I Will Fear No Evil (Psalm 23 Mysteries Book 10) (25 page)

It was Monday morning and Cindy sat in her car in the parking lot, dreading going into work even more than she usually did on a Monday. It was going to be a week of raving lunatics, homicidal maniacs, and bloodthirsty monsters. And that was just counting the people at church. After a minute of quietly contemplating the drawbacks of quitting and being unemployed she forced herself out of the car.

At least there were no reporters at the church. It seemed like the one place there weren’t reporters these days. It was the one silver lining in the whole mess. She had stayed up half the night praying for Brenda, Meghan, and anyone else who might be in danger and she was beyond tired.

She trudged toward the gate, forcing one weary foot in front of the other. She had to get some rest soon. This was getting ridiculous. She unlocked the gate as she contemplated what horrors awaited her in the office. She wasn’t ready to deal with them, especially not until she’d had some caffeine. She’d forgotten to pick up soda at the store the night before and she was running on empty in that area.

She made her way over to the sanctuary. There was going to be an early morning prayer meeting in there and she wanted to make sure everything looked presentable. She unlocked the door and made her way toward the light switch. Before she reached it her foot caught on something and she staggered sideways, crashing into the wall. She managed to keep her feet.

Cindy reached out with a shaking hand and found the switch. A moment later the lights came on and she looked down. The body of a man was sprawled face down on the ground, a hangman’s noose knotted around his neck.

21

Cindy choked back the scream that was rising in her throat even as her mind was frantically repeating the words
Not again!
over and over. She was having flashbacks to the first time she’d tripped over a body on the sanctuary floor. There was something different this time even though she was struggling to put her finger on what it was.

She was about to reach down and tug on the man’s trousers when it hit her. Something seemed off about his proportions. A terrible suspicion dawned on her and she grabbed one of the legs which lifted off the ground with ease.

With a disgusted grunt she flipped the entire body over. It was fake, a Halloween prop that the kids must have been prepping for their haunted house. The face was distorted with bulging eyes and tongue. It was grotesque but seen from this angle not at all realistic looking.

She closed her eyes for a moment struggling to calm her nerves. She had thought for sure that she was going to be calling Mark because she had managed to trip over another dead body. She was fairly certain she would never have lived that one down. She was immensely grateful that wasn’t the case, though. The church had already seen its fair share of death and didn’t need any more. Then again, neither did she.

She was going to have to tell Dave that his kids needed to be more careful with their props, though. Someone could have been injured or badly frightened. They were all very lucky that she had been the one who had tripped over it. Even that she realized was ironic. So much had changed in her life since that first body in the sanctuary. Looking back she marveled at it all even as she picked up the mannequin and carried him to the office.

Once inside she briefly considered hanging him from one of the light fixtures before realizing that wasn’t a good idea. The fact that she had even contemplated it though was proof of just how different life was than it had been a couple of years ago. It was also proof that she’d had too little sleep and her judgment was seriously impaired. She really did need some caffeine as fast as possible.

Mark had only managed to get a couple of hours sleep. By the time he’d made it home the sun had been coming up. He blamed the fact that he had been half-awake on that, but in his heart he knew it was because he couldn’t sleep in the bed without Traci. The worst part was that she still wasn’t returning his phone calls.

He knew that she and the kids and Buster were at Amber’s house so at least he knew they were safe. He had thought about going there but had images of the press somehow following him and just making things worse.

Trina had done a great job procuring the search warrant the night before. Maybe she could convince a judge to issue an injunction against the reporters who were hounding them. It was a dream at any rate.

He knew they weren’t going to get any more information out of Casey. After they’d gotten her booked he’d had to call in a psychologist to take a look at her. She seemed to have just checked out, like she was barely there, and only capable of answering the most rudimentary questions with either “yes” or “don’t know”. Maybe the stress of it all had gotten to her. He didn’t know what was going on inside her head, but to do what she’d done it already had to be full of messed up wiring.

They had found Meghan’s phone and some of her other belongings in the house, proof that she was telling the truth about that part. They’d also found some hair and blood in the front seat of her car that should belong to Brenda. Now they just needed to find where they were being held before something happened to them.

His phone rang and his heart skipped a beat when he saw it was Traci calling. He picked up. “Hello?”

“You said in your message this morning that you found out something about Lizzie?”

When he’d gotten home he had left her a message to that effect. He was going to tell her what he knew, but realized that if he didn’t then she might actually call him to find out the information. It had worked.

“I did. I found out that she is being held by the coven, and that she was a part of it. The good news, if you can call it that, is that she has not been a party to the murders. When she objected is when they kidnapped her.”

“Thank heavens,” Traci said. “Wait, I know that sounds weird, she’s still in danger and all...”

“I’m just as relieved as you are that Lizzie isn’t an accessory to murder,” Mark said gently. “I’m still terrified for her, but I’m relieved, too. The girl I used to know would never have been able to hurt someone like that.”

“I know. I’ve just been having the most terrible imagery in my head.”

“Me, too. The other thing I discovered is that they can’t...get rid of her until they’ve completed all eight rituals. So, they have four more they have to get through before they could do anything to her. Given that we just captured one of their number, they might not even be able to accomplish those.”

“You caught someone?”

“Yes, in the middle of the night. The cousin of the girl everyone thought was a runaway. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell us where Lizzie or the others are being held.” He paused. “It’s been a rough couple of days and there’s a lot more to get through. How are you doing?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said abruptly.

“Okay, when you do, I want to listen.”

“Thanks for letting me know about Lizzie. Bye.”

Before he could say anything else she hung up.

Frustrated he sat down on the couch and forced himself to breathe deep. At least she’d called back. He’d gotten to hear her voice. Slowly he straightened as he replayed the conversation in his head. He’d said something important. Casey had told him they could hold the ritual with an unconscious coven member, but that they needed all eight. Unless they were stupid enough to try and break her out of jail that meant things were on hold until they could find someone to take her place.

Mother would be recruiting again and she’d be in a hurry. Just maybe there was someone who could help him figure out some likely candidates.

Half an hour later he was sitting in a coffee shop with Sweater Girl. She was drinking what had to be the most froufrou concoction he’d ever heard of, but he was just grateful she’d agreed to meet. He’d asked her if there was anyone she knew in her coven or in the larger wicca community that she could think of who might be tempted by the dark side.

She was sitting, thinking as she sipped her drink, and he was trying to be patient.

While he was waiting he was thinking. He assumed that a new sacrifice would have to be chosen who had a connection to whoever the new coven member was. That didn’t just mean that they’d let Meghan go, though. He guessed that they’d keep her and Lizzie alive until they had completed the eighth sacrifice and then kill them, too. Of course, if they believed their ritual was real and Lizzie as well as them would suddenly become immortal because of it, he wasn’t sure how they planned on getting rid of her. He’d learned a long time ago, though, not to question the logic of madmen.

Finally she put her cup down. “This is going to sound crazy.”

“I love crazy as long as it gets me somewhere,” Mark said.

“I really hate to say this, but the person that keeps popping into my mind is Samuel.”

“The guy who just got out of the coma?” Mark said in surprise.

“Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy. It’s just...I’ve talked to him a couple of times in the past few days and he’s angry. I mean, really angry. He was angry that he’d lost two years of his life and he was looking to find a way to get that time back and to punish Lizzie.”

“So, not so much into the doing no harm to others anymore?”

“Exactly. I mean, he’s really messed up. I’ve tried to talk with him, get him some help, but he just keeps getting worse. I think it’s hard because he doesn’t actually have any family to help him through it either.”

“So, he might be open to a proposition from a dark witch?”

“I hate to say it, but he’s the only one I know who would be. I mean, I’m sure there are other angry, hurting people in this town, but that’s the one my money would be on.”

“He should be in the hospital,” Mark mused. “All that muscle atrophy and everything he’ll need physical therapy for quite a while.”

“Plus, no family to push for him to come home,” she added.

He nodded and stood. “Thank you very much for your help.”

“Thank you for finding my neighbor’s cat. I just hope you find mine.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said, wincing inwardly.

From the coffee shop he headed straight for the hospital. It was likely that Mother would know something about Samuel since the coma he was in was supposedly caused by Lizzie and the others could easily have bragged about that at some point.

When he walked into the ward where Samuel had been his bed was empty. He stopped and then realized that this was where the coma patients were and they would probably have moved him somewhere else in the hospital. As he headed out of the room he hailed a nurse who was walking by.

“Hi, I’m Detective Walters and I’m looking for Samuel Bannerman.”

“Oh, you just missed him. He checked out of the hospital a couple of hours ago.”

“Checked out?” Mark asked, surprised. “Who checked him out?”

The nurse smiled. “It was his Mother.”

As the afternoon arrived the excitement and tension at the church became palpable. Kids started showing up as soon as school was out, buzzing about the night’s dress rehearsal. When they started getting into costume and makeup the energy went sky high until even Cindy found herself getting jittery with anticipation.

Once it hit five o’clock Jeremiah showed up and the kids got even more amped. Dave was running around like a madman and Cindy realized it was a good thing she had agreed to stay and help.

Finished with one errand she headed to the back door of the gym which was closest. There just outside she ran into Zac and Sarah. Sarah was on the ground, her long hair stretched out straight above her head. Around her were a number of cans of white Halloween hair coloring spray and also an industrial can of regular hairspray, extra hold. Zac had a brush in one hand and was plugging a hair dryer into a socket with the other.

“What are you two doing?” Cindy asked, at a loss.

“Zac’s giving me hair that stands straight up, like the Bride of Frankenstein although obviously I’m not her.”

“Obviously,” Cindy said.

She walked into the gym shaking her head and found Wildman waving his arms around and directing people. He had a massive thermos in his left hand. He brought it to his lips and then lowered it with a look of disgust on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Cindy asked.

“Out of water,” he mumbled.

She took the thermos from him. “That’s easily enough fixed. What else do you need? Did you even eat anything today?”

“Yeah, I had something at lunch,” he said distractedly.

“Okay, good. I’ll be back with some water.”

She exited the front of the gym and made her way to the water fountains. To her disgust it turned out the water pressure was too low in them for some reason. She’d have to say something in the morning and get those fixed. There was another set clear on the other side of the church which she trudged toward.

Once she had filled the thermos she headed back. She walked into the gym and looked for Wildman who wasn’t where she’d last seen him. She walked further into the room and a sudden stench assaulted her. She looked around quickly. It smelled like something was burning. She took a few steps toward the back of the gym and it seemed to grow stronger. Then she heard a muffled exclamation coming from outside.