Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(96)

“Greed is evil,” Valdis said prosaically. “My father’s desire to be rich and famous was evil. He drove an entire community to drugs and destruction.”

This was an argument she couldn’t win. “I need to get home. Walker is expecting me.” Sam prepared to leave—until Mariah’s distant call intruded like the cry of an eagle high above.

“Green jacket at Bald Rock!”

Sam thought the call emanated from the copse of redwood near the bluff, but she didn’t see anyone. Green jacket? Xavier? Was Mariah speaking in code?

Looking around, she thought she saw Harvey striding up to the ridge above Bald Rock. And was that Aaron hiking up from the direction of the vortex? Neither of them wore green.

“The battle is nigh,” Daisy said prosaically, as if she’d just been waiting for this moment. “Put the rest of the lamassu across that open space.” She gestured at her hastily assembled army and a break in the foundation where a door might once have been.

With her sprained ankle, Val wasn’t hurrying anywhere. Feeling as if she’d fallen through the rabbit hole, Sam gathered as many of the figurines as possible and contemplated some way of getting the heck out of there. She might want to know about her past, but she was starting to think it was best to leave it to a good psychiatrist.

“Why are we in a hurry?” she demanded, even as she did as told.

“He’s here. The only way to fight him is to unite, just as in the old days.”

“Who’s here?” Sam demanded, not expecting a sensible answer but searching the rocks above for something clearly labeled Evil.

“Do we need Mariah?” Val fretted. “She’s a powerful force.”

“No time. And the eagle flies better free,” Daisy said, setting down her wire.

The eagle flies better free? After thinking Mariah’s cry had sounded like an eagle, Sam wondered if Daisy was reading her mind.

“Time for the shelter.” Daisy used her staff to pull herself up, obviously stiff from so many hours of sitting. “Sam, help Val. I’ll open the door.”

Confused, Sam obeyed the command to help her aunt. As Daisy shoved aside what had appeared to be a stack of dead brambles, revealing a steel door, Sam didn’t know whether to cringe in horror or explore her morbid curiosity. “Is that a bomb shelter?”

“The finest homes had them,” Val said dryly, taking Sam’s arm and using her stick to stand.

“And by now, they’re home for spiders and snakes,” Sam said in distaste. “I think I’d rather take my chances in town.” She really, really did not want to enter that black hole for reasons known only to two half-mad old women. Mature women, she mentally amended. They had to be about the same age as Jade would have been had she lived.

“Hurry,” Mariah’s voice carried from a greater distance than earlier.

Sam glanced back up the mountain, but she still couldn’t see Mariah. She did, however, catch a glimpse of emerald green behind Bald Rock.

Conquering her fear of snakes to help two addled women feel safe inside a bomb shelter made perfect sense in Hillvale. She shot a nervous glance back to the various Lucys gathering in the hills. They couldn’t all be crazy, could they?



Walker drove into Hillvale and screeched to a halt before he ran over a wheelchair granny shouting and swinging a cane.

The whole damned parking lot was churning with Nulls and Lucys screaming and swinging at each other. Flabbergasted, Walker sat there for half a minute just making sense of the scene. It was almost good enough for a movie comedy, if it weren’t so tragic.

Monty and Kurt had stripped off their fancy suit coats and were jabbing at each other like old-fashioned English boxers. Pasquale, the grocery store owner, was in Dinah’s face, shouting and gesticulating. People Walker had never seen before argued, struggled, and swung at folks he’d only occasionally seen in the diner. The town’s whole entire population of 350 had to be out here.

Sam was not.

That’s when Walker’s observational skills kicked in. All the stores were closed and dark. Mariah wasn’t here. Neither were Aaron, Tullah, or any of the people he identified as active Lucys. He parked in the lot, cut off his engine, and warily climbed out. The people here now, the ones not identifiably Null like the Kennedys, were mostly the elderly and infirm, swinging their sticks and shouting the usual incomprehensible gibberish about Evil.

The Nulls were fighting them as well as each other. He couldn’t arrest the whole town.

So he aimed for the men he’d counted on to be sensible. Not even bothering to tune into the arguments, Walker strode through the melee.

He blocked a cane blow with his forearm and winced at a kick to his ankle. He was less than happy when he finally reached the Kennedys. He grabbed Kurt by his starched collar and yanked him backward, unbalancing him before the lodge manager could swing. Monty’s cross blow just missed Kurt’s jaw.

“Take different boxing classes next time, will ya?” Walker advised, gripping Monty’s right fist and shoving him off before he could swing again. “You know each other’s moves before you make them.”

Both men glared and appeared on the verge of turning on him. Not having time for a brawl, Walker yanked their arms behind their backs, hard. “Where’s Sam? And all her friends?”

Kurt and Monty looked blank, then glanced around. Both muttered the same expletive in the same tone. Walker released them.