“One of the witches!” she screamed, pointing at the exit. He ran with her into the parking lot just in time to see the guy get into a dark blue car and take off.
Jeremiah grabbed her hand and together they jumped the hedge separating the church from the synagogue. Seconds later she was throwing herself into the passenger seat of Jeremiah’s car even as he was reversing out of the parking space. She slammed her door as he hit the gas and they went flying toward the exit.
“There!” she screamed, pointing to the blue car racing through the traffic light a block down the street to their left.
“Call Mark!” Jeremiah said as he peeled out.
“My phone’s in my purse in the office,” she realized frantically.
“Grab mine out of the pocket closest to you,” he said, shifting slightly in his seat while keeping his hands glued to the wheel and his eyes on the car ahead of them.
Cindy reached into his pocket and grabbed the phone.
“Jeremiah, what is it?” Mark said as he answered.
“It’s Cindy. We’ve just left the church. We’re in the car chasing down one of the witches. It’s this creepy looking guy. I can’t tell how old he is. He’s in a blue car.”
“Does he know you’re following him?”
“Does he know we’re following him?” Cindy parroted.
“No,” Jeremiah said. “He thinks he got away clean. I’m tailing him and he’ll never see me.”
“Did you hear that?” Cindy asked.
“I did. Stay on the line with me and tell me where you’re heading so we can jump on him when he gets where he’s going. With any luck he’ll lead us to the others.”
For the next twenty minutes Cindy’s heart was in her throat as she strained to keep her eyes on the blue car, losing it more often than not, but trusting in Jeremiah. She told Mark as they made directional changes. At one point he got excited because apparently they’d entered an area where they’d lost a different car they’d been tracking earlier.
“Trina, Liam, and I are probably about a mile behind you,” he said.
The suburbs gradually gave way to some smaller patches of farmland that lay between Pine Springs and the forest proper. The farther they went the more distance Jeremiah had to keep between them and the blue car and Cindy became increasingly terrified that they’d lose it altogether.
At last it turned into a farmhouse. Jeremiah slowed up and parked behind a clump of bushes at the side of the road. Then he eased out of the car and looked around.
He got back in. “We’re here,” he said.
Cindy conveyed the information to Mark.
“Why did he come by the church?” he asked.
“I don’t know. He was in line for the maze. I figured out who he was, and here we all are.”
“Okay. We’ll be there shortly. We got held up by a train that’s taking its own sweet time,” Mark growled.
Cindy hung up and handed the phone to Jeremiah, relaying the information.
“We’ve got to get in there,” Jeremiah said, his voice low and urgent. “I’m not sure the prisoners have a few minutes to wait, especially not if other members of his coven think there’s any chance he was followed.”
Cindy had been about to say the same thing. She had that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach again.
They crept silently out of the car and seeing no one outside the farmhouse they ran forward as quietly as possible. Just before the actual house was a barn that was a few feet off the highway. Jeremiah pointed to it and Cindy nodded, having gotten the same feeling that he did.
They managed to make it to the cover of the barn unseen. At least, she thought they did. They crept along behind it until they reached a door. Jeremiah went through first and she followed, closing it behind her. They had been plunged into total darkness. Worse there were a lot of horrible smells in the place, including blood.
Jeremiah took her hand and they crept forward quietly. She would have given anything for a light, but knew they couldn’t risk it. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her stomach was twisting harder and harder.
And then, in the darkness, she heard a mewing sound. It was coming from her right. It sounded like a kitten. She wondered if it was one of the stolen cats from the humane society.
They kept walking straight ahead and the mewing got louder. She felt like the kitten was crying out for help and the sound grabbed at her and wouldn’t let go. She pulled to the right. After a moment Jeremiah let go of her hand. She felt her way slowly forward. Her eyes were beginning to adjust. There was a shuttered window higher up in the barn that was still letting through slivers of moonlight. Slowly she was able to make things out and she finally saw a cage with a tiny paw reaching out through the bars.
She dropped to her knees and touched the paw.
Suddenly there was a lot more light as the front door of the barn opened. She could see seven people silhouetted in the door, one of them being supported by two of the others. The kitten gave out a high-pitched cry that she was sure could be heard for miles.
“I thought I sedated all those blasted animals. They should have been out by now. Shut that cat up,” a woman’s voice snapped.
Cindy’s fingers fumbled with the door of the cage and she was able to silently open it. She reached in and grabbed the kitten and pulled him out, closing the cage behind him. Then she slipped behind a line of barrels, clutching the tiny ball of fur to her chest. He was purring now and it was shaking his entire body, but at least he wasn’t yowling.
She could see through two barrels as a man knelt down next to the cage. He stood up a minute later. “Looks like they’re all out cold now,” he said, moving back to join the others.
“Then it’s time we get this over with.”
Cindy had no idea where Jeremiah was, but she prayed that Mark and the others would show up soon.
Six of the people moved to the middle of the barn, forming a loose circle. The seventh walked over to the far side and grabbed something which he then dragged across the floor and deposited on the ring of the circle.
“Lizzie!” the coven member who was injured spat.
“We need her until we perform the last ritual. Then she can be both coven member and sacrifice,” the older woman said. “You’ll get your chance at her. Lacey, go grab one of the others.”
A girl departed the circle and came back a minute later with another girl whose hands and feet were tied but who was still fighting for all she was worth. Cindy’s heart flew into her throat and she held the kitten tighter. They weren’t planning on sacrificing the girl right there were they?
When they reached the circle one of the men stepped forward and together he and Lacey dropped the other girl onto the ground. Cindy raised up a little higher to see what they were doing and realized they were anchoring her hands and feet to stakes.
Flashbacks to seeing the dead girl in the basement overwhelmed her and bile rose into her mouth. They were planning on killing the girl right then and there. As the two tied her the others began to chant.
And through her terror a word bubbled up from deep inside her and came out. “No!”
Everyone froze, even Cindy.
“What was that?” the old woman asked.
Cindy put the kitten down on the ground behind the barrels, wanting it to be safe. She stood up and strode forward. “I said, ‘no’!” she exclaimed defiantly.
She was crazy. She knew that in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t stop herself. It was like something else propelled her forward, spoke with such authority through her mouth.
“What did you say?” the old woman cackled.
“In the name of God and Jesus Christ His Son I will not permit you to do this thing,” Cindy boomed. She could hear her own voice filling the barn and reverberating around it. And she meant every word. What was happening here was evil and all that it took for evil to flourish was for good men to do nothing. She would not permit it. She would do something.
“Grab her,�
� the witch said.
One of the men lunged forward. Before he could reach Cindy, Jeremiah stepped out of the darkness like her own avenging angel and dropped the man to the ground. She didn’t know if he’d killed him and she didn’t care. She kept her eyes focused on her other enemies.
The old woman snarled and raised her hand toward Cindy. A tiny, black blur streaked past Cindy and launched itself at the old woman’s legs. When the kitten attacked her she suddenly staggered backward a step and fell, hitting her head against one of the support beams. She hit the ground seemingly unconscious. The others stared at their fallen leader for a moment, frightened, then ran for the door.
Mark, Trina, and Liam stepped into the doorway, guns drawn. “Freeze!” Mark shouted. Moments later the coven members were on the ground being handcuffed by Mark and Liam. Trina had gone over to inspect the fallen older woman. When Cindy joined her she glanced up, startled, moving her hands off the woman’s head.
“Is she dead?” Cindy asked.
Trina nodded. “That will teach her,” she said.
“To what?” Cindy asked, somewhat dazed.
“To mess with the mother of a black cat,” Trina said with a small smile.
The kitten was sitting there, staring up at Cindy. She reached down and scooped up the tiny creature and pressed him to her cheek.
“I saw what happened right as we got here. He saved your life. She was getting ready to throw her knife at you,” Trina said.
“That’s why her hand was raised,” Cindy said, feeling slightly dazed.
“Yes,” Trina said. “God was looking out for you.”
Cindy’s hands were shaking and the little kitten was purring again so hard that he was shaking, too. She kissed the top of his head. “God was looking out for both of us,” she whispered.
Jeremiah had freed the girl on the ground and she led him to a storage room where the others were being held. In a moment all the kidnap victims were in the middle of the barn having their bonds cut from them. Brenda raced over and hugged Cindy tight.
“This is Meghan, Sarah’s sister,” Jeremiah said, indicating the girl who the coven had been about to sacrifice.
“Thank you for saving me,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome, but God was the one in charge, not Me.”
Brenda went over and hugged Meghan.
More officers showed up and began taking away the coven members. “I don’t understand one thing,” Mark finally said when he had a moment. “Why did the one guy show up at the church? I mean, if he hadn’t, we never would have found this place. Not in time at any rate.”
“I can answer that,” Meghan said shakily. They took me into the house to talk to me about my cousin Casey. I think they were afraid of what she might have told the police. Brenda had told everyone that if anyone managed to get to a phone we should call the church because there were people there who could help and that Cindy would make sure that the detective and our rabbi knew what was going on. She made us all memorize the number. While I was in the house I got my chance and I went for it. There was a ton of static and I tried to tell where we were and what was happening. I had no idea how much the woman who answered heard. When they caught me, though, I told them that the people at the church knew everything. As the old lady was taking me back to the barn she called one of the others and told him to check out the church and see who had gotten the call, see if there was any reason to worry. And then you all came,” Meghan said, eyes filling with tears.
“I got that call,” Cindy said. “And I couldn’t hear you, but God did. I know He worked it out so that we could find you because of your bravery.”
Meghan shook her head. “I wasn’t brave. I was scared. I knew they were going to kill us if we didn’t do anything.”
“Your call still saved us,” Brenda said, hugging her tight.
Lizzie was sitting by herself, having finally come to, and Mark went and put his coat over her shoulders. He gave her his phone and Cindy could hear her calling Traci. There had been a girl and a boy freed that none of the rest of them knew, but they sat huddled with Brenda and Meghan, waiting to be taken home.
Cindy finally found a bale of hay and sat down on it, still clutching the kitten. After a couple of minutes Jeremiah walked over. “It looks like the other cats are going to be fine, just a bit groggy. All the shelter cats are there, plus one that has a collar and a nametag that says Ebony. Lizzie said they were using blood and bits of fur from the cats in the ritual. They also used a lot of other things, most of which I don’t even want to know about so I’m certainly not going to share.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway, the cats are all scared, but they should be fine once they get back to the shelter.”
She shook her head. “No. These cats have already been through enough. They’re going to go to good homes even if I have to handpick the families.”
Jeremiah nodded and then pointed toward the little cluster of survivors. Brenda and Sarah each were petting a cat.
“I think you’ve already found homes for two of them, at least.”
“Three. Blackie here is mine,” she said protectively.
“I don’t think anyone will argue that,” Jeremiah told her, putting his arm around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder.
“You were amazing,” he said softly. “Crazy, but amazing.”
“I was just doing what God wanted me to do,” she said.
“That still takes a lot of courage,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “Just another reason why I love you.”
She smiled and felt a warm glow at that. She took a deep breath and allowed herself to relax as she looked around the barn. Everything was going to be okay.
It was amazing how the word had spread like wildfire about everything that had happened. By Friday afternoon all of the black cats from the shelter had found families and Cindy had personally screened each one, stressing the trauma the cats had been through and how heroic they had been.
The haunted house had ended up having four hour lines its opening night and looked to do even better for its last two nights. Word had spread that two of the girls playing monsters inside had nearly been sacrificed by witches and it seemed every kid in a sixty mile radius was willing to go to a church to say they had seen them. Dave had cheerfully found a place in the maze for Meghan near her sister.
The only dark spot was that one of the men from the coven had managed to escape police custody on Tuesday night by faking illness and then knocking out the officers whose car he was riding in. Mark had the entire police force out looking for him, but the whole thing was compounded by the fact that no one knew his name and the only really reliable witness to have gotten a good enough look at him to ever be able to identify him was Lizzie.
Lizzie had been reunited with Traci but there was talk that she’d be going into Federal protective custody pending the outcome of the manhunt that was on for the man. Cindy hoped he was caught soon so all of them could breathe easy and Lizzie could stay at home and continue the healing process.
Five o’clock hit and Cindy turned off her computer. “You going to stick around and see the craziness tonight?” Geanie asked.
“Nope. I’ve got a date with a kitten. I promised Blackie we’d snuggle on the couch and watch some movies tonight. He’s settling in well, but I know he misses me during the day and I’ll be gone all tomorrow.”
“Give him a scratch behind the ears for me,” Geanie said. “When are you introducing him to Jeremiah’s dog?”
“We were thinking maybe sometime next week after Blackie’s settled in a bit more.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Geanie said.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
As they exited the office and locked the door Cindy stared in amazement. The line outside the gym was already wrapping three times and the haunted house wasn’t even opening for another hour.
“Definitely more people are going to be here than last night,” Geanie said.
“Well, Dave got his wish. He’s getting all the unchurched kids here one way or another.”
And given all the horror she’d seen in the last week, she couldn’t think of a better thing than that.
23
Cindy had to admit that Geanie and Joseph knew how to throw a party. The couple had certainly taken the Addam’s Family theme to the extreme. They had hired a few local handymen to put up a false facade on the front of their house to make it look like a spooky old mansion and they had redressed everything inside on the bottom floor to fit the theme as well.
She had just walked into the ballroom with the two of them as they were doing final inspections before the party was to begin.
“My darling, how long has it been since we danced?” Joseph asked dramatically, taking Geanie by the hand.
Geanie spun into his arms. “Oh, Joseph. Hours.” They giggled as they spun around the room and Cindy couldn’t help but smile. The two of them were so well-matched it was ridiculous. Plus she had finally watched the first film the night before and she got the reference.
“It’s going to be an awesome party,” Cindy said as they came spinning back and stopped next to her.
“More than you can guess,” Geanie said with a mysterious smile. If there was one thing Geanie loved, it was surprises and Cindy couldn’t even guess what the other woman might have in store for the evening.
“Well, ladies, shall we get ready for the festivities?” Joseph asked with a smile.
Geanie nodded and grabbed Cindy’s arm. “I’m just sorry that in having you come early I’ve robbed you of the chance to arrive at the party in style.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re using the parking lot at the bottom of the hill and having people ride up it in a horse drawn carriage,” Joseph said. “Maybe if we hurry, though, we’ll all have time to ride down and back up with the first guests.”
“Yes, perfect! I knew there was a reason I married you,” Geanie said flirtatiously. “Now, Cindy and I will get dressed in our room. You can get dressed in your office.”
I Will Fear No Evil Page 20