“Warriston Cemetery!” she shouted as the drizzle returned with interest, becoming a mild downpour. “Please tell Gunnar I will be back in an hour or so, if he asks!”
“You got it!” he answered and went deeper into the garage where the slanted rainfall could not reach further, while Nina literally propelled her small frame into the high door of the 4x4’s driver’s side.
Chapter 19
It took her a while to navigate through the neighborhoods in the torrents of water the clouds spewed onto the world below. She survived the traffic in Melville Drive, finally rounding Edinburgh Castle, which looked gloomy and ancient in the ghost like veil of rain. She never really paid attention to the Castle until now that she was involved with matters immeasurable by time. With renewed respect for its age and the events it had endured, laid witness to, Nina truly observed the majestic structure for once. She paid attention now to its sturdy walls and the sheer size of it, a most powerful life size relic out in the open for all to see, but unnoticed by almost everyone who lived here.
“Beautiful,” she remarked to herself as she drove past the giant fortress on her way to the graveyard. The thunder raged now and the hard pelting on the wind screen forced her to strain her eyes through the frantic movement of the window wipers and the distorted view ahead, caused by the rivulets of water assaulting it. With patience that Nina was not aware she possessed, she navigated the streets to the beautiful graveyard with its tree canopies and old cement and stone stairways. The rain was a hassle when she exited the car and ran for cover under the solid grey stone archway of the bridge, hugged by trees and brush. Due to the weather, the place was virtually deserted, but Nina kept walking up the pathway which led underneath. Grateful for her Wellies and that the wind was still so that her umbrella could remain over her head, she walked through the deep puddles along the path, breathing in the fresh coolness of the bathing leaves and the newly wet mud.
In front of her she saw no markers of sections. Nina had not been to this graveyard before, but the pleasant sight of picturesque stone walkways and rich foliage throughout the silent monuments to passed on souls, made her search less taxing. Hoping she would not get lost, she looked back on her trail so that she would remember what it looked like coming back toward the gate. She was not easily confused by direction, but in a vast cemetery where the surface area was covered with seemingly endless rows of stone markers, it was easy to lose one’s way.
Before long, even though the downpour had eased to a light rain now, she had to admit that she was lost. There were no such things as demarcations or signs anywhere, only lanes and more lanes of pathways laced with greenery. Towering trees stood amongst the headstones, but she could not really mark her way back by them, as they carried no distinctive traits by which to recognize them. No matter how she searched, she could find no trace of signs or anything else that would say ‘Section 5’. Of a mausoleum, Carter or by any other name, there was no sign for as far as she could see around her.
“My god, I’m lost. Can you believe it? You are lost, idiot,” she said out loud to herself, stomping her right boot into the collection of tiny wild ferns that sprung up from crevices between the rocks. As her eyes combed the area, she saw the static slabs and monoliths, upon them the names of those who once spoke and loved and moved, now gone and perished. They were all still here, she thought, by name. In a macabre way Nina realized that she was standing in a crowd, a garden of names, and a field of souls.
After the initial concern for her lost bearings the inconvenience of it all had made her miserable, Nina’s temper kicked in. Vexed beyond reason by the old man and his haste in meeting her, she cussed under her breath as she carried on moving toward the path she had come from in hopes of finding her way back to the bridge. Something stirred behind her and Nina stopped swearing long enough to look for what had heard. Nothing.
Her big brown eyes darted vigilantly between the tree trunks and headstones, waiting for Professor Lockhart to make his appearance. She really thought he would just then, because the feeling of someone’s presence there with her was strong and undeniable. But nobody stepped from behind anything. Nina shivered. There was a distinct feeling that someone was watching her here among the dead, that someone walked in her footsteps every time she turned. Her intuition draped a shroud of anxious caution over her, urging her to call Sam, if only for some company.
A loud shuffle behind her caught her attention and she turned with a gasp, ready to fight if she had to. An impending belief formed in her mind that it could be Val, accompanying her. It was no doubt a shield called into being by Nina’s own fear.
“Val?” she found herself saying out loud, without meaning to make such a ludicrous claim.
Only the trees whispered back as the rain stopped to give way to a rising breeze. Now it was more difficult to discern between moving leaves and moving figures as the wind stirred everything around her.
Nina took out her phone to call Sam. She could not sit down on the wet stone, so she leaned against the wall of a rather tall monument with several names engraved in it. As she started dialing, a man in the distance caught her eye. He was dressed in all black, his head shaved and his eyes so light blue that she could see his piercing stare from afar.
“Creep,” she said under her breath and looked down on the cell phone screen. To her right another movement startled her, this one being much closer. Nina looked up and saw another man, dressed in a long black coat and a fedora. He stood with his eyes fixed on her, just like the other one, who was now walking towards her.
‘Don’t panic. Don’t run. Pretend you don’t know,’ her common sense advised. And quickly Nina took a deep breath and began to text Sam.
‘Danger. Warriston Cemetery. HELP!’ was all she had time for before the two men closed in on her, one aiming for her phone and the other reaching into his pocket. Nina pressed ‘Send’ and with a grunt of defiance she hurled her cell phone against the concrete of a heavy grave slab nearby, watching it smash to pieces on impact so that they could not use her contact list.
She felt the barrel of a gun against her ribs and a soft voice said, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Nina hoped that the message went through to Sam’s number before her phone broke.
“Let me guess — there is no Section 5 and there is no Carter, right?” she said casually, refusing to show the two men any weakness and feed their power. In some strange way, she felt any fear she may have had fall from her. As Nina walked with them, numb and blank of expression, she felt an irrefutable surge of pride and courage fill her. It was a calmness she had never known before, as if no consequence would harm her spirit. Anxious to see where she was being taken to, but fully aware of the motives of her kidnappers, Nina could feel that someone was walking with her. A sweet scent filled the air so vividly that the man with the gun lifted his head to sniff the striking flowery scent and Nina knew that even the threat of death held no sway over her anymore.
Chapter 20
Sam threw back his fourth dumb-water and decided to take a deep breath on the impact of recent events. It was not so much the alcohol which induced such pondering, but the shocking death of Val Joutsen which, in some personal way, affected him. At first, Sam thought it might be the similar loss he had suffered when his Trish was killed in the same brutal and bloody manner, but it felt different. Before, when he was subjected to comparable situations, he would feel faint and hurl towards a deep depressive longing, a devastation relived vividly each time. Now, since his subsequent therapy, the presence of dire emotion had become considerably weaker when he witnessed disturbing things like the departure of a soul, until he endured the touching scene of Val’s death.