Текст книги "Hard Spell"

Автор книги: Justin Gustainis

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  "Say you had found him on your own," Karl said. "What then?"

  Vollman shifted a little in his chair. "I would have stopped him from completing this insane ritual – without killing him, if at all possible."

  "But here you are," I said. "What's changed?"

  "What has changed is the passage of time," Vollman said. "Like you, I believe that tonight is when he will attempt to consummate the ritual, and that cannot be permitted. Should he fail, he will almost certainly die. And if he succeeds, as you have pointed out, Sergeant, many others will die, in the near future."

  "So now you wanna work with us," I said, "and about fucking time, too. But knowing that Sligo is your son doesn't help us catch him. I'm not clear about what you're bringing to the table."

  Vollman studied his hands for a few moments. "In truth, not as much as I had hoped," he said. "I had planned to share with you the information contained in the Opus Mago about the ritual – its purpose, and its requirements. I was going to tell you that tonight is when he will probably make the attempt – at least, I can think of no reason why he would wait another month, given the ever-present risk of discovery."

  He looked up then. "But it seems you already have the information that you need about that evil book. Courtesy, I assume, of the professor who was killed at the hospital today."

  "You got that right," I said. "So, I'm asking you again – what have you got to offer?"

  "As we speak, my agents are combing the city, and its environs – not only in search of my son, but of any information about the planned ritual. If any of them learns something useful, they will contact me at once."

  Vollman reached into a pocket and produced a cell phone. "Even nosferatu," he said, "must change with the times."

  "And anything these guys tell you, you're gonna share with us?" Karl sounded skeptical, and I can't say that I blamed him.

  "Yes, I will," Vollman said. "Things have gone too far for gentle methods. He must be stopped, even if it means his life. And I am no longer sure I can do it alone."

  "And what are you asking from us?" I said.

  "Any information you may uncover in the interim – and of course, your vigorous efforts to prevent this tragedy from happening. Which you would have exercised, anyway."

  "All right, Vollman, we'll work with you," I said. "But I want something more."

  "What might that be?"

  "My daughter, Christine, is one of... you."

  "Yes, I was aware of this."

  "Do you know where she is tonight?"

  "I do not attempt to keep track of all the city's creatures of the night," Vollman said. "But I can find out, if it is important. I assume it is, or you would not be asking."

  "A threat was made against her," I said, "by a guy named Jamieson Longworth, now deceased. We believe he was somehow mixed up with your son."

  "Indeed?" Vollman's tone was frosty. "Had I possessed that information earlier, I might have been able to use it and locate my son, thus saving us all considerable time and trouble."

  "We only got the information that allowed us to figure it out yesterday," I told him, trying not to sound defensive.

  "And you didn't exactly make yourself easy to find, did you?" Karl said.

  "Point taken." Vollman inclined his head forward a little. "Very well, Sergeant. I will have your daughter Christine located. What then? Do you wish her brought here?"

  "No, I'm expecting to be pretty busy. Just get her someplace safe, at least for tonight."

  "I can do that," he said, "and I will." He stood up. "I should lend my efforts to the hunt for my son. There are those in the city who will not share information with my minions, but who might nonetheless talk to me–" Vollman gave us a humorless, fang-filled smile, "–especially if I ask nicely."

  "We should trade phone numbers before you go," I said. "We can't afford any communication delays tonight."

  "I agree entirely," he said.

  The three of us exchanged cell phone numbers. I wrote Vollman's down, then looked up to tell him "Stay in touch."

  He was gone.

  "I hate it when he does that," I muttered.

  "I don't know," Karl said. "I think it's kind of cool."

Over the next few hours, I looked at that wall map so many times I'm surprised I didn't burn a hole through it. Karl downloaded and printed some aerial photos from Google Earth and had them spread out on a table. My eyes just about wore them through, too.

  We'd pe ihe word out to every snitch we knew, human and otherwise. Anybody who could come up with reliable information about where Sligo was going to perform the ritual tonight would earn so much goodwill with us that he could probably knock off a dozen liquor stores without fear of arrest – although we didn't put it quite that way.

  The other detectives in the squad knew the situation now, and they'd promised to work their own sources hard and to call in if they picked up anything useful.

  Everybody was out on the street, except Karl, me, and McGuire. All three of us were so far past overtime that we probably weren't even getting paid anymore.

  The silence in the squad room was like a vice pressing against my skull, squeezing tighter every minute. I willed one of our phones to ring, no matter who was calling – Vollman, one of the squad, a snitch, or even Christine letting me know that she was shacked up with a cute A-positive in Dunmore and wouldn't be home until dawn.

  McGuire was at his desk, doing paperwork or pretending to. Karl stood in front of the wall map, staring like a desert traveler hoping for an oasis to appear. I was pacing around the room like an expectant father – exactly what I had done when Christine was born. I looked at my watch, for the thousandth time: 10:03.

  "I bet the motherfucker is going to pick a yard with a big old swimming pool," Karl said, without taking his eyes off the map. "Then, once the spell's done, he can jump in and take a dip. Cool off a little. Black magic is hot work, I hear."

  "The arrogant prick probably doesn't even–" and that was as far as I got.

  I stopped pacing and stood utterly still, while images and sounds flashed through my brain:

  –Sligo, swimming, with a conical cap on his head, like the wizard in Fantasia...

  –Prescott's voice saying, "Still water, it has to be still water"...

  –The photo on Jamieson Longworth's computer of a square, stone building near-surrounded by water...

  –My cousin Marty, when I was fourteen: "Come on, Stan. Nobody goes up there, and the lock on the gate is a joke. You, me, and those two chicks from down the street. Whatdaya say? We'll have a cool swim on a hot night, and maybe we'll even get to see 'em naked!

  "Well, fuck my ass and call me Shirley," I said softly.

  "Stan?" Karl's voice. "Stan? Can you hear me? What is it, man?" I think he might have been speaking for a while.

  I turned to face him. "Lemme borrow your pen."

  I took the pen, ignoring the look on Karl's face, and went to the wall map. It took me only a few seconds to find the dot I was looking for. I circled it once, then again, and again, and stepped back. "That's where he is," I said. "Right there. He's right fucking there."

  Speaking as fast as I could without becoming incoherent, I told McGuire and Karl what I had just figured out: Sligo was going to cast his spell in the pump house on top of the dam at Lake Scranton.

  "He wants still water, and there's a shitload of it up there, and the place is isolated. It's not supposed to be for swimming – that's where the city drinking water comes from. But my cousin Marty and me and a couple of girls went skinny-dipping there one summer when I was fourteen. I saw the pump house close up, although we didn't go inside – it was locked. And the pump house is what's in that photo on Jamieson Longworth's computer – sure as I'm fucking standing here."

  "That's good enough for me," McGuire said, and picked up the phon/div>

  "Who're you calling?" I asked.

  "SWAT. Dooley's supposed to be on call, twentyfour-seven."

  "Good," I said. I went to my desk and started rummaging through the pile of papers on top of it.

  "What're you looking for?" Karl asked me.

  "That phone number Vollman left us. Here it is."

  A few seconds later, I was listening to the phone ringing in, I hoped, Vollman's pocket. It rang. And rang. Then after the seventh ring, one of those synthesized computer voices that I hate said, "No one is available at the moment to take your call. Please leave your name and number, and your call will be returned as soon as humanly possible."

  I wondered whether "humanly" was Vollman's idea of a little joke.

  At the beep, I said, "Vollman, this is Markowski. It's going down at the pump house, at the top of the Lake Scranton Dam. I need to know if you've located Christine, because that's gonna determine our tactics. Call me, or get over here, fast!"

  Karl had just finished checking the loads in that big Glock of his. He looked at me. "Determine our tactics?"

  "If we know Christine's safe, we can go in there with all guns blazing – or SWAT can. But since she's still missing… don't you think Jamieson Longworth would get a giggle in Hell, knowing that Christine was going to be Sligo's final vampire victim?"

  "But we don't know for sure that Longworth and Sligo were even in cahoots, Stan."

  "Do you believe in that many coincidences?" I asked.

  That brought a little smile to Karl's face. Before I could ask what was so damn funny, he said, the way you do when you're quoting somebody, "'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.'"

  "Who said that? Although he's right, whoever it was."

  "Auric Goldfinger – to James Bond."

  McGuire came out of his office, scowling. "Problem. Big one. The SWAT unit, every one of them, is on administrative suspension, pending investigation into possible wrongdoing in the death of one Jamieson Longworth."

  "What kind of fucking bullshit is that?" Karl said.

  "Mrs. Longworth again," I said to McGuire.

  "Yeah, most likely. Dooley says the union's fighting it, on the grounds that SWAT's vital to public safety – but they're not gonna get it overturned in– " he looked at his watch, "–the next eighty-five fucking minutes."

  "If this is a nightmare, I hope I wake up soon," I said quietly. "We don't have SWAT, we don't have a warrant for the fucking pump house–"

  "Isn't that city property?" Karl asked. "Don't need a warrant for that."

  "No, the water company owns it," I said. "Don't interrupt me when I'm bitching – no SWAT, no warrant, no Vollman..." I stopped, and just shook my head.

  "You've got these, though." McGuire held out a key and a slip of paper.

  "What?" I asked impatiently.

  "A master key, which will open any office in the building, including SWAT's, and–" he held out the paper to me, "–the combination to the SWAT weapons room. The key is from me, who will have no idea how you got it. The combination's courtesy of Dooley, who says 'Kick some ass for us, too.'"

  I took the paper and key and looked at Karl. "You heard the man – let's go kick some ass."

It was quiet in the part of the building that SWAT called home, so nobody asked us what the hell we were doing. Just as well. The mood I was in, if somebody had, I might have shot them.

  As Karl unlocked the SWAT team's door, I said, "You know, vampires and wizards and shit – that's weird enough. But now, we're in the middle of a fucking 'buddy cop' movie."

  Karl pushed the door open and felt around for the light switch. "Is that what it is? Sure hope you're right, Stan."

  "Why – you like that stuff?"

  "Yeah, but that's not why I said it."

  "I think the weapons room is back there," I said, pointing. "Okay, I give. Why do you want this to be a buddy cop movie?"

  "Because the good guys always win," he said, as we walked to the back of the big room. "And neither of the cops ever gets killed. Maybe a flesh wound, arm in a sling in the final scene – but nothing worse. I could handle that. Here – gimme that combination."

  Consulting the paper, Karl carefully turned the big dial back and forth a few times, then tried the handle. The steel door unlocked with a click. I gave the handle a pull, and the door opened smoothly on well-oiled hinges. A couple of bright florescent lights in the ceiling came on automatically.

  "Holy fuck," Karl said softly. "Will you look at this shit!"

We were bleeding time faster than a vampire's victim loses blood, so within ten minutes of opening the SWAT unit's weapons room, Karl and I were in the parking lot, heading for a brown Plymouth – the car the department had assigned us to replace the one with the man-sized dent in its roof

  We walked as fast as we could with all the stuff we were carrying. Stopping behind our new ride, I was fishing for the keys when I heard the sound of a car door opening in the row behind us, then heard it again. Part of my mind noticed that I didn't hear those doors slam shut.

  I wasn't worried. Jamieson Longworth was dead, and his buddy, Sligo, was up at Lake Scranton, getting ready for the biggest night of his life – which I hoped would also be his last.

  I should have worried.

  I realized that when I heard, from behind us, the distinctive clickety-clack of a shotgun being racked.

  Both of Karl's arms were full; so was one of mine, while my other hand was deep in my pants pocket, digging for the car keys. We had no chance at all.

  Then a familiar man's voice told us, "Stand very still, gentlemen."

  We froze like Gorgon statues.

  After a few seconds, he said, "Good. Now, without unburdening yourselves, turn this way. Slowly."

  Once I'd heard that voice, I was pretty sure we were fucked. Then we turned around, and I knew it for certain.

  The Reverends Ferris and Crane, still wearing their elegant gray suits, stood thirty feet away, next to the open doors of a big black Caddy. Crane held the shotgun barrel pointed right at Karl and me, and we were so close together, I knew one blast would nail us both. The nasty smile was back on Crane's schoolboy face. The Reverend Ferris was smiling, too, and it wasn't hard to guess why.

  "How good to see you both again, Detectives," he said. "Reverend Crane had started to wonder if you were ever going to join us out here, but I reminded him that the Lord provides those who serve Him with what they need, all in due time. And here you are."

  "We have unfinished business," Crane said. I guess he felt he should contribute something besides firepower.

  "Indeed we do." Ferris looked as happy as a little boy with a new kitten – a kitten he planned to tor ture to death, as soon as he could get it alone. "The sergeant has some questions to answer for us. And do you know, Detective Renfer, I believe I smell the taint of witchcraft on you, too. I'm afraid you'll have to come along with us, as well."

  I thought about the surveillance cameras trained on the parking lot. Although always recording, they weren't monitored regularly. It would be hours before anybody inside the building learned that we had been abducted by the two witchfinders. By then, of course, it would be too late. For everybody.

  Ferris's smile faded, to be replaced by a solemn look, the kind you associate with a hanging judge. His voice was all business as he said, "All right then: one at a time, you will bend forward slowly, and deposit that junk you're carrying on the ground. You won't be needing it, I'm sure. Detective Renfer first. Now."

  Karl bent over and gently laid down his share of what we'd taken from the SWAT weapons room. But I saw that as he straightened up, he managed to take a half step away from me. The reverends apparently didn't notice.

  "Very good," Ferris said. "Now you, Sergeant Markowski. Slowly."

  As I finished putting my stuff on the cracked asphalt, I managed to emulate Karl with a sneaky half step in the other direction.

  One thing I knew for certain: we were not getting into the Caddy with these two righteous sadists. What would happen to Karl and me would be bad enough. But if nobody stopped Sligo, and his spell was successful…

  Karl and I would have to make our stand here, win or lose. And the next thing we needed to do was get more distance between us. I took another slow half-step to my right.

  "Stand still!" Crane barked. "Don't move!"

  "I'm sorry, Reverend," I said. "I didn't mean to be disobedient, but you didn't say anything about standing in place, before."

  As I spoke, I saw Karl move a little further to his left. The shotgun barrel shifted in his direction, and I took the opportunity to slide my feet a little more to the right. Crane turned the gun back on me.

  "I said don't move, damn you!" While Crane yelled at me, I saw, from the corner of my eye, the additional step that Karl got in.

  "Stay still, or I'll shoot you right here!" Crane said, hysteria rising in his voice.

  "I would do what Reverend Crane says," Ferris said sternly. "Taking you for questioning is our ideal outcome, but if we must leave your corpses here, that is acceptable, as well. Sinners must pay for their sins, one way or another."

  Karl and I had gained what we wanted. We were now too far apart for a single blast from that shotgun to get us both. One of us would live to put three or four rounds into Crain's chest before he could rack another round into the firing chamber. And since Ferris appeared unarmed…

  "What makes you so certain that we're sinners, Reverend?" I asked. "Isn't there something about letting he who is without sin cast the first stone?"

  I didn't dare look toward Karl now, but I was sure he'd taken advantage of the couple of seconds their attention was on me to push his jacket back a bit on one side, making for quicker access to his holstered weapon.

  "Yeah, Reverend, are you guys that pure yourselves?" Karl said loudly, and when they looked his way, I moved my right forearm back slowly, taking the suit jacket with it. The fabric was almost clear of the holster now.

  The clock was ticking towards midnight, and we had exactly zero time to waste with these clowns. At least one of us had to get to Lake Scranton, and fast.

  Might as well thre dice, and see whose number came up.

  I was tensing my gun arm as Ferris snapped, "I have no intention of debating theology with the likes of you." He produced two pairs of handcuffs. "Now, you are going to–"

  There was movement in the air behind them, something so fast I couldn't tell what it was. Then a shadow appeared directly behind Crane, a black form that reached out and grasped Crane's jaw in one hand, his head in the other, and twisted, hard. Crane was dead before he even knew he was dying.

  The shadow blurred again, flowing over the roof of the Cadillac and the dark figure became Vollman, in front of Ferris now, grasping his throat with one hand, lifting the witchfinder off his feet, seemingly without effort…

  "Vollman!" I managed to yell. "Don't!"

  The words were barely out of my mouth as Vollman shook Ferris hard, once, the way a terrier shakes a rat – and with similar results. I didn't hear Ferris's neck break, but I saw the way his head lolled before Vollman dropped the limp form to the ground.

Vollman quickly walked over to us and said, "I received your message, and came here as quickly as I could. Fortunate that I did not arrive a minute later – I need both of you alive tonight."

  Karl was unlocking the trunk of the Plymouth. I stood there, torn by more conflicting impulses than I've ever had to deal with at the same time.

  If you want to imagine one of those internal dialogues that people in the movies sometimes have – you know, with an angel perched on one shoulder and a devil on the other – mine would have gone something like this:

  Angel: You've just seen Vollman commit murder. Maybe not with Crane, but Ferris was unarmed. That's murder – arrest him!

  Devil: Vollman just saved your life – either yours or Karl's. You were about to throw the dice, remember? You knew that either you or Karl was gonna catch that shotgun load right in the chest. And Ferris might even have had a piece under his coat. If he'd gone for it, one of you would have had to kill him, anyway.

  Angel: It doesn't matter – the law's the law. Besides, Vollman's a vampire, an evil creature of the night. He doesn't deserve a break.

  Devil: Aren't you getting ready to risk your life at least partly to save a vampire you think is in danger, who happens to be your daughter – the daughter who's a vampire because of you?

  Angel: Be pragmatic. Remember the surveillance cameras! They've recorded what Vollman just did – and that you were there, and saw it. If you don't arrest Vollman, you'll be charged as an accessory to murder, you and Karl both.

  Devil: They only check the video if something's reported as happening in the parking lot. If nothing's reported in seventy-two hours or so, they wipe the memory and reuse the hard drive space.

  Angel: Well, when somebody finds those two bodies, don't you think that would count as "something happened"?

  Devil: So, make sure the bodies aren't found. Vollman can probably help you there.

  Angel: Do that, and you're making a deal with the devil, Stanley.

  Devil: Wouldn't be the first time, Stan. And besides, you need this particular devil on your side, tonight, up at the dam. And the clock is ticking, dude, toward midnight and the End of the World as We Know It.

  Angel: It's not really that bad.

  Devil: It's fucking bad enough!

All this took place in maybe three seconds. Standing there, n, you never know the convoluted mental process that led to me telling Vollman, "Those bodies are going to be a problem, if they're found."

  Vollman thought for a moment. "Very well – I will attend to it. Finish loading your equipment – and hurry!"

  Karl and I put the SWAT stuff into the trunk as fast as we could. We closed the trunk lid and turned to find Vollman standing there. "The bodies are in the trunk of their vehicle. I have left the keys in the ignition. One of my people will move it before dawn, and those two fools will not be seen again. Satisfied?"

  I wanted to ask Vollman how one of his "people" was going to get in to what was supposed to be a secure parking area. The witchfinders probably had a pass from the mayor's office, but... what came out of my mouth instead was, "Fine. Get in."

Lake Scranton is at the southern edge of the city, just off Route 307. Seen from the air, it resembles a bat with its wings spread wide. It's an artificial lake, created by diverting a tributary of the Lackawanna River, then building a dam to hold the water in. The distance around the perimeter is something like three and a half miles and the dam, with the pump house on top, is at the lower edge of the bat's left wing.

  You'd think the pump house would be dead center on the dam. But it actually sits about two hundred feet from the northern end, with another couple of thousand feet of dam beyond it until you reach the other shore. The stone and cement platform it's built on is perpendicular to the top of the dam, so the little building appears to be sitting on top of the water.

  If you were interested, for some reason, in launching an attack on the pump house, you could come in either on the short side, with two hundred feet of concrete dam to cross, or the long side, which is about ten times the distance. If you were a team of Navy SEALs, you'd probably come in by water, climb to the top of the dam with ropes and grappling hooks, and catch everybody in the pump house by complete surprise.

  I could have used me a team of Navy SEALs, right about then.

  One thing that I didn't need any commandos to teach me: you plan for the enemy's capabilities, not his intentions – because you can sometimes figure out the first, but never be sure about the second.

  As we followed the short stretch of Route 307 that would take us to the dam, I asked Vollman, "What kind of spells is he likely to have prepared? Any idea?"

  Despite what you see in the movies, wizards and witches can't just wave their hands and make magic happen. It looks that way sometimes, but in fact any hand waving or magic words are used to activate pre-prepared spells. And those take some time, effort, and skill to get ready.

  It's kind of like using a gun: you have to load it to make it dangerous. And although you have your choice of ammunition, the piece will hold only so many bullets, and you can only carry so much ammo with you.

  "Impossible to know," Vollman said from the back seat. "He is so sure of his own invincibility, that he may have prepared nothing at all, on the assumption that he will face no opposition tonight."

  "But we can't count on that,"

  "No," Vollman said, "of course not. I only mention it as a possibility."

  Enemy capabilities: unknown. Terrific.

  We were approaching the exit that would take us to the access roads for the dam. "Does it matter which side we go in on?" I asked Vollman. "The short end or the long end?"

  "The faster our final approach, the less chance of detection," he said. "I see no advantage to the long way."

  "Sit is, then."

  I turned off the lights as we followed the narrow access road that led to the dam. No point in begging to be noticed. Anyway the full moon, shining down through the scattered wispy clouds, gave all the light I needed.

  It was a beautiful night. I wondered how many of us would survive it.

  "Vollman," I said, "can you scry the place before we go in – find out the layout, so we know what to expect?"

  He didn't respond right away, and I glanced over my shoulder in time to see him shake his head slowly. "I can do so," he said, "but as soon as I commence, Richard will sense the presence of magic close at hand. He will then be alerted to our whereabouts."

  Karl turned in his seat and looked back at Vollman. "If you don't scry, or use some other kind of magic, is he gonna know we're coming, anyway?"

  "Ordinarily, I would say 'yes.' Wizards are very sensitive to the presence of potential enemies. But tonight he is giving so much of his attention and energy to the ritual, he may be too preoccupied."

  "May," Karl said sourly.

  "May is the most accurate assessment possible under these circumstances," Vollman said. "I regret that I cannot offer you certainty, Detective. For all our sakes."

  There was silence as I braked the Plymouth to a slow halt about fifty feet from the chain link fence and gate that guarded this end of the dam.

  Then Vollman said, "But one thing that I can do is to counter any magic he uses against you, allowing both of you the freedom to disrupt the ritual and, if necessary, effect the rescue of Miss Markowski."

  "Well, that's a relief," Karl said, with no sarcasm at all.

  "It might be best," Vollman said, "if I were to remain out of sight for as long as possible. I can counter his spells from outside that little building as well as I could from within it."

  "So you can stop his magic," I said. "Can he stop yours?"

  "That depends on whose is the stronger."

  "And that's you, right?" Karl said.

  "As they say in those awful television programs I sometimes find myself watching, There is one way to find out."

Karl and I had each taken from the SWAT armory a pump shotgun, a selection of ammunition, and several of the "Splash-bang" grenades we'd seen the team use at Jamieson Longworth's place. We hurriedly loaded the shotguns, making our best guess as to what we would need in there.

  "Double-ought buckshot for the door," I said. I once saw a guy use some to make a very large hole in a brick wall.

  Karl rummaged through the boxes of shotgun ammo. "Zap the lock? Like the SWAT guys did?"

  "The door's probably made of iron," I said. "We take the hinges. It's more certain."

  Karl looked at Vollman. "Can't you take the door down for us, with magic?"

  "I could," Vollman said. "But since you have the means on hand yourselves, it is perhaps best that I conserve my energies."

  That was Vollman's fancy way of saying "Save my strength." It didn't exactly inspire confidence.

  The shotguns held five shells apiece. "For the rest, load whatever you want," I said. "We don't know what we'll be dealing with in there. And don't assume you'll get the chance to reload, because you probably won't."

  I loaded two shells filled with blessed silver pellets, then one of garlic-soaked rock salt, then another double-ought buck, and one more silver for luck. I didn't pay attention towhat Karl picked.

  Once we reached the chain link fence at the dam's entrance, I saw that the gate was secured with a chain and a big Yale padlock. Maybe Sligo had come in the long way; or it could be he just floated over it.

  A shotgun blast would take care of the lock, but I didn't want to announce that we were here until I had to. I looked at Vollman and said, barely above a whisper, "Can you...?"

  The old vampire nodded, took hold of the lock, and said something under his breath. It sprang open, and I watched him remove and toss it aside. I was sure glad he was willing to expend the energy.

  The three of us began the short walk along the top of the dam to the pump house. Ahead, I could see light coming from behind the two windows, brightly illuminating the cracks of the tightly closed shutters.

  I kept waiting for all hell to break loose, although I had no idea what form it might take – alarms, devil bats, automatic weapons fire – who knew what kind of shit Sligo might have prepared?

  With every step I heard from my guts, which were caring on an ongoing monologue with my conscious mind. This is a bad idea, Stan. We could die here, Stan. Get us out of here, Stan – before it's too late.

  I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Call me brave, optimistic, or stupid. I was leaning toward the third explanation, myself.

  Nothing happened. I didn't know if Sligo was indifferent or careless, but for most of the short walk all we heard was the chuckling of water in the dam and a few night birds in the trees behind us.