Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (26 page)

“You
goan
follow ‘em?”

“That’s the idea.
‘Less you got a better one.”

“Well, I do,” Sadie declared.
“I most certainly do.
I’ll follow ‘em.”

“Like hell you will,” he retorted.
“We don’t know what you’d be following them to and I ain’t about to let you walk by yourself straight into God knows what.”

“Like hell I won’t,” she spat back.

“Pardon?” Paul asked in masculine surprise.

“I said, like hell I won’t.
Smooth yo’ ruffled feathers down and think a minute.
‘Spose you
gone and Josh comes to.
Suppose he quiet.
What I ‘sposed to do?
Untie him?
And if he has another spell, I’m
goan
be able to keep him still by myself?
Suppose he wake up je
st like he was?
I’m
goan
judge whu
t to give him?
If
I’m ‘sposed to give him anything?
You got to stay with Josh, Paul.
You got to.”

Goddamn it.
She was right.

“Then you stay in, too.
Hell with it. You ain’t
traipsing off by yourself!”

“I be careful.”

“We don’t know what the he
ll you have to be careful of!
”

“Oh, hush up!
D
ey
find
out Josh ain’t co
ming back out, they stop passin’
by and we loose the chance to follow ‘em.”

She got up and headed out of the room.

“Sadie!
I said
no
!”
He got up and followed her.

She turned on her heel and
faced
him
,
hands on hips.

“
Boy, I don’t recall I asked yo’
permission!”

Suddenly
Paul was eleven years old again,
climbing back in his upstairs bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning
after a
moonlit skinny-dipping swim with Tom Benson
and Billy Jenkins.
His heart dropped to
his stomach when he made his successful entry and viewed the long dark shadow on his floor.
He’d
raised his eyes slowly, following the line of
the shadow resolving
itself into the long lines of Sadie’s body.
Just so had her ha
nds been positioned on her hips. J
ust so had her face borne the same implacable look of inevitability.

He made one last effort.

“Please?”

“Paul, I gots to, son.
Surely you see that?”

He moved forward and pulled her into a swift hug.

“If you see them, call me when you leave.”

Sadie nodded
,
her head against his chest.

“And for God’s sakes,
be careful
.”

Chapter
Twenty-Six

Sadie paced restlessly in front of the windows, checking the mantle clock every two minutes or so.
Occasionally
she thrust
her hand
into
her deep
skirt
pocket, the one
where she’d
secreted the largest kitchen knife
she could easily conceal. Paul
wanted her to take h
is pistol but she overrode
his
protests with the reminder
a pistol had to be reloaded.
She didn’t intend to be seen and
she certainly had no intention of becoming a captive, but if such
event did come to pass, she
knew she could do more damage with a knife.

She looked at the clock again.
It was ten minutes past seven. The boys
weren’t
coming.
Just when she was ready to ad
mit
this opportunity was lost, she saw them.

They walked steadily past the house, glancing at the porch.
Their pace slowed
.
When they
reached the fence gate,
they stopped entirely and engaged in swift conversation.
Finally, they moved on.

Sadie held her breath and waited for them to pass from sight
. She slipped
out the door
and
angled down the yard, cursing the fences that separated the yards of the houses from the sidewalks.
There was no way she could maneuver under cover of the shrubbery.
She hung back and did something she tried never to do.
She
loose
ne
d her control of the
portion of her brain
that
sometimes show
ed her scenes
her eyes could
n’t
see, trying to
keep the boys in sight even out
of sight.

They headed down Orange, cut
across
a few side streets and angled toward
W
harf Street, toward
the river
and out of town.
Sadie paused, holding her side and cursing her advancing years.
It was hell to get older.
She heard voices off in the distance and hung back further.
She
peered
through the deep
tree
shadows in the swiftly falling haze
that w
as
n’t
so much darkness yet as grayness.
A clearing loomed
ahead.
She crept closer, judging her distance, and fina
lly settled at a spot she judged safe, some
yards back from the full clearing.
She caught her breath.

A gian
t
stood in the center of the clearing.
A big man, dear God, so big!
He towered over his subjects in full regalia, amulets of gold and necklaces of bone draped over his massive shoulders.
He
’d
had no need
for pretens
e for the last month past.
A circle of fires leapt and danced.
Sadie gave a quick count.
Seven fires.
G
reased with fat
, the giant
gleamed
in the
firelight.
The oppressive heat of the humid day hung heavy in the air, intensified by the glowing coals of the red flames.

Sadie recognized him immediately
.
St. Barnabas’
charismatic
newest member.
Several of her friends, some widowed, some
married, had been
swooning over this man since his arrival
. His
black velvet
voice, so at odds with his thickly muscled body
, almost had t
hem in physical combat
as they
fought
for his attention at church suppers
with heaping platters of
fried chicken and fresh vegetables, th
e thickest pieces of pound cake, bowls of cobbler filled with dumplings.

He
always
smiled, she recalled, accepting these offerings as
h
is due
,
as though he
conveyed
great privilege to the ladies in allowing them to admire his rippling shoulders.
She hadn’t
liked him
. No concrete reason, she just hadn’t, and s
o had avoided any contact with him.

Now he motioned
to one of his acolytes, who hurried forth with a tiny newborn calf.
He pulled a machete from the leather scabbard at his side and raised it high, swirling it in swishing patterns over his head.
Liquid firelight caught the blade and poured red rain back over the crowd.

“Blood!” he shouted.
“’De power be
blood
!”
The machete descended in a wicked flash, decapitating the calf
. B
lood gushed from the stump
and
flood
ed
into the basins
held by
his chosen lieutenants
.
Their hands ran with
gore as the basins filled
.

Sadie closed her eyes and swayed.
Hell.
T
his clearing—an
outpost of
Hell.

“An’
de
power be in
us
!
My peoples!
Be you ready to show
de
white
g
od
yo
’
power?”

Shirts
and dresses fell like rain. Sa
d
i
e couldn’t distinguish many features i
n the mass of frenzied bodies
writhing in
the murky light of the glowing fires
.
Enough.
She refused to
stand and witness this degradation
,
people she
’d
known all their lives
parodying
Christian rites
, reducing
the highest expression of love between a man and woman to this bestial behavior.

Moving as soundlessly as possible, s
he headed out of the woods, back toward Wharf Street.
A tug on the hem of her skirt sent her heart into her throat. S
he swirled around, her hand grabbing the handle of the knife, but there was no one there.
She glanced down.
Her
skirt
had caught on a tree root.
She gave a shaky sigh of relief and bent to loosen it, but it was caught firmly
. She
yanked, and the material ripped free.

She burst through the front door and hurried down the hall.
Paul sat in the arm chair, keeping
watch over
his brother, just as
Joshua’d guarded Paul’s sleep
the night he
’d
finally emerged from his office, three days after Chloe’s burial.

“His name be
Cain,” she said.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Cain stood by
the riverbank
for a moment and
watch
ed
his flock depart.
Close.
He was getting so close. H
e strode confidently through the darkest shadows
on
his way back to his rented room. A
glimmer of something light caught his eye.
He bent and plucked the
scrap of cloth
from the tree root.
Someone had caught their clothing on the root and torn it as they passed.

He frowned.
None of his acolytes took this path.
He knew the direction each
took, both in approach and in departure.
He cursed.
Laxness.
He hadn’t posted his sentries, those
grisly skulls that guarded his secret rituals
.
He needed to
rectify that.
Immediately.
Tomorrow night h
e
’d
hang them and
hold the special ceremony investing
them with their guardian spirits.

He
laughed
and
tuck
ed
the scrap of cloth into his pocket.
Maybe
he
’d
pl
ay with the intruder for awhile.

* * *

“You know him?” Paul
pulled Sadie
over to
t
he armchair
and made her sit
.
She
trembled,
both from reaction and the unaccustomed stress she
’d
inflicted on her body in the past hours.
“Here, don’t try and talk yet.
You need some brandy.”

Paul walked quickly to his study and
re
turned in a few moments with a
crystal decanter
and glass.