There are no words from Marie after “Is there something I can do for you?” She’s fighting to save herself, knowing why Mentone’s here, realizing too late that he’s been waiting for this moment—her alone, Hunter out since daybreak, and God alone knows when he’ll be back. Marie kicks and scratches, but she doesn’t scream. She’s not made that way.
Mentone is stronger. He lets her fight a little—he’s enjoying the fear in her eyes, her hair around her shoulders, the knowledge that he can raise her clean off her feet and do whatever he wants when he wants. He lifts her blue skirt, her white petticoats.
Hunter appears on the ridge. From under the aspens he sees Mentone’s horse standing in the sheeting rain, gallops down the hill. He runs into the house, finds the two of them, Marie down on the floor and helpless, looking up at him like a hurt, trapped animal. Hunter rushes at Mentone, knocks him sideways, grapples with him, and pins him to the floor, kneels over him, raises his fists, and begins to punch him in the face and chest.
Marie is free. She gets to her feet and, afraid now that her husband will kill her attacker, tries to pull Hunter away, maybe even gives Mentone the split-second chance to free one arm, reach for his gun, aim, and fire.
Bang! One shot. Hunter falls.
Bang! I hear it echo through the century. I see Hunter topple, hear Marie scream at last.
Bang! It’s not then but now. Not a shot from a gun, but the barn door slamming shut. I hear footsteps splashing through puddles.
The door to the house flies open and there stands Henry Jardine, with Sheriff Kors right behind him on the porch, and the rain hammering down.
After all the warnings I gave you?” Jardine quizzed. He stepped inside the house, glanced around at the table, the racks of dusty plates on the dresser, the unlit stove.
I came up with the usual lame excuse. “You know I don’t sleep much. I’m following up my research.”
Kors followed Jardine over the threshold, took off his hat, and shook the drips from the brim. “I take it you saw the two guys following you?”
I drew a sharp breath, shook my head, then tried to cover up the fear.
“A couple of guys on Harleys,” Jardine went on. “We checked them out—the bikes are registered with Robert Black and Vincent Hall.”
“Yeah? That’s news to me.” My comment was about as unconvincing as it’s possible to be.
“They’re on our radar.” The sheriff walked to the bottom of the stairs. “We like to monitor their activities.”
“So where are they now?”
“You lost them along the dirt road out of Foxton. We watched them pull up by the creek then we drove on here ahead of them.” Deciding not to check the upstairs room, Kors ran a finger along the dust on the table. “Don’t you want to know the reason why we have Hall and Black in our sights? I’ll tell you anyway. The day Phoenix Rohr was stabbed—they were present at the crime scene.”
I made out I didn’t know. “With a hundred other guys,” I muttered. “Anyone in Ellerton under the age of twenty-five was there that day.”
Kors gave me a hard look. “You act like you don’t want us to find your boyfriend’s killer.”
The use of the killer word and the pressure of the situation suddenly got to me, and my legs buckled. Jardine slid a chair under me just in time to stop me from slumping to the floor. “Take it easy,” he warned his boss, then turned back to me. “We’re on your side, remember, Darina. All we want right now is for you to tell us why Oscar Thorne’s guys are on your tail.”
Drawing a deep breath, I started to explain. “It’s complicated. You all know Oscar supplies…substances, illegal drugs to dealers in town. He spent time in jail for it last year. It didn’t stop him from dealing. Now his kid brother, Nathan, acts as his go-between.”
Jardine and Kors tucked away this useful piece of information. “And?” Kors asked.
“And Phoenix’s brother, Zak, and a couple of other kids hang out with Nathan in an old trailer on the Forest Lake road. I happened to be there when Nathan pulled out a bag of white powder. I guess the situation quickly got back to Oscar, and he put Hall and Black onto me.”
“These are people you do not—I repeat not—want to mix with.” Jardine did his protective uncle thing, while Kors busily computed the facts. “Those two guys are suspected of being into everything you ever had nightmares about—drugs, automobile theft, serious assault, dangerous driving. So don’t think that tailing you at a safe distance is all they have in mind.”
It was my turn to process new information. “Why? What will they do to me?”
“How good is your imagination?” Kors interrupted. “Try staging a traffic accident for starters. A mysterious case of hit and run.”
“Oh, God!” My legs trembled even more.
“Or mugging in broad daylight. And these guys carry serious weapons.”
Up on the ridge, the first flash of lightning darted across the sky, followed by a growl of thunder. Rain drove onto the porch; wind rattled the windowpanes. Now I knew there was no chance of the Beautiful Dead sticking around on the far side.
For a while the sound of thunder drowned out the roar of bike engines, and the first we saw of the Harley riders was through the frame of the open door when they were already halfway down the hill, about to cut across the meadow toward the house.
“Lucky for you we’re here,” Kors muttered, stepping out onto the porch.
The two bikers spotted him and his uniform. They reacted fast, wheeling away, back up the hillside, bouncing over the rough ground, swerving and leaning their bikes at crazy angles to negotiate the rocks and gullies.
Kors and Jardine ran up the hill after them. Their aim was to reach the car they’d parked out of sight under the aspens and chase Hall and Black out to Angel Rock.
Meanwhile, I stayed on the porch, shaking from head to foot. And this is how Hunter and Phoenix found me, soaking wet and terrified, when they braved the storm to come back to the far side.
• • •
“I was right all along.” Phoenix spoke to Hunter as they appeared in their halos of white light. “I told you this was too dangerous. Darina has to stop right now, before something really bad happens.”
“Something bad has already happened,” Hunter said. “She grew careless again. If this carries on, and outsiders keep coming here, our secret won’t be secret anymore.”
As the light around them faded, lightning flashed a second time. It forked through the black clouds, followed almost instantly by a sharp crack of thunder. “You shouldn’t be here!” I cried.
“True,” Hunter agreed, calm in spite of the danger he and Phoenix were in. “We only came to take care of the intruders you brought with you.”
“Go back!” Guilt struck hard, and I ran to take both of Phoenix’s hands to plead with him. Was it my imagination that he was paler, colder than ever, his grasp less strong?
“The storm is bad, and it’s getting worse!”
“I can’t leave until after I deal with our visitors,” he whispered.
“So go up to the ridge,” Hunter ordered. “Set up the barrier, drive all four of them away.”
Phoenix had no choice—he must obey his overlord. “Wait here with Hunter,” he told me, holding me by the shoulders and forcing me to look straight into his eyes.
“The guys on the bikes didn’t get past Angel Rock before they wrecked their machines. The cops didn’t even make it that far.”
I hung on to his hands, desperate not to let him go.
“You’re sure? You can hear what’s happening?”
He nodded then pulled free. “Wait here,” he said again then strode out.
I ran to the door after him, watched him sprint across the drenched meadow and up the hill as another fork of lightning flickered across the sky.
“This isn’t right!” I went to plea
d with Hunter, who stood impassively by the window. His face was blank, and his eyes stone cold. “The electric storm—Phoenix won’t make it through!”
“He knows what he has to do,” Hunter muttered. “If he fails, you understand what will happen.”
The storm will overpower him. The electrical charge of the lightning will drain his superhuman strength. Death will claim him.
“So was it worth it?” Hunter asked me calmly as he read my thoughts. “Really, Darina—whatever you came here to tell me, was it worth risking everything for?”
“Judge for yourself.” I gathered every shred of willpower to stand up to his challenge. “My main reason for coming was you, Hunter. I found out everything you need to know about Hester—I checked the details on her birth certificate. You’re named as her father.”
You know what happens when you strike a strong man hard? His eyelids flicker, but he hardly flinches. That was how it was when I gave Hunter this news.
“How much more certain can you be that she was your daughter and not Mentone’s?” I asked.
“I hear you.”
“And did you ever check the certificate for yourself? You could have found a way to do that.”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Because.”
I stared at Hunter, suddenly seeing him in a different light and connecting his hesitancy with Phoenix’s seeming reluctance to pursue his own killer. “Were you scared of what you might find?” I stammered. “If it turned out that Mentone was Hester’s father, would you really have wanted to know?”
“The facts aren’t always easy to handle,” he admitted.
“But this certificate makes it official,” I insisted. “Marie wouldn’t lie to the registrar, right?”
Hunter shook his head. “My wife never told a lie in her entire life.”
“So she was one hundred percent certain that you were the father. And maybe Mentone’s attack didn’t go as far as actual rape.”
I waited a while for him to work through the implications of what I’d said.
“Aren’t you glad?” I asked.
He breathed deep. “It’s good to learn the truth. Thank you.”
Two precious words of gratitude fell from Hunter’s lips! Yes, it was worth it, I thought, spurred on to say more. “Hester married in 1925. She had a daughter named Alice Marie.”
Silently Hunter mapped the life he would have had as a father and grandfather, but he gave no sign of how it made him feel. Instead, he gazed at me with expressionless features, as if listening to someone else’s history, far removed from his own.
“Alice Marie married Tom Ashton.” My stomach tightened as I reached the end of the story. “They had one son and one daughter, Tom and Jane.”
He gave the slightest nod, his gray eyes penetrating deep into my psyche. Knowing full well what was in my head, he did at least let me say it out loud.
“Jane Ashton was my grandmother. We belong to the same family, you and I.” I spoke the words and waited for Hunter’s reaction, longing for him to reach out and take my hand. Instead, he simply went on staring deep into my eyes.
“You want to know my reaction?” he asked at last, speaking quietly then turning to watch the latest lightning hit over Amos Peak. “This is hard for you, Darina, but I have to remind you of something that I told you the first time we spoke, almost a year ago. You talked then of loving Phoenix and of him loving you from beyond the grave.”
“You didn’t believe me,” I recalled. “You said that for love to exist there has to be a heart.”
“And the Beautiful Dead have no beating heart, no blood running through their veins. What I’m saying is—we have no emotions. It’s impossible for us to be glad or sad, for me to tell you truthfully that I’m happy about the family link between us.”
“That’s true for you, maybe,” I argued, fighting back the hurt his words had caused. “But not for Phoenix and the rest. They have feelings even after they die. Remember Jonas—how much he still cared for Zoey? And Arizona—she came across as hard and cynical, but even she wouldn’t rest until she knew her kid brother was safe. Also Summer—she needed her parents to look to the future, to go on and live their lives without her.”
As for my beautiful Phoenix, he tells me he will stay with me. He will be in the air I breathe, will walk beside me always.
“So I’m wrong?” Hunter asked, as if this was the first time he’d allowed the possibility to enter his head and the idea amused him.
“Totally. The Beautiful Dead do have feelings. Why else would they want to return to the far side?” I waited a while, carefully watching Hunter’s face, wanting those hard, chiseled lines to soften. “It’s been a long time since you died. And you’re the overlord. To you, sharing your feelings might seem like weakness.”
The shadow of a smile appeared. “You sure know how to frame an argument,” he said. “Just like my Marie.”
Slowly I regained my courage and smiled back. “You always knew we were linked. No way is this news to you.”
“I suspected. I hoped.”
Hoped? I felt my heart swell. Hunter wanted me to be family. In spite of what he said, he cherished the bond between us.
“Yes, hoped.” For a second his features did change. There was a moment’s tenderness in the overlord’s steely eyes. Then lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and he was all hardness again. He listened. Through the crash of thunder he must have heard what was happening at Angel Rock. “Phoenix needs help,” he said abruptly, striding toward the door.
I ran after him, my heart shuddering. “What’s happening? Is he OK?” I asked.
“Come with me,” Hunter instructed, and we went out into the downpour, heading up to the ridge as fast as we could.
I struggled to keep up, slipping and sliding on the wet rocks, but Hunter reached the aspen stand way before me and disappeared over the ridge.
“Wait for me!” I begged.
He strode on toward Angel Rock—that dark granite outcrop in the shape of a Christmas-tree angel, silhouetted against the bank of thunderclouds, lit by sudden flashes of lightning.
“Phoenix, please be OK!” I whispered, following in Hunter’s footsteps until I caught sight of him again. In the distance, north of Angel Rock, I glimpsed two abandoned Harleys and some dark figures fighting.
Another bolt of lightning struck and thunder rattled. I grew more frightened still as I rushed after Hunter—how long could he and Phoenix go on in the eye of the storm? I fought my exhaustion, forced myself onward until at last I reached Angel Rock.
The first figure I identified through the sheet of rain was Henry Jardine. He emerged from behind the tall rock, staggering backward with his arms raised to protect his head. Phoenix followed him, towering over him and concentrating his zombie powers on beating Jardine back down the hillside with invisible wings and a horde of death-heads.
I heard Jardine cry out—a mixture of pain and terror—then fall backward onto a flat slab of glistening wet granite where he curled into a ball, rolled, and lay helpless.
Phoenix followed, stood astride the deputy sheriff, glared down on him, and zapped him with the mind-bending rays that would rob him of all memory of this event. I held my breath as the supernatural charge hit Jardine and passed through him, making him jolt and writhe. Then Phoenix bent forward to grasp his arm and raise him from the ground, lifting him with ease.
There was no struggle left in the deputy sheriff—in a daze he allowed himself to be turned away from Angel Rock and led along the ridge by Phoenix, who eventually released him under the aspens and watched him walk unsteadily toward his car.
Meanwhile, I saw Hunter deal with Hall and Black. On foot, away from their Harleys and battered by the storm, the two tough guys didn’t look so dangerous. They ran across the scrub in my direction, stumbling as I had, yelling
and acting like they’d seen a ghost. Close behind them came Hunter, seemingly strong as ever, gaining on his victims with every stride. When he drew near enough, he brought the death-heads hurtling down out of the dark sky—ghastly yellow skulls crowding in on Black and Hall, forcing them onto their knees, making them crouch and beg for mercy.
They were wasting their breath. Hunter seized them, one in either hand, and dragged them back on their feet. He flung them against Angel Rock, knocking the last remaining air out of their lungs, pinning them there as he zapped their brains, making them curl up and scream.
“Phoenix, take Darina down to the house,” Hunter ordered without looking around. “And when you’re sure she’s safe, leave the far side.”
“What about you?” Phoenix asked.
“I can deal with this. Just go!”
So Phoenix turned and ran with me, down from Angel Rock into the valley where the invisible wings didn’t beat and the death-heads melted away into the dark sky. We reached the meadow, and I clung to him, sobbing with relief.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured, brushing strands of wet hair from my cheek. He put his arms around me and held me until I stopped.
“We’re almost there,” I gasped, pointing toward the house. “Leave me. Do what Hunter told you.”
“First I take you inside,” he insisted.
We reached the yard with the rain still beating down and thunder rumbling down from the mountains.
“Really, it’s time to go,” I begged. “Phoenix, please!” He seemed to falter then recover as he kept hold of my hand and walked on. “Hunter said to take you to the house.”
“But you’re losing strength. You need all your energy to get out of here.” To step away from the far side, back into limbo, where he would be safe until the storm was over.
We were on the porch. I was struggling to free my hand from his—Phoenix swayed, put out his other hand to steady himself against the porch rail. Pain flashed across his beautiful features, creasing his brow.