nerves, then jabbed the point of the knife into her finger. Handing the knife to Seth, she held her wounded forefinger over the kettle and squeezed it hard.
Two or three drops of blood fell into the water and instantly vanished.
“Do you think it’s enough?” she asked, watching as the water seemed to swallow up her blood without a trace.
Seth shrugged. “How should I know?” His gaze shifted to the open door and the downpour outside. “Think you have to get the dirt from Houdini’s grave, or can I?”
Angel’s brows knit. “I probably better.” She moved to the door and peered out. The sky — crystal clear when they’d arrived only a little while ago — was leaden now, and the clouds seemed to be getting darker even as she watched. Certain that the rain was only going to get worse, she darted out the door, snatched up a pinch of muck from the spot marked by the stone Seth had laid over Houdini’s grave, and ducked back inside.
Surprisingly, though it was pouring outside, she’d barely gotten wet.
She went back to the kettle and dipped her fingers in. The fire was blazing under it, and the water had already turned warm. Rinsing her fingers clean of the dirt from Houdini’s grave, she wiped them dry on her sweatpants and looked at Seth, who was once more studying the book. “Now what do we do?”
“Let it boil, I guess. But what about this other thing? What’s ‘blur of grief’?”
Angel figured it out immediately. “My tears,” she breathed. “Every time I think about Houdini, I get all—” Her voice broke once again, and almost as if in response to her words, her eyes blurred with tears. She moved quickly back to the kettle, swung it out of the fireplace, leaned over it, and thought once more of what her cousin had done to her pet.
Half a dozen tears dripped into the kettle.
Angel swung it back over the fire.
“That’s all it says,” Seth said softly. “Now we wait.”
Chapter 28
HE FLASH OF LIGHTNING, AND THE CRASH OF THUNDER that seemed to come at the same instant, made Marty Sullivan flinch so badly he dropped the pneumatic hammer he’d been using, which smashed down onto Ritchie Henderson’s toe.
Henderson jerked his injured foot out from under the heavy tool, bellowing with pain. “Jesus! What the hell—” But the rest of his words were lost as the sky seemed to open and a torrent of rain began pouring out of the roiling clouds overhead.
Holding his arms up in a futile effort to fend off the sudden downpour, Marty loped toward the site office, a slapped-together shed that was more of a lean-to than anything else. With most of its floor space already taken up by the wide counter covered with architectural plans for the project, there was barely enough space for Jack Varney himself, let alone all the men who worked for him. First come, first served, Marty thought as he ducked under the structure’s steeply sloping roof.
“Where the hell’d this come from?” Varney asked, gazing up at the sky as Marty tried to shake off some of the water that had already soaked through his shirt and jeans. “Am I nuts, or was it clear as a bell five minutes ago?”
Before Marty could respond, Ritchie Henderson hobbled into the crowded shelter. “What the hell goes with you, Sullivan?” he snarled, glowering at Marty with unconcealed fury. “First you drop the hammer on my foot, then you don’t even stick around to see if I’m okay.”
“You got here, didn’t you?” Marty shot back. “So I guess you’re not hurt too bad.”
Jack Varney gazed out into the downpour. “The pneumatic hammer?” he asked.
Ritchie Henderson nodded. “Lightning made him jump so bad it fell right out of his hand.”
“I coulda been killed!” Marty howled. “What’d you expect me to do?”
“I expect you to take care of the tools you use,” Varney interjected before Henderson could say anything. “Where is it now?”
“How the hell should I know?” Marty growled.
“You were using it — you’re responsible for it,” Varney replied, deciding to ignore the contempt in Sullivan’s voice. “What did you think — Ritchie would bring it in for you?”
“It’s fuckin’ pouring out there—” Marty began.
“Then you better get that hammer now,” Varney snapped, his eyes narrowing angrily. “It starts rusting out there, I’ll take it out of your paycheck.”
“You can’t do that,” Marty complained.
“The hell I can’t,” the foreman growled. “If you don’t like it, talk to Ed Fletcher.” His eyes bored into Marty, who stood his ground for only a few seconds before breaking.
“Maybe I’ll just do that,” Marty groused, but the truculence in his voice was tinged with enough of a whine that Varney knew he wouldn’t.
With the rain still pouring down, Marty left the shelter of the lean-to and slogged out toward the spot where he and Henderson had been working when the storm suddenly broke. The rain was coming down so hard that puddles had formed all over the site. They were fast merging together, turning the whole area into a muddy pond. Twice, he nearly sprawled out into the mud, but finally he found the pneumatic hammer, disconnected it from the air hose, and was about to start back toward the lean-to when another bolt of lightning struck, instantly followed by a thunderclap even louder than the first. This time, though, Marty was prepared for it, and ducking his head low into the rain, he began running back to the shed.
He was still a dozen yards away when he lost his footing and sprawled face forward into the mud. Swearing under his breath, he pulled himself to his feet and lurched the last few yards to the lean-to, where Jack Varney and Ritchie Henderson weren’t even trying to conceal their laughter.
“Here’s your damn hammer,” Marty rasped, his fury building. “And guess what? I’m through for the day!”
“We all are,” Varney replied, taking the pneumatic hammer. He wiped it off with a rag and laid it on the counter where the plans were spread out. “No way we can get anything more done today, even if this quits. See you Monday.”
Too soaked and muddy even to stop for a drink somewhere, Marty got into his old Chevelle, started the engine, and cursed when the windshield wipers refused to work. Jamming the car into gear, he slammed his foot on the accelerator and watched with grim satisfaction as the rear wheels spewed enough mud that neither Henderson nor Varney could avoid it. Serves ’em right, he thought as he sped away into the storm.
The only stop he did make on the way home was to buy a couple of six-packs, and by the time he got home he’d already consumed one of them.
“Angel?” he called out as he lurched through the front door. “You here?” When there was no answer, he went through the house to the kitchen, peeled off his muddy clothes and left them in a pile in the corner, then cracked open another beer. Wearing nothing but his underpants, he flopped down onto his favorite chair and stared moodily out at the raging storm. Where the hell was Angel? She should have been home by now. But even as the question came into his mind, Marty Sullivan knew the answer.
She was with that kid again.
And if he caught them, this time there’d be hell to pay.
Myra Sullivan had instinctively crossed herself and uttered a silent prayer to the Blessed Mother when the first bolt of lightning had struck, and repeated the prayer as the thunderclap rattled the windows of the church.
“Merciful heavens,” she breathed as Father Mike came through the door that led to the tiny sacristy a few minutes later. “It felt like the lightning was so close it might have hit the steeple!”
Father Mike smiled wryly. “I like to think that if God is going to strike us with lightning, He’ll at least have the good sense to strike down the heretics across the street.” When Myra Sullivan showed no sign of understanding
