Then she slipped away. The blonde woman was gone.
And he had no idea if she had been real, if she had been the beautiful young woman he had seen at the rite he had attended...
Or if she was a result of his mind.
The mind he seemed to be losing.
He was alive! He was still alive. That was something that he had to cling to.
Rest, she had told him. Whether she was real, or a creature he created to combat his fear, she had told him to rest, to be careful.
There was a bandage on his arm. As he tried to sit up and found that he was ridiculously dizzy, he thought he knew what they had done.
They had taken his blood! He was alive...but they had taken his blood!
*
They really could have headed out that night; they were only talking about a drive of about an hour and a half, including traffic.
But they decided they would leave bright and early the following morning. The state police had continued to search the Quabbin, but as yet found nothing. Officers would meet up with them by the water the next morning at ten at the landing that would allow them closest access.
Rocky and Devin had taken Vickie home, but Griffin had stayed with Barnes and returned to the station, going over what they knew—and what they didn’t.
Barnes had finally shaken his head in frustration and left; Griffin was about to do the same, but he hesitated, just going over it all one more time.
It had to be a matter of time before they found out what was going on. Whoever was running this operation had to be crazy—and crazy eventually would make a mistake.
Soon enough, they had to be found out. Because there had to be a place where they were congregating, where they were carrying out their rites. And somewhere along the line, they had to find that place, especially since they were all searching for the same thing.
Jehovah.
The brutal beating attacks had started a month ago, Alex the first victim. He’d been in the hospital for over a week; his name had been on TV screens, in newspapers and magazines and constantly online. Everything had been known about Alex Maple. Most importantly, the fact that few people alive, even his superiors at his college, knew more about Massachusetts history, from colony days to commonwealth.
Then the other attacks had occurred: on the young woman in Beacon Hill, a man in Brookline and, finally, the other night, the woman in Hyde Park.
Apparently, the next step had been the kidnapping of Alex Maple, and the next night, the fourth brutal attack—and the suicide by Darryl Hillford when Griffin caught up with him. Then the blood had been thrown on Vickie, and they had found out that the blood had belonged to Helena Matthews, who had gone missing just about six weeks earlier.
Was Helena dead or alive?
Who was the woman Vickie kept seeing? Could it be poor Missy Prior, murdered centuries ago? Or a victim of the 1800s or the 1970s? Was she Sheena Petrie, found on the bank with the Satanist words written in the earth, or was she Helena?
And what the hell did Audrey Benson have to do with it? Or the singing duo who weren’t really from Athol?
Was Vickie right? Could an esteemed professor have gone so deeply into history that he had traded his soul and sanity for a vision of Dante Alighieri’s hell?
He had no answers.
Griffin stood in the conference room at the police station and stared at the wall that was covered with a timeline chart of the crimes associated with the attacks. Finally, he shook his head and headed back to Vickie’s apartment.
Devin and Rocky had not left Vickie alone. They were in the kitchen, chatting quietly.
Vickie was in the shower. She spent as much time bathing as possible, or so it seemed to Griffin, since the “blood” attack.
He understood.
“Anything?” he asked Rocky and Devin, helping himself to the coffee someone had brewed.
It had been years since coffee had kept him awake in any way.
“We’ve been thinking about Vickie’s dreams,” Rocky said.
“And?”
“Getting nowhere, really,” Devin said. “We’re wondering if Helena Matthews can still be alive—with the amount of blood she apparently lost.” She hesitated. “I talked to Vickie about getting a better sense of who she is seeing. It could be Missy Prior. It could be a victim from the 1800s. It could be Sheena Petrie. Or...”
“Helena,” Griffin finished.
“I know it’s hard, but I suggested that she kind of embrace her nightmare, since something seems to be trying to communicate through it,” Devin said. “Though, actually, I wasn’t sleeping when I first heard the dead.”
“Nor I,” Rocky said.
“So Vickie’s skill is a little different.”
“All right, we’re out of here,” Rocky said. “We’ll line up to drive out about eight-thirty, right?”
“We’re taking two cars?”
Devin grinned. “Your resident ghosts, Dylan and Darlene, are coming. They think we need help, and they’re right. They figured they could slip in anywhere—with or without our knowing, I guess, but it’s much more comfortable for them when the living aren’t sitting on top of them.”
“Great, see you then,” Griffin said.
He saw them out, and carefully locked up.
He headed into her room and stripped down, calling out to her to let her know he was there before he headed into the shower to join her.
She was just standing there, head bowed, eyes closed, steam rising around, water sluicing over her.
She opened her eyes and looked up and smiled as he joined her.
“Hey.”
“Didn’t want to scare you,” he said huskily.
She nodded. “Are we alone?”
“It’s just us.”
“Ah.” She curled her arms around his neck. “So, this is cool. This really hot hard-bodied guy just walking naked into my shower.”
“I haven’t a thing in the world against flattery,” he told her.
She shrugged, grinning, pressing against him, and bringing about instant arousal. Her hands slid down his back. “Nice buns, too.”
He returned the touch. She was sleek and wet and her flesh was so hot from the water.
“Your buns aren’t bad at all, either,” he said.
“Oh, stop, that will go to my head,” she teased.
Then he kissed her, and she kissed him, and they touched in the water while the heat of it and the steam seemed to grow all around them. They were laughing because she was a fairly tall woman and he was very tall and they weren’t fitting at all in the shower.
Stepping out they paused again, drying each other. And then they looked at one another and smiled, and making love began in earnest as they made their way to the bed.
Finally, spent, they lay together. For the longest time, they didn’t talk. Then Vickie rolled to him and said, “Devin suggested I try to embrace my nightmare. I’m not sure how. I mean, it’s a dream, and we don’t really have a lot of control over dreams.”
“No, we don’t.”
“So, how do I embrace it?”
“You just don’t fight it.”
She shook her head, looking determined. “I haven’t been fighting it. Really, I can be quite tough. I think I could be as tough as Devin.”
He eased back slightly, staring at her. “You mean...you’d like to apply to the academy—and the Krewe of Hunters.”
She grinned. “Or just be a consultant!” she said with a laugh. “Hold me, my love,” she said, easing down as close as she could to him. “Let me embrace all my inner demons.”
He lay awake, stroking a finger gently along her arm.
There was nothing like trying to go to sleep; it usually meant that you never would.
But in a while he felt her ease against him. And her breathing became even and relaxed.
He didn’t sleep.
He felt it when she suddenly grew tighter. Her eyes flew open.
But she didn’t see him.
“Where are you, Vickie?” he asked softly.
“The woods.”
“Do you know where?”
“No, but it’s rich and overgrown and...there’s water. And...she’s there ahead of me.”
“Who is there?” he asked.
“The blonde woman. She’s so lovely. I’m walking with her and she’s trying to warn me that the time is getting closer and closer.”