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Devil’s Hearth.”
    â€œThey didn’t mean to,” he corrected, showing his face in the doorway to his room as I hit the top of the stairs. “It was a coincidence they happened to be up there looking for snakes to sell Hek. And it still doesn’t make Able a victim. Yet.”
    â€œYou’re right about the Deveroes,” I admitted. “I’d be nervous if they were after me.”
    â€œI shudder to think.” He disappeared again. “But Harding’s the victim here. And he was stripped naked. Damn.”

    A shower, a sweater, and a swig of apple brandy launched Andrews and me into my truck, on our way to the city graveyard.
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    Our cemetery was a fair resort for the many members of the community who chose not to be buried in their own gardens. The city yard had begun as an attempt at respectability. The town would no longer be a crass colonial settlement; we would have a proper park for repose of our departed.
    The notion allowed larger families to purchase grand multiple plots, hoping to lead the way out of our dark past as superstitious hill people and into a shining future of sophisticated citizenship. Eighteenth-century Newcombs led the way buying acres of terraced solitude. June’s family, prominent in dry goods, had bought some of the last available parcels near the beginning of the twentieth century. The idea lost its luster after that, when so many families gave sons to world wars. A child lost so far from home was better buried near the house.
    Some of the older families clung to their plots, but the place was kept in business at the beginning of the twenty-first century primarily by people without families: orphans, childless spinsters, lost souls, criminals, non–church members, strangers, or blackbirds. Huge bats were the rumor, but aggressive ravens were more likely to swoop a visitor.
    The entrance was easy to miss. A once-impressive granite arch had been rendered invisible by poison ivy. The road past it, less traveled than any other in the county, was little more than tire ruts in wandering weeds. I had visited many times as a boy walking over the mountain and coming in the back way, but I couldn’t ever remember approaching it correctly and almost missed the gate.
    The sun was setting on the other side of the mountain; black shadows spread across the narrow road through the yard. Truck headlights did nothing to dispel the darkness, only disoriented the eyes. Low branches of ancient juniper swept the truck’s doors as we drove past, grasping at the handles, whispering to the windows.

    Wind clacked bare limbs of a dead oak ten feet from the road; a shudder of wings shook the air.
    â€œYou’re certain those aren’t bats?” Andrews rolled up his window all the way.
    â€œCrows.” I watched them take to the higher branches of pine.
    â€œWhatever they are,” he muttered, taking a sip from his personal bottle of apple brandy, “they’re big enough to carry the truck off if they wanted to.”
    It was difficult to see tombstones; I thought there must be more deeper into the cemetery. Hek would have walked by the northern edge going home; I headed in that direction.
    â€œKeep an eye out,” I reminded Andrews, already a little lax from drink.
    Remembering his duty, he reared his head up, cast a sullied glance around. Without warning he grabbed my arm, sloshing his drink everywhere.
    â€œWhat the hell is that?” he gasped.
    High on the slope to our right was a flying woman. I hit the brakes; the truck skidded to a halt, slightly sideways.
    A second later, realizing she was frozen in the air, I let out my breath. “The Angel of Death. Biggest statue in the park.”
    â€œThey don’t really call it that,” he whispered, shaking his head.
    â€œOurs is a happy little community, don’t you think?” I resumed driving north.
    â€œSeriously, that’s the name?”
    â€œThe Angel of