"Call a goddamned ambulance!" I snarled.
Still no one moved. Around us, the air had gone still, but I could still feel the crackle of energy. At a sound near the trees, I looked up and saw a shape moving toward us. Someone was coming.
Cortez. Perfect. He had a cell phone.
I raised my head to tell him to hurry, then saw the figure emerge from the trees. It wasn't a figure at all, but a writhing mass of reddish light that twisted on itself, turning blue, then green, then yellow. To my left, wisps of light wafted from the ground, congealing into a mass that hovered over the earth, then shot into the air. We all stared, transfixed, as one after another of these airy phantasms of colored light rose from the soil around us.
"Oooh," the young woman said. "They're so pretty."
Light shot up around us, gaining in speed, hurling into the air. One soared up right beside me, then swerved and dove at my head. The breath flew from me, literally was sucked from my lungs. I gasped. The light darted off into the trees.
Suddenly, the ground began to shake. Light streamed from the earth. Something knocked me hard, pushing me away from Savannah. A deafening howl rent the air. I dove toward Savannah, but a geyser of light erupted between us, pushing me back. The ground quaked, knocking me to my knees. Howl after howl tore through the night.
"Savannah!" I shouted.
The moment my mouth opened, the air was ripped from my throat. A globe of light surrounded my head, sucking the air from me. Pain cleaved through my chest. I couldn't breathe. As I fought, the light seemed to take form. I clawed at my attacker, but my fingers passed through it.
"Stop fighting!" a voice said at my ear.
I struggled harder, legs and arms flailing against the thing.
"Goddamn it, Paige. Don't fight! You're making it worse!"
Cortez? As my brain registered his voice, my body went still for a brief second. The light evaporated and I fell back, hitting the ground and gulping air. Cortez bent over me.
"They're koyut," he said. "They feed off energy. If you fight, you only produce more."
I pushed him away and sat up, wildly looking about for Savannah.
"She's right here," Cortez said, pointing at a prone form behind him. "She's fine. I'll carry her. We need to move past the trees."
He grabbed her up and we ran. When we reached the meadow beyond the trees, Cortez stopped me.
"We need to wake her," he said. "What did she cast?"
"I--I don't know."
I turned back toward the grove. Light trumpeted up from treetops. The howls were muted, as if soundproofed within the grove. A man screamed.
"I need to help the others," I said, turning to run.
Cortez lunged and grabbed me. "Koyut don't kill. As soon as people lose consciousness, the koyut leave them alone. We need to concentrate on Savannah. What did she say?"
"It was Hebrew. I'm not good at Hebrew. I think--" I closed my eyes and willed my thumping heart to slow so I could concentrate. "She said something about summoning forces. Forces or energies, I'm not sure which."
"Summoning the energies of the earth. It's a sorcerer spell."
"You know it?"
"I know of it. I haven't learned it because it's not something I can ever imagine needing to use. It calls on the spirits of the earth, not to perform any particular task, but simply to respond and do as they wish. It's considered a chaos spell."
"No kidding," I said. "What was Savannah thinking?"
"It--it's never worked before," Savannah's thin voice said beside us. "All it ever does is make some noise and flashing lights. Like a prank. Dime store magic. Only this time--"
"Only this time, it behaved precisely as intended," Cortez said. "Owing, no doubt, to your increasing strength. Plus the fact that you chose to cast it in a cemetery, a place rich in energy."
I knelt beside Savannah. "Are you okay?"
She pushed herself up onto her elbows. "Yeah. Sorry about that, guys." She gave a tiny smile. "Only it was kinda cool, wasn't it?"
We both glared at her.
"I mean, kinda cool in a bad way."
"I would suggest that is one spell you can safely remove from your repertoire," Cortez said. "I would also suggest that we return to the car before the lights attract--"
"I still need the dirt," I said.
"I'm fast," Savannah said. "I can get it."
"No!" we said in unison.
Cortez insisted on following me to the edge of the trees, so he could jump in if anything went wrong. It didn't. By now the lights had dimmed to a soft glow, illuminating the glade and the four figures lying blissfully unconscious within. I scooped dirt into both bags, shoved them into my pocket, and headed back to Cortez and Savannah.
"So that's what spirits look like?" Savannah asked, watching the swirling, multicolored glow.
"Not human spirits," I said. "Nature spirits and their energy. Let's go."
Savannah stepped away from the trees, then stopped and stared, transfixed.
"Yes, very pretty," I said, reaching for her arm. "Now move!"
Her body went rigid. A wave of physical energy shot from her, knocking both Cortez and me off our feet. The ground shivered. A low, nearly inaudible moan seemed to emanate from the earth itself. Geysers of dirt erupted, borne up on rocketing streams of light. Then the wind began to scream--not wail, but scream a high-pitched endless shriek that made me double over, hands clamped to my ears.
Cortez grabbed my shoulder and shook me, mouthing "To the car" once he had my attention. He hoisted Savannah's limp form over his shoulder and began to run. I followed.
As we crested the hill, I saw lights in the distance. Not the glow of spirits, but the very human illumination of flashlights and headlights. I looked at Cortez, but he had his head down, struggling to get Savannah to the top of the steep hill. I shouted for him, but the wail of the wind sucked the words from my mouth.
Lunging forward, I snagged the back of his shirt. He twisted, nearly tumbling onto me. I steadied him and gestured toward the road.
The flashing lights of police cars now cut through the night, joining a mob of flashlight beams spilling through the cemetery gates. Cortez's lips moved in a soundless curse and he wheeled around. I pointed at the woods to our left and he nodded.
As we raced for the woods, the shrieks and lights pursued us. No, that's a poor choice of words, implying the spirits were trying to attack us. They weren't. They simply followed, arising from the ground in our tracks. Elsewhere, the commotion seemed to be dying down. Or maybe it just seemed that way, in comparison to the chaos erupting around us. I wasn't about to stop for a scientific survey of the situation.
Once we reached the woods, Cortez lowered Savannah's body to the ground. Then he turned, raised his hands, and said a few words. As he swept his right hand across the air, the spirits vanished.
"I thought you couldn't do that kind of magic," I said, wheezing as I struggled for breath.
"I said I saw no need to learn how to conjure such spirits. I did, however, see a distinct need to learn how to un-conjure them. Unfortunately, it's a geographically limited spell."
"Meaning if we leave the woods, they'll return. Fine by me. I haven't run that fast since grade school. No, strike that, I've never run that fast."
I lowered myself to the ground beside Savannah and checked her vital signs. She was unconscious, but breathing fine.
"How come they keep following her?" I asked.
"To be honest, I have no idea. Perhaps they're feeding off her energy. I would assume, from my knowledge of witch folklore, that the sudden surge in a witch's powers during first menses renders those powers unpredictable."
"That's an understatement."
I leaned against a tree and exhaled. At my feet, a wisp of light floated from the earth. I jumped up so fast I banged my head against an overhanging limb.
"I thought you--"
Cortez waved me to silence. As I watched, the light drifted upward. Unlike the earlier spirits, this
light was pure white. It floated up as lazily as smoke from a dying fire. When it reached a height of about five feet, it stopped and shimmered, growing denser.
At a motion to my left, I looked and saw four other towers of light, each a different height. I looked at Cortez, but he lifted a hand, as if telling me to watch and wait. The cones of light took on form. Particles of light flowed from all sides, adding to the shapes and giving them definition.
Before me stood five people dressed in Colonial-era clothing. A man and a boy in doublets and breeches, a woman and a teenage girl in fitted jackets, skirts, and white caps, and a toddler, its gender indeterminate in its long white gown. Though the light remained white, the forms were so solid I could see the wrinkles around the man's eyes. Those eyes stared directly into mine. The man turned to the woman and spoke, lips moving soundlessly. She nodded and replied.
"Ghosts," I said.
The girl tilted her head and frowned at me, saying something to her mother. Then the boy reached out toward Cortez. His father leaped forward and caught his arm, lips moving in a silent scolding. Even the toddler stared up at us, wide-eyed. When I stepped toward the child, the mother swept up the little one in her arms, glaring at me. The father stepped toward his wife, motioning the other two children closer. The boy's hands moved in the sign of the evil eye.
"Only they don't know who the ghosts are," I said.
Cortez gave a tiny smile. "Do you?"
The family, now clustered together, turned and began walking away. The toddler grinned and waved at us over his mother's shoulder. I waved back. Cortez extended his left hand. I thought he was going to wave, but he said a few words in Latin. As he balled his hand into a fist, the family began to fade. Just before they vanished, the daughter glanced over her shoulder and shot us an accusing glare.
"Rest in peace," I whispered. I turned to Cortez. "I thought you said Savannah cast a spell for summoning nature spirits, not ghosts."
"It is. But Savannah's spell seems to be doing a lot it was never intended to do."
"How do we stop it?"
"By getting her out of this graveyard."
"That'll end it?"
"I hope so. Now, when we leave these woods, the spirits will return but, as you saw, they intend no harm. You simply have to move through them, as you moved through that sorcerer illusion in the funeral home."
"Got it. If we head south, we'll hit the road. There's no fence, so we can--"
A howling cut me off. Not the howls of the spirits, but the distinct howl of a dog on a scent.
"The hounds of hell, I presume," Cortez said.
"I wouldn't bet against it. But I think those are tracking dogs, probably with the police."
"Ah, I forgot about the police. Problem number sixty-three, I believe."
" Sixty-four. The unconscious bodies scattered around Katrina Mott's grave are sixty-three. Or they will be, when they wake up." I took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's think. There's a stream to the west. Dogs can't follow a trail through water. Plus, it's in the opposite direction, so we'll get a head start."
"West it is, then." He hauled Savannah's limp form over his shoulder. "Lead the way."
So we ran ... away from the gun-toting state troopers, through a swirling mass of spirits, pursued by baying hounds, surrounded by the screams of the damned. You know, I think the mind has a saturation point, beyond which it just doesn't give a damn. Spirits? Hounds? Cops? Who cares? Just keep running and it'll all go away.
This whole running-away business is getting tedious, so here's the condensed version: Run to water. Tramp through water. Fail to evade hounds. Throw fireballs at hounds. Make mental note to send sizable donation to the SPCA. Reach road. Jog to car. Collapse, wheezing, beside car. Get dragged into car by Cortez. Mutter excuse about childhood asthma. Make mental note to join a gym.
"Do you have the dirt?" Cortez asked.
"Dirt?"
I cannot describe the look on his face. The shock. The disbelief. The horror.
"Oh, that dirt." I pulled both bags from my pocket. "Got it."
I relinquished the driving to Cortez so I could stay in the backseat with Savannah, who was still unconscious. Good thing, too, because, while I consider myself an excellent driver, I have little experience at it, having always preferred to walk or ride my bike. The upshot being that, had I been behind the wheel, I would have been ill-prepared to handle what happened next.
Cortez pulled onto the road, not turning us back toward the highway, but heading farther down the dirt road, away from the cemetery front gates. Before we reached the first crossroad, sirens sounded behind us. I twisted to look out the rearview mirror and saw a state police car bearing down on us, lights flashing.
"Shit!" I said. "Don't pull over!"
"I wasn't about to. Are you both buckled in?"
"Yes."
"Hold on, then."
With that, he turned off the headlights and hit the gas.
CHAPTER 37
THE CONSCIENTIOUS
CAR THIEF
Margaret's car was an Oldsmobile. An old Olds, probably from the mid-eighties. This meant that it went like a bat out of hell, but didn't corner so well, as Cortez discovered the first time he sailed around a bend and nearly went into the ditch. On the plus side, the Olds, being a wide-bodied car, was also good at off-roading.
Yes, I said " off-roading," as in leaving the road and cutting through a farmer's field. Imagine it, please. It's past midnight, with no discernible moon or stars, the headlights are off, and you're rocketing across a rutted field at forty miles an hour. Let me assure you, for sheer terror, it ranks right up there with getting your breath sucked out by a koyut.
How we managed to get to the other side without flipping over is beyond me. The car never even slid. Before we'd gone fifty feet into the field, the police cruiser backed off.
We shot out the other side onto empty country roads.
"Are you okay?" Cortez asked as he slowed the car.
"Jostled, but fine. That was some driving."
"Where are we?" Savannah asked, sitting up.
"Heading home," I said.
Cortez glanced in the rearview mirror. "Unfortunately, we have something of a predicament. I would presume those officers made a note of our license plate."
"You're right. I didn't think of that."
"Not to worry. It simply means we have to abandon the car outside town and walk in through the woods. When we get to your house, you'll need to call Miss Levine and apprise her of the situation. If the police arrive before morning, she can claim the car was stolen while she slept. If they don't contact her by nine, I would advise that she call and report the car missing herself."
"Police?" Savannah said, blinking sleepily. "What police?"
"Don't ask," I said. "And don't ever cast that spell again. Please."
"I conjured cops?"
"In a manner of speaking," Cortez said. "I'm going to pull over up here. I believe that leaves us with about a twenty-minute walk."
He parked the car with the nose pulled into a stretch of forest, leaving the tail end out, so it could be found, but not easily.
"Should we leave the keys in the ignition?" I said as I hoisted my knapsack onto my shoulder.
"No. That would raise too many questions as to how the thieves obtained the keys. Better to make this look like a typical car-theft."
He opened his jacket and pulled out a tiny tool case.
"You're going to hot-wire the car?" Savannah said, leaning over the seat. "Cool. Did you boost cars when you were a kid?"
"Certainly not."
"Let me guess," I said. "Another of those questionable, but necessary skills. Like knowing how to un-conjure ghosts and drive a getaway car."
"Precisely."
"How many cars have you boosted?" Savannah asked as we got out of the car and headed down the road on foot.
"Two. Both times, I assure you, it was an absolute last resort. I found myself without transportation and in urgent
need of it. Fortunately, neither vehicle was damaged and I was able to leave it in a safe place, after washing it and filling the tank."
I grinned. "Bet that had the cops scratching their heads. A conscientious car thief."
Savannah rolled her eyes. "Don't you guys ever do anything bad?"
"I lifted a tube of lipstick when I was twelve."
"Yeah. You told me about that one." She looked at Cortez. "Know what she did? Stole it, then felt so bad she mailed the money to the store. Tax included. You guys are really setting a bad example, you know."
"A bad example?"
"Sure. How do you expect me to live up to it? I'm going to need serious therapy someday."
"Don't worry," I said. "I've budgeted for that."
"She probably has," Savannah muttered. "What about--"
"Car coming," I said. "Off the road."
We tramped into a field.
"Do you do this a lot, Lucas?" Savannah asked. "Car chases and evading the cops and stuff?"
"On occasion, though I would hesitate to say it qualified as 'often.' "
"The real question is: How often do you have to do it this often?" I said.
He smiled. "Not often."
"So, we're special?" Savannah said.
"Very special."
"I don't think that's good," I said.
I transferred the knapsack to my other shoulder. Cortez reached to take it from me, but I waved him back.
Savannah tripped in a groundhog hole, then jogged up beside Cortez. "So what kind of case is this? Compared to your other ones?"
"Frenetic."
She glanced at me for clarification.
"He means we're keeping him busy," I said. "Mainly because we're causing half the trouble ourselves."
Cortez smiled. "I must admit, you two do have a unique predilection for creating new challenges."
"Unique," Savannah said. "He means we're special."
" Uh-huh."
We reentered the house the same way we'd left, coming through the woods, then darting across the yard and in the back door. A quick peek out the front confirmed that such caution was still warranted. There were still three or four people camped out on my lawn. One of them had even erected a pup tent. Maybe I should have started charging site rental fees.
After sending Savannah off to bed, I called Margaret. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Ummm, we had a problem with your car ...
Her: An accident! Oh, dear, no. My insurance rates--
Me: Not an accident. We're all fine, including the car. We just had to ditch it.