The Walking (26 page)

It was a disturbing question, and like too many questions these days, it was one for which he had no answer.

Mary left in the middle of the night. Joseph a few weeks later in the middle of the day, when everyone was busy. Olivia died of a mysterious blood aliment that even magic- i was unable to cure. Martin fell down a well.

It took awhile for William to realize that all of the original settlers were gone. The men and women who remained in Wolf Canyon were those who had come later.

He knew why Mary and the others had left. They hadn't told him, but they hadn't had to.

Isabella.

They did not like what Wolf Canyon was becoming. He understood completely. He himself had grave misgivings about what was happening here. This was not what he had envisioned, and he held no resentment toward those who had left.

And the others, the deaths?

Accidents, he told himself, and he made himself believe it.

William sat on his horse and surveyed Wolf Canyon from the top of the upper trail. From up here everything looked the way it always had, but the truth was that the whole tenor of the town had changed. Isabella was not alone in her feelings of anger and hatred toward those who were not witches. Many of the other townspeople, particularly the newer ones, felt the same way and were not shy about expressing their opinions in public. He understood that there'd even been some sort of meeting in the schoolhouse, a sort of strategy session to decide what to do should the "normals," as people had taken to calling them, discover Wolf Canyon. He had not been invited to the meeting, but he assumed Isabella had gone.

He had not asked her. He had not wanted to know.

If this had been a democracy, and if Isabella had been a man and allowed to run for office, he had serious doubts as to whether he would be able to beat her in a fair election.

He willed the horse onward, toward the town, hoping that Isabella was at home, in the kitchen, cooking his midday dinner.

But he had the feeling she wasn't.

They killed the first rancher on All Hallow's Eve.

The man had done nothing wrong. He was not even aware of the fact that they were witches. But Clete, returning home from a sojourn east, saw the settler's crude hut and makeshift corral on his return trip and promptly informed Isabella.

Not him. :

Isabella.

The raiding party went out the next night, dressed in black garb and armed only with magic. Isabella said nothing to him, was not there when he arrived home after a long day of overseeing operations at the new tunnel over at the mine, but William knew where she'd gone, knew what she was doing, and he was filled with an anger so pure and strong

it made his hands shake. He strode through the darkened streets of Wolf Canyon, his rage growing as he saw how quiet the town was, how deserted the bar. A lot of them had accompanied her, and he resolved that when she returned home he would lay down the law. This was his town, damn it, and wife or no wife, she had to abide by his will like the others. They all did.

His resolve fled when she arrived, however, covered with blood and singed by fire. What was left of her clothes was torn and blackened.

She leaped from her horse, victorious, and grinned at him. "We did it!"

William's mouth was dry, the words he'd intended to say, the lecture he'd intended to give, forgotten.

"It was glorious," she said rapturously. "We came out of the night like demons, and he obviously thought we were such, for he started shooting even before we had arrived." Her smile broadened, and William could see the blood on her teeth. "We took his animals first, making the cow wither in front of his eyes, roasting the pig alive, turning his chickens into statues of dung. He continued shooting, and we burned his corral, set fire to his cabin.

"Then we went in."

She touched his face, showed him, and William saw the scene through her eyes, saw the bullets reflected back at the shooter, saw Isabella cause the rancher's Bible to explode as he fell to his knees, praying, waiting for the end. He cursed her, cursed all of them, and they took tunas with their spells, Isabella going first, popping off his fingers one by one. Daniel followed, clouding over one eye. Thomas turned the man's teeth to plant flesh

And on and on.

She let go, and William stepped back, flushed. Against his will, he felt some of the same satisfaction she had, the same righteous sense of justice, but he didn't know if these were his own feelings or if she had imparted hers to him.

She bathed in the river, and afterward they made love outside, like in the old days. What she prompted him to do would have made a normal woman sob with shame and humiliation, but Isabella loved it, and he loved it, too. The surrounding world disappeared for him as their bodies intertwined in ways unspeakable, and as wrong as it was, he realized that he would not oppose his wife in anything she did so long as this passion continued.

She read him, she knew this.

And that was the start of the purges.

Now

Miles sat in his cubicle, slumped in his swivel chair, staring at the unfunny Dilbert cartoon one of the agency's computer nerds had tacked up on the cloth wall of the room divider for his amusement.

The case was over.

Marina Lewis had had what was left of her father's body transferred to Arizona for burial as soon as the coroner had finished with the autopsy and the police had completed their paperwork, and she and her husband had gone back as well. Miles told her she didn't owe anything and let her off without bill, although he wasn't sure how he was going to justify that to Perkins. It was the right thing to do, the only thing to do. He'd failed to protect her father, and while, strictly speaking, that wasn't his mandate, it was what he had expected of himself, and he felt as though he'd let Marina down.

He spun slowly around in his chair. He was at a loss because he didn't want to let the case go. There were other jobs he should be working on, a whole host of new clients from which to choose, but he wanted to stick with this. Because it involved his dad.

That's what it came down to. Yes, he was concerned for the safety of Hec Tibbert and the other men on Liam's list. Yes, he desperately wanted to know what was behind these deaths, wanted to put a stop to this before it went any

further--if that was at all possible. But it was his father's involvement that gave everything an added emotional dimension, that personalized it for him and made it so pressing and immediate.

The police had promised to investigate further--after halving been warned of the danger Liam Connor was in, having been given the list, and having watched as Liam became another casualty, as predicted, under their very noses. But he had his doubts that they would follow through. There were too many other, more immediate crimes. Los Angeles was a perpetual wellspring of wrongdoing, with new murders, rapes, and robberies popping up every day. It was all the police could do to keep up with new crimes, let alone get started on the backlog, i

But he could do it. He wanted to continue this investigation. It was his moral and ethical responsibility. What kind of detective would he be, what kind of human being would he be, if he did not follow through and act on what he knew, what he'd learned?

Except he'd be fired if he used the agency's time and resources to continue working on the unfunded case of a client who had not paid in the first place.

It was a lose-lose situation.

Miles felt a pencil nub hit his shoulder, and he glanced over to see Hal leaning forward in his chair, attempting to snap him out of his gloom. "What would you rather do," his friend asked, "perform analingus on an incontinent Ronald Reagan or eat out your sister.

Miles had to smile. It was a game they'd invented several years ago when the recession had cut into the private investigation business and they were stuck in the office for long periods of time without any work to do. It had started out simply, asking each other which of their female coworkers they would most or least like to have sex with, and had gotten more outrageous over time, graduating to gross-out

proportions as they expanded one another's tolerance for in suits and honesty. It was based on the premise that, faced with two heinous choices, there was always one option that was less intolerable than the other. They'd never had a name for the game until one time Hal had tried to squirm out of answering--Miles had asked whether he would rather fellate Clint Eastwood or be corn holed by Tom Cruisewand the other detective had replied, "Neither. I'd rather die." "Death is not an option," Miles told him. Hal's face lit up. 'that's it!" he exclaimed. 'that's what?"

'that's the name. "Death Is Not an Option.""

They'd discussed, only half jokingly, pitching Death Is Not an Option as a game show idea to HBO or one of the cable channels where there were no restrictions on language. "We could even add nudity," Hal said, "for higher ratings."

Since then they'd ritualized the game, and though they'd often mentioned bringing in others, letting Tran play, for instance, it had remained their own private entertainment.

Miles looked over at his friend, smiling. "I guess I'd have to eat out my sister."

Hal cackled with delight, as he always did, tickled, even after all this time, at hearing such an admission. He walked over to Miles' cubicle. "You okay?" "I'm fine." "You sure"

"I said I'm fine."

Hal held up his hands in surrender. "I'm just asking." Hal's attempts at cheering him up were as disjointed and disorganized as ever, but in a strange way, he found that comforting. He did feel a little better after talking to his friend. Maybe there was a way to keep the investigation going. After everything that had happened to him the past two months, Perkins would probably be willing to give him a leave of absence if he asked, some time off without pay.

AS if reading his thoughts, Hal said, "Still no news on your dad's body"

Miles shook his head.

"What do you think happened to him?"

He'd told Hal and everyone else that his father's body had been stolen, not wanting to share the truth of what had happened, knowing that they wouldn't believe him even if he did, And of course the coroner's office had kept it under wraps as well. They'd had enough scandals recently.

The last thing their department needed was for word to leak out that they were losing bodies because the bodies were get ting up and walking away.

"I don't know," Miles admitted.

"I hope it's not some psycho sicko who's doing, you know sex stuff."

"Thanks. That's just the image I need in my head."

"Sorry." Hal headed sheepishly back to his cubicle, and

Miles started sorting through the stack of files Naomi had given him.

There was a sixteen-year-old girl who had run away with the forty-year-old manager of the Taco Bell at which she worked, a woman who suspected her husband of having an affair with another man, a dowager who wanted someone to track down her stolen poodle because the police hadn't been able to find the dog, a man who suspected one of his employees of smoking marijuana even though the worker had passed numerous random drug tests. None of the potential cases appealed to him, and he thought for a moment, then went out to talk to Naomi and see if she could get him an appointment with Perkins this afternoon.

He was going to ask for some time off.

Two weeks without pay.

It was a week less than he'd asked for but a week more than he'd expected, and hopefully it was all he would need. He finished out the afternoon, tied up a few loose ends, and

made arrangements to contact Hal each day so that they could keep each other up on what was happening.

The telephone was already ringing when he arrived home, and he dashed through the living room to answer it.

Claire was calling to say that she'd be late--after seeing her last client, she had to attend a budget meeting with her boss, his boss, and a rpresentative from the county board of supervisors. She told Miles he'd have to make his own dinner, but she'd be back by nine.

He warned her to drive carefully and hung up. It was going to be a long evening without her, and he walked into the kitchen, already feeling lonely. He opened the refrigerator, leaning on the door, but the metal shelves were bare save for an old half-empty container of milk, a package butter, and a bottle of ketchup.

He realized that he hadn't done any serious grocery shopping since his dad had.." died.

The house was silent save for the electronic hum of the refrigerator, but he could hear in his mind the rhythm of his father's footsteps.

Boot heels on wood. The sound still reverberated in his brain" There had been me thing coldly impersonal about the rigid regularity of the tapping on the bedroom floor, and even thinking about it now made him feel frightened.

The house suddenly seemed much darker, much creepier. He needed to get out of here, and shopping for groceries gave him a practical excuse.

Switching on all of the lights on his way out so that he would return to a well-lit home, Miles hurried outside and quickly locked the front door behind him. Only here, in the open air, away from the claustrophobic confinement of the house, was he finally able to breathe easy and relax..

He looked up at the beautiful sunset created by the haze of pollutants in the air above Los Angeles, and he wondered

whether right now his father was walking somewhere under this same sky.

He drove to Ralph'sthe same store in which his father had collapsed

--and got a shopping cart, but he was not in the mood for shopping. His fear had fled, leaving behind an uncomfortable melancholy, and he wanted only to get the groceries he needed for tonight and tomorrow, then get out of here as quickly as possible.

He sped through the overstocked-aisles as fast as was seemly, grabbing a frozen pizza, a gallon of milk, a gallon of orange juice, a loaf of bread, and some lunch meat.

The registers were all crowded, but since he had less than ten items he could use the express line, and he pulled his cart behind that of an old woman wearing a too bright dress that might have been flattering to her when she bought it back in the 1960s. He glanced over at the tabloid news rack next to the checkout stand and felt his heart leap in his chest. :'