“You’ll be caught. Federal charges. You could face death,” Vickie said.
“I won’t be caught. A dozen kids will be found in these robes. I’ll be long gone—with my true faithful, these friends right here. Oh, not to worry—anyone who might have suspected me is dead along the trail. If they haven’t expired yet, they will, soon enough.”
“You know what? I do know where Jehovah is, Charlie,” Vickie told him quietly. “And I will never, ever tell you!”
Charlie Oakley let out a bellow of rage. “Get her down!” he commanded the Dearborn brother and sister. “Get her on the table.”
They reached for her.
Vickie wasn’t going down without a fight. She turned with the knife in her hand and she stabbed out at the man and the two women trying to force her onto the table. She stabbed at them blindly, shouting all the while, screaming that there was no great power coming that day, only the downfall of everyone involved.
Audrey and Cathy were yelling, shouting, screaming and bleeding, as well—she’d gotten them good.
There was blood everywhere...
Hard to see against the red robes.
And then one of them had her arm, her wrist, wrenching the knife away from her, and she was pushed onto the table. Charlie—in his ram’s head mask—was over her; Audrey, Cathy and Ron were holding her down.
Charlie had the knife.
He held it over her.
“Where is Jehovah?” he demanded.
“Fuck you!” she told him.
He started to lower the knife. She saw it, saw it coming toward her...
And then, in a flash, the knife was gone.
Charlie was gone.
She kicked out with all her might; Ron Dearborn went flying back. Audrey was shoved aside.
Audrey, letting out a scream of fury, came at her again.
But then the sound of bullets firing into the air filled the night.
Vickie punched Audrey, hard. She staggered back.
Suddenly, there were cops and agents everywhere; chaos reigned. Vickie slipped to the ground in front of the altar, trembling. And then she saw Griffin.
Someone was walking away with Charlie Oakley, his hands cuffed behind his back. She saw that Devin was taking Cathy Dearborn into custody.
Rocky was there, cuffing Ron.
None too gently.
Griffin was coming toward her. She smiled.
He took her into his arms.
“Vickie, my God, Vickie. I’ve been so scared. My God...”
She hugged him. She cupped his face between her hands. “I love you! Griffin, I did it! I found them. I stopped them! I was actually pretty darned good. If I’d just been armed. Griffin, I want to go through the academy. I’m going to meet your bosses and I’m going to beg them and—”
“Hey!” He rose, drawing her to her feet, holding her tight.
“Let’s just get through tonight, huh?” he asked.
She smiled.
“Sure. I can tell you where to find Jehovah tomorrow!”
Even as she spoke, it seemed that the darkness of the night fell for real. For a moment, they were together in a field of black velvet.
Then the moon broke through the clouds. It was a day away from full, but it was huge and red-rimmed in the night sky, casting down a glow that seemed to light up everything around them.
“Okay, okay, so...maybe tonight. As soon as the chaos dies down a little!”
*
“Well, everything helps,” Vickie said. “That’s what research is. I mean, you go to all the sources there are, and you seize whatever little piece it is from each source that goes into solving your puzzle.”
The compound was down to almost empty—all that remained were Rocky, Devin, Griffin and Vickie, Wendell Harper and a number of his men.
Vickie had ditched the red robe she’d had on over her clothing. She’d worried that she’d been injured in all the tussling.
She had not, thank God. Tomorrow, she’d be sore, and she might have a few bruises, but she hadn’t suffered any serious injuries.
The cultists had been taken away. The group was grateful not to have lost a single soul—not that night. Not one of the remaining red-clad figures had taken the suicide pills they’d carried.
Many had seemed relieved to be arrested.
Isaac Sherman, Robert Merton and Milton Hanson were in the hospital—as were Helena Matthews and Alex Maple, who clung to one another like a pair of long-lost lovers. Vickie was happy to have seen them, if only for a minute.
All this...
And it was just midnight.
“Okay, okay!” Devin said, and laughed. “We all appreciate your mad research skills. Come out with it. Where is Jehovah?”
“It’s all in the words,” Vickie said.
“‘Hell’s afire and Satan rules, the witches, they were real. The time has come, the rites to read, the flesh, ’twas born to heal. Yes, Satan is coming!’” Griffin quoted.
Vickie nodded. “And, luckily, the moon is high enough for you to see. In fact, if you turn, the rise of granite right behind us looks red. ‘Hell’s afire,’” she said.
“Okay, so then?” Rocky asked.
“There’s where it gets tricky,” Vickie admitted. “The ‘rites’ weren’t rites. They were rights, as in the direction. If you look at the old maps, there were three natural twists in the roads, the earth and the rivers, just below that giant ‘red’ slab of granite. One was a hillock, one a river and one a natural path between. The water has been diverted, but we’re standing about where the three would most closely converge.” She hesitated. “This place was chosen for the insane asylum for a reason. It sat on a barren plateau—barren, compared to all else around here!—that was referred to as—”
“The flesh!” Devin exclaimed.
“Exactly,” Vickie agreed.
“So, he was here all along? Charlie Oakley was hiding out at Jehovah—looking for Jehovah?” Rocky demanded.
“So I believe,” Vickie said. “I don’t know where to go digging, but if they get out here with metal detectors, I’d say that way...just by the clearing before you wind up back into the thick growth of trees. I think that’s where you’ll find the treasure.”
“Not only that,” Griffin said quietly, “but it’s where Missy Prior was killed. It’s where Ezekiel Martin had her ‘sacrificed’ when she despised him so much that he wanted her dead.” He smiled at them all. “We’ve wondered which blonde has been haunting Vickie’s dreams. Rocky, we saw her at the morgue today. It’s been Missy Prior. She was murdered here, and I think she’s been trying to stop the killing ever since.”
“Hopefully,” Vickie said, “we may have brought her peace at last.”
She looked up at the moon again. It was strange; it was beautiful.
Not quite full...one more night.
“Look!” Griffin urged. The sky brightened suddenly as a gorgeous glitter of gold and red seemed to light up the night.
For a moment, the blonde appeared to be standing before them.
She smiled.
She was surrounded by a small group of others who were like her, and not quite like her.
One of them might have been Brenda Noonan.
Another...Sheena Petrie.
The sky seemed alive with the beauty of the shimmering light.
And then they were gone.
Griffin pulled Vickie close.
“Peace!” he said softly. “Maybe we managed that much. We gave them peace.”
Vickie smiled, resting her head on his chest.
“And, for Helena, life!” she said.
“For Helena, life!”
*
Back at the bed-and-breakfast, they had to spend at least an hour calming down Mrs. McFall.
She was grateful, of course, to know that Isaac Sherman was going to be fine.
And that it was over.
The ghosts of Dylan Ballantine and Darlene Dutton were there for all the explanations, so Vickie didn’t have to repeat herself.
Eventually, Vickie and Griffin were alone together in their bedroom. Griffin stood before Vickie, his eyes enigmatic as he looked at her. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his lips and said, “Griffin, I know what you said. I mean, what you said about staying in the car...”
“Yeah, I noticed. Getting out of the car and hiding after the crash—yes, that made sense. Let me see...putting on a red robe, taking over the altar in the middle of a group of cultists—not so sure about that one.”