The Beautiful Shadow Walker

Chapter 3

I

After speeding another dozen miles, JJ stopped the stagecoach to see to Lantz and the horses. Belbo and the sheriff examined the wounds, and in their final diagnosis the injuries were nothing serious.However, just to be safe, they would hurry to the next stop—Coolia—where the station building had medical facilities they could use.

“That sure was something else you did there.”

Drawing not only the sheriff’s praise but looks of wonder from everyone, JJ replied that it wasn’t his doing.

“Come on, don’t be modest, now.”

“Sure, I cut the webbing, but it was someone else that recited the spell that brought ’em to life.”

Lantz, who was slumped back in his seat, suddenly looked up in surprise. “What do you mean by that?”

“If that second stone the statue threw hadn’t hit the spider, it would’ve struck the stagecoach dead on. Don’t you find the timing of that a little too convenient?” Not so much as glancing at the others, who were shocked to hear that, JJ continued gravely, “When the spider pounced, I thought it was of its own volition, too. But that’s too pat.”

“You’re telling me somebody ordered it to take that missile? I mean, it’s a stone statue!” said Claire.

JJ swung his head from side to side. “No—it’s not quite the same thing as being ordered. And it attacked that other statue not so much of its own will as out of pure anger. But when it did, there was a rough wooden needle stuck in the spider’s back. That was what drove the spider crazy and made it jump.”

“A wooden needle, you say?” Belbo’s face twisted. Wearing a look of bald-faced suspicion, he said, “Hey, we’re talking about a creature made of stone here. How in the hell would a piece of wood—”

“Well, the flesh was torn from his shoulder by a stone web.”

JJ’s remark shut Belbo up.

To no one in particular the former Hunter continued, “But I don’t think he came out here after us out of concern for our safety. Even if he got softhearted, the distance from where I saw him to the spider was . . . But then, so what if it’s a skinny needle of wood? No, that guy could probably do it. Hell, I’m sure he could.”

Giving the others no chance to ask him any questions, JJ walked over to the cage in the rear. Grabbing hold of one of the bars, he called out, “Hey, you.”

Dorleac had been sitting there on his stool with his eyes closed, so it was unclear whether or not he’d been following their conversation, but now he looked up.

“Pretend you’ve got a tree branch here,” the former Hunter said to the prisoner. “A foot long, and weighing less than three-quarters of an ounce. Could you throw something like that five hundred yards and make it stick in a stone wall?”

“Not for the life of me,” he replied in a heartbeat.

But that wasn’t the end of it. JJ didn’t take his eyes off the handsome young man. Filled with powerful, eerie light, they bored down on the Noble’s manservant.

“However,” Dorleac continued in a voice like a wind creeping in through the tiniest of cracks, “I believe the duke could do so.”

Though they didn’t grasp the meaning of that, a calming acceptance flowed through the group. At last someone had said something that made sense. And that seemed to snap JJ’s investigation off at the ankles.

“Yeah, I suppose he could,” was all the former Hunter said as he returned to his seat.

“Let’s get this stagecoach going. This time, Belbo and I will be up in the driver’s seat.”

Shortly after Sheriff Louise’s pronouncement, the stagecoach slowly rolled out. For the moment, everything had been tidily wrapped up. However, even in the languid safety of the rocking vehicle, there was still one who voiced his objections.

“He could do it . . . A gorgeous man like that . . . He could drive wood through stone . . .” Lantz murmured as his bandaged body lay across several empty seats.

Perhaps the deputy had dreamed that unearthly beauty. The look on his face was torpid, as if his body burned with yearning for a loved one.

It was almost two hundred miles to Coolia—they could be there in four hours if they hurried.

They were about an hour shy of their destination when disquieting portents appeared in the sky.

“Here comes the rain!” Belbo shouted into the vehicle, but even before his voice reached them lightning was bleaching the far reaches of the plains.

“Better hurry.”

Everyone was thinking the same thing, but by that point rain had already begun to pelt the stagecoach. The rebounding spray gave the entire vehicle a whitish glow with the light of each lightning strike. Now all they could rely on were the lights their stagecoach was shining on the road.

“We’re gonna wind up going around in circles!”

“Don’t give me any of that. If we can just make it through tonight, tomorrow we’ll hook up with the escort brigade.”

Belbo and Louise’s conversation sounded like a shouting match.

“How much further have we gotta go?”

“At this rate, better count on it being another five, maybe six hours. Worst-case scenario, we stop and wait for the rain to pass us by,” said the sheriff.

“Oh, that’s just perfect!”

Even inside the vehicle, anxiety eddied like a heavy fog. In their present state of mind, they were all ready to attribute even the slightest change to the workings of the Nobleman known asSinistre.

It had all started with something from Lantz, who was supposed to be lying down. At some point he’d gotten out of his seat, gone over to the cage, and said to Dorleac in a menacing tone, “You think this is funny?”

“Excuse me?” the young man replied torpidly.

“For a while now, you’ve been grinning over how everybody’s looking out the windows. Why is that? Is it ’cause Sinistre’s making it rain?”

“You’ve got the wrong idea.”

“Liar. You can’t fool me. You were smiling, sure enough. Isn’t that right, Al?”

“Actually, I—” the farmer began, being in something of a bind. Like the other passengers, he’d been so focused on looking out the windows he’d neglected to keep an eye on their prisoner.

“He was more concerned with what everyone else was doing. So he doesn’t know whether I was smiling or not.”

The farmer could only nod at what Dorleac had said. From the passenger seats, two pairs of eyes focused on him. JJ alone remained indifferent.

“No, you were smiling. Yeah, grinning like the cat that ate the canary.”

Lantz’s face was pale and covered with sweat. He’d been given first aid, so he wouldn’t be bleeding or in pain, but the psychological shock had devastated his parasympathetic nervous system.

“Where’s Sinistre? He’s gotta be able to do more than just make it rain. Is he coming soon? If so, he’d better hurry up and show his damn hide!”

Lantz drew his pistol and faced the door. “Or are you already right outside? If you are, come on out—or are you gonna stay in hiding some more and get us on pins and needles? Okay, then, I’ll make it so you have to show yourself!”

The muzzle of his weapon whipped around. When it stopped, Dorleac was right in front of it.

“Don’t do it, Lantz,” Al said, trying to stop him as anyone would expect.

“Out of my way. This is what we’ve gotta do, or the Noble won’t show himself. They mean to toy with us, kill us by inches.”

“Simmer down. You’re tired. For the love of God, go back to your seat and get yourself some rest.”

Stripping the concern alone from what Al had said, Lantz flew into a rage, saying, “Oh, so that’s how it is, eh? You’re in with ’em, you bastard? Sinistre’s already gotten to us? Okay, you piece of shit Nobleman—watch this. You love your little plaything so bad you’re chasing after us. Well, if he’s dead, you won’t have to do that anymore. Now get back to that ratty old castle of yours!”

He seriously intended to pull the trigger—and the fear of that colored Al’s face.

Just then, the hatch opened. A shout of “Al!” in a female voice drew Lantz’s attention, and in that instant he took a heavy blow to the scruff of his neck that numbed his very brain before he collapsed.

II

“What the hell’s going on?!”

The sheriff jumped down through the hatch, pointing her gun at the person who’d leveled her deputy.

“You’ve got it all wrong, Sheriff—let me explain what happened.”

Until Al had explained the situation, JJ stood in front of the barrel of Louise’s gun.

“I see. Sorry,” she told the former Hunter, “but give us some help getting Lantz up.”

Apparently the deputy was still conscious, and groaned with pain as they returned him to his seat and stripped him of his gun belt.

“I suppose I ought to thank you, huh?” Louise said, though it sounded like she wasn’t quite finished.

“Forget that. This is exactly what the enemy wants. The rain puts us on edge, and everyone starts acting crazy. Sheriff, shoot that kid in the cage with a tranq dart and put him to sleep. Having somebody around connected to the Nobility only makes everyone all the more nervous.”

“No can do. If the enemy attacks, I’ll have to take him and flee.”

“Mind if I try something?”

“What?” Louise suddenly realized that Lantz’s gun belt felt lighter. His pistol?! she thought, but at that very instant there was the crack of a shot, and Dorleac reeled backward.

“What the hell have you done?!”

Pulling the pistol from his hands, Louise pressed her own gun to JJ’s temple and called over to Al.

“Check his wounds from out here! You’re not to set foot inside there! Patch him up!”

“No need to get so worried,” JJ assured her. “I only grazed him. It didn’t even reach the bone. Didn’t have to, you see.”

“What’s this all about? The next time you pull something like that, I’ll throw you in the same cage with him, or toss your ass right off this stagecoach. You got that?”

JJ disregarded the woman’s bellowing, which only infuriated her more. “How is it?” the former Hunter asked Al, who’d been examining Dorleac’s wound through the bars.

“How is it? You’re right about just grazing him. He’s not even bleeding more than a little.”

“It stopped, then?”

“No, it’s still coming.”

“Then he’s a normal human. Get something to sterilize it and keep it from getting infected,” Louise told the farmer before turning.

“What’s the matter?!” Belbo asked in a feeble tone that was mixed with the tapping of the rain. He’d heard the gunshot.

Going to the bottom of the stairs, Louise called up through the gaping hatch that it was nothing and they should keep going, then shut the hatch before going back.

“Care to explain yourself to us?”

“This means he’s a normal human being. In other words, he’ll die from the same amount of damage as any of us. If the Nobleman’s fond of the kid, it means he can’t hit us hard enough to kill us all when he attacks. Which is a hell of a lot better than things would be if he were indestructible, am I right?”

The sheriff was silent.

“You seem relieved. Well, don’t let your guard down. It’s fine while we’re onboard the stagecoach, but once we reach the inn, we’ll all be split up. If Sinistre and his bunch are gonna hit us, that’s when it’ll be. And it looks like we’re not far off. Toward that end, what do you say to the lot of us staying in the stagecoach and not going outside until after daybreak?”

Once again ignoring the law enforcement officer, JJ had put his question to the other passengers. Though there were actually only two of them.

“Well, I’d be okay with that,” Harman said, seeming to defer again to the sheriff. When you worked a respectable job, that was how you had to play it.

“I’ve just got one question,” Claire said, raising a hand that still gripped a liquor bottle.

“And what would that be?”

“Well, if we all split up at the way station, wouldn’t that actually be safer? After all, it’s pretty boy there and the good sheriff they’d be gunning for. This never had anything to do with the rest of us.”

“You really think so?”

“Sure, I do.”

“Sheriff, you can take it from here.”

And saying that, the former Hunter promptly returned to his seat, seeming as unyielding as stone as he did so.

Having been “stood up,” Louise looked embarrassed, but she explained it this way.

“The Nobility finds it absolutely unforgivable when someone steals from them. In their world, you can’t just return something and have that be the neat little end of it. In the Nobility’s case, wholesale slaughter replaces our notions of incarceration or forced labor. Particularly in the case of body servants, who are the ones Nobles become most attached to. It may be pure legend, but it seems there have been Nobles so depressed after losing one they’ve committed suicide. Now, I don’t know if Sinistre is that invested in this, but there’s no way he’ll just let us off. And that includes you.”

The sound of the rain and the squeaking of the wheels filled the stagecoach.

“I leave the rest in your hands.”

And telling Al that, Louise headed back toward the hatch. Before climbing the stairs, she turned and said, “From the moment we got onboard this stagecoach, death has been riding our backs. You had to know that, right?”

Lightning bleached the window. Off in the distance, the sketchy outline of what looked to be a way station was revealed by the flash.

Lantz was turned over to the station employee who came to greet them, but Claire and Harman decided to stay in the stagecoach with the sheriff and her deputies until daybreak.

No matter how chaotic a sound might be, the human ear would try to find a rhythm to it.

After having supper in shifts in the station building, first Claire and Harman went to sleep, Al and Belbo were given a break, and Sheriff Louise took a seat in front of Dorleac’s cage with her stake launcher in one hand. If anything was coming, tonight would be the night. Tomorrow, they should reach the town of Gasburke just past noon, and the escort brigade would be waiting for them. From there, it would take a full day to reach Canaluda, but it wouldn’t be the same as traveling carrying full responsibility for everything. That alone buoyed Louise’s spirits.

Suddenly, she was shaken by the shoulder.

“Huh?!” Louise blurted out. Apparently she’d fallen asleep.

JJ was standing there.

“What’s wrong?”

“The way station caretaker is outside. Seems someone’s come.”

“Someone?”

Grabbing hold of his arm, she pulled herself upright. When she opened the rear door, a diminutive man in a hooded raincoat was standing outside.

“What’s wrong, Keel?” the sheriff asked, trying to keep things friendly.

“A weird lady’s come by.”

“When?”

“Just now. A real beauty she is, wearing a red dress and stacked like nobody’s business. It wouldn’t be strange if somebody took her for a Noble. But how’d she get out here in rain like this? She didn’t even have a carriage. Then again, she’s not wet at all, either.”

“What’d she come here for?”

“She said she wanted to see Mr. Lantz.”

Icy water coursed down Louise’s spine.

“Where is she?”

“The waiting room in the station building.”

“Belbo, Al—keep a sharp lookout!”

Never thinking they’d bowl him right over, the caretaker was knocked on his ass as two figures charged right by him, sending mud flying everywhere.

The waiting room was lit by a single naked bulb, and the pair was greeted from across the table by a station employee with a strange look in his eye.

“Where’s the woman who said she had business with Mr. Lantz?”

At Louise’s question, the station employee furrowed his brow and answered, “Well, she was right there until a moment ago, but I turned my back for a bit, and then she was nowhere to be found.”

By the time Louise turned to face the stairs, JJ was already racing up them.

Amazingly enough, Lantz was in his room. Though he was still being worked on by the healing machine, he was doing much better and gave them a big smile. When asked, he said no one had come to see him. The employee who was with him just scratched at his head and said that he’d nodded off.

Stepping outside, the sheriff asked, “What do you think?”

“We can’t be too trusting,” JJ replied. “A woman comes here alone in rain like this without even getting wet, then asks for Lantz by name—I can’t see her being anything but an agent of the Nobility. Think she came all this way just to turn around and go home?”

“Nope. But there was nothing wrong with Lantz.”

“Maybe he just looks normal. Victims who get drained all in one go can skip all that pale, anemic, night-wandering stuff and go straight to dying and immediately rising again. That might be what this is.”

“What should we do, then?” asked the sheriff.

“I’ll keep an eye on him until daybreak,” JJ replied.

“No, I’ll have Belbo do it.”

“The rest of you should stick close to the kid. After all, he’s what the enemy’s really after. Don’t let your guard down.”

A woman’s screams echoed from the floor below.

The two of them galloped down the stairs.

In the main hall of the station building, the caretaker’s wife was frozen in place with her hands covering her mouth. Before her stood a soaking-wet woman. As the caretaker had said, she was a beauty with an ample bosom packed in her red dress.

“What did you come back for?” the sheriff murmured, holding her stake launcher at the ready.

The woman opened her mouth. As soon as her sharp fangs were revealed, bright blood gushed from her maw. At the same time, liquid redder than her raiment sprayed like a mist from the woman’s chest, shrouding her. In less than a second the mist became a stain on the floor, and then it was gone. And with it, all sign of the woman.

“What’s going on here?” Louise said, but JJ sped right by her and disappeared out the door. She put the same question to the caretaker’s wife, but all she could say was that the woman had come in all of a sudden.

And then in came the caretaker. Surely he’d heard his wife’s screams, yet he wore an expression like he was lost in a dream.

The sheriff asked him, “What in the world happened?”

The question, too, seemed to come to him through a dream. It didn’t seem like he could even see his wife there.

At that point JJ returned, and on seeing the caretaker’s face he asked, “Who’d you run into?”

“Just so—handsome!” the caretaker said as if reciting a magic incantation, gazing with infatuation into the distance—and a kingdom of dreams—and staggering on his feet as he stared at it.

“Where is he?”

“Damned if I know. I was headed home when I spotted a figure between the trees. The lightning flashed. Thanks to that, I got a clear look at him.”

“Thank you. No matter who else comes, don’t go outside, okay? Lock the place up and go to bed.”

JJ’s words were directed at the caretaker’s wife. Her husband, to all appearances, still resided in a different world.

The former Hunter and the sheriff stepped out into the station’s foyer before discussing the matter. It wouldn’t do to get anyone else shaken up.

“The woman was stabbed as she was leaving here. The blood squirting from her heart was proof of that.”

That she’d been an underling of the Nobility was clear from the way she’d died—or rather, the way she’d been destroyed.

“She was stabbed by the handsome guy her husband saw, eh? You mean to tell me that’s who you and Lantz saw back at the Nobles’ quarry?”

JJ nodded. “No doubt. But did he come here on the woman’s tail, following after us, or for some other reason? I’m gonna search one more time. Sorry, but could you stay with Lantz until I get back?”

And saying that, he once again leapt out into a world of rain and darkness.

III

Day broke, but the rain still didn’t cease, or even show any signs of slowing. There was no indication anything was moving out on the plains, with the ground blurred by ricocheting rain and looking like a dream that went on forever.

After hearing the events of the previous night, the caretaker stated that they had a machine that could check for wounds from a Noble. From what he said, all someone had to do was walk through the machine naked and it would check every inch of them for wounds. An itinerant merchant had let Keel have it for whatever he felt was fair since the caretaker had said he’d never heard of such a machine, and it checked for normal wounds just fine. The caretaker insisted that it would probably be fine for detecting marks left by a Noble’s fangs, too.

“I don’t care if they came from a Noble or another human,” Keel declared. “Wounds are wounds!”

They promptly told Lantz about it, and he agreed to it without any objections. It only turned up the wound to his shoulder and some old scars, but nothing out of the ordinary.

“Nothing to do but go on, eh?” Louise said to JJ when the two of them were alone in the station’s dining room.

“The road’s there, so we’ve got to take it. Look back, and the road behind you is gone,” JJ said, his tone grave. It seemed as if the former Hunter was talking about the road he’d traveled.

Ultimately, they couldn’t find anyone who’d fallen prey to the Noble’s underling. When asked if they had any idea who she might’ve been, everyone was as silent as stone. It didn’t look like they didn’t know, but rather that they were scared. One of the Noble’s underlings had been hanging around, not doing anything, and then been slain—that’s all that’d happened that night.

Rain or not, the world of daylight wouldn’t allow the Nobility to run around. And the massed escort brigade wasn’t far off.

Louise decided to get going.

It was after seven o’clock when the stagecoach pulled out. JJ and Belbo were sitting up in the driver’s seat. With the caretaker, his wife, and their hired help looking on, the stagecoach raced off. The waving people were soon lost in the spray.

Once they hit the highway, lightning flashed off in the distance as if it’d been lying in wait for them. Beneath it, something resembling a mountain ridge was illuminated, but it immediately faded from view again. Though tension filled the air aboard the vehicle, it was tempered by a sense of security in having made it over the hump. The caretaker and his wife had been kept from saying anything about the matter of the strange woman.

“Say, you mind if I sit next to you?” Harman said to Claire.

“Very much so.”

Though the woman’s reply was as sharp as a needle, the blacksmith didn’t seem to mind it at all, going on to say the strangest thing. “See, the sheriff’s been eyeballing me all morning. You think maybe she’s got the hots for me?”

“You sound as drunk as me. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror? If she wasn’t a sheriff, why would she even bother with a shabby dude like you?”

“Okay, now you’ve done gone and crossed a line,” the blacksmith said, slipping into a heavy regional dialect. She’d caught him off guard. “For all that, I’ve traveled far and wide, and I actually do pretty well with the ladies. A lot of times they’ll come over and start talking to me because they’re involved with some creep.”

“The term you’re looking for is ‘bodyguard.’ There’s a whole world of difference between being reliable and being a stud.”

“Is that a fact? Truth be told, as tough as the sheriff is, I find her staring at me all intent like!”

“Sure you’re not a wanted man? I’ll thank you not to talk to me the rest of the way to Gasburke.”

“Oh, to hell with you.”

Though Louise overheard the pair’s exchange from the very back of the vehicle, she said nothing, never dreaming that the next would involve her.

“What’s to become of me?” the young man in the cage almost whispered to her. “I go to the Capital, get asked all manner of things, and then—”

Louise didn’t respond, and Al turned away. Because they knew the only thing waiting at the end of the young man’s sentence was a horrible medical procedure—vivisection.

“I swear, Duke Sinistre didn’t do anything to me. There wasn’t the kind of lascivious connection all of you are picturing. But no one will listen to me. Granted, sometimes I don’t have a reflection in the mirror or my shadow is fainter, but that’s no danger to anyone, is it?”

Louise wanted to tell him, No, that’s no danger. But that wasn’t true. Though at times they would tolerate someone dangerous, human beings found someone different to be absolutely unpardonable.

“I’m scared. Even though I haven’t done anything wrong. After I was rescued, I thought I could go home to my family. But I was stuck in a cage like a wild animal, no one will hear me out, and it seems I’m going to be used in some kind of experiment. Did you at least get in touch with my family?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“We had orders from the Capital that we’re not to heed anything at all you might say. The only thing I can do is to make every effort to see that you safely reach the Capital.”

“In that case, I would’ve been better off staying there—in Duke Sinistre’s castle.”

“Yeah,” Claire said, her voice rising over the seats. “You’re damn right. You never should’ve come back to our world. Hurry on back to your own. Ever since you were taken, your family’s pretended like you’d never even been born. The only one who’d be happy to see you now is the duke. I know it’s sad to say, but this world isn’t made for everyone. There are some who just won’t fit it. Like you—and me.”

“Same goes for me,” Harman said, raising his right hand.

“What the hell are you talking about? You wag your tail for the government watchdogs, and manhandle the women wherever you go, right? You couldn’t fit in any better if you tried! So don’t go and try to make yourself look good now!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Harman replied, falling silent.

No one wanted to hear anything other than the sound of the rain.

Just then—

“I see it! Gasburke!” Belbo shouted an announcement into the vehicle in a tone lacquered over with delight.

At the same time, a strange squawk rang out far overhead, though no one in the stagecoach could hear it or knew that it was a laugh of victory.

The people out in front of the station to meet them were a blur in the rain. And sure enough, there was a swarm of horses and riders alongside the station building.

“Okay, pile off, everyone.”

At Louise’s command, they all disembarked from the stagecoach and dashed for the station building. Claire was at the fore.

The worried expressions of the people greeting them became smiles. And then changed again.

Into skulls.

Claire stopped in her tracks and let out a scream. It mingled with the cries of surprise from those behind her. All of them had witnessed the people who’d come out to greet them, the station building, horses and riders, and everything else dissolving in the rain like so much watered-down ink. Dead and twisted trees, rectangular stones, and a scrubby growth of weeds had begun to fill their field of view.

“Oh, so this is where you find it,” Louise groaned, despair burning in her heart.

No one showed any signs of getting back in the stagecoach. The despair ran that deep. The last piece had been moved, and checkmate had been achieved not by them, but by Duke Sinistre.

“The hidden graveyard of the Sinistre clan . . . I’d heard it was located somewhere out in the wilderness . . . and we’ve been guided straight to it!”

“Back to the stagecoach,” JJ called out. “Some unseen hand pointed our noses in the wrong direction. If we don’t hurry up and get out of here, we’ll be in trouble—so get in the stagecoach!”

Seeing that they still didn’t move after that, the former Hunter grabbed the rifle propped up beside Belbo in the driver’s seat and fired a shot at the group’s feet. At the roar of the weapon and the flying mud, the people returned to their senses and charged toward the stagecoach.

Once the door was closed, Belbo cracked the whip and the half dozen horses showed even more distaste for the accursed place as they tore into its soil with their hooves.

As soon as he was back down in the vehicle, JJ asked, “What’s all this about Sinistre and a hidden graveyard?”

Still toweling off her hair, Louise replied, “Twice the Sinistre clan has come under attack by the citizens of their domain: eight thousand four hundred years ago, and then again nine hundred years ago. During the first attack, the rebel army was fairly successful. The duke’s wife and second son, his uncle, and a niece were all reduced to dust. In light of their respective power, I think you can see what a major victory that was.

“Properly chastised by this, the duke moved his own coffin plus that of his eldest son and his daughters from their ancestral graveyard in the castle to a secret location: the hidden graveyard of the Sinistre clan. And thanks to that, it’s said that during the citizens’ second attack, they couldn’t locate the coffin of their despised feudal lord or those of his children in the castle’s graveyard, and that the four of them returned with the setting of the sun and tore the rebels limb from limb.

“Time and again, survey parties from the Capital have come out and searched for the hidden graveyard, but they’ve always come away empty-handed. From oral tradition, written documents, and the like, there could be no question it exists, but this proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“So, that’s what we saw back there?”

The stagecoach was rapidly pulling away.

JJ furrowed his brow and continued, “But the graveyard was falling to pieces. With the power of the Nobility to draw on, it should’ve looked better than that even if a hundred thousand years had gone by. Or could it be that Sinistre isn’t using it anymore?”

“Right you are,” Louise said with a nod. “Now, this is also oral tradition, but it seems that while they were sealed away in the hidden graveyard, the son and daughters plotted treachery against their overbearing father. In his anger, Sinistre slaughtered his children, his own flesh and blood, then cursed them to wander the area for all eternity. So, even now it seems they’re lurking somewhere in that huge graveyard.”

Nothing from the former Hunter.

“But what I want to know is, how did we wind up there? Didn’t you, Belbo, or the horses find anything strange about that?” asked Louise.

“I have no answer for that. Only, from my experience, someone nearby is casting a spell on us—probably.”

“Give me a break. If that were the case, there’s no way we could ever have got out of—”

The tail end of the sheriff’s remark was interrupted by cries from Claire and Harman.

“Look at that!”

“It’s the same boneyard again!”

Beyond the stagecoach’s front window was the darkening form of clustered gravestones, gloomy trees, and the same despair the group had fled from once.