Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles 9)

"For the proverbial eternity we remained there, motionless and cautious, and then Goblin told me telepathically that we should escape the island as best we could.

" 'And what if I get lost, hopelessly lost?' I asked aloud in a whisper.

" 'I'll lead you,' Goblin answered. And then he disappeared. Within a second the candles in the house were extinguished, and my familiar was pushing at me and tugging me to make me go to the pirogue right now.

"All the way back to Blackwood Farm he guided me, sometimes in total darkness, other times by the light of the moon. In less than an hour I saw the lights of the house shining blessedly through the trees, and I shot straight for the pier.

"People were shouting. I heard someone scream. And then as I hurried up to the kitchen door, Pops came out to embrace me and say:

" 'Thank God, son. We didn't know what the hell had happened to you. ¡¯

"Aunt Queen came down the steps dabbing at her eyes.

"Sheriff Jeanfreau was there with one of his worthless, shiftless deputies, Ugly Henderson. All the Shed Men were hollering, 'He's home, he's okay. ¡¯

"Immediately I fired off at Jasmine, 'How come you put that beer in the cooler!' to which she answered that she wasn't the one who packed the damned cooler, her mother had done it, and then there was Big Ramona saying she wasn't even awake when I left (which was true), and Jasmine remembering that it was actually Clem. And where the hell was Clem?

"I didn't care. I wanted supper. I wanted everyone to gather round the kitchen table and listen so I'd only have to tell this story once.

"I demanded that Sheriff Jeanfreau stay. I even wanted worthless and annoying Ugly Henderson to stay. I told everybody that I wanted them to listen to me.

"Meantime, since it was only nine o'clock by my watch, I wanted one of the Shed Men to run the camera with its film over to the all-night drugstore in Ruby River City and get the pictures done in one hour, as the sign in the window always boasts.

" 'Where's Goblin?' I asked suddenly. I was in the kitchen. Big Ramona had just given me a wet washrag. 'Goblin, where are you?' and then I realized that after all he'd done, he didn't have the power to make me feel him or see him or hear him.

". . . And so mercifully, and gratefully, and with a new respect for him, and a new love, I let him alone. "

Chapter14

14

"THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE a word I said. When I bubbled over crazily with the horrible dream of the piercing of Rebecca, Sheriff Jeanfreau just laughed at me, laughed at my references to myself as both man and woman in the dream, and only a sudden expostulation of

" 'Please!' from Aunt Queen shut him up.

"When it came to my depiction of the mysterious stranger dumping the two bodies, Sheriff Jeanfreau started laughing again and there even came some audible snickering from his worthless deputy Ugly Henderson.

"Patsy, who had come into the kitchen sometime during the proceedings, picked up on Ugly's snickering and started some snickering of her own.

"And when I described how Goblin had led me back out of the swamp, the sheriff, figuratively speaking, rolled on the floor.

"I ignored all this with first-rate patience, devoured two plates of pancakes made by Big Ramona from the Cracker Barrel pancake mix and looked to Aunt Queen.

" 'You know Rebecca was murdered out there, Aunt Queen. All I'm asking is that somebody go out there and collect the remains and test them for DNA!¡¯

" 'Oh, Quinn, my precious darling,' " Aunt Queen sighed.

"As for Pops, it was well past his bedtime, and he looked like he'd been rode hard and put away wet. I knew what a worry I was to him.

"THEN the snapshots came back from the drugstore! THE SNAPSHOTS!

"And round the kitchen table I passed them like so many playing cards. They were good shots too. You couldn't tell much about Rebecca's remains from the shots, but you could easily see the five rusted chains; and of course the outdoor shots of the Hermitage itself, and the mausoleum, were very good.

" 'Now you know damned good and well,' I said, 'that there's a house out there, you can't deny it; and if that metal there' -- I jabbed my finger at the photograph -- 'isn't pure gold, then my name's not Blackwood. ¡¯

"The sheriff was in the midst of another belly-jiggling fit of laughter when Aunt Queen gestured for quiet.

" 'All right,' she declared. 'We've heard all Quinn has to say. Now, this island is real and he knows the way to it, and according to him these mysterious bodies were dumped at a spot some matter of yards beyond the banks of the island. In other words, he can take you to the very place from which he spied the dumping and a search of that small area would be entirely manageable. ¡¯