Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(109)

“Chief Eagan will be, along with the last decent men in Birmingham,” she whispered.

It gave me hope to hear it, even if I didn’t know I could believe it.

The lantern swung back and forth in her hand, and the whole forest bent around it, leaning over us, backing away from us, and not helping us one damn bit.

Behind us, a car was coming. We saw its lights bouncing up and down as the tires went over the holes and ruts, and neither of us knew if we should flag it down or run away—it might be the inspector, or someone from Chapelwood sent to catch us.

Lizbeth handed me her axe. “Take this!” she said as she shielded the lantern with her body, then shuttered it completely and took me by the hand to drag me off the beaten path.

I couldn’t see where I was going again, and I hated how familiar that feeling had become, but at least I wasn’t by myself. I let her draw me back a few feet, into the trees, and then down into a crouch as the car approached. She was wearing a dark dress, but mine was light enough I was afraid I might be spotted—so she pushed me behind her, and traded me the axe for her lantern again.

The car rumbled slowly toward us, and when it was almost even with our hiding spot, it pulled up to a stop. Even in the dark, with just the car’s lights pushing forward, and everything else backlit into blackness . . . I could see that it wasn’t the inspector’s car from the clearing. This was a truck instead, with a short, flat bed behind it. I saw movement in that bed, and spotted three or four of the robed and hooded monsters.

The driver had his hood down, and enough light made it through the truck’s windscreen for me to see that it was Nathaniel Barrett. He parked the truck but left it running. His door opened with a low groan and then a squeak as it bounced back onto its hinges, and he stepped out onto the running board. He leaned on that door and it complained a little more. He gazed out at the woods, as far as the lights would show him.

I didn’t think he’d see us. I thought we were low enough to the ground and hidden well enough that he’d think we’d gotten away. But I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll be wrong again before my last breath . . .

“Come out, come out . . . wherever you are,” he shouted. Little did he know we were right in his line of sight.

One by one, the things in the back of the truck spilled over the sides—they oozed, toppled, and landed on the ground on all fours, some of them. I’d been wrong about how many there were—I wouldn’t have thought so many would fit.

Lizbeth had that hard stare again, aimed at Barrett at first, but then she turned it on me. “I told you, Simon and I made a promise. We had a plan.”

I whispered back, “What do we do? Do you think Mr. Wolf is coming?”

“Not soon enough.” She stood up. I tugged at her dress, but she shrugged me off with a twitch of her hip. She adjusted her hold on the axe, and said, real quiet, “When I engage him, you take the light and make for the road. Whatever happens, don’t stop. Keep running, and pray to anyone you think is listening.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll hold them off until Simon gets here.”

“But—”

She didn’t give me a chance to argue. Before I could say anything, she stepped out into the truck’s light, square in the center of the road, without so much as a glance back in my direction.

All I knew was, there was a plan—and I needed to run.

But I froze up. I was afraid to make a sound. The creatures were milling around the truck—either they couldn’t see me, or they were waiting to see what happened with the little old lady wielding an axe.

Once they were talking, I crept away—far smarter than running. I held the lantern up close to my breasts, and it was so hot it almost burned me through my dress. I tiptoed between the trees even farther back, farther away, just a few feet at a time.

I pointed myself in the direction of the road, and told myself I’d make a straight line.

“Give us the girl,” I heard Barrett say to Lizbeth.

“It’s too late. She’s gone already.”

“You wouldn’t leave her. Not when you’ve gone to all this trouble.”

“You’re right—I wouldn’t. I told her to leave me. I’m old and slow, and she’s young and quick. She’s better off running without me.”

“She’s lying,” he said over his shoulder. “Search the trees, and bring her to me.”

“You’re wasting your time, and theirs.” She was cooler than an electric fan, not flinching or sounding desperate at all. She was so calm, so certain, that the robed things hesitated—waiting to see if their boss believed her or not.

“And tell me, madam: Why have you wasted yours? This has never been any business of yours. Why come to Birmingham? Why come to Chapelwood? The numbers tell us you’re more than you appear, but how much more?”

“My business is my own, and if your numbers know so much, they can fill you in later. If you survive this meeting.”

He laughed at her, but she didn’t care. “Are you a spiritualist? A medium, like Ruth? Has some corpse summoned you to Alabama?”

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?”

“And you’ve answered me with one more. Disciples . . . ,” he said with a wave of his hand, giving them some sort of directions I didn’t understand, but definitely didn’t like. They stopped milling around and drifted away from the truck, toward the tree line.