Page 76 of Sapphire Nights
Heart pounding frantically, she listened for therattle as Valdis grew quiet again. Sam ran the beam of her flashlight over the rocks until she caught movement. She inadvertently stepped backward to avoid the slithering shadow and lost her footing on the boulder. Shescreamed.
Stalking out of the cemetery,surrounded by chattering Lucys, Walker irritably decided he wanted one of Harvey’sbig sticks too. They’d be useful in batting off thecrazies.
The scream shivered every nerve in hisbody.
Without hesitation, he ran toward the amphitheater. The scream had been much more distant than the vortex, but it was hers, he knew it. Fear escalated hispulse.
He pulled out his radio and was calling for an ambulance before he gave it a second thought. His training hadtaught him better, but he wasn’t following his head. He was following his damned... what? Instincts? Heart? He’d been around the Lucys toolong.
He swept his big flashlight around the arena, finding no way of tracking Sam on rocks. How the hell would he findher?
Harvey stepped out of the shadows ahead. Harvey, the nightwalker, the maker of crazy sticks—but Walker knew nothingagainst him. As far as he’d been able to tell, the musician was just exactly what he seemed, an underpaid creative who carved sticks for aliving.
“Valdis goes up on Bald Rock when she wants to commune with the spirits,” the long-haired man in black said, pointing one of his sticks at themountain.
“Why didn’t anyone say that earlier?” Walker asked, stomping out his anger and fearby following the direction indicated. “And that was Sam’s scream, notValerie’s.”
“No one will go up there but Valdis. Sam wouldn’t know better. She would have followed the vibrations.” Harvey fell in step with him. “If you’ve called for help, I’ll direct them up there, but I’ll only go to the bottom of the path. The rock is haunted, and not by friendlyectoplasm.”
“Charming,” Walkergrumbled. Did he hear moaning? “You’ve personally seenghosts?”
Harvey hesitated. “I’ve personally seen evil. That’s enough to keep my distance. There’s something bad happening out there. That’s all I can tellyou.”
“And Sam and Valdis may be up there doing battle with demons?” Walker said cynically. “And everyone is abandoningthem?”
“Put that way... yes,” Harvey muttered.“So, we’re cowards. We’re artists, notheroes.”
“You’re superstitious idiots.” Walker halted to listen. Did he hear voices? “Sam?” he called, hoping for a response... hoping Sam’s vibrant life and laughter stilllived.
Maybe he was fooling himself, but he thought he heard “Okay,” float down. He picked up speed, tramping on Harvey’s heels close enough to make the other man hopfaster.
“No, we’re neither superstitious or idiots,” Harvey said emphatically. “If you stay here long enough, you’ll see what we mean. I heard about thefouled brillianceof the commune,as my father called it, and came up to find out for myself. There’s not much talent left up here to be brilliant, but thefoulpart is subtle and doesn’t need talent to cause harm. Sam called it negativity,and she might be closer to the truth, but how does one put negativity intodirt?”
“Explain negativity.” Walker needed distraction from the horrifying images filling his head. Snakes and landslides and broken necks provided more than enough evil without throwing in demons. Butnegativity, that almost made sense. The world was full ofit.
“Talk to Lance sometime,” Harvey suggested,almost angrily. “Look at his artwork. There’s a reason Daisy hands out guardian angels, although I don’t know why the devil she’s using stones from the Ingersson farm, since that’s where the evilerupted.”
Now they were getting somewhere—the hippy farm, where drugs and art ruled. Hallucinogens were probably part of the routine. Cass had learned how to wipe Sam’s memory with that nasty hypnosistrick somewhere. “And you know thishow?”
“Listening to the old folks and my father. He was a kid when he lived up here. My grandparents wrote music, played a dozen instruments, got pretty famous there for a while. A lot of the people who lived here were talented. Only the ones who got out survived the evil. My grandmother hauled my father out when he was still young, but my grandfatherstayed behind. He was laid to rest on the farm, along with Valdis’sparents.”
Valdis’s parents were buriedon the farm, not in the graveyard? Why the hell had no one told him? Because they were superstitious idiots and didn’t want to come out here. Walker thought banging his head against boulders would be more useful than talking to the people inHillvale.
“Sam!” he shouted againas they climbed high enough to see BaldRock.
“Valdis is injured.” Sam’s voice called down, sounding sane andsafe.
Walker stopped to take a breath and wing a prayer to the universe. “Andyou?”
“Bruised, embarrassed, but in one piece. There are snakes,” she yelled back. “Becareful.”
All right, keep breathing, he could deal with snakes. No guns. No mad women. No children.Just snakes and rocks and...evil. He could almost hear his mother’s voice warning of the evils of vice whenever she caught him with alcohol or pot or flashing cash to impress. She’d chattered at him in Mandarin, smoked sage in his room, cut off his allowance, and invoked the memory of his father. And when he’d really been difficult, she’d planted bamboo outside his window and installed waterfountains outside his door—to encouragepositive energyflow. So, yeah, he understoodsuperstition.
He’d still grown pot in his dorm room and played beer pong with everyone else, but he’d outgrown flashing cash to impress. Well, maybe his BMW was the adult method of impressing. So sue him. He wasn’t evil, and he still didn’t believe bamboohelped.
“You’re going to leave it up toSam and me to help Valdis down?” Walker asked Harvey, trying to keep his toneneutral.
Harvey mumbled a few curse words under his breath. Or maybe he was chantingspells.
