MOON FALL (48 page)

"The Halloween Haunt," Paul Pricket said as John pulled
the passenger side door of the priest's green Honda Civic closed
"I used to love it."

"Yeah." John hadn't wanted to use Paul's car, but he didn't
want to take the cruiser to the abbey
-
that might have unwanted
repercussions
-
and his own mini-truck was still missing. Plus,
Paul had insisted on driving, even pointing out that the dark
green vehicle would be easily hidden among the trees.

They had visited t
he Haunt in the hope that Mark h
ad shown
up there, on the slim chance that he had taken off on some
impetuous adventure of his own. No matter what, he wouldn't
miss that. But Caspar hadn't seen him, nor had Corey Addams,
who was manning the boys' section of the Haunted Barn with
the help of a couple kids John vaguely recognized.

With Paul's help, he had threaded through the Haunt, asking
virtually every partygoer if he'd seen his son, but the answer
was always no. Now, as the
y pulled out of Parker's Mills'
parking lot, everything caught up with him. The sounds of the
festivities behind them, the smell of smoke from fireplaces all
over town, kids in cos
tu
m
es roaming the sidewalks, grinning
jack
-o'
-lanterns on steps and porch rails, made him feel infinitely
sad. He'd never celebrated the night with Mark, had
always relied on Gus. Since his brother's death, John had
thought he hated Halloween, but that wasn't true; he was afraid
of it, and now both his grandfather and his son were gone.

"We'll find him, John," Paul said, catching his thoughts.

"I hope you're right."

"Don't lose faith, now. These people have been killing your
family members-
and God knows how many others-
for a
century. They undoubtedly killed your grandfather and your
father and plan to kill your son.
They're devils.
We saw proof
of that today. And if Minerva Payne says you're the one who's
going to stop it, then ... "Paul's voice trailed off.

"I'm surprised you're so willing to believe."

Paul shrugged. "It's my job. There's Apple Heaven."

''The turn-off for the abbey is right behind it."

''I remember." Paul turned and drove through the parking
lot, coming to a halt before the chain closing the private road.
''Now what?"

"Now I start breaking the law. Flip the trunk release." John
bopped out of the car and opened the long red toolbox he'd
placed there while they were at the house. He withdrew a pair
of bolt-cutters, sliced the chain, and pulled it loose.

"Let's go," he said, after he'd shut the trunk and climbed
back in the car ... Better douse your lights."

Paul did. ''This trip is going to be a slow one. I can hardly
see a thing."

"Wait'll we hit the forest," John said. He could see only
Paul's profile in the greenish dash lights.

Paul glanced at him. ''We used flashlights back then."

"If we hadn't, maybe they wouldn't have caught us. We
can't take any chances this time."

"Okay."

They drove through the orchards by the faint light of the
low harvest moon, but when the apple trees gave way to pine
and juniper, Paul had to slow to a crawl. "I'm driving blind
here, John."

He nodded and pulled a penlight from the pocket of his black
shirt. "It'll be faster to walk the rest of the way. Stop and let
me out. I'll find a place off-road to hide the car."

"If you say so."

John got out and walked a few yards, then came to a place
where the car could be pulled safely among the trees. He indicated
the spot and Paul pulled in.

John was dressed all in black, Paul the
same,
except for his
clerical collar and the navy knapsack slung over his shoulder.
It contained his priestly tools, vestments, a crucifix, and several
flasks of holy water. John's tools, a pistol in a shoulder holster,
a hunting knife, skeleton keys, and a smoke bomb that Mark
had concocted. John had taken it for safekeeping, promising
the boy that at the right time and place, they would set it off
together.
Together.
He hoped he could keep his promise.

''Ready?" Paul asked.

"Let's do it," John said, as they stepped onto the road to

St. Gertrude's.

As Minerva had hoped, the nightflyers stopped circling her
house after darkfall, but they left considerably later than she
had expected. The helpless waiting and wondering had been
nearly unbearable. Alternately, she'd spent the minutes and
hours of the day anxious or angry at herself for letting the
passage of years steal her strength.

She tried to hide her emotions from Kelly and had spent the
time casting spells of protection on everyone who might need
them.

Kelly had continued to argue about staying behind tonight,
and Minerva had had to be quite stem with her before she was
convinced she would be more helpful if she stayed at the cottage
and kept working the protection spells. Now, as Minerva walked
alone through Witch Forest, knowing it so well that she needed
no light, she had no idea whether or not she was right in leaving
the girl behind. She was brave, cunning, and
knowledgeable
about the abbey, but she was also undisciplined and impetuous,
and, most important, the nuns had marked her for sacrifice.

She had left the rifle behind with Kelly after making sure
she could handle the weapon, taking with her only a century
old
hunting knife and her amulet. To the north she could hear
the thunder of the Falls, and soon she came to the stream that
divided the two forests.

She stared into the
ominous
darkness across the water. There
were no forest sounds tonight, no animals, no insects, not so
much as the soft sigh of a breeze or the rustle of leaves. Minerva
waded into the water, feeling its icy chill soak through her
shoes. Her bones would ache in the morning.

But that chill was nothing compared to the one she felt as
she stepped onto St. Gertrude's property. It was cursed land.
When she had first come here, the local Indians had spoken of
it only in hushed tones. It was a place to be avoided, and their
name for it translated into ''the forsaken land." They had told
her their own legends, which dated back many centuries, and
had told her as well of the monks who had built the abbey.
They had been plagued with death and disaster from the time
they had first broken ground, and as the years had passed,
things had grown worse, the monks eventually indulging in all
forms of depravity, from bestiality to cannibalism.

Minerva walked into the murky wood, reciting old Celtic
spells to keep her fear at bay. She had rarely been in these
woods and now had to keep her mind clear to find her way
through the dark. When she
was a girl, her grandmother
taught her how to travel without her eyes, using her senses of
hearing, smell, and space and direction, as well as sheer instinct.
She had learned to run through forests in the dark without
tripping over roots or plowing into tree trunks. As she called
on these skills now, they came back in full force, and she
faltered only if she allowed her mind to fall into fear.

Minerva traveled on, ignoring the feeling that she was being
watched, ignoring the unnatural silence. Time passed and she
knew she was nearing the abbey, but she felt as if she were
making almost no progress.

It was a trick of the sisters', a protection spell of their own,
meant to keep away the curious on this night. Minerva redoubled
her concentration and continued on, but the nuns' magic
had played hell with her sense of direction, and eventually she
realized she was hopelessly turned around.

Not hopelessly, she corrected. Closing her eyes, she concentrated,
taking herself beyond the physical senses, into a deeper
place. She meditated, pushing away the sisters' cobwebs, then
finally opened her eyes and set out once more.

''Where the hell is the abbey?" John muttered. It was past
nine o'clock, well past, and he and Paul should have arrived
at St. Gertrude's hours ago.

"I don't know how we lost the road," Paul said.

"God damn it, we were
walking
on it," John spat. "How
the hell could we lose it?"

"I'm sorry, John, I just don't know."

"No,
I'm
sorry, Paul. I didn't mean to jump all over you.
Time's wasting and I'm worried. Maybe you could ask your
boss for a little help or something?"

"I've
been
asking,
" Paul said softly. "I trust he
'II send some
soon."

They walked on in silence, feeling their way among the trees,
trying to find the road in the dark. John's penlight had died at
least an hour before, and his hope was dying now as well. He
felt like a rat in a maze.

"John?"

"What?"

"Do you hear that? In the distance?"

He listened, heard the faint crash of water. ''Great. Just great.
We're going toward Witch Falls."

"At least we know we're heading east instead of south."
Paul had always been the king of silver linings.

"Okay, then we should go ... " John suddenly realized that
he couldn't sense direction, even though the sound of the Falls
gave him all the help he should have needed. On the rare
momentary occasions he'd lost the sense previously, he'd felt
an unaccountable but faint nausea, a trace of dizziness. Now
those feelings nearly overwhelmed him. "Paul, which way is
south?"

"I don't know," came Paul's voice from the darkness.

"I believe I do, gentlemen."

John drew his pistol before his brain recognized Minerva
P
ayne's voice. "Minerva," he said, reholstering the weapon.
"What are you doing out here?''

''The same thing as you."

He heard a snap, then a match flamed in front of Minerva's
face. She looked at them. "You've brought a priest, John?"

''This is Paul Pricket. He was with us that night." John spoke
quickly. "I remembered what happened."

''I know. You let me in. Do you know where the entrance
to the old basement is?"

"No. Not yet."

The wooden match was burning down. ''Why have you
brought a priest, John? No offense, young man," she added,
then blew out the match before it burned her fingers.

"Because of what you said. You said that every religion has
its own demons. What better to fight Christian demons than a
Christian holy man?"

Minerva chuckled softly, sadly. "You have a point, John.
Paul, why did you agree to come?''

"When John called me, I agreed to visit. I've been having
nightmares for years, just like him. And then, when I arrived
today and he told me what happened in the chapel, I knew it
was true. On some level, I've known it all along. I know it
was behind my decision to become a priest."

''Well, do you think you can work with an old pagan, Father
Paul?"

"It would be an honor."

''Good. If you gentlemen will come with me, I believe I
might be able to find the way. Stay close, now."