by Nora Roberts
“Ah…sure.”
“Great. Meet you down there. I’m going to pop in the bathroom and fix myself up a little.”
“Quinn.” He hesitated as she opened the door, turned back. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone before.”
“Now that is a very acceptable thing to say.”
She smiled as she strolled away. If he’d said it, he meant it, because that was the way he was. Poor guy, she thought. Didn’t even know he was caught.
A THICK GROVE OF TREES SHIELDED THE OLD cemetery on the north side. It fanned out over bumpy ground, with hills rolling west, at the end of a dirt road barely wide enough for two cars to pass. A historical marker faded by weather stated the First Church of the Godly had once stood on the site, but had been destroyed when it had been struck by lightning and razed by fire on July 7, 1652.
Quinn had read that fact in her research, but it was different to stand here now, in the wind, in the chill, and imagine it. She’d read, too, as the plaque stated, that a small chapel had stood as a replacement until it was damaged during the Civil War, and gone to ruin.
Now, there were only the markers here, the stones, the winter-hardy weeds. Beyond a low stone wall were the graves of the newer dead. Here and there she saw bright blots of color from flowers that stood out like grief against the dull grays and winter browns.
“We should’ve brought flowers,” Layla said quietly as she looked down at the simple and small stone that read only:
ANN HAWKINS
“She doesn’t need them,” Cybil told her. “Stones and flowers, they’re for the living. The dead have other things to do.”
“Cheery thought.”
Cybil only shrugged at Quinn. “I think so, actually. No point in being dead and bored. It’s interesting, don’t you think, that there are no dates. Birth or death. No sentiment. She had three sons, but they didn’t have anything but her name carved in her gravestone. Even though they’re buried here, too, with their wives, and I imagine at least some of their children. Wherever they went in life, they came home to be buried with Ann.”
“Maybe they knew, or believed, she’d be back. Maybe she told them death isn’t the end.” Quinn frowned at the stone. “Maybe they just wanted to keep it simple, but I wonder, now that you mention it, if it was deliberate. No beginning, no end. At least not until…”
“This July,” Layla finished. “Another cheery thought.”
“Well, while we’re all getting cheered up, I’m going to get some pictures.” Quinn pulled out her camera. “Maybe you two could write down some of the names here. We may want to check on them, see if any have any direct bearing on—”
She tripped while backing up to get a shot, fell hard on her ass. “Ouch, goddamn it! Shit. Right on the bruise I got this morning. Perfect.”
Layla rushed over to help her up. Cybil did the same, even as she struggled with laughter.
“Just shut up,” Quinn grumbled. “The ground’s all bumpy here, and you can hardly see some of these stones popping out.” She rubbed her hip, scowled down at the stone that had tripped her up. “Ha. That’s funny. Joseph Black, died eighteen forty-three.” The color annoyance brought to her face faded. “Same last name as mine. Common name Black, really. Until you consider it’s here, and that I just happened to trip over his grave.”
“Odds are he’s one of yours,” Cybil agreed.
“And one of Ann’s?”
Quinn shook her head at Layla’s suggestion. “I don’t know. Cal’s researched the Hawkins’s family tree, and I’ve done a quick overview. I know some of the older records are lost, or just buried deeper than we’ve dug, but I don’t see how we’d both have missed branches with my surname. So. I think we’d better see what we can find out about Joe.”
HER FATHER WAS NO HELP, AND THE CALL HOME kept her on the phone for forty minutes, catching up on family gossip. She tried her grandmother next, who had a vague recollection about her mother-in-law mentioning an uncle, possibly a great-uncle, maybe a cousin, who’d been born in the hills of Maryland. Or it might’ve been Virginia. His claim to fame, family-wise, had been running off with a saloon singer, deserting his wife and four children and taking the family savings held inside a cookie tin with him.
“Nice guy, Joe,” Quinn decided. “Should you be my Joe.”
She decided, since it would get her out of any type of food preparation, she had enough time to make a trip to Town Hall, and start digging on Joseph Black. If he’d died here, maybe he’d been born here.
WHEN QUINN GOT HOME SHE WAS GLAD TO FIND the house full of people, sound, the scents of food. Cybil, being Cybil, had music on, candles lit, and wine poured. She had everyone piled in the kitchen, whetting appetites with marinated olives. Quinn popped one, took Cal’s wine and washed it down.
“Are my eyes bleeding?” she asked.
“Not so far.”
“I’ve been searching records for nearly three hours. I think I bruised my brain.”
“Joseph Black.” Fox got her a glass of wine for her own. “We’ve been filled in.”
“Good, saves me. I could only trace him back to his grandfather—Quinton Black, born sixteen seventy-six. Nothing on record before that, not here anyway. And nothing after Joe, either. I went on side trips, looking for siblings or other relatives. He had three sisters, but I’ve got nothing on them but birth records. He had aunts, uncles, and so on, and not much more there. It appears the Blacks weren’t a big presence in Hawkins Hollow.”
“Name would’ve rung for me,” Cal told her.
“Yeah. Still, I got my grandmother’s curiosity up, and she’s now on a hunt to track down the old family Bible. She called me on my cell. She thinks it went to her brother-in-law when his parents died. Maybe. Anyway, it’s a line.”
She focused on the man leaning back against the counter toying with a glass of wine. “Sorry? Gage, right?”
“That’s right. Roadside service a specialty.”
Quinn grinned as Cybil rolled her eyes and took a loaf of herbed bread out of the oven.
“So I hear, and that looks like dinner’s ready. I’m starved. Nothing like searching through the births and deaths of Blacks, Robbits, Clarks to stir up the appetite.”
“Clark.” Layla lowered the plate she’d taken out to offer Cybil for the bread. “There were Clarks in the records?”
“Yeah, an Alma and a Richard Clark in there, as I remember. Need to check my notes. Why?”
“My grandmother’s maiden name was Clark.” Layla managed a wan smile. “That’s probably not a coincidence either.”
“Is she still living?” Quinn asked immediately. “Can you get in touch and—”
“We’re going to eat while it’s hot,” Cybil interrupted. “Time enough to give family trees a good shake later. But when I cook—” She pushed the plate of hot bread into Gage’s hand. “We eat.”
Sixteen
IT HAD TO BE IMPORTANT. IT HAD TO MATTER. Cal rolled it over and over and over, carving time out of his workday and his off time to research the Hawkins-Black lineage himself. Here was something new, he thought, some door they hadn’t known existed, much less tried to break down.
He told himself it was vital, and time-consuming work, and that was why he and Quinn hadn’t managed to really connect for the last couple of days. He was busy; she was busy. Couldn’t be helped.
Besides, it was probably a good time for them to have this break from each other. Let things just simmer down a little. As he’d told his mother, this wasn’t the time to get serious, to think about falling in love. Because big, life-altering things were supposed to happen after people fell seriously in love. And he had enough, big, life-altering things to worry about.
He dumped food in Lump’s bowl as his dog waited for breakfast with his usual unruffled patience. Because it was Thursday, he’d tossed a load of laundry in the washer when he’d let Lump out for his morning plod and pee. He continued his habitual weekday morning routine, nursing his first cup of coffee wh
ile he got out a box of Chex.
But when he reached for the milk it made him think of Quinn. Two percent milk, he thought with a shake of his head. Maybe she was fixing her version of a bowl of cereal right now. Maybe she was standing in her kitchen with the smell of coffee in the air, thinking of him.
Because the idea of that held such appeal, he reached for the phone to call her, when he heard the sound behind him and turned.
Gage got the coffee mug out of the cupboard he opened. “Jumpy.”
“No. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You were mooning over a woman.”
“I have a lot of things on my mind.”
“Especially the woman. You’ve got tells, Hawkins. Starting with the wistful, cocker spaniel eyes.”
“Up yours, Turner.”
Gage merely grinned and poured coffee. “Then there’s that fish hook in the corner of your mouth.” He hooked his finger in his own, gave a tug. “Unmistakable.”
“You’re jealous because you’re not getting laid regular.”
“No question about that.” Gage sipped his black coffee, used one bare foot to rub Lump’s flank as the dog concentrated his entire being on his kibble. “She’s not your usual type.”
“Oh?” Irritation crawled up Cal’s back like a lizard. “What’s my usual type?”
“Pretty much same as mine. Keep it light, no deep thinking, no strings, no worries. Who could blame us, considering?” He picked up the cereal, dug right into the box. “But she breaks your mold. She’s smart, she’s steady, and she’s got a big, fat ball of string in her back pocket. She’s already started wrapping you in it.”
“Does that cynicism you carry around everywhere ever get heavy?”
“Realism,” Gage corrected as he munched on cereal. “And it keeps me light on my feet. I like her.”
“I do, too.” Cal forgot the milk and just took a handful of cereal out of the bowl he’d poured. “She…she told me she’s in love with me.”
“Fast work. And now she’s suddenly pretty damn busy, and you’re sleeping alone, pal. I said she was smart.”
“Jesus, Gage.” Insult bloomed on two stalks—one for himself, one for Quinn. “She’s not like that. She doesn’t use people like that.”
“And you know this because you know her so well.”
“I do.” Any sign of irritation faded as that simple truth struck home. “That’s just it. I do know her. There may be dozens, hell, hundreds of things I don’t know, but I know who—how—she is. I don’t know if some of that’s because of this connection, because of what we’re all tied to, but I know it’s true. The first time I met her, things changed. I don’t know. Something changed for me. So you can make cracks, but that’s the way it is.”
“I’m going to say you’re lucky,” Gage said after a moment. “That I hope it works out the way you want. I never figured any of us had a decent shot at normal.” He shrugged. “Wouldn’t mind being wrong. Besides, you look real cute with that hook in your mouth.”
Cal lifted his middle finger off the bowl and into the air.
“Right back atcha,” Fox said as he strolled in. He went straight to the refrigerator for a Coke. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is you’re mooching my Cokes again, and you never bring any to replace them.”
“I brought beer last week. Besides, Gage told me to come over this morning, and when I come over in the morning, I expect a damn Coke.”
“You told him to come over?”
“Yeah. So, O’Dell, Cal’s in love with the blonde.”
“I didn’t say I—”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Fox popped the top on the can of Coke and gulped.
“I never said I was in love with anyone.”
Fox merely shifted his gaze to Cal. “I’ve known you my whole life. I know what those shiny little hearts in your eyes mean. It’s cool. She was, like, made for you.”
“He says she’s not my usual type, you say she’s made for me.”
“We’re both right. She’s not the type you usually fish for.” Fox gulped down more soda, then took the box of cereal from Gage. “Because you didn’t want to find the one who fit. She fits, but she was sort of a surprise. Practically an ambush. Did I get up an hour early to come over here before work so we could talk about Cal’s love life?”
“No, it was just an interesting sidebar. I got some information when I was in the Czech Republic. Rumors, lore, mostly, which I followed up when I had time. I got a call from an expert last night, which is why I told you to come over this morning. I might have ID’d our Big Evil Bastard.”
They sat down at the kitchen table with coffee and dry cereal—Fox in one of his lawyer suits, Gage in a black T-shirt and loose pants, Cal in jeans and a flannel shirt.
And spoke of demons.
“I toured some of the smaller and outlying villages,” Gage began. “I always figure I might as well pick up some local color, maybe a local skirt while I’m stacking up poker chips and markers.”
He’d been doing the same for years, Cal knew. Following any whiff of information about devils, demons, unexplained phenomenon. He always came back with stories, but nothing that had ever fit the, well, the profile, Cal supposed, of their particular problem.
“There was talk about this old demon who could take other forms. You get werewolf stuff over there, and initially, I figured that was this deal. But this wasn’t about biting throats out and silver bullets. The talk was about how this thing hunted humans to enslave them, and feed off their…the translation was kind of vague, and the best I got was essence, or humanity.”
“Feed how?”
“That’s vague, too—or colorful as lore tends to be. Not on flesh and bone, not with fang and claw—that kind of thing. The legend is this demon, or creature, could take people’s minds as well as their souls, and cause them to go mad, cause them to kill.”
“Could be the root of ours,” Fox decided.
“It rang close enough that I followed it up. It was a lot to wade through; that area’s ripe with stories like this. But in this place in the hills, with this thick forest that reminded me of home, I hit something. Its name is Tmavy. Translates to Dark. The Dark.”
He thought, they all thought of what had come out of the ground at the Pagan Stone. “It came like a man who wasn’t a man, hunted like a wolf that wasn’t a wolf. And sometimes it was a boy, a boy who lured women and children in particular into the forest. Most never came back, and those who did were mad. The families of those who did went mad, too. Killed each other, or themselves, their neighbors.”
Gage paused, rose to get the coffeepot. “I got some of this when I was there, but I found a priest who gave me the name of a guy, a professor, who studied and publishes on Eastern European demonology. He got in touch last night. He claims this particular demon—and he isn’t afraid to use the word—roamed Europe for centuries. He, in turn, was hunted by a man—some say another demon, or a wizard, or just a man with a mission. Legend has it that they battled in the forest, and the wizard was mortally wounded, left for dead. And that, according to Professor Linz, was its mistake. Someone came, a young boy, and the wizard passed the boy his power before he died.”
“What happened?” Fox demanded.
“No one, including Linz, is sure. The stories claim the thing vanished, or moved on, or died, somewhere in the early-to mid-seventeenth century.”
“When he hopped a goddamn boat for the New World,” Cal added.
“Maybe. That may be.”
“So did the boy,” Cal continued, “or the man he’d become, or his descendent. But he nearly had him over there, nearly did at some point in time—that’s something I’ve seen. I think. Him and the woman, a cabin. Him holding a bloody sword, and knowing nearly all were dead. He couldn’t stop it there, so he passed what he had to Dent, and Dent tried again. Here.”
“What did he pass to us?” Fox demanded. “What power? Not getting a freaking head cold, having a b
roken arm knit itself? What good does that do?”
“Keeps us healthy and whole when we face it down. And there’s the glimmers I see, that we all see in different ways.” Cal shoved at his hair. “I don’t know. But it has to be something that matters. The three parts of the stone. They have to be. We’ve just never figured it out.”
“And time’s almost up.”
Cal nodded at Gage. “We need to show the stones to the others. We took an oath, we all have to agree to that. If we hadn’t, I’d have—”
“Shown yours to Quinn already,” Fox finished. “And yeah, maybe you’re right. It’s worth a shot. It could be it needs all six of us to put it back together.”
“Or it could be that when whatever happened at the Pagan Stone happened, the bloodstone split because its power was damaged. Destroyed.”
“Your glass is always half empty, Turner,” Fox commented. “Either way, it’s worth the try. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Cal looked at Gage, who shrugged.
“What the hell.”
CAL DEBATED WITH HIMSELF ALL THE WAY INTO town. He didn’t need an excuse to stop by to see Quinn. For God’s sake, they were sleeping together. It wasn’t as if he needed an appointment or clearance or a specific reason to knock on her door, to see how she was doing. To ask what the hell was going on.
There was no question she’d been distracted every time he’d managed to reach her by phone the last couple of days. She hadn’t dropped into the center since they’d rolled around his office floor.
And she’d told him she was in love with him.
That was the problem. The oil on the water, the sand in the shoe, or whatever goddamn analogy made the most sense. She’d told him she loved him, he hadn’t said “me, too,” which she claimed she didn’t expect. But any guy who actually believed a woman always meant exactly what she said was deep in dangerous delusion.