Page 78 of Whispers at Dusk
He caught Della by the shoulders.
“Be careful!”
She nodded solemnly. “I will be, and you will hear every move I make. And, hey!”
“Yeah?”
“You be careful, too. Dante has his game he plays. But it’s true he doesn’t give a damn who he kills and how if it’s necessary.”
“I can stop a bullet as easily as you, I know,” he said softly.
She grinned, indicating her microphone. Of course, everything they said could be heard by the entire team.
He nodded, pulling her close for just a minute, kissing her on the forehead.
Then he walked determinedly deeper into the woods, onto the path he was going to take that skirted the water, while she headed toward the private homes and the little cemetery.
Della moved carefully through the forest. It was painstaking, searching for any broken branches or anything that might indicate a body had been brought through the area. The group checked in with one another every thirty minutes.
Nothing.
The hour grew later.
And as it did, the stunning purples and gold that had touched the sky began to become soft, swirling gray. Anton Alexandru hadn’t lied about the forest as twilight came and the evening fog began to roll in. Seeing the castle up on the high hill, the fog sweeping around it as well, Della almost felt as if she’d reached a strange and magical plane. Leaves rustled gently, the air was cool, touching her cheeks, almost as if mystical hands sent light caresses along her arms.
It was just a forest, she reminded herself.
A forest, touched by fog.
“Della?”
She heard Mason’s voice through the earbud transmitter.
“I’m fine, moving ever onward toward Bran Castle,” she told him.
“All right. I’m still just in. Nothing appears disturbed by the embankment, and no one has been left there,” Mason said. “I’m following the water but coming closer to your position.”
“I’m right on track. But something is a little different. There is some broken foliage near me, and I see the old cemetery just ahead, I think. I’m starting to see stones...”
She broke off. She’d come through the trees and the brush to an area that was still wild but somewhat controlled.
The small cemetery had to be hundreds of years old, as Alexandru had mentioned. And despite a lack of serious continual care, it was beautiful. Gothic arches rose, offering entrance to family plots or group graves. Stones were ancient, some broken with the odd angles time had created, but baroque angels and charming statues were set abundantly about the graves. There were no fences to delineate the cemetery, but she could see a low stone wall had once surrounded it completely but had crumpled here and there.
A few streaks of gold and crimson now remained in the sky, but the fog was growing heavy, mixing with smoke from the wood-burning fires from nearby homes.
The mist lay low around the graves, seeming to swirl in strange shades of gray, making it one of the most haunting and atmospheric places she had ever seen.
“I’ve found the cemetery,” she said, knowing the others would hear her. “I can see the castle on the hill and the mountains in the near distance now, and the stones just ahead. This feels...ancient, and haunting and oddly beautiful,” she added.
“Yes, the cemetery is very old. Even in such a place, we are a beautiful country. Castle Bran has always been known as a gateway and thus a protector, sometimes achieving that aim, sometimes no,” Alexandru said. “I am getting closer to the castle.”
She heard Mason ask for positions from Taylor, Bisset, and Lapierre. As she listened, she just stood for a minute, hoping that if there was something to see, she could see it through the fog.
Slow and careful.
Della walked through the graves wondering if she might meet the soul of one of the deceased there. And if so...
She knew a smattering of several languages.
