doing?”
“What?” Tom scratched his ear. “Oh, whatever you had planned.” He hunched his shoulders as if to protect his neck. “I believe I’ll head out.”
“Hmmm.”
Mason didn’t move, and his expression never changed, but the air between them seemed charged with electricity. The alarm bells ringing in Tom’s mind became klaxons. He turned back to his car, but before he could open the door, Mason’s hand fell on his shoulder.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Eh? What’s that?” Tom’s pulse rate had trebled, and his voice quavered a bit.
Mason cackled, and for the first time, Tom believed the harsh sound reflected Harper’s genuine amusement. “Your walk-around of the Canton place.”
“Oh. Well, you convinced me it was a waste of time.”
“Did I?” Mason’s voice seemed stronger, more confident, and his grip tightened on Tom’s shoulder.
“Sure. Who’d be out here, anyway?”
“My point,” said Mason. He took a step closer, crowding Tom against the door of his car. “No one comes out here. Not anymore. Not since all that happy horseshit in 1986.” He giggled and peered up and down Thomas Hill Road. “I have the place to myself most of the time.”
Tom’s expression darkened, and fear tickled his belly. It wasn’t a strange emotion to the former chief of police, but he hadn’t felt it in seven years and didn’t much care for its return. “I’ll be on my way then.”
A faint smile touched Mason’s lips. “No, Tom. You won’t.” His grip on Tom’s shoulder tightened to the point of causing pain.
Tom swiveled to face him. “Listen here, Mason. I don’t know what I said to make you angry, and I am an old man, but there’s a reason I’ve lived to this ripe old age, son.” Tom leaned close, getting right up in Mason’s face. “Now, take your goddamn hand off me!”
“A for effort, old man,” murmured Mason.
“I mean it, Harper. You get your—”
Mason caught his weight as Tom slumped forward. He slid his blackjack back into his back pocket. “Two in one day,” he mused. “This is going to be a grand day.”
18
“Hurry, Scott!” Benny’s voice carried a note of urgency that seemed foreign to his personality.
“What is it, Benny?” asked Shannon.
Benny shook his head in answer. “We have to save him!”
“Save who?” asked Toby.
Scott cranked the wheel, and the Caddie tried to slide out from underneath them as it hit the gravel. An expression of intense concentration settled on his features as he brought the car under control. “Where?”
“Keeping going! Around the bend!”
“That’s where my grandparents' lake house is,” murmured Greg.
19
Dan Delo flew west over the black waters of Lake Genosgwa, projecting the image of a hunting kite. It seemed like a fool’s errand, but LaBouche had insisted…again…and Dan was in no position to argue.
He landed on the ragtag dock LaBouche had told him about and scanned the houses up and down the shore before turning and scanning the lake for fishermen or swimmers. With a grunt, he adopted his innocuous visage—hyper-thin, glasses, slightly greasy hair—and walked ashore.
In the distance, a V8 engine whined and plowed through gravel. Dan paused for a moment, cocking his head to the side and listening.
20
Still smiling, Mason dragged Tom Walton into his garage. He had never gotten around to building facilities inside the cottage for keeping more than one prisoner—despite Chaz Welsh’s repeated nagging that he “prepare for the possibility.” Tom’s heels dug twin furrows through the gravel.
His butt bumped into the locked door, and he swung Tom to the side and dropped him face-first to the ground. He turned and slid the key into the lock.
A car roared onto Thomas Hill Road, and Mason’s eyes snapped toward the bend. Adrenaline flooded into his bloodstream, and Mason delighted in the sensation. He flung the door open and grabbed Walton by the armpits, dragging him inside the garage. He had no time to secure him more than that, as a big Cadillac came slewing around the bend in the road. Excitement tinged with a kernel of fear made his nerves sing, and Mason reveled in it. There wasn’t much that made him feel alive anymore.
He stepped outside and closed the door.
21
“What’s the matter, Benny? Who do we have to save?”
Benny shook his head, sliding forward to the edge of the rear seat and juking his head from side to side, trying to get a better view out the windshield.
“Talk to us, Benny!” snapped Scott. “Communicate!”
“It’s…” Benny shook his head. “He’s got Tom Walton.” Without warning, Benny slumped back in the seat, thumping Shannon with his shoulder as he did so.
“Walton? The former police chief of Genosgwa?” asked Scott.
“Yes.”
Scott took the bend in Thomas Hill Road too fast, and the big car slewed through the gravel, digging furrows as it slid toward the edge of the road and the old cottonwood trees beyond.
“Who’s that?” asked Toby, pointing through the windshield.
“I haven’t been here in—” Greg squinted and leaned forward. “It can’t be,” he murmured. He gasped and straightened up, lifting an arm to point at the path leading toward the lake. “Demon!”
“Christ!” snapped Scott.
“Pull over!”
22
Brigitta sat in one of Shannon Bertram’s easy chairs, one leg over the arm of the chair kicking the air in a listless manner. On the ground before her, Chaz Welsh groveled and begged for mercy, but leniency had led them to that very moment, and she’d be damned before she’d compound one error with another more grievous one.
Across the room, Nicole Conrau stood, both sets of arms crossed under her breasts. Her wispy black wings made lazy circuits through the air as she watched Chaz writhe. Something about her demeanor irritated Brigitta.
“You’ve done well, Conrau, but it’s time for you to get back to work. Go see to the weapons. Get them distributed to—” She snapped her mouth shut and sprang to her feet, gazing west.
At her feet, Chaz sighed in relief as her attention focused elsewhere, but made no other movement.
“What is it?” asked Nicole.
“Can you fly?” Brigitta demanded, motioning at the shadows of wings on Nicole’s back.
Nicole nodded.
“Go across the street and take one of the new machine guns. Get to the house on Lake Genosgwa I told you about as fast as you can. I’ll send backup as I find them.”
Nicole sprang toward the door with another nod and a smile on her lips. She eschewed the steps and
leaped over the railing instead, gliding through the air at a speed much higher than her feebly flapping mist-wings should have achieved.
“Visage!” yelled Brigitta.
Nicole lifted one of her four hands to acknowledge the command.
Brigitta turned back to Chaz Welsh and kicked him. “On your feet, lizard!”
23
Mason plastered a smile on his face and lifted a hand in greeting toward the Cadillac. He walked along the edge of the lane, wearing his “I’m so neighborly” face. All four doors of the Cadillac swung outward at almost the same moment, and the trunk lid sprang open.
A man he’d never seen before got out of the driver’s side, and Mason recognized him as a cop in one glance. Behind him, a guy in bandages slid out of the car using the rear quarter panel for support, followed by another stranger. On the other side of the vehicle, a man and a woman got out—and the man was staring at Mason as if he could see through Mason’s act. Mason marked the man as someone who might need special attention if the encounter went south.
Mason stopped, stunned, when the last person exited the Cadillac. Even after twenty-one years, Mason recognized him right off. “Well, hello, Greggy!” he called with a laugh.
24
The man LaBouche had sent him to speak with walked past the space between the cottage and the lake house, but he didn’t so much as glance Dan Delo’s way—his gaze focused on something beyond the lake house.
Dan flapped his great wings and rose straight up between the two homes. He ascended until he could see past the roof of the lake house, then hovered, watching.
25
Greg got out of the car, his gaze riveted to the man walking toward them. It can’t be, he thought. How can he be here right at the exact moment I arrive after twenty-one years of absence? What are the odds?
“Well, hello, Greggy!” Mason called with a laugh.
Greg’s stomach tied itself in knots. The memory of Mason looking at his mother’s body and saying “Cool!” leaped unbidden to his mind. “Mason…”
“Oh, I’m honored you remember me after all these years.” Mason smiled, and it appeared to be a friendly smile, but Greg didn’t trust it. Not after that day in the woods.
The Hag Page 39
