“Then let’s go,” said Ferro.
Val told them to wait and quickly searched the cabinets until she found some small plastic specimen vials with pop-off lids. She filled a half dozen of them with garlic oil and gave two to each of them. “You never know,” she said, and they nodded their thanks.
Ferro and LaMastra stepped out into the hallway, leaving Crow and Val alone in the morgue. Crow wrapped her in his arms and kissed her.
“I know this will tarnish my Captain Avenger image,” he said, “but I’ve never been this scared before.”
“Me, too.”
“We could leave, you know. Pack up my car…just go. You, me, and the baby.”
“Sounds great. I hear Jamaica’s great this time of year.”
They smiled at each other, letting the lie make the moment bearable. They kissed very tenderly. Val leaned back and searched his face for a long time. “Crow, I’m not going to make any more speeches, okay? Just promise me that you’ll come back. Give me your word and I’ll be able to let you go. Otherwise—I think I’ll just go crazy.”
Very seriously he said, “Val, you know that poem I like, “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes? The one Loreena McKennitt did a song about? Remember what the hero says to his love? ‘I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.’ That’s me, baby. Mr. Hero Guy. Nothing’s going to stop me.”
She pulled his face close to hers. “Swear to me, swear you’ll come back.”
“I swear,” he whispered.
“Swear on our baby.”
“I swear.”
“Swear,” she said again and again, and each time he swore, and each time he kissed her face, tasting tears. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.” Then she pushed him back and turned away and walked across the room where she leaned with both hands on the edge of a counter. He understood and didn’t say anything else. As he pulled the door closed behind him he heard the first of her deep, terrible sobs.
The cops saw his face and didn’t comment.
Crow nodded and he and the cops headed out to assault Dark Hollow.
Chapter 33
(1)
The three ATVs stood in a row in the clearing at the top of Dark Hollow, the gray light of dawn brightened by the intense yellow paint jobs. “Nice,” LaMastra said, nodding approval as he ran his hands over the controls; Ferro eyed the machines dubiously.
“They’re gassed and ready to go,” Crow said. He strapped the sprayer units to the back of each vehicle. Crow took his katana from his duffel, drew it from its sheath, fished a vial of garlic oil from his pocket, and smeared it all over the blade.
“Will that hurt the sword?” Ferro asked.
Crow shrugged. “At this point, who cares?”
Finished with the sword, Crow poured more of the oil into his palm and rubbed it all over his throat, wrists, and face. “Eau-de-stinko,” he said, holding up the vial and wiggling it in Ferro’s direction. “It’s what everybody’s wearing these days. Besides, I’m under orders from Val to come back alive.”
“Good idea,” Ferro said, taking it.
Crow went through the particulars of the ATV with Ferro; LaMastra needed no instruction, having owned motorcycles all through high school and college. They mounted, fired up the bikes, and tested them out by driving in and out of the parking lot for a few minutes; then they lined up behind Crow.
“Let’s kick some undead ass!” Crow yelled and gunned his engine. He went over the edge of the pitch, feeding it gas, zigzagging to keep ahead of the pull of gravity. The others followed, engines shattering the stillness of the morning. It was steep enough to terrify Ferro, and the path was littered with stones and potholes, but the big low-pressure tires of the ATVs seemed indifferent to the terrain. One by one they swept down the hill, speeding through the morning light toward the veil of shadows that marked the boundary of Dark Hollow.
At the top of the hill, a lonely figure stood and watched them go, his black funeral clothes flapping in the breeze.
“You go get them sonsabitches, Little Scarecrow!” he shouted, screaming it with all his might, yelling in a desperate voice; but only the crows in the nearby trees could hear him. The cry was stretched out onto the breeze and blown into silent fragments. “God keep you boys safe.”
(2)
Val wandered around the hospital for an hour, too nervous to just sit and watch Weinstock sleep. She went down to the cafeteria for a plate of eggs but ate less than half of them. Morning sickness wasn’t a severe problem for her, but it was there. Newton called on her cell. “Hey…how are you?” she asked.
“We spent the night throwing up,” the reporter said with a bitter laugh. “How about you?”
“Pretty much the same,” Val said, though she noted Newton’s use of “we.” “How’s Jonatha? I imagine she’s heading back to Philly after what happened.”
“Actually,” Newton said, “she’s not. She wants to stay and help me document this. Which is reporter geek-speak for saying that we both want to help, but not in any storming the castle sort of way. We can do research, help with intel, as they say in the military.”
“Were you in the military?” Val asked hopefully.
“No…I watch 24 and The Unit. Heading over to the hospital now. Jonatha’s getting dressed and we should be there in a few.”
“I don’t know what to say except…thanks. I know this must be terribly hard for you both. It’s not your fight—”
“We talked about that, Val, and we both pretty much agreed that it is our fight. It’s everyone’s fight.”
“Thanks, Newt. I’m sorry I was so hard on you before.”
“As it turns out, you had every right to be. See you soon.”
She bought a paper and a big decaf in a go-cup and carried it back up to Weinstock’s room and frowned when she saw that the door was ajar; she’d definitely closed it when she left and the nurse wasn’t due for her rounds until seven. Val hurried over and opened the door quietly to see a small, mud-splattered and disheveled figure standing over the sleeping doctor. Even though his back was to her, Val recognized him at once.
“Mike…?” she said.
(3)
Crow crouched above the seat as the ATV slammed into unseen potholes and jerked over unavoidable rocks. Far behind him he could hear Ferro cursing and yelping as his body thumped painfully over and over again onto the saddle.
At the base of the long hill Crow braked to a stop to let the others catch up. LaMastra was right behind him the whole way, but it took Ferro an additional couple of minutes to pick his way laboriously down the hill toward them. He looked exhausted and miserable and his crotch and tailbone hurt like hell from the bumpy ride. Crow suggested that he try standing up off the seat next time and Ferro told him what he could do with his belated suggestions.
Crow pointed. “See that path there, where the trees form a kind of archway? That’s where we’re going. Be prepared, because when Newt and I were here we got a really bad feeling as soon as we entered it.”
“Can’t be as bad as the way I felt when we crossed over from sunlight to shadows on that hill,” LaMastra said.
“He’s right,” Ferro agreed, “if I wasn’t already a believer that would have done it. It was stepping out of who I am and into being a frightened five-year-old kid. Very…basic emotions, a primitive fear. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, that says it.” Crow nodded along the path. “Down there…it gets worse.” He gunned his engine and took off.