The Gathering Dark (33 page)

But this was more like it. There were houses here and there, nice older homes set into the trees or far back on stretches of farmland. Another turn and they came in sight of a hill that rose up on their left, covered with row upon row of apple trees. The field on the right was filled with young cornstalks that swayed in the wind.

“It’s beautiful,” Peter said.

“It is,” Keomany agreed.

Nikki reached across the gulf between the front seats and put her hand on Peter’s thigh. He glanced at her and smiled. She made a game attempt at smiling in return, but she was obviously troubled. Not that he blamed her. Not at all.

A hand-painted sign ahead identified the property on both sides of the road as Summerfields Orchard and almost immediately they came to a huge red barn building on the left with a parking lot around it. Peter pulled the Navigator into the lot, kicking up dust and gravel that shrouded the damaged Lincoln for a moment before floating away in the air. There were a handful of other cars in the lot but Peter had seen another twenty or so in the other lot across the street at the base of the orchard.

“Nice place,” Nikki observed, peering out the window. “They do pumpkins in the fall? Halloween hay rides and all that?”

“All that stuff,” Keomany confirmed. “Plus they sell crafts in the shop and they have a bakery in there too. The best cider donuts you’ll ever have. Corn, apples, beans, blueberries, strawberries . . . all kinds of stuff grown right here.”

“Gaea’s been good,” Nikki said.

Keomany might have responded but Peter wasn’t listening. He put the Navigator into park and glanced around the vehicle. Cars, yes, but the barn was locked up tight. The shop Keomany was talking about was closed. Behind the big red barn was a rambling farmhouse painted a faded white with black shutters. It would have been unremarkable, even depressing, if not for the jungle of flowers, a riot of brilliant colors, that spread out in front of the house and along a path that led toward the barn.

“It’s quiet,” Peter said.

Keomany and Nikki fell silent, glancing around as if to confirm what he’d said.

“Maybe they’re closed today,” Keomany suggested.

“Then why all the cars?” Peter asked.

“Oh, God, no,” Keomany whispered, opening the Navigator’s door and stepping quickly out. The wind seemed to pick up around the SUV, particularly near Keomany, and a dust devil formed, whipping at her legs. “If anything’s happened—”

Peter and Nikki stepped out of the Navigator simultaneously. Disturbing scenarios ticked across Peter’s mind as he tried to make sense of what was going on at Summerfields Orchard. The air around him shimmered like July heat off pavement and he felt the static crackle of magick between his fingers and along the back of his neck. But just as the wind around Keomany belonged to her, this was his magick, his own sorcery, instinct drawing it from him to make certain he was ready for anything.

He glanced at Keomany, who glared back a moment and then nodded. Together they started across the dusty lot toward the rear of the barn, toward the path that led up to the farmhouse.

Nikki called after them. “Hold up.”

Peter and Keomany both paused to glance back at her. Nikki was gesturing at the cars parked near the Navigator.

“Look at the license plates.”

With a concerned glance up at the house, Peter strode back toward Nikki. Keomany hesitated only a moment before doing the same. Nikki pointed to a blue Toyota with a Wisconsin license plate. From there Peter quickly scanned the others. Ohio. Virginia. Quebec. Only a couple of the cars were from Vermont and he reasoned at least one of them had to belong to Cat and Tori.

“These aren’t just customers,” he said, glancing at Keomany.

“No,” she agreed. “No, I don’t think they are.”

“The coven?” Nikki asked.

The wind rustled across the young corn crop but otherwise there was not a sound to be heard. The road had been largely deserted as well. The radio had reported that millions of people had stayed home from work that day, watching the news, riveted to the television as reports continued to come in of the cities that had gone missing.

Quiet.

“Not just the coven. They’re mostly New England.”

Peter nodded, then started again for the farmhouse. They skirted the barn but he glanced at it from time to time, watching the windows of the shop and the locked doors to make certain nothing was lurking there in the shadows inside the building. Despite the assumption that the cars in the lot belonged to people who had been invited rather than customers, he was not ready to presume that meant all was well here.

He whispered to himself in an arcane language whose words were summoned from deep inside his mind, from an ancient place. He barely understood them himself but he felt their power. A vibrant blue light began to shimmer around his hands.

“Is that necessary, do you think?” Nikki whispered.

Peter glanced over at her, saw the fear in her eyes, and yet he also marked the courage it must have taken for her to feel such fear and continue onward. In New Orleans, years ago. In Wickham, just yesterday. And now today.

“I’m not taking any chances,” he told her.

Nikki moved a little closer to him and they moved onto the walk side by side. Keomany was right behind them, and when Peter glanced back at her, he saw that as she passed among the wild splashes of color that made up the garden, the flowers seemed to grow slightly taller before his eyes, and to lean in toward Keomany as she passed. Her hair blew around her head in a wind he could not feel.

A cry of agony came from the open windows of the house, the pain in that voice such that birds took flight from the trees beside the barn. Peter began to run. He was only a few yards from the front door when it was thrown open from inside by a tall, slender woman with skin so dark it seemed to absorb the afternoon sunlight. Peter thought that if not for the pain in her expression, she might have been beautiful.

The woman on the front steps of the house did not even look at him, or at Nikki, her eyes were focused only on one spot.

“Keomany,” she said, and then she rushed down the steps, pushed past Peter, wrapped her arms around Keomany, and began to cry. “You’re okay. We saw . . . on the TV . . . about Wickham and we thought . . .”

“
Ssh
, it’s okay, Tori,” Keomany said. “It’s okay. I’m all right.”

Peter studied the two women, trying to interpret their friendship, their intimacy. Keomany had explained that Tori Osborne and Cat Hein were partners and that the two women owned Summerfields together, but he had not realized that Keomany was as close to them as it now appeared.

Tori sobbed quietly as she tried to regain her composure. The tears glistened like diamonds on her extraordinary ebony skin. Her hair was shoulder length, tied into tight rows, tendrils weighted with beads that clacked together whenever she moved her head.

“What’s going on. Tori?” Keomany asked. “Why are you closed?”

The woman took a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming herself. “You think anyone’s going to shop when shit like this is happening in the world? Gaea’s in pain, Keomany. A lot of us felt it. They’ve been showing up for the last few days, some of ’em witches we didn’t even know.”

As though someone had whispered a hint of paranoia in her ear, Tori stopped suddenly and glanced at Peter and Nikki, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“They’re friends,” Keomany said quickly, running a comforting hand along Tori’s bicep. “They’re friends, honey. Nikki Wydra, Peter Octavian, this is Tori Osborne. Tori. Meet Peter and Nikki.”

The woman looked curious when she heard Nikki’s name and visibly flinched when Keomany mentioned Peter’s. Tori stared at him.

“The mage,” she said. “You’re the mage.”

Peter inclined his head, the briefest of nods. It was unnerving any time he met someone who knew who he was, and there were many of them. He was famous in his way; or rather, notorious. Many of his exploits had been documented in the media, much as he had tried to downplay them in recent years. Given that he had no idea what the average earthwitch would think of his kind of magick, he hoped to avoid further conversation on the subject. Fortunately, his wasn’t the only name Tori was familiar with. The woman’s attention turned back to Nikki and she smiled tentatively.

“Nikki Wydra. You’re not the singer, are you? The girl on the radio?”

A sad sort of smile drifted across Nikki’s face. Peter imagined this was the last place she had expected to run into that question.

“I am, actually,” she confessed.

Tori nodded toward her. “Love that song.”

“Thank you.”

But Tori had already moved on. Introductions made, she had turned her focus back on matters that were truly important and away from such trifling bits of business as celebrity and notoriety. As quickly as Peter and Nikki had been drawn into the circle of their conversation, Tori and Keomany now shut them out again. The two women spoke as though they were alone.

“Come in,” Tori told her. “We’re trying to get a sense of what’s happening, what’s really doing this, to see if we can help.”

“We’re doing the same,” Keomany replied. “We . . . we met the thing in Wickham. Peter drove it out of there, but this thing is so much bigger than just one town.”

“So much bigger,” Tori agreed. “Cat’s . . . Cat’s in a bad way, Keomany.”

With that, Tori led them up the front steps and through the door. The interior of the farmhouse was decorated in antiques, and punctuated with candles and potted plants. In a side parlor, Peter saw several women sitting together on the rug, eschewing chairs and sofa for the floor, and speaking softly to one another over mugs of coffee. In the corner of the room, two large, powerful-looking men ceased conversation to stare openly at them as they passed.

The hallway took them into the large kitchen at the back of the house. Here cups and glasses and dishes had been abandoned, many with half-eaten bits of cake or the remains of fruit salad left behind. Tori turned right and led them through the kitchen. On the other side of that room was a doorway and it was from here that a commotion issued. More than just the noise of anxious women convening, an atmosphere of grievous urgency emanated from that open door that was tangible.

As if born of the intensity therein, a short, gray-haired, matronly woman poked her head into the kitchen and beckoned for them—or rather for Tori—to hasten their pace.

“It’s getting worse,” the woman said, sympathy choking her words.

Tori’s mouth became a thin line, lips pressed tightly together. She pressed on into that other room as if she had forgotten the presence of her guests. Keomany did not hesitate to follow her, and so Peter and Nikki entered as well. Nikki held Peter’s hand as they stepped into what must in quieter times have been a vast living room. Now the couches had been shoved against the walls, coffee tables and knick-knacks stacked on the far side, blocking a large entertainment center whose doors were closed, cutting off any music or television screen that might have lurked there, offering potential solace.

But there was no solace to be had. Sixteen, perhaps twenty women varying in size, age, and race sat cross-legged in a haphazard circle amid an array of burning candles just as varied as the women themselves. Their clothing differentiated them as well, separating them by style and by class, as well as taste. Heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows off of that room and the candlelight threw ghostly flickers on the walls, the contorted shadows of witches. Several men were in the room as well, dark-eyed and grim-faced like their counterparts in the parlor, though they did not bother to even glance at the new arrivals Tori had brought with her.

None of them looked up, in fact.

The attention of every single person in the room was focused on a single location, the center of the gathering, where a woman of near Amazonian stature lay nude on the floor, sprawled on one side as though she had fallen there, and whimpering.

“I’m here, baby,” Tori said, slipping easily through the circle, which parted for her and closed up again. The beads in her hair clacked together and the candlelight gleamed upon her skin as she knelt beside her lover.

“Cat,” Keomany whispered. Then she spoke again, and now it was as though she were speaking to no one, or perhaps directly to the earth goddess whom they all worshipped. “What the hell’s happening?”

Nikki swore softly.

Peter could only stare. Catherine Hein was just as Keomany had described her. Over six feet tall and powerfully built, even with her pretty blond hair she must have been imposing under normal circumstances, when she was healthy. When she was conscious.

For now the only reaction evoked by the sight of the nude woman was the need to call an ambulance. But it would have been clear even to one with no knowledge of magick—magick of any kind—that no doctor could help Cat Hein.

Her entire body was covered with nearly bloodless cuts, as though a fine, tiny blade had carved upon her a map of the earth. Oceans and islands, continents, all had been engraved in the taut white flesh of the coven’s leader in minute detail. From where Peter stood, he could see what appeared to be North America. There were no lines to indicate divisions between nations—to Gaea, the natural soul of the world, nations did not exist—but in a place where he imagined Texas and Mexico kissed, on Cat’s left thigh, there was an open wound. The flesh had been gouged out as if with a trowel, and yet once more there was almost no blood. Only the pulsing, raw red flesh inside that wound.

As Tori reached for her lover, Cat moaned and turned slightly, and Peter could see several other such wounds, including one on her belly that might have been northern California. Farther up her thigh, where Vermont would be, a thick scab had formed over a wound that was healing.

Wickham
, Peter thought.
That’s Wickham
.

A ripple of anticipation spider-walked across the back of his neck. Keomany was a powerful earthwitch, but she herself had said that all of them revealed their connection to nature in different ways. Catherine Hein was so completely in tune with Gaea that it was tearing her apart.