“I don’t see why not, as long as Vicki doesn’t mind,” he said. But Ilya had concerns about two of the Sanguinati teens, so was the Sanguinati leader risking Vicki and the humans here in order to protect the youngest Sanguinati fosterling?
Grimshaw looked at Julian, who said, “I’ll stay awhile longer.”
He’d expected that. “I’ll escort the EMTs to the village and check in with Osgood before I head home.” And have a little chat with Professor Roash.
No one asked if he would be all right walking down the access road on his own. He was the chief of police. He’d spent most of his career as highway patrol, working alone in the wild country. He had to believe he’d earned enough respect from the terra indigene living around Lake Silence to do his job or he was no use to anyone.
He walked down the access road, flashlight in his left hand so that he could draw his weapon with his right. Not that he would. It just made him feel a little easier that he could, especially once he realized something was keeping pace with him, watching him. No crackle of leaves underfoot or snap of a twig, but something moved silently among the trees nearby—and he realized he was waiting to hear bones rattling in a hollow gourd.
Tempting to whistle in the dark. Foolish to attract more attention.
He caught up to the EMTs, which surprised him. He would have thought they would be moving at top speed to get to the road leading back to the village.
“Chief?” Conan called.
“Here.” Grimshaw gave Conan a nod. “I’ll escort the men the rest of the way.”
Conan turned back to the main house. Grimshaw led the EMTs down the rest of the access road. He walked past a car parked behind Julian’s before he realized the EMTs had stopped.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Dr. Wallace didn’t park his car there,” one man said. “He pulled up on the shoulder, same as we did.”
A sour burn filled Grimshaw’s belly as he turned his light to see inside.
No bodies. No blood. No vandalism. Nothing to indicate that Doc hadn’t parked the car there, except the men saying that he hadn’t. Which meant something—or more than one something—had picked up the car and placed it on the access road. Something that knew Doc was staying at the main house tonight, and his car, parked on the side of a dark road, might get damaged if another driver didn’t see it in time?
“Well, it’s here now and out of the way,” he said matter-of-factly.
The men hurried past the car and scrambled into their own vehicle. Grimshaw got in the cruiser—after checking the interior for unwanted passengers—and escorted the men back to the village.
He pulled into his parking spot in front of the station and sat for a moment. Long day. He wanted a hot shower and a cold beer. He wanted to eat warmed-up pizza, which he’d forgotten to take with him, and watch a dumb-ass movie with monsters that were nowhere near as scary as the ones he dealt with on a daily basis.
Osgood reported that all was quiet in the village, except for a complaint by Ellen C. Wilson that her neighbor’s dog kept barking and barking, and a countercomplaint by the neighbor that her dog barked because Wilson teased him and got him stirred up—and Wilson tossed cookies over the fence that the dog gobbled, despite the neighbor having asked Wilson several times not to give the dog treats.
Since Osgood could handle that complaint in the morning, Grimshaw thought he might have an evening at home to regroup and think about what was going on.
Then Julian Farrow called.
CHAPTER 50
Watersday, Novembros 3
Stay,> she said when she returned to the spot where he waited. <Keep watch. I go. Hunt.>
She spoke in the way of someone learning to shape words, and he wondered if Elders spoke a different language or communicated with images—or if she was something so fierce and feral and old, even the other Elders didn’t speak to her unless need required it. He didn’t know. Didn’t even know how to ask the question. Not that it mattered. She understood what he tried to tell her, and that was enough.
After she slipped away to hunt, he looked at the lights shining from the windows of the main house. The Reader was there. Safe? Maybe. But there were other predators besides him out here in the dark.
He moved slowly, quietly, a shadow among the shadows. And he kept watch.
CHAPTER 51
Julian
Watersday, Novembros 3
The Jumble didn’t feel right.
Restless and uneasy, Julian went around The Jumble’s main house for the second time, checking the windows and the locks on the doors to reassure himself that everything was secure. He knew security was an illusion since so many beings around the place could slip through a crack or knock down a door, but that illusion was all any of them had anywhere. Ever.
Not a baseline change to the place. Whatever didn’t feel right was still superficial, but if it took root in The Jumble, it would spread into Sproing, and the village could become a lost place, a toxic ghost town that people abandoned without understanding why they no longer wanted to stay.
He stopped in the doorway of the library, letting the words circle. “Toxic ghost town.” He’d been in some places that had become exactly that. He had tried to settle in a few places that had felt all right in the beginning but quickly felt wrong in ways that had him packing and heading out for another town. He’d never been in one of those places right at the start, when he might have witnessed the event that had turned a healthy, prosperous village into an emotional cesspool that eventually drove out everyone who couldn’t thrive on the rot.
Was that another factor? Did the arrival of Crowbones start that turning, or did the Crowgard bogeyman arrive because a place was beginning to turn?
Julian stood on the wide screened porch that opened off the kitchen and ran the length of the back of the house. The porch door had a lock, such as it was, and the kitchen door had a sturdier lock, but . . .
He heard Michael and Ian Stern’s voices before they rounded the corner of the house, the beams from their flashlights illuminating the ground. He held open the porch door.
“We heard the doctor say he was staying overnight,” Michael said. “Wasn’t sure if there would be a place for him to sleep, so we fetched the air mattress and sleeping bag we had stowed in the car. Better than the floor. You and the doc can flip a coin to see who gets the couch in the TV room.”
He hadn’t been planning to stay since Vicki was full up with guests, but it was hard to argue with Intuits when they had a feeling, and clearly the two men had decided this was necessary.
“Why didn’t you knock on the front door?” he asked. “It’s closer to the cars, and I could have let you in that way.”
Michael hesitated. “It feels safer back here. And we’ve used this door as a quick route between the main house and the cabins since we arrived.”
A recognized scent on an established path. Was that what Michael was trying to tell him?
“Besides,” Ian added, “the teens have decided that the boys will spend the night at the Crowgard cabin and all the girls will be spending the night with Vicki in her apartment.”
A shiver went down Julian’s spine. He shoved his hands in his pockets and resisted the urge to pace. “You staying for the movies?”
“No. Thanks,” Ian replied. “The evening has been scary enough, and it feels like we’ll be better off if we’re where we’re supposed to be.”
He couldn’t disagree with that. “You have everything you need?”