The Truth of All Things (49 page)

Lean glanced up and saw Grey sitting perfectly upright, but with his eyes closed. A small smile had settled on the man’s lips. “I still think it’s odd,” Lean said. “We’re just days from the new moon, and yet he’s chosen to break off from the lunar cycle that he’s followed all these months.”

“The bicentennial anniversary of his master’s death is what is crucial to the ritual. The introductory statement of the Black Book retrieved by Mrs. Prescott at Harvard spoke of the ritual being performed on the cycle of the master’s betrayal and death. It is clear that, for some reason, our man has selected George Burroughs for the role of his master, and so we are heading to the very spot of that man’s execution precisely two hundred years after the day of the event. Our man’s grand finale.”

“I know, I know.” Lean’s mind wandered back to all the writings he had examined in the past month, searching for something to solidly refute Grey’s theory, but he could summon nothing. It seemed the final murder would occur tonight, far away from Portland, in old Salem, at a place that had once served as the gallows for a deluded and merciless gathering of souls. He turned again to the page and saw that this entry contained a commentary by Helen.

Lean looked up, a light dawning on him. “Burroughs’s last words were the Lord’s Prayer. That’s where our man is getting that bit from.”

Grey’s eyes remained closed, but he nodded. “The Puritans believed it was impossible for one in league with Satan to utter the prayer without stumbling and revealing themselves.”

“But Burroughs did recite it perfectly?”

“Only to have that fact used by Cotton Mather as the final proof of how powerfully Burroughs was aligned with the devil.” Grey opened his eyes and almost smiled. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

“So our killer sides with Mather and against reason. Burroughs’s recitation is proof he exceeds the power of other witches. And our man repeats the prayer in these murders, invoking Burroughs’s own last words, but he does it in Abenaki because the Indians were Burroughs’s allies, in league with Satan. So he’s making it a mockery of the Lord’s Prayer.”

“Something like that, I suppose,” Grey said before closing his eyes again.

Lean fought off the urge to sit there contemplating the madness of
the man they were chasing. It was a path that could lead him nowhere useful. He had to stay in the realm of reason and practicality, focusing only on the facts that lay in front of them.

“What about McCutcheon?” Lean asked. “Any further contact?”

“He’s already there, learning what he can of the area around this Gallows Hill and spying out the best location for our vigil. He was never able to get any explanation from the asylum staff as to Geoffrey Blanchard’s sudden unavailability for visits. He’ll check the local hotels.”

Lean nodded. McCutcheon gave them an extra pair of eyes and a steady hand with a gun. He was more than a little grateful for that news. It would be dark, and they’d be on treacherous, unfamiliar footing and facing a man who had already killed at least three people while leaving little trace of himself. Lean’s hand slipped inside his coat and rested for a moment on the grip of his Colt. Then he focused on his final page until the words began to sink into his mind.

Lean looked out the window and let his eyes drift over the world. The train sped past as scenes of everyday life unfolded at their normal pace. After a few moments, he reached over and drew down the window shade.

N
ine hours later, Lean sat pressed up against a granite outcropping. The rumble of his stomach made him regret the way he’d forced down his supper of bangers and mash at the station when they met Walt McCutcheon to go over the plan once more. The sun was well gone, and a thin sliver of moon was just visible on the horizon. After half a minute of peering at his pocketwatch, he made out that it was almost ten o’clock. His knees ached from sitting motionless for so long, and he slowly set about stretching each leg several times. He held his revolver eight inches from his nose and checked for the third time that each round was loaded, then slipped the piece back into his coat pocket and glanced at the craggy summit of Gallows Hill. From this distance it would be almost impossible to see anyone up there. But if their theory was correct, a murder attempted there tonight would involve fire, and any flame would be visible to him the moment it was lit.

He listened in the darkness to the occasional noises that carried up from the town. In the lulls, only the sounds of night breezes and crickets reached him. Grey was somewhere off to his right, maybe a hundred yards away, also watching the hilltop. McCutcheon was posted near the bottom of the northern side of the hill, the point of easiest access or escape from the higher ground.

As he crouched, waiting for the unknown, Lean’s mind began to wander, carried along on the ebb and flow of dark minutes stretching into one another, indistinguishable and endless. He thought of his wife and the little life she carried inside her.

Scrape.

His head bolted up. A definite noise on top of the hill. He squinted into the blackness. The weak crescent moon was half hidden by clouds. Lean slid his hand into his pocket and felt the cool wooden grip of his pistol. He got his feet firmly under him and listened like a robber with his ear against a safe.

Creak. A wooden noise—movement.

It was hard to judge the distance to the summit, maybe sixty yards, but it was over rocks and crags in utter darkness. Moving quickly would be dangerous, but opening his lamp would make himself a blazing target. There was still no sign of any definite motion. No light on the hill, no flame or even a spark. A loud thwack broke the stillness with no hint of regret. It was followed by three more identical sounds: something heavy striking home on wood or rock. Lean dashed forward, pistol drawn. The shuttered lamp dangled awkwardly from his left wrist as he fought to keep his balance while scrambling up the rocky slope. He tried to listen as he went, but the sounds of his own efforts made it hard to discern what was transpiring in front of him.

There was definite activity, a burst of frantic movement. He could make out at least one dark shape moving ahead. A few more strides and he came to within twenty yards of his goal. He paused, pistol aimed into the blackness. The moon came free of the clouds, and in the faint light he saw a figure before him, upright, arms outstretched.

“Move an inch and I’ll scatter your brains all over this hill,” Lean warned. The figure remained still, and Lean began to move closer. “Grey? You there?”

There was no answer.

Lean stepped to within ten yards of the figure. “You’ve got it, mister. Nice and still.” He slid the lantern down off his wrist so that he could hold the loop handle in his left hand. With his right, still aiming the pistol, he reached forward and flicked the shutter open. In the beam of light, he could finally see that the person before him was a dark-haired man. His arms were straight out at his sides, but the hands were empty and hanging limp. The man’s head was tilted slightly to one side, as if he were awaiting further instructions.

Lean moved forward, and by the time he was ten feet away, he recognized the man: Geoffrey Blanchard.

“Grey? Where are you? I’ve got him. Grey!”

Lean stared at the man as the seconds passed with no answer. It dawned on him how very still his prisoner was. He moved closer, then reached forward and gave Blanchard a little shove. The man’s head slipped backward and farther to the side, revealing a deep red gash that stretched full across his neck.

“Bloody hell.” Lean stepped to one side and craned his own neck, now noticing the short post to which Blanchard had been lashed and the thin crossbeam that supported the dead man’s outstretched arms.

“Grey?” A burgeoning panic raised his voice to a shout.

A gunshot answered him from the bottom of the hill.

Lean bounded down the rocky slope, barely noticing how uneven the ground was. Over the sound of his own gasps, he could hear nothing other than a train whistle, still distant but drawing closer. The thought that the killer was fleeing into a populated town and that he might now manage an escape spurred Lean on. Halfway down, he found something of a path and barreled headlong the rest of the way. Once at the bottom, he dashed across a narrow field of scraggy, overgrown grass to reach the edge of the town. He passed by some small workshops and storehouses and soon had cobblestones under his feet.

He slowed his pace in order to get his bearings when another shot rang out, then a second following hard after. They were in front of him, slightly to his left. He ran forward again for a few blocks, passing into a residential neighborhood. He rounded a corner and saw two figures huddled not far from a streetlamp. With his gun lowered to his side, Lean hurried forward.

Perceval Grey glanced up at Lean’s approach. Grey was supporting Walt McCutcheon’s head with one arm. McCutcheon was breathing hard, almost hissing. As he moved closer, Lean saw that McCutcheon’s coat was open, and the handkerchief pressed to his side didn’t fully hide the dark stain on his shirt.

“How bad?”

“I don’t think it’s too serious,” answered Grey.

“Easy for you to say.” McCutcheon managed a smile that instantly gave way to a pained grimace. Large beads of sweat had risen on his forehead.

“We should—” Lean’s suggestion was interrupted by the approaching train’s whistle.

“Go after the dirty little prick? You damn well should!” Spittle flew from McCutcheon’s lips. “I’ll be well enough.”

Faces had appeared in windows and doors. Lean called out, identifying himself as a police officer. He ordered one man to come attend McCutcheon while another was sent for a doctor. Then he and Grey hurried on through the streets in pursuit. Two blocks on, a voice called out to them from a second-story window.

“That way!” said a man, pointing. “He was headed toward the station.”