The Graves of Saints by Christopher Golden

Author:Christopher Golden [Golden, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780857209658
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2013-03-14T06:00:00+00:00

11

Brattleboro, Vermont

The police cars began to roll out of Summerfields Orchard a little before ten in the morning. Cat Hein stood and watched as the line of vehicles departed – Brattleboro and State Police vehicles, as well as crime-scene folks, who had finally finished up their work. The coroner’s people had been gone before the sun had risen on the first full day of autumn, taking with them the torn and broken bodies of several of her close friends, and a number of other kind and gentle folks to whom she had offered her hospitality.

She and Tori had held each other last night and cried as they waited for the police and ambulances to arrive. The EMTs had wandered the clearing with wide eyes, pale and shaken by the carnage and by their inability to save a single life. Those who had more than minor bumps and scrapes or broken bones were already dead or quickly fading by the time they had rushed through the rows of apple trees with their equipment. A burly, gentle-eyed EMT threw up and then kept apologizing when he began to cry and could not stop. Several cops vanished into the trees for a while and Cat had heard retching from at least one of them, though they pretended they had only been investigating.

It had been the longest night of Cat’s life and now she was just numb. She stood and watched a state police captain talking quietly with Ted Gately, the Brattleboro police chief. Her phone buzzed and she slipped it from her pants pocket to see that it was Tori calling.

‘Hi, honey,’ she answered.

‘Why are they still here?’ Tori asked, her voice brittle. Cat’s chest tightened. A little part of Tori had broken last night, no matter what new magic might have come into the world, and Cat feared it would never be repaired.

‘They’re going,’ she said. ‘Though Chief Gately says he’s going to post a car at the end of the drive and he wants us to stay closed for the day –’

‘As if there’s any way we would open for business with all the . . . the mess up here.’

‘He means well, Tori. I’m a cantankerous bitch, and even I think he’s a sweet old man,’ Cat said, as she watched the state police captain drive off and Chief Gately lean down to the window of a Brattleboro police car to give orders to two of his men.

‘I know,’ Tori said, sighing. ‘I do. And I’m glad they’re going to stay, as long as they stay down there. Whatever happens now is for us to decide.’

There was weight and significance to her words beyond their simple meaning, but Cat could not reply the way she might have liked, for Chief Gately had just patted the roof of the patrol car to send the men on their way and was walking across the dusty parking lot toward her.

‘The chief’s coming over to talk,’ she said. ‘I’ll be up in a few minutes.

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