It had begun.
Down the mountain, Amos Carlson glanced up. He saw a glow on the peak, and he hesitated. He'd seen that glow before, remembered it from his childhood. He remembered the small stone church and the warmth it held. He remembered the long walk up the mountain's side each week, and the leisurely stroll back down, talking and laughing softly.
The trees that surrounded him had lost their comfortable feel. They no longer fit him like they once had. They didn't call to him, or draw him in. He saw the shadows instead of the trees that cast them. He heard the things that weren't there instead of the things he knew should be. His heart beat too quickly and a little harder than it should, and a cold sweat coated his brow.
He held the shotgun easily at his side, clutched in one hand, loaded and with the safety off. He'd perfected the motion over decades of hunting; a quick flip of wrist and a turn of shoulder and death would lodge in both barrels. Where the woods had lost their comfort, the gun had molded itself to his hand. It moved with his steps and lent an extra limb to his shadow.
He thought of his sister. Elspeth was a beautiful girl. She had taken care of him when he was sick, had lied for him when the two of them were in trouble. Though she was younger, she'd taught him things about himself that might have gone unlearned if he'd been left to his own devices. Hers was the voice of reason. Hers was the creative mind that took in all the details of stories and books and blended them into something new. She had told him stories when he was lonely and packed food for him when he needed to be alone.
Amos loved his mother, and his father, but he would kill for his sister. He knew this. He believed that Abraham would do what he could. Amos knew the stories. He knew what had gone before, but Abraham Carlson was not Jonathan Carlson, and Silas Greene and his brood were not the same challenge as Reverend Kotz had been. Things were darker on the mountain than Amos believed they'd ever been, or ever would be again. They were reaching a crossroad, and he thought maybe it would be a good idea if he approached that alone.
They might succeed. They might fail. The gun felt heavy and comforting in his hand. He would make a difference. One way or the other, he would do what had to be done. If his sister could be saved, he would get her out of there. If there was nothing else he could do, he would make sure both barrels of his shotgun poured their swarms of death into the face of one Silas Greene. If it couldn't be stopped, it could be slowed. Maybe if you cut off the head of the beast it wouldn't grow back too quickly. Maybe no one could step in and take Greene's place—not quickly.
Amos lifted his hat gently and tipped it to the stone chapel on the mountain, and the cottage beyond. He thought, just for a second, that he saw a flickering light moving down the trail in his direction. Then he shouldered the shotgun, turned, and disappeared into the trees, keeping a wary eye on the shadows and the trees themselves. He cut at an angle through the forest, straight toward the white church. The sun was setting over the peaks and the odd twilight drew all the shadows to double length. The clouds above were blood red.
TWENTY-FIVE
As Silas went through the motions of leading his congregation in prayer he became aware of a change. It wasn't a subtle change, but a powerful, throbbing discordance in the rhythmic beat of what he had set into motion. The church fed on those within. He understood this. It did not feed on Silas because Silas had been consumed that first night in the wood, driven through fire to shadow. Only the framework and the basic instincts of the man that had been Silas Greene stood praying in the white church. What loomed over and above him and draped him in shadow was in charge. He shoveled the others into the maw of a huge furnace, and the heat rose around them each time the stakes were raised. Now something else had joined the mix. Silas didn't recognize it, at first, and then—very suddenly—he did. He remembered as well as any the days of Reverend Jonathan Carlson and the stone chapel on the mountain. He remembered the night it had all come to a head here in the walls of the white church—the night the pool was broken and the serpents cast out. He remembered the night Reverend Kotz fled into the trees never to be seen again. Now it was more than memory. Memories flooded his mind, and not all of them were his own. Some belonged to Kotz—he felt the flat, snake-eyed malice of the man tainting their edges. Others belonged to those gathered before him. He had felt their thoughts brush his own since their marking in the woods, and that connection had grown in strength and clarity as time passed, but now they flashed like vivid slides. Each fit into the next like the pieces of some great, cosmic puzzle, and he understood.
The thing that had changed was Abraham Carlson. He felt the boy's mind like a white-hot poker, probing the edges of his control and groping for a hold on the shadow that bolstered him. Where his mind met Abraham's, the darkness shied away. Silas frowned. He sensed that Carlson pulled away, as well. For just an instant he saw the girl, Elspeth, as he pulled her from the water, and like flickering signals down a telephone line the image transferred to Abraham's mind. The connection wavered, and Silas' frown tipped back up to a smile.
There was something else, as well. The boy was not alone. There were other minds clouding his thoughts, or possibly safeguarding them. Silas felt these as well as a brooding, powerful force beyond it all. It loomed, like the shadow over his head, but Silas could put no name to it. He tried to pick apart the boy's mental defenses. He needed to know what he faced. He knew that, just as he was a more powerful, more focused vessel for the power that had fueled Reverend Kotz, Abraham Carlson was tapped into a different force, not weaker, but very different.
"Know thy enemy," Silas whispered.
He'd tried to spook the boy with the odd phone calls. He'd tried to frighten him from the mountain with the serpent. He'd killed the boy's mother and burned her home. Still, Abraham Carlson was coming.
Silas reached out mentally and probed for Tommy Murphy. He flashed on trees, dark shadows, and a trail winding along the side of the mountain. It was impossible to tell how far he'd traveled, or how much longer he might be gone. Silas reached further and found Angel.
The vision was sharp and instantaneous. It burned with a heat of its own and Silas gasped, gripped the sides of the podium, and gritted his teeth. He concentrated. Angel's mind was a tumult of heat, memory, lust and indecision. It was like listening to two voices at once—one he could control, and the other that fought him every inch of the way. Something was wrong, but he didn't have time to dwell on it.
He saw the girl. She leaned on the wall of a barn. Her hair was disheveled, and her blouse was torn, but still covered her. She was bound at her wrists and her ankles, and her eyes were wide with terror. All of this he snatched through Angel's eyes. As he saw it, Carlson saw it as well, and the connection wavered.
Silas bore down. He channeled Angel's wild heat. His hips rocked forward and he ground into the back of the wooden podium. His voice never wavered, but the heat shimmered in tones of deep green and rippled through the congregation. Men pressed their arms between their legs and some of the women turned, rose, and straddled pews. Strangers caressed one another. The dark antlers solidified in tones of deeper and deeper black. The scent of trees in spring filled the air and ran like sap through their combined sweat.
Irma Creed pulled her skirt over her hips and slipped onto Ed Murphy's lap. She turned so her head lolled slightly, her gaze locked on Silas. Ed fumbled with his zipper, desperately freed his erection and drove it into Irma, lifting them both from the seat and throwing his head back.
Silas felt Abraham's resolve cracking through their wild, disjointed connection. He felt the insecurity build, and drove talons of hunger and desire into the fissures. Everything shimmered, wavered, and then, with a crack like white lightning, that connection broke. Walls like those of a brilliant white tower, glistening in the sun, rose between minds. Silas staggered back from the podium with a guttural roar. The backlash of energy rippled through and over the congregation like a wave.
Silas regained his feet and threw his head back. The antlers brus
hed through the walls and the strands of root hair rippled and gripped, holding him tightly. The walls pulsed. Silas stared as they shivered, translucent with the serpentine tendrils she drove relentlessly through wood and down, groping for the stone of the mountain itself.
He saw bright points of energy where men and women rutted in the aisle and writhed in the pews. His erection was thick and knotted. He staggered, felt a surge of strength and rose. The antlers weighed him like anchors. Her hair, her roots, clawed at him, wrapped him and dragged him back and down. He fought it slowly, felt her grip release with an agonizing rip of psychic flesh. He took a step forward and tensed. He threw his shoulders forward and roared, and in that instant, he burst free of the clutches of the wood. He toppled forward and fell to his knees. His head crashed into the podium and brilliant sparks scattered his thoughts. He felt her eyes on him, enraged and crazed.
"Too soon." The words rose from deep within—deeper than Silas himself reached. Kotz? The other? The shadow? Some older servant of one, or the other dark power? He didn't know, but the words were true. He felt this, and shivered at how close it had come.
Silas rose and stepped back to the podium. He stared out over the heads of his congregation toward the back wall. He met her gaze and somehow found the strength to hold—not to back away, but to speak.
"It is not time," he said. None heard him, but the eyes in the wall glared in unblinking malice. "It is not your time."
He searched for and found the rhythm. It was there, in the movements of their bodies, the creak of the pews and the hot whisper of breath. It shivered over their naked flesh to echo from the walls. Silas took up his chanting prayer where it had been interrupted. He sent a silent command to Tommy, still making his way through the brush, to get the girl and get back at all cost.
Then Silas Greene was swallowed in a nightmare of his own design as the sun began its final descent toward night.
Angel rocked back on his heels. The throbbing on his forehead pounded like a hammer between his temples. He gritted his teeth and held on, still stroking himself, kneeling just out of reach of the girl. Then, as suddenly as the pain had come it released him, and he gasped, nearly shooting into his hand.
He sat back and stared at the girl. It took a long moment to focus. She was pressed into the wall of the barn so hard that she actually lifted an inch or so off he dirt floor. This caused her to arch invitingly, pressing her breasts into the soft cotton of her blouse and stretching it down to reveal soft flesh at her throat, where the top button had come unfastened.
Angel shook his head. The connection he'd felt had not been entirely Silas. The other hovered just beyond, brooding and dark. Every time that shadow brushed Angel he felt pumped full of energy—of heat and desire. The air changed and the sweat on his arms dripped more slowly, sticky and smelling like he'd been rolling in a field, or rubbing leaves on his skin.
It was too much. Angel stood, leaned down, and grabbed the girl by her bound ankles. She screamed. She fought like a crazed animal, but he held her easily by the rope joining her legs, and the squirming, grinding motion of her struggles fed his hunger.
He pulled her to the center of the floor and knelt beside her. She tried to sit up. She snapped her teeth at him and tried to bite, but he avoided her easily. He unfastened her shirt first. She tried to pull away. Once, she dragged the button from his fingers before he could unfasten it, and he growled. With a quick swipe of his hand he gripped one side and tore the light material to the waist, then laid his hands flat on her ribs. Her bra was bright white, lacy at the edges. Her breasts were small, but well-formed.
Angel turned his attentions to her jeans. She struggled again, but more weakly. She was tiring. Tears streaked her cheeks and ran through smudges of dirt and dust. He managed to loosen her belt, and to unfasten the top couple of buttons, but she kept rolling to her side. He caught his thumb between one button and its buttonhole just as she jerked to the side, and he bellowed in pain and anger.
Without thought he slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand. Angel stood and looked around the barn. There should be something in the barn sharp enough to get through denim. He left her lying in the dirt and headed for the workbench in the corner.
Katrina watched him move off into the shadows, and she spat softly. She tasted blood, but she wasn't hurt bad. The blow had stung more than anything. She tried the bonds on her wrists again. Nothing. Her ankles were just as tight. She had to get him to cut her loose, somehow, or he was going to do whatever he wanted and she might never see Abe again.
When she'd leaned against the wall, she'd seen the back bumper of her car. She knew it wasn't far outside the door of the barn. She knew if she could get to it, she might have a chance. If she stayed here, there was nothing.
Her vision blurred again as she thought of Abe. Did he know she'd come? Was he out there on the side of the mountain somewhere looking for her, or, worse yet, had he called, found her not answering the phone, and gone back to find her?
The light was fading. There wasn't much time left before it would be too dark for her to find her way back down the mountain, even with the car. She didn't know what happened to the other man, Silas, but she didn't believe that her captor lived on this farm alone. If she waited until he wasn't alone, she'd never get away.
The thought stopped her cold. Never get away. God. She'd spoken those words to herself a million times. How many plans had she made and discarded during her marriage? How many times had she been on the verge of some action that would cut her loose? It had taken years, but the lessons she'd learned were hard ones, and etched deeply into her psyche. If you got the chance, you acted. If you sat back and waited and hoped that something good would come along and save you, or fix what you were too frightened or weak or stupid to fix for yourself, you could wait a lifetime and still be trapped.
She saw the man coming back across the barn. He held a wicked, curved blade in his hand—some sort of sickle, she thought. His eyes glinted in the failing sunlight. When he came close enough to hear her, and before he could lift her by the waist of her jeans and start hacking them off of her, she spoke.
"You don't need that," she mumbled. Her mouth was dry, and her lip hurt. It was hard to articulate the words. She stared up at him, her best doe-eyed innocent stare.
"I don't want to be hurt," she said. This time her voice was clearer. He shook his head, as if something was distracting him and he might not be hearing her.
"You don't need that. If you loosen my ankles you can take my pants. Just don't hurt me?"
He glared down at her. She saw emotions warring across his features and she fought the expression of disgust back from her face. She lowered her gaze from his a little.
"I don't mind," she said.
She didn't meet his gaze again after that. Not at first. She didn't want it to appear as if she were watching his reactions. He might be rough at the edges, but that didn't make him stupid. If he got the idea she was trying to trick him, he would hit her again, probably a lot harder, and he'd cut her pants off in a second. She waited.
A moment later he dropped to his knees beside her. She still didn't meet his eyes, but when he stroked her breast through her bra, she bit back the bile and pressed into his touch. He pulled back as she moved, then he saw what she was doing. Another long hesitation, and his hand dropped to her hip. He slid it down until his thumb caught in the waistband of her jeans. Then she felt it. The cold metal of the wicked, curved blade stroked her belly and caught near her zipper. She didn't move.
Then he spoke. It was hard to tell if he was directing the words at her, at himself, or at some other entity she wasn't aware of. He pulled the blade back from her skin and she heard it hit the dirt with a soft whump.
"Don't you move," he said. "I'm going to untie your ankles. You so much as twitch, and I'll bend them back and tie them to your wrists, like you were a deer."
Katrina nodded. She bit her lip and almost cried out. She'd forgotten, just for a
second, the swollen bloody bump where he hit her.
He worked the knots out of the cord quickly. She felt his strength again, and shivered. If she got a shot, she was going to have to make it a good one. This was no soft, city rapist grabbing unsuspecting drunk girls as they left the club on Saturday night. This man had lived his life on a mountain, growing and hunting his food. He was strong, and he was fast, and at the moment he was very focused. That was her one chance.
He freed her ankles and tossed the rope aside. With a grunt he reached for her waist. "Wait," she cried. He glanced at her. He didn't speak, and he didn't take his hands off her jeans.
"My hands," she said. "My arms. They hurt. Can't you let me get them in front? I don't want to be laying on them when…" she trailed away.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he growled. "Get me to untie your arms."
"I don't need them untied," she replied quickly. "I can pull them up over my legs. I…I like them tied." He stared at her again. Katrina dropped her gaze again. She had been in plenty of situations like this with her ex-husband. She had also counseled countless women who'd faced violence of all kinds. If she showed defiance it would be like staring directly into the eyes of an attack dog. It would provoke him, and she would get hurt.
"I want it to feel good," she whispered.
He didn't speak, but he pulled back. Slightly.
Katrina didn't hesitate or wait for him to give his permission. She bent at the waist, drew her knees up to her chest and worked her wrists down over her feet. She had trouble at the last. Her arms were numb, and she'd been in that position for too long. He grabbed the cord binding her wrists and tugged them free of her feet. With a whimper of relief she bent her arms and brought them up to her chest.
She'd won all the time he was allowing. He rolled her to her back and clapped his hand up between her thighs. He ground his palm into her, dragged his nails over the denim of her jeans, then gripped the buttons and finished what he'd begun before. When he moved to peel them back Katrina arched her back, lifting herself to make it easier for him. Her heart raced, and panic rose quickly, threatening to drag her into the darkness.
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