After a couple of blocks, he headed down a side street, toward the graveyard. She followed.
When she reached the area, she cursed silently. She’d lost track of her quarry.
Dusk was coming, but the gate hadn’t been locked yet. Jenna walked into the cemetery. In the misted light, she closed her eyes against the souls who seemed to hover around the graves, some aware of one another and chatting quietly, and one following a tourist from stone to stone, tugging at her sweater now and then and laughing delightedly when she looked around to see who was touching her.
Jenna wandered toward the area near the rear of the wax museum, reading stones as she went along. Some were very sad, so many having died at such a young age.
She felt something behind her back and whirled around. It wasn’t a person; no one wearing a horned god outfit.
It was the same older man who had warned her away before, the ghost who had wanted her to know that she was being stalked. Of course, she was being stalked by the boy, Marty Keller, but the ghost hadn’t known that.
“Go! Go!” he told her.
He lifted a thin arm, pointing toward the huge tree that had grown right through the centuries-old graves. “Hurry!”
But as he spoke, a figure emerged from the tree-a figure in the horned god costume.
He was wielding an ax. He hefted it in his hands.
There were still others in the cemetery, but they were more toward the memorial benches.
“Put it down!” she said angrily. “I’m calling the police!” She reached into her bag for her cell phone.
The horned god immediately charged, ax swinging.
Just like in her visions.
16
“I can’t imagine why she’s not here yet,” Angela said, taking a seat at the wine bar. “I talked to her quite some time ago. She was visiting the members of the church, but she should have been back by now.”
Sam frowned, wondering why he felt such an instant jab of fear. He dialed Jenna’s number, and he was rewarded with her answering machine.
“What if the church members…”
“No, no!” Angela said. “A mom went home with two kids. I saw her, Sam, and I don’t know how to explain it, but no-they wouldn’t have hurt her!”
Sam wasn’t sure that he believed that at all. He stood and looked at Angela and Jackson. “Sorry, you wait here for her. Angela, give me that address. I’m going over.”
“All right. We’ll call you, and you call us if you hear from her. I honestly believe she’ll be right along,” Angela said.
“Go on, can’t hurt,” Jackson said.
Sam headed out into the street. Immediately, he saw Will performing, and Will, seeing him, looked concerned. “That way!” he said, working the words and a nod strategically into his act. “That’s magic,” Will cried to the crowd. “I say that way-and you look that way while I’m going the other!” Sam didn’t wait to see more. Will had indicated the road down to the cemetery by having him reverse his gaze.
He started out at a walk, then began to run. As he neared the graveyard, he heard screams.
People were hurrying out of the graveyard; he saw that a number of them had pulled out cell phones and seemed to be called the police.
He stopped one woman. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”
“There’s some maniac in there with an ax! He’s after a woman. Oh, God, I hope the police get here fast enough!”
Sam let her go and tore into the cemetery himself. He rushed through the wide-open gate and looked across the expanse of graves and grass.
And saw the horned god, and the ax. Jenna was desperately dodging and ducking his every swing of the blade.
And then she rushed him, making Sam’s heart nearly stop.
Knocking the figure down, she rolled herself off him to get away.
But the horned god was back up, staggering, reaching for his head.
Sam took advantage, letting out a loud roar as he raced for the figure. Crashing into him, he took the demon back down, sending the ax flying to the side, cracking the man’s head against a tombstone and falling in front of it. Sam stood quickly, crying out. “Jenna!”
“I’m here, I’m fine,” she said, hurrying to his side.
The horned god was still down, unconscious. Sam bent down and stripped the mask off his head. They both stared down in puzzlement. It was a man, a grown man. And it was someone Sam had never seen before.
“Do you know him?” he asked Jenna.
“No!”
By then, they could hear the police sirens. They stood a few feet from the man, waiting. Sam wasn’t surprised to see that John Alden was leading the pack of officers who came rushing into the cemetery. If John had heard the word about a situation in the cemetery from the dispatch office, he would have been the first on the scene.
“I should have suspected you two!” he said, walking up, pulling out his phone and telling the paramedics to move in. He bent down by the body, feeling for a pulse. “Still breathing. Wait, I did suspect you two. What the hell…?”
“Hey, I was just walking in the cemetery, and he came after me. With that ax!” Jenna said, pointing.
“And he meant business. I saw it,” Sam said.
“And-?”
“And I tackled him, right after Jenna rushed him, and if she hadn’t known something about defense, she’d be bleeding to death right now!” Sam said angrily.
“All right, all right,” John said, feeling in the man’s pocket for a wallet or ID. “Nothing, of course,” he said with disgust. “Let the paramedics through!” he called to his men. “We’ve got a live one here-and we
He looked at Sam and Jenna and sighed. “All right. Your attacker is out cold. Let the doctors do what they can for him. They’ll call me as soon as he can be questioned. You know the drill-it’s time for the paperwork.”
Before they left the cemetery, Sam called Jackson, to let the others know what was happening and that Jenna was all right. Jackson said that they’d head to Jamie’s and wait for them there.
The paperwork was tedious but didn’t take as long as it might have. The horned god ax-wielder in the cemetery hadn’t come to. Apparently the shot to his head was quite severe, and the man was in a coma. His prints, though, were taken at the hospital and run through the police system, so before they left, John Alden came and reported to Sam.
“His name is Gary Stillman. Does that mean anything to you?” he asked them both.
They shook their heads.
“He’s in the system for misdemeanors in Boston. Seems he has a crack habit, too. That’s expensive. But he wasn’t really out to rob you, was he?” John asked Jenna.
“Nope. Definitely there to kill,” she said flatly.
John scratched his head. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here. He didn’t kill the Smith family, that’s for sure. He was being held in Boston on drug charges the night that the Smiths were killed.”
“Gun for hire. We need to track a money trail on him,” Sam said.
“I told you, he wasn’t the Smith family killer. He was being held on drug charges,” John said.
“Yeah, and you’re hedging. Come on, John. Like you said, crack is an expensive habit. He was hired to kill Jenna. And you really know, somewhere inside, that no accident killed Milton Sedge. There’s a killer loose here,
