RAVEN'S HOLLOW (10 page)

“Weather’s a crapshoot once summer’s done.” She regarded the endless stretch of darkness ahead. “Molly’s in love with Ty.”

He allowed himself a brief smile. “Yeah, got that one from Orley. Six-inch heels. Ink spill on the sidewalk.”

“Molly uses red ink and a raven’s quill to do the place cards for her séances. She thinks it’s more authentic.”

“It’s bizarre.”

“Molly’s a deep person, Eli, unlike—look out!”

He spied the glint of metal as she did and swung the truck into a wide arc. Not in time to avoid the obstruction, he realized instantly. The entire vehicle shuddered, then began to lurch. He glimpsed a five-foot boulder and heard a screech as the back end scraped across the rock face and sent them stuttering toward the edge of the ravine.

He didn’t think, just grabbed Sadie’s hand and helped her climb over the stick shift. “With me.”

They jumped together from the still-rolling truck. Eli made sure she landed on top of him, then lost his grip and half slid, half tumbled over mud and weeds and slime. He flew through an air pocket and finally came to rest in a patch of cattails.

Between the wind in the trees and the thrum of blood in his ears, he needed a moment to get his mind and body back in sync. He took half of that moment and rolled onto his stomach. “Sadie?”

“Are we dead?”

Her voice came from the right. Working himself to his knees, Eli fought to steady his thoughts. Through the hair that dripped in his eyes, he caught a movement. When he pushed upright, however, the entire mud hole tilted. “Where are you?”

“I never want to do that again.” The movement he’d noted became a squelch of wet weeds. “I can hear you, Eli, but all I see is mud and black.”

On his feet now—not quite sure how he pulled it off with his muscles reduced to rubber—he made his way over to her, then lowered himself to a crouch and inspected her face. “Anything broken?”

“Other than my skull and tailbone, no. Or—I might have twisted my knee.” She used both hands to swipe the hair from her eyes. “What in living hell did we hit back there?”

He glanced up. “It looked like a spike strip. Blew all four tires simultaneously.”

“Spikes. In the middle of the road. Why?”

“Someone wanted to impede us, I imagine.”

“Impede or impale. I thought...” She halted, swiveled her head. “Damn. Damn! We’re in the bog, aren’t we? Those spikes were only a few feet past the place where the pine tree came down. This is where we found Laura’s body!”

Wrapping the fingers of one hand around the back of her neck, Eli stared into her eyes. “You’re not going to get hysterical on me, are you?”

“Not sure. Maybe.”

“Better if it could wait until we’re out of here.”

Little shivers ran through her, but she held his gaze in the faint wash of moonlight. “Where’s your truck?”

“Probably ass up in the bog.”

“Okay, well, you had to figure. At least we know the way out on foot. Or we did twenty years ago.”

“Let’s hope nothing’s changed.” He scoped the shadows that appeared to be multiplying around them. “Fog’s rolling in.”

“That’s not possible.” She plucked leaves from her hair. “There can’t be fog when there’s...” Pausing, she raised her eyes. “Where did the wind go?”

“Good question. Can you stand?”

“Stand, no problem. Walk, we’ll see. Eli, wait.” She tapped a fingernail lightly to his wrist. “We’re being watched.”

“Felt it. But watched isn’t the problem.”

“Of course not. That would be too simple.” She was bending to examine her knee when a lethal-looking shaft whizzed over her head. “Uh...”

“Stay down, Sadie.” Placing himself in front of her, Eli reached for his gun. “That was a crossbow arrow.”

“Someone’s using a crossbow at night?”

“Yeah.” Eli held his gun barrel up. “Looks like the monster wants to hunt.”

Chapter Thirteen

Every shadow became a monster to Sadie. Fighting through her fear, she sketched a quick mental map of Raven’s Bog. Trouble was, with the exception of her recurring nightmares, she hadn’t ventured deep into these woods since she was seven. And back then, no one had been shooting arrows at her with frightening skill and accuracy.

Eli pulled her to the ground several times as they ran. With good reason, she realized, as arrows began to embed themselves chest high in the tree trunks.

“Avoid the direct moonlight,” he said from behind. “And don’t trip.”

A hiss formed. Of all the things he could have said, that was the least helpful. How could she not trip on a path bulging with roots from a bunch of gnarly old trees that reminded her of the faceless mob from her nightmare?

“Stop.” Catching her shoulders, Eli halted her so abruptly her feet almost shot out from under her. “Behind the stump.”

Sadie landed on her sore knee but didn’t cry out. Instead, she strained to separate shadow from substance behind them.

Ground fog slunk through the rocks, slithered out of crevices and crawled up over the marsh vines. A few leaves rustled in the high branches, but otherwise the woods had gone silent. Unless she counted the drumbeat that was her heart, hammering against her ribs. Because that sound could drown out a rock band.

“Give me something,” Eli invited their pursuer. “Put one damn foot wrong.”

The moon disappeared behind thin fingers of cloud. Far in the distance, a frog croaked. Then another. And a third.

“Any chance you could shut them up?” Eli asked her.

“Is it possible they’re communicating because the danger’s gone?”

“Only in cartoons, Sadie. Someone who lays down a spike strip and follows up with a crossbow isn’t likely to go away. Did you see anything before the first arrow flew past?”

She shook her head, and would have preferred not to think beyond that, except... “Military troops use crossbows to detonate land mines, right? Eli, Ty was in the military.”

“Means nothing. Brady and I were competitive marksmen in high school archery.”

“And many of the local residents are hunters, or come from hunting backgrounds.”

Eli made a slow visual circle. “Don’t discount the spike strip that landed us here, either.”

“Who’d own...? Ah, Cal Kilgore.”

“Man forges metal products.” He nodded through the trees. “There. Someone moved. Looks like he’s keeping his distance and circling.”

Sadie’s throat muscles tightened. “In that case, shouldn’t we be leaving?”

“Ten seconds.”

She tried not to grind her teeth. “If we head west, there’s a cave that climbs up to the road. My great-grandfather took me through it when I was six.”

“Knee okay to stand?”

“As I will, so mote it be.” She worked up a humorless smile. “Means I’ll take pain over death.”

It also meant staying low and not disturbing the ground cover.

With only the occasional moonbeam to guide them, Sadie would have missed the cave if she hadn’t spotted the haunted tree. The old oak was massive and had probably died before she’d been born. Yet it continued to stand, a home for ravens and, many believed, Hezekiah in his transformed state.

Like a wizard casting his spells, two large branches stretched upward, leaving the smaller limbs at the top to spread and curl like claws. There was even a black oval where a face might have been.

They had to backtrack twenty yards to locate the overgrown cave entrance.

“I’d sacrifice a year’s pay for a flashlight,” Sadie whispered once they’d wedged themselves inside. “Even a jarful of fireflies would help.”

“In that case, you’ll be pleased to hear I smoked until last summer.”

“You have a lighter?”

“Yeah. Not sure how much juice it has left, though. Feel around the ground for a dry branch, the thinner the better.”

“Lovely,” she said, but took a bolstering breath, shoved up her sleeves and explored the ground with him.

“I should have grabbed an arrow,” she muttered. “Except they’re made of metal, not wood, aren’t they? Taking us right back to Cal.”

“He’s reclimbing the list.”

“Wouldn’t he also be signing his name?”

“Some criminals think the most likely suspect becomes the least likely suspect in the eyes of the police,” Eli said.

“Why?”

“No idea. Most likely’s most likely. Investigators don’t play games.”

“Good to know. But staying in the criminal mind-set, who’s the least likely suspect? Other than Rooney, who doesn’t count because—well, duh.”

“I thought you’d figure Ty for least likely.”

“And I figured Ty was a given from your perspective.... Oh, wait. I found something.”

She handed him a two-foot-long twig. “Six of one,” she murmured. “Either we stumble along in the dark and risk breaking a leg, or we risk having whoever’s after us see the flame.”

Thankfully, no arrows flew out of the dark, and Sadie prayed all the crunching footsteps she heard belonged to them. Then she turned a corner, walked into a spiderweb and spent the next minute trying to keep the scream that leaped into her throat from escaping.

It frustrated her that she also had to battle a strong urge to grab Eli’s gun and start firing into the shadows behind them.

“Don’t think so hard, Sadie,” Eli advised. “You’ll only mess up your mind more than it already is. You need to focus on putting one foot in front of the other until we’re out of here.”

She trudged another fifty yards up the sloping ground before deciding to hell with it and declaring over her shoulder, “I want to have sex with you, Eli.”

Snagging the belt of her trench coat, he drew her to a halt and lowered his mouth to her ear. “Say that again, sweetheart, this time without the underlying threat of you turning me into a lizard if my answer isn’t to your liking.”

Pushing the burning twig he held to one side, she turned to face his glittering eyes. “I want to have sex with you, Eli, when we’re out of this cave, out of the hollow and somewhere, anywhere, warm and safe and dry.” Even knowing her timing was way off, she pressed her hips to the front of his jeans. “I don’t want to die, but even more than that, I don’t want to die and never know what it would have been like to make love with you.”

She saw the glitter deepen. “I’d want to make love to you even with the threat of life as a lizard hanging over my head.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, then rose. “No matter what my form, though, Sadie, I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Capturing her chin, he grazed her lips with his and added a soft “Especially not me.”

* * *

“K
ISSING
ME
,
THEN
GOING
all enigmatic cop isn’t going to get you out of explaining what you meant.” Sadie ducked under a rough protrusion and immediately had her face slapped by an embedded weed. “You’ll also never convince me that you’re a threat to my life, so—oh, good, there’s the opening—if you’re not into sex, just say so and we’ll leave it at that.”

“Find a foothold” was all he said, and gave her a boost from behind. “When you reach the exit, move aside and let me go first.”

He had the gun, he was the cop—it made sense. But Sadie was irked enough to say nothing while he pushed through the underbrush and took a long look around.

“We’re about a mile south of the bog,” he revealed when he returned. “Maybe a hundred yards from the road.”

Using an elastic band from the pocket of her trench, she secured her hair. “That would put us midway between the Cove and the Hollow. Do we flip a coin?”

“Anyone we want to talk to should be down at Two Toes Joe’s Bar.”

“The Cove it is. Eli.” She caught his arm. “Once we’re on the road, we’re exposed. The wind blew most of the clouds away, and the fog’s not thick enough to obscure the moon.”

“Which is why you’ll be carrying my backup and trying to reach Ty on your cell phone.”

She took the gun and pulled her iPhone from her pocket. A rueful smile appeared when the screen lit up. “Second duh of the night. We could have used this as a light source in the cave.”

“Fire worked well enough. If we’d killed your battery, there’d have been no way for us to call for help later.”

“You didn’t think of it, either, huh?”

He sent her a distant grin. “Other things on my mind, sweetheart.”

It felt as if the night wanted to close in around them. Sadie slammed a firm lid on the more insidious aspects of her dream. No point making everything worse. If anything could be worse.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she said as they approached the narrow strip of road. “I can hear your mind clicking, but I can’t read it.”

“Oh, I imagine you could if you tried.”

“You kissed me to shut me up.”

“Skip ahead, Sadie.”

“Any of those dozen or so arrows we avoided in the bog could have hit you as easily as me. More easily, in fact, because you were shielding me.”

“Which I’ll do every time, so lose the accusing tone and stay on track.”

She tapped the phone screen with her thumb, glanced behind them. “Obsessed person transforms into monster. Monster’s pissed at me for—what? Not understanding his message?”

“Go with that.”

“He’s also pissed at you for coming to the Hollow and getting in his way. So he’s decided to eliminate both of us for his—host?”

“Good a description as any.”

“Once we’re gone, the monster retreats, the host mourns and soon enough, life resumes its normal rhythm.” She ran the idea a few times. “Going back to Laura, and assuming Cal’s not the killer, that could explain why he’s not dead. He and Laura broke up. He ceased to be a problem. The monster set his sights on Laura alone. Am I babbling?”

“A little. It’s better than freaking.”

Following his lead, she glanced into the darkness behind them. “Why do we keep looking over our shoulders?”

“Someone’s back there.”

Her fingers tightened on her phone. “I was really hoping that was my imagination.”

“Keep calling, Sadie.”

“I can walk, talk and check an i-screen at the same time. It’s a dead zone until we begin the descent into the—whoa—Cove!” With no forewarning, she found herself airborne as Eli tackled her into a ditch. “What now?” she demanded, climbing off him.

“Gleam of metal. Keep quiet.”

She obliged and listened. And, dammit, heard footsteps. Stealthy footsteps, squishing on the shoulder.

“How far back does this ditch run?” Eli asked.

“Maybe fifty yards. Wait.” She gripped his wrist. “He’s stopped.”

“Noticed.” Pivoting, he took hold of her arms. “I need you to stay right here.”

“While you walk into an arrow? Because you know that’s what he wants....” She trailed off, raised her head. “I hear a car. No, a truck. It’s coming from the Cove.”

To her relief—and, she suspected, Eli’s annoyance—the engine grew louder. When the fog lamps came into view, he hoisted himself from the ditch and flagged the driver down with his badge.

The man who stopped was a farmer named Ray. Their weapons didn’t faze him, but one look at her, covered in mud and sludge, with leaves and bark clinging to her hair, had his thick eyebrows winging up and laughter gurgling in his throat. Until she gave him the short version of their story. Then he reached behind him for a rifle.

“You and me could take a walk,” he said around her to Eli.

“Do you have a night-vision scope?”

“Three of ’em.” He scratched his throat. “Sorry to say, they’re at home.”

“Would it matter if they weren’t?” Sadie turned to Eli. “The guy was behind us. He’ll know we got a ride. He also knows the area, because I didn’t hear him behind us in the cave. Every witchy sense I possess tells me that he and his crossbow have vanished into the night. We can drive slowly, keep an eye open for anything suspicious, but you know it’s done for now. We’re safe, and he’s gone. We should be grateful for small—well, okay, big—favors.”

Eli scanned the road. “Big and small are relative terms, Sadie. Small picture, we’re safe for the moment. Big one, the killer’s still out there. And we have no idea who he is or where he’ll surface again. The only thing we can be sure of is that his homicidal alter ego won’t stop until it does what it came out of hibernation to do.”

* * *

H
E
WOKE
UP
facedown on the bathroom floor, with the shower running and the spray gone icy. Every part of his body ached, but his head most of all. Crawling to the tub, he prayed the cold water would shock some clarity into his brain.

Even with the haze dispersing, he couldn’t remember the night. He knew he’d opened a can of beans for dinner, thought he’d eaten most of them, plus coffee and a few stale cookies. But that’s where it ended. His mind went blank after the first bite of gingersnap.

Okay, back up. He’d been tired. He’d drifted off. Then what? What grim horror had unfolded while he slept?

His palms felt damp. The skin on his neck prickled. It wasn’t morning yet, not quite. First light was coming, but slowly, like the panic that was starting to pitch and roll inside him.

“What did I do?” he whispered to the walls. “What did we do?”

The bathroom held no answers, so he shut off the water and grabbed a towel when he left.

There was no sign of blood. Maybe it wasn’t too terrible. Swallowing the grit in his throat, he moistened his lips. He should contact Sadie. Yes, he needed to stay calm and ascertain her status.

Ascertain her status? Whose thought was that? And why couldn’t he remember?

Feeling like a man after a weekend drunk, he walked with his face buried in the towel. When he walked into a table, he lowered his hands and forced his bleary eyes to travel from point to point in the room. Chair to window. Window to floor. Floor to door.

When they stopped, so did his heart, for several long seconds. Then it started to gallop.

He stared, sweat dribbling, at the entryway, at the shoes he wore for special occasions. And the layers of green-brown mud that coated them.