Witching Moon (30 page)

TYREEN GAVE A
small nod. “All right. I know you have to be jumpin' out of your skin. If it will make you feel better, I'll call the sheriff. But I left his card in the den.”

Sara spoke around the knot in her throat. “Okay.”

Waiting until Tyreen had disappeared from sight, Sara grabbed the keys and exited the kitchen, closing the door quietly behind her. She'd never stolen anything in her life. And she wouldn't be starting now. But she needed the woman's car. Because she had to get to Adam before it was too late.

As soon as she was out of the house, the dogs ran toward her, and she stopped to speak to them in a soothing voice. Then she ran to the car. Climbing in, she locked the door behind her and inspected the keys. When she found a standard ignition key, she jammed it into the slot and turned. The car shuddered, but finally the engine caught, sending a puff of black smoke shooting from the exhaust pipe.

Sara was backing out of the driveway when she heard Tyreen shouting at her. “Wait! Come back. What do you think you're doing?”

Sara stepped on the brake, needs and emotions warring inside her. Then she rolled down the window and stuck her head out. “I'm sorry. I need the car. Tell Sheriff Delacorte that I've gone to my old house. That's where they are. In the swamp near my old house.”

She thrust her head back. Then, teeth clenched, she pulled onto the road, hearing the tires squeal as she reversed direction and sped away. She hated what she was doing. But she saw no other option. Adam was in trouble and she had to go to him.

But now it was hard to drive, hard to see what she was doing, because of the phantom scenes flashing before her eyes, scenes of what was happening in the swamp.

 

THERE
was no problem following the old man's trail. As Falcon had predicted, he had crashed through the underbrush with the grace of a wounded ox.

They splashed through shallow water, then came out onto a wide, dry stretch of ground. Across the clearing, the old man's skinny white body was crouched beside a tree trunk.

It took several moments for Falcon to figure out what he was seeing. Another man dressed in fatigue pants and a shirt sat propped against the tree.

He must have caught a flicker of movement from their direction because he looked up.

Falcon and the clan stared at him.

“It's Adam Marshall,” Starflower crowed. “I told you he'd come looking for the old bastard. Kill him.”

“Wait.” Falcon pointed toward the seated figure. “Look at him. He's not moving. I think he's in no shape to fight us.”

“You're taking a chance,” Razorback muttered.

“I want to do the old man first. Give him what he deserves for leading that gang of townspeople against Jenna Foster because he branded her a witch, then running my uncle out of town and grabbing his land for that damn park. When we're through with him, we can take care of Marshall.” He glanced at the figure slumped against the tree. “He's not going anywhere.”

Barnette must have heard them because he turned and screamed, then staggered away. Falcon captured Starflower's hand. The others saw what he was doing and reached for the hand of someone next to them.

He waited until they were centered, until the clan was working together in harmony. Then he stretched out his free arm toward Barnette. The group's power flowed through him, through his mind as he hurled an invisible thunderbolt at the pitiful, naked figure.

He felt like the god Thor, raining destruction down from heaven. Barnette cried out and fell to his side, then lay still.

“Make sure he's dead,” Falcon said to Water Buffalo. The other man loped over to the huddled body while Falcon strode toward Marshall.

The ranger raised his head and blinked, staring at them with dull eyes.

 

PAUL
was in the pickup speeding toward the back entrance to the park when his cell phone rang.

“Delacorte here,” he answered as he pressed the Receive button.

“This is Tyreen. That crazy woman you left here stole my car.”

Paul's hands clenched on the wheel. “Why? What happened?”

“She came tear-assing downstairs, saying that she knew her man was in trouble. I asked her how she knew, and she said she'd dreamed it. Sure! Then she tricked me into going and calling you. While I was looking for your number, I heard my car start.” Tyreen stopped and made a huffing sound. “She yelled a message out the window before she took off.”

“What message?”

“She said to tell Sheriff Delacorte, ‘I've gone to my old house. That's where they are. In the swamp near my old house.'”

“Okay. Thanks!”

“Paul what the hell is going on?”

“Tell you later.” He hung up and tried to get Adam on the line.

 

FALCON
walked toward Adam Marshall. “Good of you to join the party,” he said to the ranger in a conversational tone. Before he could say anything else, a ringing noise made him start. A cell phone. Marshall tipped his head to one side, listening. Then, slowly he reached into his pocket and brought it out.

Falcon snatched it away from him and threw it into a pool of water where the ringing cut off as it sank from view.

“Any other toys on you that we ought to know about?” he asked.

Marshall's lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Like the smoke, do you?” Falcon asked.

Razorback stooped and picked up something black and rubbery on the ground. “He was wearing a gas mask. Lucky for us he took it off.”

Falcon lifted the mask from the other man's hand and tossed it away before turning his attention back to Marshall. “He's overdressed for the party. Strip him.”

“I want him dead,” another voice rose from behind him. The speaker was Starflower. “Once he's dead, we can get Weston, too.”

“Not yet. I want to know what he knows.” He turned to Razorback. “Go back and get the rope. I want him secured.”

Marshall said something, but it sounded like gibberish.

“Send one of the women!” Razorback challenged.

“I told you to do it.”

There was a moment of silence while the two men stared at each other. Then Razorback shrugged and started back to the campfire.

Falcon bent over the ranger. “I'm the leader of this clan. You can call me Falcon,” he said. “If you can talk. You can beg me for mercy.”

 

SARA
sped past the cabin and continued down the road, then turned off onto a side trail. Her teeth were clamped together to keep herself from screaming.

She pulled to a halt just before the trail disappeared into a flat stretch of black water and started running into the swamp.

Jumbled images were still coming to her.

Austen Barnette lay crumpled on the ground. Unmoving. Probably dead.

Adam still sat propped against the tree trunk, the group of painted witches standing over him.

She watched them kneel down, watched them tearing at his clothing.

God, what were they going to do to him?

She ran toward the clearing where the scene was happening. The last time she'd confronted these people, they'd been wearing hoods over their heads. Now they were wearing nothing. Just as she reached the campfire, a figure loomed in front of her. One of the naked, painted men. One of the people who had hurt her.

Only now he was alone.

He stopped short, staring at her with malevolent, glittering eyes. Before she could react, he attacked—not physically but with one of those thunderbolts that made the inside of her skull feel like she'd been strapped into the electric chair and someone had pulled the switch.

She struggled to stay on her feet. Struggled to find a way to protect herself from him. Because if she couldn't do it, he would kill her.

 

ADAM
lay on the ground, forcing himself not to react to Falcon's goading words, or to the feel of hands moving roughly over him, stripping the clothing from his body, tearing fabric and popping buttons.

They had killed Barnette, and there had been nothing he could do about it. They planned to kill him, too. They had used Barnette to lure him out here. And he had walked right into the trap.

He recognized two of them. One was the workman he'd seen that afternoon at Barnette's house, the one who called himself Falcon. The other was the sexpot who had come to the park and tried to get into his pants. Falcon had addressed her as Starflower.

She was tearing at his pants now. But her motives were a bit different. She wanted him naked and vulnerable.

He concentrated on keeping his body limp. For a while there, his mind had been filled with the smoke. Thoughts had floated in a cloud of cotton wool. But the drug had drifted away, and now he was only a little impaired. At least he hoped so.

He kept his lids lowered and his mouth slack as they tore off his shirt and pants. Then his undershorts and shoes and socks.

By the time they had finished, he was already chanting, his voice low, barely audible.

“Taranis. Epona. Cerridwen.”
He tried to repeat the phrase as one of them pushed him onto his back and kicked him in the midsection.

The chant turned into a groan of pain. He lost his place and had to start all over again, wondering if he was going to manage the change under these circumstances.

Another of the bastards aimed a kick at his head, and he somehow ducked away from the blow.

Hands clenched against the pain, he focused on getting the words out.

“Ga. Feart. Cleas. Duais. Aithriocht. Go gcumhdai is dtreorai na deithe thu.”

The crowd of people had sprung into savage action, flailing at him with hands and feet, making it all but impossible for him to focus.

“What the hell are you saying?” one of them shouted.

He didn't answer. He was beyond speech. The change was on him now. His vocal cords would no longer form human sounds.

One of the women screamed. Then another. All of them jumped back as his body jerked and contorted. Wolf hair sprouted on his skin, covering his body in a thick, silver-tipped pelt. The color and structure of his eyes changed as he rolled over so he could stand on all fours. He was no longer a man but an animal, far more suited to the swamp than the crowd of painted, naked people who surrounded him.

“Jesus Christ! He's the wolf who went after us. He's the damn wolf!” one of them shouted.

“Run!”

Yes
he screamed in his mind.
Yes, you bastards. Run
.

Howling his rage aloud, he sprang at the man who had kicked him, tearing at a naked thigh, finding that he wasn't in quite as good shape as he'd thought. His movements were slower, more sluggish than they should be.

He could hear someone shouting, but he was too absorbed in the chase to pay attention to the words.

People were scattering, screaming. He charged a woman and brought her to the ground, slashing at her arm and leg. Then he rounded on a man, dragging him to his knees.

He was slashing the man's naked back when something hit him. A blow to the back of his head that sent him sprawling.

He thought at first that one of them had thrown a rock at him. But it wasn't something physical, he realized. It was like a mental jolt to his brain. Like what Sara had described. Like when he'd thought they were shooting at him. Only now he knew for sure that had just been an illusion his mind had manufactured to cope with what it hadn't understood.

He turned and faced the enemy. Three of them were holding hands, their eyes bright with concentration. It was the workman guy, Miss Sexpot, and another one of the women.

He felt another invisible blow slam into him and fell back, gasping with the pain.

He had watched them kill Barnette like this. They were going to do the same thing to him, because teeth and claws weren't going to cut it against their thunderbolts. His only hope was to get them before they got him. But he couldn't do it. When he tried to stagger toward them, he couldn't make his legs cooperate.

He sank to the ground, panting, trying to keep his brain from dissolving under the force of the pain. He was going to die here in this patch of swamp, because the hatred radiating from these people was going to destroy him.

He longed to disappear into unconsciousness to make the pain go away. But he knew that the moment he let go, he was giving in to death. So he focused all of his energy on keeping hold of consciousness. It was all he could do. He knew that it wasn't nearly enough.