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“Rheinbeck?”
Another sigh. Now that he was closer, it didn’t really sound like wind coming in a broken window, after all. It sounded forced, soundedwet somehow.
He took another step down, and another, and then he was at the bottom. The door was straight ahead. He hobbled over to it, and slowly—very slowly—pushed open the door.
A candle guttered on a small worktable, where tea for two had been set up with a pot: cups, cream, tea cakes, and jam all neatly arranged. Rheinbeck was sitting in a chair facing the table, slumped over, hands hanging at his sides, blood pouring into his mouth from a terrible gash in his skull. A broken porcelain statue lay in pieces on the ground around him.
Williams stared, uncomprehending. “Rheinbeck?”
No movement. A muffled boom of thunder shook the foundations of the house.
Williams could not move, could not think, could not even reach for his service piece. For some reason, all he could do was stare in disbelief. Even down here the old house seemed almost alive with the fury of the storm, groaning and swaying, and yet Williams could not pull his eyes away from the tea tray.
Another thump behind him abruptly broke the spell. Williams turned, the flashlight beam spi
“Devils!”
Seventy-Nine
The rain and wind had risen to such a furious pitch that Shurte began to worry that a new line of tornadoes might be making for Medicine Creek itself. The water was now pouring down into the cave, and he had just retreated into the cave entrance when he heard the sounds from within: footsteps, slow and shuffling, and coming his way.
Heart pounding, silently cursing Williams for leaving him alone, Shurte positioned himself to one side of the propane lantern and aimed his shotgun down the steps.
Silent, indistinct figures began materializing out of the gloom. Shurte remembered the dog and felt his skin crawl. “Who’s that?” he called out, trying to keep his voice from quavering. “Identify yourselves!”
“Special Agent Pendergast, Sheriff Hazen, and Corrie Swanson,” came the dry reply.
Shurte lowered his gun with overwhelming relief, picked up the propane lantern, and descended to meet them. At first he could hardly believe his eyes at the bloody spectacle that greeted him: Sheriff Hazen, barely distinguishable under all the blood. A young girl, bruised and mud-spattered. Shurte recognized the third figure as the FBI agent who had sucker-punched Cole, but he didn’t have time to wonder how the man had gotten himself into the cave.
“We need to get Sheriff Hazen to a hospital,” the FBI agent said. “The girl also needs medical attention.”
“All communications are down,” Shurte said. “The roads are impassable.”
“Where’s Williams?” Hazen slurred.
“He went up to the house to, ah, to relieve Rheinbeck.” Shurte paused, almost afraid to ask the question. “What about the others?”
Hazen merely shook his head.
“We’ll send down a search-and-rescue team as soon as communications are restored,” Pendergast said wearily. “Help me get these two into the house, if you please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Shurte put an arm around Hazen and gently guided him up the last of the steps. Pendergast came behind, helping the girl. They exited the cave mouth and bent into the fury of the elements, the rain coming horizontally down the cut, lashing and whipping against them, pelting them with broken cornstalks and husks. The Kraus mansion loomed ahead, dark and silent, just a faint light flickering in the parlor windows. Shurte wondered where Williams and Rheinbeck were. The place looked deserted.
They moved slowly up the walk and mounted the steps to the porch. He watched Pendergast try the front door, find it locked. And then Shurte heard it: a muffled crash from inside, followed by a scream and the sound of a gunshot.
In one smooth motion, Pendergast’s gun was in his hand; a second later, he had kicked in the door. Gesturing for Shurte to stay with Hazen and the girl, he darted inside.
Shurte peered around the doorframe, shotgun at the ready. He could see two figures struggling in the hall at the top of the basement stairs, Williams and somebody else: a hideous figure in a bloody white nightgown, long gray hair wild. Shurte could hardly believe it: old lady Kraus. There was another scream, this one shrill and almost incoherent:“Baby killers!” Simultaneously, there was another flash and roar of a gun.
In three leaps Pendergast had reached and tackled the woman in white. There was a brief struggle, a muffled shriek. The gun skittered across the floor. The two rolled out of Shurte’s view and Williams darted down the stairs. Perhaps thirty seconds ticked by. And then Pendergast reappeared, carrying the old woman in his arms, murmuring something in her ear. Moments later, Williams came up the basement steps, his arm around Rheinbeck, who was staggering and holding his bloodied head.
Shurte entered with Corrie and the sheriff, passing through the front hall into the parlor, where the flickering light Shurte had noticed from outside proved to be a fire. There, Pendergast arranged the old lady in a wing chair, still murmuring soothing indistinct words, cuffing her loosely. He rose and helped Shurte lay the sheriff down on the sofa in front of the fire. Williams took a seat on a sofa as far from the woman as possible, shivering. The girl had fallen in the chair on the other side of the fire.
Pendergast’s gaze darted about the room. “Officer Shurte?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get a first-aid kit from one of the cruisers and see to Sheriff Hazen. He has an aggravated excision of the left ear, what looks to be a simple fracture of the ulna, pharyngeal trauma, and multiple abrasions and contusions.”
When Shurte returned a few minutes later with the medical kit, he found that the room had been lit with candles and new logs laid on the fire. Pendergast had draped an afghan around the old woman, and she peered out at them balefully through a tangle of iron-gray hair.
Pendergast glided toward him. “Take care of Sheriff Hazen.” He went over to the girl and spoke to her softly. She nodded. Then, taking supplies from the first-aid kit, he bandaged her wrists and doctored the cuts on her arms, neck, and face. Shurte worked on Hazen, who grunted stoically.
Fifteen minutes later, all had been done that could be done. Now, Shurte realized, they just had to wait for emergency help to arrive.
The FBI agent, however, appeared to be restless. He paced the room, his silver eyes moving among its occupants. And yet again and again, as the storm shook the old house, his gaze came back to rest on the bloodied old woman who sat motionless, handcuffed to the wing chair, her head bowed.
Eighty
The warmth of the fire, the steam rising from the cup of chamomile tea, the numbing effect of the sedative Pendergast had administered: all conspired to create in Corrie a feeling of growing unreality. Even her bruised and battered limbs seemed far away, the pain barely noticeable. She sipped and sipped, trying to lose herself in the simple mechanical action, trying not to think about anything. It didn’t help to think, because nothing seemed to make sense: not the nightmare apparition that had chased her through the cave, not the sudden homicidal rage of Winifred Kraus, nothing. It was as senseless as a nightmare.
In a far corner of the parlor, the state troopers named Williams and Rheinbeck sat, the latter nursing a bandaged head and leg. The other trooper, Shurte, stood by the door, gazing through the glass down the darkened road. Hazen reclined on an overstuffed couch, his eyes half open, battered and bandaged almost beyond recognition. Beside him stood Pendergast, looking intently at Winifred Kraus. The old woman stared back at them all from her wing chair, looking from one to the next, malevolent eyes like two little red holes in her pale, powdered face.