A branch broke overhead. Here the trail was narrower, the canopy nearly unbroken, and in the quiet of the night, the sound was like a pistol shot.
Castle paused, ears filled with the roar of blood and his own breathing. One of the things was up there- yes, THINGS, plural, because one was trying to tug him down into the hole while the other had flown away with The Rook. No telling how many of them had crawled from that nightmare orifice — and even though he was positive they didn’t exist, he was equally sure that a wizened, leathery, gray-skinned creature was hovering in the treetops, marking him, drooling and hungry.
The handle of the Glock was slick with his sweat. In these conditions, with poor light and close quarters, the stalker had the advantage. But. 40-caliber bullets had a way of equalizing affairs in a hurry. Assuming the creature was made of flesh and blood and not fairy dust.
You’re over the edge, Castle. You don’t know what happened back there, but you figure a bullet’s going to solve the problem. Three bullets. One for the master, one for the dame, and one for the little boy who hides under sheets.
He wasn’t going to let any creature rip him from this world before he found the Bama Bomber. He’d made this vow to The Rook’s soul, though he believed in souls about as much as he believed in the Great Pumpkin. Or, for that matter, flying, man-eating backwoods birds.
“Come out with your hands up,” Castle said, the words sounding foolish even as they left his lips.
The only answer was the fluttering, dying leaves of the hardwoods. Castle scanned the trees, eyes straining to penetrate the deep shadows. No doubt the Appalachians were home to nocturnal birds such as owls, and other occasionally airborne mammals such as bats and flying squirrels. The Rook would know. He’d become an armchair expert on the region during their week of preparation. But maybe you never knew everything. Remote places, lost, harsh corners of the world, wild lands like the Appalachians, maybe they kept a few secrets.
After a couple of minutes, Castle’s heartbeat slowed. His mind was playing tricks, and was still the same mind that harbored little Jimmy’s dark bedroom fantasies. The mind was more cluttered with trivia and memories now, shaped by training and experience, but it, too, still kept a few secrets. The monsters were no longer under the bed. They were here, around him, scuttling in the dark.
He wanted to laugh. No monster could be as bad as Ace Goodall, a man who would probably kill again and again until he was caught. Capturing Goodall was the only mission here, the only mystery. He could sort out the rest later, after The Rook’s body was found and the forensics people went to work.
Sure, he was lost, but dawn was only about four hours away. Tomorrow, he’d be able to figure out where he was. He began walking again, and a hundred yards later, he came to a break in the trees. He walked out onto a granite shelf that was spotted with lichen. The gorge opened before him, and the moon was at its apex, limning the chalky cliff walls and throwing a gentle blue light over the wilderness.
Against the sky were the silhouettes of three flying creatures. Castle couldn’t gauge their size because he had no point of reference, but if he had to guess, they were about the size of the thing that had carried away The Rook.
The creatures rode the high wind, frayed wings unsteady, as if they were just learning to fly. They drifted aimlessly, their flights uncoordinated. Two of them nearly collided. They made no sound, though Castle imagined the rush of the water below might be their voices.
He didn’t believe in them, but that didn’t stop him from easing back into the cover of the forest.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Derek Samford hadn’t died instantly, as his partner believed.
He’d been keeping an eye out for Ace Goodall, tightening the rope as Castle climbed out of the hole. He wasn’t sure what type of explosion had triggered the landslide, because earthquakes were rare in the Appalachians. The mountain range was so ancient that some believed it had existed before the continental drift and ran beneath the Atlantic Ocean. The far end of the chain wasn’t in Maine, but Scotland. Those rounded hills amid the misty lochs shared a lot of geologic characteristics with these rocky, worn ridges. That much was in the research Samford had absorbed when he’d first gotten the assignment.
He had a week’s notice, and he’d met Castle only three days before they were dropped off at the border of the wilderness area. He’d heard of Special Agent Jim Castle, of course. Castle was the kind that fellow agents admired but the brass tried to bury. Funny that it turned out the Earth itself had tried to bury Castle.
And the sky had yanked Samford away.
Samford blinked against the darkness. It was complete, as solid against his skin as water. He was lying on a cool, hard surface that wasn’t quite flat. The air was stale and held a faint stench of fur and decay, like the den of a hibernating animal.
He couldn’t remember what had happened after the vicious jerk to his shoulder. His first thought had been that Goodall had crept up on him and grazed him with a bullet. Though Samford had never been shot before, he knew a bullet would have delivered a more powerful punch, shredding meat and bone. This wound had been cleaner, colder.
He reached to touch it now, his arm heavy and slow, and felt the soggy fabric of his insulated vest. He eased a pinkie tip into the gash. It didn’t hurt. Not much, anyway. He wondered if shock were setting in, or something worse.
He couldn’t trust his senses, and the total blackness disoriented him. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard his cheeks quivered, and then flicked his eyelids wide open. Still dark. He tried to rise, but his chest and head were sandbags. Sleep tugged at him from somewhere in the base of his skull and he found himself smiling.
Death in the line of duty. That wasn’t so bad.
Except Goodall had nothing to do with his current situation. Samford had been plucked from the ground like a trout on the hook end of a fishing line. Fighting the drowsiness, he searched the muddy avenues of his memory. Images fell against each other like a domino game played with funhouse mirrors:
The spurt of blood arcing from his shoulder.
The rush of air up his windpipe, his own scream taking forever to reach his ears.
Scabbed, gnarled fingers making a noose around his ankle.
The world going upside down.
The rake of branches across his face as he was lifted.
Down in the hole, the pale and confused oval of Castle’s upturned face.
The sweep of wind as he rose higher.
The river far below, cutting a silver thread between the rocky cliffs.
Then, his vision clotting to gray.
Waking up here.
Or maybe not awake.
Maybe he was dead. That would explain some things. But his chest rose and fell, his fingers moved, his eyes opened and closed. The numbness of the wound had worn off, and though the pain still wasn’t great, it was enough to remind him that his nerves still functioned. And, apparently, his blood still flowed.
Something clicked to his right, a distance of maybe ten feet away, maybe twenty. The acoustics were strange, the sound eliciting a single muffled echo, suggesting he was in an enclosed space. He held his breath for a few seconds, listening. When the sound wasn’t repeated, he exhaled though his nostrils. He was in a cave. That explained the stale air.
But he would have to be deep in the Earth to be without light. Even the gloomiest, most overcast night held the faint gray of obscured stars. Maybe he’d fallen into the hole while helping Castle and had been hit on the head, and a landslide had sealed him up like a pharaoh tucked under a pyramid. Goodall could have rigged some type of follow-up bomb. That would explain Samford’s lack of consciousness, but it didn’t explain those disturbing memories. He reached for his face, felt the smile still frozen on his lips, and ran his fingers over his scalp and around his skull. No lumps, no other wounds.