The Kingdom

Six

The light was still gray when I arose the next morning, but a golden aura hovered just above the horizon. If dusk fed my fears, dawn brought a sense of anticipation, and I luxuriated in the knowledge that the whole day stretched before me without ghosts.

After a quick shower, I carried a cup of tea out to the porch to watch the sun come up. Ribbons of mist hung from the treetops, but most of the haze had already burned off the lake. The air was crisp and clean, like the smell of line-dried laundry, and for the first time, fall seemed inevitable. Overnight a patchwork of crimson and gold had been woven into the dark green backdrop of the woods.

I coaxed Angus off the porch with the rest of the casserole and left him to enjoy his breakfast while I packed up my gear and headed for the cemetery. It was so early I had the road to myself. Although, for all I knew, there was never any traffic. Like the town, the countryside appeared deserted, but I wasn’t completely alone. As I rolled down the window, I caught a whiff of wood smoke from someone’s chimney. It was such a beautiful day. I didn’t want to sully my mood with midnight doubts. A fresh project was a time for renewal. A time for restoration.

As I came out of the first curve, I spotted the turnoff. The cemetery was nestled on the side of a steep, craggy hill and half-hidden by a thicket of cedar, an evergreen long associated with coffins and funeral pyres because of its spicy aroma and resistance to corrosion.

The trees were so thick in places the sun was almost completely blocked, but every now and then a shaft of light would angle just right through the feathery boughs to blind me. I found myself creeping along so that I wouldn’t hit a bounding rabbit. The grove teemed with wildlife. I even saw the dart of a fox between two hemlocks, and as I came to a stop in front of the entrance, the flutelike trill of the wood thrushes filled the air.

Armed with cell phone, camera and sketch pad, I got out of the SUV. There was a gate, but it wasn’t locked. Luna had told me the day before that the cemetery used to close after dark, but no one bothered with it anymore. However, she’d supplied me with copies of permits and other pertinent paperwork just in case anyone challenged my presence. I wondered if she knew of any specific objections to the restoration. Thane Asher had hinted at trouble.

I closed the gate behind me and then glanced around. Thorngate was smallish for a public cemetery but large for a family burial site. It was easy to spot the delineation between the two. The terrain nearest the gate had been flattened and the markers placed flush to the ground to accommodate lawn mowers. There were no fences or walls to separate the plots, no excessive adornment on the stones, though I did spot personal mementoes on some of the mounded graves. It was a modern, space-saving cemetery that did little to inspire the self-reflection and tranquility of my favorite old graveyards. By contrast, the original family site was lush and Gothic, clearly influenced by Victorian perceptions of romance, death and melancholy.

The first order of business was to walk the grounds, recording any special features and anomalies that would be included on the new site map. As I wandered through the public area, I spotted a couple of markers with familiar names—Birch and Kemper. I also saw a fresh grave near the fence. The dirt was mounded and covered with dying flowers.

As I passed through the old arched lych-gate into the Asher section, the sparse landscaping gave way to mossy stepping-stones, curling ivy and the remnants of what I thought might be a white garden inside a circle of magnificent stone angels. The heads tilted eastward, toward the rising sun, and the hanging branches of a cedar dappled the early-morning light that fell upon their faces. But the expressions were neither serene nor forlorn as I’d come to expect from cemetery angels. Instead, I found them arrogant. Maybe even defiant. And these statues marked the resting places of the lesser Ashers. The remains of the immediate family were interred in a large mausoleum decorated with elaborate reliefs and stained-glass portals.

The door was unlocked, and I shoved it open to peer inside, noting at once the absence of wall crypts. The mausoleum was a façade for an underground tomb, but I would save that inspection for later when I was better equipped to deal with any snakes that might be looking for a place to hibernate. Burial chambers were notorious lairs—not to mention a breeding ground for spiders. A childhood encounter with a black widow had left me with a nasty infection and lingering arachnophobia, an inconvenient anxiety for someone in my field, but I’d learned to cope.

Backing out of the mausoleum, I closed the door and turned as I brushed imaginary cobwebs from my hair. Then I froze. A man stood just inside the fence, staring across the headstones at me. He reminded me of the old man’s ghost that haunted Rosehill Cemetery. From a distance, he had a similar appearance—tall, withered, dressed in black. But this man’s hair was gray and fell in limp hanks past the shoulders of a heavy wool overcoat. I’d already shed my lightweight jacket, so I thought his choice of outerwear on such a warm day a bit peculiar.

I didn’t think him a ghost, but the rules had changed since I met Devlin. This man’s lack of an aura didn’t make him human any more than his strange appearance or statuelike stillness made him a specter.

As I hovered indecisively on the mausoleum steps, he did something that was neither human nor ghostlike. He dropped to the ground and slithered underneath the fence where he rose on hands and feet to scurry like a spider into the thicket.

I stared after him in astonishment, my skin crawling in distaste. How bizarre and utterly unnerving that he should mimic my thoughts about snakes and spiders. I shuddered. A coincidence, surely. But coming on the heels of the ghost I’d seen on the pier last night, I was thoroughly shaken and couldn’t get the man’s grotesque behavior out of my mind. It left me with a terrible feeling, as if a message had been sent, but I didn’t know how to interpret it.

The premonition lingered as I finished my walk. All the while, I kept a constant vigil and a can of mace handy, just in case. I was always careful in isolated cemeteries, but more so now than ever. My experience with a killer a few months earlier had left me wary and cautious. And now the appearance of that strange man. I couldn’t help shivering every time I thought of him.

Working well into the afternoon, I used colored flags to stake a grid that would help me keep track of the graves once I started to photograph. Hunger finally drove me back to my car. After a bite to eat, I decided to head into town to do a little research at the library. I also thought now might be a good time to drop in at the police station and make my presence known. Apart from my own safety, an introduction was common courtesy. In these small communities, people often became apprehensive when they saw a stranger poking about in a graveyard, and suspicion could often be averted by developing a cordial relationship with local law enforcement.

As I drove down the hill, I saw the gray-haired man again. He walked along the side of the road, pulling a rusted toy wagon behind him. His coat was so long it dragged the ground, and the tail billowed in the slight breeze. He turned to stare at me as I drove past, and though I didn’t return his scrutiny, I had the impression of pale eyes, jutting cheekbones and a hawklike nose. My window was down, and I caught the scent of rotting flesh a split second before I saw the animal carcass in his wagon. I couldn’t tell what it was, but the body looked to be the size of a possum or raccoon.

Quickly, I raised the window, trapping a fly that pestered me all the way into town.

As I entered the town proper, I noticed yet again the empty streets. A few cars were parked around the square, but I didn’t see anyone as I crossed over to the library. Inside, silence enveloped me. It wasn’t the usual library hush, but the deep stillness of an abandoned place. Which was crazy because I’d met Sidra and Luna in there yesterday. I assumed Sidra was still in school and Luna was probably next door at the real estate office. I told myself there was nothing sinister about their absence, but I found myself wincing at those creaking floors.

I had no idea where to look for the cemetery records, but I decided to do a little browsing. The color-coded signs tacked to the end of the bookshelves led me past fiction, nonfiction and biographies to the religion and history aisles where I scanned titles searching for something local. Alongside copies of The South Carolina Travel Guide and Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge Mountains were more esoteric titles:Mountain Magic, Folklore of the Appalachians and Frazer’s The Golden Bough, which I’d read in one of my anthropology classes for extra credit. As I pulled it from the shelf to skim the introduction, I heard someone laugh—a low, throaty female chortle that gave me goose bumps.

Turning, I glanced behind me. Nothing. I walked around to the next aisle. No one.

Then I glanced up. The gray tabby I’d seen in Luna’s office blinked down at me from the top shelf.

I went back to my reading, and now I heard a man’s voice, taunting and furtive. The library was empty, but I wasn’t alone. I walked along the wall, gazing down each row of bookshelves. When I got to the end, the voices grew louder, and my gaze dropped to an ornate grill that covered an old vent. Someone was in another room, and the air shaft carried their sound straight to me. Had I been standing in another part of the library, I probably wouldn’t have heard them at all.

Should I say something? I wondered. Or at least clear my throat to alert them of my presence?

As I stood there contemplating the proper etiquette, the murmurs turned to moans. Husky, sexual and extremely aggressive.

I backed away from the vent, but the sound followed me. Quickly, I shelved The Golden Bough only to dislodge another book. To my dismay, the heavy volume fell to the floor with a bang that sounded to me as loud as a shotgun blast.

“What was that?” The masculine voice sprang out of the air shaft, and I jumped. “I thought you said no one comes in here this time of day.”

“No one does,” the woman replied. “It was probably a bird flying into a window.”

“That does seem to happen when you’re around.”

“A lot of things happen when I’m around.”

“Yes,” he said. “And not much of it good.”

I was pretty sure the woman was Luna, but I didn’t wait around to hear her response. As quietly as I could, I exited the building and closed the door behind me. I’d recognized something in the male voice, too, and that familiarity niggled at me. I found myself looking up and down the block for a flash of metallic black paint. If Thane Asher’s car was parked nearby, I couldn’t spot it. Not that it mattered. If he had a relationship with Luna Kemper, it was none of my business.

But the echo of those feral moans followed me as I hurried away from the library.

I found the police station a few blocks over, housed in a grand old building that had been the county courthouse in more prosperous times. Despite an overall air of decay, there was still something dignified and a little awe-inspiring about the carved motifs and towering columns. As I approached the front entrance, my gaze rose to the scene depicted in the entablature—an eagle with a palmetto branch in its clutches. A popular sentiment during Reconstruction and one that appeared on a number of public buildings all over the state.

Inside, I followed the signs down a long corridor and through a set of tall wooden doors marked Police Headquarters. No one manned the front desk, nor did I see anyone milling about in the tiled lobby. I didn’t want a repeat of the library situation, so I called out, “Hello?”

Someone appeared in the doorway of one of the back rooms, the light hitting him in such a way that I could see little more than the silhouette of an average-size man. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, hello. I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself. I’m Amelia Gray. I’ll be working in Thorngate Cemetery for the next few weeks, and I thought it a good idea to let you know in advance in case you get calls or complaints.”

“What are you doing in the cemetery?” The voice coming from that featureless face was curiously unsettling. He spoke in a pleasant enough tone, but I detected a disagreeable edge.

“I’ll be restoring it,” I told him.

“Restoring it? You mean, clearing away brush, that sort of thing?”

“More or less…” I trailed off as he walked out to the counter, and I got my first good look at him. I judged him to be in his mid-forties, with dark hair swept back from a wide forehead and deep-set blue eyes fringed with thick lashes. No doubt, those eyes had once been the focal point of a ruggedly handsome face, but now the gaze was drawn to the scars—five jagged ridges that ran from the lower right eyelid back into the hairline and all the way down to his neck. Claw marks, I thought at once. Something had very nearly taken the side of his face off. Sweet Jesus.

Accepting the premise that the exceedingly attractive always had an easier path, I had to wonder what this man’s life had been like before and after the attack. Given his natural good looks, it couldn’t have been a painless adjustment. But this passed through my mind in a flash. I’d had years of practice in schooling my expression, and I knew none of my shock showed on my face as our eyes met across the desk.

“By whose authorization?” he asked.

“Luna Kemper contacted me.”

“Luna’s behind this? I might have known.” The contempt in his voice took me by surprise.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Where’s the money coming from?” he demanded.

I didn’t see how the financial arrangements could possibly be any of his business. “I’m sorry. You seem a little concerned about this project. Is there some problem, Officer…” I glanced at the name tag clipped to his uniform pocket. Wayne Van Zandt.

“It’s chief,” he said in a cool tone.

“I assure you, all of the permits are in order…Chief Van Zandt.”

He made a dismissive gesture that was at once graceful and oddly menacing. “I’m not concerned about permits. What I do care about is how people are going to react. Feelings still run strong about that cemetery.”

“So I hear. And that’s why I came to see you. I don’t want to cause any problems for you or the community. I’d just like to do my work in peace.”

His mouth tightened, emphasizing his disfigurement. “It might help me keep the peace if I know who’s behind it.”

I thought about that for a moment and nodded. Maybe he had a point. “The local historical society is funding the project.”

“Historical society?”

“The Daughters of our Valiant Heroes.”

He stared at me for a moment. “You think Daughters is a historical society?”

“Isn’t it?”

He laughed.

I didn’t get the joke. Chief Van Zandt obviously had a chip on his shoulder, and considering what he must have been through, I was empathetic enough to cut him some slack. “I won’t take up any more of your time. If you do get calls or have any questions, you know where to find me. Oh, and one more thing.” I stepped back up to the desk. “I saw a man in the cemetery this morning. He was acting pretty strange.”

“Like how?”

“When he saw me, he slithered under the fence and crawled off into the bushes.”

A brow rose. “Slithered?”

“Slithered, wiggled, whatever you want to call it. I saw him later hauling a dead animal down the hill in a child’s wagon.”

He shrugged. “Sounds a mite peculiar, but these mountains are full of odd folk. Mostly, they just want to be left alone. Some of them don’t see another living soul for months at a time, and when they finally emerge, they don’t know how to act.”

“You think he’s a hermit?”

“I think some weirdo with a little red wagon is the last thing you need to be worried about in these hills.” His pleasant voice was now edged with something that sounded very much like a warning. Or was it a threat?

“What do you mean?”

“The woods around here are full of wild animals…” He let his words trail off, a deliberate lingering as he traced a finger down one of his scars.

“What kind of wild animals?”

“Mountain lions, coyotes…” Another hesitation. “Been a lot of black bear sightings this year, too.”

I glanced at his facial scars. I couldn’t help myself. “Black bears don’t normally attack humans, do they?”

“Animals are unpredictable. You ask the experts, they’ll tell you wolves have been gone from this part of the country for decades, but they’re still out there. I’ve seen them.”

I thought about that eerie howl I’d heard last evening. “Speaking of animals,” I said, “I’m staying in Floyd Covey’s house. A stray came out of the woods last night. He’d been horribly abused. Luna called him a bait dog.”

“She did, did she?” He stroked another scar. “Best you forget what she said. Best you forget about that stray, too.”

“I can’t forget about dog fighting,” I said indignantly. “I assumed if it’s going on in your jurisdiction, you’d want to know about it.”

He shrugged. “I’ll ask around, see if I get wind of any kennels. About all I can do. People tend to be closemouthed about that sort of thing around here, even if they’re not directly involved. They don’t want any trouble. And they don’t cotton to a lot of questions, especially from strangers.”

The warning note in his voice was unmistakable now. “I’ll remember that,” I said coolly.

“In the meantime…” His gaze swept over me. “You want me to come out there and take care of that problem for you?”

“What problem?”

“The stray.”

“Take care…you mean put him down?” I asked in horror.

A muscle twitched at the corner of one eye. “Think of it as a kindness.”

I wanted to tell him that Angus didn’t need his brand of kindness, and how would he like it if someone had tried to do the same to him?

But I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t trust Wayne Van Zandt. Not in the slightest. It was instinct, like an animal’s hackles rising when danger was near.

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” I said. “I’m sure that dog is long gone by now.”