Chapter 15
Once out of the car, Skye started to tear toward the woods in pursuit, but then again … “Zach!” she cried out.
If Connie was running into the woods to hide, it must mean someone was in pursuit of her. Someone who was farther back; she had to have had a lead to clear the road in such panic and so quickly.
“Looking for the source!” Zach yelled back to her, heading for the café.
She almost smiled as she cleared the road and ran over the embankment to the trees. They thought alike so very often, having nothing to do with their strange abilities. He’d barely come into her life, and yet she wondered what it would be now without him.
The situation at the moment didn’t leave much time for such worry; the witch who had been after Connie at the costume shop had been carrying an assault rifle. And now, Zach might well be going after that same culprit.
Carrying the same assault weapon.
And she was just chasing a terrified detective into the trees.
Zach knows the situation. Zach knows how to be careful, how to watch for such a weapon. He knows how to move, how to calculate distance, variables …
“Connie!” she called, hoping that maybe the detective would answer her, let her know where she was.
Trees, shrubs, brush, and the earth itself, of course, had little respect for the boundaries created by man. The trees didn’t care if they were on state land, federal land, or unincorporated land. They all just … existed and grew.
Beautiful, tall oaks stood so near one another that their low-dipping branches seemed to interlock, creating natural sections that seemed to embrace certain areas, making them places of quiet privacy—wonderful, perhaps, for private picnics, and yet so encapsulated and lonely that someone could hide there forever, ever shadowed by the extremely heavy canopy of the leaves overhead.
The detective could be anywhere.
She stood very still. Her so-called gift wouldn’t help her right now. Even if she saw Connie running in terror, dodging trees, trying not to trip over the roots, Skye wouldn’t know which way she had gone.
Skye just had to listen. To study the ground.
Branches! Like Zach had shown me. Look where the branches are broken …
But for a minute, she was determined to listen. She heard the rustling sound she was coming to know; trees and foliage moved along with the breeze.
Chirping … insects, of course.
A cry in the air, now and then.
As she stood there, she thought at first she was beginning to have a vision—then she realized that no, the day had begun early, but it had been long, and the darkness was descending around her because the day was dying. Dusk was coming on, and soon enough it would be total darkness in the woods.
There were things she believed completely.
While she didn’t agree with all aspects of any denomination, she knew there was a power much higher than man, and she knew the human heart and soul outlived the frailty of human flesh.
She had known she wanted to be in law enforcement since she’d been a child.
The law was a perfect place to make the strangeness that haunted her pay. She didn’t scare easily.
And she doubted Detective Berkley scared easily, either.
But …
As Zach had said, an assault rifle could scare anyone.
But as she stood there, it was as if she could feel the woods around her. Feel the very growing darkness of the night.
And here she could imagine that in long-ago times, people living where the woods all but surrounded them might have had strange thoughts and had let their imaginations run wild, especially when they had been taught to live by the harshest of codes.
People didn’t change.
They knew more these days. News—both true and fake—crowded the airwaves, and everyone got a bit of something the second they turned on their smartphones or computers.
Yet, standing here in the woods, Skye could imagine being under the influence of a heavy drug, perhaps treated to a strange light show, and told that the world had gone to the devil, and they must be the ones to fight what was happening around them.
Suddenly, there was something, a louder sound of rustling, ahead of her and slightly to the right.
She started to move again, carefully, keeping her eyes open, drawing out her penlight, because even dusk became so shadowed it was difficult to see more than a few steps ahead of her.
Then she heard the scream of surprise and terror.
Ahead, just ahead, but I have to be careful, careful!
Branches and leaves tore at her clothing and hair as she moved along, but she could hear clearly then.
Someone had taken hold of Connie. Someone laughing as she cried in terror.
“You never can account for witches, eh?” a male voice demanded, his words filled with laughter.
“Which witch is which, eh? Don’t you know yet, you foolish woman?
And you call yourself a detective!” He broke off, laughing again.
“Run, run, run from a witch aiming an AK-47 at you, and run right into the arms of a witch with a lethal blade!”
Skye quickly theorized and calculated.
Did only one of the witches carry an assault rifle? The leader, or perhaps the leaders, and this witch was possibly just a … brainwashed devotee?
She drew her weapon and carefully moved forward. The witch had the detective caught in a hard hold against one of the trees; he had his arm across her throat—a powerful arm, most probably. Connie was just staring; the force of his hold prevented her from reaching for her weapon.
If she still carried one.
Skye saw the man had a knife in his free hand. Despite the shadows, the weapon glinted in the frail remnants of the dying sunrays that made their way through branches and leaves.
It was time to step forward. Glock out, she aimed at the man.
He didn’t ease his hold on the detective or loosen his grip on the knife as he turned to see who stepped out from the trees. He might be drugged, but he wasn’t stupid. He held still, staring at her.
“I don’t really care which witch you are,” Skye said casually. “Let her go, or I’ll put a bullet through your head. I don’t know what all you’ve been told; but witch, human, whatever—a bullet through the brain will end it all for you.”
“You shoot me; I slice her throat,” the witch told her. “That’s a promise.”
Skye shrugged. “You’ll be dead.”
“A martyr to the cause!” the witch said.
Skye smiled, hiding the fact she was desperately thinking, trying to remember everything she had ever learned in her training about defusing a situation and negotiating.
“That’s really not true. There is no great cause. And you’ve been running around the woods a lot, I’m guessing. Have you had any encounters with the devil?”
“You don’t know the devil!”
Skye smiled and laughed softly. “I don’t?
But isn’t that the point? That the rest of the world—other than your master and your group, or tribe, however you identify—dance with the devil in the woods all the time?
I mean, seriously, think about it. If I was in league with the devil, couldn’t I just call on him to knock you on the head and take you out? ”
The green-skinned witch shook his head slightly.
But he never loosened his hold. If his arm slammed against Connie’s neck with any greater force, he might well suffocate her or break her hyoid bone.
“Ease up on her! Let’s talk,” Skye said.
He shook his head. “I ease up on her, you shoot me.”
“I don’t shoot you. I’m a law enforcement agent.
If you just let her go, I am not legally allowed to hurt you.
You see, there are laws. Laws that protect the innocent.
You’ve been drugged. You’ve been given so much stuff that you do see things in the darkness, maybe your great master makes you think the devil is there, and only he is able to keep the devil away with his great strength. I won’t shoot you. Let her go.”
He shook his head slowly, confused, but still determined that what he believed had to be the truth.
Tears were streaming down Connie’s cheeks.
She was a detective. But that didn’t mean she was ready to die.
“Listen to me! Pay attention!” Skye begged again. “If I knew the devil, wouldn’t he come and help me right now? But as you can see, I don’t have a devil with me. The devil could come up right behind you—”
“No!”
But along with his protest, Skye heard a dynamic thudding sound.
And despite his protest, the man staggered back, let out a strangled yelp of pain, and dropped his knife.
As he staggered back, his foot caught on a tree root and he crashed down to the forest floor.
And to Skye’s relieved surprise and amazement, Zach stepped out from around the tree.
“Not the devil. Just me!” he said, shaking his head as he looked down at the witch.
“Thank God!” Skye murmured.
The man on the ground moaned and mumbled a broken word: “Maybe!”
Connie was collapsing. Zach quickly caught her and eased her down to the ground before turning back to their witch.
But by then, Skye had already rushed forward, straddling over the man in the green makeup and the black getup, pulling his hands behind his back and cuffing him.
Zach was on the phone, swearing beneath his breath.
“What?” she asked, trying to get the heavy man back up to his feet.
“Nothing is getting through. We need to get closer to the road. Connie is going to need help, and I may have broken this … witch’s jaw.”
“Up!” Skye commanded, ready to assist the man she’d handcuffed.
“Why?” he cried. “Just kill me here!”
“We’re not going to kill you!” Skye said. “Up!”
“I’m trying! Please, I need help!”
“Fine, I’m happy to help you,” Skye told him. “You’re under arrest for assault and attempted murder.”
She proceeded to read him his rights.
But he did need help, and she gave it to him. His bulk seemed to be more from bloating than muscle—as if what he ate was very bad for him. Clutching his arm, she helped him shift his weight up. He stood, staggered again, but he found his footing.
“Lead the way,” Zach told Skye. “Remember—”
“Follow the broken branches!”