But what? Talking to animals wasn’t going to help. Neither would the laying on of hands. Not for the first time I wished for a more active—i.e., destructive—power.
In the air above me a face appeared. As if made from the air, or perhaps behind it, trying to get out.
I blinked. It was still there. In fact, it was more there, and I recognized it.
Roland McHugh was trying to push his way out from wherever he had been the last four hundred years.
Help! I scream-thought. I’m at Revelation Point. Please come.
I had no idea who I was talking to, but oddly … it felt right.
The wind, or the wolves, picked up again. They sounded closer. They sounded here.
Though I didn’t want to take my eyes off Jeremy and his knife, nor the creepy Roland-face that expanded and retreated from the air above me, I had to see if I was right.
I turned my head just as the first wolf emerged from the trees.
* * *
They weren’t two miles out of town when a storm descended. Wind and rain slammed into the vehicle. Thunder shook the earth. Lightning split the navy sky, tossing silvery sparkles across the herd of now drenched wolves.
“That’s weird,” Cassandra said.
“Storms come up.” Franklin shrugged. “They gotta start somewhere.”
She glanced out the back window. “Huh.”
Everyone but Bobby, who was driving, followed her gaze. Behind them, the sun shone from a cloudless sky. In front of them, the moon played hide-and-seek with the storm.
“Henry,” Raye said. “Knock it off.”
“Henry’s doing that?” Owen asked.
“He says no.”
“But he could?” Owen clarified. “If he wanted to?”
“He has the power to influence the weather.”
“But you can’t?” Cassandra asked, and Raye shook her head. “Becca?”
“Not that I know of.” Raye faced front. “If she isn’t, our other sister must be doing it.”
Bobby glanced at her then back at the road. “What does that mean?”
“No clue.”
“Can we focus on one sister at a time?” Owen pointed ahead as the wolves turned in a graceful sweep onto a dirt road.
Bobby slowed to follow, then slowed even more and switched the car into four-wheel drive to make it up the now-muddy incline.
“This is Revelation Point,” Owen said. “Used to be make-out central.”
“Why would the Venatores Mali come here?” Cassandra wondered. “Is there a rock altar?”
“Not that I remember, but—” He shrugged. “I wasn’t looking for that the last time I was here.”
The last time he’d been here he’d been looking for the unlock mechanism on Becca’s bra. As he recalled, she’d ended up unlocking it for him.
The car shimmied and ground to a halt. Bobbie shifted into four-wheel low. The tires spun and he slammed it into park. “We can try and get unstuck.”
Owen opened the door and stepped into the mud. “Or we can run.”
He didn’t wait for them to climb out; he took off on his own. The road was washed out. The trail led uphill. He slid backward nearly as much as he moved forward. Finally he stepped into the woods, where the trees had blocked some of the rain, and the leaves on the ground and the roots and the pine needles gave him some traction.
It seemed like an hour—but was probably only a few minutes—before he reached the edge of the trees and saw two people upright, one on the ground.
His chest tightened when he recognized Becca prostrate, loosened a bit as he identified Chief Deb, then contracted when he saw the athame in Reitman’s hand. He and Deb were not only naked but chanting in a foreign language. That couldn’t be good.
The wolves formed a semicircle, quivering as if waiting for an order, a signal, a treat. Then the earth shook, the heavens spilled lightning, and the storm stopped as quickly as it had begun. All seemed frozen, shrouded. Each living thing held its breath.
The others burst from the trees behind him. The wolves surged forward. Owen shouted, “Becca!”
Her gaze met his; her lips formed: Owen.
And the athame plunged into her chest.
Chapter 28
In the midst of the darkness there was light, and I went toward it. I was a step away from going into it when someone called my name.
The man who emerged from the gloom to stand with me at the edge of that light was dressed in black, hat to boot. His hair was dark; his eyes were too. I’d seen him once before.
“Henry,” I said.
He had Raye’s eyes. Or she had his.
“Mo leanabh,” he murmured, his voice bringing to mind the misty lochs of a Scotland I’d never