But there was no sign of the lanky blond.
He must have left the path, moved onto the hill and into the trees beside me. I stepped forward, flicking my gaze around as I went. Where was he?
Branches from a wide-trunked sycamore floated above, shading this portion of the path. These woods were still part of East Fairmount Park, so had Daniel entered the park or had he gone into the cemetery?
I wiped my hands on my skirt, hoping my gloves would soak up the sweat on my palms, and I tried to moisten my dusty mouth. The cemetery loomed before me, and the emptiness around was silent—too silent. With each passing moment, my certainty grew: I had made a dangerous mistake by coming here.
Suddenly, something fell on the path before me, thudding to the road, and yellow dust puffed up around it.
A boot!
My heart exploded into my throat. I glanced wildly about and spun, clutching my parasol to my chest. All I could see were shadows and leaves and dust, yet I knew it must be Daniel—he was here, somewhere, watching me.
Then a figure dropped from the overhanging branches. His feet hit the ground with a heavy thump that sent fresh dust pluming up.
I cried out and reeled back, my eyes locked on the young man crouched before me.
Daniel straightened. “Well, if it isn’t her Royal Highness,” he drawled, lifting his right arm. Sunlight flashed on metal, and the beams blinded me. When I finally saw what he held, my knees turned watery.
It was a sickle, and sunlight flickered on its long, wicked blade.
CHAPTER TEN
I wanted to scream, to run, to do something, but I couldn’t move. I just stared, mouth agape and eyes bulging.
Daniel swung the sickle like a pendulum. It was the sort used for harvesting hay, and the blade was the length of my forearm. Back and forth he swung it.
“Do you have a death wish?” He cocked his head and pinched his lips thin. “Or do you visit such deadly places by accident?”
“Don’t hurt me.” I lifted my parasol with both hands and scooted back several feet. “I’ll scream.”
“You scream, and we both die.” He spat onto the road. “I ain’t gonna hurt you, Princess, so stop the hysterics.”
“Hysterics,” I screeched, waving my parasol at him. “You’re holding a blade and threatening—”
Daniel darted forward and snatched at my parasol. Before I could suck in air for a panicked shriek, he slung me around and clamped a firm hand over my mouth.
“Not a word,” he breathed in my ear. “If any of the Hungry are in there, they’ll come in seconds, and you’ll get to see what this sickle is really for.”
I struggled to breathe. My heart sprinted in my chest; the sound echoed in my head. His hands smelled like metal, like the cool tang of machines.
“I’m gonna drop my hand,” he continued, “and you’d better keep quiet. Go running back to your mama or jump in the river—I don’t care, so long as you don’t scream.”
My eyes moved from the tanned wrist pressed near my face to the glinting blade held at my chest. I gave a frantic nod of my head, and he withdrew his hand from my mouth.
I sucked in summer air. The scent of metal clung to my cheeks. “You ought to wear gloves,” I hissed, hoping to mask my fear with insults.
“And you ought to be more careful.” He still stood behind me. His breath tickled at my neck, and goose flesh bristled down the side of my body. He moved away then, and my skirts rustled back to their full width.
I twirled around, harsh whispers on my lips, but he had already marched off. He reached the enormous sycamore and circled behind its ancient trunk.
I lifted my skirts and scurried after him.
“Why’re you still here?” he asked.
I ignored him. “The Hungry,” I said in a low voice. “You mean the Dead—the quick, rabid ones.”
“Yep.” He tugged his flat cap from his pocket and slid it atop his head. “When a corpse isn’t under a necromancer’s control, it’s desperate to feed. Like the ones that wake up on their own—the Dead that casket-bells warn us against.”
So it was like the scary tales about rabid Dead that escape their coffins. The jingling bells that warn of Death were created for those occasional corpses who, somehow or other, were sparked with life though their bodies were dead. Sparked with life and this desperate hunger.
“But,” Daniel added, “rather than a corpse or two a year, we’ve got a whole cemetery’s worth.”
My fingers tightened around my skirts. “So... is the whole graveyard Hungry?”
“Not yet, but if the necromancer has lost control of one, it stands to reason he’ll lose control of more.” He bent down and slung the familiar satchel off the ground—no boot peeked from it now.
I suppose he’d used the boot to cover his sickle. And up close, I could see the sack was jagged and angular. There was clearly no body within.
“How do you know about the Hungry?” he asked.