Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(9)
He stopped on a rocky outcrop and gazed over a plateau too far north and east for a view of the town below. The area had once been covered in ancient redwoods, but they’d been logged long ago. It was mostly scrub brush now.
The women had formed a ragged circle to his right. To Walker’s disappointment, the newcomer was with them. He’d hoped she was just visiting and not one of Cass’s coven, although he should have known better. She was sitting cross-legged, leaning against a tree, and studying whatever the hell was happening. Maybe she was an outside observer from some other town’s coven.
“There’s thirteen,” Juan said in disgust as Valdis and Daisy rejoined the group. “Superstitious claptrap.”
One of the women waved a smoking weed over the cleared center of the circle, while the others chanted. Were they huddling over hot coals? The day wasn’t cold, and he saw no flames, although the ground did seem displaced. Maybe they were raising zombies.
“Think I’ll take a look,” Walker decided, not liking smoke in the dry scrub. The scene looked off to him, and Valdis and Daisy had talked about the death of a gatekeeper. The Lucys were inclined toward superstitious claptrap, as Juan said, but they also displayed a deeper concern and intelligence for the land than the Kennedys and their lot did, for all their money and education.
And Walker had reason to be concerned about mysterious deaths.
Juan shrugged, chugged at the water bottle he carried on his hip, and followed him down the crude path.
The new girl in town—Sam—looked up the instant they hit the plateau. She rose and walked toward them with willowy grace—even in her totally impractical flip flops. He liked the way her hair flew wild and free around movie star cheekbones. What the hell was she wearing? A sweat suit? With nothing under it? Walker had to force his eyes to focus on her face. He wasn’t allowing any more crazy into his life.
As they approached, he could see her forehead carved into worried lines. He expected to hear crows cawing three times any second—and that was his father’s Irish superstition coming to haunt him.
“You fall in with the wrong crowd fast,” he said gruffly as she came close enough for him to observe the pucker over her aquiline nose.
“They apparently needed thirteen people, and I was all they had. And I’m guessing your attitude is the reason they didn’t call you.” She said that without an ounce of disapproval, merely turning back the way she came. “But I’m relieved you’re here. Val and Daisy said they tried to warn you, but you didn’t believe them.”
“Val and Daisy talk in riddles. Next time, send someone coherent.” His limp easily limited his stride to match her slower one, while he kept his eye on the group ahead.
The women appeared to be keening now, huddled around an open. . . grave?
“I trust there will be no next time,” she said in what sounded like alarm. “If this happens often, I’m wearing shoes to bed.”
He snorted and glanced down at her dusty toes. “They dragged you out of bed?”
“You think I go hiking like this regularly? There are probably rattlesnakes out here!”
“Only the western rattlesnake survives in this climate. Try not answering the door,” he suggested.
She shot him an azure glare that relieved some of his tension as they arrived at the circle of women—which parted to let him pass.
His gut knotted and his relief vanished.
A fissure had opened in the dry earth, revealing a human skull and what appeared to be a leg bone.
He’d been afraid of this, but what was left of his heart split in two.
Chapter 4
Efficiently, Deputy Walker cleared Val’s friends away from what Sam assumed was a grave site. The skull had looked old, but the women were agitated. Call her an unsympathetic wimp, but beyond intellectual curiosity, she didn’t really care about long-dead bones. She had an urgent need, not only for food, but for the relative sanity of Cass’s place and the boxes waiting there. Unfortunately, she was stranded out here with chanting witches and no car.
Old graves were probably scattered all through these parts, so she didn’t see any reason to linger. Smudging and chanting wouldn’t bring back the dead. When the hunky deputy brushed her off by suggesting she return to the lodge with the surly man in a security uniform, Sam accepted.
The older man helped her over rocky ledges where her feet tended to slip out of the ridiculous beach shoes.
“Did the natives who lived here not bury their dead in the cemetery?” she tried asking once they were back on a reasonable path.
“Natives lived down on the coast, not up here,” the guard said. “Only people ornery enough to wrestle with grizzlies settled up here.”
Grizzlies? There were grizzlies as well as rattlesnakes? Western rattlesnakes, as if the type made any difference.
“Oh, I thought the cemetery was a native burial ground.” Or maybe Mariah had said sacred ground—and she really hadn’t specified the location.
“That’s just an old folk tale,” he said in dismissal. “Gives the locals a reason to keep anyone from building out here. They don’t like strangers settling in.”
Two sides to every story, she supposed. When they reached a small log cabin marked SECURITY, a tall, solidly built man in a suit, who obviously belonged in a city, waited for them. Dark hair and stubborn jaw accentuated his scowl. He wore a fancy gold watch and what appeared to be an expensive linen shirt open at the throat to reveal a deep tan.