the coming war.
“Okay,” Ferro said as if instructing a class, “the plain red shells are standard twelve-gauge double-ought buckshot. The ones marked with the black arrows are filled with deer slugs. If we have do concentrate on head shots, that’ll do’er.”
“What about those?” Crow asked, touching a shell marked with thick black bands.
“Shok-Lock rounds,” Ferro said. “Inside is a kind of ceramic minishell that explodes on impact and discharges bits of metal.”
LaMastra nodded. During the hours of work he’d shaken off some of his funk and had started talking again, though his eyes were still spooked. “Fire one at a lock and
Crow winced. “Thanks, that image is going to stay with me.”
“The rest are for Vince’s Roadblocker.”
“Standard double-ought,” said LaMastra with a grin, “but at ten-gauge it’s a real crowd-pleaser.”
They loaded all six of the shotguns. Crow selected the Bullpup, liking its weight; Ferro took a Remington. They stowed their shotguns in one of the duffel bags, along with Crow’s Japanese sword and a collection of knives. LaMastra opened one of the bags of garlic bulbs and poured several dozen into a plastic bag and stowed this in the duffel.
Ferro finished the last of his cold coffee, “Does anyone know when sunset is today?”
“6:47,” said Val. “I checked the paper.”
“Then let’s go,” said Ferro.
Val told them to wait and quickly searched the cabinets until she found some small plastic specimen vials with pop-off lids. She filled a half dozen of them with garlic oil and gave two to each of them. “You never know,” she said, and they nodded their thanks.
Ferro and LaMastra stepped out into the hallway, leaving Crow and Val alone in the morgue. Crow wrapped her in his arms and kissed her.
“I know this will tarnish my Captain Avenger image,” he said, “but I’ve never been this scared before.”
“Me, too.”
“We could leave, you know. Pack up my car…just go. You, me, and the baby.”
“Sounds great. I hear Jamaica’s great this time of year.”
They smiled at each other, letting the lie make the moment bearable. They kissed very tenderly. Val leaned back and searched his face for a long time. “Crow, I’m not going to make any more speeches, okay? Just promise me that you’ll come back. Give me your word and I’ll be able to let you go. Otherwise—I think I’ll just go crazy.”
Very seriously he said, “Val, you know that poem I like, “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes? The one Loreena McKennitt did a song about? Remember what the hero says to his love?
She pulled his face close to hers. “Swear to me, swear you’ll come back.”
“I swear,” he whispered.
“Swear on our baby.”
“I swear.”
“Swear,” she said again and again, and each time he swore, and each time he kissed her face, tasting tears. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.” Then she pushed him back and turned away and walked across the room where she leaned with both hands on the edge of a counter. He understood and didn’t say anything else. As he pulled the door closed behind him he heard the first of her deep, terrible sobs.
The cops saw his face and didn’t comment.
Crow nodded and he and the cops headed out to assault Dark Hollow.
Chapter 33
(1)
The three ATVs stood in a row in the clearing at the top of Dark Hollow, the gray light of dawn brightened by the intense yellow paint jobs. “Nice,” LaMastra said, nodding approval as he ran his hands over the controls; Ferro eyed the machines dubiously.
“They’re gassed and ready to go,” Crow said. He strapped the sprayer units to the back of each vehicle. Crow took his
“Will that hurt the sword?” Ferro asked.
Crow shrugged. “At this point, who cares?”
Finished with the sword, Crow poured more of the oil into his palm and rubbed it all over his throat, wrists, and face. “Eau-de-stinko,” he said, holding up the vial and wiggling it in Ferro’s direction. “It’s what everybody’s wearing these days. Besides, I’m under orders from Val to come back alive.”
“Good idea,” Ferro said, taking it.
Crow went through the particulars of the ATV with Ferro; LaMastra needed no instruction, having owned motorcycles all through high school and college. They mounted, fired up the bikes, and tested them out by driving in and out of the parking lot for a few minutes; then they lined up behind Crow.
“Let’s kick some undead ass!” Crow yelled and gunned his engine. He went over the edge of the pitch, feeding it gas, zigzagging to keep ahead of the pull of gravity. The others followed, engines shattering the stillness of the morning. It was steep enough to terrify Ferro, and the path was littered with stones and potholes, but the big low-pressure tires of the ATVs seemed indifferent to the terrain. One by one they swept down the hill, speeding through the morning light toward the veil of shadows that marked the boundary of Dark Hollow.
At the top of the hill, a lonely figure stood and watched them go, his black funeral clothes flapping in the breeze.
“You go get them sonsabitches, Little Scarecrow!” he shouted, screaming it with all his might, yelling in a desperate voice; but only the crows in the nearby trees could hear him. The cry was stretched out onto the breeze and blown into silent fragments. “God keep you boys safe.”
(2)
Val wandered around the hospital for an hour, too nervous to just sit and watch Weinstock sleep. She went down to the cafeteria for a plate of eggs but ate less than half of them. Morning sickness wasn’t a severe problem for her, but it was there. Newton called on her cell. “Hey…how are you?” she asked.
“We spent the night throwing up,” the reporter said with a bitter laugh. “How about you?”
“Pretty much the same,” Val said, though she noted Newton’s use of “we.” “How’s Jonatha? I imagine she’s heading back to Philly after what happened.”
“Actually,” Newton said, “she’s not. She wants to stay and help me document this. Which is reporter geek- speak for saying that we both want to help, but not in any storming the castle sort of way. We can do research, help with intel, as they say in the military.”
