Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(53)

"How do you know this is the right way?" he asked after they'd walked about a hundred yards.

"I'm a seer. I can sense the direction."

He'd heard about things like this, but wasn't buying it.

"Well, Madame Seer, tell me then, why didn't you see the firestorm coming our way?"

Her voice was patient as she spoke calmly. "I was on the bus because my mother came to me after she died. She said to go to my grandmother's… she'd have good medicine to help me. I was to learn the old ways from her, and to stay out of harm's way. I could feel evil coming." She stopped walking and looked at him hard. "I didn't know exactly when, or how, but I had a feeling—just like you can smell things."

He stopped walking.

"The cigarettes and other substances are hurting your sinuses. But your nose is still better than the average man's. You're supposed to be a tracker, a nose… a man with a good heart."

All he could do was stare at her.

"Where are you from?" she asked, her eyes holding his in a gentle gaze.

"Kentucky," he murmured, not sure why just looking at her made his voice drop to a reverent whisper.

She smiled. "Land of Tomorrow… my people, the Cherokee, named your state. That's what it means in our language, and that's where they said the tracker guardian with the music from his heart would come from." She shook her head and softly chuckled. "I just didn't think he'd look like you."

She took off his guitar and handed it to him. "This is a part of your destiny. That's why I couldn't leave it."

Now she was scaring him.

"All right. Point the way to a church," he muttered, accepting his guitar and slinging it over his back.

She just nodded and resumed walking. He followed her, numb.



It was a little clapboard structure painted gray and washed light blue in the moonlight. As soon as they stepped into the front yard, she sighed and dropped to her knees. They'd walked nearly two and a half miles in the dark toward nothing he could put his finger on. But for some strange reason, he also felt safe.

"So, what do we do now? Wait for daylight, or something?" He couldn't see squat in the darkness, save the light from the moon. But his eyes were adjusting as he urgently searched for a gas source.

She shook her head and glanced around. "They won't believe us."

"You got that right," he muttered, going toward a beat-up Ford that he'd finally made out. But her plan had merit. He could hot-wire the car, or maybe siphon some gas if it wasn't dead, too. No, screw taking the car. He was not leaving his bike.

Rider glanced around for a garden hose and to see if there was a container that could hold fuel. But he stopped when he saw this woman, whose name he still did not know, on her knees putting fistfuls of dirt in the pockets of her dress. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Getting hallowed earth to place a ring around us near the bike," she said calmly. "You'll need some to pack in your bullets, too, if what's after us is what I'm sure it is." She stood and gazed at him with such serenity that for a moment he was speechless.

"How about Plan B? I siphon this tank, and—"

"No, no! You must never steal from holy places."

He looked up at the sky and opened his arms wide. "Why are you torturing me? I know I've lived a wild life, but, hey, I'm only human."

"If you want to stay that way," she said in a tense tone, "you'd better listen to me and follow my lead."

"Listen, sister," he said, his nerves frayed beyond patience, "this is why I don't do religion—any of them. It breeds fanatics like we saw on the bus. Crazy people."

"It doesn't matter what religion or faith, as long as you believe," she snapped, gathering her dirt-filled skirt up as she stood.

He looked at this crazy woman before him who didn't know him from a can of paint, but had gone with him, trusted him—even with a gun in his hand—and who now had her white lace panties showing in a churchyard with dirt in her skirt. She was like nothing he'd ever encountered. Beautiful didn't describe her. It took him a moment to collect his thoughts as he continued to stare at her. He had to remember that his boys were either dead or in jail, most likely, and he was about to follow some religious nutcase down a dark road.

"It doesn't matter what culture," she said, pressing her point and not looking at him. Her gaze was on the stars. "There is good. There is evil. Tonight we have to make a stand."

She began walking back the way they'd come. For some unknown reason he found himself following her again. This was not the adventure he'd banked on.

"What's your name?" The question came out quietly as he tried to sort out what had just happened.

"Tara," she said. Her voice was so soft he almost hadn't caught it.

"Tell me you're not a minor."

He waited. She smiled.

"I'm eighteen. In some states I am, in some states I'm not. Like everything else, I'm caught in mid-transition."

"Yeah, well… I know what that's like—being trapped."

She let out a long breath and sighed. "I could feel that something wasn't right when the bus broke down. In my soul I knew it was starting." Her gaze went to the moon. "But I knew if I went inside to help someone, I'd be all right. It's always that way. Do you know what I mean? Good wins over evil."