Midnight Sacrifice (36 page)

“We’re too late.” Conor gripped the armrest, and they drove past three state police cruisers and turned in to the lot behind the Black Bear Inn. His belly tensed. “Wait. That’s Danny’s car.”

Dr. Hancock parked next to the Challenger.

Relief budded in his chest. “But if he was here, why didn’t he answer his fucking phone the twelve times I called?”

He bolted from the car to the inn. The doctor’s long legs kept up just fine. He jogged up the porch steps and banged on the back door.

“Conor.” The gravity in her voice stopped him. He turned.

Her porcelain complexion had faded to bleached concrete. She pointed to a pot of flowers. “That’s my cauldron.”

“Shit.” A tall, thin man stood at the door. “I’m Detective Rossi.” He shook their hands.

Conor introduced himself and Louisa. “I’m looking for my brother. Dr. Hancock is the curator for the Winston Museum of Art and Archeology.”

Dr. Hancock explained the theft to the cop.

“That’s a Celtic artifact from your museum?” Rossi asked.

“Yes,” she said.

Rossi frowned. “Let’s discuss this inside.”

Guests gathered in the parlor. The police had set up camp in the dining room.

“Where’s my brother?” The sick feeling inside Conor’s gut answered before the cop.

“We have no idea where they are. They took off before we got here.” Rossi swept a hand over a salt-and-pepper buzz cut. “It looks like your brother might have been right all along. Nathan Hall could be planning another ritual.”

Nathan rearranged his offering, moving the shield to the center of the pile. Perfect. He glanced at the sky. The sun hovered low in the horizon. It would be dark soon. Time to prepare for the Bel-fire.

He would build it as carefully as a fire in his hearth. Paper on the bottom, then kindling, then the larger pieces of wood on top.

He went into the cool dim of the barn. His woodpile was to the right. Next to it he’d filled several plastic trash cans with dried leaves and twigs. Using a wheelbarrow, he spread the dead leaves in a circle. Twigs were next. Then branches. He saved some of the larger pieces to pile around the base of his effigy when it was in position. He set three cans of gasoline next to the pile.

He glanced to the maypole. His assistant should be here soon with Mandy. Excitement rushed in his veins, temporarily wiping away his mental sluggishness. He couldn’t wait to see her, to hold her again. The maiden’s love would consummate his rebirth.

Everything must be ready for his May Queen. Nathan ran for the tractor in the barn. He disengaged the boat trailer and drove it toward his effigy.

“I see something.”

Danny turned as Mandy pointed to another trail through the reeds. Jed turned the boat into the natural corridor. Without the gray of twilight, darkness pressed in on the boat, and Danny’s pulse upshifted. The hairs on his neck were waving in the breeze. This was it. He knew it.

Honey tensed, and her fur bristled. She’d spent most of the day standing in the bow, tail wagging, enjoying the wind in her face. Now her tail dropped, and she let out a high whine, half excitement, half distress.

Like the last three times, Jed and Danny went through the shift from motor to oars as they neared the shallows. Jed switched on a powerful flashlight. The beam illuminated a deep furrow in the muddy shore. Something had been dragged onto the bank. Something big. Like a boat.

Jed moved the light onto the mud just beyond. “Look.”

Tire tracks. Not a car, though. The tracks were too deep, too knobby.

They beached the boat. Jed leashed his dog. She lunged into her collar. “Whoa, girl. Easy now.”

Danny took the flashlight to free both Jed’s hands for dog control. They each grabbed a pack and a rifle as they followed the tracks. The darkness and rough footing slowed their progress. Mandy forged ahead.

Next to him, Jed wheezed.

Danny reached a hand out. “Drop your pack and give me the dog.”

Jed tossed his backpack on the side of the trail. Danny handed Mandy the flashlight and took Honey’s leash. Eighty pounds of dog pulled him forward.

They resumed walking. As they moved deeper into the forest, insect chatter picked up. Gnats hovered in his face. Something
bit him on the chin, but Danny didn’t risk taking a hand off the leash. Honey plowed forward with determination. She knew where she was going.

Jed stumbled. “I’m sorry, Mandy.”

“Take a rest, Jed,” she said without slowing. “I’m going to keep going.”

Breathless, Jed waved Danny on. “Go with her.”

They left Jed leaning on a tree. Mandy and Honey pushed forward. Danny brought up the rear. Deep in the forest, under the thick canopy, full night set down with the finality of a coffin lid. Mandy kept the light low and focused on the tracks. Ahead, the trees opened up into a meadow.

“I’m switching off the light,” she said in a low voice.

“Should we call for backup?”

“What if we’re wrong, and that’s not him? What if we call everyone here and Nathan is somewhere else?”

The dog pulled harder and whined louder. They reached the end of the trail. Tiny lights glowed on the other side of the field, and Mandy broke into a run.

“Shit.” So much for sneaking up on them. Danny and the dog sprinted after her.

The blond man put the tractor in gear. The cage lurched forward. Kevin rammed his feet against the wooden bars. Nothing gave. There was no way out.

“Daddy?”

Kevin reached for his son and gathered him close.

Above him, a feminine sob was barely audible beneath the roar of the tractor engine. A woman’s scream sliced right through the rumble. Hunter trembled in Kevin’s arms.

The cage was dragged into the open. When it was centered over the carefully layers pile of wood, the tractor stopped. Shiny red gas cans lined up like soldiers waiting for orders.

Realization dawned on Kevin. They were sitting in a wooden structure parked on top of a pile of kindling.

The blond man was going to set them on fire.

The shaking started in his hands and spread until his entire body quaked. Tears soaked Hunter’s hair as Kevin contemplated whether he’d have the strength to strangle his son before the flames burned them alive.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Nathan fastened the handcuff around Evan’s wrist to the rope secured around the maypole. From here his son could safely witness his own salvation. Soon, Mandy would join him.

“You can’t go through with it,” Evan begged. “Please.”

“When you’re older, you’ll realize I did the only thing possible. I saved you.” His son didn’t understand, and Nathan didn’t have time to change that. It was his own fault. Nathan’s uncle had taught him everything when he was a child. But Nathan had elected to bring his son up in the modern world. Evan lacked the training of a true Druid. Such a mistake couldn’t be rectified in the span of one winter. He touched his son’s head lovingly.

“I don’t want you to do this.” Evan jerked his head away and strained at his binds. Fresh blood welled around his wrist.

“Please don’t strain, Evan. You’ll only injure yourself.”

“Let me go!” His son pulled harder, but there was no chance he’d escape. The drugs and imprisonment over the winter had weakened him.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way.” Nathan rose. “I pray that tonight goes well so that you might live long enough to hate me well into your old age.”

Druid tradition was passed down orally, through rote memorization. To protect its secrets, rituals were never put to paper. As Nathan had elected to forgo his son’s rightful education, Nathan would be the last Druid in their family. So be it. If he freed his son from the family curse, he could live with the rest.

He retreated to the barn for the final touches. Using a long pole, Nathan positioned the wicker head on the center of the uppermost cage. He hung the branch arms from the wooden pegs. The structure now roughly resembled a human.

The wicker man, complete with a belly full of sacrifices for the gods. Such offerings successfully kept the Romans out of Scotland. Surely, it would be sufficient to keep a single disease at bay in one family.

He stiffened at the sound of an engine. His assistant’s car approached on the long driveway. It came to a stop fifteen or twenty yards from the barn. His assistant got out of the car and walked toward him.

Alone.

He turned away from his masterpiece. “Where is Mandy?”

“She wasn’t at the inn.”

Nathan’s insides heated. “What do you mean she wasn’t there?”

His assistant’s hands clenched together. Unclenched. Clenched again. “I assume she’s at the hospital or looking for her brother. Her mother had a heart attack. Guess she couldn’t deal with her son going missing.”

This could not be. He had it all planned. How could he be reborn without the maiden, his May Queen?

“I need my May Queen!”

“Why can’t I take her place?”

Anger boiled in his belly and swirled red in his vision.

His assistant’s eyes bugged. “I didn’t mean permanently, but I could stand in, just for the ceremony.”

“This isn’t a Broadway production.” His right hand found the knife at his left hip. He swept it clear of the sheath and across his assistant’s throat in one smooth movement. Blood fountained from the wound and splattered across Nathan’s
pants, Jackson Pollock style. He walked away before the body hit the dirt.

Nathan’s heart splintered. All he’d worked for. Gone because his assistant had failed.

No. He could still save his son. It was Nathan’s salvation that was in jeopardy. As always, Evan came first. As long as his son lived on, without fear of the disease that ravaged Nathan’s brain, he was prepared to die. Willingly and without regret.

He looked up and saw a miracle.

A woman running across the meadow toward him. Even in the dark, he recognized her shape, her gait. The gods were with him. They’d sent her to him as a reward for his loyalty.

It was time.

Ignoring the screams of the offerings inside the wicker man, he opened the gasoline and poured it around the structure. He pulled a box of matches from his pocket.

Life had come full circle.