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A sound rippled through the trees above him as if each of the thousand crows uttered a long sigh. Then, as the stars glittered and the crows held their breath, Mr. Morse—the Bone Man—fulfilled his mission on Earth and told Mike everything that he knew. He didn’t know all of it—there were such huge gaps in his own knowledge—but what he knew for sure hit the boy like a shotgun blast.
At first Mike listened in silent horror, and then he wept, and finally he screamed.
Down below, far down in the shadows of the Hollow, the swamp shuddered as things twitched in fury and fear beneath the mud.
When the telling was done, Mike Sweeney did not speak. He could not. He lay there with his eyes open, his lips parted in a soundless O of terrible surprise. His body was sprawled in a rough cruciform, arms out to either side, heels dangling over the edge of forever. His chest barely lifted with each breath, and deep inside his heart struggled for each next beat until, as the moon drifted behind a veil of clouds, his broken heart just did not take the next beat, and his lungs did not struggle to fill.
And Mike Sweeney, the Enemy of Evil, died.
PART THREE
THE RED WAVE
October 30 (Mischief Night) to October 31 (Halloween)
And we all know death someday comes Life was never all that certain…
Harry Manx, “Weary When You Run”
With every weary step,
you one step closer to the grave; With every single step, on every broken-hearted day you one step closer to the grave. Lay down and die and let the worms have their way.
Oren Morse, “Cemetery Blues”
Chapter 30
1
For twenty-four hours now Tow-Truck Eddie had been cruising the roads around Pine Deep. When his shift was over he swapped the cruiser for his wrecker and went back out on the road, but there was no sign at all of the Beast. As each moment passed he felt the twin fists of tension and despair beat at him.
He was failing in his Holy Mission. The Beast had actually been in his grasp and he’d lost him. Blood boiled in his veins, and he gripped the steering wheel of the wrecker with such force that the knobbed wheel was slowly being twisted out of shape. Hulking in the cab of the wrecker, he drove through the noisy crowds, praying for guidance, begging for the chance to let his work begin.
2
The official version that Ferro concocted was that a pair of criminals in ski masks broke into the morgue, ostensibly to steal medical supplies, and Val and Crow happened to be there discussing the release of her brother’s body with Dr. Weinstock. Ferro and LaMastra had come back up from Philly to interview Ms. Guthrie and officially close the Ruger/Boyd case. The morgue video cameras were still out of commission and the criminals turned off the lights and in the ensuing confusion shots were fired but luckily the only person struck was the already dead Mark Guthrie. However, in the darkness everyone was generally knocked about, and Dr. Weinstock was bitten by one of the assailants. The attackers fled and their identities were still unknown.
It was a load of horseshit, but they only had to sell it to Gus Bernhardt and he would buy swamp real estate from a guy in a shiny suit. Weinstock, injured as he was, was lucid enough to browbeat the hospital staff, and no one questioned Weinstock on anything anyway. Jonatha and Newton were too difficult to fit into the scenario, so they left before Weinstock called it in.
LaMastra was surprised that everyone seemed to buy the story, but Crow pointed out, “Dude, after everything that’s happened since Ruger came to town, this shit actually sounds reasonable. ”
Weinstock was admitted into his own hospital. His shoulder needed twenty-two stitches, and he was scheduled for an MRI to see what kind of damage was done to the tendons. Even as he was being wheeled into the ER he was diagnosing himself, bullying the residents and nurses and generally making a pain in the ass of himself.
One of the residents put five stitches in the glass cut on LaMastra’s jaw, and nurses handed out ice packs to Crow and Ferro. Val was hurt, too, but not in a way that required treatment. She sat in Crow’s ER unit and just stared into the middle distance, and Crow could guess what she was seeing. When the ER docs were done with him, Crow dragged a chair over and sat down next to Val, pulling her close, whispering soothing words to her over and over again.
“I’m so sorry, baby…but you did what you had to do. ”
It was maybe the fiftieth time he said that during the four hours they were in the ER, and Val finally pushed herself back and Crow could see the fierce hurt in her eyes. Pitching her voice low, she said, “I know that, damn it!”
Crow’s next words died on his tongue.
“I know what I did was right. God, Crow…do you think I’m sitting here torn up with self-loathing for what happened? I thought you knew me by now. ”
She turned her angry face away and stared at the wall for a while.
Crow almost said, “I’m sorry,” but didn’t. He was learning.
After a while she turned back. Her eyes were as cold as any Crow had ever seen.
