Waking the Dead (15 page)

“Tell me one time anyone’s ever asked you for a knitting pattern.”

“I was speaking hypothetically,” John said with dignity. “And I can knit. My grandmother taught me. I made a scarf.” It wouldn’t have fit around the neck of one of his nieces’ dolls, but that was beside the point.

Nick was still grinning, his green eyes sparkling with it, and John couldn’t resist kissing him, a swift kiss that landed square on Nick’s mouth. He didn’t think he’d done that in front of Josh before, although Caitrin had certainly seen them -- and rolled her eyes over them, the cheeky brat. He didn’t care; the lift to his own spirits at seeing the worry gone from Nick’s eyes, if only fleetingly, demanded some expression.

“You’ll have to make me one,” Nick said. “You know, when this is over.” He seemed ready to go back to business almost immediately, which was a pity from John’s point of view, if understandable considering the circumstances. “So. I’ll go to the graveyard and see what I can do there -- the rest of you try to find Blayne and Toran. Fred.”

“I don’t like the idea of you being there alone,” John said. He might not be gifted -- or cursed -- the way Nick and Josh were, but he knew when something was sending shivers up his spine and the idea of Nick raising ghosts without him there to keep an eye on things was having that effect and more.

“I won’t be,” Nick said. “I’ll have plenty of company.”

“That’s worse.”

“Josh doesn’t know the island the way you do.” Nick was making sense, but it didn’t mean that John agreed with him.

“I know the island!” Caitrin said. “I could --”

“You’re not going after murderous spirits in my car,” John said, giving in to the inevitable. He’d seen Caitrin drive, and he’d sooner take his chances with the ghosts. If she was distracted into the bargain, there wouldn’t be an inch of paint left on the wings. “And Josh isn’t either. I’ll drive.” He put his hand on Nick’s arm, halting him as the other two began to walk toward the car. “Nick…”

“I will,” Nick told him. “I’ll be very careful.”

Chapter Twelve

After leaving Nick at the graveyard, John headed west with Caitrin and Josh in the backseat. The old Quinn farm was still accessible by car, but only just; the heather had grown up over the track leading to the farm, and a gate, the rotten wood splintered and dangerous, had fallen across it.

“He can’t be here,” Josh said. “That gate hasn’t been moved in years; look at the way the grass is tangled around it.”

“I see that, aye,” John said. “But I can also see tire tracks over there; he just went around.” He shook his head and put the car into first gear. “You youngsters are so law-abiding; give you a path and you’ll follow it and never think to stray off to the side.”

The heather and grass weren’t easy to drive on, as high and thick as they were, and the engine whined, the tires skidding, but John managed to get past the gate and drive up to the abandoned farmhouse.

“Wouldn’t he have seen it was empty and gone somewhere else?” Caitrin asked uncertainly.

John nodded at a car parked behind a barn; only its wing showed, but the paintwork gleamed. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“I don’t think they really understood how much has changed,” Josh said. “They saw the cars and the TV in the bar and all that, but Fred didn’t care about them and neither did I, so they accepted them.”

“Aye? Go on, lad,” John encouraged him, as he scanned the buildings ahead of him for a sign of his quarry.

Josh took a deep breath. “But this, this is different. They can -- they’ve got this sharp, clear picture in their heads of how it should look and it doesn’t and they’re bewildered and scared and --”

His voice rose as he spoke, high and sharp, and John twisted around in his seat. “You’re reading them, aren’t you?” he said, his own voice a near whisper. “You have to be. God, be careful, lad.”

“I can’t help it.” Josh sounded as if he was trying to hide how terrified he was, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it and John couldn’t blame him. “I can’t stop. It’s like -- I can’t shut them out. I’ve always been able to -- since I was just a kid, but now I can’t. They’re too…loud, I guess.”

“Maybe try to listen to one of us instead?” Caitrin suggested, but Josh shook his head.

“They remember what this place was supposed to look like, so much that they’re not totally convinced they’re at the right house. They know they should be, but it’s like…like when you’re dreaming, and you open up the door to your bedroom, only it leads somewhere else instead. They keep waiting to wake up.”

“Then they’re in for a nasty surprise,” John said grimly. “What do you think they’d do if I went after them? Any ideas?”

Josh closed his eyes. “They’re not afraid of us. They don’t think there’s anything we can do to them.” He opened his eyes again and looked at John. “I think they’re right. They’re too powerful. The front door was locked -- I don’t know how, after all these years, but all they had to do was touch it and it opened.”

“I hate to think what them touching one of us would do, then,” Caitrin said.

“Fry our brains,” Josh said. He swallowed dryly. “I -- I can’t hear anyone in there but them. Fred’s just… missing. Gone.”

“Hiding, maybe?” John suggested, praying it was that way and knowing it most likely wasn’t.

“If he is, he’s doing it really well,” Josh said. “I read him before, just a bit, in the pub, and he had -- he -- it was
tidy
in there. Neat and open and tidy, and there wasn’t anywhere to hide because he just wasn’t that kind of person, you know?”

Josh sounded on the verge of tears; John didn’t blame him in the slightest, but he could remember enough of that age to know that the last person a boy wanted to be crying in front of was a pretty girl he fancied. Or, in John’s case, his childhood friend Michael, all muscles and grin and making his mouth water every time that grin was turned his way. He spared that younger version of him a thought and then set about rescuing Josh.

“We’ll find him in there when those two are kicked out,” he said firmly enough to make it clear how he stood on the matter. “He’s not a fighter, the way we are. Now, any ideas how we get them to the graveyard?”

“I have one.” Josh was looking in the direction of the farmhouse, but his eyes were much farther away than that. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Ten minutes later -- a good five of which had been spent arguing -- John and Josh were on the porch, creeping closer to the front door, which was very nearly closed but not latched. Caitrin, left behind the wheel of the car with strict instructions not to follow them under any circumstances, had agreed to go after Nick if anything went wrong.

Which John had to admit, to himself, at least, seemed fairly likely.

Josh nodded at him and straightened his shoulders before pushing the door open a few more inches. “Blayne?” he called. His voice was shaky. “Toran? It’s me, Joshua. Can we -- I think we need to talk.”

There was a sound very similar to a snort. John wondered what the two of them were thinking right then. At least Josh would know -- that had to help.

“We’re coming in,” John told them, and stepped in before Josh could.

It was dark inside. The house had never been more than minimally wired for electricity, and it had been abandoned long enough that John doubted the power would have worked even if it had been turned on. Fred, no, Toran and Blayne -- God, this was confusing -- was standing at the far end of the room near the fireplace, hands in his pockets.

“Get out of here,” he said.

“No, I don’t think we’re going to do that,” John said. “Not when it means leaving you both alone to do God knows what.”

“God doesn’t know.” The brothers were smiling and speaking from a single mouth, but John could still tell that the two of them were in there. It was enough to make his skin crawl. “But we do.”

“Come with us,” John urged them. “Nick -- and don’t bother to insult him or me, because I doubt you’ll come up with anything I haven’t heard before; the island’s not changed that much -- Nick can help you. It’s what he does.”

“And where do you suppose we’ll go?” The bitterness in their voices burned like flame. “I think we’ve cheated the devil for too long for him to let us go now.”

“What did you do that was so bad?” Josh was a comfortingly solid shape at John’s side, not Nick, no, but carrying with him something of his brother’s strength. The lad was young, but John trusted Josh to keep his head; he’d proven himself today. “You didn’t kill your mother --”

They laughed, the sound no less bitter than their words. “No, but we… we were men. We stole, sometimes, yes, we did, and we fought and men died of their wounds, maybe, but we were long gone, so who knows how many women we left weeping for their men.”

“Fighting isn’t murder,” Josh said. “It was -- it was different then.” He frowned. “You know that.” His voice grew in certainty. “You don’t feel guilty about a few fights. It’s what you did after you were dead. To the villagers.”

“What
did
you do?” John asked, unable to help himself. The legend had always been vague on that point, which had made it doubly scary. “The story goes that you rose from the cave and hunted, got the villagers from their beds, and ran them ragged until they were found in the dawn, dead and a scream still caught in their throats.”

“Sounds more like they did it to themselves,” Josh said shrewdly. “Guilt and imagination and they made themselves believe they were being chased.”

The brothers sneered at him. “So quick to explain, to make it simple. Is that what this world has become? A place where nothing exists but what can be felt? Well, know this, Joshua, brother to abomination, they felt our hands on them, ice-cold and wet from the water. They felt our fingers squeeze and snap their bones; they felt the chill of the cave seep into their marrow. We froze them, plunged them into the darkness we were in and let them drown in it, choke on it. And we’re not done, no, not even close.”

John grabbed Josh’s arm and tugged him back, away from the advancing horror of the meek, neatly dressed man whose eyes were drained of all but hatred and despair. He wasn’t sure if Josh had any attention to spare for him, but with everything he had, he broadcast a single thought.

Run
.

The wooden boards of the old farm porch creaked and gave under their heels as they ran. Behind them, John knew that the brothers were taking their time in following, which was somehow all the more terrifying.

“They know,” Josh said, breath heaving as they reached the car. “They know how easy it’ll be to kill us, they
know
 --”

“Go!” John fairly shouted it at the startled Caitrin, who despite their earlier agreement had barely managed to start up the car when they’d appeared on the porch. “Go! Go!”

She put the car into reverse and pressed the pedal all the way to the floor. Dust and pebbles rattled against the undercarriage as the tires fought for purchase; Caitrin flicked the headlights on almost as an afterthought, and the sudden flare caught Fred’s eyes as he paused at the top of the steps, making them glow almost maniacally for the briefest instant. Then the man was moving again, running to his own car with an unnatural speed that made John’s heart leap into his throat.

“Faster,” he urged Caitrin, who threw him a disbelieving glance.

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Her hands were clenched on the wheel. “I’m going to destroy your bloody car!”

“I don’t care about the
car
,” John growled, which told him as surely as anything how serious the situation was. “Just get us out of here!”

The car lurched as the tires hit the road; Caitrin spun the wheel, trying to get them turned around to face forward, then shifted into drive. John turned his head to look back at Fred’s car, which was just starting to move.

No time to get the other two to safety; whatever happened, they were all in this together.

“We’re going to the graveyard?” Josh had scrambled into the back seat without protest; he hadn’t got his seatbelt on, though and he was wedged between the two front seats, talking into John’s ear. “To Nick?”

“Aye.” A thought struck John. “Can you tell him? Warn him, I mean?”

“I can try,” Josh said. “Last time, though, it was life or death --”

The car behind them rammed into them, making Caitrin shriek and John’s car quiver and jerk with the impact.

“Get your bloody seatbelt on,” John growled. “I don’t want the last I see of you to be your head going through the windscreen. And I’d say this qualifies as life or death, wouldn’t you?”

“What happened?” Caitrin’s teeth were clenched. “Did they do something to you in there?”

“We talked,” John said, deliberately brief in his response.

“And?” She took a corner in a wild screech of tires, sending small stones from the road flying around them before they hailed down on the front of the car.
“And?”

“Don’t yell in my ear,” John said irritably. “And watch that -- oh, my God, you hit one of
Duncan
’s sheep!”

Josh turned to look. “It’s okay,” he reported. “It’s eating grass already. I think she just hit a pothole. But they’re really close; can’t we go faster?”

“If you don’t tell me what they said --” Caitrin was breathing hard now, her face flushed with temper and agitation.

“Put it this way, love --” John braced himself against the dashboard. “I believed them. And that’s why we got the hell out of there. Now stop talking and get us to your uncle, will you? And, Josh, if you can’t do whatever it is you do --” He fumbled in his pocket and took out his cell phone. “Use this instead.”

There was near silence from the back seat for a moment or two, then Josh, phone still pressed to his ear, said, “He’s not answering.”

“Of course he’s not.” John was doing his best to keep his eyes on both the road and Caitrin at the same time. “Why would he want to do a thing like that, when it’s what we agreed to?”

“I think Fred hit something, too,” Josh reported. “A rock, I don’t know. He swerved. He’s a little farther back now, at least.”

“Uncle John!” The frantic quality in Caitrin’s voice drew John’s attention from the rear windscreen. “People!”