Page 93 of Sapphire Nights
That sounded vaguely ominous. Sam wasn’t certain she wished to explore this path any longer. “So you and my mother inherited the result of your parents’lawsuit?”
“The vultures lingered,” Daisy said. “They had to bedispersed.”
Val gestured toward Daisy with her water bottle. “We scattered the ashes and fled to all the corners of the earth. And the land was happyagain.”
“So twenty-five years ago, your parents died, and my father died, and you and Susannah left, so there was no one left to fight?” Sam suggested as she gatheredstones.
“We buried Evil’s eggs, but they’re still hatching,” Daisy said in a voice almost as mournful asVal’s.
Yup, the Lucys had their own language. Sam could understand Walker’s frustration. “Evil can’t bea person if he’s hatching eggs. Where did you bury them and how do you know theyhatched?”
“Daisy mixes up time periods,” Val offered. “The evil in this ground has been here since prehistoric times, if it’s in the rock crystals as we suspect. The only thingweburied was my parents’ artwork, and maybe some others. They were corroding and probably should have been set on fire, but othershad been saved, so we’d hoped someday these might betoo.”
“So that’s what we’re protecting with the sculptures, artwork?” That almost made sense in its own weird way. Sam carried more of the small army to the outerfoundation.
“And ourselves, for now,” Val added. “If Evil is back, we have noshield.”
Sam hid a sigh of exasperation. “Fighting evil requires identifying thesource—and rocks can’t beevil. Polluted maybe. The Kennedys are not evil just because they’re trying to save their property and offer jobs to people who live up here. They may be going about it the wrong way, but being wrong is human, notevil.”
“Greed is evil,” Valdis said prosaically. “My father’s desire to be rich and famous was evil. He drove an entire community to drugs anddestruction.”
This was an argument she couldn’t win. “I need to get home. Walker is expecting me.” Sam prepared to leave—until Mariah’s distant call intruded like the cry of an eagle highabove.
“Green jacket at BaldRock!”
Sam thought the call emanated from the copse of redwood near the bluff, but she didn’t see anyone.Green jacket? Xavier? Was Mariah speaking incode?
Lookingaround, she thought she saw Harvey striding up to the ridge above Bald Rock. And was that Aaron hiking up from the direction of the vortex? Neither of them woregreen.
“The battle is nigh,” Daisy said prosaically, as if she’d just been waiting for this moment. “Put the rest of the lamassu across that open space.” She gestured at her hastily assembled army and a break in the foundation wherea door might once havebeen.
With her sprained ankle, Val wasn’t hurrying anywhere. Feeling as if she’d fallen through the rabbit hole, Sam gathered as many of the figurines as possible and contemplated some way of getting the heck out of there. She might want to know about her past, but she was starting to think it was best to leave it to a goodpsychiatrist.
“Why are we in a hurry?”she demanded, even as she did astold.
“He’s here. The only way to fight him is to unite, just as in the olddays.”
“Who’s here?” Sam demanded, not expecting a sensible answer but searching the rocks above for something clearly labeledEvil.
“Do we need Mariah?” Val fretted. “She’s a powerfulforce.”
“No time. And the eagle flies better free,” Daisy said, setting downherwire.
The eagle flies better free? After thinking Mariah’s cry had sounded like an eagle, Sam wondered if Daisy was reading hermind.
“Time for the shelter.” Daisy used her staff to pull herself up, obviously stiff from so many hours of sitting. “Sam, help Val. I’ll open thedoor.”
Confused, Sam obeyed the command to help her aunt. As Daisy shoved aside what had appearedto be a stack of dead brambles, revealing a steel door, Sam didn’t know whether to cringe in horror or explore her morbid curiosity. “Is that a bombshelter?”
“The finest homes had them,” Val said dryly, taking Sam’s arm and using her stick tostand.
“And by now, they’re home for spiders and snakes,” Sam said in distaste. “I think I’d rather take my chances in town.” She really,really did not want to enter that black hole for reasons known only to two half-mad old women.Maturewomen, she mentally amended. They had to be about the same age as Jade would have been had shelived.
“Hurry,” Mariah’s voice carried from a greater distance thanearlier.
Sam glanced back up the mountain, but she still couldn’t see Mariah. She did, however, catch a glimpse of emeraldgreen behind BaldRock.
Conquering her fear of snakes to help two addled women feel safe inside a bomb shelter made perfect sense in Hillvale. She shot a nervous glance back to the various Lucys gathering in the hills. They couldn’t all be crazy, couldthey?
