“We’d like to see him gain consciousness,” Kelly said.
“Of course.” Devin smiled and glanced toward Kat. “You’ll be safe,” she promised.
“Trust me—deadly things come in small packages,” Kat promised them.
“Of course. We’ll be fine—we’d have been fine on our own,” Seamus said sternly, looking at his daughter.
“There’s nothing like safety in numbers,” Devin said cheerfully. “All right then—I’ll be in touch!”
She left the hospital and headed back toward the castle.
As she came upon the church, she paused again. She wasn’t sure why; she didn’t intend to linger.
She felt the urge to go back to the Karney family vault.
She parked and headed into the graveyard. A bit of a distance from the vault, she paused.
It was like many such a vault in old Irish cemeteries and graveyards where the rocky terrain led to hillocks and cliffs and caverns. It was built right into the side of a rock-covered rise.
She stared at it a moment, but couldn’t put her finger on the reason why the placement seemed so curious.
With a shrug, she moved toward it.
She saw that Father Flannery had apparently seen to it that the gate was now locked. But, holding the lock, she saw that it hadn’t snapped. She twisted it to the open angle and walked in.
She felt nothing; saw no shadows. But she moved inward.
As she went deeper into the vault, marble slabs no longer covered the shelves that held the dead. A few wooden covers, Victorian era, perhaps, were decaying. Further back, there were shrouded mummies.
She stopped when she reached them; there was no light back there.
For a moment, despite the smell of the earth and decay, she paused, listening—trying to feel for any presence.
But there was nothing and she turned back.
Before she stepped back out of the vault, she paused. Someone was walking across the graveyard, head down, footsteps hurried.
It wasn’t Father Flannery.
She ducked back inside, still watching.
It was Aidan Karney. He kept coming.
Devin shrank back into the vault, heading behind the tombs of Declan and Brianna and sinking low.
Aidan came into the vault. He stood there, letting his eyes adjust.
Aidan had been smart enough to come with a flashlight. He played it over the tomb.
Devin stayed low.
Aidan let out a sound of impatience and disgust.
He turned around and left the vault.
Devin waited. And waited.
She realized that he would have seen her rental car.
But, when she carefully emerged at last, he was nowhere to be seen.
She hurried back to the car and drove on to the castle.
When she arrived, activities around the courtyard were already in full swing. She saw that Father Flannery was on the stage by the western wall, surrounded by musicians. He announced that they were praying for Brendan Karney, who was holding his own. Then he announced the St. Patrick’s of the Village band and singers and stepped aside, leading the audience in applause.
The band and singers began a beautiful version of Danny Boy.
She continued on into the castle.
No one was in the great hall and Devin walked up to the master’s chambers. She found a note from Rocky telling her to head on down to the crypt via the tower stairs and follow the instructions on the note.
She knew the crypt and the dungeons, of course. She’d been awed and amazed when she’d come as a teenager.
The foundations of the castle were vast. They held a scent that wasn’t exactly bad, and wasn’t exactly rot. But the sea roiled near the castle and deep in the ground, everything smelled verdantly of the earth.
The main room, beneath the great hall, had once had cells where prisoners were held.
A few of the barred cells remained.
There was also a display of torture instruments used throughout the centuries. There were thumbscrews, brands, pinchers, an Iron Maiden, a rack, and all manner of chains and shackles.
There were creepy, bad mannequins on the rack, in the Iron Maiden, and held to the wall by chains.
There were, however, electric lights and when they were turned on—as they were now—the mannequins simply displayed a lack of talent in their creation.
And yet Devin felt oddly as if they were watching her.
“Stop it!” she told one, shaking her head as she walked by.
“Rocky? Will?” she called.
For a moment, she thought that no one was going to answer her.
“This way!”
Rocky’s voice urged her toward the crypts. She walked in that direction.
Here, there were no mannequins.
There were coffins—and there were the mummies of the very ancient still aligned on their eternal beds of wood and stone.
There were only a few lights strung overhead; they weaved with heavy movement from above casting weird shadows over the bones and shrouds of the long, long dead of Karney Castle.