“The first victim was murdered about an hour before you would have been there,” DeFeo told him dryly over the phone. “Plenty of time to play with humanblood as well. Where is this Adriana Morgan now?”
“She’s a nurse; she works at the hospital. She had to leave fast because she’s on duty tonight. You’ve got to get to her. DeFeo, you’ve got to get to her quick. This bastard is killing people around me—he’s killing my entire cult.”
“Stay where you are—don’t even think about looking for your girl. I’ll get someone to pick her up,” DeFeo said.
“I won’t move!” Austin swore.
He hung up. He did move. He had to shift his weight. No matter how nicely the tomb had been kept, it was a tomb, dark and stifling, and the floor was hard.
He sat there, shivering in the dark shadows, staring at the grating, and watching as the moon, glowing full, seemed to fill the night sky.
Time crept by. Then he nearly jumped again. He heard something, something that seemed to be rustling in the tomb.
“THE KILLINGS AREbeing done by someone from the city, someone who knows the city like the back of his hand,” DeFeo told Lieutenant Anderson. They both stood on the sidewalk, just outside the building that had begun its existence as a church and then been turned into Bats! Bats! had apparently been an alternative bar before going down. The décor had made use of the arrangement of the old church, with dusty bats in various sizes adorning the walls and hanging from the pulpit. And, of course, there were bats in the belfry as well.
“Yeah, that freak cult asshole—that Austin Cramer. We’ve got to find him, DeFeo. This isn’t the beginning of a serial killer’s vision—this is a spree murderer out in a vengeance.” Anderson looked back at the church-turned-nightclub. “Gotta love New Orleans,” he muttered.
“The youth of America,” DeFeo said. “They have places like this in New York, L.A., San Francisco, you name it. Kids like the occult.”
“The occult has gotten damned ugly—we have to find this nut,” Anderson said. “Quickly. Tonight. Who knows how many will die next?”
The bodies of Susan Naughton and Brian Langley had been posed one after the other in what had been the church aisle. They’d been placed in the same pattern. Heads and limbs detached, arranged so that they were a foot or so away from the torso, where each limb and head should have been. And the edges of the torso and limbs were ragged.
Chewed?DeFeo wondered again.
They had been killed less than an hour before.
That left Austin Cramer in the clear.
“Did you get someone to go find the nurse at the hospital—that Adriana Morgan?” he asked Anderson.
“Sent them as soon as you gave me the name,” Anderson told him. “Where the hell did you get those names, DeFeo?”
“I’m a computer whiz,” DeFeo lied. “I’m going to start moving.”
“I hope you have a plan. I was having all the cemeteries staked out—but now, now we’ve found these two new bodies. . . .”
Another one of the detectives, Brad Raintree, walked out to the sidewalk. He headed straight to the edge, leaned over, and vomited. He glanced up. “Sorry, guys. I was doing all right, and then . . .” He looked at DeFeo, who looked back at him with sympathy.
“Hey, you wouldn’t be human, right?” DeFeo asked.
“You’re doing all right,” Brad commented. “Jeez, I was doing all right until the pathologist told me that . . . he wasn’t so sure the limbs had been sawed off. He said that they’d been chewedoff.”
“I thought that’s what it looked like; you didn’t?” DeFeo asked.
Brad looked like he was going to be sick again.
“Sorry,” DeFeo said quickly.
“I’ve never seen anything like this at all,” Brad told him. “Bullet holes, decayed flesh, knifings. Nothing like this.”
An uneasy feeling settled into DeFeo’s gut.
“It’s hard for all of us,” he said. He turned to the lieutenant. “I know the city. Leave it to me,” DeFeo said. He started to walk away. He vaguely heard Anderson’s phone and wasn’t paying attention— hell, limbs chewed off?—until the lieutenant called him back.
“Hey! DeFeo!” he called.
DeFeo stopped, turning back.
“You got one wrong. There is no nurse at the hospital by the name of Adriana Morgan. She doesn’t exist, according to their records.”
THE NOISE WASN’Tcoming from inside the tomb—it was coming from outside.
As he listened, Austin could hear footsteps—light footsteps—on the gravel that surrounded the tomb. He listened hard. Cops. Cops had probably come to stake out the place.
He just had to remain really quiet.
Whoever it was crunched on the gravel again. The person was trying to be stealthy, as if certain someone else was in the cemetery.
And they were looking for that someone. Stalking them.
Austin caught his breath. Yes, another crunch. And another.
He tried to shrivel into himself. He couldn’t be seen; he was in the Montville tomb. DeFeo hadn’t locked him in, but it surely appeared that the gate was locked. Whoever it was would go away.
But they didn’t.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, soft, and yet there, and all around the tomb.
“Come out, come out, come out—wherever you are!” came a voice.
It was a quiet voice, a teasing voice.
A feminine and sensual voice.
Austin’s blood ran cold throughout his veins. He wanted to jump up and run, run as far as he could possibly run. Staying still was almost impossible.
His heart!
His heart was thumping so loudly that it seemed like a marching band was playing in his chest! Surely, the sound would be heard. And his breathing . . . oh, Lord! Every inhalation and exhalation seemed like the winds of the worst hurricane on record.
“Come out, come out, I know you want to play. . . .”
He didn’t want to play. He wanted to be Austin Cramer, computer geek, commanding animated figures on the screen.
“Austin!” The voice whispered his name.
She knew him. And, oh, God—he knew her. He knew the voice. It was Adriana Morgan who was out there, and it was as if she were sniffing him out, as if she had . . . radar! She knew where he was.
Crunch, crunch, crunch . . .
And then nothing.
But he could feel her. She was right outside the iron gate.
He rolled, as silently as he could. He had to get away. Where? He was in a tomb. He began flailing in the shadows, mindless; not even knowing what he was looking for. And then, as he kept inching back, he leaned a hand against the marble near the floor....
And it gave.
He pushed it, and rolled.
He came to rest on a patch of dirt. Good old dirt. There was no coffin in the tomb. If someone had been laid to rest where he lay, their remains had long since given way to the furnace-heat of summer, and they had been swept back to the holding area. No, where he lay, it was completely clear and clean, a bed of fresh, natural-smelling earth.
“Austin, come on, come out!”
He heard the rusty gates swing open. She was coming for him.
“Austin, come on baby, I know what you said about a night of abstinence, but I’m ready. I’m ready to do what I want to do in all the carnal ways! Carnal. Well, carnivorous, maybe, too. Come on, Austin, I’m ready to show you the time of your life!”
He lay still, stunned and in shock.
Adriana?
No! It was impossible. Impossible. Impossible . . .
Adriana killing people . . . killing people like Brian! A big old strong football-hero guy. How could little Adriana have gotten to a guy like Brian?
Couldn’t be, couldn’t be, couldn’t be . . .
“Austin, don’t make me angry! All right, I do like to play with my food, but . . . hmm. I’d thought about leaving you for another night, but the full moon doesn’t come around that often. I mean, really, it’s great with the police thinking that it has to be you! Oh, they would string you up faster than a man can swat a fly!” She laughed, the sound of her voice still so teasing and petulant—and sensual. “Wait! They don’t string men up anymore, do they? Well, they’ll give you the needle. Actually, hmm, think of all the fear while you wait for them to make all the fussy arrangements, strapping you in and all that. I really would love to wait around and see, but . . . I’m still hungry, Austin. I had a few snacks tonight, but I had to be careful—had to make it look like you. But that doesn’t matter anymore,’cause the playing just didn’t do it for me. I’m so, so hungry! So hungry for you!”