***
A short while later, they’d returned to the outskirts of Little Happenthatch, escorted by Rensselaer County sheriff’s department. While the remaining fires were put out, the surviving remnants of the town fled for the forest. Quinn expressed his doubts they would ever be found alive. Only she was silent for a time, never a part of but watching the scene come to its conclusion before her.
“I saw...what happened.”
“How?”
“Saanvi and her daughter combined their abilities to leave an imprint of their deaths. You saw The Moon in their file.”
“Tarot card XVIII.” He wasn’t willing to dispute it. There had been a card with strange symbols on it: a jackal, a weird crustacean and the encompassing moon. Reno had already explained the assigning of Tarot cards to witches with those specific traits as a way of identifying them. That was something for future consideration, the terror that must be inspired when receiving a crimson card of the Major Arcana. He merely nodded.
Evelyn rocked slowly, the orange glare of the flashing lights played softly on her grime-streaked face. “She was writing a book on the Happenthatch witches. She’d just divorced her second husband. I remember they shared custody of her only daughter. She was looking for a new start...why did this have to happen?”
Quinn looked down at his hands and the bandages wrapped around the burns. “The police found a pile of bones in the rectory’s basement level. It’s too early to tell if they’re Ms. Saxena and her daughter’s.”
“The place where they kept the undesirables.”
He went to sit by her on the fallen log. She was pale and cold with two high spots of color suffusing her cheeks. She clasped the blanket tighter over her shoulders, staring off sullenly into space.
“I guess the only thing we can do is pray for them.”
“Maybe. They say...,” she looked up at the great white pearl in the sky. “Witches souls go to the moon, the symbol of sacred femininity.”
“Hmm, a kind of Heaven of their own. That’s a nice thought.”
Body bags appeared on the tarpaulin spread by paramedics. Many lives were lost. They both looked at death and he started to rise. “I’m going to tell them now, that I started the fire.”
“No.” She caught at his hand.
I wasn’t sure back then, if you had a place with the shadows.
He looked down at her and met her blue eyes shimmering with tears.
Hasn’t tonight proven that you belong here?
“I need you.”
Those words could’ve been spoken under the surf of crashing waves, over the crackle of the false God’s crackle and he still would’ve heard them.
“Okay.”
***
They hardly spoke on the road back to Albany.
The GPS flashed a steady stream of intel, displaying each curve of road, each change in lane closures. He had never driven the road, nor drove a 4WD. Everything was strange to the touch. Even the soft cushion of the leather bucket seats welcoming after the bitter cold enveloped his form with a uniqueness he had never experienced before.
They bounced over a bump in the slick road.
So many questions went through his mind. Something Reno had mentioned, had been bothering him.
“The Los Angeles branch,” he began as an opener. “What do they -”
From the rearview mirror, a dark shape took form. He took his eyes off the road for a moment, as Blackwood’s lips parted to answer. Tires squealed - the truck, a dark green Chevy of late model gained speed, eating up road, spraying fragments of shattered ice in its wake. It took the bump hard -- it was airborne -- everything was happening too fast.
She saw too and she was shouting: “Swerve! Swerve!”
Zac wanted to tell her to stop shouting in his ear, he was trying. Trying. But, the wheel simply wouldn’t turn fast enough, the jeep lumbered, its side flank exposed. Headlights washed over them; Blackwood was frozen, her mouth had fallen open whether in another shout or a womanly scream, he could not tell.
Then, impact.
- TBC
Dancing in Darkness book 3 The Damned Spring 2014
AN: Hope you enjoyed Evelyn and Zac’s second quest into the darkside. More adventures coming in the future, more to challenge the strength of their new partnership. What new horrors await the duo of Blackwood Paranormal Security department?
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