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“You need to call Bruce McFadden for me, Feds or local police near to get out here while we’re at it, gather up the group in case some decide they want to fight it out; we’re going to try to get through this without anyone winding up dead,” Jackson told him.

“Maybe a few should wind up dead,” Adam said, shaking his head.

“Except for Celia! Jackson, Angela—”

“Saving Celia is our first priority,” Angela assured him.

But she knew Jackson, too.

Sometimes, law enforcement was in a position in which to save others or themselves they had no choice but to shoot to kill.

They all hated it.

But they hated it equally when an officer wound up dead themselves because they didn’t shoot when they could have done so.

She was personally a fan of getting someone in the ankles or knees, disabling them, taking the initial moment of agony, and seizing their weapons.

But this wasn’t that kind of day; they needed as much silence as they could manage and, as Jackson had said, maybe none in the crowd would need to die.

And they began their movement.

Slipping ahead, Josh distracted the guard.

As he did so, Angela slipped up silently behind him, her jacket wrapped around her Glock as she brought it down on his head with a massive swing.

Without a word, he fell.

Jackson collected his weapon.

Thankfully, there were forest noises all around them.

Birds and insects chirping, trees rustling in the soft, damp breeze that was swirling softly around them that day.

Josh walked easily through the crowd to speak with Julian.

She looked at Jackson and they nodded to one another and headed in their opposite directions.

She felt the soft earth beneath her feet, and she was grateful that it wasn’t fall, that it hadn’t been dry, and her easy footsteps could not be heard.

In a minute, she saw Julian was ahead of her, and she saw the position to the left of the trees where ropes had been rigged, where they were about to pull Celia up to hang suspended between them so she could be cut by the long-handled knives that awaited and struck with the rocks left in piles.

The makings of a fire had already been set below the position where she would hang.

Fire ...if they did it right, they could see to it that no fingerprints, footprints, or DNA remained to give away identifications on those propelling the murder.

She headed silently along the trail, feeling the touch of leaves upon her shoulders, keenly aware of even the scent of the dirt and grass and leaves beneath her feet, careful lest she trip on a root or the length of a vine.

But she reached a point where Julian nodded at her.

And she saw the back of the second guard’s head.

Again, she used the heavy butt of her Glock, wrapped in her jacket, and slammed it down as hard as she could on the man’s head.

And, thankfully, once again, a guard went down to the soft earth, barely making a sound.

She collected his weapon.

Julian lifted a finger; a silent communication for her to hold for a second.

She did so as he hurried through the shouting, taunting crowd to reach Jackson.

Angela did her best to study the crowd.

Just people.

Homemakers, teachers, office workers, maybe even a few leaders in tech, bankers, men, women . . .

All afraid that by someone else surviving they might lose out?

It was so difficult to fathom!

Julian gave her a nod, and she realized she was going to have to go behind the trees where the ropes had been cast and meet up with Jackson at the position taken on by the last guard.

She did so, aware Jackson and Josh would be coming from the other side.

But even as they reached the guard, two of the men at the front of the crowd were lifting Celia and she was being manipulated with the ropes, circlets around her wrists and her ankles to pull her up, up . . .

Her shoulders would wind up dislocated, along with all else.

She decided to take a chance, a chance on Jackson and their ghosts.

Instead of heading toward the last guard, she stepped out, standing right in front of the two men who were getting Celia ready, hoisting her up.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, hands on her hips—her Glock within easy reach.

“And who the hell are you?” the one man demanded, staring at her hard.

He was about forty, wiry and fit, slightly balding—and dirty.

He must have been in on creating the rope hold in the trees and perhaps the fire.

“I’m stopping you from a life sentence!” Angela told him.

Then she shrugged.

“Maybe even a death sentence; I’m a Fed, and the Federal courts still have a death penalty, especially for hate crimes.”

“Screw you!” he shouted, and he turned to the crowd, perhaps hoping that one of his guards would appear.

“Kill her!”

As he shouted, the man grabbed on of his makeshift spears, aiming it toward Celia.

Perhaps he thought that his guards would shoot Angela.

Perhaps he didn’t care.

Celia, still drugged but feeling the pain tearing at her body, sobbed softly.

But things began to happen simultaneously.

Angela pulled her Glock.

As she did so, the spear the man was holding began to waiver and weave in the air.

Angela realized that Julian was trying to wrest it from him.

In her day, she’d seen spirits who had managed to use the power of their will to do a few things—some could push the start buttons on coffee pots, cause doors to drift open and other such things.

She’d never seen anything quite so powerful as what Julian was doing then.

“Don’t make me shoot you!” Angela charged.

And Jackson who stepped from the trees.

“Listen to her!” he demanded.

The battle was waging, and they would win it.

Eventually, Angela thought.

But in the meantime, Celia remained in grave danger if not of death, of serious injury.

“Last chance, last chance!” Angela shouted.

But the man was determined.

Celia’s arms could dislocate, or . . .

The makeshift spear could pierce one of her vital organs.

Angela used her old, tried and true method of stopping a fatal happening.

Angela fired, hitting the man in an angle.

His scream was horrendous, filling the forest.

And he fell; his spear fell.

Jackson rushed forward, but somehow, the spirit of Julian Wagner was already lowering Celia to the ground.

There were all manner of screams and shouts from the crowd then, someone shouting, “Next time, next time,” while someone else shouted, “It was wrong; I knew that it was wrong!”

Then she heard, “We need to get them; get some balls, get those Feds!”

But that was answered with, “Hell, no! I’m out of here!”